the last time we saw charlie, he was riding high above his

home town in the great glass lift. only a short while before,

mr wonka had told him that the whole gigantic fabulous

chocolate factory was his, and now our small friend was

returning in triumph with his entire family to take over. the

passengers in the lift (just to remind you) were:

charlie bucket, our hero.

mr willy wonka, chocolate-maker extraordinary.

mr and mrs bucket, charlie's father and mother.

grandpa joe and grandma josephine, mr bucket's father and

mother.

grandpa george and grandma georgina, mrs bucket's father

and mother.

grandma josephine, grandma georgina and grandpa george

were still in bed, the bed having been pushed on board just

before take-off. grandpa joe, as you remember, had got out of

bed to go around the chocolate factory with charlie.

the great glass lift was a thousand feet up and cruising

nicely. the sky was brilliant blue. everybody on board was

wildly excited at the thought of going to live in the famous

chocolate factory.

grandpa joe was singing. charlie was jumping up and down.

mr and mrs bucket were smiling for the first time in years,

and the three old ones in the bed were grinning at one

another with pink toothless gums.

'what in the world keeps this crazy thing up in the air?'

croaked grandma josephine.

'madam,' said mr wonka, 'it is not a lift any longer. lifts only

go up and down inside buildings. but now that it has taken us

up into the sky, it has become an elevator. it is the

great glass elevator.'

'and what keeps it up?' said grandma josephine. 'skyhooks,'

said mr wonka.

'you amaze me,' said grandma josephine.

'dear lady,' said mr wonka, 'you are new to the scene. when

you have been with us a little longer, nothing will amaze you.'

'these skyhooks,' said grandma josephine. 'i assume one end

is hooked on to this contraption we're riding in. right?'

'right,' said mr wonka.

'what's the other end hooked on to?' said grandma josephine.

'every day,' said mr wonka, 'i get deafer and deafer. remind

me, please, to call up my ear doctor the moment we get back.'

'charlie,' said grandma josephine. 'i don't think i trust this

gentleman very much.' 'nor do i,' said grandma georgina. 'he

footles around.'

charlie leaned over the bed and whispered to the two old

women. 'please,' he said, 'don't spoil everything. mr wonka is

a fantastic man. he's my friend. i love him.'

'charlie's right,' whispered grandpa joe, joining the group.

'now you be quiet, josie, and don't make trouble.'

'we must hurry!' said mr wonka. 'we have so much time and

so little to do! no! wait! cross that out! reverse it! thank

you! now back to the factory!' he cried, clapping his hands

once and springing two feet in the air with two feet. 'back we

fly to the factory! but we must go up before we can come

down. we must go higher and higher!'

'what did i tell you,' said grandma josephine. 'the man's

cracked!'

'be quiet, josie,' said grandpa joe. 'mr wonka knows exactly

what he's doing.'

'he's cracked as a crab!' said grandma georgina.

'we must go higher!' said mr wonka. 'we must go

tremendously high! hold on to your stomach!' he pressed a

brown button. the elevator shuddered, and then with a fearful

whooshing noise it shot vertically upward like a rocket.

everybody clutched hold of everybody else and as the great

machine gathered speed, the rushing whooshing sound of the

wind outside grew louder and louder and shriller and shriller

until it became a piercing shriek and you had to yell to make

yourself heard.

'stop!' yelled grandma josephine. 'joe, you make him stop! i

want to get off!' 'save us!' yelled grandma georgina.

'go down!' yelled grandpa george.

'no, no!' mr wonka yelled back. 'we've got to go up!'

'but why?' they all shouted at once. 'why up and not down?'

'because the higher we are when we start coming down, the

faster we'll all be going when we hit,' said mr wonka. 'we've

got to be going at an absolutely sizzling speed when we hit.'

'when we hit what?' they cried.

'the factory, of course,' answered mr wonka.

'you must be whackers,' said grandma josephine. 'we'll all be

pulpified!'

'we'll be scrambled like eggs!' said grandma georgina.

'that,' said mr wonka, 'is a chance we shall have to take.'

'you're joking,' said grandma josephine. 'tell us you're joking.'

'madam,' said mr wonka, 'i never joke.'

'oh, my dears!' cried grandma georgina. 'we'll be lixivated,

every one of us!'

'more than likely,' said mr wonka.

grandma josephine screamed and disappeared under the

bedclothes, grandma georgina clutched grandpa george so

tight he changed shape. mr and mrs bucket stood hugging

each other, speechless with fright. only charlie and grandpa

joe kept moderately cool. they had travelled a long way with

mr wonka and had grown accustomed to surprises. but as

the great elevator continued to streak upward further and

further away from the earth, even charlie began to feel a trifle

nervous. 'mr wonka!' he yelled above the noise, 'what i don't

understand is why we've got to come down at such a terrific

speed.'

'my dear boy,' mr wonka answered, 'if we don't come down

at a terrific speed, we'll never burst our way back in through

the roof of the factory. it's not easy to punch a hole in a roof

as strong as that.'

'but there's a hole in it already,' said charlie. 'we made it

when we came out.'

'then we shall make another,' said mr wonka. 'two holes are

better than one. any mouse will tell you that.'

higher and higher rushed the great glass elevator until soon

they could see the countries and oceans of the earth spread

out below them like a map. it was all very beautiful, but when

you are standing on a glass floor looking down, it gives you a

nasty feeling. even charlie was beginning to feel frightened

now. he hung on tightly to grandpa joe's hand and looked

up anxiously into the old man's face. 'i'm scared, grandpa,' he

said.

grandpa joe put an arm around charlie's shoulders and held

him close. 'so am i, charlie,' he said.

'mr wonka!' charlie shouted. 'don't you think this is about

high enough?'

'very nearly,' mr wonka answered. 'but not quite. don't talk to

me now, please. don't disturb me. i must watch things very

carefully at this stage. split-second timing, my boy, that's what

it's got to be. you see this green button. i must press it at

exactly the right instant. if i'm just half a second late, then

we'll go too high!'

'what happens if we go too high?' asked grandpa joe.

'do please stop talking and let me concentrate!' mr wonka

said.

at that precise moment, grandma josephine poked her head

out from under the sheets and peered over the edge of the

bed. through the glass floor she saw the entire continent of

north america nearly two hundred miles below and looking no

bigger than a bar of chocolate. 'someone's got to stop this

maniac!' she screeched and she shot out a wrinkled old hand

and grabbed mr wonka by the coat-tails and yanked him

backwards on to the bed.

'no, no!' cried mr wonka, struggling to free himself. 'let me

go! i have things to see to! don't disturb the pilot!'

'you madman!' shrieked grandma josephine, shaking mr

wonka so fast his head became a blur. 'you get us back

home this instant!'

'let me go!' cried mr wonka, 'i've got to press that button or

we'll go too high! let me go! let me go!' but grandma

josephine hung on. 'charlie!' shouted mr wonka. 'press the

button! the green one! quick, quick, quick!'

charlie leaped across the elevator and banged his thumb down

on the green button. but as he did so, the elevator gave a

mighty groan and rolled over on to its side and the rushing

whooshing noise stopped altogether. there was an eerie silence.

'too late!' cried mr wonka. 'oh, my goodness me, we're

cooked!' as he spoke, the bed with the three old ones in it

and mr wonka on top lifted gently off the floor and hung

suspended in mid-air. charlie and grandpa joe and mr and

mrs bucket also floated upwards so that in a twink the entire

company, as well as the bed, were floating around like balloons

inside the great glass elevator.

'now look what you've done!' said mr wonka, floating about.

'what happened?' grandma josephine called out. she had

floated clear of the bed and was hovering near the ceiling in

her nightshirt.

'did we go too far?' charlie asked.

'too far?' cried mr wonka. 'of course we went too far! you

know where we've gone, my friends? we've gone into orbit!'

they gaped, they gasped, they stared. they were too

flabbergasted to speak.

'we are now rushing around the earth at seventeen thousand

miles an hour,' mr wonka said. 'how does that grab you?'

'i'm choking!' gasped grandma georgina. 'i can't breathe!'

'of course you can't,' said mr wonka. 'there's no air up here.'

he sort of swam across under the ceiling to a button marked

oxygen. he pressed it. 'you'll be all right now,' he said.

'breathe away.'

'this is the queerest feeling,' charlie said, swimming about. 'i

feel like a bubble.' 'it's great,' said grandpa joe. 'it feels as

though i don't weigh anything at all.' 'you don't,' said mr

wonka. 'none of us weighs anything — not even one ounce.'

'what piffle!' said grandma georgina. 'i weigh one hundred

and thirty-seven pounds exactly.'

'not now you don't,' said mr wonka. 'you are completely

weightless.'

the three old ones, grandpa george, grandma georgina and

grandma josephine, were trying frantically to get back into

bed, but without success. the bed was floating about in

mid-air. they, of course, were also floating, and every time they

got above the bed and tried to lie down, they simply floated

up out of it. charlie and grandpa joe were hooting with

laughter. 'what's so funny?' said grandma josephine.

'we've got you out of bed at last,' said grandpa joe. 'shut up

and help us back!' snapped grandma josephine.

'forget it,' said mr wonka. 'you'll never stay down. just keep

floating around and be happy.'

'the man's a madman!' cried grandma georgina. 'watch out, i

say, or he'll lixivate the lot of us!'