9 gobbled up

on the day when all this was happening, no factories openedanywhere in the world. all offices and schools were closed.

nobody moved away from the television screens, not even fora couple of minutes to get a coke or to feed the baby. thetension was unbearable. everybody heard the americanpresident's invitation to the men from mars to visit him in thewhite house. and they heard the weird rhyming reply, whichsounded rather threatening. they also heard a piercing scream(grandma josephine), and a little later on, they heard someoneshouting, 'scram! scram! scram!' (mr wonka). nobody couldmake head or tail of the shouting. they took it to be somekind of martian language. but when the eight mysteriousastronauts suddenly rushed back into their glass capsule andbroke away from the space hotel, you could almost hear thegreat sigh of relief that rose up from the peoples of the earth.

telegrams and messages poured into the white housecongratulating the president upon his brilliant handling of afrightening situation.

the president himself remained calm and thoughtful. he sat athis desk rolling a small piece of wet chewing-gum between hisfinger and thumb. he was waiting for the moment when hecould flick it at miss tibbs without her seeing him. he flicked itand missed miss tibbs but hit the chief of the air force onthe tip of his nose.

'do you think the men from mars have accepted my invitationto the white house?' the president asked.

'of course they have,' said the foreign secretary. 'it was abrilliant speech, sir.'

'they're probably on their way down here right now,' said misstibbs. 'go and wash that nasty sticky chewing-gum off yourfingers quickly. they could be here any minute.'

'let's have a song first,' said the president. 'sing another oneabout me, nanny … please.'

the nurse's song

this mighty man of whom i sing,the greatest of them all,wasonce a teeny little thing,just eighteen inches tall.

i knew him as

a tiny tot.

i nursed him on my knee.i used to sit him on thepot

and wait for him to wee.

i always washed between his toes,

and cut his little nails.i brushed his hair and wiped his noseand weighed him on the scales.through happy childhood dayshe strayed,as all nice children should.i smacked him when hedisobeyed,and stopped when he was good.it soon began todawn on me

he wasn't very bright,because when he was

twenty-threehe couldn't read or write.'what shall we do?' hisparents sobbed.'the boy has got the vapours!he couldn't evenget a jobdelivering the papers!''ah-ha,' i said. 'this little clotcould be a politician.''nanny,' he cried. 'oh nanny, whatasuper proposition!'

'okay,' i said. 'let's learn and note

the art

of politics.let's teach you how to miss the boatand how todrop some bricks,and how to win the people's voteand lotsof other tricks.let's learn to make a speech a dayupon the

tv screen,in which you never never sayexactly what youmean.and most important, by the way,

is not to let your teeth

decay,

and keep your fingers clean.'and now that i ameighty-nine,it's too late to repent.the fault was mine the littleswinebecame the president.

'bravo, nanny!' cried the president, clapping his hands.

'hooray!' shouted the others. 'well done, miss vice-president,ma'am! brilliant! tremendous!'

'my goodness!' said the president. 'those men from mars willbe here any moment! what on earth are we going to givethem for lunch? where's my chief cook?'

the chief cook was a frenchman. he was also a french spyand at this moment he was listening at the keyhole of thepresident's study. 'ici, monsieur le president!' he said, burstingin.

'chief cook,' said the president. 'what do men from mars eatfor lunch?'

'mars bars,' said the chief cook.

'baked or boiled?' asked the president.

'oh, baked, of course, monsieur le president. you will ruin amars bar by boiling!'

the voice of astronaut shuckworth cut in over the loudspeakerin the president's study.

'request permission to link up and go aboard space hotel?' hesaid.

'permission granted,' said the president. 'go right ahead,shuckworth. it's all clear now … thanks to me.'

and so the large transport capsule, piloted by shuckworth,shanks and showler, with all the hotel managers and assistantmanagers and hall porters and pastry chefs and bell-boys andwaitresses and chambermaids on board, moved in smoothlyand linked up with the giant space hotel.

'hey there! we've lost our television picture,' called thepresident.

'i'm afraid the camera got smashed against the side of thespace hotel, mr president,' shuckworth replied. the presidentsaid a very rude word into the microphone and ten millionchildren across the nation began repeating it gleefully and gotsmacked by their parents.

'all astronauts and one hundred and fifty hotel staff safelyaboard space hotel!' shuckworth reported over the radio. 'weare now standing in the lobby!'

'and what do you think of it all?' asked the president. heknew the whole world was listening in and he wantedshuckworth to say how wonderful it was. shuckworth didn't lethim down.

'gee, mr president, it's just great!' he said. 'it's unbelievable!

it's so enormous! and so … it's kind of hard to find words todescribe it, it's so truly grand, especially the chandeliers and thecarpets and all! i have the chief hotel manager, mr walter w.

wall, beside me now. he would like the honour of a wordwith you, sir.'

'put him on,' said the president.

'mr president, sir, this is walter wall. what a sumptuous hotelthis is! the decorations are superb!'

'have you noticed that all the carpets are wall-to-wall, mrwalter wall?' said the president.

'i have indeed, mr president.'

'all the wallpaper is all wall-to-wall, too, mr walter wall.'

'yes, sir, mr president! isn't that something! it's going to be areal pleasure running a beautiful hotel like this! … hey! what'sgoing on over there? something's coming out of the lifts! help!'

suddenly the loudspeaker in the president's study gave out aseries of the most ghastly screams and yells. 'ayeeeee!

owwwww! ayeeeee! hel-l-l-lp! hel-l-l-l-l-lp! hel-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-lp!'

'what on earth's going on?' said the president. 'shuckworth!

are you there, shuckworth? … shanks! showler! mr walterwall! where are you all! what's happening?'

the screams continued. they were so loud the president hadto put his fingers in his ears. every house in the world thathad a television or radio receiver heard those awful screams.

there were other noises, too. loud grunts and snortings andcrunching sounds. then there was silence.

frantically the president called the space hotel on the radio.

houston called the space hotel. the president called houston.

houston called the president. then both of them called thespace hotel again. but answer came there none. up there inspace all was silent.

'something nasty's happened,' said the president.

'it's those men from mars,' said the ex-chief of the army. 'itold you to let me blow them up.'

'silence!' snapped the president. 'i've got to think.'

the loudspeaker began to crackle. 'hello!' it said. 'hello hellohello! are you receiving me, space control in houston?'

the president grabbed the mike on his desk. 'leave this tome, houston!' he shouted. 'president gilligrass here receivingyou loud and clear! go ahead!'

'astronaut shuckworth here, mr president, back aboard thetransport capsule … thank heavens!'

'what happened, shuckworth? who's with you?'

'we're most of us here, mr president, i'm glad to say. shanksand showler are with me, and a whole bunch of other folks. iguess we lost maybe a couple of dozen people altogether,pastry chefs, hall porters, that sort of thing. it sure was ascramble getting out of that place alive!'

'what do you mean you lost two dozen people?' shouted thepresident. 'how did you lose them?'

'gobbled up!' replied shuckworth. 'one gulp and that was it! isaw a big six-foot-tall assistant-manager being swallowed up justlike you'd swallow a lump of ice-cream, mr president! nochewing — nothing! just down the hatch!'

'but who?' yelled the president. 'who are you talking about?

who did the swallowing?'

'hold it!' cried shuckworth. 'oh, my lord, here they all comenow! they're coming after us! they're swarming out of thespace hotel! they're coming out in swarms! you'll have toexcuse me a moment, mr president. no time to talk rightnow!'