The Snatch
Under the blanket, Sophie waited.
After a minute or so, she lifted a corner of the blanket and peeped out.
For the second time that night her blood froze to ice and she wanted to scream, but no sound
came out. There at the window, with the curtains pushed aside, was the enormous long pale wrinkly
face of the Giant Person, staring in. The flashing black eyes were fixed¹ on Sophie’s bed.
The next moment, a huge hand with pale fingers came snaking in through the window. This was
followed by an arm, an arm as thick as a tree-trunk, and the arm, the hand, the fingers were reaching
out across the room towards Sophie’s bed.
This time Sophie really did scream, but only for a second because very quickly the huge hand
clamped down over her blanket and the scream was smothered² by the bedclothes.
Sophie, crouching³ underneath⁴ the blanket, felt strong fingers grasping hold of her, and then she
was lifted up from her bed, blanket and all, and whisked out of the window.
If you can think of anything more terrifying than that happening to you in the middle of the
night, then let’s hear about it.
The awful thing was that Sophie knew exactly what was going on although she couldn’t see it
happening. She knew that a Monster (or Giant) with an enormous long pale wrinkly face and
dangerous eyes had plucked her from her bed in the middle of the witching hour and was now
carrying her out through the window smothered in a blanket.
What actually happened next was this. When the Giant had got Sophie outside, he arranged the
blanket so that he could grasp all the four corners of it at once in one of his huge hands, with Sophie
imprisoned⁵ inside. In the other hand he seized the suitcase and the long trumpet⁶ thing and off he ran.
Sophie, by squirming around inside the blanket, managed to push the top of her head out
through a little gap just below the Giant’s hand. She stared around her.
She saw the village houses rushing by on both sides. The Giant was

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