‘Where are they taking her?’ shrieked Mrs Salt.
‘She’s going where all the other bad nuts go,’ said Mr Willy Wonka. ‘Down the rubbish chute.’
‘By golly, she is going down the chute!’ said Mr Salt, staring through the glass door at his daughter.
‘Then save her!’ cried Mrs Salt.
‘Too late,’ said Mr Wonka. ‘She’s gone!’
And indeed she had.
‘But where?’ shrieked Mrs Salt, flapping her arms. ‘What happens to the bad nuts? Where does the chute go to?’
‘That particular chute,’ Mr Wonka told her, ‘runs directly into the great big main rubbish pipe which carries away all the rubbish from every part of the factory — all the floor sweepings and potato peelings and rotten cabbages and fish heads and stuff like that.’
‘Who eats fish and cabbage and potatoes in this factory, I’d like to know?’ said Mike Teavee.
‘I do, of course,’ answered Mr Wonka. ‘You don’t think I live on cacao beans, do you?’
‘But . . . but . . . but . . .’ shrieked Mrs Salt, ‘where does the great big pipe go to in the end?’
‘Why, to the furnace, of course,’ Mr Wonka said calmly. ‘To the incinerator.’
Mrs Salt opened her huge red mouth and started to scream.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Mr Wonka, ‘there’s always a chance that they’ve decided not to light it today.’
‘A chance!’ yelled Mrs Salt. ‘My darling Veruca! She’ll . . . she’ll . . . she’ll be sizzled like a sausage!’
‘Quite right, my dear,’ said Mr Salt. ‘Now see here, Wonka,’ he added, ‘I think you’ve gone just a shade too far this time, I do indeed. My daughter may be a bit of a frump — I don’t mind admitting it — but that doesn’t mean you can roast her to a crisp. I’ll have you know I’m extremely cross about this, I really am.’
‘Oh, don’t be cross, my dear sir!’ said Mr Wonka. ‘I expect she’ll turn up again sooner or later. She may not even have gone down at all. She may be stuck in the chute just below the entrance hole, and if that’s the case, all you’ll have to do is go in and pull her up again.’
Hearing this, both Mr and Mrs Salt dashed into the Nut Room and ran over to the hole in the floor and peered in.
‘Veruca!’ shouted Mrs Salt. ‘Are you down there!’
There was no answer.
Mrs Salt bent further forward to get a closer look. She was now kneeling right on the edge of the hole with her head down and her enormous behind sticking up in the air like a giant mushroom. It was a dangerous position to be in. She needed only one tiny little push . . . one gentle nudge in the right place . . . and that is exactly what the squirrels gave her! Over she toppled, into the hole head first, screeching like a parrot.
‘Good gracious me!’ said Mr Salt, as he watched his fat wife go tumbling down the hole, ‘what a lot of rubbish there’s going to be today!’ He saw her disappearing into the darkness. ‘What’s it like down there, Angina?’ he called out. He leaned further forward.
The squirrels rushed up behind him . . .
‘Help!’ he shouted.
But he was already toppling forward, and down the chute he went, just as his wife had done before him — and his daughter.
‘Oh dear!’ cried Charlie, who was watching with the others through the door, ‘what on earth’s going to happen to them now?’
‘I expect someone will catch them at the bottom of the chute,’ said Mr Wonka.
‘But what about the great fiery incinerator?’ asked Charlie.
‘They only light it every other day,’ said Mr Wonka. ‘Perhaps this is one of the days when they let it go out. You never know . . . they might be lucky . . .’
‘Ssshh!’ said Grandpa Joe. ‘Listen! Here comes another song!’
From far away down the corridor came the beating of drums. Then the singing began.
‘Veruca Salt!’ sang the Oompa-Loompas.
‘Veruca Salt, the little brute,
Has just gone down the rubbish chute