English · Chapter 11
Study notes aligned to the official NEB syllabus.
Roald Dahl (1916-1990) was a British writer born in Wales to Norwegian parents. He is loved worldwide for children's novels such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda and James and the Giant Peach, but he was equally famous for short stories written for adults, which are known for their dark humour, suspense and surprising twist endings. "The Wish" was published in his 1953 collection Someone Like You. It is one of Dahl's shortest and quietest stories. Nothing happens except that a small boy crosses a carpet, yet Dahl takes the reader so deeply into the child's imagination that a game becomes a matter of life and death.
The story opens with a small boy sitting alone on the stairs of his house. Under the palm of his hand he becomes aware of an old scab on his knee. He picks at it carefully with his fingernail, enjoying the slow process of loosening it, until it comes away and leaves a small circle of smooth red skin. He places the scab on his thigh and flicks it, and it lands on the edge of the hall carpet. This tiny event makes him look at the carpet properly for the first time. It is a huge carpet, red, black and yellow, stretching the whole length of the hall from the bottom of the stairs, where he sits, to the front door in the distance.