The Missing Golden Ticket and Other Splendiferous Secrets (6 page)

Here are some of the items on Roald Dahl’s table:

  A ball made from silver chocolate wrappers.

  A small model of a Hurricane fighter plane.

  His hipbone.

  A glass bottle filled with mauve-colored bits of gristle taken from Roald Dahl’s spine during an operation.

  A photo of his granddaughter Sophie.

  A meteorite the size of a golf ball.

  His father’s silver-and-tortoiseshell paper-knife.

  A solar-powered musical box.

  A carving of a green grasshopper.

  A cone from a cedar tree.

“I rather like the month of March. . . your heart is lifted by the signs of approaching spring all around you. Halfway through the month most of the hedges are covered with a pale powdering of green as the little leaf buds begin to burst, and the pussy willows are smothered in yellow pollen. Crocuses are flowering brilliantly and best of all, the nesting season is beginning to get seriously under way. . . I can see a pair of blackbirds
building high up in the trunk of the big clipped yew tree. . . I watch a thrush carrying bits of dry grass up into the branches of the vine. . . I see a pair of blue chickadees popping in and out of a small hole in the wooden tool shed. . . I see a pair of robins making a mossy nest in the bank underneath the heather bed. . .

“By the end of the month ladybugs are on the wing once again, and you will notice that nearly all of them are the two-spotted kind. Peacock butterflies and small tortoiseshells are emerging from their winter sleep, hunting for early flowers. Bumblebees and honeybees have also woken up and are in among the crocuses, looking for pollen.”