The BFG Read online

  'I is frightened of London,' the BFG said.

  'Don't be,' Sophie said. 'It's full of tiny dark streets and there are very few people about in the witching hour.'

  The BFG picked Sophie up between one finger and a thumb and placed her gently on the palm of the other hand. 'Is the Queen's Palace very big?' he asked.

  'Huge,' Sophie said.

  'Then how is we finding the right bedroom?'

  'That's up to you,' Sophie said. 'You're supposed to be an expert at that sort of thing.'

  'And you is absolutely sure the Queen will not put me in a zoo with all the cattypiddlers?'

  'Of course she won't,' Sophie said. 'You'll be a hero. And you'll never have to eat snozzcumbers again.'

  Sophie saw the BFG's eyes widen. He licked his lips.

  'You mean it?' he said. 'You really mean it? No more disgustive snozzcumbers?'

  'You couldn't get one if you wanted to,' Sophie said. 'Humans don't grow them.'

  That did it. The BFG got to his feet. 'When is you wanting me to mix this special dream?' he asked.

  'Now,' Sophie said. 'At once.'

  'When is we going to see the Queen?' he said.

  'Tonight,' Sophie said. 'As soon as you've mixed the dream.'

  'Tonight?' the BFG cried. 'Why such a flushbunking flurry?'

  'If we can't save tonight's children, we can anyway save tomorrow's,' Sophie said. 'What is more, I'm getting famished. I haven't had a thing to eat for twenty-four hours.'

  'Then we had better get crackling,' the BFG said, moving back towards the cave.

  Sophie kissed him on the tip of his thumb. 'I knew you'd do it!' she said. 'Come on! Let's hurry!'

  Mixing the Dream

  It was dark now. The night had already begun. The BFG, with Sophie sitting on his hand, hurried into the cave and put on those brilliant blinding lights that seemed to come from nowhere. He placed Sophie on the table. 'Stay there please,' he said, 'and no chittering. I is needing to listen only to silence when I is mixing up such a knotty plexicated dream as this.'

  He hurried away from her. He got out an enormous empty glass jar that was the size of a washing machine. He clutched it to his chest and hurried towards the shelves on which stood the thousands and thousands of smaller jars containing the captured dreams.

  'Dreams about giants,' he muttered to himself as he searched the labels. 'The giants is guzzling human beans... no, not that one... nor that one... here's one!... And here's another!...' He grabbed the jars and unscrewed the tops. He tipped the dreams into the enormous jar he was clutching and as each one went in, Sophie caught a glimpse of a small sea-green blob tumbling from one jar into the other.

  The BFG hurried towards another shelf. 'Now,' he muttered, 'I is wanting dreams about gigglehouses for girls... and about boggleboxes for boys.' He was becoming very tense now. Sophie could almost see the excitement bubbling inside him as he scurried back and forth among his beloved jars. There must have been fifty thousand dreams altogether up there on the shelves, but he seemed to know almost exactly where every one of them was. 'Dreams about a little girl,' he muttered. 'And dreams about me... about the BFG... come on, come on, hurry up, get on with it... now where in the wonky world is I keeping those?...'

  And so it went on. In about half an hour the BFG had found all the dreams he wanted and had tipped them into the one huge jar. He put the jar on the table. Sophie sat watching him but said nothing. Inside the big jar, lying on the bottom of it, she could clearly see about fifty of those oval sea-green jellyish shapes, all pulsing gently in and out, some lying on top of others, but each one still a quite separate individual dream.

  'Now we is mixing them,' the BFG announced. He went to the cupboard where he kept his bottles of frobscottle, and from it he took out a gigantic egg-beater. It was one of those that has a handle which you turn, and down below there are a lot of overlapping blades that go whizzing round. He inserted the bottom end of this contraption into the big jar where the dreams were lying. 'Watch,' he said. He started turning the handle very fast.

  Flashes of green and blue exploded inside the jar. The dreams were being whisked into a sea-green froth.

  'The poor things!' Sophie cried.

  'They is not feeling it,' the BFG said as he turned the handle. 'Dreams is not like human beans or animals. They has no brains. They is made of zozimus.'

  After about a minute, the BFG stopped whisking. The whole bottle was now full to the brim with large bubbles. They were almost exactly like the bubbles we ourselves blow from soapy water, except that these had even brighter and more beautiful colours swimming on their surfaces.

  'Keep watching,' the BFG said.

  Quite slowly, the topmost bubble rose up through the neck of the jar and floated away. A second one followed. Then a third and a fourth. Soon the cave was filled with hundreds of beautifully coloured bubbles, all drifting gently through the air. It was truly a wonderful sight. As Sophie watched them, they all started floating towards the cave entrance, which was still open.

  'They're going out,' Sophie whispered.

  'Of course,' the BFG said.

  'Where to?'

  'Those is all little tiny dream-bits that I isn't using,' the BFG said. 'They is going back to the misty country to join up with proper dreams.'

  'It's all a bit beyond me,' Sophie said.

  'Dreams is full of mystery and magic,' the BFG said. 'Do not try to understand them. Look in the big bottle and you will now see the dream you is wanting for the Queen.'

  Sophie turned and stared into the great jar. On the bottom of it, something was thrashing around wildly, bouncing up and down and flinging itself against the walls of the jar. 'Good heavens!' she cried. 'Is that it?'

  'That's it,' the BFG said proudly.

  'But it's... it's horrible!' Sophie cried. 'It's jumping about! It wants to get out!'

  'That's because it's a trogglehumper,' the BFG said. 'It's a nightmare.'

  'Oh, but I don't want you to give the Queen a nightmare!' Sophie cried.

  'If she is dreaming about giants guzzling up little boys and girls, then what is you expecting it to be except a nightmare?' the BFG said.

  'Oh, no!' Sophie cried.

  'Oh, yes,' the BFG said. 'A dream where you is seeing little chiddlers being eaten is about the most frightsome trogglehumping dream you can get. It's a kicksy bog-thumper. It's a whoppsy grobswitcher. It is all of them riddled into one. It is as bad as that dream I blew into the Fleshlumpeater this afternoon. It is worse.'

  Sophie stared down at the fearful nightmare dream that was still thrashing away in the huge glass jar. It was much larger than the others. It was about the size and shape of, shall we say, a turkey's egg. It was jellyish. It had tinges of bright scarlet deep inside it. There was something terrible about the way it was throwing itself against the sides of the jar.

  'I don't want to give the Queen a nightmare,' Sophie said.

  'I is thinking,' the BFG said, 'that your Queen will be happy to have a nightmare if having a nightmare is going to save a lot of human beans from being gobbled up by filthsome giants. Is I right or is I left?'

  'I suppose you're right,' Sophie said. 'It's got to be done.'

  'She will soon be getting over it,' the BFG said.

  'Have you put all the other important things into it?' Sophie asked.

  'When I is blowing that dream into the Queen's bedroom,' the BFG said, 'she will be dreaming every single little thingalingaling you is asking me to make her dream.'

  'About me sitting on the window-sill?'

  'That part is very strong.'

  'And about a Big Friendly Giant?'

  'I is putting in a nice long gobbit about him,' the BFG said. As he spoke, he picked up one of his smaller jars and very quickly tipped the struggling thrashing trogglehumper out of the large jar into the small one. Then he screwed the lid tightly on to the small jar.

  'That's it,' he announced. 'We is now ready.' He fetched his suitcase and put the small jar into
it.

  'Why bother to take a great big suitcase when you've only got one jar?' Sophie said. 'You could put the jar in your pocket.'

  The BFG looked down at her and smiled. 'By goggles,' he said, taking the jar out of the suitcase, 'your head is not quite so full of grimesludge after all! I can see you is not born last week.'

  'Thank you, kind sir,' Sophie said, making a little curtsy from the table-top.

  'Is you ready to leave?' the BFG asked.

  'I'm ready!' Sophie cried. Her heart was beginning to thump at the thought of what they were about to do. It really was a wild and crazy thing. Perhaps they would both be thrown into prison.

  The BFG was putting on his great black cloak.

  He tucked the jar into a pocket in his cloak. He picked up his long trumpet-like dream-blower. Then he turned and looked at Sophie, who was still on the table-top. 'The dream-bottle is in my pocket,' he said. 'Is you going to sit in there with it during the travel?'

  'Never!' cried Sophie. 'I refuse to sit next to that beastly thing!'

  'Then where is you going to sit?' the BFG asked her.

  Sophie looked him over for a few moments. Then she said, 'If you would be kind enough to swivel one of your lovely big ears so that it is lying flat like a dish, that would make a very cosy place for me to sit.'

  'By gumbo, that is a squackling good idea!' the BFG said.

  Slowly, he swivelled his huge right ear until it was like a great shell facing the heavens. He lifted Sophie up and placed her into it. The ear itself, which was about the size of a large tea-tray, was full of the same channels and crinkles as a human ear. It was extremely comfortable.

  'I hope I don't fall down your earhole,' Sophie said, edging away from the large hole just beside her.

  'Be very careful not to do that,' the BFG said. 'You would be giving me a cronking earache.'

  The nice thing about being there was that she could whisper directly into his ear.

  'You is tickling me a bit,' the BFG said. 'Please do not jiggle about.'

  'I'll try not to,' Sophie said. 'Are we ready?'

  'Oweeee!' yelled the BFG. 'Don't do that!'

  'I didn't do anything,' Sophie said.

  'You is talking too loud! You is forgetting that I is hearing every little thingalingaling fifty times louder than usual and there you is shouting away right inside my ear!'

  'Oh gosh,' Sophie murmured. 'I forgot that.'

  'Your voice is sounding like thunder and thrumpets!'

  'I'm so sorry' Sophie whispered. 'Is that better?'

  'No!' cried the BFG. 'It sounds as though you is shootling off a bunderbluss!'

  'Then how can I talk to you?' Sophie whispered.

  'Don't!' cried the poor BFG. 'Please don't! Each word is like you is dropping buzzbombs in my earhole!'

  Sophie tried speaking right under her breath. 'Is this better?' she said. She spoke so softly she couldn't even hear her own voice.

  'That's better,' the BFG said. 'Now I is hearing you very nicely. What is it you is trying to say to me just now?'

  'I was saying are we ready?'

  'We is off!' cried the BFG, heading for the cave entrance. 'We is off to meet Her Majester the Queen!'

  Outside the cave, he rolled the large round stone back into place and set off at a tremendous gallop.

  Journey to London

  The great yellow wasteland lay dim and milky in the moonlight as the Big Friendly Giant went galloping across it.

  Sophie, still wearing only her nightie, was reclining comfortably in a crevice of the BFG's right ear. She was actually in the outer rim of the ear, near the top, where the edge of the ear folds over, and this folding-over bit made a sort of roof for her and gave her wonderful protection against the rushing wind. What is more, she was lying on skin that was soft and warm and almost velvety. Nobody, she told herself, had ever travelled in greater comfort.

  Sophie peeped over the rim of the ear and watched the desolate landscape of Giant Country go whizzing by. They were certainly moving fast. The BFG went bouncing off the ground as though there were rockets in his toes and each stride he took lifted him about a hundred feet into the air. But he had not yet gone into that whizzing top gear of his, when die ground became blurred by speed and the wind howled and his feet didn't seem to be touching anything but air. That would come later.

  Sophie had not slept for a long time. She was very tired. She was also warm and comfortable. She dozed off.

  She didn't know how long she slept, but when she woke up again and looked out over the edge of the ear, the landscape had changed completely. They were in a green country now, with mountains and forests. It was still dark but the moon was shining as brightly as ever.

  Suddenly and without slowing his pace, the BFG turned his head sharply to the left. For the first time during the entire journey he spoke a few words. 'Look quick-quick over there,' he said, pointing his long trumpet.

  Sophie looked in the direction he was pointing. Through the murky darkness all she saw at first was a great cloud of dust about three hundred yards away.

  'Those is the other giants all galloping back home after their guzzle,' the BFG said.

  Then Sophie saw them. In the light of the moon, she saw all nine of those monstrous half-naked brutes thundering across the landscape together. They were galloping in a pack, their necks craned forward, their arms bent at the elbows, and worst of all, their stomachs bulging. The strides they took were incredible. Their speed was unbelievable. Their feet pounded and thundered on the ground and left a great sheet of dust behind them. But in ten seconds they were gone.

  'A lot of little girlsies and boysies is no longer sleeping in their beds tonight,' the BFG said.

  Sophie felt quite ill.

  But this grim encounter made her more than ever determined to go through with her mission.

  It must have been about an hour or so later that the BFG began to slow his pace. 'We is in England now,' he said suddenly.

  Dark though it was, Sophie could see that they were in a country of green fields with neat hedges in between the fields. There were hills with trees all over them and occasionally there were roads with the lights of cars moving along. Each time they came to a road, the BFG was over it and away, and no motorist could possibly have seen anything except a quick black shadow flashing overhead.

  All at once, a curious orange-coloured glow appeared in the night sky ahead of them.

  'We is coming close to London,' the BFG said.

  He slowed to a trot. He began looking about cautiously.

  Groups of houses were now appearing on all sides. But there were still no lights in their windows. It was too early for anyone to be getting up yet.

  'Someone's bound to see us,' Sophie said.

  'Never is they seeing me,' the BFG said confidently. 'You is forgetting that I is doing this sort of thing for years and years and years. No human bean is ever catching even the smallest wink of me.'

  'I did,' Sophie whispered.

  'Ah,' he said. 'Yes. But you was the very first.'

  During the next half-hour, things moved so swiftly and so silently that Sophie, crouching in the giant's ear, was unable to understand exactly what was going on. They were in streets. There were houses everywhere. Sometimes there were shops. There were bright lamps in the streets. There were quite a few people about and there were cars with lights on. But nobody ever noticed the BFG. It was impossible to understand quite how he did it. There was a kind of magic in his movements. He seemed to melt into the shadows. He would glide - that was the only word to describe his way of moving - he would glide noiselessly from one dark place to another, always moving, always gliding forward through the streets of London, his black cloak blending with the shadows of the night.

  It is quite possible that one or two late-night wanderers might have thought they saw a tall black shadow skimming swiftly down a murky sidestreet, but even if they had, they would never have believed their own eyes. They would have dismissed it as an i
llusion and blamed themselves for seeing things that weren't there.

  Sophie and the BFG came at last to a large place full of trees. There was a road running through it, and a lake. There were no people in this place and the BFG stopped for the first time since they had set out from his cave many hours before.

  'What's the matter?' Sophie whispered in her under-the-breath voice.

  'I is in a bit of a puddle,' he said.

  'You're doing marvellously,' Sophie whispered.

  'No, I isn't,' he said. 'I is now completely boggled. I is lost.'

  'But why?'

  'Because we is meant to be in the middle of London and suddenly we is in green pastures.'

  'Don't be silly,' Sophie whispered. 'This is the middle of London. It's called Hyde Park. I know exactly where we are.'

  'You is joking.'

  'I'm not. I swear I'm not. We're almost there.'

  'You mean we is nearly at the Queen's Palace?' cried the BFG.

  'It's just across the road,' Sophie whispered. 'This is where I take over.'

  'Which way?' the BFG asked.

  'Straight ahead.'

  The BFG trotted forward through the deserted park.

  'Now stop.'

  The BFG stopped.

  'You see that huge roundabout ahead of us just outside the Park?' Sophie whispered.

  'I see it.'

  'That is Hyde Park Corner.'

  Even now, when it was still an hour before dawn, there was quite a lot of traffic moving around Hyde Park Corner.

  Then Sophie whispered, 'In the middle of the roundabout there is an enormous stone arch with a statue of a horse and rider on top of it. Can you see that?'

  The BFG peered through the trees. 'I is seeing it,' he said.

  'Do you think that if you took a very fast run at it, you could jump clear over Hyde Park Corner, over the arch and over the horse and rider and land on the pavement the other side?'

  'Easy,' the BFG said.

  'You're sure? You're absolutely sure?'

  'I promise,' the BFG said.

  'Whatever you do, you mustn't land in the middle of Hyde Park Corner.'

  'Don't get so flussed,' the BFG said. 'To me that is a snitchy little jump. There's not a thingalingaling to it.'

  'Then go!' Sophie whispered.

  The BFG broke into a full gallop. He went scorching across the Park and just before he reached the railings that divided it from the street, he took off. It was a gigantic leap. He flew high over Hyde Park Corner and landed as softly as a cat on the pavement the other side.