The BFG

® Arun's collections ®

- (INDISTINCT SHOUTING) - (CHEERFUL MUSIC PLAYING)

It was the witching hour,

when the bogeyman comes out.

When people go missing.

Matron thinks the witching hour arrives at midnight.

The girls say 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.

I think it comes at 3:00 in the morning,

when I'm the only one left awake.

Like always.

Like now.

Hat's in your eyes, mate.

- (MAN 2 COUGHS) Quiet. Quiet.

It's that way! Shh!

(LAUGHING) Quiet.

Come on. - (INDISTINCT CHATTER)

Shh. Quiet.

Get outta the water, mate.

- (MAN MUTTERING) It's unclean.

That stuff will kill you.

Oi!

You're bladdered, the lot of you.

Would you clear off?

There are children trying to sleep.

Hello, little missy!

Don't little missy me!

I'll call the coppers. I will do it.

Watch the water! Come on!

- (FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING) - (GASPS)

- (LOW GROWL) - (BOTTLE CLATTERS)

- (CLATTERING) - (MEOWS)

Never get out of bed.

Never go to the window

and never look behind

the curtain.

Never get out of bed! Never go to the window!

And never look behind the curtain.

There ain't no place to go

unless you has wings.

I is hungry. It's time for eats.

- Whoa! Whoa! - (GRUNTS)

Where am I?

Giant Country.

No such place.

We travelled a long, long way.

Yeah, it be a distance.

What's that? What's that?

Giants.

There are more of you?

Yeah, well...

Fleshlumpeater, Bonecruncher, Manhugger...

Childchewer, Meatdripper, Gizzardgulper, Maidmasher...

Bloodbottler.

Bloodbottler?

Yeah! And the Butcher Boy.

- Butcher Boy? - (LOUD BANG)

Please don't eat me.

Me?

You think because I'm a giant, that I'm a man-gobbling cannybull?

Me? Gobbling up human beans?

Do you mind? This I never...

Then who are you?

What kind of a monster are you?

You has me wrong.

You snatched me.

Yeah, well, there you has me right.

Anyway, I didn't steal you very much.

After all, you's only a little thing.

Still, but I can't help thinking about

your poor mother and father.

They must be skump...

I don't have a mother or father.

You don't?

They... They both died when I was a baby.

So you is a norphan?

Yes. You took me from an orphanage.

You didn't know?

I didn't know that.

Were you happy there?

No, I hate it.

The matron who runs it is incompetent, and she has crazy rules

and you get punished a lot!

How is you punished?

She locks you in a dark cellar.

There are rats down there.

The filthy old fizzwiggler.

The other giants, are they nice like you're nice?

No, I's sorry to say, the boys would eat you up in one dollop.

My 24 foot?

Puddlenuts in Giant Country.

And that's where you is, in Giant Country now.

But why did you bring me here, and why did you take me?

Well, I had to take you

'cause the first thing you'd be doing, you'd be scuttling around

and yodelling the news that you were actually seeing a giant.

And then, there would be a great rumple dumpus, wouldn't there?

And all the human beans would be rummaging

and whiffling for the giant what you saw, and getting wildly excited.

And then they'd be locking me up in a cage

to be looked at with all the squiggling, you know...

Hippodumplings, and crocadowndillies, and jiggyraffes.

And then, there would a gigantous look-see giant hunt for all of the boys.

I won't tell.

No one would listen to me anyway.

I'm an untrustworthy child.

Yes, you would.

No, I wouldn't.

Yes, you would.

No, I wouldn't.

- Yes, you would. - No, I wouldn't!

You would be telling the whole wonky world

most likely on the telly-telly bunkum box

and the radio squeaker.

I won't tell. I wouldn't ever.

Please, take me home. I'm scared. I want to go home.

No.

That's horrible.

You're just gonna have to be stayin' here with me for the rest of our lives.

You mean, of my life.

For the rest of my life.

Hey, is you not all frigidy cold, eh?

In your little nightie.

I will run away.

Listen. Listen, you.

- (MUFFLED MUMBLING) - I is warnin' you

not to ever go whiffling out of this cave without I is with you

or you is comin' to an ucky mucky end.

You can't stop me.

I've run away 1,000 times.

I have instincts.

Instincts? I thought human beans was full of brains.

You is not very clever.

I can stop you.

Eh.

Those giants,

they would swallop you up like a piece of frumpkin fry.

It's pumpkin pie, not frumpkin fry.

And jiggyraffes are giraffes.

Crocadowndillies are crocodiles,

and hippodumplings are hippopotamuses.

Well, I cannot be helpin' it if I was sayin' things a little squiggly.

I cannot be right all the time.

Quite often, I is left instead of right.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude.

Yeah.

Well, what I'm says and what I means

is sometimes two different things.

Hey, what is you reading?

Nicholas Nickleby.

- Ah? - What's in those jars?

Dreams.

Dreams aren't things.

I don't dream, actually. I've got insomnia.

Is that right?

Dreams is actually very mysterious things.

All the time

they is searching

for...

For sleeping

people.

"With throbbing veins and burning skin