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September 2006, Great Missenden Rule 50: do what Dahl says
Sunday. We’re driving to the Roahl Dahl Museum. I’m at the wheel, and in control. But Liv wants us to try “the more scenic cut-through.” I object, I feel she is criticising my routemanship, but she’s persuasive. An hour later, the more scenic route has just lead us into a field. In the back seat, the girls are having a violent argument.
Grace is growling menacingly: “You are!”
Cassady is shouting: “I’m not!”
“You are!”
“I’m not! I AM NOT!”
“You are! You’re going to die!”
Liv says: “Andrew, tell Cassady she’s not going to die”.
I say: “Can you just tell me where I’m supposed to be bloody going?”
Luckily the girls’ philosophical brains move to lighter mysteries.
“Daddy!” says Cassady, “Where do babies come from?”
“Ah,” says Grace, in her important voice. She feels she knows everything. She gets so many stickers from her teachers, she comes home wearing a patchwork coat. “What happens,” she explains, “is that Mummy and Daddy have to get nude and then they sort of nudge together and then Daddy sort of wees and a sort of tadpole comes out.”
“What?!@!” shouts Cassady, outraged. “Then Daddy must NOT wee near me! I do NOT like babies!”
“You love babies,” says Mum
“I hate them and I throw them out of windows.”
We’re back on the road now. I pass a building which is, I inform them, Boggis’s farm, and I point out the very tree where Fantastic Mr Fox is even now hiding, and planning glorious mischief. They go silent. Roahl Dahl’s spell is working.
We get to the Museum. It’s a wonderful place, that encapsulates Dahl’s playful spirit. They spray the entrance with chocolate smell. They provide costumes for dressing up. They give you words you can use for making up Dahl sentences which get broadcast on the wall. An 8 year old boy writes: “The Stinking Giant Catapulted the Fat Mouse Into The Toilet.” I laugh. “Very good,” I say. “Rupert,” says his mother, “wipe that off!”
They let you sit on Roahl Dahl’s actual chair, so you can make up stories. Liv is pregnant. She makes for the chair. She sprawls on it wearing a Fantastic Mr Fox head. She looks like Fantastic Mrs Fox, who’s been shagging badgers for extra cash. She makes up a story about a bumble bee which hurts its wing, so it goes to the waspital. Rupert’s dad arrives, as she finishes.
He looks round, disappointed. “It’s just a bloody chair,” he mumbles. I figure you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t lead him to a waspital. Not unless you know the right route.
I sit in Dahl’s chair. I close my eyes. “Dahl!” I say. “How do you get to a waspital.” I hear his voice in my head. It’s warming, like the smell of granny’s cocoa. “An excellent question,” he says, “I’ll answer with a poem. Her herm. “You must put a silly hat on./ You must sit in my big chair./ And if your wife gets naked,/ Nudge together, and sniff her hair.”
Topics
How do you get to a waspital?
Do you remember when you first heard about death?
When did you first hear about sex? Did you understand it right?
What are the most annoying things that your family do, when in cars?
What is your favourite character in Roahl Dahl?
What is your favourite Dahl moment?
Who is the best children’s writer? Why?
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