The BFG

BOY: TALES OF CHILDHOOD

BOY
and
GOING SOLO

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

CHARLIE AND THE GREAT GLASS ELEVATOR

THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF CHARLIE AND MR WILLY WONKA

DANNY THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD

GEORGE’S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE

GOING SOLO

JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH

MATILDA

THE WITCHES

THE ENORMOUS CROCODILE

ESIO TROT

FANTASTIC MR FOX

THE GIRAFFE AND THE PELLY AND ME

THE MAGIC FINGER

THE TWITS

DIRTY BEASTS (
with Quentin Blake
)

THE ENORMOUS CROCODILE (
with Quentin Blake
)

THE GIRAFFE AND THE PELLY AND ME (
with Quentin Blake
)

THE MINPINS (
with Patrick Benson
)

REVOLTING RHYMES (
with Quentin Blake
)

THE BFG: PLAYS FOR CHILDREN (
Adapted by David Wood
)

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY: A PLAY (
Adapted by Richard George
)

FANTASTIC MR FOX: A PLAY (
Adapted by Sally Reid
)

JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH: A PLAY (
Adapted by Richard George
)

THE TWITS: PLAYS FOR CHILDREN (
Adapted by David Wood
)

THE WITCHES: PLAYS FOR CHILDREN (
Adapted by David Wood
)

THE GREAT AUTOMATIC GRAMMATIZATOR AND OTHER STORIES

RHYME STEW

SKIN AND OTHER STORIES

THE VICAR OF NIBBLESWICKE

THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUCAR AND SIX MORE

PUFFIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

puffinbooks.com

First published by Jonathan Cape Ltd 1982

First published in the USA by Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1982

Published in Puffin Books 1984

This edition published 2007

2

Text copyright © Roald Dahl Nominee Ltd, 1982

Illustrations copyright © Quentin Blake, 1982

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being which imposed on the subsequent purchaser

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British library

ISBN: 978-0-14-193013-8

20 April 1955–17 November 1962

The Witching Hour

Who?

The Snatch

The Cave

The BFG

The Giants

The Marvellous Ears

Snozzcumbers

The Bloodbottler

Frobscottle and Whizzpoppers

Journey to Dream Country

Dream-Catching

A Trogglehumper for the Fleshlumpeater

Dreams

The Great Plan

Mixing the Dream

Journey to London

The Palace

The Queen

The Royal Breakfast

The Plan

Capture!

Feeding Time

The Author

THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND

MARY, the Queen’s maid

MR TIBBS, the Palace butler

THE HEAD OF THE ARMY

THE HEAD OF THE AIR FORCE

And
,
of course
, SOPHIE,
an orphan

THE FLESHLUMPEATER

THE BONECRUNCHER

THE MANHUGGER

THE CHILDCHEWER

THE MEATDRIPPER

THE GIZZARDGULPER

THE MAIDMASHER

THE BLOODBOTTLER

THE BUTCHER BOY

And
,
of course
, THE BFG

Sophie couldn’t sleep.

A brilliant moonbeam was slanting through a gap in the curtains. It was shining right on to her pillow.

The other children in the dormitory had been asleep for hours.

Sophie closed her eyes and lay quite still. She tried very hard to doze off.

It was no good. The moonbeam was like a silver blade slicing through the room on to her face.

The house was absolutely silent. No voices came up from downstairs. There were no footsteps on the floor above either.

The window behind the curtain was wide open, but nobody was walking on the pavement outside. No cars went by on the street. Not the tiniest sound could be heard anywhere. Sophie had never known such a silence.

Perhaps, she told herself, this was what they called the witching hour.

The witching hour, somebody had once whispered to her, was a special moment in the middle of the night when every child and every grown-up was in a deep deep sleep, and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world to themselves.

The moonbeam was brighter than ever on Sophie’s pillow. She decided to get out of bed and close the gap in the curtains.

You got punished if you were caught out of bed after lights-out. 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. But there was no one about now, Sophie was sure of that.

She reached out for her glasses that lay on the chair beside her bed. They had steel rims and very thick lenses, and she could hardly see a thing without them. She put them on, then she slipped out of bed and tiptoed over to the window.

When she reached the curtains, Sophie hesitated. She longed to duck underneath them and lean out of the window to see what the world looked like now that the witching hour was at hand.

She listened again. Everywhere it was deathly still.

The longing to look out became so strong she couldn’t resist it. Quickly, she ducked under the curtains and leaned out of the window.

In the silvery moonlight, the village street she knew so well seemed completely different. The houses looked bent and crooked, like houses in a fairy tale. Everything was pale and ghostly and milky-white.

Across the road, she could see Mrs Rance’s shop, where you bought buttons and wool and bits of elastic. It didn’t look real. There was something dim and misty about that too.

Sophie allowed her eye to travel further and further down the street.