The BFG (6 page)

‘Of course not,’ Sophie said. ‘I just love the way you talk.’

‘How wondercrump!’ cried the BFG, still beaming. ‘How whoopsey-splunkers! How absolutely squiffling! I is all of a stutter.’

‘Listen,’ Sophie said. ‘We don’t
have
to eat snozzcumbers. In the fields around our village there are all sorts of lovely vegetables like cauliflowers and carrots. Why don’t you get some of those next time you go visiting?’

The BFG raised his great head proudly in the air. ‘I is a very honourable giant,’ he said. ‘I would rather be chewing up rotsome snozzcumbers than snitching things from other people.’

‘You stole
me
,’ Sophie said.

‘I did not steal you very much,’ said the BFG, smiling gently. ‘After all, you is only a tiny little girl.’

Suddenly, a tremendous thumping noise came from outside the cave entrance and a voice like thunder shouted, ‘Runt! Is you there, Runt? I is hearing you jabbeling! Who is you jabbeling to, Runt?’

‘Look out!’ cried the BFG. ‘It’s the Bloodbottler!’ But before he had finished speaking, the stone was rolled aside and a fifty-foot giant, more than twice as tall and wide as the BFG, came striding into the cave. He was naked except for a dirty little piece of cloth around his bottom.

Sophie was on the table-top. The enormous partly eaten snozzcumber was lying near her. She ducked behind it.

The creature came clumping into the cave and stood towering over the BFG. ‘Who was you jabbeling to in here just now?’ he boomed.

‘I is jabbeling to myself,’ the BFG answered.

‘Pilfflefizz!’ shouted the Bloodbottler. ‘Bugswallop!’ he boomed. ‘You is talking to a human bean, that’s what I is thinking!’

‘No no!’ cried the BFG.

‘Yus yus!’ boomed the Bloodbottler. ‘I is guessing you has snitched away a human bean and brought it back to your bunghole as a pet! So now I is winkling it out and guzzling it as extra snacks before my supper!’

The poor BFG was very nervous. ‘There’s n-no one in here,’ he stammered. ‘W-why don’t you Heave me alone?’

The Bloodbottler pointed a finger as large as a tree-trunk at the BFG. ‘Runty little scumscrewer!’ he shouted. ‘Piffling little swishfiggler! Squimpy little bottle-wart! Prunty little pogswizzler! I is now going to search the primroses!’ He grabbed the BFG by the arm. ‘And you is going to help me do it. Us together is going to winkle out this tasteful little human bean!’ he shouted.

The BFG had intended to whisk Sophie off the table as soon as he got the chance and hide her behind his back, but now there was no hope of doing this. Sophie peered around the chewed-off end of the enormous snozzcumber, watching the two giants as they moved away down the cave. The Bloodbottler was a gruesome sight. His skin was reddish-brown. There was black hair sprouting on his chest and arms and on his stomach. The hair on his head was long and dark and tangled. His foul face was round and squashy-looking. The eyes were tiny black holes. The nose was small and flat. But the mouth was huge. It spread right across the face almost ear to ear, and it had lips that were like two gigantic purple frankfurters lying one on top of the other. Craggy yellow teeth stuck out between the two purple frankfurter lips, and rivers of spit ran down over the chin.

It was not in the least difficult to believe that this ghastly brute ate men, women and children every night.

The Bloodbottler, still holding the BFG by the arm, was examining the rows and rows of bottles. ‘You and your pibbling bottles!’ he shouted. ‘What is you putting in them?’

‘Nothing that would interest you,’ the BFG answered. ‘You is only interested in guzzling human beans.’

‘And you is dotty as a dogswoggler!’ cried the Bloodbottler.

Soon the Bloodbottler would be coming back, Sophie told herself, and he was bound to search the table-top. But she couldn’t possibly jump off the table. It was twelve feet high. She’d break a leg. The snozzcumber, although it was as thick as a perambulator, was not going to hide her if the Bloodbottler picked it up. She examined the chewed-off end. It had large seeds in the middle, each one as big as a melon. They were embedded in soft slimy stuff. Taking care to stay out of sight, Sophie reached forward and scooped away half a dozen of these seeds. This left a hole in the middle of the snozzcumber large enough for her to crouch in so long as she rolled herself up into a ball. She crawled into it. It was a wet and slimy hiding-place, but what did that matter if it was going to save her from being eaten.

The Bloodbottler and the BFG were coming back towards the table now. The BFG was nearly fainting with fear. Any moment, he was telling himself, Sophie would be discovered and eaten.

Suddenly, the Bloodbottler grabbed the half-eaten snozzcumber. The BFG stared at the bare table. Sophie, where is you? he thought desperately. You cannot possibly be jumpelling off that high table, so where is you hiding, Sophie?

‘So this is the filthing rotsome glubbage you is eating!’ boomed the Bloodbottler, holding up the partly eaten snozzcumber. ‘You must be cockles to be guzzling such rubbsquash!’

For a moment, the Bloodbottler seemed to have forgotten about his search for Sophie. The BFG decided to lead him further off the track. ‘That is the scrumdiddlyumptious snozzcumber,’ he said. ‘I is guzzling it gleefully every night and day. Is you never trying a snozzcumber, Bloodbottler?’

‘Human beans is juicier,’ the Bloodbottler said.

‘You is talking rommytot,’ the BFG said, growing braver by the second. He was thinking that if only he could get the Bloodbottler to take one bite of the repulsive vegetable, the sheer foulness of its flavour would send him bellowing out of the cave. ‘I is happy to let you sample it,’ the BFG went on. ‘But please, when you see how truly glumptious it is, do not be guzzling the whole thing. Leave me a little snitchet for my supper.’

The Bloodbottler stared suspiciously with small piggy eyes at the snozzcumber.

Sophie, crouching inside the chewed-off end, began to tremble all over.

‘You is not switchfiddling me, is you?’ said the Bloodbottler.

‘Never!’ cried the BFG passionately. ‘Take a bite and I am positive you will be shouting out oh how scrum-diddlyumptious this wonderveg is!’

The BFG could see the greedy Bloodbottler’s mouth beginning to water more than ever at the prospect of extra food. ‘Vegitibbles is very good for you,’ he went on. ‘It is not healthsome always to be eating meaty things.’

‘Just this once,’ the Bloodbottler said, ‘I is going to taste these rotsome eats of yours. But I is warning you that if it is filthsome, I is smashing it over your sludgy little head!’

He picked up the snozzcumber.

He began raising it on its long journey to his mouth, some fifty feet up in the air.

Sophie wanted to scream
Don’t!
But that would have been an even more certain death. Crouching among the slimy seeds, she felt herself being lifted up and up and up.

Suddenly, there was a
crunch
as the Bloodbottler bit a huge hunk off the end. Sophie saw his yellow teeth clamping together, a few inches from her head. Then there was utter darkness. She was in his mouth. She caught a whiff of his evil-smelling breath. It stank of bad meat. She waited for the teeth to go
crunch
once more. She prayed that she would be killed quickly.

‘
Eeeeeowtch!
’ roared the Bloodbottler. ‘Ughbwelch! Ieeeech!’ And then he spat.

All of the great lumps of snozzcumber that were in his mouth, as well as Sophie herself, went shooting out across the cave.

If Sophie had struck the stony wall of the cave, she would most certainly have been killed. Instead, she hit the soft folds of the BFG’s black cloak hanging against the wall. She dropped to the ground, half-stunned. She crawled under the hem of the cloak and there she crouched.

‘You little swinebuggler!’ roared the Bloodbottler. ‘You little pigswiller!’ He rushed at the BFG and smashed what was left of the snozzcumber over his head. Fragments of the filthy vegetable splashed all over the cave.

‘You is not loving it?’ the BFG asked innocently, rubbing his head.

‘Loving it!’ yelled the Bloodbottler. ‘That is the most disgusterous taste that is ever clutching my teeth! You must be buggies to be swalloping slutch like that! Every night you could be galloping off happy as a hamburger and gobbling juicy human beans!’

‘Eating human beans is wrong and evil,’ the BFG said.

‘It is guzzly and glumptious!’ shouted the Bloodbottler. ‘And tonight I is galloping off to Chile to swobble a few human Chile beans. Is you wishing to know why I is choosing Chile?’

‘I is not wishing to know anything,’ the BFG said, very dignified.

‘I is choosing Chile,’ the Bloodbottler said, ‘because I is fed up with the taste of Esquimos. It is important I has plenty of cold eats in this scuddling hot weather, and the next coldest thing to an Esquimo is a Chile bean. Human beans from Chile is very chilly.’

‘Horrible,’ the BFG said. ‘You ought to be ashamed.’

‘Other giants is all saying they is wanting to gallop off to England tonight to guzzle school-chiddlers,’ the Bloodbottler said. ‘I is very fond indeed of English school-chiddlers. They has a nice inky-booky flavour. Perhaps I will change my mind and go to England with them.’

‘You is disgusting,’ the BFG said.

‘And you is an insult to the giant peoples!’ shouted the Bloodbottler. ‘You is not fit to be a giant! You is a squinky little squiddler! You is a pibbling little pitsqueak! You is a… cream puffnut!’

With that, the horrible Bloodbottling Giant strode out of the cave. The BFG ran to the cave entrance and quickly rolled the stone back into place.

‘Sophie,’ he whispered. ‘Sophie, where is you, Sophie?’

Sophie emerged from under the hem of the black cloak. ‘I’m here,’ she said.

The BFG picked her up and held her tenderly in the palm of his hand. ‘Oh, I is so happy to be finding you all in one lump!’ he said.

‘I was in his mouth,’ Sophie said.

‘You was
what
!’ cried the BFG.

Sophie told him what had happened.

‘And there I was telling him to eat the filthsome snozzcumber and you was all the time inside it!’ the BFG cried.

‘Not much fun,’ Sophie said.

‘Just look at you, you poor little chiddler!’ cried the BFG. ‘You is all covered in snozzcumber and giant spit.’ He set about cleaning her up as best he could. ‘I is hating those other giants more than ever now,’ he said. ‘You know what I should like?’

‘What?’ Sophie said.

‘I should like to find a way of disappearing them, every single one.’

‘I’d be glad to help you,’ Sophie said. ‘Let me see if I can’t think up a way of doing it.’

By now Sophie was beginning to feel not only extremely hungry, but very thirsty as well. Had she been at home she would have finished her breakfast long ago.