But no reply came.
‘SPEAK!’ boomed the voice, getting louder and louder and ending in a fearful frightening shout that rattled Charlie’s eardrums. ‘SPEAK! SPEAK! SPEAK!’ Grandma Georgina shot under the sheet. Grandma Josephine stuck her fingers in her ears. Grandpa George buried his head in the pillow. Mr and Mrs Bucket, both petrified, were once again in each other’s arms. Charlie was clutching Grandpa Joe’s hand, and the two of them were staring at Mr Wonka and begging him with their eyes to do something. Mr Wonka stood very still, and although his face looked calm, you can be quite sure his clever inventive brain was spinning like a dynamo.
‘THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE!’ boomed the voice. ‘WE ARE ASKING YOU ONCE MORE . . . WHO . . . ARE . . . YOU? REPLY IMMEDIATELY! IF YOU DO NOT REPLY WE SHALL BE FORCED TO REGARD YOU AS DANGEROUS ENEMIES. WE SHALL THEN PRESS THE EMERGENCY FREEZER SWITCH AND THE TEMPERATURE IN THE SPACE HOTEL WILL DROP TO MINUS ONE HUNDRED DEGREES CENTIGRADE. ALL OF YOU WILL BE INSTANTLY DEEP FROZEN. YOU HAVE FIFTEEN SECONDS TO SPEAK. AFTER THAT YOU WILL TURN INTO ICICLES . . . ONE . . . TWO . . . THREE . . .’
‘Grandpa!’ whispered Charlie as the counting continued, ‘we must do something! We must! Quick!’
‘SIX!’ said the voice. ‘SEVEN! . . . EIGHT! . . . NINE! . . .’
Mr Wonka had not moved. He was still gazing straight ahead, still quite cool, perfectly expressionless. Charlie and Grandpa Joe were staring at him in horror. Then, all at once, they saw the tiny twinkling wrinkles of a smile appear around the corners of his eyes. He sprang to life. He spun round on his toes, skipped a few paces across the floor and then, in a frenzied unearthly sort of scream he cried, ‘FIMBO FEEZ!’
The loudspeaker stopped counting. There was silence. All over the world there was silence.
Charlie’s eyes were riveted on Mr Wonka. He was going to speak again. He was taking a deep breath. ‘BUNGO BUNI!’ he screamed. He put so much force into his voice that the effort lifted him right up on to the tips of his toes.
‘BUNGO BUNI
DAFU DUNI
YUBEE LUNI!’
Again the silence.
The next time Mr Wonka spoke, the words came out so fast and sharp and loud they were like bullets from a machine-gun. ‘ZOONK-ZOONK-ZOONK-ZOONK-ZOONK!’ he barked. The noise echoed around and around the lobby of the Space Hotel. It echoed around the world.
Mr Wonka now turned and faced the far end of the lobby where the loudspeaker voice had come from. He walked a few paces forward as a man would, perhaps, who wanted a more intimate conversation with his audience. And this time, the tone was much quieter, the words came more slowly, but there was a touch of steel in every syllable:
‘KIRASUKU MALIBUKU,
WEEBEE WIZE UN YUBEE KUKU!
ALIPENDA KAKAMENDA,
PANTZ FORLDUN IFNO SUSPENDA!
FUIKIKA KANDERIKA,
WEEBE STRONGA YUBEE WEEKA!
POPOKOTA BORUMOKA
VERI RISKI YU PROVOKA!
KATIKATI MOONS UN STARS
FANFANISHA VENUS MARS!’
Mr Wonka paused dramatically for a few seconds. Then he took an enormous deep breath and in a wild and fearsome voice, he yelled out:
‘KITIMBIBI ZOONK!
FUMBOLEEZI ZOONK!
GUGUMIZA ZOONK!
FUMIKAKA ZOONK!
ANAPOLALA ZOONK ZOONK ZOONK!’
The effect of all this on the world below was electric. In the Control Room in Houston, in the White House in Washington, in palaces and city buildings and mountain shacks from America to China to Peru, the five hundred million people who heard that wild and fearsome voice yelling out these strange and mystic words all shivered with fear before their television sets. Everybody began turning to everybody else and saying, ‘Who are they? What language was that? Where do they come from?’
In the President’s study in the White House, Vice-President Tibbs, the members of the Cabinet, the Chiefs of the Army and the Navy and the Air Force, the sword-swallower from Afghanistan, the Chief Financial Adviser and Mrs Taubsypuss the cat, all stood tense and rigid. They were very much afraid. But the President himself kept a cool head and a clear brain. ‘Nanny!’ he cried. ‘Oh, Nanny, what on earth do we do now?’