Billy and the Minpins Read online

  Contents

  Being Good

  Run, Little Billy! Run Run Run!

  Woomph – Woomph!

  We Are the Minpins

  The Gruncher Knows You’re Up Here

  We Know All the Birds

  Call Up the Swan

  Little Billy Hung On Tight

  Hooray for Little Billy!

  I Will Never Forget You!

  Afterword by Quentin Blake

  ROALD DAHL was a spy, ace fighter pilot, chocolate historian and medical inventor. He was also the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG and many more brilliant stories. He remains THE WORLD’S NUMBER ONE STORYTELLER.

  QUENTIN BLAKE has illustrated more than three hundred books and was Roald Dahl’s favourite illustrator. In 1980 he won the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal. In 1999 he became the first ever Children’s Laureate and in 2013 he was knighted for services to illustration.

  For Ophelia

  Being Good

  Little Billy’s mother was always telling him exactly what he was allowed to do and what he was not allowed to do.

  All the things he was allowed to do were boring. All the things he was not allowed to do were exciting.

  One of the things he was NEVER NEVER allowed to do, the most exciting of them all, was to go out through the garden gate all by himself and explore the world beyond.

  On this sunny summer afternoon, Little Billy was kneeling on a chair in the living room, gazing out through the window at the wonderful world beyond. His mother was in the kitchen doing the ironing and although the door was open she couldn’t see him.

  Every now and again his mother would call out to him, saying, ‘Little Billy, what are you up to in there?’

  And Little Billy would always call back and say, ‘I’m being good, Mummy.’

  But Little Billy was awfully tired of being good.

  Through the window, not so very far away, he could see the big black secret wood that was called The Forest of Sin. It was something he had always longed to explore.

  His mother had told him that even grown-ups were frightened of going into The Forest of Sin. She recited a poem to him that was well known in the district. It went like this:

  Beware! Beware! The Forest of Sin!

  None come out, but many go in!

  ‘Why don’t they come out?’ Little Billy asked her. ‘What happens to them in the wood?’

  ‘That wood,’ his mother said, ‘is full of the most bloodthirsty wild beasts in the world.’

  ‘You mean tigers and lions?’ Little Billy asked.

  ‘Much worse than that,’ his mother said.

  ‘What’s worse than tigers and lions, Mummy?’

  ‘Whangdoodles are worse,’ his mother said, ‘and Hornswogglers and Snozzwanglers and Vermicious Knids.

  And worst of all is the Terrible Bloodsuckling Toothpluckling Stonechuckling Spittler. There’s one of them in there, too.’

  ‘A Spittler, Mummy?’

  ‘Of course. And when the Spittler chases after you, he blows clouds of hot smoke out of his nose.’

  ‘Would he eat me up?’ Little Billy asked.

  ‘In one gulp,’ his mother said.

  Little Billy did not believe a word of this. He guessed his mother was making it all up just to frighten him and stop him ever going out of the house alone.

  And now Little Billy was kneeling on the chair, gazing with longing through the window at the famous Forest of Sin.

  ‘Little Billy,’ his mother called out from the kitchen. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m being good, Mummy,’ Little Billy called back.

  Just then a funny thing happened. Little Billy began to hear somebody whispering in his ear. He knew exactly who it was. It was the Devil. The Devil always started whispering to him when he was especially bored.

  ‘It would be easy,’ the Devil was whispering, ‘to climb out through that window. No one would see you. And in a jiffy you would be in the garden, and in another jiffy you would be through the front gate, and in yet another jiffy you would be exploring the marvellous Forest of Sin all by yourself. It is a super place. Do not believe one word of what your mother says about Whangdoodles and Hornswogglers and Snozzwanglers and Vermicious Knids and the Terrible Bloodsuckling Toothpluckling Stonechuckling Spittler. There are no such things.’

  ‘What is in there?’ Little Billy whispered.

  ‘Wild strawberries,’ the Devil whispered back. ‘The whole floor of the forest is carpeted with wild strawberries, every one of them luscious and red and juicy-ripe. Go and see for yourself.’

  These were the words the Devil whispered softly into Little Billy’s ear on that sunny summer afternoon.

  The next moment, Little Billy had opened the window and was climbing out.

  Run, Little Billy! Run Run Run!

  In a jiffy Little Billy had dropped silently on to the flowerbed below.

  In another jiffy he was out through the garden gate.

  And in yet another jiffy he was standing on the very edge of the great big dark Forest of Sin!

  He had made it! He had got there! And now the forest was all his to explore!

  Was he nervous?

  What?

  Who said anything about being nervous?

  Hornswogglers? Vermicious Knids? What sort of rubbish was that?

  Little Billy hesitated.

  ‘I’m not nervous,’ he said. ‘I’m not in the least bit nervous. Not me.’

  Very very slowly, he walked into the great forest. Giant trees were soon surrounding him on all sides and their branches made an almost solid roof high above his head, blotting out the sky. Here and there little shafts of sunlight shone through gaps in the roof. There was not a sound anywhere. It was like being among the dead men in an enormous empty green cathedral.

  When he had ventured some distance into the forest, Little Billy stopped and stood quite still, listening. He could hear nothing. Nothing at all. There was absolute silence.

  Or was there?

  Hold on just one second.

  What was that?

  Little Billy flicked his head round and stared into the everlasting gloom and doom of the forest.

  There it was again! There was no mistaking it this time.

  From far away, there came a very faint whoozing whiffling noise, like a small gusty wind blowing through the trees.

  Then it grew louder. Every second it was growing louder, and suddenly it was no longer a small wind, it was a fearsome swooshing whooshing whiffling snorting noise that sounded as though some gigantic creature was breathing heavily through its nose as it galloped towards him.

  Little Billy turned and ran.

  Little Billy ran faster than he had ever run in his life before. But the swooshing whooshing whiffling snorting noise was coming after him. Worse still, it was getting louder. This meant that the thing, the maker of the noise, the galloping creature, was getting closer. It was catching him up!

  Run, Little Billy! Run run run!

  He dodged around massive trees. He skipped over roots and brambles. He bent low to flash under boughs and bushes. He had wings on his feet he ran so fast. But still the fearsome swooshing whooshing whiffling snorting noise grew louder and louder as it came closer and closer.

  Little Billy glanced back quickly over his shoulder, and now, in the distance, he saw a sight that froze his blood and made icicles in his veins.

  What he saw were two mighty puffs of orange-red smoke billowing and rolling through the trees in his direction. These were followed by two more, whoosh whoosh, and then two more, whoosh whoosh, and they must surely be coming, Little Billy told himself, from the two nose-holes of some galloping panting beast that had smelled him out an
d was coming after him.

  His mother’s words began thrumming once again in his head:

  Beware! Beware! The Forest of Sin!

  None come out, but many go in!

  ‘It’s the Spittler for sure!’ Little Billy cried out. ‘Mummy said the Spittler blows smoke when it chases you. This one is blowing smoke! It’s the Terrible Bloodsuckling Toothpluckling Stonechuckling Spittler! And soon it will catch me up and I’ll be bloodsuckled and toothpluckled and stonechuckled and chewed up into tiny pieces, and then the Spittler will spit me out in a cloud of smoke and that will be the end of me!’

  Woomph – Woomph!

  Little Billy was running with the speed of an arrow, but each time he glanced back over his shoulder the puffs of orange-red smoky-breath had got closer. They were so close now he could feel the wind of them on the back of his neck. And the noise! It was deafening in his ears, this fearsome swooshing whooshing whiffling panting noise. Woomph-woomph, it went. Woomph-woomph, woomph-woomph! Woomphwoomph! It was like the noise made by a steam locomotive pulling out from a station.

  Then suddenly he heard another noise that was somehow more fearsome still. It was the pounding of gigantic galloping hooves on the floor of the forest.

  He glanced round again, but the Thing, the Beast, the Monster, or whatever it was, was hidden from his sight by the smoke it shot out as it galloped forward.

  The smoky-breath was billowing all around him now. He could feel its hotness. Worse still, he could smell its smell. The smell was disgusting. It was the stench that comes from deep inside the tummy of a meat-eating animal.

  ‘Mummy!’ he cried out. ‘Save me!’

  Suddenly, directly in front of him, Little Billy saw the trunk of an enormous tree. This tree was different from the others because it had branches hanging down very low. While still running, he made a frantic jump for its lowest branch. He caught it and pulled himself up.

  Then he grabbed the next branch above his head and pulled himself up again. Then again and again, climbing higher and higher to get away from the terrible snorting, smoke-blowing, smelly-breathed beast down below. He stopped climbing only when he was too exhausted to climb any higher.

  He looked up, but even now he couldn’t see the top of the giant tree. It seemed to go on forever. He looked down. He couldn’t see the ground either. He was in a world of green leaves and thick, smooth branches with no earth or sky in sight. The snorting smelly smoke-blowing beast was miles away down below somewhere. He couldn’t even hear it any more.

  Little Billy found a comfortable place where two big branches came together and he sat down to rest.

  For the moment, at any rate, he was safe.

  Then something very peculiar happened. There was a huge smooth branch very close to where Little Billy was sitting and he suddenly noticed that a small square patch of bark on this branch was beginning to move. It was a very small patch, about the size of a postage stamp, and the two sides of it seemed to be splitting down the middle and opening slowly outwards, like a pair of shutters on some tiny window.

  Little Billy sat staring at this extraordinary thing. And all at once, a strange uncomfortable feeling came over him. It felt as though the tree he was sitting in and the green leaves all around him belonged to another world altogether and that he was a trespasser who had no right to be where he was. He watched intently as the tiny shutters of tree-bark opened wider and wider, and when they were fully open they revealed a small squarish window set neatly in the curve of the big branch. There was some sort of a yellowish glow coming from deep inside the window.

  We Are the Minpins

  The very next thing Little Billy saw was a tiny face at the window. It had appeared suddenly, from nowhere, and it was the face of an extremely old man with white hair. Little Billy could see this clearly despite the fact that the whole of the tiny man’s head was no larger than a pea.

  This ancient miniature face was staring straight at Little Billy with the most severe expression on it. The skin on the face was deeply wrinkled all over, but the eyes were as bright as two stars.

  Now something even more peculiar began to happen. All around him, not only on the huge main trunk of the tree but also on all the big branches that grew out of it, other tiny windows were opening and tiny faces were peering out. Some of these faces belonged to men and others were clearly women. Here and there the head of a child was seen peering over a windowsill. The heads of these children were no larger than the heads of matchsticks. In the end, there must have been more than twenty small windows all around where Little Billy was sitting, and from each window these amazing little faces were peering out. No sound came from any of the watchers.

  The faces were silent, unmoving, almost ghost-like.

  Now the tiny old man in the window nearest to Billy seemed to be saying something, but his voice was so soft and whispery, Little Billy had to lean right up close to catch his words.

  ‘You’re in a bit of a twizzler, aren’t you?’ the voice was saying. ‘You can’t go down again because if you do you’ll be guzzled up at once. But you can’t possibly sit up here forever, either.’

  ‘I know, I know!’ Little Billy gasped.

  ‘Don’t shout,’ the tiny man said.

  ‘I’m not shouting,’ Little Billy said.

  ‘Talk softer,’ the tiny man said. ‘If you talk too loud your voice will blow me away.’

  ‘But … but … who are you?’ Little Billy asked, taking care to speak very softly this time.

  ‘We are the Minpins,’ the tiny man said, ‘and we own this wood. I shall come closer, then you will hear me better.’ The old Minpin climbed out of his window and walked straight down the big steeply sloping branch, then up another branch until he found a place only a few inches from Little Billy’s face.

  It was amazing to see him walking up and down these almost vertical branches without the slightest trouble. It was like seeing someone walking up and down a wall.

  ‘How on earth do you do that?’ Little Billy asked.

  ‘Suction-boots,’ the Minpin said. ‘We all wear them. You can’t live in trees without suction-boots.’ On his feet he was wearing tiny green boots rather like miniature wellies.

  His clothes were curiously old-fashioned, mostly brown and black, the sort of thing people wore two or three hundred years ago.

  Suddenly, all the other Minpins, men, women and children, were climbing out of their windows and making their way towards Little Billy. Their suction-boots seemed to allow them to walk up and down the steepest branches with the greatest ease, and some were even walking upside-down underneath the branches. All of them were wearing these old-fashioned clothes from hundreds of years ago, and several had on very peculiar hats and bonnets. They stood or sat in groups on all the branches around Little Billy, staring at him as though he were someone from outer space.

  ‘But do you all actually live inside this tree?’ Little Billy asked.

  The old Minpin said, ‘All the trees in this forest are hollow. Not just this one, but all of them. And inside them thousands and thousands of Minpins are living. These great trees are filled with rooms and staircases, not just in the big main trunk but in most of the other branches as well. This is a Minpin forest. And it’s not the only one in England.’

  ‘Could I peep inside?’ Little Billy said.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ the old Minpin said. ‘Put your eye close to that window.’ He pointed to the one he had just come out of.

  Little Billy shifted his position and placed one eye right up against the square hole that was no bigger than a postage stamp.

  What he now saw was quite marvellous.

  The Gruncher Knows You’re Up Here

  Little Billy saw a room that was lit by a pale yellow light of some sort and it was furnished with beautifully made miniature chairs and a table. To one side was a four-poster bed. It was like one of the rooms Little Billy had once seen in the Queen’s Doll’s House at Windsor Castle.

  ‘It’s bea
utiful,’ Little Billy said. ‘Are they all as lovely as this one?’

  ‘Most are smaller,’ the old Minpin said. ‘This one is very grand because I am the Ruler of this tree. My name is Don Mini. What is yours?’

  ‘Mine is Little Billy,’ Little Billy said.

  ‘Greetings, Little Billy,’ Don Mini said. ‘You are welcome to look into some of the other rooms if you wish. We are very proud of them.’

  All the other Minpin families wanted to show Little Billy their own rooms. They rushed about along the branches calling out, ‘Come and see mine! Please come and see mine!’

  Little Billy began climbing about and peeping into the tiny windows.

  Through one window he saw a bathroom, just like his own at home only a thousand times smaller. And through another he saw a classroom with lots of tiny desks and a blackboard at one end.

  In every room there was a stairway in one corner leading up to the room above.

  As Little Billy went from window to window, the Minpins followed him, clustering round and smiling at his exclamations of wonder.

  ‘They’re all absolutely marvellous,’ he said. ‘They’re much nicer than our rooms at home.’

  When the sightseeing tour was over, Little Billy sat down again on a large branch and said to the whole company of Minpins, ‘Look, I’ve had a lovely time with you all, but how am I ever going to get home again? My mother’ll be going crazy.’