14.Dreams(1)（2057）

Dreams

A

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 only 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.’

‘Let me read another boy’s one,’ Sophie said.（2057）