The BFG: List 1

Even if you said you had to go to the lavatory, that was not accepted as an excuse and they punished you just the same.

This time Sophie really did scream, but only for a second because very quickly the huge hand clamped down over her blanket and the scream was smothered by the bedclothes.

He went rattling through a great forest, then down into a valley and up over a range of hills as bare as concrete, and soon he was galloping over a desolate wasteland that was not quite of this earth.

His great chest was heaving in and out.

There were jars everywhere. They were piled up in the corners. They filled every nook and cranny of the cave.

There were jars everywhere. They were piled up in the corners. They filled every nook and cranny of the cave.

Sophie saw that under the cloak he was wearing a sort of collarless shirt and a dirty old leather waistcoat that didn’t seem to have any buttons.

‘You is trying to change the subject,’ the Giant said sternly.

‘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.’

‘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..."

‘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.’

The giants were all naked except for a sort of short skirt around their waists, and their skins were burnt by the sun. But it was the sheer size of each one of them that boggled Sophie’s brain most of all.

The giants were all naked except for a sort of short skirt around their waists, and their skins were burnt by the sun. But it was the sheer size of each one of them that boggled Sophie’s brain most of all.

‘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 swalloped up like a piece of frumpkin pie, all in one dollop!’

‘And then again, if it is a frotsy 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.’

‘Sometimes, on a very clear night,’ the BFG said, ‘and if I is swiggling my ears in the right direction,’—and here he swivelled his great ears upwards so they were facing the ceiling—‘if I is swiggling them like this and the night is very clear, I is sometimes hearing faraway music coming from the stars in the sky.’

The BFG moved his great ears this way and that, listening intently.

‘That is a squelching tricky problem around here,’ the BFG answered.

‘They is common animals,’ said the BFG contemptuously.

It was as thick around its girth as a perambulator.

It was black with white stripes along its length. And it was covered all over with coarse knobbles.

The Big Friendly Giant looked suddenly so forlorn that Sophie got quite upset.

Sophie felt herself getting a little muddled.

Once again that sad winsome look came into the BFG’s eyes.