'oh, my goodness me!' gasped mr wonka. 'oh, my saintedpants! oh, my painted ants! oh, my crawling cats! i hopenever to see anything like that again!' he floated over to thewhite button and pressed it. the booster-rockets fired. theelevator shot forward at such a speed that soon the spacehotel was out of sight far behind.

'but who were those awful creatures?' charlie asked.

'you mean you didn't know?' cried mr wonka. 'well, it's agood thing you didn't! if you'd had even the faintest idea ofwhat horrors you were up against, the marrow would haverun out of your bones! you'd have been fossilized with fearand glued to the ground! then they'd have got you! you'dhave been a cooked cucumber! you'd have been rasped into athousand tiny bits, grated like cheese and flocculated alive!

they'd have made necklaces from your knucklebones andbracelets from your teeth! because those creatures, my dearignorant boy, are the most brutal, vindictive, venomous,murderous beasts in the entire universe!' here mr wonkapaused and ran the tip of a pink tongue all the way aroundhis lips. 'vermicious knids!' he cried. 'that's what theywere!' he sounded the k … k'nids, like that.

'i thought they were grobes,' charlie said. 'those oozy-woozygrobes you were telling the president about.'

'oh, no, i just made those up to scare the white house,' mrwonka answered. 'but there is nothing made up aboutvermicious knids, believe you me. they live, as everybodyknows, on the planet vermes, which is eighteen thousand fourhundred and twenty-seven million miles away and they arevery, very clever brutes indeed. the vermicious knid can turnitself into any shape it wants. it has no bones. its body isreally one huge muscle, enormously strong, but very stretchyand squishy, like a mixture of rubber and putty with steelwires inside. normally it is egg-shaped, but it can just as easilygive itself two legs like a human or four legs like a horse. itcan become as round as a ball or as long as a kite-string.

from fifty yards away, a fully grown vermicious knid couldstretch out its neck and bite your head off without even gettingup!'

'bite off your head with what?' said grandma georgina. 'ididn't see any mouth.' 'they have other things to bite with,'

said mr wonka darkly. 'such as what?' said grandmageorgina.

'ring off,' said mr wonka. 'your time's up. but listen,everybody. i've just had a funny thought. there i was foolingaround with the president and pretending we were creaturesfrom some other planet and, by golly, there actually werecreatures from some other planet on board!'

'do you think there were many?' charlie asked. 'more than thefive we saw?'

'thousands!' said mr wonka. 'there are five hundred rooms inthat space hotel and there's probably a family of them inevery room!'

'somebody's going to get a nasty shock when they go onboard!' said grandpa joe. they'll be eaten like peanuts,' saidmr wonka. 'every one of them.' 'you don't really mean that,do you, mr wonka?' charlie said.

'of course i mean it,' said mr wonka. 'these vermicious knidsare the terror of the universe. they travel through space ingreat swarms, landing on other stars and planets anddestroying everything they find. there used to be some rathernice creatures living on the moon a long time ago. they werecalled poozas. but the vermicious knids ate the lot. they didthe same on venus and mars and many other planets.'

'why haven't they come down to our earth and eaten us?'

charlie asked.

'they've tried to, charlie, many times, but they've never madeit. you see, all around our earth there is a vast envelope ofair and gas, and anything hitting that at high speed gets redhot. space capsules are made of special heat-proof metal, andwhen they make a re-entry, their speeds are reduced rightdown to about two thousand miles an hour, first byretro-rockets and then by something called "friction". but evenso, they get badly scorched. knids, which are not heat-proof atall, and don't have any retro-rockets, get sizzled up completelybefore they're halfway through. have you ever seen a shootingstar?'

'lots of them,' charlie said.

'actually, they're not shooting stars at all,' said mr wonka.

'they're shooting knids. they're knids trying to enter theearth's atmosphere at high speed and going up in flames.'

'what rubbish,' said grandma georgina.

'you wait,' said mr wonka. 'you may see it happening beforethe day is done.'

'but if they're so fierce and dangerous,' charlie said, 'whydidn't they eat us up right away in the space hotel? why didthey waste time twisting their bodies into letters and writingscram?'

'because they're show-offs,' mr wonka replied. 'they'retremendously proud of being able to write like that.'

'but why say scram when they wanted to catch us and eatus?'

'it's the only word they know,' mr wonka said.

'look!' screamed grandma josephine, pointing through theglass. 'over there!'

before he even looked, charlie knew exactly what he was goingto see. so did the others. they could tell by the high hystericalnote in the old lady's voice.

and there it was, cruising effortlessly alongside them, a simplycolossal vermicious knid, as thick as a whale, as long as alorry, with the most brutal vermicious look in its eye! it was nomore than a dozen yards away, egg-shaped, slimy,greenish-brown, with one malevolent red eye (the only onevisible) fixed intently upon the people floating inside the greatglass elevator!

'the end has come!' screamed grandma georgina. 'he'll eat usall!' cried mrs bucket. 'in one gulp!' said mr bucket.

'we're done for, charlie,' said grandpa joe. charlie nodded. hecouldn't speak or make a sound. his throat was seized upwith fright.

but this time mr wonka didn't panic. he remained perfectlycalm. 'we'll soon get rid of that!' he said and he pressed sixbuttons all at once and six booster-rockets went offsimultaneously under the elevator. the elevator leaped forwardlike a stung horse, faster and faster, but the great green greasyknid kept pace alongside it with no trouble at all.

'make it go away!' yelled grandma georgina. 'i can't stand itlooking at me!'

'dear lady,' said mr wonka, 'it can't possibly get in here. idon't mind admitting i was a trifle alarmed back there in thespace hotel. and with good reason. but here we have nothingto fear. the great glass elevator is shockproof, waterproof,bombproof, bulletproof and knidproof! so just relax and enjoyit.'

'oh you knid, you are vile and vermicious!'

cried mr wonka.

'you are slimy and soggy and squishous!but what do we care'cause you can't get in here,

so hop it and don't get

ambitious!'

at this point, the massive knid outside turned and startedcruising away from the elevator. 'there you are,' cried mrwonka, triumphant. 'it heard me! it's going home!' but mrwonka was wrong. when the creature was about a hundredyards off, it stopped, hovered for a moment, then wentsmoothly into reverse, coming back toward the elevator with itsrear-end (which was the pointed end of the egg) now in front.

even going backwards, its acceleration was unbelievable. it waslike some monstrous bullet coming at them and it came so fastnobody had time even to cry out.

crash! it struck the glass elevator with the most enormousbang and the whole thing shivered and shook but the glassheld and the knid bounced off like a rubber ball.

'what did i tell you!' shouted mr wonka, triumphant. 'we'resafe as sausages in here!' 'he'll have a nasty headache afterthat,' said grandpa joe.

'it's not his head, it's his bottom!' said charlie. 'look, there's abig bump coming up on the pointed end where he hit! it'sgoing black and blue!'

and so it was. a purple bruisy bump the size of a small carwas appearing on the pointed rear-end of the giant knid.

'hello, you dirty great beast!' cried mr wonka.

'hello, you great knid! tell us, how do you do?

you're a

rather strange colour today.your bottom is purple and lavenderblue.should it really be looking that way?are you not feelingwell? are you going to faint?is it something we cannotdiscuss?it must be a very unpleasant complaint,for yourbackside's as big as a bus!let me get you a doctor. i knowjust the manfor a knid with a nasty disease.he's a butcherby trade which is not a bad plan,and he charges quitereasonable fees.ah, here he is now! "doc, you really are kindto travel so far into space.

there's your patient, the knid with

the purple behind!do you think it's a desperate case?""greatheavens above! it's no wonder he's pale!"said the doc with ahorrible grin."there's a sort of balloon on the end of his tail!imust prick it at once with a pin!"so he got out a thing likean indian spear,with feathers all over the top,and he lunged

and he caught the knid smack in the rear,but alas, theballoon didn't pop!

cried the knid, "what on earth am i going

to do

with this painful preposterous lump?i can't remainstanding the whole summer through!and i cannot sit down onmy rump!"

"it's a bad case of rear-ache," the medico said,"and it's something i cannot repair.if you want to sit down,you must sit on your head,with your bottom high up in theair!"'