- Now that the fun’s over, back to work. The BFG starts writing a label for the good dream he captured.
- Sophie asks him how he knows what’s in the dream. The BFG explains that when he hears music, he understands it as if it’s a language. Too bad they don’t offer it in school, right?
- He lets Sophie read the label. The dream he caught is about saving a teacher from drowning. Come on, even if you’re not a huge fan of your teacher, that’s got to be a good dream.
- When the BFG encourages Sophie to look through the jar, she sees that the dream is a beautiful pale green.
- She says that the dream is alive. The BFG explains that even though it’s alive, it doesn’t need any food.
- The BFG catalogues separate dreams for boys and for girls. He shows Sophie some of his boy labels. They include: having magic powers to make teachers fall asleep, having magical suction boots that let you walk on the ceiling, advising the president of the United States and impressing a father while doing it, having invisibility powers, and writing the best book in the world.
- Let’s take a moment to say any girl could have those kinds of dreams too. But since all the giants around the BFG are boys, we forgive him.
- He also shows Sophie dreams with shorter labels that he wrote in a hurry (for both boys and girls). They include: climbing Mount Everest, inventing a car that runs on toothpaste, turning lights on and off with your mind, growing a very long beard to impress other little boys (if a girl could do that, why couldn’t she advise the president, you ask? Let’s just say in dreamworld, she could do it all). There’s also having the power to jump out the window and float, and having a bee that plays rock and roll music when it flies.
- One of each, please and thank you.
- Sophie is impressed that The BFG taught himself to write. The BFG explains that he learned from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens. He borrowed it from a little boy’s room.
- Sounds like stealing to us, but hey, at least he didn’t eat the little boy.
- They are interrupted by the giants galloping off to find food. They tell the BFG that they are going to England to eat schoolchildren. Do they mean borrow books from them? Unfortunately, no.