The BFG (14 page)

And so it went on. In about half an hour the BFG had found all the dreams he wanted and had tipped them into the one huge jar. He put the jar on the table. Sophie sat watching him but said nothing. Inside the big jar, lying on the bottom of it, she could clearly see about fifty of those oval sea-green jellyish shapes, all pulsing gently in and out, some lying on top of others, but each one still a quite separate individual dream.

‘Now we is mixing them,’ the BFG announced. He went to the cupboard where he kept his bottles of frobscottle, and from it he took out a gigantic egg-beater. It was one of those that has a handle which you turn, and down below there are a lot of overlapping blades that go whizzing round. He inserted the bottom end of this contraption into the big jar where the dreams were lying. ‘Watch,’ he said. He started turning the handle very fast.

Flashes of green and blue exploded inside the jar. The dreams were being whisked into a sea-green froth.

‘The poor things!’ Sophie cried.

‘They is not feeling it,’ the BFG said as he turned the handle. ‘Dreams is not like human beans or animals. They has no brains. They is made of zozimus.’

After about a minute, the BFG stopped whisking. The whole bottle was now full to the brim with large bubbles. They were almost exactly like the bubbles we ourselves blow from soapy water, except that these had even brighter and more beautiful colours swimming on their surfaces.

‘Keep watching,’ the BFG said.

Quite slowly, the topmost bubble rose up through the neck of the jar and floated away. A second one followed. Then a third and a fourth. Soon the cave was filled with hundreds of beautifully coloured bubbles, all drifting gently through the air. It was truly a wonderful sight. As Sophie watched them, they all started floating towards the cave entrance, which was still open.

‘They’re going out,’ Sophie whispered.

‘Of course,’ the BFG said.

‘Where to?’

‘Those is all little tiny dream-bits that I isn’t using,’ the BFG said. ‘They is going back to the misty country to join up with proper dreams.’

‘It’s all a bit beyond me,’ Sophie said.

‘Dreams is full of mystery and magic,’ the BFG said. ‘Do not try to understand them. Look in the big bottle and you will now see the dream you is wanting for the Queen.’

Sophie turned and stared into the great jar. On the bottom of it, something was thrashing around wildly, bouncing up and down and flinging itself against the walls of the jar. ‘Good heavens!’ she cried. ‘Is that it?’

‘That’s it,’ the BFG said proudly.

‘But it’s… it’s horrible!’ Sophie cried. ‘It’s jumping about! It wants to get out!’

‘That’s because it’s a trogglehumper,’ the BFG said. ‘It’s a nightmare.’

‘Oh, but I don’t want you to give the Queen a nightmare!’ Sophie cried.

‘If she is dreaming about giants guzzling up little boys and girls, then what is you expecting it to be except a nightmare?’ the BFG said.

‘Oh, no!’ Sophie cried.

‘Oh, yes,’ the BFG said. ‘A dream where you is seeing little chiddlers being eaten is about the most frightsome trogglehumping dream you can get. It’s a kicksy bog-thumper. It’s a whoppsy grobswitcher. It is all of them riddled into one. It is as bad as that dream I blew into the Fleshlumpeater this afternoon. It is worse.’

Sophie stared down at the fearful nightmare dream that was still thrashing away in the huge glass jar. It was much larger than the others. It was about the size and shape of, shall we say, a turkey’s egg. It was jellyish. It had tinges of bright scarlet deep inside it. There was something terrible about the way it was throwing itself against the sides of the jar.

‘I don’t want to give the Queen a nightmare,’ Sophie said.

‘I is thinking,’ the BFG said, ‘that your Queen will be happy to have a nightmare if having a nightmare is going to save a lot of human beans from being gobbled up by filthsome giants. Is I right or is I left?’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ Sophie said. ‘It’s got to be done.’

‘She will soon be getting over it,’ the BFG said.

‘Have you put all the other important things into it?’ Sophie asked.

‘When I is blowing that dream into the Queen’s bedroom,’ the BFG said, ‘she will be dreaming every single little thingalingaling you is asking me to make her dream.’

‘About me sitting on the window-sill?’

‘That part is very strong.’

‘And about a Big Friendly Giant?’

‘I is putting in a nice long gobbit about him,’ the BFG said. As he spoke, he picked up one of his smaller jars and very quickly tipped the struggling thrashing trogglehumper out of the large jar into the small one. Then he screwed the lid tightly on to the small jar.

‘That’s it,’ he announced. ‘We is now ready.’ He fetched his suitcase and put the small jar into it.

‘Why bother to take a great big suitcase when you’ve only got one jar?’ Sophie said. ‘You could put the jar in your pocket.’

The BFG looked down at her and smiled. ‘By goggles,’ he said, taking the jar out of the suitcase, ‘your head is not quite so full of grimesludge after all! I can see you is not born last week.’

‘Thank you, kind sir,’ Sophie said, making a little curtsy from the table-top.

‘Is you ready to leave?’ the BFG asked.

‘I’m ready!’ Sophie cried. Her heart was beginning to thump at the thought of what they were about to do. It really was a wild and crazy thing. Perhaps they would both be thrown into prison.

The BFG was putting on his great black cloak.

He tucked the jar into a pocket in his cloak. He picked up his long trumpet-like dream-blower. Then he turned and looked at Sophie, who was still on the table-top. ‘The dream-bottle is in my pocket,’ he said. ‘Is you going to sit in there with it during the travel?’

‘Never!’ cried Sophie. ‘I refuse to sit next to that beastly thing!’

‘Then where is you going to sit?’ the BFG asked her.

Sophie looked him over for a few moments. Then she said, ‘If you would be kind enough to swivel one of your lovely big ears so that it is lying flat like a dish, that would make a very cosy place for me to sit.’

‘By gumbo, that is a squackling good idea!’ the BFG said.

Slowly, he swivelled his huge right ear until it was like a great shell facing the heavens. He lifted Sophie up and placed her into it. The ear itself, which was about the size of a large tea-tray, was full of the same channels and crinkles as a human ear. It was extremely comfortable.

‘I hope I don’t fall down your earhole,’ Sophie said, edging away from the large hole just beside her.

‘Be very careful not to do that,’ the BFG said. ‘You would be giving me a cronking earache.’

The nice thing about being there was that she could whisper directly into his ear.

‘You is tickling me a bit,’ the BFG said. ‘Please do not jiggle about.’

‘I’ll try not to,’ Sophie said. ‘Are we ready?’

‘Oweeee!’ yelled the BFG. ‘Don’t
do
that!’

‘I didn’t do anything,’ Sophie said.

‘You is talking too
loud
! You is forgetting that I is hearing every little thingalingaling fifty times louder than usual and there you is shouting away right inside my ear!’

‘Oh gosh,’ Sophie murmured. ‘I forgot that.’

‘Your voice is sounding like thunder and thrumpets!’

‘I’m so sorry’ Sophie whispered. ‘Is that better?’

‘No!’ cried the BFG. ‘It sounds as though you is shootling off a bunderbluss!’

‘Then how can I talk to you?’ Sophie whispered.

‘Don’t!’ cried the poor BFG. ‘Please don’t! Each word is like you is dropping buzzbombs in my earhole!’

Sophie tried speaking right under her breath. ‘Is this better?’ she said. She spoke so softly she couldn’t even hear her own voice.

‘That’s better,’ the BFG said. ‘Now I is hearing you very nicely. What is it you is trying to say to me just now?’

‘I was saying are we ready?’

‘We is off!’ cried the BFG, heading for the cave entrance. ‘We is off to meet Her Majester the Queen!’

Outside the cave, he rolled the large round stone back into place and set off at a tremendous gallop.

The great yellow wasteland lay dim and milky in the moonlight as the Big Friendly Giant went galloping across it.

Sophie, still wearing only her nightie, was reclining comfortably in a crevice of the BFG’s right ear. She was actually in the outer rim of the ear, near the top, where the edge of the ear folds over, and this folding-over bit made a sort of roof for her and gave her wonderful protection against the rushing wind. What is more, she was lying on skin that was soft and warm and almost velvety. Nobody, she told herself, had ever travelled in greater comfort.

Sophie peeped over the rim of the ear and watched the desolate landscape of Giant Country go whizzing by. They were certainly moving fast. The BFG went bouncing off the ground as though there were rockets in his toes and each stride he took lifted him about a hundred feet into the air. But he had not yet gone into that whizzing top gear of his, when die ground became blurred by speed and the wind howled and his feet didn’t seem to be touching anything but air. That would come later.

Sophie had not slept for a long time. She was very tired. She was also warm and comfortable. She dozed off.

She didn’t know how long she slept, but when she woke up again and looked out over the edge of the ear, the landscape had changed completely. They were in a green country now, with mountains and forests. It was still dark but the moon was shining as brightly as ever.

Suddenly and without slowing his pace, the BFG turned his head sharply to the left. For the first time during the entire journey he spoke a few words. ‘Look quick-quick over there,’ he said, pointing his long trumpet.

Sophie looked in the direction he was pointing. Through the murky darkness all she saw at first was a great cloud of dust about three hundred yards away.

‘Those is the other giants all galloping back home after their guzzle,’ the BFG said.

Then Sophie saw them. In the light of the moon, she saw all nine of those monstrous half-naked brutes thundering across the landscape together. They were galloping in a pack, their necks craned forward, their arms bent at the elbows, and worst of all, their stomachs bulging. The strides they took were incredible. Their speed was unbelievable. Their feet pounded and thundered on the ground and left a great sheet of dust behind them. But in ten seconds they were gone.