Roald Dahl's Mischief and Mayhem Read online

  As soon as Wolf began to feel

  That he would like a decent meal,

  He went and knocked on Grandma’s door.

  When Grandma opened it, she saw

  The sharp white teeth, the horrid grin,

  And Wolfie said, ‘May I come in?’

  Poor Grandmamma was terrified,

  ‘He’s going to eat me up,’ she cried.

  And she was absolutely right.

  He ate her up in one big bite.

  But Grandmamma was small and tough,

  And Wolfie wailed, ‘That’s not enough!

  ‘I haven’t yet begun to feel

  ‘That I have had a decent meal!’

  He ran around the kitchen yelping,

  ‘I’ve got to have another helping!’

  Then added with a frightful leer,

  ‘I’m therefore going to wait right here

  ‘Till Little Miss Red Riding Hood

  ‘Comes home from walking in the wood.’

  He quickly put on Grandma’s clothes.

  (Of course he hadn’t eaten those.)

  He dressed himself in coat and hat.

  He put on shoes and after that

  He even brushed and curled his hair,

  Then sat himself in Grandma’s chair.

  In came the little girl in red.

  She stopped. She stared. And then she said,

  ‘What great big ears you have, Grandma.’

  ‘All the better to hear you with,’ the Wolf replied.

  ‘What great big eyes you have, Grandma,’

  said Little Red Riding Hood.

  ‘All the better to see you with,’ the Wolf replied.

  He sat there watching her and smiled.

  He thought, I’m going to eat this child.

  Compared with her old Grandmamma

  She’s going to taste like caviare.

  Then Little Red Riding Hood said, ‘But Grandma, what a lovely great big furry coat you have on.’

  ‘That’s wrong!’ cried Wolf. ‘Have you forgot

  ‘To tell me what BIG TEETH I’ve got?

  ‘Ah well, no matter what you say,

  ‘I’m going to eat you anyway.’

  The small girl smiles. One eyelid flickers.

  She whips a pistol from her knickers.

  She aims it at the creature’s head

  And bang bang bang, she shoots him dead.

  A few weeks later, in the wood,

  I came across Miss Riding Hood.

  But what a change! No cloak of red,

  No silly hood upon her head.

  She said, ‘Hello, and do please note

  ‘My lovely furry WOLFSKIN COAT.’

  Red riding hoods are SO century-before-last. Update your look and swap that red cape for a red hoody. Get one for your grandmamma while you’re at it. Then you can both easily trick the Wolf into thinking you’re not

  Little Red Riding Hood

  and Grandmamma at all and would be nowhere near as delicious as either of them. AND you’ll be warm. (And VERY cool at the same time.) But if you really want to avoid being eaten, it’s probably best not to live in a wooden cottage in the deep, dark woods at all. It’s the first place a wolf looks for his lunch.

  In which Mrs Twit shows Mr Twit that she has eyes EVERYWHERE.

  You can play a lot of tricks with a glass eye because you can take it out and pop it back in again any time you like. You can bet your life Mrs Twit knew all the tricks.

  One morning she took out her glass eye and dropped it into Mr Twit’s mug of beer when he wasn’t looking.

  Mr Twit sat there drinking the beer slowly. The froth made a white ring on the hairs around his mouth. He wiped the white froth on to his sleeve and wiped his sleeve on his trousers.

  ‘You’re plotting something,’ Mrs Twit said, keeping her back turned so he wouldn’t see that she had taken out her glass eye. ‘Whenever you go all quiet like that I know very well you’re plotting something.’

  Mrs Twit was right. Mr Twit was plotting away like mad. He was trying to think up a really nasty trick he could play on his wife that day.

  ‘You’d better be careful,’ Mrs Twit said, ‘because when I see you starting to plot, I watch you like a wombat.’

  ‘Oh, do shut up, you old hag,’ Mr Twit said. He went on drinking his beer, and his evil mind kept working away on the latest horrid trick he was going to play on the old woman.

  Suddenly, as Mr Twit tipped the last drop of beer down his throat, he caught sight of Mrs Twit’s awful glass eye staring up at him from the bottom of the mug. It made him jump.

  ‘I told you I was watching you,’ cackled Mrs Twit. ‘I’ve got eyes everywhere so you’d better be careful.’

  You don’t need a glass eye to play the same trick as Mrs Twit. Oh no. Here’s a much tastier alternative.

  YOU WILL NEED:

  One lychee (a fancy white fruit that looks VERY like an eyeball and tastes DELICIOUS)

  One green olive

  One raisin

  One teaspoon

  One cocktail stick or toothpick

  WHAT YOU DO:

  Using your teaspoon, hollow out the lychee until you have made an olive-sized hole.

  Put the olive into the hole.

  Now use your cocktail stick or toothpick to make a raisin-sized hole in the olive.

  Put the raisin into the hole.

  Voilà! You’ve made a joke eye! The lychee is the white of the eye, the olive the iris and the raisin the pupil.

  Now all you have to do is pop the joke eye in your unsuspecting victim’s drink and wait for them to SCREEEEEEEEEEEEAM!

  In which Mr Twit pays back Mrs Twit for putting a glass eye in his beer by hiding a Giant Skillywiggler in her bed.

  To pay her back for the glass eye in his beer, Mr Twit decided he would put a frog in Mrs Twit’s bed.

  He caught a big one down by the pond and carried it back secretly in a box.

  That night, when Mrs Twit was in the bathroom getting ready for bed, Mr Twit slipped the frog between her sheets. Then he got into his own bed and waited for the fun to begin.

  Mrs Twit came back and climbed into her bed and put out the light. She lay there in the dark scratching her tummy. Her tummy was itching. Dirty old hags like her always have itchy tummies.

  Then all at once she felt something cold and slimy crawling over her feet. She screamed.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Mr Twit said.

  ‘Help!’ screamed Mrs Twit, bouncing about. ‘There’s something in my bed!’

  ‘I’ll bet it’s that Giant Skillywiggler I saw on the floor just now,’ Mr Twit said.

  ‘That what?’ screamed Mrs Twit.

  ‘I tried to kill it but it got away,’ Mr Twit said. ‘It’s got teeth like screwdrivers!’

  ‘Help!’ screamed Mrs Twit. ‘Save me! It’s all over my feet!’

  ‘It’ll bite off your toes,’ said Mr Twit.

  Mrs Twit fainted.

  Mr Twit got out of bed and fetched a jug of cold water. He poured the water over Mrs Twit’s head to revive her. The frog crawled up from under the sheets to get near the water. It started jumping about on the pillow. Frogs love water. This one was having a good time.

  When Mrs Twit came to, the frog had just jumped on to her face. This is not a nice thing to happen to anyone in bed at night. She screamed again.

  ‘By golly it is a Giant Skillywiggler!’ Mr Twit said. ‘It’ll bite off your nose.’

  Mrs Twit leapt out of bed and flew downstairs and spent the night on the sofa. The frog went to sleep on her pillow.

  Giant Skillywigglers (and frogs) are a little hard to come by and they can REALLY muck up a matching duvet-and-pillo