BFG

Sophie couldn't sleep. It was the witching hour, that secret time when all the dark things come out from hiding and have the world to themselves. Peeking out her orphanage window, she saw it - something tall and black and very thin, moving down the moonlit street. It was a giant, four times as tall as any man, and in one hand he carried a long, thin trumpet, and in the other, a suitcase. He stopped outside the Goochey children's window, opened the suitcase, took out a glass jar, and poured its invisible contents into his trumpet. Then he poked the trumpet through the window and blew. As he turned to leave, his enormous, long, pale, wrinkly face caught sight of Sophie. His eyes, bright and fierce, stared straight at her. Before she could even scream, a huge hand snaked through her own window, plucked her from her bed, blanket and all, and whisked her into the night.

She was carried at an impossible speed over fields and rivers, the wind whipping past her face. The Giant ran until the world was a blur, until they arrived in a desolate yellow land scattered with blue rocks and dead trees. He rolled away a stone as big as a house, revealing a dark cave, and stepped inside. There, in the sudden blaze of light, Sophie saw an enormous cavern lined with thousands of glass jars. The Giant set her down on a table twelve feet high. “I is hungry!” he boomed, his voice like thunder, and Sophie trembled, certain her end had come.

But this was no ordinary man-gobbling giant. He was, he explained, the Big Friendly Giant - the BFG. While the other nine giants in this land galloped off each night to gobble up “human beans” from every corner of the world, he did not. The Bonecruncher preferred Turks for their “scrumdiddlyumptious” flavour, while others sought the hatty taste of Panamanians or the booty flavour of Wellington. The BFG, however, survived on a single, disgusting vegetable: the foul-tasting, knobbly snozzcumber. He was a freak, a runt among his kind, and for his refusal to eat people, he was mercilessly bullied by the others.

The BFG revealed his true purpose. The jars lining his cave were not for food, but for dreams. Using his marvelous, truck-wheel-sized ears, which could hear the footsteps of a ladybird and the secret whisperings of the world, he traveled to a misty, vaporous land to catch dreams with a net. He caught good dreams, golden phizzwizards, and bad ones, terrible trogglehumpers. These he bottled and, on his nightly visits, blew the good ones into the bedrooms of sleeping children. Sophie's terror slowly transformed into a deep and abiding affection for this lonely, kind-hearted giant with his wonderfully mixed-up words.

Her new life was not without peril. One day, the fifty-foot Bloodbottler giant barged into the cave, convinced the BFG was hiding a human bean. Sophie dove for cover inside the half-eaten snozzcumber. The Bloodbottler, mocking the BFG's diet, grabbed the vegetable and took a massive bite. For a terrifying moment, Sophie was inside the monster's mouth before he spat everything out in disgust. “Eeeeeowitch!” he roared, smashing the snozzcumber over the BFG's head. Later, Sophie witnessed the other giants galloping off to England to eat schoolchildren, and she knew something had to be done.

A great plan began to form in Sophie's mind, a wild, “frothbungling” idea. She convinced the BFG to mix a special dream from his collection - a terrible trogglehumper. It would be a dream for the Queen of England herself, a nightmare showing her nine gruesome giants snatching children from their beds. The dream would name the giants - Fleshlumpeater, Childchewer, Gizzardgulper - and it would tell of a Big Friendly Giant who knew where to find them. And finally, it would tell her that a little girl named Sophie was sitting on her window-sill, ready to confirm it all.

Under the cloak of the witching hour, they journeyed to London. The BFG glided like a black shadow through the silent streets, leaping over Hyde Park Corner in a single bound and landing softly in the Queen's garden. He found her window, his great ears listening for her breathing, and gently placed Sophie on the sill. Then he raised his long trumpet and blew the nightmare into the room. Sophie waited, a tiny figure in a nightie, perched high above the royal lawn.

At dawn, the Queen awoke with a cry. “Oh Mary!” she said to her maid. “I've had the most frightful dream!” Just then, the maid brought in the morning papers, her face as white as a sheet. The headlines were stark: eighteen girls had vanished from Roedean School, fourteen boys from Eton. Bones had been found under the windows. The Queen stared, horrified, realizing her dream was echoing reality. “Shall I draw the curtains, ma'am?” the maid asked. With a swish, the curtains were pulled aside, revealing Sophie, sitting right there on the window-sill, just as the dream had foretold.

The Queen, though shaken, listened to Sophie's story and summoned the BFG from the garden. He bowed low, his head level with her window. “Your Majester,” he said, “I is your humbug servant.” An extraordinary breakfast was arranged in the Ballroom, with a grand piano for the BFG's chair and grandfather clocks for his table. Convinced by the BFG's account - and a few quick telephone calls to the King of Sweden and the Sultan of Baghdad, who confirmed their own recent, mysterious losses - the Queen summoned the heads of her Army and Air Force.

The BFG led a squadron of nine helicopters back to the desolate wasteland. They arrived as the giants were sleeping off their meal. The soldiers tied them up with ropes and chains, and with Sophie's quick thinking and the sharp pin of a sapphire brooch, even the formidable Fleshlumpeater was subdued. The nine captive giants were slung beneath the helicopters and flown to England, where they were lowered into a five-hundred-foot pit. Their only food for the rest of their lives would be the disgusting snozzcumbers, grown especially for them in the royal garden. The BFG and Sophie became heroes of the world, and in a fine house built next to the Queen's palace, the BFG, having learned to write, picked up a pencil and began to write down the story of their grand adventure.