Читать книгу The Giants and the Joneses - Julia Donaldson - Страница 7

2 Throg

ALTHOUGH JUMBEELIA’S MOTHER was always telling her that no grown-up giants believed in the iggly plops, this wasn’t quite true. There was one very old giant who did believe in them, but no one took him seriously because he talked to himself all the time. He talked in rhyme about iggly plops and bimplestonks, and as he talked he walked – not just anywhere but round and round the very edge of Groil, the other side of the wall, where the land stopped and the clouds began. In his hand he carried a can full of extremely powerful weedkiller.

The old giant’s name was Throg, which meant warning in giant language, and his rhymes were a warning to anyone who would listen – a warning that one day a new bimplestonk would spring up and that the wicked cunning iggly plops would climb up it and invade Groil.

Throg’s favourite rhyme went like this:

Arump o chay ee glay, glay,Arump o chay ee glay.Oy frikely frikelybimplestonk,Eel kraggle oy flisterflay.

(Around the land I go, go,Around the land I go.You horrible horriblebeanstalk,I’ll kill you soon.)

Hardly anyone did listen to the old giant because most of the other giants preferred to stay away from the edge of Groil, fearing that they might fall off. But now and again one of Throg’s rhymes would drift to them on the wind. Then they would shake their heads, smile, and call him a poor old man – ‘Roopy floopy plop’.

Jumbeelia’s father was a policeman. He had told her that Throg was forever calling at the police station and asking them to organise proper police patrols of the edgeland. But none of the police took this idea seriously. ‘Roopy floopy plop,’ they would say, just like all the other grown-up giants.

Jumbeelia had never been to the edgeland; she wasn’t allowed the other side of the wall. But she had heard old Throg’s rhymes, and now and then she caught sight of him taking a nap or eating sandwiches in a field. She would have liked to talk to him – to ask him what he knew about iggly plops and bimplestonks – but she didn’t dare. She couldn’t help feeling a little scared of him.