6 The First Two Finders

6 The First Two Finders
The very next day, the first Golden Ticket was found. The finder was a boy called
Augustus Gloop, and Mr Bucket’s evening newspaper carried a large picture of him on
the front page. The picture showed a nine-year-old boy who was so enormously fat he
looked as though he had been blown up with a powerful pump. Great flabby folds of fat
bulged¹ out from every part of his body, and his face was like a monstrous² ball of dough³
with two small greedy curranty eyes peering out upon the world. The town in which
Augustus Gloop lived, the newspaper said, had gone wild with excitement over their
hero. Flags were flying from all the windows, children had been given a holiday from
school, and a parade was being organized in honour of the famous youth.
‘I just knew Augustus would find a Golden Ticket,’ his mother had told the
newspapermen. ‘He eats so many bars of chocolate a day that it was almost impossible for
him not to find one. Eating is his hobby, you know. That’s all he’s interested in. But still,
that’s better than being a hooligan and shooting off zip guns and things like that in his
spare time, isn’t it? And what I always say is, he wouldn’t go on eating like he does
unless he needed nourishment⁴, would he? It’s all vitamins, anyway. What a thrill it will be
for him to visit Mr Wonka’s marvellous factory! We’re just as proud as anything!’
‘What a revolting woman,’ said Grandma Josephine.
‘And what a repulsive⁵ boy,’ said Grandma Georgina.
‘Only four Golden Tickets left,’ said Grandpa George. ‘I wonder who’ll get those.’
And now the whole country, indeed, the whole world, seemed suddenly to be caught
up in a mad chocolate-buying spree, everybody searching frantically⁶ for those precious
remaining tickets. Fully⁷ grown women were seen going into sweet shops and buying ten
Wonka bars at a time, then tearing off the wrappers on the spot and peering eagerly
underneath⁸ for a glint of golden paper. Children were taking hammers and smashing
their piggy banks and running out to the shops with handfuls of money. In one city, a
famous gangster⁹ robbed a bank of a thousand pounds and spent the whole lot on Wonka
bars that same afternoon. And when the police entered his house to arrest him, they
found him sitting on the floor amidst mountains of chocolate, ripping off the wrappers
with the blade of a long dagger¹⁰. In far- off Russia, a woman called Charlotte Russe
claimed to have found the second ticket, but it turned out to be a clever fake. The
famous English scientist, Professor Foulbody, invented a machine which would tell you
at once, without opening the wrapper of a bar of chocolate, whether or not there was a
Golden Ticket hidden underneath it. The machine had a mechanical arm that shot out
with tremendous force and grabbed hold of anything that had the slightest bit of gold
inside it, and for a moment, it looked like the answer to everything. But unfortunately,
while the Professor was showing off the machine to the public at the sweet counter of a
large department store, the mechanical arm shot out and made a grab for the gold filling
in the back tooth of a duchess who was standing¹¹ near by. There was an ugly scene, and
the machine was smashed by the crowd.
Suddenly, on the day before Charlie Bucket’s birthday, the newspapers announced
that the second Golden Ticket had been found. The lucky person was a small girl called
Veruca Salt who lived with her rich parents in a great city far away. Once again Mr
Bucket’s evening newspaper carried a big picture of the finder. She was sitting between
her beaming father and mother in the living room of their house, waving the Golden
Ticket above her head, and grinning from ear to ear.
Veruca’s father, Mr Salt, had eagerly explained to the newspapermen exactly how the
ticket was found. ‘You see, boys,’ he had said, ‘as soon as my little girl told me that she
simply had to have one of those Golden Tickets, I went out into the town and started
buying up all the Wonka bars I could lay my hands on. Thousands of them, I must have
bought. Hundreds of thousands! Then I had them loaded on to trucks and sent directly to
my own factory. I’m in the peanut business, you see, and I’ve got about a hundred
women working for me over at my place, shelling peanuts for roasting and salting.
That’s what they do all day long, those women, they sit there shelling peanuts. So I says
to them, “Okay, girls,” I says, “from now on, you can stop shelling peanuts and start
shelling the wrappers off these chocolate bars instead!” And they did. I had every worker
in the place yanking the paper off those bars of chocolate full speed ahead from morning
till night.
‘But three days went by, and we had no luck. Oh, it was terrible! My little Veruca got
more and more upset each day, and every time I went home she would scream at me,
“Where’s my Golden Ticket! I want my Golden Ticket!” And she would lie for hours on the
floor, kicking and yelling in the most disturbing way. Well, I just hated to see my little
girl feeling unhappy like that, so I vowed¹² I would keep up the search until I’d got her
what she wanted. Then suddenly… on the evening of the fourth day, one of my women
workers yelled, “I’ve got it! A Golden Ticket!” And I said, “Give it to me, quick!” and she
did, and I rushed it home and gave it to my darling Veruca, and now she’s all smiles, and
we have a happy home once again.’
‘That’s even worse than the fat boy,’ said Grandma Josephine.
‘She needs a really good spanking,’ said Grandma Georgina.
‘I don’t think the girl’s father played it quite fair, Grandpa, do you?’ Charlie
murmured.
‘He spoils her,’ Grandpa Joe said. ‘And no good can ever come from spoiling a child
like that, Charlie, you mark my words.’
‘Come to bed, my darling,’ said Charlie’s mother. ‘Tomorrow’s your birthday, don’t
forget that, so I expect you’ll be up early to open your present.’
‘A Wonka chocolate bar!’ cried Charlie. ‘It is a Wonka bar, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, my love,’ his mother said. ‘Of course it is.’
‘Oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful if I found the third Golden Ticket inside it?’ Charlie
said.
‘Bring it in here when you get it,’ Grandpa Joe said. ‘Then we can all watch you
taking off the wrapper.’

1 bulged   

凸出( bulge的过去式和过去分词 )； 充满； 塞满（某物）

参考例句：

• His pockets bulged with apples and candy. 他的口袋鼓鼓地装满了苹果和糖。
• The oranges bulged his pocket. 桔子使得他的衣袋胀得鼓鼓的。

2 monstrous   

adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的

参考例句：

• The smoke began to whirl and grew into a monstrous column.浓烟开始盘旋上升，形成了一个巨大的烟柱。
• Your behaviour in class is monstrous!你在课堂上的行为真是丢人！

3 dough   

n.生面团；钱，现款

参考例句：

• She formed the dough into squares.她把生面团捏成四方块。
• The baker is kneading dough.那位面包师在揉面。

4 nourishment   

n.食物，营养品；营养情况

参考例句：

• Lack of proper nourishment reduces their power to resist disease.营养不良降低了他们抵抗疾病的能力。
• He ventured that plants draw part of their nourishment from the air.他大胆提出植物从空气中吸收部分养分的观点。

5 repulsive   

adj.排斥的，使人反感的

参考例句：

• She found the idea deeply repulsive.她发现这个想法很恶心。
• The repulsive force within the nucleus is enormous.核子内部的斥力是巨大的。

6 frantically   

ad.发狂地, 发疯地

参考例句：

• He dashed frantically across the road. 他疯狂地跑过马路。
• She bid frantically for the old chair. 她发狂地喊出高价要买那把古老的椅子。

7 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

8 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

9 gangster   

n.匪徒，歹徒，暴徒

参考例句：

• The gangster's friends bought off the police witness.那匪徒的朋友买通了警察方面的证人。
• He is obviously a gangster,but he pretends to be a saint.分明是强盗，却要装圣贤。

10 dagger   

n.匕首，短剑，剑号

参考例句：

• The bad news is a dagger to his heart.这条坏消息刺痛了他的心。
• The murderer thrust a dagger into her heart.凶手将匕首刺进她的心脏。

11 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

12 vowed   

起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• He vowed quite solemnly that he would carry out his promise. 他非常庄严地发誓要实现他的诺言。
• I vowed to do more of the cooking myself. 我发誓自己要多动手做饭。