Chapter Prologue: It was 1976. Ann was 38. Jumbeelia was 36. Woozly was 22. On a giant scale, Ann was 5 foot 9 inches tall. Woozly was 5 foot. Jumbeelia was somewhere in between.

Charlie Bucket couldn’t sleep. A brilliant moonbeam was slanting through a gap in the curtains. It was shining right onto his pillow. The other children in the dormitory had been asleep for hours. Charlie closed his eyes and lay quite still. He tried very hard to doze off. It was no good. The moonbeam was like a silver blade slicing through the room onto his face. The house was absolutely silent. No voices came up from downstairs. There were no footsteps on the floor above either. 

The window behind the curtain was wide open, but nobody was walking on the pavement outside. No cars went by on the street. Not the tiniest sound could be heard anywhere. Charlie had never known such a silence. The moonbeam was brighter than ever on Charlie’s face. He decided to get out of bed and close the gap in the curtains. When he reached them, he hesitated. He longed to duck underneath them and lean out the window, to see what the world outside looked like now. 

The longing to look became so strong, that he couldn’t resist it. Quickly, he ducked under the curtains and leaned out of the window. In the silvery moonlight, the village street he knew so well seemed completely different. The houses looked bent and crooked. Everything was pale and white. Across the road he could see Mrs Rance’s shop. It didn’t look real. There was something dim and misty about that too. 

Charlie allowed his eyes to travel further and further down the street. Suddenly he froze. There was something coming up the street on the opposite side; something very tall, much taller than the tallest person she’d ever met. It was so tall, that its head was higher than the upstairs windows of the houses. Charlie opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. He was frozen with fright.

The tall figure was coming his way. It was keeping very close to the houses across the street, hiding in the shadowy places where there was no moonlight. On and on it came, nearer and nearer. It was moving, stopping, and starting to move again. Now Charlie could see what it was up to. It would stop and peer into the upstairs window of each house in the street. It actually had to squat down to peer into the upstairs windows. Doing this took up most of the space outside in the street. It was much closer now, and Charlie could see it more clearly. Looking at it carefully, he decided that it had to be some kind of person, but it was a giant person.

Charlie gave a yelp and pulled back from the window, jumped into his bed and hid under the blanket. There he crouched, still as a mouse and tingling all over. After a minute, he lifted a corner of the blanket and peeped out. There at the window, with the curtains pushed aside, was the enormous face of a giant woman staring in. The large eyes were fixed on Charlie’s bed.

The next moment, a huge hand with pale fingers came in through the window. This was followed by an arm. The fingers of the hand were reaching out across the room towards Charlie’s bed. Charlie, crouching underneath the blanket, felt strong fingers grasping hold of him, and then he was lifted up from his bed, blanket and all, and whisked out of the window. When the giantess got Charlie outside, she ran off with him.

Out of the village she ran, and soon they were racing across moonlit fields. The hedges dividing the fields were no problem to the giantess. She simply strode over them. A wide river appeared in her path. She crossed it in one easy stride. After a while, a frightening thought came into Charlie’s head. 

“The giantess is running fast, because she is hungry, and she wants to get home as quickly as possible, and then she’ll have me for supper.”

In the moonlight, he saw the giantess reach a gigantic beanstalk, and begin to climb it. Soon the giantess reached the top and took him to her room in a gigantic castle. There she put Charlie down on something, presumably a cupboard top.

“She is probably getting ready to eat me,” Charlie thought, “She will probably eat me raw, just as I am.”

A blaze of light suddenly lit up the whole room. She had turned on her light. Charlie blinked and stared. 

“Ha!” said the giantess, walking forward and rubbing her hands together, “What have I got here?”

The giantess picked up the trembling Charlie in one hand and carried him across the room and put him on her desk.

“Now she really is going to eat me,” Charlie thought.

The giantess sat down and stared hard at Charlie.

“I am hungry,” she said.

She smiled, showing nice even teeth.

“Please don’t eat me,” Charlie stammered.

The giantess let out a soft laugh.

“Just because I am a giantess, you think I am a boy gobbling giantess,” she said, “You are right. Giantesses are all eaters. They do gobble up little boys. We are in my late parents’ castle now. My two giant sisters are around, and nearby lives Miss Yoop. She likes to gobble boys from England.”

“I imagine that is possible,” said Charlie, who was wondering what this talk of eating boys was leading up to. Whatever happened, he simply must play along with this giantess and smile at her jokes. Were they jokes. Perhaps this giantess was working up an appetite by talking about food.

“As I was saying,” the giantess went on, “All boys have different flavours.”

“Do you like vegetables?” Charlie asked, hoping to steer the conversation towards a slightly less dangerous kind of food. 

“You are trying to change the subject,” said the giantess sternly, “We are having an interesting discussion about the taste of the little boy. The little boy is not a vegetable.”

Charlie didn’t argue anymore. The last thing he wanted to do was make the giantess cross.

“The little boy comes in many different flavours,” said the giantess, “For instance, little boys from Wales taste of fish. There is something very fishy about Wales. Little boys from England leave a pleasing sensation on the tongue.”

Charlie decided that this conversation had gone on long enough. If he was going to be eaten, then he would rather get it over and done with right away.

“What sort of little boys do YOU eat?” he asked, trembling.

“Me!” said the giantess, “Me gobbling up little boys! This I never! My sisters and Miss Yoop, yes. Those others are gobbling them up every night, but not me. I am Woozly, the Big Friendly Giantess, the BFG. What is your name?”

“My name is Charlie,” he said, hardly daring to believe the good news he’d just heard.

“But if you are so nice and friendly,” said Charlie, “Then why did you snatch me from my bed and run away with me?”

“Because you saw me,” the BFG said, “Or you would be telling everyone down in England about me. Then I’d be tarred with the same brush as my sisters and attacked by the forces of your little England, which greatly outnumber us giantesses.”

“I suppose I would,” Charlie said, “But now that I know you, I’d rather keep your secret and be friends.”

BFG went down to the kitchen and came back up with a midnight snack of red grapes and watermelon in a bowl with two spoons. Then she realised that Charlie could never lift a giant spoon. So she put him into the bowl and let him help himself, while the BFG spooned huge mouthfuls of the red fruits into her mouth.

Suddenly loud footsteps came from outside her room, and a loud voice shouted, “Woozly, are you there? Who are you talking to, Woozly?”

“Look out!” cried BFG, “It’s Ann!”

Before she had finished talking, the door opened and a taller woman came striding into the room. Charlie was still in the fruit bowl. A slice of watermelon and a grape embedded in one of its former pip holes was lying next to him. Charlie ducked into another cavity in the piece of watermelon. The BFG’s big sister came over and towered over BFG.

“Who were you talking to in here just now, in the middle of the night?” she said.

“Myself,” answered BFG.

“Pifflefizz,” said Ann, “I am thinking that you were talking to a little boy.”

“No, no!” cried Woozly.

“Yes, yes,” said Ann, “I am guessing that you snatched away a little boy and brought him back to your room as a pet. So now I shall find it and gulp it down as a middle of the night snack.”

Woozly was very nervous.

“There’s nobody in here,” she said, “Why don’t you leave me alone?”

Charlie peered out of the watermelon in the fruit bowl, watching Ann search around the room. Ann had short to medium length dark hair, a very pretty face, and a mouth that opened as wide as a doorway when she spoke. Charlie estimated that he would have taken up only half of the space on her tongue. It was not in the least difficult to believe that this gorgeous woman ate little boys every night. 

The hole in the middle of the watermelon was a wet hiding place, but that didn’t matter if it was going to save him from being eaten.

Suddenly Ann came and grabbed that very piece of watermelon.

 “So this is what you were doing, eating fruit in the middle of the night,” said Ann.

“It’s nice watermelon,” said Woozly, hoping to lead Ann further off the track.

“Little boys are tastier,” said Ann.

Woozly was not aware that Charlie was hiding inside that piece of watermelon.

“Try it and see how tasty it is,” said Woozly.

Charlie, crouching inside the watermelon cavity, began to tremble all over.

“Just this once, I shall taste this fruit diet of yours,” said Ann.

She began raising the piece of watermelon on the long journey to her mouth. Charlie wanted to scream “don’t!”, but that would have made his fate far more certain. He watched the woman’s mouth open and saw her teeth, and her tongue, as the watermelon went into her mouth. He fell out of the watermelon and onto the back of her tongue. He had no idea how he would ever get out of her mouth, but his immediate instinct was to remain on the tongue, and avoid sliding to either side and bumping against her teeth.

“I’m going to be the main course, and Ann doesn’t even know she’s about to swallow me down,” thought Charlie, and began to wonder whether he should gamble on calling out to her.

Yet why would Ann spare him?

The giantess Ann still had her mouth open. Charlie saw the grape fall out of the melon, and end up between the teeth on the left hand side of her giant mouth.

Suddenly Ann coughed the lot out of her mouth. It flew into the bowl and landed softly on the pile of fruit which had so far remained untouched. Charlie ducked down further under another piece, in case Ann should look at the bowl again.

“You put those awful red grapes into the watermelon!” said Ann, “That tasted awful! Every night you could have been off happy as can be, gobbling juicy little boys.”

“Eating little boys is unfair,” said Woozly.

“They are gulpable and scrumptious,” said Ann, “And tonight, I am off to England to swallow a little boy from the village.”

“Horrible,” said Woozly, “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Other giantesses are saying they want to go to England tonight to gulp down school boys,” said Ann, “I am very fond of them. Perhaps I will go to the boarding school instead.”

“You are terrible,” said Woozly.

“And you’re a disgrace to our family,” said Ann, “Mother would be so disappointed in you. She told us tales of all the giantesses in our ancestry who have eaten little boys.”

Ann stormed out of the room and closed the door.

Charlie climbed up and revealed himself.

“Are you alright?” asked Woozly.

“I was in her mouth!” said Charlie.

“Oh no. Look out the window,” said Woozly, “They’re meeting Miss Yoop in our garden.”

Woozly put Charlie down on the window sill and they looked out into the lamp lit garden. Miss Yoop, Ann and Jumbeelia were all heading down to the beanstalk, and beginning to climb.

“I know where there is a boarding house full of prep school boys,” said Miss Yoop, “All I have to do is reach in and grab myself a boy. English boys taste extra lick-swishy.”

In a short time, the three giant women were out of sight.

“It mustn’t happen,” said Charlie, “We’ve got to stop them. We can’t just stand here and do nothing.”

“There’s not a thing we can do,” said the BFG Woozly, “We are helpless.”

“We’ve absolutely got to stop them. Take me down and we’ll chase after them and warn everyone in England they’re coming.”

“Ridiculous and impossible. Miss Yoop alone has a huge appreciation for little boys.”

“Will she snatch one out of bed, while he is sleeping?”

“Like a nut from a shell,” said Woozly.

“I can’t bear to think of it,” Charlie cried.

“Then don’t,” said Woozly, “For years I have sat here every night, while they have gone down to England. I have felt sad for the boys they were going to gobble down. But I had to get used to it.”

“Do you always know where they’re going?” asked Charlie.

“Always. Every night they walk through the garden towards the beanstalk, talking loudly about their destination.”

“Then we’ve got to go after them,” said Charlie.

“Why not?”

“I will never show myself to little Englanders. They would put me in a zoo.

“Nonsense. Some of them are kind indeed, like the Queen. I’m sure she would listen to me, except that I could never get into her palace to see her … unless a giantess carried me past her guards.”

Finally the Big Friendly Giantess Woozly agreed to take Charlie down the beanstalk and use her size to quickly cover the distance of the journey to London.

“A lot of little boys are no longer sleeping in their beds tonight,” said BFG on the way down.

Charlie felt quite shocked. To think that this had been going on for years, and nobody knew where the boys had gone to, after they’d vanished.

When they reached the palace garden, Woozly simply stepped over the guards, unnoticed in the dark, and lowered Charlie gently into the Queen’s bedroom window. Charlie awoke the Queen and pointed to the window. The Queen soon met the giantess Woozly. Since she could not deny the first hand evidence of the existence of the benevolent giantess Woozly, she had no trouble believing that the growing rumours of disappearances of English boys was explained by the story that BFG Woozly and Charlie now told to her.

“Well I always did think that any boy called Charlie was well worth listening to,” said the Queen.

It took the Queen a few minutes to explain the situation to her military men. They then invaded the Valley of the Giantesses in Brobdingnag during the day, while the giantesses were sleeping off the effects of their nocturnal boy hunt. The Queen’s forces found the three giantesses (even Miss Yoop) sleeping in the sun on the back lawn of Ann’s castle, not far from the top of the beanstalk.

They tied huge chains around the giantesses and locked them tight.

Eventually the giantesses awoke and looked across at Charlie, the Queen, and the soldiers, all of them healthy young men in their 20s.

Ann licked her lips and managed to stand up, but could only jump around with her feet together.

“I’ll soon be back with a tool to cut these chains, and then we’ll be after all of you,” said Ann, “And you won’t be getting away then, because I can run 50 times faster than you.”

The three giantesses began hopping their way into the castle.

“If at first you don’t cut weed, slice, slice again,” said the Queen, “Down the beanstalk, troops.”

“It’ll be faster, if I carry you down,” said BFG.

“I’m afraid not, young woman,” said the Queen, “For you will not be able to climb back up again after the action which we’re about to take.”

“It looks like this is goodbye then,” said BFG, “But there is another beanstalk that leads to Miss Yoop’s garden. I’d better take some of your soldiers to the top of that one. They’ll never find it in time, if you go down this one and try to find it from England.”

“So be it,” said the Queen, “Men, you’ve all been briefed. You know what to do.”

So the Queen, Charlie, and half the military men went scurrying down the first beanstalk, which linked the garden of Ann’s castle with the field where Jack had planted it centuries earlier. The other half were quickly carried by BFG, as Woozly snuck off to Miss Yoop’s castle and headed down her beanstalk.

Both parties knew from their briefing, that the phrase ‘If at first you don’t cut weed, slice, slice again’ was a cue to cut down the beanstalk, and failing that, to employ plan B. When they reached the bottom, they took their cutting tools and attempted to cut through the beanstalks, but found that the centuries of growth had made the beanstalks not only strong enough to support the weight of giantesses, but also too thick to cut through. 

Plan B stood for Plan Bomb. The special forces teams planted several sticks of dynamite at the bases of the beanstalks, wedging them tightly between stems and leaves, and lit the fuses. They ran for their lives, and watched the beanstalk foundations blown to pieces, causing the beanstalks to topple down.

“Well,” said the Queen, “As no giantesses have come tumbling down with the beanstalk remains, we can only assume that the three giant women were unable to remove their chains in time.”

In time, the giantesses might learn of the other two routes to England. One was the Swift Mist warp, but that floated high in the air, and would only be used by the Spindrift for the All American Youth Flight in 1983. This would lead to Barry Lockeridge being eaten by an enlarged and hungry Betty Hamilton, and various other gobblings. The other route was the dolls house link to Looking-Glass Land in the house that Mrs Farrer inherited from one of the descendants of her ancestor Alice. Yet neither only the once adopted Ann had the ability to shrink back to what was actually her original earth size, as a result of having once eaten Wonderland cake. Whether or not she would try to gain access to the dolls house at tiny size and go through Looking-Glass Land and Wonderland and up the Robert Hole to England, and what she might perpetrate after doing so … well that is another story which may or may not be told later.

The Queen took the opportunity to remind the military men, that the entire Gobbling Giantesses Affair came under the Official Beanstalks Act, and insisted that they not breathe a word of it to anyone.

Charlie returned to his orphanage and thought of all the boys who had been awoken in the night, only to find themselves on their way into the mouths and stomachs of beautiful giantesses. He thought how fortunate he’d been to have escaped, and how close he had come to not escaping. Then he realised, that in way, he had been better off, than those who had never met the giantesses, never even heard of them. Ann’s mouth was more beautiful than Woozly’s, and he had been inside it, on her very tongue … and had escaped to remember it.