12 What It Said on the Golden Ticket

12 What It Said on the Golden Ticket
Charlie burst through the front door, shouting, ‘Mother! Mother! Mother!’
Mrs Bucket was in the old grandparents’ room, serving them their evening soup.
‘Mother!’ yelled Charlie, rushing in on them like a hurricane. ‘Look! I’ve got it! Look,
Mother, look! The last Golden Ticket! It’s mine! I found some money in the street and I
bought two bars of chocolate and the second one had the Golden Ticket and there were
crowds of people all around me wanting to see it and the shopkeeper rescued me and I
ran all the way home and here I am! IT’s THE FIFTH GOLDEN TICKET, MOTHER, AND I’
VE FOUND IT!’
Mrs Bucket simply stood and stared, while the four old grandparents, who were sitting
up in bed balancing bowls of soup on their laps, all dropped their spoons with a clatter¹
and froze against their pillows.
For about ten seconds there was absolute silence in the room. Nobody dared to speak
or move. It was a magic moment.
Then, very softly, Grandpa Joe said, ‘You’re pulling our legs, Charlie, aren’t you?
You’re having a little joke?’
‘I am not!’ cried Charlie, rushing up to the bed and holding out the large and beautiful
Golden Ticket for him to see.
Grandpa Joe leaned forward and took a close look, his nose almost touching² the
ticket. The others watched him, waiting for the verdict.
Then very slowly, with a slow and marvellous grin spreading all over his face,
Grandpa Joe lifted his head and looked straight at Charlie. The colour was rushing to his
cheeks, and his eyes were wide open, shining with joy, and in the centre of each eye,
right in the very centre, in the black pupil, a little spark of wild excitement was slowly
dancing. Then the old man took a deep breath, and suddenly, with no warning
whatsoever³, an explosion seemed to take place inside him. He threw up his arms and
yelled ‘Yippeeeeeeee!’ And at the same time, his long bony body rose up out of the bed
and his bowl of soup went flying into the face of Grandma Josephine, and in one
fantastic leap, this old fellow of ninety-six and a half, who hadn’t been out of bed these
last twenty years, jumped on to the floor and started doing a dance of victory in his
pyjamas⁴.
‘Yippeeeeeeeeee!’ he shouted. ‘Three cheers for Charlie! Hip⁵, hip, hooray!’
At this point, the door opened, and Mr Bucket walked into the room. He was cold and
tired, and he looked it. All day long, he had been shovelling⁶ snow in the streets.
‘Cripes!’ he cried. ‘What’s going on in here?’
It didn’t take them long to tell him what had happened.
‘I don’t believe it!’ he said. ‘It’s not possible.’
‘Show him the ticket, Charlie!’ shouted Grandpa Joe, who was still dancing around
the floor like a dervish in his striped pyjamas. ‘Show your father the fifth and last
Golden Ticket in the world!’
‘Let me see it, Charlie,’ Mr Bucket said, collapsing⁷ into a chair and holding out his
hand. Charlie came forward with the precious document.
It was a very beautiful thing, this Golden Ticket, having been made, so it seemed,
from a sheet of pure gold hammered out almost to the thinness of paper. On one side of
it, printed by some clever method in jet-black letters, was the invitation itself – from Mr
Wonka.
‘Read it aloud,’ said Grandpa Joe, climbing back into bed again at last. ‘Let’s all hear
exactly what it says.’
Mr Bucket held the lovely Golden Ticket up close to his eyes. His hands were
trembling slightly, and he seemed to be overcome by the whole business. He took
several deep breaths. Then he cleared his throat, and said, ‘All right, I’ll read it. Here we
go:
‘Greetings to you, the lucky finder of this Golden Ticket, from Mr Willy Wonka! I shake
you warmly by the hand! Tremendous things are in store for you! Many wonderful
surprises await you! For now, I do invite you to come to my factory and be my guest for
one whole day – you and all others who are lucky enough to find my Golden Tickets. I,
Willy Wonka, will conduct you around the factory myself, showing you everything that
there is to see, and afterwards, when it is time to leave, you will be escorted home by a
procession of large trucks. These trucks, I can promise you, will be loaded with enough
delicious eatables to last you and your entire household for many years. If, at any time
thereafter, you should run out of supplies, you have only to come back to the factory
and show this Golden Ticket, and I shall be happy to refill your cupboard with whatever
you want. In this way, you will be able to keep yourself supplied with tasty morsels⁸ for
the rest of your life. But this is by no means the most exciting thing that will happen on
the day of your visit. I am preparing other surprises that are even more marvellous and
more fantastic for you and for all my beloved Golden Ticket holders⁹ – mystic and
marvellous surprises that will entrance, delight, intrigue¹⁰, astonish, and perplex you
beyond measure. In your wildest dreams you could not imagine that such things could
happen to you! Just wait and see! And now, here are your instructions: the day I have
chosen for the visit is the first day in the month of February. On this day, and on no
other, you must come to the factory gates at ten o’clock sharp in the morning. Don’t be
late! And you are allowed to bring with you either one or two members of your own
family to look after you and to ensure that you don’t get into mischief¹¹. One more thing –
be certain to have this ticket with you, otherwise you will not be admitted.
(Signed) Willy Wonka.’
‘The first day of February!’ cried Mrs Bucket. ‘But that’s tomorrow!. Today is the last
day of January. I know it is!’
‘Cripes!’ said Mr Bucket. I think you’re right!’
‘You’re just in time!’ shouted Grandpa Joe. ‘There’s not a moment to lose. You must
start making preparations at once! Wash your face, comb your hair, scrub your hands,
brush your teeth, blow your nose, cut your nails, polish your shoes, iron your shirt, and
for heaven’s sake, get all that mud off your pants! You must get ready, my boy! You
must get ready for the biggest day of your life!’
‘Now don’t over-excite yourself, Grandpa,’ Mrs Bucket said. ‘And don’t fluster¹² poor
Charlie. We must all try to keep very calm. Now the first thing to decide is this who is
going to go with Charlie to the factory?’
‘I will!’ shouted Grandpa Joe, leaping out of bed once again. ‘I’ll take him! I’ll look
after him! You leave it to me!’
Mrs Bucket smiled at the old man, then she turned to her husband and said, ‘How
about you, dear? Don’t you think you ought to go?’
‘Well…’ Mr Bucket said, pausing to think about it, ‘no… I’m not so sure that I should.’
‘But you must.’
‘There’s no must about it, my dear,’ Mr Bucket said gently. ‘Mind you, I’d love to go.
It’ll be tremendously exciting. But on the other hand… I believe that the person who
really deserves to go most of all is Grandpa Joe himself. He seems to know more about it
than we do. Provided, of course, that he feels well enough…’
‘Yippeeeeee!’ shouted Grandpa Joe, seizing Charlie by the hands and dancing round
the room.
‘He certainly seems well enough,’ Mrs Bucket said, laughing. ‘Yes… perhaps you’re
right after all. Perhaps Grandpa Joe should be the one to go with him. I certainly can’t
go myself and leave the other three old people all alone in bed for a whole day.’
‘Hallelujah!’ yelled Grandpa Joe. ‘Praise the Lord!’
At that point, there came a loud knock on the front door. Mr Bucket went to open it,
and the next moment, swarms¹³ of newspapermen and photographers were pouring into
the house. They had tracked down the finder of the fifth Golden Ticket, and now they all
wanted to get the full story for the front pages of the morning papers. For several hours,
there was complete pandemonium¹⁴ in the little house, and it must have been nearly
midnight before Mr Bucket was able to get rid of them so that Charlie could go to bed.

1 clatter   

v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声

参考例句：

• The dishes and bowls slid together with a clatter.碟子碗碰得丁丁当当的。
• Don't clatter your knives and forks.别把刀叉碰得咔哒响。

2 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

3 whatsoever   

adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么

参考例句：

• There's no reason whatsoever to turn down this suggestion.没有任何理由拒绝这个建议。
• All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you,do ye even so to them.你想别人对你怎样，你就怎样对人。

4 pyjamas   

n.（宽大的）睡衣裤

参考例句：

• This pyjamas has many repairs.这件睡衣有许多修补过的地方。
• Martin was in his pyjamas.马丁穿着睡衣。

5 hip   

n.臀部，髋；屋脊

参考例句：

• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。
• The new coats blouse gracefully above the hip line.新外套在臀围线上优美地打着褶皱。

6 shovelling   

v.铲子( shovel的现在分词 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份

参考例句：

• The workers are shovelling the sand. 工人们正在铲沙子。 来自辞典例句
• They were shovelling coal up. 他们在铲煤。 来自辞典例句

7 collapsing   

压扁[平]，毁坏，断裂

参考例句：

• Rescuers used props to stop the roof of the tunnel collapsing. 救援人员用支柱防止隧道顶塌陷。
• The rocks were folded by collapsing into the center of the trough. 岩石由于坍陷进入凹槽的中心而发生褶皱。

8 morsels   

n.一口( morsel的名词复数 )；（尤指食物）小块，碎屑

参考例句：

• They are the most delicate morsels. 这些确是最好吃的部分。 来自辞典例句
• Foxes will scratch up grass to find tasty bug and beetle morsels. 狐狸会挖草地，寻找美味的虫子和甲壳虫。 来自互联网

9 holders   

支持物( holder的名词复数 )； 持有者； （支票等）持有人； 支托（或握持）…之物

参考例句：

• Slaves were mercilessly ground down by slave holders. 奴隶受奴隶主的残酷压迫。
• It is recognition of compassion's part that leads the up-holders of capital punishment to accuse the abolitionists of sentimentality in being more sorry for the murderer than for his victim. 正是对怜悯的作用有了认识，才使得死刑的提倡者指控主张废除死刑的人感情用事，同情谋杀犯胜过同情受害者。

10 intrigue   

vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋

参考例句：

• Court officials will intrigue against the royal family.法院官员将密谋反对皇室。
• The royal palace was filled with intrigue.皇宫中充满了勾心斗角。

11 mischief   

n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹

参考例句：

• Nobody took notice of the mischief of the matter. 没有人注意到这件事情所带来的危害。
• He seems to intend mischief.看来他想捣蛋。

12 fluster   

adj.慌乱，狼狈，混乱，激动

参考例句：

• She was put in a fluster by the unexpected guests.不速之客的到来弄得她很慌张。
• She was all in a fluster at the thought of meeting the boss.一想到要见老板，她就感到紧张。

13 swarms   

蜂群，一大群( swarm的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They came to town in swarms. 他们蜂拥来到城里。
• On June the first there were swarms of children playing in the park. 6月1日那一天，这个公园里有一群群的孩子玩耍。

14 pandemonium   

n.喧嚣，大混乱

参考例句：

• The whole lobby was a perfect pandemonium,and the din was terrific.整个门厅一片嘈杂，而且喧嚣刺耳。
• I had found Adlai unperturbed in the midst of pandemonium.我觉得艾德莱在一片大混乱中仍然镇定自若。