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But what on earth was it doing?

Ah-ha! Sophie could see nohat it was up to It was stopping in front of each house It would stop and peer into the upstairsof each house in the street It actually had to bend down to peer into the upstairs s That's how tall it was

It would stop and peer in Then it would slide on to the next house and stop again, and peer in, and so on all along the street

It was much closer now and Sophie could see it more clearly

Looking at it carefully, she decided it had to be some kind of PERSON Obviously it was not a human But it was definitely a PERSON

A GIANT PERSON, perhaps

Sophie stared hard across the misty moonlit street The Giant (if that hat he earing a long BLACK CLOAK

In one hand he was holding what looked like a VERY LONG, THIN TRUMPET

In the other hand, he held a LARGE SUITCASE

The Giant had stopped now right in front of Mr and Mrs Goochey's house The Goocheys had a greengrocer's shop in the h Street, and the family lived above the shop The two Goochey children slept in the upstairs front room, Sophie knew that

The Giant was peering through theinto the roo From across the street, Sophie watched and held her breath

She saw the Giant step back a pace and put the suitcase down on the pave out of it It looked like a glass jar, one of those square ones with a screw top He unscrewed the top of the jar and poured as in it into the end of the long tru

Sophie watched, tre

She saw the Giant straighten up again and she saw hih the open upstairsof the roo She saw the Giant take a deep breath and whoof, he blew through the trumpet

No noise came out, but it was obvious to Sophie that whatever had been in the jar had now been blown through the trumpet into the Goochey children's bedroom

What could it be?

As the Giant withdrew the trumpet from theand bent down to pick up the suitcase he happened to turn his head and glance across the street

In thepale wrinkly face with the most enormous ears The nose was as sharp as a knife, and above the nose there were two bright flashing eyes, and the eyes were staring straight at Sophie There was a fierce and devilish look about them

Sophie gave a yelp and pulled back from theShe flew across the dormitory and jumped into her bed and hid under the blanket

And there she crouched, still as aall over

The Snatch

Under the blanket, Sophie waited

After a minute or so, she lifted a corner of the blanket and peeped out

For the second tiht her blood froze to ice and she wanted to scream, but no sound came out

There at the ith the curtains pushed aside, was the enor in The flashing black eyes were fixed on Sophie's bed

The next h theThis was followed by an arm, an arers were reaching out across the room towards Sophie's bed

This time Sophie really did screae hand clamped down over her blanket and the scream was smothered by the bedclothes