The BFG Read Online Free PDF Page A

langwitch.’
    ‘Go on,’ Sophie said.
    ‘Sometimes, on a very clear night,’ the BFG said, ‘and if I is swiggling my ears in the right direction,’ – and here he swivelled his great ears upwards so they were facing the ceiling – ‘if I is swiggling them like this and the night is very clear, I is sometimes hearing faraway music coming from the stars in the sky.’
    A queer little shiver passed through Sophie’s body. She sat very quiet, waiting for more.
    ‘My ears is what told me you was watching me out of your window last night,’ the BFG said.
    ‘But I didn’t make a sound,’ Sophie said.
    ‘I was hearing your heart beating across the road,’ the BFG said. ‘Loud as a drum.’
    ‘Go on,’ Sophie said. ‘Please.’
    ‘I can hear plants and trees.’
    ‘Do they talk?’ Sophie asked.
    ‘They is not exactly talking,’ the BFG said. ‘But they is making noises. For instance, if I come along and I is picking a lovely flower, if I is twisting the stem of the flower till it breaks, then the plant is screaming. I can hear it screaming and screaming very clear.’
    ‘You don’t mean it!’ Sophie cried. ‘How awful!’
    ‘It is screaming just like you would be screaming if someone was twisting your arm right off.’
    ‘Is that really true?’ Sophie asked.
    ‘You think I is swizzfiggling you?’
    ‘It is rather hard to believe.’
    ‘Then I is stopping right here,’ said the BFG sharply. ‘I is not wishing to be called a fibster.’
    ‘Oh no! I’m not calling you anything!’ Sophie cried. ‘I believe you! I do really! Please go on!’
    The BFG gave her a long hard stare. Sophie looked right back at him, her face open to his. ‘I believe you,’ she said softly.
    She had offended him, she could see that.
    ‘I wouldn’t ever be fibbling to you,’ he said.
    ‘I know you wouldn’t,’ Sophie said. ‘But you must understand that it isn’t easy to believe such amazing things straight away.’
    ‘I understand that,’ the BFG said.
    ‘So do please forgive me and go on,’ she said.
    He waited a while longer, and then he said, ‘It is the same with trees as it is with flowers. If I is chopping an axe into the trunk of a big tree, I is hearing a terrible sound coming from inside the heart of the tree.’
    ‘What sort of sound?’ Sophie asked.
    ‘A soft moaning sound,’ the BFG said. ‘It is like the sound an old man is making when he is dying slowly.’
    He paused. The cave was very silent.
    ‘Trees is living and growing just like you and me,’ he said. ‘They is alive. So is plants.’
    He was sitting very straight in his chair now, his hands clasped tightly together in front of him. His face was bright, his eyes round and bright as two stars.
    ‘Such wonderful and terrible sounds I is hearing!’ he said. ‘Some of them you would never wish to be hearing yourself! But some is like glorious music!’
    He seemed almost to be transfigured by the excitement of his thoughts. His face was beautiful in its blaze of emotions.
    ‘Tell me some more about them,’ Sophie said quietly.
    ‘You just ought to be hearing the little micies talking!’ he said. ‘Little micies is always talking to each other and I is hearing them as loud as my own voice.’
    ‘What do they say?’ Sophie asked.
    ‘Only the micies know that,’ he said. ‘Spiders is also talking a great deal. You might not be thinking it but spiders is the most tremendous natterboxes. And when they is spinning their webs, they is singing all the time. They is singing sweeter than a nightingull.’
    ‘Who else do you hear?’ Sophie asked.
    ‘One of the biggest chatbags is the cattlepiddlers,’ the BFG said.
    ‘What do they say?’
    ‘They is argying all the time about who is going to be the prettiest butteryfly. That is all they is ever talking about.’
    ‘Is there a dream floating around in here now?’ Sophie asked.
    The BFG moved his great ears this way and that, listening intently. He shook his head. ‘There