10 Boggis’s Chicken House Number One
‘This time we must go in a very special direction,’ said Mr Fox, pointing sideways and downward.
So he and his four children started to dig once again. The work went much more slowly now. Yetthey kept at it with great courage, and little by little the tunnel began to grow.
‘Dad, I wish you would tell us where we are going,’ said one of the children.
‘I dare not do that,’ said Mr Fox, ‘because this place I am hoping to get to is so marvellous that if Idescribed it to you now you would go crazy with excitement. And then, if we failed to get there(which is very possible), you would die of disappointment. I don’t want to raise your hopes toomuch, my darlings.’
For a long long time they kept on digging. For how long they did not know, because there were nodays and no nights down there in the murky¹ tunnel. But at last Mr Fox gave the order to stop. ‘Ithink,’ he said, ‘we had better take a peep upstairs now and see where we are. I know where I want tobe, but I can’t possibly be sure we’re anywhere near it.’
Slowly, wearily, the foxes began to slope the tunnel up towards the surface. Up and up it went . . .
until suddenly they came to something hard above their heads and they couldn’t go up any further.
Mr Fox reached up to examine this hard thing. ‘It’s wood!’ he whispered. ‘Wooden planks²!’
‘What does that mean, Dad?’
‘It means, unless I am very much mistaken, that we are right underneath³ somebody’s house,’
whispered Mr Fox. ‘Be very quiet now while I take a peek⁴.’
Carefully, Mr Fox began pushing up one of the floorboards. The board creaked most terribly andthey all ducked down, waiting for something awful to happen. Nothing did. So Mr Fox pushed up asecond board. And then, very very cautiously, he poked⁵ his head up through the gap. He let out ashriek of excitement.
‘I’ve done it!’ he yelled. ‘I’ve done it first time! I’ve done it! I’ve done it!’ He pulled himself upthrough the gap in the floor and started

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