Charlie and the Chocolate Factory c-1 Read online

  '"Now, Violet," Mrs Beauregarde said from a far corner of the room where she was standing on the piano to avoid being trampled by the mob.

  '"All right, Mother, keep your hair on!" Miss Beauregarde shouted. "And now," she went on, turning to the reporters again, "it may interest you to know that this piece of gum I'm chewing right at this moment is one I've been working on for over three months solid. That's a record, that is. It's beaten the record held by my best friend, Miss Cornelia Prinzmetel. And was she furious! It's my most treasured possession now, this piece of gum is. At night-time, I just stick it on the end of the bedpost, and it's as good as ever in the mornings – a bit hard at first, maybe, but it soon softens up again after I've given it a few good chews. Before I started chewing for the world record, I used to change my piece of gum once a day. I used to do it in our lift on the way home from school. Why the lift? Because I liked sticking the gooey piece that I'd just finished with on to one of the control buttons. Then the next person who came along and pressed the button got my old gum on the end of his or her finger. Ha-ha! And what a racket they kicked up, some of them. You get the best results with women who have expensive gloves on. Oh yes, I'm thrilled to be going to Mr Wonka's factory. And I understand that afterwards he's going to give me enough gum to last me for the rest of my whole life. Whoopee! Hooray!"'

  'Beastly girl,' said Grandma Josephine.

  'Despicable!' said Grandma Georgina. 'She'll come to a sticky end one day, chewing all that gum, you see if she doesn't.'

  'And who got the fourth Golden Ticket?' Charlie asked.

  'Now, let me see,' said Mr Bucket, peering at the newspaper again. 'Ah yes, here we are. The fourth Golden Ticket,' he read, 'was found by a boy called Mike Teavee.'

  'Another bad lot, I'll be bound,' muttered Grandma Josephine. 'Don't interrupt, Grandma,' said Mrs Bucket.

  'The Teavee household,' said Mr Bucket, going on with his reading, 'was crammed, like all the others, with excited visitors when our reporter arrived, but young Mike Teavee, the lucky winner, seemed extremely annoyed by the whole business. "Can't you fools see I'm watching television?" he said angrily. "I wish you wouldn't interrupt!"

  'The nine-year-old boy was seated before an enormous television set, with his eyes glued to the screen, and he was watching a film in which one bunch of gangsters was shooting up another bunch of gangsters with machine guns. Mike Teavee himself had no less than eighteen toy pistols of various sizes hanging from belts around his body, and every now and again he would leap up into the air and fire off half a dozen rounds from one or another of these weapons.

  '"Quiet!" he shouted, when someone tried to ask him a question. "Didn't I tell you not to interrupt! This show's an absolute whiz-banger! It's terrific! I watch it every day. I watch all of them every day, even the rotten ones, where there's no shooting. I like the gangsters best. They're terrific, those gangsters! Especially when they start pumping each other full of lead, or flashing the old stilettos, or giving each other the one-two-three with their knuckledusters! Gosh, what wouldn't I give to be doing that myself! It's the life, I tell you! It's terrific!"'

  'That's quite enough!' snapped Grandma Josephine. 'I can't bear to listen to it!'

  'Nor me,' said Grandma Georgina. 'Do all children behave like this nowadays – like these brats we've been hearing about?'

  'Of course not,' said Mr Bucket, smiling at the old lady in the bed. 'Some do, of course. In fact, quite a lot of them do. But not all.'

  'And now there's only one ticket left!' said Grandpa George.

  'Quite so,' sniffed Grandma Georgina. 'And just as sure as I'll be having cabbage soup for supper tomorrow, that ticket'll go to some nasty little beast who doesn't deserve it!'

  9

  Grandpa Joe Takes a Gamble

  The next day, when Charlie came home from school and went in to see his grandparents, he

  found that only Grandpa Joe was awake. The other three were all snoring loudly.

  'Ssshh!' whispered Grandpa Joe, and he beckoned Charlie to come closer. Charlie tiptoed over and stood beside the bed. The old man gave Charlie a sly grin, and then he started rummaging under his pillow with one hand; and when the hand came out again, there was an ancient leather purse clutched in the fingers. Under cover of the bedclothes, the old man opened the purse and tipped it upside down. Out fell a single silver sixpence. 'It's my secret hoard,' he whispered. 'The others don't know I've got it. And now, you and I are going to have one more fling at finding that last ticket. How about it, eh? But you'll have to help me.'

  'Are you sure you want to spend your money on that, Grandpa?' Charlie whispered.

  'Of course I'm sure!' spluttered the old man excitedly. 'Don't stand there arguing! I'm as keen as you are to find that ticket! Here – take the money and run down the street to the nearest shop and buy the first Wonka bar you see and bring it straight back to me, and we'll open it together.'

  Charlie took the little silver coin, and slipped quickly out of the room. In five minutes, he was back.

  'Have you got it?' whispered Grandpa Joe, his eyes shining with excitement.

  Charlie nodded and held out the bar of chocolate. WONKA'S NUTTY CRUNCH SURPRISE, it said on the wrapper.

  'Good!' the old man whispered, sitting up in the bed and rubbing his hands. 'Now – come over here and sit close to me and we'll open it together. Are you ready?'

  'Yes,' Charlie said. 'I'm ready.'

  'All right. You tear off the first bit.'

  'No,' Charlie said, 'you paid for it. You do it all.'

  The old man's fingers were trembling most terribly as they fumbled with the wrapper. 'We don't have a hope, really,' he whispered, giggling a bit. 'You do know we don't have a hope, don't you?'

  'Yes,' Charlie said. 'I know that.'

  They looked at each other, and both started giggling nervously.

  'Mind you,' said Grandpa Joe, 'there is just that tiny chance that it might be the one, don't you agree?'

  'Yes,' Charlie said. 'Of course. Why don't you open it, Grandpa?'

  'All in good time, my boy, all in good time. Which end do you think I ought to open first?'

  'That corner. The one furthest from you. Just tear off a tiny bit, but not quite enough for us to see anything.'

  'Like that?' said the old man.

  'Yes. Now a little bit more.'

  'You finish it,' said Grandpa Joe. 'I'm too nervous.'

  'No, Grandpa. You must do it yourself

  'Very well, then. Here goes.' He tore off the wrapper.

  They both stared at what lay underneath. It was a bar of chocolate – nothing more.

  All at once, they both saw the funny side of the whole thing, and they burst into peals of laughter.

  'What on earth's going on!' cried Grandma Josephine, waking up suddenly. 'Nothing,' said Grandpa Joe. 'You go on back to sleep.'

  10

  The Family Begins to Starve

  During the next two weeks, the weather turned very cold. First came the snow. It began very suddenly one morning just as Charlie Bucket was getting dressed for school. Standing by the window, he saw the huge flakes drifting slowly down out of an icy sky that was the colour of steel.

  By evening, it lay four feet deep around the tiny house, and Mr Bucket had to dig a path from the front door to the road.

  After the snow, there came a freezing gale that blew for days and days without stopping. And oh, how bitter cold it was! Everything that Charlie touched seemed to be made of ice, and each time he stepped outside the door, the wind was like a knife on his cheek.

  Inside the house, little jets of freezing air came rushing in through the sides of the windows and under the doors, and there was no place to go to escape them. The four old ones lay silent and huddled in their bed, trying to keep the cold out of their bones. The excitement over the Golden Tickets had long since been forgotten. Nobody in the family gave a thought now to anything except the two vital problems of trying to keep warm and trying to get enough to eat.