Billy and the Minpins Read online

  Contents

  Being Good

  Run, Little Billy! Run Run Run!

  Woomph – Woomph!

  We Are the Minpins

  The Gruncher Knows You’re Up Here

  We Know All the Birds

  Call Up the Swan

  Little Billy Hung On Tight

  Hooray for Little Billy!

  I Will Never Forget You!

  Afterword by Quentin Blake

  ROALD DAHL was a spy, ace fighter pilot, chocolate historian and medical inventor. He was also the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG and many more brilliant stories. He remains THE WORLD’S NUMBER ONE STORYTELLER.

  QUENTIN BLAKE has illustrated more than three hundred books and was Roald Dahl’s favourite illustrator. In 1980 he won the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal. In 1999 he became the first ever Children’s Laureate and in 2013 he was knighted for services to illustration.

  For Ophelia

  Being Good

  Little Billy’s mother was always telling him exactly what he was allowed to do and what he was not allowed to do.

  All the things he was allowed to do were boring. All the things he was not allowed to do were exciting.

  One of the things he was NEVER NEVER allowed to do, the most exciting of them all, was to go out through the garden gate all by himself and explore the world beyond.

  On this sunny summer afternoon, Little Billy was kneeling on a chair in the living room, gazing out through the window at the wonderful world beyond. His mother was in the kitchen doing the ironing and although the door was open she couldn’t see him.

  Every now and again his mother would call out to him, saying, ‘Little Billy, what are you up to in there?’

  And Little Billy would always call back and say, ‘I’m being good, Mummy.’

  But Little Billy was awfully tired of being good.

  Through the window, not so very far away, he could see the big black secret wood that was called The Forest of Sin. It was something he had always longed to explore.

  His mother had told him that even grown-ups were frightened of going into The Forest of Sin. She recited a poem to him that was well known in the district. It went like this:

  Beware! Beware! The Forest of Sin!

  None come out, but many go in!

  ‘Why don’t they come out?’ Little Billy asked her. ‘What happens to them in the wood?’

  ‘That wood,’ his mother said, ‘is full of the most bloodthirsty wild beasts in the world.’

  ‘You mean tigers and lions?’ Little Billy asked.

  ‘Much worse than that,’ his mother said.

  ‘What’s worse than tigers and lions, Mummy?’

  ‘Whangdoodles are worse,’ his mother said, ‘and Hornswogglers and Snozzwanglers and Vermicious Knids.

  And worst of all is the Terrible Bloodsuckling Toothpluckling Stonechuckling Spittler. There’s one of them in there, too.’

  ‘A Spittler, Mummy?’

  ‘Of course. And when the Spittler chases after you, he blows clouds of hot smoke out of his nose.’

  ‘Would he eat me up?’ Little Billy asked.

  ‘In one gulp,’ his mother said.

  Little Billy did not believe a word of this. He guessed his mother was making it all up just to frighten him and stop him ever going out of the house alone.

  And now Little Billy was kneeling on the chair, gazing with longing through the window at the famous Forest of Sin.

  ‘Little Billy,’ his mother called out from the kitchen. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m being good, Mummy,’ Little Billy called back.

  Just then a funny thing happened. Little Billy began to hear somebody whispering in his ear. He knew exactly who it was. It was the Devil. The Devil always started whispering to him when he was especially bored.

  ‘It would be easy,’ the Devil was whispering, ‘to climb out through that window. No one would see you. And in a jiffy you would be in the garden, and in another jiffy you would be through the front gate, and in yet another jiffy you would be exploring the marvellous Forest of Sin all by yourself. It is a super place. Do not believe one word of what your mother says about Whangdoodles and Hornswogglers and Snozzwanglers and Vermicious Knids and the Terrible Bloodsuckling Toothpluckling Stonechuckling Spittler. There are no such things.’

  ‘What is in there?’ Little Billy whispered.

  ‘Wild strawberries,’ the Devil whispered back. ‘The whole floor of the forest is carpeted with wild strawberries, every one of them luscious and red and juicy-ripe. Go and see for yourself.’

  These were the words the Devil whispered softly into Little Billy’s ear on that sunny summer afternoon.

  The next moment, Little Billy had opened the window and was climbing out.

  Run, Little Billy! Run Run Run!

  In a jiffy Little Billy had dropped silently on to the flowerbed below.

  In another jiffy he was out through the garden gate.

  And in yet another jiffy he was standing on the very edge of the great big dark Forest of Sin!

  He had made it! He had got there! And now the forest was all his to explore!

  Was he nervous?

  What?

  Who said anything about being nervous?

  Hornswogglers? Vermicious Knids? What sort of rubbish was that?

  Little Billy hesitated.

  ‘I’m not nervous,’ he said. ‘I’m not in the least bit nervous. Not me.’

  Very very slowly, he walked into the great forest. Giant trees were soon surrounding him on all sides and their branches made an almost solid roof high above his head, blotting out the sky. Here and there little shafts of sunlight shone through gaps in the roof. There was not a sound anywhere. It was like being among the dead men in an enormous empty green cathedral.

  When he had ventured some distance into the forest, Little Billy stopped and stood quite still, listening. He could hear nothing. Nothing at all. There was absolute silence.

  Or was there?

  Hold on just one second.

  What was that?

  Little Billy flicked his head round and stared into the everlasting gloom and doom of the forest.

  There it was again! There was no mistaking it this time.

  From far away, there came a very faint whoozing whiffling noise, like a small gusty wind blowing through the trees.

  Then it grew louder. Every second it was growing louder, and suddenly it was no longer a small wind, it was a fearsome swooshing whooshing whiffling snorting noise that sounded as though some gigantic creature was breathing heavily through its nose as it galloped towards him.

  Little Billy turned and ran.

  Little Billy ran faster than he had ever run in his life before. But the swooshing whooshing whiffling snorting noise was coming after him. Worse still, it was getting louder. This meant that the thing, the maker of the noise, the galloping creature, was getting closer. It was catching him up!

  Run, Little Billy! Run run run!

  He dodged around massive trees. He skipped over roots and brambles. He bent low to flash under boughs and bushes. He had wings on his feet he ran so fast. But still the fearsome swooshing whooshing whiffling snorting noise grew louder and louder as it came closer and closer.

  Little Billy glanced back quickly over his shoulder, and now, in the distance, he saw a sight that froze his blood and made icicles in his veins.

  What he saw were two mighty puffs of orange-red smoke billowing and rolling through the trees in his direction. These were followed by two more, whoosh whoosh, and then two more, whoosh whoosh, and they must surely be coming, Little Billy told himself, from the two nose-holes of some galloping panting beast that had smelled him out an