Page 10 of The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me

The Pelican looked across the vast rolling estate and in the distance he saw a great river.

'That is the River Hamp!' cried the Duke. 'The finest salmon river in the whole of Europe!'

'Salmon!' screeched the Pelican. 'Not salmon? You don't really mean salmon?'

'It's full of salmon,' the Duke said, 'and I own it. You can help yourself.'

Before he had finished speaking the Pelican was in the air. The Duke and I watched him as he flew full speed towards the river. We saw him circle over the water, then he dived and disappeared. A few moments later, he was in the air again, and he had a gigantic salmon in his beak.

I stood alone with the Duke on the lawn beside his great house. 'Well, Billy,' he said, 'I'm glad they are all happy. But what about you, my lad? I am wondering if you happen to have just one extra special little wish all for yourself. If you do, I'd love you to tell me about it.'

There was a sudden tingling in my toes. It felt as though something tremendous might be going to happen to me any moment.

'Yes,' I murmured nervously. 'I do have one extra special little wish.'

'And what might that be?' said the Duke in a kindly voice.

'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 sweet-shop. I have wished and wished that one day somebody might come along and make it into a marvellous new sweet-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 sweet-shop in the world! And you, my boy, will own it!'

Whenever the old

Duke got excited, his enormous moustaches started to bristle and jump about. Right now they were jumping up and down so much it looked as though he had a squirrel on his face. 'By Gad, sir!' he cried, waving his stick, 'I shall buy the place today! Then we'll get to work and have the whole thing ready in no time! You just wait and see what sort of a sweet-shop we are going to make out of this Grubber place of yours!'

It was amazing how quickly things began to happen after that. There was no problem about buying the house because it was owned by the Giraffe and the Pelly and the Monkey, and they insisted upon giving it to the Duke for nothing.

Then builders and carpenters moved in and rebuilt the whole of the inside so that once again it had three floors. On all these floors they put together rows and rows of tall shelves, and there were ladders to climb up to the highest shelves and baskets to carry what you bought.

Then the sweets and chocs and toffees and fudges and nougats began pouring in to fill the shelves. They came by aeroplane from every country in the world, the most wild and wondrous things you could ever imagine.

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.

For two whole weeks the flood of boxes and sacks continued to arrive. I could no longer keep track of all the countries they came from, but you can bet your life that as I unpacked each new batch I sampled it carefully.

I can remember especially the Giant Wangdoodles from Australia, every one with a huge ripe red strawberry hidden inside its crispy chocolate crust ... and the Electric Fizzcocklers that made every hair on your head stand straight up on end as soon as you popped one into your mouth

... and there were Nishnobblers and Gumglotters and Blue Bubblers and Sherbet Slurpers and Tongue Rakers, and as well as all this, 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.

On the Grand Opening Day, I decided to allow all my customers to help themselves for free, and the place was so crowded with children you could hardly move. The television cameras and the newspaper reporters were all there, and the old Duke himself stood outside in the road with my friends the Giraffe and the Pelly and the Monkey watching the marvellous scene. I came out of the shop to join them for a few moments and I brought each of them a bag of extra special sweets as a present.

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 midwinter. 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!'

To the Giraffe I gave a bag of Glumptious Globgobblers. The Globgobbler is an especially delicious sweet that is made somewhere near Mecca, and the moment you bite into it, all the perfumed juices of Arabia go squirting down your gullet one after the other.

'It's wonderful!' cried the Giraffe as a cascade of lovely liquid flavours poured all the way down her long long throat. 'It's even better than my favourite pink and purple flowers!'

To the Pelican I gave a big bag of Pishlets. Pishlets, as you probably know, are bought by children who are unable to whistle a tune as they walk along the street but long to do so. They had a splendid effect upon the Pelican, for after he had put one of them into his beak and chewed it for a while, he suddenly started singing like a nightingale. This made him wildly excited because Pelicans are not song-birds. No Pelican had ever been known to whistle a tune before.

To the Monkey I gave bag of Devil's Drenchers, those small fiery black sweets that one is not allowed to sell to children under four years old. When you have sucked a Devil's Drencher for a minute or so, you can set your breath alight and blow a huge column of fire twenty feet into the air. The Duke put a match to the Monkey's breath and shouted, 'Blow, Monkey, blow!' A sheet of orange flame shot up as high as the roof of the Grubber house and it was wonderful.

'I've got to leave you now,' I said. 'I must go and look after my customers in the shop.'

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