'grandpa joe, sir!' shouted mr wonka. 'kindly j et yourselfover to the far corner of the

elevator there and turn that handle! it lowers the rope!'

'a rope's no good, mr wonka! the knids will bite through arope in one second!'

'it's a steel rope,' said mr wonka. 'it's made of re-inscorchedsteel. if they try to bite through that their teeth will splinter likespillikins! to your buttons, charlie! you've got to help memanoeuvre! we're going right over the top of the transportcapsule and then we'll try to hook on to it somewhere andget a firm hold!'

like a battleship going into action, the great glass elevatorwith booster rockets firing moved smoothly in over the top ofthe enormous transport capsule. the knids immediatelystopped attacking the capsule and went for the elevator.

squadron after squadron of giant vermicious knids flungthemselves furiously against mr wonka's marvellous machine!

wham! crash! bang! the noise was thunderous andterrible. the elevator was tossed about the sky like a leaf, andinside it, grandma josephine, grandma georgina and grandpageorge, floating in their nightshirts, were all yowling andscreeching and flapping their arms and calling for help. mrsbucket had wrapped her arms around mr bucket and wasclasping him so tightly that one of his shirt buttons puncturedhis skin. charlie and mr wonka, as cool as two cubes of ice,were up near the ceiling working the booster-rocket controls,and grandpa joe, shouting war-cries and throwing curses atthe knids, was down below turning the handle that unwoundthe steel rope. at the same time, he was watching the ropethrough the glass floor of the elevator.

'starboard a bit, charlie!' shouted grandpa joe. 'we're right ontop of her now! … forward a couple of yards, mr wonka! …i'm trying to get the hook hooked around that stumpy thingsticking out in front there! … hold it! … i've got it … that's it!

… forward a little now and see if it holds! … more! … more!

…' the big steel rope tightened. it held! and now, wonder ofwonders, with her booster-rockets blazing, the elevator began totow the huge transport capsule forward and away!

'full speed ahead!' shouted grandpa joe. 'she's going to hold!

she's holding! she's holding fine!'

'all boosters firing!' cried mr wonka, and the elevator leapedahead. still the rope held. mr wonka jetted himself down tograndpa joe and shook him warmly by the hand. 'well done,sir,' he said. 'you did a brilliant job under heavy fire!'

charlie looked back at the transport capsule some thirty yardsbehind them on the end of the tow-line. it had little windowsup front, and in the windows he could clearly see theflabbergasted faces of shuckworth, shanks and showler. charliewaved to them and gave them the thumbs-up signal. theydidn't wave back. they simply gaped. they couldn't believewhat was happening.

grandpa joe blew himself upward and hovered beside charlie,bubbling with excitement. 'charlie, my boy,' he said. 'we'vebeen through a few funny things together lately, but neveranything like this!'

'grandpa, where are the knids? they've suddenly vanished!'

everyone looked round. the only knid in sight was their oldfriend with the purple behind, still cruising alongside in its usualplace, still glaring into the elevator.

'just a minute!' cried grandma josephine. 'what's that i seeover there?' again they looked, and this time, sure enough,away in the distance, in the deep blue sky of outer space, theysaw a massive cloud of vermicious knids wheeling and circlinglike a fleet of bombers.

'if you think we're out of the woods yet, you're crazy!' shoutedgrandma georgina. 'i fear no knids!' said mr wonka. 'we'vegot them beaten now!'

'poppyrot and pigwash!' said grandma josephine. 'any momentnow they'll be at us again! look at them! they're coming in!

they're coming closer!'

this was true. the huge fleet of knids had moved in atincredible speed and was now flying level with the great glasselevator, a couple of hundred yards away on the right-handside. the one with the bump on its rear-end was much closer,only twenty yards away on the same side.

'it's changing shape!' cried charlie. 'that nearest one! what's itgoing to do? it's getting longer and longer!' and indeed it was.

the mammoth egg-shaped body was slowly stretching itself outlike chewing-gum, becoming longer and longer and thinner andthinner, until in the end it looked exactly like a longslimy-green serpent as thick as a thick tree and as long as afootball pitch. at the front end were the eyes, big and whitewith red centres, at the back a kind of tapering tail and at thevery end of the tail was the enormous round swollen bump ithad got when it crashed against the glass.

the people floating inside the elevator watched and waited.

then they saw the long rope-like knid turning and comingstraight but quite slowly toward the great glass elevator. nowit began actually wrapping its ropy body around the elevatoritself. once around it went … then twice around, and veryhorrifying it was to be inside and to see the soft green bodysquishing against the outside of the glass no more than a fewinches away.

'it's tying us up like a parcel!' yelled grandma josephine.

'bunkum!' said mr wonka.

'it's going to crush us in its coils!' wailed grandma georgina.

'never!' said mr wonka.

charlie glanced quickly back at the transport capsule. thesheet-white faces of shuckworth, shanks and showler werepressed against the glass of the little windows, terror-struck,stupefied, stunned, their mouths open, their expressions frozenlike fish fingers. once again, charlie gave them the thumbs-upsignal. showler acknowledged it with a sickly grin, but that wasall.

'oh, oh, oh!' screamed grandma josephine. 'get that beastlysquishy thing away from here!'

having curled its body twice around the elevator, the knidnow proceeded to tie a knot with its two ends, a good strongknot, left over right, then right over left. when it had pulledthe knot tight, there remained about five yards of one endhanging loose. this was the end with the eyes on it. but itdidn't hang loose for long. it quickly curled itself into the shapeof a huge hook and the hook stuck straight out sideways fromthe elevator as though waiting for something else to hook itselfon to it.

while all this was going on, nobody had noticed what theother knids were up to. 'mr wonka!' charlie cried. 'look atthe others! what are they doing?'

what indeed?

these, too, had all changed shape and had become longer, butnot nearly so long or so thin as the first one. each of themhad turned itself into a kind of thick rod and the rod wascurled around at both ends — at the tail end and at the headend — so that it made a double-ended hook. and now all thehooks were linking up into one long chain … one thousandknids … all joining together and curving around in the sky tomake a chain of knids half a mile long or more! and the knidat the very front of the chain (whose front hook was not, ofcourse, hooked up to anything) was leading them in a widecircle and sweeping in toward the great glass elevator.

'hey!' shouted grandpa joe. 'they're going to hook up withthis brute who's tied himself around us!'

'and tow us away!' cried charlie.

'to the planet vermes,' gasped grandma josephine. 'eighteenthousand four hundred and twenty-seven million miles fromhere!'

'they can't do that!' cried mr wonka. 'we're doing the towingaround here!'

'they're going to link up, mr wonka!' charlie said. 'they reallyare! can't we stop them? they're going to tow us away andthey're going to tow the people we're towing away as well!'

'do something, you old fool!' shrieked grandma georgina.

'don't just float about looking at them!'

'i must admit,' said mr wonka, 'that for the first time in mylife i find myself at a bit of a loss.'

they all stared in horror through the glass at the long chain ofvermicious knids. the leader of the chain was coming closerand closer. the hook, with two big angry eyes on it, was outand ready. in thirty seconds it would link up with the hook ofthe knid wrapped around the elevator.

'i want to go home!' wailed grandma josephine. 'why can't weall go home?'

'great thundering tomcats!' cried mr wonka. 'home is right!

what on earth am i thinking of! come on, charlie! quick!

re-entry! you take the yellow button! press it for all you'reworth! i'll handle this lot!' charlie and mr wonka literally flewto the buttons. 'hold your hats!' shouted mr wonka. 'grabyour gizzards! we're going down!'

rockets started firing out of the elevator from all sides. it tiltedand gave a sickening lurch and then plunged downward intothe earth's atmosphere at a simply colossal speed.

'retro-rockets!' bellowed mr wonka. 'i mustn't forget to fire theretro-rockets!' he flew over to another series of buttons andstarted playing on them like a piano.

the elevator was now streaking downward head first, upsidedown, and all the passengers found themselves floating upsidedown as well. 'help!' screamed grandma georgina. 'all theblood's going to my head!'

'then turn yourself the other way up,' said mr wonka. 'that'seasy enough, isn't it?'

everyone blew and puffed and turned somersaults in the airuntil at last they were all the right way up. 'how's thetow-rope holding, grandpa?' mr wonka called out.

'they're still with us, mr wonka, sir! the rope's holding fine!'

it was an amazing sight — the glass elevator streaking downtoward the earth with the huge transport capsule in towbehind it. but the long chain of knids was coming after them,following them down, keeping pace with them easily, and nowthe hook of the leading knid in the chain was actually reachingout and grasping for the hook made by the knid on theelevator!

'we're too late!' screamed grandma georgina. 'they're going tolink up and haul us back!'

'i think not,' said mr wonka. 'don't you remember whathappens when a knid enters the earth's atmosphere at highspeed? he gets red-hot. he burns away in a long fiery trail.

he becomes a shooting knid. soon these dirty beasts will startpopping like popcorn!'

as they streaked on downward, sparks began to fly off thesides of the elevator. the glass glowed pink, then red, thenscarlet. sparks also began to fly on the long chain of knids,and the leading knid in the chain started to shine like ared-hot poker. so did all the others. so did the great slimybrute coiled around the elevator itself. this one, in fact, wastrying frantically to uncoil itself and get away, but it was havingtrouble untying the knot, and in another ten seconds it beganto sizzle. inside the elevator they could actually hear it sizzling.

it made a noise like bacon frying. and exactly the same sortof thing was happening to the other one thousand knids inthe chain. the tremendous heat was simply sizzling them up.

they were red-hot, every one of them. then suddenly, theybecame white-hot and they gave out a dazzling white light.

'they're shooting knids!' cried charlie.

'what a splendid sight,' said mr wonka. 'it's better thanfireworks.'

in a few seconds more, the knids had blown away in a cloudof ashes and it was all over. 'we've done it!' cried mr wonka.

'they've been roasted to a crisp! they've been frizzled to afritter! we're saved!'

'what do you mean saved?' said grandma josephine. 'we'll allbe frizzled ourselves if this goes on any longer! we'll bebarbecued like beefsteaks! look at that glass! it's hotter than afizzgig!'

'have no fears, dear lady,' answered mr wonka. 'my elevatoris air-conditioned, ventilated, aerated and automated in everypossible way. we're going to be all right now.'

'i haven't the faintest idea what's been going on,' said mrsbucket, making one of her rare speeches. 'but whatever it is, idon't like it.'

'aren't you enjoying it, mother?' charlie asked her. 'no,' shesaid. 'i'm not. nor is your father.'

'what a great sight it is!' said mr wonka. 'just look at theearth down there, charlie, getting bigger and bigger!'

'and us going to meet it at two thousand miles an hour!'

groaned grandma georgina. 'how are you going to slow down,for heaven's sake? you didn't think of that, did you!'

'he's got parachutes,' charlie told her. 'i'll bet he's got greatbig parachutes that open just before we hit.'

'parachutes!' said mr wonka with contempt. 'parachutes areonly for astronauts and sissies! and anyway, we don't want toslow down. we want to speed up. i've told you already we'vegot to be going at an absolutely tremendous speed when wehit. otherwise we'll never punch our way in through the roofof the chocolate factory.'

'how about the transport capsule?' charlie asked anxiously.

'we'll be letting them go in a few seconds now,' mr wonkaanswered. 'they do have parachutes, three of them, to slowthem down on the last bit.'

'how do you know we won't land in the pacific ocean?' saidgrandma josephine. 'i don't,' said mr wonka. 'but we allknow how to swim, do we not?' 'this man,' shouted grandmajosephine, 'is crazy as a crumpet!' 'he's cracked as a crayfish!'

cried grandma georgina.

down and down plunged the great glass elevator. nearer andnearer came the earth below. oceans and continents rushedup to meet them, getting bigger every second …'grandpa joe, sir! throw out the rope! let it go!' ordered mrwonka. 'they'll be all right now so long as their parachutesare working.'

'rope gone!' called out grandpa joe, and the huge transportcapsule, on its own now, began to swing away to one side.

charlie waved to the three astronauts in the front window.

none of them waved back. they were still sitting there in akind of shocked daze, gaping at the old ladies and the oldmen and the small boy floating about in the glass elevator.

'it won't be long now,' said mr wonka, reaching for a row oftiny pale blue buttons in one corner. 'we shall soon knowwhether we are alive or dead. keep very quiet please for thisfinal bit. i have to concentrate awfully hard, otherwise we'llcome down in the wrong place.'

they plunged into a thick bank of cloud and for ten secondsthey could see nothing. when they came out of the cloud, thetransport capsule had disappeared, and the earth was veryclose, and there was only a great spread of land beneath themwith mountains and forests … then fields and trees … then asmall town.

'there it is!' shouted mr wonka. 'my chocolate factory! mybeloved chocolate factory!' 'you mean charlie's chocolatefactory,' said grandpa joe.

'that's right!' said mr wonka, addressing charlie. 'i'd cleanforgotten! i do apologize to you, my dear boy! of course it'syours! and here we go!'

through the glass floor of the elevator, charlie caught a quickglimpse of the huge red roof and the tall chimneys of the giantfactory. they were plunging straight down on to it.

'hold your breath!' shouted mr wonka. 'hold your nose!

fasten your seat-belts and say your prayers! we're goingthrough the roof!'