The BFG by Roald Dahl Page B

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.
     

    ‘A lot of little girlsies and boysies is no longer sleeping in their beds tonight,’ the BFG said.
    Sophie felt quite ill.
    But this grim encounter made her more than ever determined to go through with her mission.
    It must have been about an hour or so later that the BFG began to slow his pace. ‘We is in England now,’ he said suddenly.
    Dark though it was, Sophie could see that they were in a country of green fields with neat hedges in between the fields. There were hills with trees all over them and occasionally there were roads with the lights of cars moving along. Each time they came to a road, the BFG was over it and away, and no motorist could possibly have seen anything except a quick black shadow flashing overhead.
    All at once, a curious orange-coloured glow appeared in the night sky ahead of them.
    ‘We is coming close to London,’ the BFG said.
    He slowed to a trot. He began looking about cautiously.
    Groups of houses were now appearing on all sides. But there were still no lights in their windows. It was too early for anyone to be getting up yet.
    ‘Someone’s bound to see us,’ Sophie said.
    ‘Never is they seeing me,’ the BFG said confidently. ‘You is forgetting that I is doing this sort of thing for years and years and years. No human bean is ever catching even the smallest wink of me.’
    ‘I did,’ Sophie whispered.
    ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Yes. But you was the very first.’
    During the next half-hour, things moved so swiftly and so silently that Sophie, crouching in the giant’s ear, was unable to understand exactly what was going on. They were in streets. There were houses everywhere. Sometimes there were shops. There were bright lamps in the streets. There were quite a few people about and there were cars with lights on. But nobody ever noticed the BFG. It was impossible to understand quite how he did it. There was a kind of magic in his movements. He seemed to melt into the shadows. He would glide – that was the only word to describe his way of moving – he would glide noiselessly from one dark place to another, always moving, always gliding forward through the streets of London, his black cloak blending with the shadows of the night.
    It is quite possible that one or two late-night wanderers might have