Roald Dahl's Mischief and Mayhem, Page 2

  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.

&n
bsp; But Augustus was deaf to everything except the call of his enormous stomach. He was now lying full length on the ground with his head far out over the river, lapping up the chocolate like a dog.

  ‘Augustus!’ shouted Mrs Gloop. ‘You’ll be giving that nasty cold of yours to about a million people all over the country!’

  ‘Be careful, Augustus!’ shouted Mr Gloop. ‘You’re leaning too far out!’

  Mr Gloop was absolutely right. For suddenly there was a shriek, and then a splash, and into the river went Augustus Gloop, and in one second he had disappeared under the brown surface.

  ‘Save him!’ screamed Mrs Gloop, going white in the face, and waving her umbrella about. ‘He’ll drown! He can’t swim a yard! Save him! Save him!’

  ‘Good heavens, woman,’ said Mr Gloop, ‘I’m not diving in there! I’ve got my best suit on!’

  Augustus Gloop’s face came up again to the surface, painted brown with chocolate. ‘Help! Help! Help!’ he yelled. ‘Fish me out!’

  ‘Don’t just stand there!’ Mrs Gloop screamed at Mr Gloop. ‘Do something!’

  ‘I am doing something!’ said Mr Gloop, who was now taking off his jacket and getting ready to dive into the chocolate. But while he was doing this, the wretched boy was being sucked closer and closer towards the mouth of one of the great pipes that was dangling down into the river. Then all at once, the powerful suction took hold of him completely, and he was pulled under the surface and then into the mouth of the pipe.

  The crowd on the riverbank waited breathlessly to see where he would come out.

  ‘There he goes!’ somebody shouted, pointing upwards.

  And sure enough, because the pipe was made of glass, Augustus Gloop could be clearly seen shooting up inside it, head first, like a torpedo.

  ‘Help! Murder! Police!’ screamed Mrs Gloop. ‘Augustus, come back at once! Where are you going?’

  ‘It’s a wonder to me,’ said Mr Gloop, ‘how that pipe is big enough for him to go through it.’

  ‘It isn’t big enough!’ said Charlie Bucket. ‘Oh dear, look! He’s slowing down!’

  ‘So he is!’ said Grandpa Joe.

  ‘He’s going to stick!’ said Charlie.

  ‘I think he is!’ said Grandpa Joe.

  ‘By golly, he has stuck!’ said Charlie.

  ‘It’s his stomach that’s done it!’ said Mr Gloop.

  ‘He’s blocked the whole pipe!’ said Grandpa Joe.

  ‘Smash the pipe!’ yelled Mrs Gloop, still waving her umbrella. ‘Augustus, come out of there at once!’

  The watchers below could see the chocolate swishing around the boy in the pipe, and they could see it building up behind him in a solid mass, pushing against the blockage. The pressure was terrific. Something had to give. Something did give, and that something was Augustus. WHOOF! Up he shot again like a bullet in the barrel of a gun.

  Everyone* loves chocolate. So why not take advantage of this fact and play a FIENDISHLY naughty trick on someone who simply adores the stuff?

  *And if they don’t, they clearly need a trip to a chocolate factory to sort them out.

  YOU WILL NEED

  Two mugs

  Four teaspoons of drinking chocolate

  Two teaspoons of gravy mix

  WHAT YOU DO:

  Offer to make hot chocolate for an adult who loves chocolate.

  Make a mug of deliciously chocolatey hot chocolate using two teaspoons of drinking chocolate. (Ask an older person who’s in on the trick to supervise the hot water or hot milk. You really don’t want to spill it on yourself.)

  Make another mug of deliciously chocolatey hot chocolate using two teaspoons of drinking chocolate AND two teaspoons of gravy mix. Stir well.

  Now take the two drinks into the room where your unsuspecting adult is waiting.

  Give the mug of choco-gravy to the adult and (this is VERY important) keep the mug of real hot chocolate for yourself.

  Sip the hot chocolate and say, ‘Mmmmmmmmmm . . . ’

  Wait for your victim to say,

  In which Matilda has decided to stand up for herself against her mean father by tampering with his pork-pie hat and sending him into an APOPLECTIC rage, all the while remaining so sweet and innocent that she cannot possibly be blamed.

  The hat itself was one of those flat-topped pork-pie jobs with a jay’s feather stuck in the hatband and Mr Wormwood was very proud of it. He thought it gave him a rakish daring look, especially when he wore it at an angle with his loud checked jacket and green tie.

  Matilda, holding the hat in one hand and a thin tube of Superglue in the other, proceeded to squeeze a line of glue very neatly all round the inside rim of the hat. Then she carefully hooked the hat back on to the peg with the walking-stick. She timed this operation very carefully, applying the glue just as her father was getting up from the breakfast table.

  Mr Wormwood didn’t notice anything when he put the hat on, but when he arrived at the garage he couldn’t get it off. Superglue is very powerful stuff, so powerful it will take your skin off if you pull too hard. Mr Wormwood didn’t want to be scalped so he had to keep the hat on his head the whole day long, even when putting sawdust in gear-boxes and fiddling the mileages of cars with his electric drill. In an effort to save face, he adopted a casual attitude hoping that his staff would think that he actually meant to keep his hat on all day long just for the heck of it, like gangsters do in the films.

  When he got home that evening he still couldn’t get the hat off. ‘Don’t be silly,’ his wife said. ‘Come here. I’ll take it off for you.’

  She gave the hat a sharp yank. Mr Wormwood let out a yell that rattled the window-panes. ‘Ow-w-w!’ he screamed. ‘Don’t do that! Let go! You’ll take half the skin off my forehead!’

  Matilda, nestling in her usual chair, was watching this performance over the rim of her book with some interest.

  ‘What’s the matter, Daddy?’ she said. ‘Has your head suddenly swollen or something?’

  The father glared at his daughter with deep suspicion, but said nothing. How could he? Mrs Wormwood said to him, ‘It must be Superglue. It couldn’t be anything else. That’ll teach you to go playing around with nasty stuff like that. I expect you were trying to stick another feather in your hat.’

  ‘I haven’t touched the flaming stuff!’ Mr Wormwood shouted. He turned and looked again at Matilda, who looked back at him with large innocent brown eyes.

  Mrs Wormwood said to him, ‘You should read the label on the tube before you start messing with dangerous products. Always follow the instructions on the label.’

  ‘What in heaven’s name are you talking about, you stupid witch?’ Mr Wormwood shouted, clutching the brim of his hat to stop anyone trying to pull it off again. ‘D’you think I’m so stupid I’d glue this thing to my head on purpose?’

  Matilda said, ‘There’s a boy down the road who got some Superglue on his finger without knowing it and then he put his finger to his nose.’

  Mr Wormwood jumped. ‘What happened to him?’ he spluttered.

  ‘The finger got stuck inside his nose,’ Matilda said, ‘and he had to go around like that for a week. People kept saying to him, “Stop picking your nose,” and he couldn’t do anything about it. He looked an awful fool.’

  ‘Serve him right,’ Mrs Wormwood said. ‘He shouldn’t have put his finger up there in the first place. It’s a nasty habit. If all children had Superglue put on their fingers they’d soon stop doing it.’

  Matilda said, ‘Grown-ups do it too, Mummy. I saw you doing it yesterday in the kitchen.’

  ‘That’s quite enough from you,’ Mrs Wormwood said, turning pink.

  Mr Wormwood had to keep his hat on all through supper in front of the television. He looked ridiculous and he stayed very silent.

  When he went up to bed he tried again to get the thing of
f, and so did his wife, but it wouldn’t budge. ‘How am I going to have my shower?’ he demanded.

  ‘You’ll just have to do without it, won’t you,’ his wife told him. And later on, as she watched her skinny little husband skulking around the bedroom in his purple-striped pyjamas with a pork-pie hat on his head, she thought how stupid he looked. Hardly the kind of man a wife dreams about, she told herself.

  Mr Wormwood discovered that the worst thing about having a permanent hat on his head was having to sleep in it. It was impossible to lie comfortably on the pillow. ‘Now do stop fussing around,’ his wife said to him after he had been tossing and turning for about an hour. ‘I expect it will be loose by the morning and then it’ll slip off easily.’

  But it wasn’t loose by the morning and it wouldn’t slip off. So Mrs Wormwood took a pair of scissors and cut the thing off his head, bit by bit, first the top and then the brim. Where the inner band had stuck to the hair all around the sides and back, she had to chop the hair off right to the skin so that he finished up with a bald white ring round his head, like some sort of a monk. And in the front, where the band had stuck directly to the bare skin, there remained a whole lot of small patches of brown leathery stuff that no amount of washing would get off.

  At breakfast Matilda said to him, ‘You must try to get those bits off your forehead, Daddy. It looks as though you’ve got little brown insects crawling about all over you. People will think you’ve got lice.’