The BFG (22 page)

There was only one disaster. Three silly men who had drunk too much beer for lunch decided to climb over the high fence surrounding the pit, and of course they fell in. There were yells of delight from the giants below, followed by the crunching of bones. The head keeper immediately put up a big notice on the fence saying, IT IS FORBIDDEN TO FEED THE GIANTS. And after that, there were no more disasters.

The BFG expressed a wish to learn how to speak properly, and Sophie herself, who loved him as she would a father, volunteered to give him lessons every day. She even taught him how to spell and to write sentences, and he turned out to be a splendid intelligent pupil. In his spare time, he read books. He became a tremendous reader. He read all of Charles Dickens (whom he no longer called Dahl’s Chickens), and all of Shakespeare and literally thousands of other books. He also started to write essays about his own past life. When Sophie read some of them, she said, ‘These are very good. I think perhaps one day you could become a real writer.’

‘Oh, I would love that!’ cried the BFG. ‘Do you think I could?’

‘I know you could,’ Sophie said. ‘Why don’t you start by writing a book about you and me?’

‘Very well,’ the BFG said. ‘I’ll give it a try.’

So he did. He worked hard on it and in the end he completed it. Rather shyly, he showed it to the Queen. The Queen read it aloud to her grandchildren. Then the Queen said, ‘I think we ought to get this book printed properly and published so that other children can read it.’ This was arranged, but because the BFG was a very modest giant he wouldn’t put his own name on it. He used somebody else’s name instead.

But where, you might ask, is this book that the BFG wrote?

It’s right here. You’ve just finished reading it.