Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Puffin Modern Classics relaunch)

by Roald Dahl

  ‘This is the most important room in the entire factory!’ he said. ‘All my most secret new inventions are cooking and simmering in here! Old Fickel-gruber would give his front teeth to be allowed inside just for three minutes! So would Prodnose and Slugworth and all the other rotten chocolate makers! But now, listen to me! I want no messing about when you go in! No touching, no meddling, and no tasting! Is that agreed?’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ the children cried. ‘We won’t touch a thing!’

  ‘Up to now,’ Mr Wonka said, ‘nobody else, not even an Oompa-Loompa, has ever been allowed in here!’ He opened the door and stepped out of the boat into the room. The four children and their parents all scrambled after him.

  ‘Don’t touch!’ shouted Mr Wonka. ‘And don’t knock anything over!’

  Charlie Bucket stared around the gigantic room in which he now found himself. The place was like a witch’s kitchen! All about him black metal pots were boiling and bubbling on huge stoves, and kettles were hissing and pans were sizzling, and strange iron machines were clanking and spluttering, and there were pipes running all over the ceiling and walls, and the whole place was filled with smoke and steam and delicious rich smells.

  Mr Wonka himself had suddenly become even more excited than usual, and anyone could see that this was the room he loved best of all. He was hopping about among the saucepans and the machines like a child among his Christmas presents, not knowing which thing to look at first. He lifted the lid from a huge pot and took a sniff; then he rushed over and dipped a finger into a barrel of sticky yellow stuff and had a taste; then he skipped across to one of the machines and turned half a dozen knobs this way and that; then he peered anxiously through the glass door of a gigantic oven, rubbing his hands and cackling with delight at what he saw inside. Then he ran over to another machine, a small shiny affair that kept going phut-phut-phut-phut-phut, and every time it went phut, a large green marble dropped out of it into a basket on the floor. At least it looked like a marble.

  ‘Everlasting Gobstoppers!’ cried Mr Wonka proudly. ‘They’re completely new! I am inventing them for children who are given very little pocket money. You can put an Everlasting Gobstopper in your mouth and you can suck it and suck it and suck it and suck it and it will never get any smaller!’

  ‘It’s like gum!’ cried Violet Beauregarde.

  ‘It is not like gum,’ Mr Wonka said. ‘Gum is for chewing, and if you tried chewing one of these Gobstoppers here you’d break your teeth off! And they never get any smaller! They never disappear! NEVER! At least I don’t think they do. There’s one of them being tested this very moment in the Testing Room next door. An Oompa-Loompa is sucking it. He’s been sucking it for very nearly a year now without stopping, and it’s still just as good as ever!

  ‘Now, over here,’ Mr Wonka went on, skipping excitedly across the room to the opposite wall, ‘over here I am inventing a completely new line in toffees!’ He stopped beside a large saucepan. The saucepan was full of a thick gooey purplish treacle, boiling and bubbling. By standing on his toes, little Charlie could just see inside it.

  ‘That’s Hair Toffee!’ cried Mr Wonka. ‘You eat just one tiny bit of that, and in exactly half an hour a brand-new luscious thick silky beautiful crop of hair will start growing out all over the top of your head! And a moustache! And a beard!’

  ‘A beard!’ cried Veruca Salt. ‘Who wants a beard, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘It would suit you very well,’ said Mr Wonka, ‘but unfortunately the mixture is not quite right yet. I’ve got it too strong. It works too well. I tried it on an Oompa-Loompa yesterday in the Testing Room and immediately a huge black beard started shooting out of his chin, and the beard grew so fast that soon it was trailing all over the floor in a thick hairy carpet. It was growing faster than we could cut it! In the end we had to use a lawn mower to keep it in check! But I’ll get the mixture right soon! And when I do, then there’ll be no excuse any more for little boys and girls going about with bald heads!’

  ‘But Mr Wonka,’ said Mike Teavee, ‘little boys and girls never do go about with…‘

  ‘Don’t argue, my dear child, please don’t argue!’ cried Mr Wonka. ‘It’s such a waste of precious time! Now, over here, if you will all step this way, I will show you something that I am terrifically proud of. Oh, do be careful! Don’t knock anything over! Stand back!’

  20

  The Great Gum Machine

  Mr Wonka led the party over to a gigantic machine that stood in the very centre of the Inventing Room. It was a mountain of gleaming metal that towered high above the children and their parents. Out of the very top of it there sprouted hundreds and hundreds of thin glass tubes, and the glass tubes all curled downwards and came together in a bunch and hung suspended over an enormous round tub as big as a bath.

  ‘Here we go!’ cried Mr Wonka, and he pressed three different buttons on the side of the machine. A second later, a mighty rumbling sound came from inside it, and the whole machine began to shake most frighteningly, and steam began hissing out of it all over, and then suddenly the watchers noticed that runny stuff was pouring down the insides of all the hundreds of little glass tubes and squirting out into the great tub below. And in every single tube the runny stuff was of a different colour, so that all the colours of the rainbow (and many others as well) came sloshing and splashing into the tub. It was a lovely sight. And when the tub was nearly full, Mr Wonka pressed another button, and immediately the runny stuff disappeared, and a whizzing whirring noise took its place; and then a giant whizzer started whizzing round inside the enormous tub, mixing up all the different coloured liquids like an ice-cream soda. Gradually, the mixture began to froth. It became frothier and frothier, and it turned from blue to white to green to brown to yellow, then back to blue again.

  ‘Watch!’ said Mr Wonka.

  Click went the machine, and the whizzer stopped whizzing. And now there came a sort of sucking noise, and very quickly all the blue frothy mixture in the huge basin was sucked back into the stomach of the machine. There was a moment of silence. Then a few queer rumblings were heard. Then silence again. Then suddenly, the machine let out a monstrous mighty groan, and at the same moment a tiny drawer (no bigger than the drawer in a slot machine) popped out of the side of the machine, and in the drawer there lay something so small and thin and grey that everyone thought it must be a mistake. The thing looked like a little strip of grey cardboard.

  The children and their parents stared at the little grey strip lying in the drawer.

  ‘You mean that’s all?’ said Mike Teavee, disgusted.

  ‘That’s all,’ answered Mr Wonka, gazing proudly at the result. ‘Don’t you know what it is?’

  There was a pause. Then suddenly, Violet Beau-regarde, the silly gum-chewing girl, let out a yell of excitement. ‘By gum, it’s gum!’ she shrieked. ‘It’s a stick of chewing-gum!’

  ‘Right you are!’ cried Mr Wonka, slapping Violet hard on the back. ‘It’s a stick of gum! It’s a stick of the most amazing and fabulous and sensational gum in the world!’

  21

  Good-bye Violet

  ‘This gum,’ Mr Wonka went on, ‘is my latest, my greatest, my most fascinating invention! It’s a chewing-gum meal! It’s… it’s… it’s… That tiny little strip of gum lying there is a whole three-course dinner all by itself!’

  ‘What sort of nonsense is this?’ said one of the fathers.

  ‘My dear sir!’ cried Mr Wonka, ‘when I start selling this gum in the shops it will change everything! It will be the end of all kitchens and all cooking! There will be no more shopping to do! No more buying of meat and groceries! There’ll be no knives and forks at mealtimes! No plates! No washing up! No rubbish! No mess! Just a little strip of Wonka’s magic chewing-gum – and that’s all you’ll ever need at breakfast, lunch, and supper! This piece of gum I’ve just made happens to be tomato soup, roast beef, and blueberry pie, but you can have almost anything you want!’

  ‘What do you mean
, it’s tomato soup, roast beef, and blueberry pie?’ said Violet Beauregarde.

  ‘If you were to start chewing it,’ said Mr Wonka, ‘then that is exactly what you would get on the menu. It’s absolutely amazing! You can actually feel the food going down your throat and into your tummy! And you can taste it perfectly! And it fills you up! It satisfies you! It’s terrific!’

  ‘It’s utterly impossible,’ said Veruca Salt.

  ‘Just so long as it’s gum,’ shouted Violet Beauregarde, ‘just so long as it’s a piece of gum and I can chew it, then that’s for me!’ And quickly she took her own world-record piece of chewing-gum out of her mouth and stuck it behind her left ear. ‘Come on, Mr Wonka,’ she said, ‘hand over this magic gum of yours and we’ll see if the thing works.’

  ‘Now, Violet,’ said Mrs Beauregarde, her mother; ‘don’t let’s do anything silly, Violet.’

  ‘I want the gum!’ Violet said obstinately. ‘What’s so silly?’

  ‘I would rather you didn’t take it,’ Mr Wonka told her gently. ‘You see, I haven’t got it quite right yet. There are still one or two things…’

  ‘Oh, to blazes with that!’ said Violet, and suddenly, before Mr Wonka could stop her, she shot out a fat hand and grabbed the stick of gum out of the little drawer and popped it into her mouth. At once, her huge, well-trained jaws started chewing away on it like a pair of tongs.

  ‘Don’t!’ said Mr Wonka.

  ‘Fabulous!’ shouted Violet. ‘It’s tomato soup! It’s hot and creamy and delicious! I can feel it running down my throat!’

  ‘Stop!’ said Mr Wonka. ‘The gum isn’t ready yet! It’s not right!’

  ‘Of course it’s right!’ said Violet. ‘It’s working beautifully! Oh my, what lovely soup this is!’

  ‘Spit it out!’ said Mr Wonka.

  ‘It’s changing!’ shouted Violet, chewing and grinning both at the same time. ‘The second course is coming up! It’s roast beef! It’s tender and juicy! Oh boy, what a flavour! The baked potato is marvellous, too! It’s got a crispy skin and it’s all filled with butter inside!’

  ‘But how in-teresting, Violet,’ said Mrs Beauregarde. ‘You are a clever girl.’

  ‘Keep chewing, baby!’ said Mr Beauregarde. ‘Keep right on chewing! This is a great day for the Beauregardes! Our little girl is the first person in the world to have a chewing-gum meal!’

  Everybody was watching Violet Beauregarde as she stood there chewing this extraordinary gum. Little Charlie Bucket was staring at her absolutely spellbound, watching her huge rubbery lips as they pressed and unpressed with the chewing, and Grandpa Joe stood beside him, gaping at the girl. Mr Wonka was wringing his hands and saying, ‘No, no, no, no, no! It isn’t ready for eating! It isn’t right! You mustn’t do it!’

  ‘Blueberry pie and cream!’ shouted Violet. ‘Here it comes! Oh my, it’s perfect! It’s beautiful! It’s… it’s exactly as though I’m swallowing it! It’s as though I’m chewing and swallowing great big spoonfuls of the most marvellous blueberry pie in the world!’

  ‘Good heavens, girl!’ shrieked Mrs Beauregarde suddenly, staring at Violet, ‘what’s happening to your nose!’

  ‘Oh, be quiet, mother, and let me finish!’ said Violet.

  ‘It’s turning blue!’ screamed Mrs Beauregarde. ‘Your nose is turning blue as a blueberry!’

  ‘Your mother is right!’ shouted Mr Beauregarde. ‘Your whole nose has gone purple!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Violet, still chewing away.

  ‘Your cheeks!’ screamed Mrs Beauregarde. ‘They’re turning blue as well! So is your chin! Your whole face is turning blue!’

  ‘Spit that gum out at once!’ ordered Mr Beauregarde.

  ‘Mercy! Save us!’ yelled Mrs Beauregarde. ‘The girl’s going blue and purple all over! Even her hair is changing colour! Violet, you’re turning violet, Violet! What is happening to you?’

  T told you I hadn’t got it quite right,’ sighed Mr Wonka, shaking his head sadly.

  ‘I’ll say you haven’t!’ cried Mrs Beauregarde. ‘Just look at the girl now!’

  Everybody was staring at Violet. And what a terrible, peculiar sight she was! Her face and hands and legs and neck, in fact the skin all over her body, as well as her great big mop of curly hair, had turned a brilliant, purplish-blue, the colour of blueberry juice!

  ‘It always goes wrong when we come to the dessert,’ sighed Mr Wonka. ‘It’s the blueberry pie that does it. But I’ll get it right one day, you wait and see.’

  ‘Violet,’ screamed Mrs Beauregarde, ‘you’re swelling up!’

  ‘I feel sick,’ Violet said.

  ‘You’re swelling up!’ screamed Mrs Beauregarde again.

  ‘I feel most peculiar!’ gasped Violet.

  ‘I’m not surprised!’ said Mr Beauregarde.

  ‘Great heavens, girl!’ screeched Mrs Beauregarde. ‘You’re blowing up like a balloon!’

  ‘Like a blueberry,’ said Mr Wonka.

  ‘Call a doctor!’ shouted Mr Beauregarde.

  ‘Prick her with a pin!’ said one of the other fathers.

  ‘Save her!’ cried Mrs Beauregarde, wringing her hands.

  But there was no saving her now. Her body was swelling up and changing shape at such a rate that within a minute it had turned into nothing less than an enormous round blue ball – a gigantic blueberry, in fact – and all that remained of Violet Beauregarde herself was a tiny pair of legs and a tiny pair of arms sticking out of the great round fruit and little head on top.

  ‘It always happens like that,’ sighed Mr Wonka. ‘I’ve tried it twenty times in the Testing Room on twenty Oompa-Loompas, and every one of them finished up as a blueberry. It’s most annoying. I just can’t understand it.’

  ‘But I don’t want a blueberry for a daughter!’ yelled Mrs Beauregarde. ‘Put her back to what she was this instant!’

  Mr Wonka clicked his fingers, and ten Oompa-Loompas appeared immediately at his side.

  ‘Roll Miss Beauregarde into the boat,’ he said to them, ‘and take her along to the Juicing Room at once.’

  ‘The Juicing Room?’ cried Mrs Beauregarde. ‘What are they going to do to her there?’

  ‘Squeeze her,’ said Mr Wonka. ‘We’ve got to squeeze the juice out of her immediately. After that, we’ll just have to see how she comes out. But don’t worry, my dear Mrs Beauregarde. We’ll get her repaired if it’s the last thing we do. I am sorry about it all, I really am…’

  Already the ten Oompa-Loompas were rolling the enormous blueberry across the floor of the Inventing Room towards the door that led to the chocolate river where the boat was waiting. Mr and Mrs Beauregarde hurried after them. The rest of the party, including little Charlie Bucket and Grandpa Joe, stood absolutely still and watched them go.

  ‘Listen!’ whispered Charlie. ‘Listen, Grandpa! The Oompa-Loompas in the boat outside are starting to sing!’

  The voices, one hundred of them singing together, came loud and clear into the room:

  ‘Dear friends, we surely all agree

  There’s almost nothing worse to see

  Than some repulsive little bum

  Who’s always chewing chewing-gum.

  (It’s very near as bad as those

  Who sit around and pick the nose.)

  So please believe us when we say

  That chewing gum will never pay;

  This sticky habits bound to send

  The chewer to a sticky end.

  Did any of you ever know

  A person called Miss Bigelow?

  This dreadful woman saw no wrong

  In chewing, chewing all day long.

  She chewed while bathing in the tub,

  She chewed while dancing at her club,

  She chewed in church and on the bus;

  It really was quite ludicrous!

  And when she couldn’t find her gum,

  She’d chew up the linoleum,

  Or anything that happened near –

  A pair of bo
ots, the postman’s ear,

  Or other people’s underclothes,

  And once she chewed her boy-friend’s nose.

  She went on chewing till, at last,

  Her chewing muscles grew so vast

  That from her face her giant chin

  Stuck out just like a violin.

  For years and years she chewed away,

  Consuming fifty bits a day,

  Until one summer’s eve, alas,

  A horrid business came to pass.

  Miss Bigelow went late to bed,

  For half an hour she lay and read,

  Chewing and chewing all the while

  Like some great clockwork crocodile.

  At last, she put her gum away

  Upon a special little tray,

  And settled back and went to sleep –

  (She managed this by counting sheep).

  But now, how strange! Although she slept,

  Those massive jaws of hers still kept

  On chewing, chewing through the night,

  Even with nothing there to bite.

  They were, you see, in such a groove

  They positively had to move.

  And very grim it was to hear

  In pitchy darkness, loud and clear,

  This sleeping woman’s great big trap

  Opening and shutting, snap-snap-snap!

  Faster and faster, chop-chop-chop,

  The noise went on, it wouldn’t stop.

  Until at last her jaws decide

  To pause and open extra wide,

  And with the most tremendous chew

  They bit the lady’s tongue-in two.

  Thereafter, just from chewing gum,

  Miss Bigelow was always dumb,

  And spent her life shut up in some

  Disgusting sanatorium.

  And that is why we’ll try so hard

  To save Miss Violet Beauregarde

  From suffering an equal fate.

  She’s still quite young. It’s not too late,

  Provided she survives the cure.