1 Mr Wonka Goes Too Far

1 Mr Wonka Goes Too Far
The last time we saw Charlie, he was riding high above his
home town in the Great Glass Lift. Only a short while before,
Mr Wonka had told him that the whole gigantic fabulous¹
Chocolate Factory was his, and now our small friend was
returning in triumph with his entire family to take over. The
passengers in the Lift (just to remind you) were:
Charlie Bucket, our hero.
Mr Willy Wonka, chocolate-maker extraordinary.
Mr and Mrs Bucket, Charlie's father and mother.
Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine, Mr Bucket's father and
mother.
Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina, Mrs Bucket's father
and mother.
Grandma Josephine, Grandma Georgina and Grandpa George
were still in bed, the bed having been pushed on board just
before take-off. Grandpa Joe, as you remember, had got out of
bed to go around the Chocolate Factory with Charlie.
The Great Glass Lift was a thousand feet up and cruising
nicely. The sky was brilliant blue. Everybody on board was
wildly excited at the thought of going to live in the famous
Chocolate Factory.
Grandpa Joe was singing. Charlie was jumping up and down.
Mr and Mrs Bucket were smiling for the first time in years,
and the three old ones in the bed were grinning at one
another with pink toothless gums.
'What in the world keeps this crazy thing up in the air?'
croaked² Grandma Josephine.
'Madam,' said Mr Wonka, 'it is not a lift any longer. Lifts only
go up and down inside buildings. But now that it has taken us
up into the sky, it has become an ELEVATOR. It is THE
GREAT GLASS ELEVATOR.'
'And what keeps it up?' said Grandma Josephine. 'Skyhooks,'
said Mr Wonka.
'You amaze me,' said Grandma Josephine.
'Dear lady,' said Mr Wonka, 'you are new to the scene. When
you have been with us a little longer, nothing will amaze you.'
'These skyhooks,' said Grandma Josephine. 'I assume one end
is hooked on to this contraption we're riding in. Right?'
'Right,' said Mr Wonka.
'What's the other end hooked on to?' said Grandma Josephine.
'Every day,' said Mr Wonka, 'I get deafer and deafer. Remind
me, please, to call up my ear doctor the moment we get back.'
'Charlie,' said Grandma Josephine. 'I don't think I trust this
gentleman very much.' 'Nor do I,' said Grandma Georgina. 'He
footles around.'
Charlie leaned over the bed and whispered to the two old
women. 'Please,' he said, 'don't spoil everything. Mr Wonka is
a fantastic man. He's my friend. I love him.'
'Charlie's right,' whispered Grandpa Joe, joining the group.
'Now you be quiet, Josie, and don't make trouble.'
'We must hurry!' said Mr Wonka. 'We have so much time and
so little to do! No! Wait! Cross that out! Reverse it! Thank
you! Now back to the factory!' he cried, clapping his hands
once and springing two feet in the air with two feet. 'Back we
fly to the factory! But we must go up before we can come
down. We must go higher and higher!'
'What did I tell you,' said Grandma Josephine. 'The man's
cracked!'
'Be quiet, Josie,' said Grandpa Joe. 'Mr Wonka knows exactly
what he's doing.'
'He's cracked as a crab³!' said Grandma Georgina.
'We must go higher!' said Mr Wonka. 'We must go
tremendously high! Hold on to your stomach!' He pressed a
brown button. The Elevator shuddered⁴, and then with a fearful
whooshing⁵ noise it shot vertically⁶ upward like a rocket.
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 shriek⁷ and you had to yell to make
yourself heard.
'Stop!' yelled Grandma Josephine. 'Joe, you make him stop! I
want to get off!' 'Save us!' yelled Grandma Georgina.
'Go down!' yelled Grandpa George.
'No, no!' Mr Wonka yelled back. 'We've got to go up!'
'But why?' they all shouted at once. 'Why up and not down?'
'Because the higher we are when we start coming down, the
faster we'll all be going when we hit,' said Mr Wonka. 'We've
got to be going at an absolutely sizzling speed when we hit.'
'When we hit what?' they cried.
'The factory, of course,' answered Mr Wonka.
'You must be whackers,' said Grandma Josephine. 'We'll all be
pulpified!'
'We'll be scrambled⁸ like eggs!' said Grandma Georgina.
'That,' said Mr Wonka, 'is a chance we shall have to take.'
'You're joking,' said Grandma Josephine. 'Tell us you're joking.'
'Madam,' said Mr Wonka, 'I never joke.'
'Oh, my dears!' cried Grandma Georgina. 'We'll be lixivated,
every one of us!'
'More than likely,' said Mr Wonka.
Grandma Josephine screamed and disappeared under the
bedclothes, Grandma Georgina clutched Grandpa George so
tight he changed shape. Mr and Mrs Bucket stood hugging
each other, speechless with fright. Only Charlie and Grandpa
Joe kept moderately cool. They had travelled a long way with
Mr Wonka and had grown accustomed to surprises. But as
the Great Elevator continued to streak⁹ upward further and
further away from the earth, even Charlie began to feel a trifle
nervous. 'Mr Wonka!' he yelled above the noise, 'what I don't
understand is why we've got to come down at such a terrific
speed.'
'My dear boy,' Mr Wonka answered, 'if we don't come down
at a terrific speed, we'll never burst our way back in through
the roof of the factory. It's not easy to punch a hole in a roof
as strong as that.'
'But there's a hole in it already,' said Charlie. 'We made it
when we came out.'
'Then we shall make another,' said Mr Wonka. 'Two holes are
better than one. Any mouse will tell you that.'
Higher and higher rushed the Great Glass Elevator until soon
they could see the countries and oceans of the Earth spread
out below them like a map. It was all very beautiful, but when
you are standing¹⁰ on a glass floor looking down, it gives you a
nasty feeling. Even Charlie was beginning to feel frightened
now. He hung on tightly to Grandpa Joe's hand and looked
up anxiously into the old man's face. 'I'm scared, Grandpa,' he
said.
Grandpa Joe put an arm around Charlie's shoulders and held
him close. 'So am I, Charlie,' he said.
'Mr Wonka!' Charlie shouted. 'Don't you think this is about
high enough?'
'Very nearly,' Mr Wonka answered. 'But not quite. Don't talk to
me now, please. Don't disturb me. I must watch things very
carefully at this stage. Split-second timing¹¹, my boy, that's what
it's got to be. You see this green button. I must press it at
exactly the right instant. If I'm just half a second late, then
we'll go too high!'
'What happens if we go too high?' asked Grandpa Joe.
'Do please stop talking and let me concentrate!' Mr Wonka
said.
At that precise moment, Grandma Josephine poked¹² her head
out from under the sheets and peered over the edge of the
bed. Through the glass floor she saw the entire continent of
North America nearly two hundred miles below and looking no
bigger than a bar of chocolate. 'Someone's got to stop this
maniac¹³!' she screeched¹⁴ and she shot out a wrinkled old hand
and grabbed Mr Wonka by the coat-tails and yanked him
backwards¹⁵ on to the bed.
'No, no!' cried Mr Wonka, struggling to free himself. 'Let me
go! I have things to see to! Don't disturb the pilot!'
'You madman!' shrieked¹⁶ Grandma Josephine, shaking Mr
Wonka so fast his head became a blur¹⁷. 'You get us back
home this instant!'
'Let me go!' cried Mr Wonka, 'I've got to press that button or
we'll go too high! Let me go! Let me go!' But Grandma
Josephine hung on. 'Charlie!' shouted Mr Wonka. 'Press the
button! The green one! Quick, quick, quick!'
Charlie leaped across the Elevator and banged his thumb down
on the green button. But as he did so, the Elevator gave a
mighty¹⁸ groan¹⁹ and rolled over on to its side and the rushing
whooshing noise stopped altogether. There was an eerie²⁰ silence.
'Too late!' cried Mr Wonka. 'Oh, my goodness me, we're
cooked!' As he spoke²¹, the bed with the three old ones in it
and Mr Wonka on top lifted gently off the floor and hung
suspended in mid-air. Charlie and Grandpa Joe and Mr and
Mrs Bucket also floated upwards²² so that in a twink the entire
company, as well as the bed, were floating around like balloons
inside the Great Glass Elevator.
'Now look what you've done!' said Mr Wonka, floating about.
'What happened?' Grandma Josephine called out. She had
floated clear of the bed and was hovering²³ near the ceiling in
her nightshirt.
'Did we go too far?' Charlie asked.
'Too far?' cried Mr Wonka. 'Of course we went too far! You
know where we've gone, my friends? We've gone into orbit!'
They gaped²⁴, they gasped²⁵, they stared. They were too
flabbergasted to speak.
'We are now rushing around the Earth at seventeen thousand
miles an hour,' Mr Wonka said. 'How does that grab you?'
'I'm choking!' gasped Grandma Georgina. 'I can't breathe!'
'Of course you can't,' said Mr Wonka. 'There's no air up here.'
He sort of swam across under the ceiling to a button marked
OXYGEN. He pressed it. 'You'll be all right now,' he said.
'Breathe away.'
'This is the queerest feeling,' Charlie said, swimming about. 'I
feel like a bubble.' 'It's great,' said Grandpa Joe. 'It feels as
though I don't weigh anything at all.' 'You don't,' said Mr
Wonka. 'None of us weighs anything — not even one ounce.'
'What piffle!' said Grandma Georgina. 'I weigh one hundred
and thirty-seven pounds exactly.'
'Not now you don't,' said Mr Wonka. 'You are completely
weightless.'
The three old ones, Grandpa George, Grandma Georgina and
Grandma Josephine, were trying frantically²⁶ to get back into
bed, but without success. The bed was floating about in
mid-air. They, of course, were also floating, and every time they
got above the bed and tried to lie down, they simply floated
up out of it. Charlie and Grandpa Joe were hooting²⁷ with
laughter. 'What's so funny?' said Grandma Josephine.
'We've got you out of bed at last,' said Grandpa Joe. 'Shut up
and help us back!' snapped Grandma Josephine.
'Forget it,' said Mr Wonka. 'You'll never stay down. Just keep
floating around and be happy.'
'The man's a madman!' cried Grandma Georgina. 'Watch out, I
say, or he'll lixivate the lot of us!'

1 fabulous   

adj.极好的；极为巨大的；寓言中的，传说中的

参考例句：

• We had a fabulous time at the party.我们在晚会上玩得很痛快。
• This is a fabulous sum of money.这是一笔巨款。

2 croaked   

v.呱呱地叫( croak的过去式和过去分词 )；用粗的声音说

参考例句：

• The crow croaked disaster. 乌鸦呱呱叫预报灾难。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• 'she has a fine head for it," croaked Jacques Three. “她有一个漂亮的脑袋跟着去呢，”雅克三号低沉地说。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

3 crab   

n.螃蟹，偏航，脾气乖戾的人，酸苹果；vi.捕蟹，偏航，发牢骚；vt.使偏航，发脾气

参考例句：

• I can't remember when I last had crab.我不记得上次吃蟹是什么时候了。
• The skin on my face felt as hard as a crab's back.我脸上的皮仿佛僵硬了，就象螃蟹的壳似的。

4 shuddered   

v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动

参考例句：

• He slammed on the brakes and the car shuddered to a halt. 他猛踩刹车，车颤抖着停住了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I shuddered at the sight of the dead body. 我一看见那尸体就战栗。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 whooshing   

v.（使）飞快移动( whoosh的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by. 我喜欢最后期待。我尤其喜欢它们飞驰而过时发出的嗖嗖声。 来自互联网
• The constant whooshing of the wind across the roof wouldn't fade into the background. 不断跑车疾速的风雨整个屋顶不会褪色的背景。 来自互联网

6 vertically   

adv.垂直地

参考例句：

• Line the pages for the graph both horizontally and vertically.在这几页上同时画上横线和竖线，以便制作图表。
• The human brain is divided vertically down the middle into two hemispheres.人脑从中央垂直地分为两半球。

7 shriek   

v./n.尖叫，叫喊

参考例句：

• Suddenly he began to shriek loudly.突然他开始大声尖叫起来。
• People sometimes shriek because of terror,anger,or pain.人们有时会因为恐惧，气愤或疼痛而尖叫。

8 scrambled   

v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞

参考例句：

• Each scrambled for the football at the football ground. 足球场上你争我夺。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He scrambled awkwardly to his feet. 他笨拙地爬起身来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 streak   

n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动

参考例句：

• The Indians used to streak their faces with paint.印第安人过去常用颜料在脸上涂条纹。
• Why did you streak the tree?你为什么在树上刻条纹？

10 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。

11 timing   

n.时间安排，时间选择

参考例句：

• The timing of the meeting is not convenient.会议的时间安排不合适。
• The timing of our statement is very opportune.我们发表声明选择的时机很恰当。

12 poked   

v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交

参考例句：

• She poked him in the ribs with her elbow. 她用胳膊肘顶他的肋部。
• His elbow poked out through his torn shirt sleeve. 他的胳膊从衬衫的破袖子中露了出来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 maniac   

n.精神癫狂的人；疯子

参考例句：

• Be careful!That man is driving like a maniac!注意！那个人开车像个疯子一样！
• You were acting like a maniac,and you threatened her with a bomb!你像一个疯子，你用炸弹恐吓她！

14 screeched   

v.发出尖叫声( screech的过去式和过去分词 )；发出粗而刺耳的声音；高叫

参考例句：

• She screeched her disapproval. 她尖叫着不同意。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The car screeched to a stop. 汽车嚓的一声停住了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

15 backwards   

adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地

参考例句：

• He turned on the light and began to pace backwards and forwards.他打开电灯并开始走来走去。
• All the girls fell over backwards to get the party ready.姑娘们迫不及待地为聚会做准备。

16 shrieked   

v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She shrieked in fright. 她吓得尖叫起来。
• Li Mei-t'ing gave a shout, and Lu Tzu-hsiao shrieked, "Tell what? 李梅亭大声叫，陆子潇尖声叫：“告诉什么？ 来自汉英文学 - 围城

17 blur   

n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚

参考例句：

• The houses appeared as a blur in the mist.房子在薄雾中隐隐约约看不清。
• If you move your eyes and your head,the picture will blur.如果你的眼睛或头动了，图像就会变得模糊不清。

18 mighty   

adj.强有力的；巨大的

参考例句：

• A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
• The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。

19 groan   

vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音

参考例句：

• The wounded man uttered a groan.那个受伤的人发出呻吟。
• The people groan under the burden of taxes.人民在重税下痛苦呻吟。

20 eerie   

adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的

参考例句：

• It's eerie to walk through a dark wood at night.夜晚在漆黑的森林中行走很是恐怖。
• I walked down the eerie dark path.我走在那条漆黑恐怖的小路上。

21 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

22 upwards   

adv.向上，在更高处...以上

参考例句：

• The trend of prices is still upwards.物价的趋向是仍在上涨。
• The smoke rose straight upwards.烟一直向上升。

23 hovering   

鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫

参考例句：

• The helicopter was hovering about 100 metres above the pad. 直升机在离发射台一百米的上空盘旋。
• I'm hovering between the concert and the play tonight. 我犹豫不决今晚是听音乐会还是看戏。

24 gaped   

v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的过去式和过去分词 )；张开，张大

参考例句：

• A huge chasm gaped before them. 他们面前有个巨大的裂痕。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The front door was missing. A hole gaped in the roof. 前门不翼而飞，屋顶豁开了一个洞。 来自辞典例句

25 gasped   

v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要

参考例句：

• She gasped at the wonderful view. 如此美景使她惊讶得屏住了呼吸。
• People gasped with admiration at the superb skill of the gymnasts. 体操运动员的高超技艺令人赞叹。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

26 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。

27 hooting   

（使）作汽笛声响，作汽车喇叭声( hoot的现在分词 )； 倒好儿； 倒彩

参考例句：

• He had the audience hooting with laughter . 他令观众哄堂大笑。
• The owl was hooting. 猫头鹰在叫。