3.The Snatch(527)

The Snatch

Under the blanket, Sophie waited.

After a minute or so, she lifted a corner of the blanket and peeped out.

For the second time that night her blood froze to ice and she wanted to scream, but no sound came out. There at the window, with the curtains pushed aside, was the

enormous long pale wrinkly face of the Giant Person, staring in. The flashing black eyes were fixed on Sophie’s bed.

The next moment, a huge hand with pale fingers came snaking in through the

window. This was followed by an arm, an arm as thick as a tree-trunk, and the arm, the hand, the fingers were reaching out across the room towards Sophie’s bed.

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.

Sophie, crouching underneath the blanket, felt strong fingers grasping hold of her, and then she was lifted up from her bed, blanket and all, and whisked out of the

window.

If you can think of anything more terrifying than that happening to you in the middle of the night, then let’s hear about it.

The awful thing was that Sophie knew exactly what was going on although she

couldn’t see it happening. She knew that a Monster (or Giant) with an enormous long pale wrinkly face and dangerous eyes had plucked her from her bed in the middle of  the witching hour and was now carrying her out through the window smothered in a  blanket.

What actually happened next was this. When the Giant had got Sophie outside, he    arranged the blanket so that he could grasp all the four corners of it at once in one of    his huge hands, with Sophie imprisoned inside. In the other hand he seized the suitcase and the long trumpet thing and off he ran.

Sophie, by squirming around inside the blanket, managed to push the top of her head out through a little gap just below the Giant’s hand. She stared around her.

She saw the village houses rushing by on both sides. The Giant was sprinting down the High Street. He was running so fast his black cloak was streaming out behind him

like the wings of a bird. Each stride he took was as long as a tennis court. Out of the

village he ran, and soon they were racing across the moonlit fields. The hedges dividing the fields were no problem to the Giant. He simply strode over them. A wide river

appeared in his path. He crossed it in one flying stride.

Sophie crouched in the blanket, peering out. She was being bumped against the

Giant’s leg like a sack of potatoes. Over the fields and hedges and rivers they went, and after a while a frightening thought came into Sophie’s head. The Giant is running fast,

she told herself, because he is hungry and he wants to get home as quickly as possible, and then he ’ll have me for breakfast.