The BFG Read online

  What is he up to now? Sophie wondered.

  'Peep your head up good,' the BFG said, 'then you will get a fine winkle of what is going on.'

  When the BFG came near to the sleeping giants, he slowed his pace. He began moving softly. He crept on his toes towards the ugly brutes. They were still snoring loudly. They looked repulsive, filthy, diabolical. The BFG tip-toed around them. He went past the Gizzardgulper, the Bloodbottler, the Meatdripper, the Childchewer. Then he stopped. He had reached the Fleshlumpeater. He pointed at him, then he looked down at Sophie and gave her a big wink.

  He knelt on the ground and very quietly he opened the suitcase. He took out of it the glass jar containing the terrible nightmarish trogglehumper.

  At that point, Sophie guessed what was going to happen next.

  Owch, she thought. This could be rather dangerous. She crouched lower in the pocket so that only the top of her head and her eyes were showing. She wanted to be ready to duck out of sight very fast should anything go wrong.

  They were about ten feet away from the Fleshlumpeater's face. The snoring-snorting noise he was making was disgusting. Every now and again a big bubble of spit formed between his two open lips and men it would burst with a splash and cover his face with saliva.

  Taking infinite care, the BFG unscrewed the top of the glass jar and tipped the squiggling squirming faintly scarlet trogglehumper into the wide end of his long trumpet. He put the other end of the trumpet to his lips. He aimed the instrument directly at the Fleshlumpeater's face. He took a deep breath, puffed out his cheeks and then whoof! He blew!

  Sophie saw a flash of pale red go darting towards the giant's face. For a split second it hovered above the face. Then it was gone. It seemed to have been sucked up the giant's nose, but it had all happened so quickly, Sophie couldn't be sure.

  'We had better be skiddling away quick to where it is safe,' the BFG whispered. He trotted off for about a hundred yards, then he stopped. He crouched low to the earth. 'Now,' he said, 'we is waiting for the gun and flames to begin.'

  They didn't have long to wait.

  The air was suddenly pierced by the most fearful roar Sophie had ever heard, and she saw the Fleshlumpeater's body, all fifty-four feet of it, rise up off the ground and fall back again with a thump. Then it began to wriggle and twist and bounce about in the most violent fashion. It was quite frightening to watch.

  'Eeeow!' roared the Fleshlumpeater. 'Ayeee! Oooow!'

  'He's still asleep,' the BFG whispered. 'The terrible trogglehumping nightmare is beginning to hit him.'

  'Serves him right,' Sophie said. She could feel no sympathy for this great brute who ate children as though they were sugar-lumps.

  'Save us!' screamed the Fleshlumpeater, thrashing about madly. 'He is after me! He is getting me!'

  The thrashing of limbs and the waving of arms became more violent by the second. It was an awesome thing to watch such a massive creature having such mighty convulsions.

  'It's Jack!' bellowed the Fleshlumpeater. 'It's the grueful gruncious Jack! Jack is after me! Jack is wack-crackling me! Jack is spikesticking me! Jack is splash-plunking me! It is the terrible frightswipingjack!' The Fleshlumpeater was writhing about over the ground like some colossal tortured snake. 'Oh, spare me, Jack!' he yelled. 'Don't hurt me, Jack!'

  'Who is this Jack he's on about?' Sophie whispered.

  'Jack is the only human bean all giants is frightened of,' the BFG told her. 'They is all absolutely terrified of Jack. They is all hearing that Jack is a famous giant-killer.'

  'Save me!' screamed the Fleshlumpeater. 'Have mercy on this poor little giant! The beanstalk! He is coming at me with his terrible spikesticking beanstalk! Take it away! I is begging you, Jack, I is praying you not to touch me with your terrible spikesticking beanstalk!'

  'Us giants,' the BFG whispered, 'is not knowing very much about this dreaded human bean called Jack. We is knowing only that he is a famous giant-killer and that he is owning something called a beanstalk. We is knowing also that the beanstalk is a fearsome thing and Jack is using it to kill giants.'

  Sophie couldn't stop smiling.

  'What is you griggling at?' the BFG asked her, slightly nettled.

  'I'll tell youk later,' Sophie said.

  The awful nightmare had now gripped the great brute to such an extent that he was tying his whole body into knots. 'Do not do it, Jack!' he screeched. 'I was not eating you, Jack! I is never eating human beans! I swear I has never gobbled a single human bean in all my wholesome life!'

  'Liar,' said the BFG.

  Just then, one of the Fleshlumpeater's flailing fists caught the still-fast-asleep Meatdripping Giant smack in the mouth. At the same time, one of his furiously thrashing legs kicked the snoring Gizzardgulping Giant right in the guts. Both the injured giants woke up and leaped to their feet.

  'He is swiping me right in the mouth!' yelled the Meatdripper.

  'He is bungswoggling me smack in the guts!' shouted the Gizzardgulper.

  The two of them rushed at the Fleshlumpeater and began pounding him with their fists and feet. The wretched Fleshlumpeater woke up with a bang. He awoke straight from one nightmare into another. He roared into battle, and in the bellowing thumping rough and tumble that followed, one sleeping giant after another either got stepped upon or kicked. Soon, all nine of them were on their feet having the most almighty free-for-all. They punched and kicked and scratched and bit and butted each other as hard as they could. Blood flowed. Noses went crunch. Teeth fell out like hailstones. The giants roared and screamed and cursed, and for many minutes the noise of battle rolled across the yellow plain.

  The BFG smiled a big wide smile of absolute pleasure. 'I is loving it when they is all having a good tough and rumble,' he said.

  'They'll kill each other,' Sophie said.

  'Never,' the BFG answered. 'Those beasts is always bishing and walloping at one another. Soon it will be getting dusky and they will be galloping off to fill their tummies.'

  'They're coarse and foul and filthy,' Sophie said. 'I hate them!'

  As the BFG headed back to the cave, he said quietly, 'We certainly was putting that nightmare to good use though, wasn't we?'

  'Excellent use,' Sophie said. 'Well done you.'

  Dreams

  The Big Friendly Giant was seated at the great table in his cave and he was doing his homework.

  Sophie sat cross-legged on the table-top near by, watching him at work.

  The glass jar containing the one and only good dream they had caught that day stood between them.

  The BFG, with great care and patience, was printing something on a piece of paper with an enormous pencil.

  'What are you writing?' Sophie asked him.

  'Every dream is having its special label on the bottle,' the BFG said. 'How else could I be finding the one I am wanting in a hurry?'

  'But can you really and truly tell what sort of a dream it's going to be simply by listening to it?' Sophie asked.

  'I can,' the BFG said, not looking up.

  'But how? Is it by the way it hums and buzzes?'

  'You is less or more right,' the BFG said. 'Every dream in the world is making a different sort of buzzy-hum music. And these grand swashboggling ears of mine is able to read that music.'

  'By music, do you mean tunes?'

  'I is not meaning tunes.'

  'Then what do you mean?'

  'Human beans is having their own music, right or left?'

  'Right,' Sophie said. 'Lots of music.'

  'And sometimes human beans is very overcome when they is hearing wonderous music. They is getting shivers down their spindels. Right or left?'

  'Right,' Sophie said.

  'So the music is saying something to them. It is sending a message. I do not think the human beans is knowing what that message is, but they is loving it just the same.'

  'That's about right,' Sophie said.

  'But because of these jumpsquiffling ears of mine,' the BFG said, 'I is not onl
y able to hear the music that dreams is making but I is understanding it also.'

  'What do you mean understanding it?' Sophie said.

  'I can read it,' the BFG said. 'It talks to me. It is like a langwitch.'

  'I find that just a little hard to believe,' Sophie said.

  'I'll bet you is also finding it hard to believe in quogwinkles,' the BFG said, 'and how they is visiting us from the stars.'

  'Of course I don't believe that,' Sophie said.

  The BFG regarded her gravely with those huge eyes of his. 'I hope you will forgive me,' he said, 'if I tell you that human beans is thinking they is very clever, but they is not. They is nearly all of them notmuchers and squeakpips.'

  'I beg your pardon,' Sophie said.

  'The matter with human beans,' the BFG went on, 'is that they is absolutely refusing to believe in anything unless they is actually seeing it right in front of their own schnozzles. Of course quogwinkles is existing. I is meeting them oftenly. I is even chittering to them.' He turned away contemptuously from Sophie and resumed his writing. Sophie moved over to read what he had written so far. The letters were printed big and bold, but were not very well formed. Here is what it said:

  THIS DREAM IS ABOUT HOW I IS SAVING MY TEECHER FROM DROWNING. I IS DIVING INTO THE RIVER FROM A HIGH BRIDGE AND I IS DRAGGING MY TEECHER TO THE BANK AND THEN I IS GIVING HIM THE KISS OF DEATH...

  'The kiss of what?' Sophie asked.

  The BFG stopped writing and raised his head slowly. His eyes rested on Sophie's face. 'I is telling you once before,' he said quietly, 'that I is never having a chance to go to school. I is full of mistakes. They is not my fault. I do my best. You is a lovely little girl, but please remember that you is not exactly Miss Knoweverything yourself.'

  'I'm sorry' Sophie said. 'I really am. It is very rude of me to keep correcting you.'

  The BFG gazed at her for a while longer, then he bent his head again to his slow laborious writing.

  'Tell me honestly,' Sophie said. 'If you blew this dream into my bedroom when I was asleep, would I really and truly start dreaming about how I saved my teacher from drowning by diving off the bridge?'

  'More,' the BFG said. 'A lot more. But I cannot be squibbling the whole gropefluncking dream on a titchy bit of paper. Of course there is more.'

  The BFG laid down his pencil and placed one massive ear close to the jar. For about thirty seconds he listened intently. 'Yes,' he said, nodding his great head solemnly up and down. 'This dream is continuing very nice. It has a very dory-hunky ending.'

  'How does it end?' Sophie said. 'Please tell me.'

  'You would be dreaming,' the BFG said, 'that the morning after you is saving the teacher from the river, you is arriving at school and you is seeing all the five hundred pupils sitting in the assembly hall, and all the teachers as well, and the head teacher is then standing up and saying, "I is wanting the whole school to give three cheers for Sophie because she is so brave and is saving the life of our fine arithmatic teacher, Mr Figgins, who was unfortunately pushed off the bridge into the river by our gym-teacher, Miss Amelia Upscotch. So three cheers for Sophie!" And the whole school is then cheering like mad and shouting bravo well done, and, for ever after that, even when you is getting your sums all gungswizzled and muggled up, Mr Figgins is always giving you ten out of ten and writing Good Work Sophie in your exercise book. Then you is waking up.'

  'I like that dream,' Sophie said.

  'Of course you like it,' the BFG said. 'It is a phizzwizard.' He licked the back of the label and stuck it on the jar. 'I is usually writing a bit more than this on the labels,' he said. 'But you is watching me and making me jumpsy.'

  'I'll go and sit somewhere else,' Sophie said.

  'Don't go,' he said. 'Look in the jar carefully and I think you will be seeing this dream.'

  Sophie peered into the jar and there, sure enough, she saw the faint translucent outline of something about the size of a hen's egg. There was just a touch of colour in it, a pale sea-green, soft and shimmering and very beautiful. There it lay, this small oblong sea-green jellyish thing, at the bottom of the jar, quite peaceful, but pulsing gendy, the whole of it moving in and out ever so slightly, as though it were breathing.

  'It's moving!' Sophie cried. 'It's alive!'

  'Of course it's alive.'

  'What will you feed it on?' Sophie asked.

  'It is not needing any food,' the BFG told her.

  'That's cruel,' Sophie said. 'Everything alive needs food of some sort. Even trees and plants.'

  'The north wind is alive,' the BFG said. 'It is moving. It touches you on the cheek and on the hands. But nobody is feeding it.'

  Sophie was silent. This extraordinary giant was disturbing her ideas. He seemed to be leading her towards mysteries that were beyond her understanding.

  'A dream is not needing anything,' the BFG went on. 'If it is a good one, it is waiting peaceably for ever until it is released and allowed to do its job. If it is a bad one, it is always fighting to get out.'

  The BFG stood up and walked over to one of the many shelves and placed the latest jar among the thousands of others.

  'Please can I see some of the other dreams?' Sophie asked him.

  The BFG hesitated. 'Nobody is ever seeing them before,' he said. 'But perhaps after all I is letting you have a little peep.' He picked her up off the table and stood her on the palm of one of his huge hands. He carried her towards the shelves. 'Over here is some of the good dreams,' he said. 'The phizzwizards.'

  'Would you hold me closer so I can read the labels,' Sophie said.

  'My labels is only telling bits of it,' the BFG said. 'The dreams is usually much longer. The labels is just to remind me.'

  Sophie started to read the labels. The first one seemed long enough to her. It went right round the jar, and as she read it, she had to keep turning the jar. This is what it said:

  TODAY I IS SITTING IN CLASS AND I DISCOVER THAT IF I IS STARING VERY HARD AT MY TEECHER IN A SPHESHAL WAY, I IS ABLE TO PUT HER TO SLEEP. SO I KEEP STARING AT HER AND IN THE END HER HEAD DROPS ON TO HER DESK AND SHE GOES FAST TO SLEEP AND SNORKLES LOUDLY. THEN IN MARCHES THE HEAD TEECHER AND HE SHOUTS 'WAKE UP MISS PLUMRIDGE! HOW DARE YOU GO TO SLEEP IN CLASS! GO FETCH YOUR HAT AND COTE AND LEAVE THIS SCHOOL FOR EVER! YOU IS SACKED!' BUT IN A JIFFY I IS PUTTING THE HEAD TEECHER TO SLEEP AS WELL, AND HE JUST CRUMPLES SLOWLY TO THE FLOOR LIKE A LUMP OF JELLY AND THERE HE LIES ALL IN A HEAP AND STARTS SNORKELLING EVEN LOWDER THAN MISS PLUMRIDGE. AND THEN I IS HEARING MY MUMMY'S VOICE SAYING WAKE UP YOUR BREKFUST IS REDDY.

  'What a funny dream,' Sophie said.

  'It's a ringbeller,' the BFG said. 'It's whoppsy.'

  Inside the jar, just below the edge of the label, Sophie could see the putting-to-sleep dream lying peacefully on the bottom, pulsing gently, sea-green like the other one, but perhaps a trifle larger.

  'Do you have separate dreams for boys and for girls?' Sophie asked.

  'Of course,' the BFG said. 'If I is giving a girl's dream to a boy, even if it was a really whoppsy girl's dream, the boy would be waking up and thinking what a rotbungling grinksludging old dream that was.'

  'Boys would,' Sophie said.

  'These here is all girls' dreams on this shelf,' the BFG said.

  'Can I read a boy's dream?'

  'You can,' the BFG said, and he lifted her to a higher shelf. The label on the nearest boy's-dream jar read as follows:

  I IS MAKING MYSELF A MARVELUS PAIR OF SUCTION BOOTS AND WHEN I PUT THEM ON I IS ABEL TO WALK STRATE UP THE KITSHUN WALL AND ACROSS THE CEILING., WELL, I IS WALKING UPSIDE DOWN ON THE CEILING WEN MY BIG SISTER COMES IN AND SHE IS STARTING TO YELL AT ME AS SHE ALWAYS DOES, YELLING WOT ON EARTH IS YOU DOING UP THERE WALKING ON THE CEILING AND I LOOKS DOWN AT HER AND I SMILES AND I SAYS I TOLD YOU YOU WAS DRIVING ME UP THE WALL AND NOW YOU HAS DONE IT.

  'I find that one rather silly,' Sophie said.

  'Boys wouldn't,' the BFG said, grinning. 'It's another ringbeller. Perhaps you has seen enough now.'
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  'Let me read another boy's one,' Sophie said.

  The next label said:

  THE TELLYFONE RINGS IN OUR HOUSE AND MY FATHER PICKS IT UP AND SAYS IN HIS VERY IMPORTANT TELLYFONE VOICE 'SIMPKINS SPEAKING'. THEN HIS FACE GOES WHITE AND HIS VOICE GOES ALL FUNNY AND HE SAYS 'WHAT! WHO?' AND THEN HE SAYS 'YES SIR I UNDERSTAND SIR BUT SURELY IT IS ME YOU IS WISHING TO SPEKE TO SIR NOT MY LITTLE SON?' MY FATHER'S FACE IS GOING FROM WHITE TO DARK PURPEL AND HE IS GULPING LIKE HE HAS A LOBSTER STUCK IN HIS THROTE AND THEN AT LAST HE IS SAYING 'YES SIR VERY WELL SIR I WILL GET HIM SIR' AND HE TURNS TO ME AND HE SAYS IN A RATHER RESPECK-FUL VOICE 'IS YOU KNOWING THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES?' AND I SAYS 'NO BUT I EXPECT HE IS HEARING ABOUT ME.' THEN I IS HAVING A LONG TALK ON THE FONE AND SAYING THINGS LIKE 'LET ME TAKE CARE OF IT, MR PRESIDENT. YOU'LL BUNGLE IT ALL UP IF YOU DO IT YOUR WAY'. AND MY FATHER'S EYES IS GOGGLING RIGHT OUT OF HIS HEAD AND THAT IS WHEN I IS HEARING MY FATHER'S REAL VOICE SAYING GET UP YOU LAZY SLOB OR YOU WILL BE LATE FOR SKOOL.

  'Boys are crazy,' Sophie said. 'Let me read this next one.' Sophie started reading the next label:

  I IS HAVING A BATH AND I IS DISCOVERING THAT IF I PRESS QUITE HARD ON MY TUMMY BUTTON A FUNNY FEELING COMES OVER ME AND SUDDENLEY MY LEGS IS NOT THERE NOR IS MY ARMS. IN FACT I HAS BECOME ABSOLOOTLY INVISIBLE ALL OVER. I IS STILL THERE BUT NO ONE CAN SEE ME NOT EVEN MYSELF. SO MY MUMMY COMES IN AND SAYS 'WHERE IS THAT CHILD! HE WAS IN THE BATH A MINIT AGO AND HE CAN'T POSSIBLY HAVE WASHED HIMSELF PROPERLY!' SO I SAYS 'HERE I IS' AND SHE SAYS 'WHERE?' AND I SAYS 'HERE' AND SHE SAYS 'WHERE?' AND I SAYS 'HERE!' AND SHE YELLS 'HENRY! COME UP QUICK!' AND WHEN MY DADDY RUSHES IN I IS WASHING MYSELF AND MY DADDY SEES THE SOAP FLOATING AROUND IN THE AIR BUT OF CORSE HE IS NOT SEEING ME AND HE SHOUTS 'WHERE ARE YOU BOY?' AND I SAYS 'HERE' AND HE SAYS 'WHERE?' AND I SAYS 'HERE' AND HE SAYS 'WHERE?' AND I SAYS 'HERE!' AND HE SAYS 'THE SOAP, BOY! THE SOAP! IT'S FLYING IN THE AIR!' THEN I PRESS MY TUMMY BUTTOXN AGAIN AND NOW I IS VISIBLE. MY DADDY IS SQUIFFY WITH EXCITEMENT AND HE SAYS 'YOU IS THE INVISIBLE BOY!' AND I SAYS 'NOW I IS GOING TO HAVE SOME FUN,' SO WHEN I IS OUT OF THE BATH AND I HAVE DRIED MYSELF I PUT ON MY DRESSING-GOWN AND SLIPPERS AND I PRESS MY TUMMY BUTTON AGAIN TO BECOME INVISIBLE AND I GO DOWN INTO THE TOWN AND WALK IN THE STREETS. OF CORSE ONLY ME IS INVISIBLE BUT NOT THE THINGS I IS WEARING SO WHEN PEEPLE IS SEEING A DRESSING-GOWN AND SLIPPERS FLOATING ALONG THE STREET WITH NOBODY IN IT THERE IS A PANIC WITH EVERYBODY YELLING 'A GHOST! A GHOST!' AND PEEPLE IS SCREAMING LEFT AND RIGHT AND BIG STRONG POLICEMEN IS RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES AND BEST OF ALL I SEE MR GRUMMIT MY ALGEBRA TEECHER COMING OUT OF A PUB AND I FLOAT UP TO HIM AND SAY 'BOO!' AND HE LETS OUT A FRIGHTSOME HOWL AND DASHES BACK INTO THE PUB AND THEN I IS WAKING UP AND FEELING HAPPY AS A WHIFFSQUIDDLER.