Roald Dahl's Mischief and Mayhem Read online

  On this occasion he strode in and slapped his son on the back and shouted, ‘Well, my boy, your father feels he’s in for another great money-making day today at the garage! I’ve got a few little beauties I’m going to flog to the idiots this morning. Where’s my breakfast?’

  ‘It’s coming, treasure,’ Mrs Wormwood called from the kitchen.

  Matilda kept her face bent low over her cornflakes.She didn’t dare look up. In the first place she wasn’t at all sure what she was going to see. And secondly, if she did see what she thought she was going to see, she wouldn’t trust herself to keep a straight face. The son was looking directly ahead out of the window stuffing himself with bread and peanut-butter and strawberry jam.

  The father was just moving round to sit at the head of the table when the mother came sweeping out from the kitchen carrying a huge plate piled high with eggs and sausages and bacon and tomatoes. She looked up. She caught sight of her husband. She stopped dead. Then she let out a scream that seemed to lift her right up into the air and she dropped the plate with a crash and a splash on to the floor. Everyone jumped, including Mr Wormwood.

  ‘What the heck’s the matter with you, woman?’ he shouted. ‘Look at the mess you’ve made on the carpet!’

  ‘Your hair!’ the mother was shrieking, pointing a quivering finger at her husband. ‘Look at your hair! What’ve you done to your hair?’

  ‘What’s wrong with my hair, for heaven’s sake?’ he said.

  ‘Oh my gawd, Dad, what’ve you done to your hair?’ the son shouted.

  A splendid noisy scene was building up nicely in the breakfast room.

  Matilda said nothing. She simply sat there admiring the wonderful effect of her own handiwork. Mr Wormwood’s fine crop of black hair was now a dirty silver, the colour this time of a tightrope-walker’s tights that had not been washed for the entire circus season.

  ‘You’ve . . . you’ve . . . you’ve dyed it!’ shrieked the mother. ‘Why did you do it, you fool! It looks absolutely frightful! It looks horrendous! You look like a freak!’

  ‘What the blazes are you all talking about?’ the father yelled, putting both hands to his hair. ‘I most certainly have not dyed it! What d’you mean I’ve dyed it? What’s happened to it? Or is this some sort of a stupid joke?’ His face was turning pale green, the colour of sour apples.

  ‘You must have dyed it, Dad,’ the son said. ‘It’s the same colour as Mum’s, only much dirtier-looking.’

  ‘Of course he’s dyed it!’ the mother cried. ‘It can’t change colour all by itself! What on earth were you trying to do, make yourself look handsome or something? You look like someone’s grandmother gone wrong!’

  ‘Get me a mirror!’ the father yelled. ‘Don’t just stand there shrieking at me! Get me a mirror!’

  The mother’s handbag lay on a chair at the other end of the table. She opened the bag and got out a powder compact that had a small round mirror on the inside of the lid. She opened the compact and handed it to her husband. He grabbed it and held it before his face and in doing so spilled most of the powder all over the front of his fancy tweed jacket.

  ‘Be careful!’ shrieked the mother. ‘Now look what you’ve done! That’s my best Elizabeth Arden face powder!’

  ‘Oh my gawd!’ yelled the father, staring into the little mirror. ‘What’s happened to me! I look terrible! I look just like you gone wrong! I can’t go down to the garage and sell cars like this! How did it happen?’ He stared round the room, first at the mother, then at the son, then at Matilda. ‘How could it have happened?’ he yelled.

  ‘I imagine, Daddy,’ Matilda said quietly, ‘that you weren’t looking very hard and you simply took Mummy’s bottle of hair stuff off the shelf instead of your own.’

  ‘Of course that’s what happened!’ the mother cried. ‘Well really, Harry, how stupid can you get? Why didn’t you read the label before you started splashing the stuff all over you! Mine’s terribly strong. I’m only meant to use one tablespoon of it in a whole basin of water and you’ve gone and put it all over your head neat! It’ll probably take all your hair off in the end! Is your scalp beginning to burn, dear?’

  ‘You mean I’m going to lose all my hair?’ the husband yelled.

  ‘I think you will,’ the mother said. ‘Peroxide is a very powerful chemical. It’s what they put down the lavatory to disinfect the pan, only they give it another name.’

  ‘What are you saying!’ the husband cried. ‘I’m not a lavatory pan! I don’t want to be disinfected!’

  ‘Even diluted like I use it,’ the mother told him, ‘it makes a good deal of my hair fall out, so goodness knows what’s going to happen to you. I’m surprised it didn’t take the whole of the top of your head off!’

  ‘What shall I do?’ wailed the father. ‘Tell me quick what to do before it starts falling out!’

  Matilda said, ‘I’d give it a good wash, Dad, if I were you, with soap and water. But you’ll have to hurry.’

  ‘Will that change the colour back?’ the father asked anxiously.

  ‘Of course it won’t, you twit,’ the mother said.

  ‘Then what do I do? I can’t go around looking like this for ever!’

  ‘You’ll have to have it dyed black,’ the mother said. ‘But wash it first or there won’t be any there to dye.’

  ‘Right!’ the father shouted, springing into action. ‘Get me an appointment with your hairdresser this instant for a hair-dyeing job! Tell them it’s an emergency! They’ve got to boot someone else off their list! I’m going upstairs to wash it now!’ With that the man dashed out of the room and Mrs Wormwood, sighing deeply, went to the telephone to call the beauty parlour.

  ‘He does do some pretty silly things now and again, doesn’t he, Mummy?’ Matilda said.

  The mother, dialling the number on the phone, said, ‘I’m afraid men are not always quite as clever as they think they are. You will learn that when you get a bit older, my girl.’

  When Roald Dahl wrote Matilda, he claimed that

  Oil of Violets Hair Tonic and

  PLATINUM BLONDE HAIR-DYE

  EXTRA STRONG

  could be found in every hairdresser and every barbershop around the world. Now, they’re all gone. Every single bottle. Don’t ask me why. As a writer he sometimes made things up. And don’t panic either. For different hair effects, try adding these wonderful ingredients to the nearest shampoo bottle.

  Spectacular results are guaranteed.

  Add two teaspoons of GLITTER for super-sparkly hair.

  Add a few drops of FOOD COLOURING for red or yellow or green or blue or purple hair.

  Or just fill an empty bottle with CUSTARD. When applied to hair, this yellow gloop will not make the hair glossy or shiny or sparkly or highlighted. It will not condition dry hair and it will not mean that the owner of long princess hair can swing it round their shoulders in a big curtain of loveliness as if they are starring in a television commercial. It will just look as if a giant bird has pooped on their head. And how funny would that be?

  In which Augustus Gloop learns that drinking from a chocolate river is delicious yet VERY DANGEROUS.

  When Mr Wonka turned round and saw what Augustus Gloop was doing, he cried out, ‘Oh, no! Please, Augustus, please! I beg of you not to do that. My chocolate must be untouched by human hands!’

  ‘Augustus!’ called out Mrs Gloop. ‘Didn’t you hear what the man said? Come away from that river at once!’

  ‘This stuff is fabulous!’ said Augustus, taking not the slightest notice of his mother or Mr Wonka. ‘Gosh, I need a bucket to drink it properly!’

  ‘Augustus,’ cried Mr Wonka, hopping up and down and waggling his stick in the air, ‘you must come away. You are dirtying my chocolate!’

  ‘Augustus!’ cried Mrs Gloop.

  ‘Augustus!’ cried Mr Gloop.

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