Rhyme Stew Read online

  Contents

  Dick Whittington and His Cat

  St Ives

  A Hand in the Bird

  The Tortoise and the Hare

  The Price of Debauchery

  Physical Training

  The Emperor’s New Clothes

  A Little Nut-Tree

  The Dentist and the Crocodile

  Hot and Cold

  Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

  Hey Diddle Diddle

  Mary, Mary

  Hansel and Gretel

  Aladdin and the Magic Lamp

  ABOUT ROALD DAHL AND QUENTIN BLAKE

  Roald Dahl was born in 1916 in Wales of Norwegian parents. He was educated in England before starting work for the Shell Oil Company in Africa. He began writing after a ‘monumental bash on the head’ sustained as an RAF fighter pilot during the Second World War. Roald Dahl is one of the most successful and well known of all children’s writers. His books, which are read by children the world over, include James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Magic Finger, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Fantastic Mr Fox, Matilda, The Twits, The BFG and The Witches, winner of the 1983 Whitbread Award. Roald Dahl died in 1990 at the age of seventy-four.

  Quentin Blake was born in the suburbs of London in 1932. He read English at Cambridge, and did a postgraduate certificate in education at London University. From 1949 he worked as a cartoonist for many magazines, most notably The Spectator and Punch. He moved into children’s book illustration where his inimitable style has won him enormous acclaim. Alongside this he has pursued a teaching career: he was head of the illustration department at the Royal College of Art and is now an Honorary Professor. In 1999 Quentin Blake was chosen to be the first Children’s Laureate, and in 2005 he was awarded the CBE for services to children’s literature.

  Books by Roald Dahl

  THE BFG

  BOY: TALES OF CHILDHOOD

  CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

  CHARLIE AND THE GREAT GLASS ELEVATOR

  DANNY THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD

  GEORGE’S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE

  GOING SOLO

  JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH

  MATILDA

  THE WITCHES

  For younger readers

  THE ENORMOUS CROCODILE

  ESIO TROT

  FANTASTIC MR FOX

  THE GIRAFFE AND THE PELLY AND ME

  THE MAGIC FINGER

  THE TWITS

  Picture books

  DIRTY BEASTS (with Quentin Blake)

  THE ENORMOUS CROCODILE (with Quentin Blake)

  THE GIRAFFE AND THE PELLY AND ME (with Quentin Blake)

  THE MINPINS (with Patrick Benson)

  REVOLTING RHYMES (with Quentin Blake)

  Plays

  THE BFG: PLAYS FOR CHILDREN (Adapted by David Wood)

  CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY: A PLAY (Adapted by Richard George)

  DANNY THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD: PLAYS FOR CHILDREN (Adapted by David Wood)

  FANTASTIC MR FOX: A PLAY (Adapted by Sally Reid)

  JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH: A PLAY (Adapted by Richard George)

  THE TWITS: PLAYS FOR CHILDREN (Adapted by David Wood)

  THE WITCHES: PLAYS FOR CHILDREN (Adapted by David Wood)

  Teenage fiction

  THE GREAT AUTOMATIC GRAMMATIZATOR AND OTHER STORIES

  RHYME STEW

  SKIN AND OTHER STORIES

  THE VICAR OF NIBBLESWICKE

  THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR AND SIX MORE

  Collections

  THE ROALD DAHL TREASURY

  SONGS AND VERSE

  For Liccy

  Dick Whittington and His Cat

  Dick Whittington had oft been told

  That London’s streets were paved with gold.

  “We’d better have a look at that,”

  He murmured to his faithful cat.

  And finally they made it there

  And finished up in Berkeley Square.

  So far so good, but Dicky knew

  That he must find some work to do.

  Imagine, if you can, his joy

  At being made the pantry-boy

  To Lord and Lady Hellespont!

  What more could any young lad want?

  His Lordship’s house was huge and warm,

  Each footman wore a uniform,

  Rich carpets lay on all the floors,

  And big brass door-knobs on the doors.

  Why, Whittington had never seen

  A house so marvellously clean,

  Although, regrettably, his cat

  Soon did some things to alter that.

  His Lordship kicked the cat so hard

  It landed in a neighbour’s yard,

  But still each morning on the floor

  It did what it had done before.

  His Lordship shouted, “Fetch my gun!

  I’ll nail the blighter on the run!

  Call up the beaters! Flush him out!

  I know he’s somewhere hereabout!”

  It is a fact that wealthy men

  Do love to shoot things now and then.

  They shoot at partridge, pheasant, grouse,

  Though not so much inside the house.

  But now His Lordship stalks the brute

  With gun in hand, prepared to shoot.

  He crouches down behind a chair.

  Ah-ha! What’s moving over there?

  Of course the poor sap couldn’t know

  His wife was on the portico,

  Locked in a passionate embrace

  With second footman, Albert Grace.

  The gun goes off, bang-bang, boom-boom!

  The noise explodes around the room.

  You should have seen the lady jump

  As grapeshot struck her in the rump,

  And in the kitchen, washing up,

  Dick jumps and breaks a precious cup.

  This is a crime no decent cook

  Could bring herself to overlook.

  This cook, a brawny powerful wench,

  Put Whittington across the bench

  And systematically began

  To beat him with a frying-pan

  Which she had very quickly got

  From off the stove, all sizzling hot.

  Poor Whittington, his rump aflame,

  At last escapes the fearsome dame

  And runs outside across the street,

  Clutching his steaming smoking seat.

  The cat, now very frightened, said,

  “Let’s beat it quick before we’re dead.”

  At that point, with an angry shout

  Her Ladyship comes flying out.

  (Although indeed she had been shot,

  It wasn’t in a vital spot.)

  She yells, “I’m on the run as well!

  Old Hellespont can go to hell!”

  Just then, a peal of bells rings out.

  Each bell begins to sing and shout,

  And Dick could quite distinctly hear

  A message coming through the air.

  He actually could hear his name!

  He heard the Bells of Bow proclaim –

  Turn again, Whittington,

  Thou worthy citizen,

  Turn again, Whittington,

  Lord Mayor of London!

  “Lord Mayor of London!” cries the cat.

  “I’ve never heard such rot as that!”

  Her Ladyship butts in and yells,

  “The cat is right! That’s not the bells!

  Bow church has got a crazy vicar,

  A famous and fantastic tricker,

  A disco king, a hi-fi buff,

  A whizz on electronic stuff.

  He’s rigged up speakers in the steeple

  To fool dim-witted c