face, saying, ‘Mother, where are you? Where’ve you gone? Where’ve you got to?

How can I find you?’ But she calmed down quite quickly. And by lunchtime, she

was saying, ‘Ah well, I suppose it’s all for the best, really. She was a bit of

a nuisance around the house, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ Mr Kranky said. ‘She most certainly was.’

George didn’t say a word. He felt quite trembly. He knew something tremendous

had taken place that morning. For a few brief moments he had touched with the

very tips of his fingers the edge of a magic world.

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.