The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me

“I have always longed and longed to own a sweets shop. The sweets shop of my dreams would be loaded from top to bottom with Sherbet Suckers and Caramel Fudge and Russian Toffee and Sugar Snorters and Butter Gumballs and thousands and thousands of other glorious things like that. Oh boy, what I couldn’t have done with that old Grubber shop if it had been mine!”

This quote explains the narrator’s great need, and it does so with strong imagery. Some of the candies mentioned are distinctly English, as is the name of the old candy shop, but children from anywhere will understand the mouth-watering images of fresh sweets on shelves.

“[…] suddenly an enormous bathtub came sailing out through one of the second-floor windows and crashed right on to the middle of the road! A few moments later, a white porcelain lavatory pan with the wooden seat still on it came flying out of the same window and landed with a wonderful splintering crash just beside the bathtub. This was followed by a kitchen sink and an empty canary-cage and a four-poster bed and two hot-water bottles and a rocking horse and a sewing-machine and goodness knows what else besides. It looked as though some madman was ripping out the whole of the inside of the house, because now pieces of staircase and bits of the banisters and a whole lot of old floorboards came whistling through the windows.”

Dahl begins the action in his signature surprising way, with the sudden shattering of appliances, housewares, and structural material. There’s a sensible explanation—the story’s three animals, the Giraffe, the Pelican, and the Monkey, are remodeling an old candy shop as the office of their new window-washing business—but the event happens from the perspective of a young boy, who’s never witnessed such a ruckus. This use of limited first-person perspective captures the astonishment and wonder of children, and how ordinary activities can seem ridiculously strange at first viewing.

“When I got back to The Grubber house the next morning, the first thing I noticed was the new door. The dirty old brown door had been taken out and in its place someone had fitted a brand-new red one. The new door was fantastic. It was twice as high as the other one had been and it looked ridiculous. I couldn't begin to imagine who would want a tremendous tall door like that in his house unless it was a giant.”

Like the author, Billy loves absurd things. This gives him a taste for the unusual, which he projects onto The Grubber’s odd doorway. Where many people would shrug and walk away, Billy stays to satisfy his curiosity. This, and his ability to observe details, puts him in a position to appreciate what he’s about to discover.

“The monkey stood on the window-sill and did a jiggly little dance. He was so skinny he seemed to be made only out of three bits of wire, but he danced wonderfully well, and I clapped and cheered and did a little dance myself in return.”

The Monkey feels comfortable doing a dance or singing a ditty, and Billy appreciates both, to the point of making up his own dance to share. Both Billy and the animals are beginning to see each other’s potential for friendship.

“‘We are the Window-Cleaners!’ sang out the Monkey.

‘We will polish your glass

Till it’s shining like brass

And it sparkles like sun on the sea!

We are quick and polite,

We will come day or night,

The Giraffe and the Pelly and me!

We’re a fabulous crew,

We know just what to do,

And we never stop work to drink tea.

All your windows will glow

When we give them a go,

The Giraffe and the Pelly and me!

We use water and soap

Plus some kindness and hope,

But we never use ladders, not we.

Who needs ladders at all

When you’re thirty feet tall?

Not Giraffe, and not Pelly! Not me!’”

The talking animals’ songs convert the story into a musical, and their odd choice of occupation—and the fact that they offer a service at all—makes for a comical adventure. The author is in his element, offering surprises, whimsy, and delight.

“I have a very special beak!

A special beak have I!

You’ll never see a beak so fine,

I don’t care where you go.

There’s magic in this beak of mine!

Hop in and don’t say NO!”

The Pelican’s beak, with its large pouch for holding fish, finds use by holding window-cleaning water. He can retract the upper part of his beak into his head so it’s out of the way during work. In other words, the author makes the fanciful and playful into the laws of his universe. When talking animals can remodel a building to accommodate a giraffe, and then work as window washers, no one will object to a pelican with a retractable beak.

“The chauffeur knocked on the door of The Grubber. He looked up and saw us. He saw the Giraffe, the Pelly, the Monkey and me all staring down at him from above, but not a muscle moved in his face, not an eyebrow was raised. The chauffeurs of very rich men are never surprised by anything they see.”

Servants of the wealthy, like butlers and chauffeurs, are trained to behave calmly in any situation, as if they have seen it all (rather than giving in to child-like wonder). In a way, the chauffeur’s lack of a reaction is humorous in itself, due to the contrast between him and the whimsical talking animals.

“‘Who are these creatures?’ he bellowed. ‘Has the whole world gone completely dotty?’

[…]

‘You asked us to come and see you,’ the Giraffe said.”

The Duke of Hampshire doesn’t realize, until he meets them, that he’s hired three animals and a boy to wash his mansion’s many windows. The author contrasts the chauffeur’s cool, formal encounter with the window washers with the Duke’s hot-headed reaction to their sudden appearance. It’s a quick lesson in the assumptions and oddities of adults that can generate laughs from young readers.

“‘And who are you?’ The Duke said, pointing his stick at me. ‘He is our business manager,’ the Giraffe said. ‘His name is Billy. We go nowhere without him.’”

The Duke is somewhat hostile toward Billy, but the Giraffe gives the boy an inflated work title that mollifies the old man. She demonstrates loyalty to her friend, along with a quick mind that assesses situations and makes smart use of them.

“If you wish to be friends with a Giraffe, never say anything bad about its neck. Its neck is its proudest possession. ‘What’s wrong with my neck?’ snapped the Giraffe.”

In the story’s universe, animals have their pride, and the Giraffe interprets the questioning of her ability to use her neck as an insult. It’s the only time the Giraffe becomes irritated, as she talks back to the Duke himself.

“Up above us, the Giraffe was beginning to sing a little song, but she sang so softly I could hardly catch the words. I think it went something like this:

‘My neck can stretch terribly high,

Much higher than eagles can fly.

If I ventured to show

Just how high it would go

You’d lose sight of my head in the sky!’”

The Giraffe displays a gentle personality. Like the Pelican and the Monkey, she sings about her work, but softly, as if to herself. Her song is a limerick: The first two lines rhyme, the third and fourth have a different rhyme, and the fifth rhymes with the first two (a rhyme scheme of AABBA). By tradition, most limericks are a bit bawdy, and thus improper for children’s stories, but the Giraffe’s limerick is clean.

“‘What’s that crazy bird up to?’ cried the Duke. ‘Wait and see,’ shouted the Monkey. ‘Hold your breath, old man! Hold your nose! Hold your horses and watch the Kelley go!’”

The Duke doesn’t yet completely trust the animals. When in doubt, he’s inclined to demand explanations and then decide what should and shouldn’t be done. In the face of an unusual group of animals who have unique talents and use them in surprising ways to solve problems, the Duke feels out of his element. The Monkey, who trusts the Pelican and doesn’t want the Duke to interfere with the capture of the burglar, speaks a bit curtly to the nobleman. However, the Monkey turns his warning into an almost-rhyming couplet that comically mangles common expressions about being patient. It’s enough to force the Duke to wait while the Pelican completes his capture of the jewel thief.

“‘He’s got him!’ cried the Monkey. ‘Pelly’s got the burglar in his beak!’ ‘Well done, sir!’ shouted the Duke, hopping about with excitement. Suddenly he pulled the handle of his walking-stick upwards, and out of the hollow inside of the stick itself he drew a long thin sharp shining sword. ‘I’ll run him through!’ he shouted, flourishing the sword like a fencer. ‘Open up, Pelican! Let me get at him! I’ll run the bounder through before he knows what’s happened to him! I’ll spike him like a pat of butter! I’ll feed his gizzards to my foxhounds!’”

The Duke loves to issue commands, and enjoys any excuse to act with bravado. The author clearly pokes fun at the man’s abruptness, as his promises to defeat the prowler in combat sound hilariously overblown. In other words, he’s framed as a decent man with a bit too much authority.

“At this point, a lady with an enormous chest and flaming orange hair came flying out of the house screaming, ‘My jewels! Somebody’s stolen my jewels! My diamond tiara! My diamond necklace! My diamond bracelets! My diamond earrings! My diamond rings! They've had the lot! My rooms have been ransacked!’”

The Duchess, plump from a diet of extravagant food, and long accustomed to wearing only the finest and most expensive jewelry, cries out in alarm when her treasures are stolen. The author uses mesodiplosis, or the repetition of a word—in this case, “diamond”—in the middle of several phrases, to emphasize the Duchess’s jewelry as absurdly expensive. While the theft is a serious matter, Dahl frames the Duke and Duchess in this way so children can see how ridiculous and self-absorbed the wealthy can be.

“My diamonds are over the ocean,

My diamonds are over the sea,

My diamonds were pinched from my bedroom,

Oh, bring back my diamonds to me.”

[…]

Bring back, bring back,

Oh, bring back my diamonds to me, to me.

Bring back, bring back,

Oh, bring back my diamonds to me!”

The opera-singing Duchess, beside herself with agony over losing her precious jewelry, suddenly bursts into a mournful tune, “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.” These lyrics describe missing one’s faraway true love, except the Duchess changes the words so the beloved becomes a bunch of jewelry. The humorous scene is a sly commentary on the misplaced values of wealthy people who regard their possessions as more important than other living things. In an act of empathy, the other characters join her song, though they know her jewels are currently safe inside the Pelican’s beak.

“‘Great Scott!’ shouted the Chief of Police. ‘It’s the Cobra himself!’ ‘The Who! The what!’ everyone asked. ‘Who’s the Cobra?’ ‘The Cobra is the cleverest and most dangerous cat-burglar in the world!’ said the Chief of Police. ‘He must have climbed up the drainpipe. The Cobra can climb up anything!’”

British readers tend to enjoy detective and spy stories, and Dahl responds humorously to this fact by making the burglar a famous thief who has his own nickname in the media. It’s a comedic way of adding a dash of James Bond-like thrills to a story about a boy and his talking animal friends. It’s also a nod to the legacy of Ian Fleming, author of the original James Bond thrillers and a wartime acquaintance of Dahl.

“If the Pelican is willing, perhaps he will also give me a ride in his beak now and then.’ ‘A pleasure, your grace!’ cried the Pelican. ‘Would you like a ride now?’ ‘Later,’ said the Duke. ‘I'll have one after tea.’”

The author’s impish sense of humor is on display in this quote. The Duke voices his desire to ride in the Pelican’s beak, but when the bird immediately offers him a ride, the Duke turns him down. The Duke clearly wants to be seen as brave—having challenged the gun-toting burglar earlier in the story—but doesn’t truly want to do such things.

“‘[…] I myself happen to be…’ ‘Don’t tell me!’ cried the Duke. ‘I know it already! I am an expert on the animals of Africa. The moment I saw you I knew you were no ordinary giraffe. You are of the Geraneous variety, are you not!’ ‘You are absolutely right, Your Grace,’ said the Giraffe.”

Part of the story’s fun, aside from the wondrous animals themselves, are the wildly improbable things that happen to them. Among these coincidences is the Duke’s knowledge of Giraffe’s rare breed. He even cultivates a grove of the very trees the Giraffe needs for food. He also knows what the Monkey and the Pelican love to eat, and has vast stores of these foods too. These coincidences add to the story’s ongoing sense of surprise. They also reveal that, under his façade of bravado, the Duke is an enthusiastic boy at heart who loves animals.

“‘There is an old wooden house near where I live,’ I said. ‘It’s called The Grubber and long ago it used to be a sweets shop. I have wished and wished that one day somebody might come along and make it into a marvelous new sweets shop all over again.’ ‘Somebody?’ cried the Duke. ‘What do you mean, somebody? You and I will do that! We’ll do it together! We'll make it into the most wonderful sweets shop in the world! And you, my boy, will own it!’”

Billy finally gets to describe his wish, and his listener promptly grants it. The Duke, easily excited, wishes to partake in the project—which will be completed by two people who share a child’s enthusiasm for candy.

“There were Gumtwizzlers and Fizzwinkles from China, Frothblowers and Spitsizzlers from Africa, Tummyticklers and Gobwangles from the Fiji Islands and Liplickers and Plushnuggets from the Land of the Midnight Sun.”

Candies pile into Billy’s new store, sent from everywhere on Earth. Fabricated words are signature to Dahl’s writing style, and he has great fun making up the names of sweets. He describes some sweets in detail, but many, like the ones listed in this quote, are left to readers’ imaginations.

“[…] there was a whole lot of splendid stuff from the great Wonka factory itself, for example the famous Willy Wonka Rainbow Drops—suck them and you can spit in seven different colours. And his Stickjaw for talkative parents. And his Mint Jujubes that will give the boy next door green teeth for a month.”

Dahl lets his own imagination, and that of his readers, run wild with wonder at what Billy’s candies might taste like or do in one’s mouth. He also references one of his most famous books, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; in doing so, he incorporates Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory into this novel’s universe. It’s a sign that Billy intends to sell sweets as unique as those sold at the author’s famous candy maker. It’s also a reminder that there’s no limit to people’s imaginations, and that creative sweets will continue to be invented for years to come.

“To the Duke, because the weather was a little chilly, I gave some Scarlet Scorchdroppers that had been sent to me from Iceland. The label said that they were guaranteed to make the person who sucked them as warm as toast even if he were standing stark naked at the North Pole in mid-winter. The moment the Duke popped one into his mouth, thick smoke came gushing out of the old boy's nostrils in such quantities that I thought his moustaches were going up in flames. ‘Terrific!’ he cried, hopping about. ‘Tremendous stuff! I'll take a case of them home with me!’”

Billy gifts his friends with sweets that match their preferences and personalities. For the Duke, the perfect candy is something showy and spontaneous.

“I said goodbye to the Duke, and then one by one I said goodbye to the three best friends I had ever had. Suddenly, we all became very quiet and melancholy, and the monkey looked as though he was about to cry […].”

The greatest reward Billy receives is that of friendship. The window-cleaning trio of animals loves Billy, and he loves them, and their support for each other has helped them realize their dreams. All have taken on more responsibilities, and won’t have as much time to visit each other as before. This quote also symbolizes something larger: Billy is growing up—already managing a store—and he, like most children, will gravitate away from animals, real or imagined, and toward humans. However, he’ll always remember his first great friends.