7 something nasty in the lifts

grandma josephine had stopped screaming now. she had gonerigid with shock. the rest

of the group by the bed, including charlie and grandpa joe,had become as still as stone.

they dared not move. they dared hardly breathe. and mrwonka, who had swung quickly

around to look when the first scream came, was asdumbstruck as the rest. he stood

motionless, gaping at the thing in the lift, his mouth slightlyopen, his eyes stretched wide

as two wheels. what he saw, what they all saw, was this:

it looked more than anything like an enormous egg balancedon its pointed end. it was as tall as a big boy and wider thanthe fattest man. the greenish-brown skin had a shiny wettishappearance and there were wrinkles in it. about three-quartersof the way up, in the widest part, there were two large roundeyes as big as tea-cups. the eyes were white, but each had abrilliant red pupil in the centre. the red pupils were resting onmr wonka. but now they began travelling slowly across tocharlie and grandpa joe and the others by the bed, settlingupon them and gazing at them with a cold malevolent stare.

the eyes were everything. there were no other features, nonose or mouth or ears, but the entire egg-shaped body wasitself moving very very slightly, pulsing and bulging gently hereand there as though the skin were filled with some thick fluid.

at this point, charlie suddenly noticed that the next lift wascoming down. the indicator numbers above the door wereflashing … 6 … 5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 … l (for lobby). therewas a slight pause. the door slid open and there, inside thesecond lift, was another enormous slimy wrinkledgreenish-brown egg with eyes!

now the numbers were flashing above all three of theremaining lifts. down they came … down … down … down …and soon, at precisely the same time, they reached the lobbyfloor and the doors slid open … five open doors now … onecreature in each … five in all … and five pairs of eyes withbrilliant red centres all watching mr wonka and watchingcharlie and grandpa joe and the others.

there were slight differences in size and shape between thefive, but all had the same greenish-brown wrinkled skin andthe skin was rippling and pulsing.

for about thirty seconds nothing happened. nobody stirred,nobody made a sound. the silence was terrible. so was thesuspense. charlie was so frightened he felt himself shrinkinginside his skin. then he saw the creature in the left-hand liftsuddenly starting to change shape! its body was slowlybecoming longer and longer, and thinner and thinner, going upand up towards the roof of the lift, not straight up, butcurving a little to the left, making a snake-like curve that wascuriously graceful, up to the left and then curling over the topto the right and coming down again in a half-circle … andthen the bottom end began to grow out as well, like a tail …creeping along the floor … creeping along the floor to the left… until at last the creature, which had originally looked like ahuge egg, now looked like a long curvy serpent standing up onits tail.

then the one in the next lift began stretching itself in muchthe same way, and what a weird and oozy thing it was towatch! it was twisting itself into a shape that was a bitdifferent from the first, balancing itself almost but not quite onthe tip of its tail.

then the three remaining creatures began stretching themselvesall at the same time, each one elongating itself slowly upward,growing taller and taller, thinner and thinner, curving andtwisting, stretching and stretching, curling and bending,balancing either on the tail or the head or both, and turnedsideways now so that only one eye was visible. when they hadall stopped stretching and bending, this was how they finishedup:

'scram!' shouted mr wonka. 'get out quick!'

people have never moved faster than grandpa joe and charlieand mr and mrs bucket at that moment. they all got behindthe bed and started pushing like crazy. mr wonka ran in frontof them shouting 'scram! scram! scram!' and in ten secondsflat all of them were out of the lobby and back inside thegreat glass elevator. frantically, mr wonka began undoingbolts and pressing buttons. the door of the great glasselevator snapped shut and the whole thing leaped sideways.

they were away! and of course all of them, including the threeold ones in the bed, floated up again into the air.