Chapter 2

The Marvellous Plan

A

1.George sat himself down at the table in the kitchen.

2.He was shaking a little. Oh, how he hated Grandma!

3.He really hated that horrid old witchy woman.

4.And all of a sudden he had a tremendous urge to do something about her. Something whopping.

5.Something absolutely terrific. A real shocker. A sort of explosion.

B

1.He wanted to blow away the witchy smell that hung about her in the next room.

2.He may have been only eight years old but he was a brave little boy.

3.He was ready to take this old woman on.

4.'I'm not going to be frightened by her,' he said softly to himself.

5.But he was frightened. And that's why he wanted suddenly to explode her away.

6.Well .not quite away. But he did want to shake the old woman up a bit.

C

1.Very well, then. What should it be, this whopping terrific exploding shocker for Grandma?

2.He would have liked to put a firework banger under her chair but he didn't have one.

3.He would have liked to put a long green snake down the back of her dress but he didn't have a long green snake.

D

1.He would have liked to put six big black rats in the room with her and lock the door but he didn't have six big black rats.

2.As George sat there pondering this interesting problem, his eye fell upon the bottle of Grandma's brown medicine standing on the sideboard.

3.Rotten stuff it seemed to be.

E

1.Four times a day a large spoonful of it was shoveled into her mouth and it didn't do her the slightest bit of good.

2.She was always just as horrid after she'd had it as she'd been before.

3.The whole point of medicine, surely, was to make a person better.

4.If it didn't do that, then it was quite useless.

F

1.So-ho! thought George suddenly. Ah-ha! Ho-hum!

2.I know exactly what I'll do.

3. I shall make her a new medicine, one that is so strong and so fierce and so fantastic it will either cure her completely or blow off the top of her head.

4.I'll make her a magic medicine, a medicine no doctor in the world has ever made before.

G

1.George looked at the kitchen clock. It said five past ten.

2.There was nearly an hour left before Grandma's next dose was due at eleven.

3.'Here we go, then!' cried George, jumping up from the table.

4.'A magic medicine it shall be!'' So give me a bug and a jumping flea,

5.Give me two snails and lizards three, And a slimy squiggler from the sea, And the poisonous sting of a bumblebee, And the juice from the fruit of the ju-jube tree, And the powdered bone of a wombat's knee.

6.And one hundred other things as well Each with a rather nasty smell.

H

1.I'll stir them up, I'll boil them long, A mixture tough, a mixture strong.

2.And then, heigh-ho, and down it goes, A nice big spoonful (hold your nose)Just gulp it down and have no fear.

3.'How do you like it, Granny dear?'

4.Will she go pop? Will she explode? Will she go flying down the road?

5.Will she go poof in a puff of smoke? Start fizzing like a can of Coke?

6.Who knows? Not I. Let's wait and see.(I'm glad it's neither you nor me.)

7.'Oh Grandma, if you only knew What I have got in store for you!'

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