Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator Read online

  Other books by Roald Dahl

  THE BFG

  BOY: TALES OF CHILDHOOD

  BOY and GOING SOLO

  CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

  THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF CHARLIE AND MR WILLY WONKA DANNY THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD

  GEORGE'S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE

  GOING SOLO

  JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH

  MATILDA

  THE WITCHES

  For younger readers

  THE ENORMOUS CROCODILE

  ESIO TROT

  FANTASTIC MR FOX

  THE GIRAFFE AND THE PELLY AND ME

  THE MAGIC FINGER

  THE TWITS

  Picture books

  DIRTY BEASTS (with Quentin Blake) THE ENORMOUS CROCODILE (with Quentin Blake) THE GIRAFFE AND THE PELLY AND ME (with Quentin Blake) THE MINPINS (with Patrick Benson) REVOLTING RHYMES (with Quentin Blake) Plays

  THE BFG: PLAYS FOR CHILDREN (Adapted by David Wood) CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY: A PLAY (Adapted by Richard George) FANTASTIC MR FOX: A PLAY (Adapted by Sally Reid) JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH: A PLAY (Adapted by Richard George) THE TWITS: PLAYS FOR CHILDREN (Adapted by David Wood) THE WITCHES: PLAYS FOR CHILDREN (Adapted by David Wood) Teenage fiction

  THE GREAT AUTOMATIC GRAMMATIZATOR AND OTHER STORIES

  RHYME STEW

  SKIN AND OTHER STORIES

  THE VICAR OF NIBBLESWICKE

  THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR AND SIX MORE

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England puffinbooks.com

  First published by Jonathan Cape Ltd 1973

  Published in Puffin Books 1975

  Reissued with new illustrations 1995

  This edition published 2007

  2

  Text copyright (c) Roald Dahl Nominee Ltd, 1973

  Illustrations copyright (c) Quentin Blake, 1995

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-0-14-193019-0

  For my daughters

  Tessa Ophelia Lucy

  and for my godson

  Edmund Pollinger

  Contents

  1 Mr Wonka Goes Too Far

  2 Space Hotel 'U.S.A.'

  3 The Link-Up

  4 The President

  5 Men from Mars

  6 Invitation to the White House

  7 Something Nasty in the Lifts

  8 The Vermicious Knids

  9 Gobbled Up

  10 Transport Capsule in Trouble - Attack No. 1

  11 The Battle of the Knids

  12 Back to the Chocolate Factory

  13 How Wonka-Vite Was Invented

  14 Recipe for Wonka-Vite

  15 Good-bye Georgina

  16 Vita-Wonk and Minusland

  17 Rescue in Minusland

  18 The Oldest Person in the World

  19 The Babies Grow Up

  20 How to Get Someone out of Bed

  1

  Mr Wonka Goes Too Far

  The last time we saw Charlie, he was riding high above his home town in the Great Glass Lift. Only a short while before, Mr Wonka had told him that the whole gigantic fabulous Chocolate Factory was his, and now our small friend was returning in triumph with his entire family to take over. The passengers in the Lift (just to remind you) were: Charlie Bucket, our hero.

  Mr Willy Wonka, chocolate-maker extraordinary.

  Mr and Mrs Bucket, Charlie's father and mother.

  Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine, Mr Bucket's father and mother.

  Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina, Mrs Bucket's father and mother.

  Grandma Josephine, Grandma Georgina and Grandpa George were still in bed, the bed having been pushed on board just before take-off. Grandpa Joe, as you remember, had got out of bed to go around the Chocolate Factory with Charlie.

  The Great Glass Lift was a thousand feet up and cruising nicely. The sky was brilliant blue. Everybody on board was wildly excited at the thought of going to live in the famous Chocolate Factory.

  Grandpa Joe was singing.

  Charlie was jumpimg up and down.

  Mr and Mrs Bucket were smiling for the first time in years, and the three old ones in the bed were grinning at one another with pink toothless gums.

  'What in the world keeps this crazy thing up in the air?' croaked Grandma Josephine.

  'Madam,' said Mr Wonka, 'it is not a lift any longer. Lifts only go up and down inside buildings. But now that is has taken us up into the sky, it has become an EVEVATOR. It is THE GREAT GLASS EVEVATOR.'

  'And what keeps it up?' said

  Grandma Josephine.

  'Skyhooks,' said Mr Wonka.

  'You amaze me,' said Grandma Josephine.

  'Dear lady,' said Mr Wonka, 'you are new to the scene. When you have been with us a little longer, nothing will amaze you.'

  'These skyhooks,' said Grandma Josephine. 'I assume one end is hooked on to this contraption we're riding in. Right?'

  'Right,' said Mr Wonka.

  'What's the other end hooked on to?' said Grandma Josephine.

  'Every day,' said Mr Wonka, 'I get deafer and deafer. Remind me, please, to call up my ear doctor the moment we get back.'

  'Charlie,' said Grandma Josephine. 'I don't think I trust this gentleman very much.'

  'Nor do I,' said Grandma Georgina. 'He footles around.'

  Charlie leaned over the bed and whispered to the two old women. 'Please,' he said, 'don't spoil everything. Mr Wonka is a fantastic man. He's my friend. I love him.'

  'Charlie's right,' whispered Grandpa Joe, joining the group. 'Now you be quiet, Josie, and don't make trouble.'

  'We must hurry!' said Mr Wonka. 'We have so much time and so little to do! No! Wait! Cross that out! Reverse it! Thank you! Now back to the factory!' he cried, clapping his hands once and springing two feet in the air with two feet. 'Back we fly to the factory! But we must go up before we can come down. We must go higher and higher!'

  'What did I tell you,' said Grandma Josephine. 'The man's cracked!'

  'Be quiet, Josie,' said Grandpa Joe. 'Mr Wonka knows exactly what he's doing.'

  'He's cracked as a crab!' said Grandma Georgina.

  'We must go higher!' said Mr Wonka. 'We must go tremendously high! Hold on to your stomach!' He pressed a brown button. The Elevator shuddered, and then with a fearful whooshing noise it shot vertically upward like a rocket. Everybody clu