Mr Fox is very clever. Every night, he steals food from the farms of Boggis, Bunce and Bean to feed his family. The farmers get very angry and try to kill Mr Fox, but they only manage to shoot his tail off.
“It was the finest tail for miles around,” said Mrs Fox, sadly.
“I shall be tail-less for the rest of my life,” said Mr Fox. He looked very glum.
There was no food for the foxes that night, and soon the children dozed off. Then Mrs Fox dozed off. But Mr Fox couldn’t sleep because of the pain in the stump of his tail.
We’ll never get any peace if we … What w that?”
He turned his head sharply and listened. The noise he heard now was the most frightening noise a fox can ever hear- the scrape-scrape-scraping of shovels digging into the soil.
“Wake up!” he shouted. “They’re digging us out!”
Mrs Fox was wide awake in one second. She sat up, shaking all over. “Are you sure?” she whispered.
“I’m sure! Listen!”
Mrs Fox began to cry. She gathered her four children close to her and held them tight.
Suddenly the sharp end of a shovel came right through the ceiling. The sight of this awful thing shocked Mr Fox. He jumped up.
“Come on! A fox can dig quicker than a man!” shouted Mr Fox, beginning to dig. “Nobody in the world can dig as quick as a fox!”
Mrs Fox ran forward to help him. So did the four children.
“Go downwards!” ordered Mr Fox. “We’ve got to go as deep as we possibly can!”
The tunnel began to grow longer and longer. Deeper and deeper below the surface of the ground it went. All the foxes dug together. Their front legs moved so fast you couldn’t see them.
Slowly, the sounds of the shovels became fainter.
After about an hour, Mr Fox stopped digging. “Stop!” he said. They all stopped. They turned and looked back up the long tunnel they had just dug.
All was quiet
“Phew!” said Mr Fox. “I think we’ve done it! They’ll never get as deep as this well done, everyone!”
Your father is a fantastic fox.”
extracted and adapted from Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl