1 Here Comes Charlie
![查理和巧克力工厂2](http://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/202401/17/16-41-04-77-1.jpg)
These two very old people are the father and mother of Mr Bucket. Their names are
Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine.
![查理和巧克力工厂3](http://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/202401/17/16-41-25-96-1.jpg)
And these two very old people are the father and mother of Mrs Bucket. Their names
are Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina.
![查理和巧克力工厂4](http://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/202401/17/16-41-41-90-1.jpg)
This is Mr Bucket. This is Mrs Bucket.
Mr and Mrs Bucket have a small boy whose name is Charlie Bucket.
![查理和巧克力工厂5](http://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/202401/17/16-41-58-71-1.jpg)
This is Charlie.
How d’you do? And how d’you do? And how d’you do again? He is pleased to meet
you.
The whole of this family – the six grown-ups (count them) and little Charlie Bucket –
live together in a small wooden house on the edge of a great town.
![查理和巧克力工厂6](http://novel.tingroom.com/file/upload/202401/17/16-42-12-53-1.jpg)
The house wasn’t nearly large enough for so many people, and life was extremely
uncomfortable for them all. There were only two rooms in the place altogether, and
there was only one bed. The bed was given to the four old grandparents because they
were so old and tired. They were so tired, they never got out of it.
Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine on this side, Grandpa George and Grandma
Georgina on this side.
Mr and Mrs Bucket and little Charlie Bucket slept in the other room, upon mattresses1
on the floor.
In the summertime, this wasn’t too bad, but in the winter, freezing cold draughts2 blew
across the floor all night long, and it was awful.
There wasn’t any question of them being able to buy a better house – or even one
more bed to sleep in. They were far too poor for that.
Mr Bucket was the only person in the family with a job. He worked in a toothpaste
factory, where he sat all day long at a bench and screwed the little caps on to the tops of
the tubes of toothpaste after the tubes had been filled. But a toothpaste cap-screwer is
never paid very much money, and poor Mr Bucket, however hard he worked, and
however fast he screwed on the caps, was never able to make enough to buy one half of
the things that so large a family needed. There wasn’t even enough money to buy proper
food for them all. The only meals they could afford were bread and margarine for
breakfast, boiled potatoes and cabbage for lunch, and cabbage soup for supper. Sundays
were a bit better. They all looked forward to Sundays because then, although they had
exactly the same, everyone was allowed a second helping3.
The Buckets, of course, didn’t starve, but every one of them – the two old
grandfathers, the two old grandmothers, Charlie’s father, Charlie’s mother, and
especially little Charlie himself – went about from morning till night with a horrible
empty feeling in their tummies.
Charlie felt it worst of all. And although his father and mother often went without
their own share of lunch or supper so that they could give it to him, it still wasn’t nearly
enough for a growing boy. He desperately4 wanted something more filling and satisfying
than cabbage and cabbage soup. The one thing he longed for more than anything else
was… CHOCOLATE.
Walking to school in the mornings, Charlie could see great slabs5 of chocolate piled up
high in the shop windows, and he would stop and stare and press his nose against the
glass, his mouth watering like mad. Many times a day, he would see other children
taking bars of creamy chocolate out of their pockets and munching6 them greedily, and
that, of course, was pure torture.
Only once a year, on his birthday, did Charlie Bucket ever get to taste a bit of
chocolate. The whole family saved up their money for that special occasion, and when
the great day arrived, Charlie was always presented with one small chocolate bar to eat
all by himself. And each time he received it, on those marvellous birthday mornings, he
would place it carefully in a small wooden box that he owned, and treasure it as though
it were a bar of solid gold; and for the next few days, he would allow himself only to
look at it, but never to touch it. Then at last, when he could stand it no longer, he would
peel back a tiny bit of the paper wrapping at one corner to expose a tiny bit of chocolate,
and then he would take a tiny nibble7 – just enough to allow the lovely sweet taste to
spread out slowly over his tongue. The next day, he would take another tiny nibble, and
so on, and so on. And in this way, Charlie would make his sixpenny bar of birthday
chocolate last him for more than a month.
But I haven’t yet told you about the one awful thing that tortured little Charlie, the
lover of chocolate, more than anything else. This thing, for him, was far, far worse than
seeing slabs of chocolate in the shop windows or watching other children munching bars
of creamy chocolate right in front of him. It was the most terrible torturing thing you
could imagine, and it was this:
In the town itself, actually within sight of the house in which Charlie lived, there was
an ENORMOUS CHOCOLATE FACTORY!
Just imagine that!
And it wasn’t simply an ordinary enormous chocolate factory, either. It was the largest
and most famous in the whole world! It was WONKA’S FACTORY, owned by a man
called Mr Willy Wonka, the greatest inventor and maker8 of chocolates that there has
ever been. And what a tremendous, marvellous place it was! It had huge iron gates
leading into it, and a high wall surrounding it, and smoke belching9 from its chimneys,
and strange whizzing sounds coming from deep inside it. And outside the walls, for half
a mile around in every direction, the air was scented10 with the heavy rich smell of
melting chocolate!
Twice a day, on his way to and from school, little Charlie Bucket had to walk right
past the gates of the factory. And every time he went by, he would begin to walk very,
very slowly, and he would hold his nose high in the air and take long deep sniffs11 of the
gorgeous12 chocolatey smell all around him.
Oh, how he loved that smell!
And oh, how he wished he could go inside the factory and see what it was like!
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1
mattresses
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褥垫,床垫( mattress的名词复数 ) | |
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2
draughts
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n. <英>国际跳棋 | |
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3
helping
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n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的 | |
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4
desperately
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adv.极度渴望地,绝望地,孤注一掷地 | |
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5
slabs
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n.厚板,平板,厚片( slab的名词复数 );厚胶片 | |
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6
munching
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v.用力咀嚼(某物),大嚼( munch的现在分词 ) | |
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nibble
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n.轻咬,啃;v.一点点地咬,慢慢啃,吹毛求疵 | |
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8
maker
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n.制造者,制造商 | |
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9
belching
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n. 喷出,打嗝 动词belch的现在分词形式 | |
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10
scented
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adj.有香味的;洒香水的;有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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11
sniffs
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v.以鼻吸气,嗅,闻( sniff的第三人称单数 );抽鼻子(尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气);抱怨,不以为然地说 | |
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12
gorgeous
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adj.华丽的,灿烂的,美丽的,宜人的,棒的 | |
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