Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- About the Author
- Contents
- Introduction
- Prologue
- PART ONE A TOWERING GIANT
- Chapter 1 The Witching Hour
- Chapter 2 Prodding and Poking
- Chapter 3 Into Africa
- Chapter 4 Crash
- PART TWO THE GREAT INVENTOR
- PART THREE AN ENORMOUS SHADOW
- PART FOUR GOBBLEFUNKING
- PART FIVE NO BOOK EVER ENDS
- Acknowledgements
- Bibliography
- Notes
- Photo Credits
- Index
- Charity Support
- Plate section
Chapter 2 - Prodding and Poking
from PART ONE - A TOWERING GIANT
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- About the Author
- Contents
- Introduction
- Prologue
- PART ONE A TOWERING GIANT
- Chapter 1 The Witching Hour
- Chapter 2 Prodding and Poking
- Chapter 3 Into Africa
- Chapter 4 Crash
- PART TWO THE GREAT INVENTOR
- PART THREE AN ENORMOUS SHADOW
- PART FOUR GOBBLEFUNKING
- PART FIVE NO BOOK EVER ENDS
- Acknowledgements
- Bibliography
- Notes
- Photo Credits
- Index
- Charity Support
- Plate section
Summary
Sometime during the 1880s Dahl's father, Harald, left Norway on a boat, spending a few years in Paris before settling in Cardiff, South Wales. At the time, Cardiff was a thriving coal metropolis where enterprising Norwegians could make their fortune. Dahl's mother, Sofie Magdalene, also came from Norway, and even after his father had died she stayed in Cardiff for the sake of the children's education. Dahl's first school was Llandaff Cathedral School in Cardiff. However, following The Great Mouse Plot, in which he left a dead rodent in a sweetie jar to terrify a local shopkeeper, he was moved to St Peters School in Weston-Super-Mare.
At first the nine-year-old boarder was terribly homesick, but, as recorded in Boy: Tales of Childhood, his detailed observation of his sister Ellen's appendicitis would prove useful: with considerable dramatic skill he faked the condition to fool the school matron.
I lay on the bed and she began prodding my tummy violently with herfingers. I was watching her carefully, and when she hit what I guessedwas the appendix place, I let out a yelp that rattled the windowpanes.‘Ow! Ow! Ow!’ I cried out. ‘Don't, Matron, don't!’ Then I slipped in theclincher. ‘I've been sick all morning,’ I moaned, ‘and now there's nothingleft to be sick with, but I still feel sick!’
She called the school doctor who was also duped by Dahl's antics and so Dahl was sent home. Here he was examined by the family doctor, who was a wiser and more skilful physician.
He himself sat down behind his desk and fixed me with a penetrating butnot unkindly eye. ‘You're faking, aren't you?’ he said.
‘How do you know?’ I blurted out.
‘Because your stomach is soft and perfectly normal,’ he answered.‘If you had any inflammation down there, the stomach would have beenhard and rigid. It's quite easy to tell.’
I kept silent.
‘I expect you're homesick,’ he said.
I nodded miserably.
‘Everyone is at first,’ he said. ‘You have to stick it out.’
Dahl was worried about what the general practitioner would tell his school, but they struck a deal: the doctor would say Dahl had a very severe infection of the stomach, which was being treated at home with pills for three days, so long as he promised never to try anything like this again.
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- Roald Dahl's Marvellous Medicine , pp. 18 - 27Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2017