14.Dreams(2)(1828)

B

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.

‘Pretty ridiculous,’ Sophie said. All the same, she couldn’t resist reaching down and pressing her own tummy button to see if it worked. Nothing happened.

‘Dreams is very mystical things,’ the BFG said. ‘Human beans is not understanding them at all. Not even their brainiest prossefors is understanding them. Has you seen enough?’

‘Just this last one,’ Sophie said. ‘This one here.’

She started reading:

I HAS RITTEN A BOOK AND IT IS SO EXCITING NOBODY CAN PUT IT DOWN. AS SOON AS YOU HAS RED THE

FIRST LINE YOU IS SO HOOKED ON IT YOU CANNOT STOP UNTIL THE LAST PAGE. IN ALL THE CITIES PEEPLE IS WALKING IN THE STREETS BUMPING INTO EACH OTHER BECAUSE THEIR FACES IS BURIED IN MY BOOK AND

DENTISTS IS READING IT AND TRYING TO FILL TEETHS AT THE SAME TIME BUT NOBODY MINDS BECAUSE

THEY IS ALL READING IT TOO IN THE DENTIST’S CHAIR. DRIVERS IS READING IT WHILE DRIVING AND CARS IS  CRASHING ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. BRAIN SURGEONS IS READING IT WHILE THEY IS OPERATING ON BRAINS AND AIRLINE PILOTS IS READING IT AND GOING TO TIMBUCTOO INSTEAD OF LONDON. FOOTBALL PLAYERS IS READING IT ON THE FIELD BECAUSE THEY CAN’T PUT IT DOWN AND SO IS OLIMPICK RUNNERS WHILE THEY

IS RUNNING. EVERYBODY HAS TO SEE WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT IN MY BOOK AND WHEN I WAKE UP I IS STILL TINGLING WITH EXCITEMENT AT BEING THE GREATEST RITER THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN

UNTIL MY MUMMY COMES IN AND SAYS I WAS LOOKING AT YOUR ENGLISH EXERCISE BOOK LAST NITE AND

REALLY YOUR SPELLING IS ATROSHUS SO IS YOUR PUNTULASHON.

‘That’s enough for now,’ the BFG said. ‘There is diluons more but my arm is getting tired holding you up.’

‘What are all those over there?’ Sophie said. ‘Why have they got such tiny labels?’

‘That,’ the BFG said, ‘is because one day I is catching so many dreams I is not

having the time or energy to write out long labels. But there is enough to remind me.’

‘Can I look?’ Sophie said.

The long-suffering BFG carried her across to the jars she was pointing to. Sophie read them rapidly, one after the other:

I IS CLIMBING MOUNT EVERAST WITH JUST MY PUSSY-CAT FOR CUMPANY.

I IS INVENTING A CAR THAT RUNS ON TOOTHPASTE.

I IS ABLE TO MAKE THE ELEKTRIK LITES GO ON AND OFF JUST BY WISHING IT.

I IS ONLY AN EIGHT YEAR OLD LITTLE BOY BUT I IS GROWING A SPLENDID BUSHY BEARD AND ALL THE

OTHER BOYS IS JALOUS.

I IS ABEL TO JUMP OUT OF ANY HIGH WINDOW AND FLOTE DOWN SAFELY.

I HAS A PET BEE THAT MAKES ROCK AND ROLL MUSIK WHEN IT FLIES.

‘What amazes me,’ Sophie said, ‘is how you ever learned to write in the first place.’

‘Ah,’ said the BFG. ‘I has been wondering how long it is before you is asking me that.’

‘Considering you never went to school, I think it’s quite marvellous,’ Sophie said. ‘How did you learn?’

The BFG crossed the cave and opened a tiny secret door in the wall. He took out a  book, very old and tattered. By human standards, it was an ordinary sized book, but it looked like a postage stamp in his huge hand.

‘One night,’ he said, ‘I is blowing a dream through a window and I sees this book

lying on the little boy’s bedroom table. I wanted it so very badly, you understand. But I is refusing to steal it. I would never do that.’

‘So how did you get it?’ Sophie asked.

‘I borrowed it,’ the BFG said, smiling a little. ‘Just for a short time I borrowed it.’

‘How long have you had it?’ Sophie asked.

‘Perhaps only about eighty years,’ the BFG said. ‘Soon I shall be putting it back.’

‘And that’s how you taught yourself to write?’ Sophie asked him.

‘I is reading it hundreds of times,’ the BFG said. ‘And I is still reading it and teaching new words to myself and how to write them. It is the most scrum-

diddlyumptious story.’

Sophie took the book out of his hand. ‘Nicholas Nickleby,’ she read aloud.

‘By Dahl’s Chickens,’ the BFG said.

‘By who?’ Sophie said.

Just then, there came a tremendous noise of galloping feet from outside the cave. ‘What’s that?’ Sophie cried.

‘That is all the giants zippfizzing off to another country to guzzle human beans,’ the BFG said. He quickly popped Sophie into his waistcoat pocket, then hurried to the cave entrance and rolled back the stone.

Sophie, peeping out of her spy-hole, saw all nine of the fearsome giants coming past at full gallop.

‘Where is you off to tonight?’ shouted the BFG.

‘We is all of us flushbunking off to England tonight,’ answered the Fleshlumpeater as they went galloping past. ‘England is a luctuous land and we is fancying a few nice little English chiddlers.’

‘I,’ shouted the Maidmasher, ‘is knowing where there is a gigglehouse for girls and I is guzzling myself full as a frothblower!’

‘And I knows where there is a bogglebox for boys!’ shouted the Gizzardgulper. ‘All I has to do is reach in and grab myself a handful! English boys is tasting extra

lickswishy!’

In a few seconds, the nine galloping giants were out of sight.

‘What did he mean?’ Sophie said, poking her head out of the pocket. ‘What is a gigglehouse for girls?’

‘He is meaning a girls’ school,’ the BFG said. ‘He will be eating them by the bundle.’

‘Oh no!’ cried Sophie.

‘And boys from a boys’ school,’ said the BFG.

‘It mustn’t happen!’ Sophie cried out. ‘We’ve got to stop them! We can’t just sit here and do nothing!’

‘There’s not a thing we can do,’ the BFG said. ‘We is helpless as horsefeathers.’ He sat down on a large craggy blue rock near the entrance to his cave. He took Sophie

from his pocket and put her beside him on the rock. ‘It is now quite safe for you to be outside until they is coming back,’ he said.

The sun had dipped below the horizon and it was getting dark.

（1828）