The Giraffe, the Pelly and Me by Roald Dahl. Part 3.
Watch on KineScope.
It wasn’t long before we came to the gates of Hampshire House, and as the Giraffe moved slowly up the great wide driveway, we all began to feel just a little bit nervous.
‘What’s he like, this Duke?’ the Giraffe asked me.
‘I don’t know, I said. ‘But he’s very very famous and very rich. People say he has twenty-five gardeners just to look after his flower beds’ Soon the huge house itself came into view,
AND WHAT A HOUSE IT WAS! It was like A PALACE! It was BIGGER THAN A PALACE!
‘Just look at those windows!’ cried the Monkey. ‘They’ll keep us going for ever!’ Then suddenly we heard a man’s voice a short distance away to the right. I want those big black ones at the top of the tree!’ the man was shouting. ‘Get me those great big black ones!’
We peered round the bushes and saw an oldish man with an immense white moustache standing under a tall cherry tree and pointing his walking stick in the air. There was a ladder against the tree and another man, who was probably a gardener, was up the ladder.
‘Get me those great big black juicy ones right at the very top!’ the old man was shouting.
‘I can’t reach them, Your Grace, the gardener called back. ‘The ladder isn’t long enough!’
‘Damnation!’ shouted the Duke. ‘I was so looking forward to eating those big ones!’
‘Here we go!’ the Pelican whispered to me, and with a SWISH AND A SWOOP he carried me up to the very top of the cherry tree and there he perched. ‘Pick them, Billy!’ he whispered. ‘Pick them quickly and put them in my beak!’
The gardener got such a shock he fell off the ladder. Down below us, the Duke was shout-ing, ‘My gun! Get me my gun! Some damnable monster of a bird is stealing my best cherries!’
‘Hurry, Billy!’ whispered the Pelican. ‘Hurry, hurry, hurry!’
‘My gun!’ the Duke was shouting to the gardener. ‘Get me my gun, you idiot! I’1l have that thieving bird for breakfast, you see if I don’t.’
‘I’ve picked them all, I whispered to the Pelican.
At once the Pelly flew down and landed right beside the furious figure of the Duke of Hampshire, who was prancing about and waving his stick in the air!
‘Your cherries, Your Grace!’ I said as I leaned over the edge of the Pelican’s beak and offered a handful to the Duke.
Be off with you, sir! Go away! Those are my cherries, not yours! I’ll have you shot for this, sir! Where is my gun?’
The Duke was staggered. He reeled back and his eyes POPPED nearly out of their sockets. ‘Great Scott!’ he gasped. ‘Good Lord! What’s this? Who are you?’
And now the Giraffe, with the Monkey dancing about on her back, emerged suddenly from the bushes. The Duke stared at them. He looked as though he was about to burst.
‘WHO ARE THESE CREATURES?’ he bellowed. ‘Has the whole world gone completely daft?’
‘We are the Window Cleaners!’ sang out the Monkey.
‘We will polish your glass
Till it’s shining like brass
And it sparkles like sun on the sea!
We will work for Your Grace
Till we’re blue in the face,
The Giraffe and the Pelly and me!’
‘You asked us to come and see you, the Giraffe said.
The truth was at last beginning to dawn on the Duke. He put a cherry into his mouth and chewed it slowly. Then he spat out the stone. ‘I like the way you picked these cherries for me,’ he said. ‘Could you also pick my apples in the autumn?’
WE COULD! WE COULD! OF COURSE WE COULD!’ we all shouted.
‘And who are you?’ the Duke said, pointing his stick at me.
‘He is our Business Manager, the Giraffe said. ‘His name is Billy. We go nowhere without him?
‘Very well, very well’, the Duke muttered. ‘Come along with me and let’s see if you’re any good at cleaning windows.’
I climbed out of the Pelican’s beak and the kindly old Duke took me by the hand as we all walked towards the house. When we got there, the Duke said, ‘What happens next?’ It is all very simple, Your Grace, the Giraffe replied. ‘I am the ladder, the Pelly is the bucket and the Monkey is the cleaner. WATCH US GO!’
With that, the famous window-cleaning gang sprang into action. The Monkey jumped down from the Giraffe’s back and turned on the garden tap. The Pelican held his great beak under the tap until it was full of water.
Then, with a wonderful springy leap, the Monkey leaped up once again on to the Giraffe’s back. From there he scrambled, as easily as if he were climbing a tree, up the long, long neck of the Giraffe until he stood balancing on the very top of her head. The Pelican remained standing on the ground beside us, looking up at the Giraffe.
‘We’ll do the top floor first!’ the Giraffe shouted down. ‘Bring the water up, please?
The Duke called out, ‘Don’t worry about the two top floors. You can’t reach them anyway.’
‘Who says we can’t reach them?’ the Giraffe called back.
‘I do, the Duke said firmly, ‘and I’m not having any of you risking your silly necks around here!’
If you wish to be friends with a Giraffe, never say anything bad about its neck. Its neck is its proudest possession.
‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY NECK?’ snapped the Giraffe.
‘Don’t argue with me!’ cried the Duke. ‘If you can’t reach it, you can’t reach it and that’s the end of it! Now get on with your work!’
‘Your Grace, the Giraffe said, giving the Duke a small superior smile, ‘there are no windows in the world I cannot reach with this magical neck of mine!
The Monkey, who was dancing about most dangerously on top of the Giraffe’s head, cried out, ‘SHOW HIM,
GIRAFFEY! GO ON AND SHOW HIM WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR MAGICAL NECK!’
The next moment, the Giraffe’s neck, which heaven knows was long enough already, began to grow longer and LONGER and LONGER and HIGHER and HIGHER until at last the Giraffe’s head with the Monkey on top of it was level with the windows of the top floor.
The Giraffe looked down from her great height and said to the Duke, ‘How’s that?’ The Duke was speechless. So was I. It was the most magical thing I had ever seen, more magical even than the Pelican’s Patented Beak.
Up above us, the Giraffe was beginning to sing a little song, but she sang so softly I could hardly catch the words. I think it went something like this:
My neck can stretch terribly high,
Much higher than eagles can fly.
If I ventured to show
Just how high it would go
You’d lose sight of my head in the sky!
The Pelican, with his huge beak full of water, flew up and perched on one of the top-floor windowsills near the Monkey, and now the great window-cleaning business really began.