The following passage is from a book The Witches by Roald Hahl.
Dahl is a famous writer
of stories for children and young adults. In this passage, all the witches in England have
gathered to receive instructions from their Grand High Witch. She gives them a recipe for
something that you should think twice about before trying!
“Attention again!” The Grand High Witch was shouting. “I vill now give to you the rrrecipe
for concocting Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker. Get out your pencils and
paper.”
Handbags were opened all over the room and notebooks were shed out .
“Give us the recipe, O Brainy One!” Cried the audience impatiently. “Tell us the secret.”
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“First,” said The Grand High Witch, “I have to nd something that would cause the
children to become very small very quickly.”
“And what was that?” Cried the audience.
“That part vos simple,” said the Grand High Witch. “All you have to do if you are
shing to make a child very small is to look at him through the worrrng end of a 10
telescope.”
“She's a wonder!” Cried the audience. “Who else would have thought of a thing
like that?”
“So you take the wrrrong end of the telescope,” continued The Grand High Witch,
“and boil it until it goes soft.”
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“How long does that take?” They asked her.
“ Tventy-vun hours of boiling,” answered The Grand High Witch. “And vhile this is
going on, you take exactly forty- ve brrrown mice and you chop o their tails with a
carving-knife and you fry the tails in hair oil until they are nice and crrrisp.”
“What do we do with all those mice who had their tails chopped o ?” Asked the 20
audience.
“ You simmer them in frog-juice for vun hour,” came the answer. “But listen to me.
So far I have only given you the easy part of the rrrecipe . The rrreally di cult problem is
to put in something that vill have a genuine delayed action rrree-sult, something that can
be eaten by children on a certain day but vhich vill not start vurrking on them until nine 25
o’clock the next morning when they are in school.”
“ What did you come up with, O Brainy One?” They called out. “Tell us the great
secret!”
“ That secret ,” announced The Grand High Witch triumphantly, “is an alarm
clock!”
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“ An alarm clock!” they cried. “It's a stroke of genius!”
“ Of course it is,” said The Grand High Witch. “You can set a tventy-four hour
alarm clock and at exactly nine o’clock tomorrow it vill go o .”
“ But we will need ve million alarm clocks!” cried the audience. “We will need
one for each child!”
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“ Idiots!” Shouted The Grand High Witch. “If you are vonting a steak, you do not
cook the whole cow! It is same vith alarm clocks. Vun clock vill make enough for a
thousand children. Here is vhat you do. You set your alarm clock to go o at nine o'clock
tomorrow morning . Then you rrroast it in the oven until it is crrrisp and tender. Are you
wrrriting this down?”
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“ We are, Your Grandness, we are!” They cried.
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“ Next,” said The Grand High Witch, “you take your boiled telescope and your
frrried mouse-tails and your cooked mice and your rrroasted alarm clock and all together
you put them in the mixer. Then you mix them at full speed. This vill give you a nice thick
paste. Vhile the mixer is still mixing you must add the yolk of vun grrruntle’s egg.”
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“ So you mix in the egg,” The Grand High Witch went on, “and vun after the
other you also mix in the following items: the claw of a crrrabcrrruncher, the beak of a
blabbersnitch, the snout of a grrroblesqvirt and the tongue of a cat catsprringer. I trust
you are not having any trouble nding those.”
“None at all!” they cried out. “We will spear the blabbersnitch and trap the 50
crabcruncher and shoot the grobblesquirt and catch the catspringer in his burrow!”
“Excellent!” Said The Grand High Witch. “ ‘Vhen you have mixed everything
together in the mixer, you vill have a most marvelous-looking grrreen liquid. Put vun drop,
just one titchy droplet of this liqvid into the a chocolate or a sveet, and nine o’clock the
next morning the child who ate it vill turn into a mouse in tventy-six seconds!” 55
The table of contents is empty because you aren’t using the paragraph styles set to
appear in it.
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