Roald Dahl: The Twits

'Now stay there till we come back!' Mr Twit ordered. 'Don't you dare to move! And don't overbalance! When we return in two or three hours time, I shall expect to find you all in exactly the same position as you are now! You understand?'

With that, Mr Twit marched away. Mrs Twit went with him. And the monkeys were left alone with the birds.

As soon as Mr and Mrs Twit had disappeared down the road, the monkeys all flipped back on to their feet the right way up. 'Quick, get the key!' Muggle-Wump called out to the Roly-Poly Bird who was still sitting on the roof of the house.

'What key?' shouted the Roly-Poly Bird.

'The key to the door of our cage,' cried Muggle-Wump. 'It's hanging on a nail in the workshed. That's where he always puts it'

The Roly-Poly Bird flew down and came back with the key in his beak. Muggle-Wump reached a hand through the bars of the cage and took the key. He put it in the lock and turned it. The door opened. All four monkeys leapt out together.

'We are free!' cried the two little ones. 'Where shall we go, Dad? Where shall we hide?'

'Don't get excited,' said Muggle-Wump. 'Calm down, everybody. Before we escape from this beastly place we have one very important thing to do.'

What?' they asked him.

'We're going to turn those terrible Twits upside down !'

'We're going to what ?' they cried. 'You must be joking, Dad!'

'I'm not joking,' Muggle-Wump said. 'We're going to turn both Mr and Mrs Twitupside down with their legs in the air!'

'Don't be ridiculous,' the Roly-Poly Bird said. 'How can we possibly turn those two maggoty old monsters upside down?'

'We can, we can!' cried Muggle-Wump. 'We are going to make them stand on their heads for hours and hours! Perhaps for ever! Let them see what it feels like for a change!'

'How?' said the Roly-Poly Bird. 'Just tell me how.'

Muggle-Wump laid his head on one side and a tiny twinkling little smile touched the corners of his mouth. 'Now and again,' he said, 'but not very often, I have a brilliant idea. This is one of them. Follow me, my friends, follow me.' He scampered off towards the house and the three other monkeys and the Roly-Poly Bird went after him.

'Buckets and paint-brushes!' cried Muggle-Wump. 'That's what we want next! There are plenty in the workshed! Hurry up, everyone! Get a bucket and a paint-brush!'

Inside Mr Twit's workshed there was an enormous barrel of hugtight sticky glue, the stuff he used for catching birds. 'Fill your buckets!' Muggle-Wump ordered. 'We are now going into the big house!'

Mrs Twit had hidden the key to the front door under the mat and Muggle-Wump had seen her doing it, so it was easy for them to get in. In they went, all four monkeys, with their buckets of sticky glue. Then came the Roly-Poly Bird flying in after them, with a bucket in his beak and a brush in his claw.

'This is the living-room,' announced Muggle-Wump. 'The grand and glorious living-room where those two fearful frumptious freaks eat Bird Pie every week for supper!'

'Please don't mention Bird Pie again,' said the Roly-Poly Bird. 'It gives me the shudders.'

'We mustn't waste time!' cried Muggle-Wump. 'Hurry up, hurry up! Now the first thing is this! I want everyone to paint sticky glue all over the ceiling! Cover it all! Smear it in every corner!'

'Over the ceiling!' they cried. 'Why the ceiling ?'

'Never mind why!' shouted Muggle-Wump. 'Just do as you're told and don't argue!'

'But how do we get up there?' they asked. 'We can't reach.'

'Monkeys can reach anywhere!' shouted Muggle-Wump. He was in a frenzy of excitement now, waving his paint-brush and his bucket and leaping about all over the room. 'Come on, come on! Jump on the table! Stand on the chairs! Hop on each other's shoulders! Roly-Poly can do it flying! Don't stand there gaping! We have to hurry, don't you understand that? Those terrible Twits will be back any moment and this time they'll have guns ! Get on with it, for heaven's sake! Get on with it!'

And so the great glue-painting of the ceiling began. All the other birds who had been sitting on the roof flew in to help, carrying paint-brushes in their claws and beaks. There were buzzards, magpies, rooks, ravens and many more. Everyone was splashing away like mad and with so many helpers, the job was soon finished.

'What now?' they all said, looking at Muggle-Wump.

'Ah-ha!' cried Muggle-Wump. 'Now for the fun! Now for the greatest upside down trick of all time! Are you ready?'

'We're ready,' said the monkeys. 'We're ready,' said the birds.

'Pull out the carpet!' shouted Muggle-Wump. 'Pull this huge carpet out from under the furniture and stick it on to the ceiling!'

'On to the ceiling !' cried one of the small monkeys. 'But that's impossible, Dad!'

'I'll stick you on to the ceiling if you don't shut up!' snapped Muggle-Wump.

'He's dotty!' they cried.

'He's balmy!'

'He's batty!'

'He's nutty!'

'He's screwy!'

'He's wacky!' cried the Roly-Poly Bird. 'Poor old Muggles has gone off his wump at last!'

'Oh, do stop shouting such rubbish and give me a hand,' said Muggle-Wump, catching hold of one corner of the carpet. 'Pull, you nitwits, pull!'

The carpet was enormous. It covered the entire floor from wall to wall. It had a red and gold pattern on it. It is not easy to pull an enormous carpet off the floor when the room is full of tables and chairs. 'Pull!' yelled Muggle-Wump. 'Pull, pull, pull!' He was like a demon hopping round the room and telling everyone what to do. But you couldn't blame him. After months and months of standing on his head with his family, he couldn't wait for the time when the terrible Twits would be doing the same thing. At least that's what he hoped.

With the monkeys and the birds all pulling and puffing, the carpet was dragged off the floor and finally hoisted up on to the ceiling. And there it stuck.

All at once, the whole ceiling of the living-room was carpeted in red and gold.

'Now the table, the big table!' shouted Muggle-Wump. 'Turn the table upside down and put a dollop of sticky glue on to the bottom of each leg. Then we shall stick that on to the ceiling as well!'

Hoisting the huge table upside down on to the ceiling was not an easy job, but they managed it in the end.

'Will it stay there?' they cried. 'Is the glue strong enough to hold it up?'

'It's the strongest glue in the world!' Muggle-Wump replied. 'It's the special bird-catching bird-killing glue for smearing on trees!'

'Please,' said the Roly-Poly Bird. 'I have asked you before not to mention that subject. How would you like it if it was Monkey Pie they made every Wednesday and all your friends had been boiled up and I went on talking about it?'

'I do beg your pardon,' said Muggle-Wump. I'm so excited I hardly know what I'm saying. Now the chairs! Do the same with the chairs! All the chairs must be stuck upside down to the ceiling! And in their right places! Oh, do hurry up, everybody! Any moment now, those two filthy freaks are going to come rushing in with their guns!'

The monkeys, with the birds helping them, put glue on the bottom of each chair leg and hoisted them up to

the ceiling.

'Now the smaller tables!' shouted Muggle-Wump. 'And the big sofa! And the sideboard! And the lamps! And all the tiny little things! The ashtrays! The ornaments! And that beastly plastic gnome on the sideboard! Everything, absolutely everything must be stuck to the ceiling!'

It was terribly hard work. It was especially difficult to stick everything on to the ceiling in exactly its right place. But they got it done in the end.