Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator: Chapters 1–4

“I assume one end is hooked onto this contraption we’re riding in. Right?”

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.

They had traveled a long way with Mr. Wonka and had grown accustomed to surprises.

They were too flabbergasted to speak.

But the launching had been a great success and now that the Space Hotel was safely in orbit, there was a tremendous hustle and bustle to send up the first guests.

There were managers, assistant managers, desk clerks, waitresses, bellhops, chambermaids, pastry chefs and hall porters.

“They’re going to blow it up!” yelled Ground Control. “This is desperate! This is...”

Suddenly his voice was cut off and Shanks heard another quite different voice in his earphones. It was deep and rasping.

But it was the sinister glass box itself that everyone was staring at, and the cargo of sinister creatures inside it—eight astronauts so tough and strong they didn’t even bother to wear spacesuits.

“Yippeeeeee!” shouted Grandpa Joe. “What a brilliant thought, sir! What a staggering idea!”

“What if my beard were made of green spinach?” cried Mr. Wonka. “Bunkum and tummyrot! You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that."

Off we go, then! But wait...this is a very tricky maneuver and I’m going to need help.

That’s how we change direction. Grandpa Joe’s rockets turn us to starboard, to the right.

“How do I get up? I can’t get up to the ceiling!” He was thrashing his arms and legs violently, like a drowning swimmer, but getting nowhere.

“You can’t swim in this stuff. It isn’t water you know. It’s air and very thin air at that. There’s nothing to push against. So you have to use jet propulsion."

“Silence!” said the President. “You’re muddling me up.”

“I can fly faster than any of you!” cried Grandpa George, whizzing round and round, his nightgown billowing out behind him like the tail of a parrot.

There was absolute silence now in the Presidential study.

All eyes were riveted on the TV screen as the small glass object, with its booster rockets firing, slid smoothly up behind the giant Space Hotel.

“They’re going to blow it up!” cried the Chief of the Army. “Let’s blow them up first, crash bang wallop bang-bang-bang-bang-bang.”

The Chief of the Army was wearing so many medal ribbons they covered the entire front of his tunic on both sides and spread down onto his pants as well.

“Silence, you silly boy!” said Miss Tibbs, and the Chief of the Army slunk into a corner.

“Here, sir, Mr. President, sir,” said the Chief Spy. He had a false moustache, a false beard, false eyelashes, false teeth and a falsetto voice.

“Oh no, he isn’t,” said the President. “You can’t fool me, you crafty old mandarin! At this very minute he’s boarding our magnificent Space Hotel with seven other rascals to blow it up!”

All eight of the desperadoes had climbed into the Space Hotel and they had taken their bomb with them.