‘The Way Up to Heaven’ by Roald Dahl

and ‘Sredni Vashtar’ by Saki (collected in The Chronicles of Clovis, 1912)

I will write about these two stories in one because they are completely mingled in my memory – I read both as a child and they taught me that cruelty and death are wonderful and thrilling conclusions when a story winds itself up tight enough. They remind me of the misanthropy I found so essential to childhood, where the world of adults is always telling you what to do and when, and how totally satisfying it was to read about nastiness, how bruising a perfect punchline should be.

First published in The New Yorker, February 27, 1954. Collected in Kiss Kiss, Knopf, 1960