The BFG

They proceed quickly but carefully through the palace gardens, stopping to let a watchman with a dog pass. They reach the palace and the BFG can hear the breathing from within the rooms. They pass a room with a sleeping man and a few empty ones before reaching a room with a lady. They part the windows, and Sophie recognizes the Queen’s profile.

The BFG sets Sophie on the window ledge and, using his trumpet, blows the dream to the Queen. The BFG hides in the garden—he kisses Sophie on the cheek before he goes to hide—while Sophie waits on the windowsill for the Queen to dream.

Sophie hears the distressed murmurs of the Queen, and she realizes that she is having a nightmare—the dream that the BFG created. Sophie hears a knock. From the other side of the curtain, she hears a maid come in. The Queen tells the maid about her shocking nightmare of giants stealing schoolchildren from their beds and eating them. The maid screams in shock and drops the breakfast tray she was carrying. The newspaper that morning contained the news that many schoolgirls and boys were taken from their beds.

The maid opens the curtains and is shocked to see Sophie sitting there. The Queen remembers that at the end of her dream, she dreamed that a giant placed a girl in a nightie on her windowsill to talk to her. Sophie addresses the Queen, telling her that the Giant she dreamt of—the friendly one—is hiding in her garden, and Sophie calls to him. He comes to the Queen’s window and bows deeply.

The Queen invites them both to breakfast.

Mr. Tibbs, the Queen’s butler, fashions a chair and table large enough for the BFG using pianos, a chest-of drawers, a ping-pong table, and grandfather clocks. Garden implements are retrieved for his cutlery. Tibbs instructs the chef to quadruple the average breakfast amount for the BFG.

The Queen arrives with Sophie, now dressed in a blue gown with a sapphire brooch pinned on it, both of which the Queen supplied for her, and the BFG. The BFG accidentally breaks a chandelier as he walks in. He is delighted with his table and chair. He eats the food and has many more helpings until the kitchens run out of eggs and bread. He asks for frobscottle, explaining that drinking frobscottle and musical whizzpopping is an important part of breakfast. The Queen, misunderstanding, encourages the BFG to play music. Sophie implores him not to. The BFG farts loudly and happily. The Queen is shocked but maintains a polite air, explaining that she prefers bagpipes rather than whizzpops.

Seeking confirmation of the extraordinary story of the nine man-eating giants, the Queen calls the leaders of Sweden and Baghdad, the locations which the other giants went to the previous two nights, according to the BFG. Both leaders confirm that people went missing from their beds on those nights. Confident that the BFG’s story is true, the Queen summons the Head of the Army and the Head of the Air Force.

The Queen explains the situation to the two military men, who suggest bombing or shooting the giants. The Queen does not condone murder and she wants the giants brought back alive. The BFG explains that they will be sleeping in the afternoon and that they could tie the giants up and carry them back with helicopters. The BFG cannot pinpoint Giant Country on a map but suggests that he could lead the helicopters there. The Queen, agreeing that it is a good plan, instructs them to leave immediately. Sophie asks if she can accompany the BFG in his ear and the Queen agrees. The BFG asks whether he can bring back his collection of dreams back with him in a helicopter and the Queen says that he can. The group sets off.

The helicopters follow the BFG as he runs. They marvel at his speed and they can barely keep up. They are taken to an unknown location, which is off the atlas. The BFG waves the helicopters down in a barren stretch of country covered in blue rocks.

They proceed quietly in jeeps until they reach the giants. Eight giants are successfully bound up. The arm of the Fleshlumpeater is caught beneath his body and the soldiers accidentally wake him as they try to pull it out. The Fleshlumpeater jumps up and grabs one of the soldiers, happily declaring that supper has come early. The BFG tries to save the soldier, but the Fleshlumpeater easily swipes him away. Sophie runs to the Fleshlumpeater and stabs his ankle with the brooch the Queen gave her. The Fleshlumpeater howls in pain and drops the soldier. The BFG tells him that he was bitten by a snake and that he must allow him to remove the fang. Panicked, the Fleshlumpeater follows the BFG’s instructions, presenting his ankle and closing his eyes. The BFG binds the Fleshlumpeater’s ankles and wrists before he realizes what is happening.

The soldiers load the BFG’s 50,000 dream jars into their jeeps. Sophie and the BFG fill a large sack with something mysterious. The soldiers hook the giants onto the helicopters. The giants scream and writhe in fury but cannot free themselves. The helicopters, each carrying a giant, follow the running BFG through the night back to England.

Hundreds of men and machines are mobilized in England to dig a 500-foot-deep hole. The Giants are lowered into it. The BFG, explaining that giants don’t eat other giants, volunteers to go into the pit to untie the furious giants.

He reveals a sack of snozzcumbers, which he throws into the pit for the giants to eat. He explains to the Queen that he also brought snozzcumber plants which could be used to grow more snozzcumbers to feed the giants. The Queen praises his ingenuity.

The Queen builds both the BFG and Sophie grand houses next to her own palace. They are sent a variety of gifts from rulers all around the world who are grateful to the BFG. The BFG is particularly thrilled to receive an elephant.

People come from far and wide to look at the ferocious giants. A few drunk men make the mistake of climbing the fencing surrounding the pit and they fall in and are eaten. A sign is erected on the enclosure warning that “it is forbidden to feed the giants” (206).

Sophie teaches the BFG lessons in reading and writing. He becomes a voracious reader and aspires to write his own book. At Sophie’s encouragement he does so, writing a book about the recent events of his life—the reader learns that this is the book that they are reading. The BFG, being modest, decides to publish the book under someone else's name.