‘Oh yes, I do!’ answered Mr Wonka. ‘You wait and see! Up and out!’
‘But . . . but . . . but . . . it’s made of glass!’ shouted Grandpa Joe. ‘It’ll break into a million pieces!’
‘I suppose it might,’ said Mr Wonka, cheerful as ever, ‘but it’s pretty thick glass, all the same.’
The lift rushed on, going up and up and up, faster and faster and faster . . .
Then suddenly, CRASH! — and the most tremendous noise of splintering wood and broken tiles came from directly above their heads, and Grandpa Joe shouted, ‘Help! It’s the end! We’re done for!’ and Mr Wonka said, ‘No, we’re not! We’re through! We’re out!’ Sure enough, the lift had shot right up through the roof of the factory and was now rising into the sky like a rocket, and the sunshine was pouring in through the glass roof. In five seconds they were a thousand feet up in the sky.
‘The lift’s gone mad!’ shouted Grandpa Joe.
‘Have no fear, my dear sir,’ said Mr Wonka calmly, and he pressed another button. The lift stopped. It stopped and hung in mid-air, hovering like a helicopter, hovering over the factory and over the very town itself which lay spread out below them like a picture postcard! Looking down through the glass floor on which he was standing, Charlie could see the small far-away houses and the streets and the snow that lay thickly over everything. It was an eerie and frightening feeling to be standing on clear glass high up in the sky. It made you feel that you weren’t standing on anything at all.
‘Are we all right?’ cried Grandpa Joe. ‘How does this thing stay up?’
‘Sugar power!’ said Mr Wonka. ‘One million sugar power! Oh, look,’ he cried, pointing down, ‘there go the other children! They’re returning home!’
29
The Other Children Go Home
‘We must go down and take a look at our little friends before we do anything else,’ said Mr Wonka. He pressed a different button, and the lift dropped lower, and soon it was hovering just above the entrance gates to the factory.
Looking down now, Charlie could see the children and their parents standing in a little group just inside the gates.
‘I can only see three,’ he said. ‘Who’s missing?’
‘I expect it’s Mike Teavee,’ Mr Wonka said. ‘But he’ll be coming along soon. Do you see the trucks?’ Mr Wonka pointed to a line of gigantic covered vans parked in a line near by.
‘Yes,’ Charlie said. ‘What are they for?’
‘Don’t you remember what it said on the Golden Tickets? Every child goes home with a lifetime’s supply of sweets. There’s one truckload for each of them, loaded to the brim. Ah-ha,’ Mr Wonka went on, ‘there goes our friend Augustus Gloop! D’you see him? He’s getting into the first truck with his mother and father!’
‘You mean he’s really all right?’ asked Charlie, astonished. ‘Even after going up that awful pipe?’
‘He’s very much all right,’ said Mr Wonka.
‘He’s changed!’ said Grandpa Joe, peering down through the glass wall of the elevator. ‘He used to be fat! Now he’s thin as a straw!’
‘Of course he’s changed,’ said Mr Wonka, laughing. ‘He got squeezed in the pipe. Don’t you remember? And look! There goes Miss Violet Beauregarde, the great gum-chewer! It seems as though they managed to de-juice her after all. I’m so glad. And how healthy she looks! Much better than before!’
‘But she’s purple in the face!’ cried Grandpa Joe.
‘So she is,’ said Mr Wonka. ‘Ah, well, there’s nothing we can do about that.’
‘Good gracious!’ cried Charlie. ‘Look at poor Veruca Salt and Mr Salt and Mrs Salt! They’re simply covered with rubbish!’
‘And here comes Mike Teavee!’ said Grandpa Joe. ‘Good heavens! What have they done to him? He’s about ten feet tall and thin as a wire!’
‘They’ve overstretched him on the gum-stretching machine,’ said Mr Wonka. ‘How very careless.’
‘But how dreadful for him!’ cried Charlie.
‘Nonsense,’ said Mr Wonka, ‘he’s very lucky. Every basketball team in the country will be trying to get him. But now,’ he added, ‘it is time we left these four silly children. I have something very important to talk to you about, my dear Charlie.’ Mr Wonka pressed another button, and the lift swung upwards into the sky.