Esio Trot

Roald Dahl's Esio Trot is a short, sweet and sneaky story for 7 year olds about a shy man who's been in love with the lady downstairs for years.

What happens

Mr Hoppy lives alone in a flat high up in a tall building. He has two loves. One is the flowers on his balcony. The other is Mrs Silver, on the balcony just below, and she has no idea.

The trouble is Mrs Silver gives all her love to Alfie, her little tortoise. She whispers sweet things to him every morning. Mr Hoppy would quite happily be a tortoise himself if it meant getting the same treatment.

Then one morning Mrs Silver wishes out loud that Alfie would grow a bit bigger. In eleven years he's hardly put on any weight at all.

Mr Hoppy's mind goes click. He writes her some magic words in tortoise language, which is just English backwards (Esio Trot is tortoise, spelled backwards). Then he goes out and buys one hundred and forty tortoises.

That's the joy of it. You're in on the plan and Mrs Silver isn't. Every week Mr Hoppy uses a special grabber on a long pole to swap Alfie for a tortoise that's just two ounces heavier. Will she notice? Children LOVE being one step ahead like this.

It's gentle for a Dahl. Nobody in it is nasty. It's really a funny little love story, with Mr Hoppy tiptoeing through a living room carpeted with tortoises.

Mrs Silver is a sweetie. She practises the backwards words very carefully, and wonders why there are so many poos in them (plenty of giggles there).

There's a short note from Dahl at the start that's worth a look together. It explains that tortoises used to be sold in pet shops, and why that was stopped. It's a nice way in if your reader starts asking for a tortoise of their own!

What to read next

If they'd like another Dahl where something grows much bigger than it should, try George's Marvellous Medicine. It's a lot naughtier (George's medicine is NOT one to copy at home), and his grandma ends up with her head through the roof.