Roald Dahl's Mischief and Mayhem Read online

  There. You’re done.

  Um . . . watch helplessly as your helper escapes from the desert island in the speedboat or the helicopter and leaves you stranded there.

  Cheer up! That’s a fabulous outfit. You look JUST LIKE a coconut tree. Bravo!

  Can you work out which Roald Dahl character this is?

  He is clever. How clever? Probably cleverer than all of your teachers at school and Newton and Einstein and Professor Stephen Hawking put together. THAT clever. And then some.

  He has a long handsome face.

  He has had the finest tail for miles around, until . . . Well, THAT would be giving the game away.

  He doesn’t like farmers, especially not Farmer Boggis, Farmer Bunce and Farmer Bean. And you wouldn’t either if you knew them.

  He is FANTASTIC. (Have you got it yet? Have you? HAVE YOU? Because this is officially the Biggest Clue Ever.)

  Who is he?

  The answer is here

  Terrible Tricks

  Phew! You must be exhausted after so much trickery. Grab a glass of that refreshing fizzy stuff that rots your teeth. (I’m sure your dentist will love the extra business.) Now put your feet up and relax with this FEARSOME QUIZ. Can you spot the victim of Willy Wonka’s four best tricks?

  1. Who went up a pipe?

  2. Who fell down a chute?

  3. Who was shrunk?

  4. Who became as big and round and blue as a massive blueberry?

  The answers are here. If you got all four correct, perform a celebratory rumba. If you didn’t, read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory again. It really is terribly good.

  In which Bruce Bogtrotter shows a great deal of chocolate-based bravery

  There was a small table centre stage with a chair behind it. The cook placed the cake carefully on the table. ‘Sit down, Bogtrotter,’ the Trunchbull said. ‘Sit there.’

  The boy moved cautiously to the table and sat down. He stared at the gigantic cake.

  ‘There you are, Bogtrotter,’ the Trunchbull said, and once again her voice became soft, persuasive, even gentle. ‘It’s all for you, every bit of it. As you enjoyed that slice you had yesterday so very much, I ordered cook to bake you an extra large one all for yourself.’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ the boy said, totally bemused.

  ‘Thank cook, not me,’ the Trunchbull said.

  ‘Thank you, cook,’ the boy said.

  The cook stood there like a shrivelled bootlace, tight-lipped, implacable, disapproving. She looked as though her mouth was full of lemon juice.

  ‘Come on then,’ the Trunchbull said. ‘Why don’t you cut yourself a nice thick slice and try it?’

  ‘What? Now?’ the boy said, cautious. He knew there was a catch in this somewhere, but he wasn’t sure where. ‘Can’t I take it home instead?’ he asked.

  ‘That would be impolite,’ the Trunchbull said, with a crafty grin. ‘You must show cookie here how grateful you are for all the trouble she’s taken.’

  The boy didn’t move.

  ‘Go on, get on with it,’ the Trunchbull said. ‘Cut a slice and taste it. We haven’t got all day.’

  The boy picked up the knife and was about to cut into the cake when he stopped. He stared at the cake. Then he looked up at the Trunchbull, then at the tall stringy cook with her lemon-juice mouth. All the children in the hall were watching tensely, waiting for something to happen. They felt certain it must. The Trunchbull was not a person who would give someone a whole chocolate cake to eat just out of kindness. Many were guessing that it had been filled with pepper or castor-oil or some other foul-tasting substance that would make the boy violently sick. It might even be arsenic and he would be dead in ten seconds flat. Or perhaps it was a booby-trapped cake and the whole thing would blow up the moment it was cut, taking Bruce Bogtrotter with it. No one in the school put it past the Trunchbull to do any of these things.

  ‘I don’t want to eat it,’ the boy said.

  ‘Taste it, you little brat,’ the Trunchbull said. ‘You’re insulting the cook.’

  Very gingerly the boy began to cut a thin slice of the vast cake. Then he levered the slice out. Then he put down the knife and took the sticky thing in his fingers and started very slowly to eat it.

  ‘It’s good, isn’t it?’ the Trunchbull asked.

  ‘Very good,’ the boy said, chewing and swallowing.

  He finished the slice.

  ‘Have another,’ the Trunchbull said.

  ‘That’s enough, thank you,’ the boy murmured.

  ‘I said have another,’ the Trunchbull said, and now there was an altogether sharper edge to her voice. ‘Eat another slice! Do as you are told!’

  ‘I don’t want another slice,’ the boy said.

  Suddenly the Trunchbull exploded. ‘Eat!’ she shouted, banging her thigh with the riding-crop. ‘If I tell you to eat, you will eat! You wanted cake! You stole cake! And now you’ve got cake! What’s more, you’re going to eat it! You do not leave this platform and nobody leaves this hall until you have eaten the entire cake that is sitting there in front of you! Do I make myself clear, Bogtrotter? Do you get my meaning?’

  The boy looked at the Trunchbull. Then he looked down at the enormous cake.

  ‘Eat! Eat! Eat!’ the Trunchbull was yelling.

  Very slowly the boy cut himself another slice and began to eat it.

  Matilda was fascinated. ‘Do you think he can do it?’ she whispered to Lavender.

  ‘No,’ Lavender whispered back. ‘It’s impossible. He’d be sick before he was halfway through.’

  The boy kept going. When he had finished the second slice, he looked at the Trunchbull, hesitating.

  ‘Eat!’ she shouted. ‘Greedy little thieves who like to eat cake must have cake! Eat faster boy! Eat faster! We don’t want to be here all day! And don’t stop like you’re doing now! Next time you stop before it’s all finished you’ll go straight into The Chokey and I shall lock the door and throw the key down the well!’

  The boy cut a third slice and started to eat it. He finished this one quicker than the other two and when that was done he immediately picked up the knife and cut the next slice. In some peculiar way he seemed to be getting into his stride.

  Matilda, watching closely, saw no signs of distress in the boy yet. If anything, he seemed to be gathering confidence as he went along. ‘He’s doing well,’ she whispered to Lavender.

  ‘He’ll be sick soon,’ Lavender whispered back. ‘It’s going to be horrid.’

  When Bruce Bogtrotter had eaten his way through half of the entire enormous cake, he paused for just a couple of seconds and took several deep breaths.

  The Trunchbull stood with hands on hips, glaring at him. ‘Get on with it!’ she shouted. ‘Eat it up!’

  Suddenly the boy let out a gigantic belch which rolled around the Assembly Hall like thunder. Many of the audience began to giggle.

  ‘Silence!’ shouted the Trunchbull.

  The boy cut himself another thick slice and started eating it fast. There were still no signs of flagging or giving up. He certainly did not look as though he was about to stop and cry out, ‘I can’t, I can’t eat any more! I’m going to be sick!’ He was still in there running.

  And now a subtle change was coming over the two hundred and fifty watching children in the audience. Earlier on, they had sensed impending disaster. They had prepared themselves for an unpleasant scene in which the wretched boy, stuffed to the gills with chocolate cake, would have to surrender and beg for mercy and then they would have watched the triumphant Trunchbull forcing more and still more cake into the mouth of the gasping boy.

  Not a bit of it. Bruce Bogtrotter was three-quarters of the way through and still going strong. One sensed that he was almost beginning to enjoy himself. He had a mountain to climb and he was jolly well going to reach the top or die in the attempt. W