The BFG Read online

  'Ha!' shouted the Giant, walking forward and rubbing his hands together. 'What has us got here?' His booming voice rolled around the walls of the cave like a burst of thunder.

  The BFG

  The Giant picked up the trembling Sophie with one hand and carried her across the cave and put her on the table.

  Now he really is going to eat me, Sophie thought.

  The Giant sat down and stared hard at Sophie. He had truly enormous ears. Each one was as big as the wheel of a truck and he seemed to be able to move them inwards and outwards from his head as he wished.

  'I is hungry!' the Giant boomed. He grinned, showing massive square teeth. The teeth were very white and very square and they sat in his mouth like huge slices of white bread.

  'P... please don't eat me,' Sophie stammered.

  The Giant let out a bellow of laughter. 'Just because I is a giant, you think I is a man-gobbling cannybull!' he shouted. 'You is about right! Giants is all cannybully and murderful! And they does gobble up human beans! We is in Giant Country now! Giants is everywhere around! Out there us has the famous Bonecrunching Giant! Bonecrunching Giant crunches up two wopsey whiffling human beans for supper every night! Noise is earbursting! Noise of crunching bones goes crackety-crack for miles around!'

  'Owch!' Sophie said.

  'Bonecrunching Giant only gobbles human beans from Turkey' the Giant said. 'Every night Bonecruncher is galloping off to Turkey to gobble Turks.'

  Sophie's sense of patriotism was suddenly so bruised by this remark that she became quite angry 'Why Turks?' she blurted out. 'What's wrong with the English?'

  'Bonecrunching Giant says Turks is tasting oh ever so much juicier and more scrumdiddlyumptious! Bonecruncher says Turkish human beans has a glamourly flavour. He says Turks from Turkey is tasting of turkey.'

  'I suppose they would,' Sophie said.

  'Of course they would!' the Giant shouted. 'Every human bean is diddly and different. Some is scrumdiddlyumptious and some is uckyslush. Greeks is all full of uckyslush. No giant is eating Greeks, ever.'

  'Why not?' Sophie asked.

  'Greeks from Greece is all tasting greasy' the Giant said.

  'I imagine that's possible too,' Sophie said. She was wondering with a bit of a tremble what all this talking about eating people was leading up to. Whatever happened, she simply must play along with this peculiar giant and smile at his jokes.

  But were they jokes? Perhaps the great brute was just working up an appetite by talking about food.

  'As I am saying,' the Giant went on, 'all human beans is having different flavours. Human beans from Panama is tasting very strong of hats.'

  'Why hats?' Sophie said.

  'You is not very clever,' the Giant said, moving his great ears in and out. 'I thought all human beans is full of brains, but your head is emptier than a bundongle.'

  'Do you like vegetables?' Sophie asked, hoping to steer the conversation towards a slightly less dangerous kind of food.

  'You is trying to change the subject,' the Giant said sternly. 'We is having an interesting babblement about the taste of the human bean. The human bean is not a vegetable.'

  'Oh, but the bean is a vegetable,' Sophie said.

  'Not the human bean,' the Giant said. 'The human bean has two legs and a vegetable has no legs at all.'

  Sophie didn't argue any more. The last thing she wanted to do was to make the Giant cross.

  'The human bean,' the Giant went on, 'is coming in dillions of different flavours. For instance, human beans from Wales is tasting very whooshey of fish. There is something very fishy about Wales.'

  'You means whales,' Sophie said. 'Wales is something quite different.'

  'Wales is whales', the Giant said. 'Don't gobblefunk around with words. I will now give you another example. Human beans from Jersey has a most disgustable woolly tickle on the tongue,' the Giant said. 'Human beans from Jersey is tasting of cardigans.'

  'You mean jerseys,' Sophie said.

  'You are once again gobblefunking!' the Giant shouted. 'Don't do it! This is a serious and snitching subject. May I continue?'

  'Please do,' Sophie said.

  'Danes from Denmark is tasting ever so much of dogs,' the Giant went on.

  'Of course,' Sophie said. 'They taste of great danes.'

  'Wrong!' cried the Giant, slapping his thigh. 'Danes from Denmark is tasting doggy because they is tasting of labradors!'

  'Then what do the people of Labrador taste of?' Sophie asked.

  'Danes,' the Giant cried, triumphantly. 'Great danes!'

  'Aren't you getting a bit mixed up?' Sophie said.

  'I is a very mixed-up Giant,' the Giant said. 'But I does do my best. And I is not nearly as mixed up as the other giants. I know one who gallops all the way to Wellington for his supper.'

  'Wellington?' Sophie said. 'Where is Wellington?'

  'Your head is full of squashed flies,' the Giant said. 'Wellington is in New Zealand. The human beans in Wellington has an especially scrumdiddlyumptious taste, so says the Welly-eating Giant.'

  'What do the people of Wellington taste of?' Sophie asked.

  'Boots,' the Giant said.

  'Of course,' Sophie said. 'I should have known.'

  Sophie decided that this conversation had now gone on long enough. If she was going to be eaten, she'd rather get it over and done with right away than be kept hanging around any more. 'What sort of human beings do you eat?' she asked, trembling.

  'Me!' shouted the Giant, his mighty voice making the glass jars rattle on their shelves. 'Me gobbling up human beans! This I never! The others, yes! All the others is gobbling them up every night, but not me! I is a freaky Giant! I is a nice and jumbly Giant! I is the only nice and jumbly Giant in Giant Country! I is THE BIG FRIENDLY GIANT! I is the BFG. What is your name?'

  'My name is Sophie,' Sophie said, hardly daring to believe the good news she had just heard.

  The Giants

  'But if you are so nice and friendly,' Sophie said, 'then why did you snatch me from my bed and run away with me?'

  'Because you SAW me,' the Big Friendly Giant answered. 'If anyone is ever SEEING a giant, he or she must be taken away hipswitch.'

  'Why?' asked Sophie.

  'Well, first of all,' said the BFG, 'human beans is not really believing in giants, is they? Human beans is not thinking we exist.'

  'I do,' Sophie said.

  'Ah, but that is only because you has SEEN me!' cried the BFG. 'I cannot possibly allow anyone, even little girls, to be SEEING me and staying at home. The first thing you would be doing, you would be scuddling around yodelling the news that you were actually SEEING a giant, and then a great giant-hunt, a mighty giant look-see, would be starting up all over the world, with the human beans all rummaging for the great giant you saw and getting wildly excited. People would be coming rushing and bushing after me with goodness knows what and they would be catching me and locking me into a cage to be stared at. They would be putting me into the zoo or the bunkumhouse with all those squiggling hippodumplings and crockadowndillies.'

  Sophie knew that what the Giant said was true. If any person reported actually having seen a giant haunting the streets of a town at night, there would most certainly be a terrific hullabaloo across the world.

  'I will bet you,' the BFG went on, 'that you would have been splashing the news all over the wonky world, wouldn't you, if I hadn't wiggled you away?'

  'I suppose I would,' Sophie said.

  'And that would never do,' said the BFG.

  'So what will happen to me now?' Sophie asked.

  'If you do go back, you will be telling the world,' said the BFG, 'most likely on the telly-telly bunkum box and the radio squeaker. So you will just have to be staying here with me for the rest of your life.'

  'Oh no!' cried Sophie.

  'Oh yes!' said the BFG. 'But I am warning you not ever to go whiffling about out of this cave without I is with you or you will be coming to an ucky-mucky end! I is showing you now w
ho is going to eat you up if they is ever catching even one tiny little glimp of you.'

  The Big Friendly Giant picked Sophie off the table and carried her to the cave entrance. He rolled the huge stone to one side and said, 'Peep out over there, little girl, and tell me what you is seeing.'

  Sophie, sitting on the BFG's hand, peeped out of the cave.

  The sun was up now and shining fiery-hot over the great yellow wasteland with its blue rocks and dead trees.

  'Is you seeing them?' the BFG asked.

  Sophie, squinting through the glare of the sun, saw several tremendous tall figures moving among the rocks about five hundred yards away. Three or four others were sitting quite motionless on the rocks themselves.

  'This is Giant Country,' the BFG said. 'Those is all giants, every one.'

  It was a brain-boggling sight. The giants were all naked except for a sort of short skirt around their waists, and their skins were burnt brown by the sun. But it was the sheer size of each one of them that boggled Sophie's brain most of all. They were simply colossal, far taller and wider than the Big Friendly Giant upon whose hand she was now sitting. And oh how ugly they were! Many of them had large bellies. All of them had long arms and big feet. They were too far away for their faces to be seen clearly, and perhaps that was a good thing.

  'What on earth are they doing?' Sophie asked.

  'Nothing,' said the BFG. 'They is just moocheling and footcheling around and waiting for the night to come. Then they will all be galloping off to places where people is living to find their suppers.'

  'You mean to Turkey,' Sophie said.

  'Bonecrunching Giant will be galloping to Turkey, of course,' said the BFG. 'But the others will be whiffling off to all sorts of flungaway places like Wellington for the booty flavour and Panama for the hatty taste. Every giant is having his own favourite hunting ground.'

  'Do they ever go to England?' Sophie asked.

  'Often,' said the BFG. 'They say the English is tasting ever so wonderfully of crodscollop.'

  'I'm not sure I quite know what that means,' Sophie said.

  'Meanings is not important,' said the BFG. 'I cannot be right all the time. Quite often I is left instead of right.'

  'And are all those beastly giants over there really going off again tonight to eat people?' Sophie asked.

  'All of them is guzzling human beans every night,' the BFG answered. 'All of them excepting me. That is why you will be coming to an ucky-mucky end if any of them should ever be getting his gogglers upon you. You would be swallowed up like a piece of frumpkin pie, all in one dollop!'

  'But eating people is horrible!' Sophie cried. 'It's frightful! Why doesn't someone stop them?'

  'And who please is going to be stopping them?' asked the BFG.

  'Couldn't you?' said Sophie.

  'Never in a pig's whistle!' cried the BFG. 'All of those man-eating giants is enormous and very fierce! They is all at least two times my wideness and double my royal highness!'

  'Twice as high as you!' cried Sophie.

  'Easily that,' said the BFG. 'You is seeing them in the distance but just wait till you get them close up. Those giants is all at least fifty feet tall with huge muscles and cockles alive alive-o. I is the titchy one. I is the runt. Twenty-four feet is puddlenuts in Giant Country.'

  'You mustn't feel bad about it,' Sophie said. 'I think you are just great. Why even your toes must be as big as sausages.'

  'Bigger,' said the BFG, looking pleased. 'They is as big as bumplehammers.'

  'How many giants are there out there?' Sophie asked.

  'Nine altogether,' answered the BFG.

  'That means,' said Sophie, 'that somewhere in the world, every single night, nine wretched people get carried away and eaten alive.'

  'More,' said the BFG. 'It is all depending, you see, on how big the human beans is. Japanese beans is very small, so a giant will need to gobble up about six Japanese before he is feeling full up. Others like the Norway people and the Yankee-Doodles is ever so much bigger and usually two or three of those makes a good tuck-in.'

  'But do these disgusting giants go to every single country in the world?' Sophie asked.

  'All countries excepting Greece is getting visited some time or another,' the BFG answered. 'The country which a giant visits is depending on how he is feeling. If it is very warm weather and a giant is feeling as hot as a sizzlepan, he will probably go galloping far up to the frisby north to get himself an Esquimo or two to cool him down. A nice fat Esquimo to a giant is like a lovely ice-cream lolly to you.'

  'I'll take your word for it,' Sophie said.

  'And then again, if it is a frosty night and the giant is fridging with cold, he will probably point his nose towards the swultering hotlands to guzzle a few Hottentots to warm him up.'

  'How perfectly horrible,' Sophie said.

  'Nothing hots a cold giant up like a hot Hottentot,' the BFG said.

  'And if you were to put me down on the ground and I was to walk out among them now,' Sophie said, 'would they really eat me up?'

  'Like a whiffswiddle!' cried the BFG. 'And what is more, you is so small they wouldn't even have to chew you. The first one to be seeing you would pick you up in his fingers and down you'd go like a drop of drain-water!'

  'Let's go back inside,' Sophie said. 'I hate even watching them.'

  The Marvellous Ears

  Back in the cave, the Big Friendly Giant sat Sophie down once again on the enormous table. 'Is you quite snuggly there in your nightie?' he asked. 'You isn't fridgy cold?'

  'I'm fine,' Sophie said.

  'I cannot help thinking,' said the BFG, 'about your poor mother and father. By now they must be jipping and skumping all over the house shouting "Hello hello where is Sophie gone?"'

  'I don't have a mother and father,' Sophie said. 'They both died when I was a baby.'

  'Oh, you poor little scrumpiet!' cried the BFG. 'Is you not missing them very badly?'

  'Not really,' Sophie said, 'because I never knew them.'

  'You is making me sad,' the BFG said, rubbing his eyes.

  'Don't be sad,' Sophie said. 'No one is going to be worrying too much about me. That place you took me from was the village orphanage. We are all orphans in there.'

  'You is a norphan?'

  'Yes.'

  'How many is there in there?'

  'Ten of us,' Sophie said. 'All little girls.'

  'Was you happy there?' the BFG asked.

  'I hated it,' Sophie said. 'The woman who ran it was called Mrs Clonkers and if she caught you breaking any of the rules, like getting out of bed at night or not folding up your clothes, you got punished.'

  'How is you getting punished?'

  'She locked us in the dark cellar for a day and a night without anything to eat or drink.'

  'The rotten old rotrasper!' cried the BFG.

  'It was horrid,' Sophie said. 'We used to dread it. There were rats down there. We could hear them creeping about.'

  'The filthy old fizzwiggler!' shouted the BFG. 'That is the horridest thing I is hearing for years! You is making me sadder than ever!' All at once, a huge tear that would have filled a bucket rolled down one of the BFG's cheeks and fell with a splash on the floor. It made quite a puddle.

  Sophie watched with astonishment. What a strange and moody creature this is, she thought. One moment he is telling me my head is full of squashed flies and the next moment his heart is melting for me because Mrs Clonkers locks us in the cellar.

  'The thing that worries me,' Sophie said, 'is having to stay in this dreadful place for the rest of my life. The orphanage was pretty awful, but I wouldn't have been there for ever, would I?'

  'All is my fault,' the BFG said. 'I is the one who kidsnatched you.' Yet another enormous tear welled from his eye and splashed on to the floor.

  'Now I come to think of it, I won't actually be here all that long,' Sophie said.

  'I is afraid you will,' the BFG said.

  'No, I won't,' Sophie said. 'Those
brutes out there are bound to catch me sooner or later and have me for tea.'

  'I is never letting that happen,' the BFG said.

  For a few moments the cave was silent. Then Sophie said, 'May I ask you a question?'

  The BFG wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand and gave Sophie a long thoughtful stare. 'Shoot away' he said.

  'Would you please tell me what you were doing in our village last night? Why were you poking that long trumpet thing into the Goochey children's bedroom and then blowing through it?'

  'Ah-ha!' cried the BFG, sitting up suddenly in his chair. 'Now we is getting nosier than a parker!'

  'And the suitcase you were carrying,' Sophie said. 'What on earth was that all about?'

  The BFG stared suspiciously at the small girl sitting cross-legged on the table.

  'You is asking me to tell you whoppsy big secrets,' he said. 'Secrets that nobody is ever hearing before.'

  'I won't tell a soul,' Sophie said. 'I swear it. How could I anyway? I am stuck here for the rest of my life.'

  'You could be telling the other giants.'

  'No, I couldn't,' Sophie said. 'You told me they would eat me up the moment they saw me.'

  'And so they would,' said the BFG. 'You is a human bean and human beans is like strawbunkles and cream to those giants.'

  'If they are going to eat me the moment they see me, then I wouldn't have time to tell them anything, would I?' Sophie said.

  'You wouldn't,' said the BFG.

  'Then why did you say I might?'

  'Because I is brimful of buzzburgers,' the BFG said. 'If you listen to everything I am saying you will be getting earache.'

  'Please tell me what you were doing in our village,' Sophie said. 'I promise you can trust me.'

  'Would you teach me how to make an elefunt?' the BFG asked.

  'What do you mean?' Sophie said.

  'I would dearly love to have an elefunt to ride on,' the BFG said dreamily. 'I would so much love to have a jumbly big elefunt and go riding through green forests picking peachy fruits off the trees all day long. This is a sizzling-hot muckfrumping country we is living in. Nothing grows in it except snozzcumbers. I would love to go somewhere else and pick peachy fruits in the early morning from the back of an elefunt.'