Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator Read online

  'Where from? Where to?' Charlie went on eagerly.

  'Oh no, I couldn't tell you that... I was just a tiny little girl...' She lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes. Charlie watched her, waiting for something more. Everybody waited. No one moved.

  '... It had a lovely name, that ship... there was something beautiful... something so beautiful about that name... but of course I couldn't possibly remember it...'

  Charlie, who had been sitting on the edge of the bed, suddenly jumped up. His face was shining with excitement. 'If I said the name, Grandma, would you remember it then?'

  'I might, Charlie... yes... I think I might...'

  'THE MAYFLOWER!' cried Charlie.

  The old woman's head jerked up off the pillow. 'That's it!' she croaked. 'You've got it, Charlie! The Mayflower... Such a lovely name...'

  'Grandpa!' Charlie called out, dancing with excitement. 'What year did the Mayflower sail for America?'

  'The Mayflower sailed out of Plymouth Harbour on September the sixth, sixteen hundred and twenty,' said Grandpa Joe.

  'Plymouth...' croaked the old woman. 'That rings a bell, too... Yes, it might easily have been Plymouth...'

  'Sixteen hundred and twenty!' cried Charlie. 'Oh, my heavens above! That means you're... you do it, Grandpa!'

  'Well now,' said Grandpa Joe. 'Take sixteen hundred and twenty away from nineteen hundred and seventy-two... that leaves... don't rush me now, Charlie... That leaves three hundred... and... and fifty-two.'

  'Jumping jackrabbits!' yelled Mr Bucket. 'She's three hundred and fifty-two years old!'

  'She's more,' said Charlie. 'How old did you say you were, Grandma, when you sailed on the Mayflower? Were you about eight?'

  'I think I was even younger than that, my darling... I was only a bitty little girl... probably no more than six...'

  'Then she's three hundred and fifty-eight!' gasped Charlie.

  'That's Vita-Wonk for you,' said Mr Wonka proudly. 'I told you it was powerful stuff.'

  'Three hundred and fifty-eight!' said Mr Bucket. 'It's unbelievable!'

  'Just imagine the things she must have seen in her lifetime!' said Grandpa Joe.

  'My poor old mother!' wailed Mrs Bucket. 'What on earth...'

  'Patience, dear lady,' said Mr Wonka. 'Now comes the interesting part. Bring on the Wonka-Vite!'

  An Oompa-Loompa ran forward with a large bottle and gave it to Mr Wonka. He put it on the bed. 'How young does she want to be?' he asked.

  'Seventy-eight,' said Mrs Bucket firmly. 'Exactly where she was before all this nonsense started!'

  'Surely she'd like to be a bit younger than that?' said Mr Wonka.

  'Certainly not!' said Mrs Bucket. 'It's too risky!'

  'Too risky, too risky!' croaked Grandma Georgina. 'You'll only Minus me again if you try to be clever!'

  'Have it your own way,' said Mr Wonka. 'Now then, I've got to do a few sums.' Another Oompa-Loompa trotted forward, holding up a blackboard. Mr Wonka took a piece of chalk from his pocket and wrote:

  'Fourteen pills of Wonka-Vite exactly,' said Mr Wonka. The Oompa-Loompa took the blackboard away. Mr Wonka picked up the bottle from the bed and opened it and counted out fourteen of the little brilliant yellow pills. 'Water!' he said. Yet another Oompa-Loompa ran forward with a glass of water. Mr Wonka tipped all fourteen pills into the glass. The water bubbled and frothed. 'Drink it while it's fizzing,' he said, holding the glass up to Grandma Georgina's lips. 'All in one gulp!'

  She drank it.

  Mr Wonka sprang back and took a large brass clock from his pocket. 'Don't forget,' he cried, 'it's a year a second! She's got two hundred and eighty years to lose! That'll take her four minutes and forty seconds! Watch the centuries fall away!'

  The room was so silent they could hear the ticking of Mr Wonka's clock. At first nothing much happened to the ancient person lying on the bed. She closed her eyes and lay back. Now and again, the puckered skin of her face gave a twitch and her little hands jerked up and down, but that was all...

  'One minute gone!' called Mr Wonka. 'She's sixty years younger.'

  'She looks just the same to me,' said Mr Bucket.

  'Of course she does,' said Mr Wonka. 'What's a mere sixty years when you're over three hundred to start with!'

  'Are you all right, Mother?' said Mrs Bucket anxiously. 'Talk to me, Mother!'

  'Two minutes gone!' called Mr Wonka. 'She's one hundred and twenty years younger!'

  And now definite changes were beginning to show in the old woman's face. The skin was quivering all over and some of the deepest wrinkles were becoming less and less deep, the mouth less sunken, the nose more prominent.

  'Mother!' cried Mrs Bucket. 'Are you all right? Speak to me, Mother, please!'

  Suddenly, with a suddenness that made everyone jump, the old woman sat bolt upright in bed and shouted, 'Did you hear the news! Admiral Nelson has beaten the French at Trafalgar!'

  'She's going crazy!' said Mr Bucket.

  'Not at all,' said Mr Wonka. 'She's going through the nineteenth century.'

  'Three minutes gone!' said Mr Wonka.

  Every second now she was growing slightly less and less shrivelled, becoming more and more lively. It was a marvellous thing to watch.

  'Gettysburg !' she cried. 'General Lee is on the run!'

  And a few seconds later she let out a great wail of anguish and said, 'He's dead, he's dead, he's dead!'

  'Who's dead?' said Mr Bucket, craning forward.

  'Lincoln !' she wailed. 'There goes the train...'

  'She must have seen it!' said Charlie. 'She must have been there!'

  'She is there,' said Mr Wonka. 'At least she was a few seconds ago.'

  'Will someone please explain to me,' said Mrs Bucket, 'what on earth...'

  'Four minutes gone!' said Mr Wonka. 'Only forty seconds left! Only forty more years to lose!'

  'Grandma!' cried Charlie, running forward. 'You're looking almost exactly like you used to! Oh, I'm so glad!'

  'Just as long as it all stops when it's meant to,' said Mrs Bucket.

  'I'll bet it doesn't,' said Mr Bucket. 'Something always goes wrong.'

  'Not when I'm in charge of it, sir,' said Mr Wonka. 'Time's up! She is now seventy-eight years old! How do you feel, dear lady? Is everything all right?'

  'I feel tolerable,' she said. 'Just tolerable. But that's no thanks to you, you meddling old mackerel!'

  There she was again, the same cantankerous grumbling old Grandma Georgina that Charlie had known so well before it all started. Mrs Bucket flung her arms around her and began weeping with joy. The old woman pushed her aside and said, 'What, may I ask, are those two silly babies doing at the other end of the bed?'

  'One of them's your husband,' said Mr Bucket.

  'Rubbish!' she said. 'Where is George?'

  'I'm afraid it's true, Mother,' said Mrs Bucket. 'That's him on the left. The other one's Josephine...'

  'You... you chiselling old cheeseburger!' she shouted, pointing a fierce finger at Mr Wonka. 'What in the name of...'

  'Now now now now now!' said Mr Wonka. 'Let us not for mercy's sake have another row so late in the day. If everyone will keep their hair on and leave this to Charlie and me, we shall have them exactly where they used to be in the flick of a fly's wing!'

  19

  The Babies Grow Up

  'Bring on the Vita-Wonk!' said Mr Wonka. 'We'll soon fix these two babies.'

  An Oompa-Loompa ran forward with a small bottle and a couple of silver teaspoons.

  'Wait just one minute!' snapped Grandma Georgina. 'What sort of devilish dumpery are you up to now?'

  'It's all right, Grandma,' said Charlie. 'I promise you it's all right. Vita-Wonk does the opposite to Wonka-Vite. It makes you older. It's what we gave you when you were a Minus. It saved you!'

  'You gave me too much!' snapped the old woman.

  'We had to, Grandma.'

  'And now you want to do the same to Grandpa George!'

  'Of course