16 Vita-Wonk and Minusland

16 Vita-Wonk and Minusland
'It's up to you, Charlie my boy,' said Mr Wonka. 'It's yourfactory. Shall we let your Grandma Georgina wait it out for thenext two years or shall we try to bring her back right now?'
'You don't really mean you might be able to bring her back?'
cried Charlie.
'There's no harm in trying, is there … if that's the way youwant it?'
'Oh yes! Of course I do! For Mother's sake especially! Can'tyou see how sad she is!'
Mrs Bucket was sitting on the edge of the big bed, dabbingher eyes with a hanky. 'My poor old mum,' she kept saying.
'She's minus two and I won't see her again for months andmonths and months — if ever at all!' Behind her, GrandpaJoe, with the help of an Oompa-Loompa, was feeding histhree-month-old wife, Grandma Josephine, from a bottle.
Alongside them, Mr Bucket was spooning something called'Wonka's Squdgemallow Baby Food' into one-year-old GrandpaGeorge's mouth but mostly all over his chin and chest. 'Bigdeal!' he was muttering angrily. 'What a lousy rotten rotten thisis! They tell me I'm going to the Chocolate Factory to have agood time and I finish up being a mother to my father-in-law.'
'Everything's under control, Charlie,' said Mr Wonka, surveyingthe scene. 'They're doing fine. They don't need us here. Comealong! We're off to hunt for Grandma!' He caught Charlie bythe arm and went dancing towards the open door of theGreat Glass Elevator. 'Hurry up, my dear boy, hurry up!' hecried. 'We've got to hustle¹ if we're going to get there before!'
'Before what, Mr Wonka?'
'Before she gets subtracted of course! All Minuses aresubtracted! Don't you know any arithmetic at all?'
They were in the Elevator now and Mr Wonka was searchingamong the hundreds of buttons for the one he wanted.
'Here we are!' he said, placing his finger delicately upon a tinyivory button on which it said 'MINUSLAND'.
The doors slid shut. And then, with a fearful whistling whirringsound the great machine leaped away to the right. Charliegrabbed Mr Wonka's legs and held on for dear life. MrWonka pulled a jump-seat out of the wall and said, 'Sit downCharlie, quick, and strap² yourself in tight! This journey's goingto be rough and choppy!' There were straps³ on either side ofthe seat and Charlie buckled⁴ himself firmly in. Mr Wonkapulled out a second seat for himself and did the same.
'We are going a long way down,' he said. 'Oh, such a longway down we are going.'
The Elevator was gathering⁵ speed. It twisted and swerved⁶. Itswung sharply to the left, then it went right, then left again,and it was heading downward all the time — down and downand down. 'I only hope,' said Mr Wonka, 'the Oompa-Loompasaren't using the other Elevator today.'
'What other Elevator?' asked Charlie.
'The one that goes the opposite way on the same track asthis.'
'Holy snakes, Mr Wonka! You mean we might have acollision?'
'I've always been lucky so far, my boy … Hey! Take a lookout⁷ there! Quick!'
Through the window, Charlie caught a glimpse of what seemedlike an enormous quarry⁸ with a steep craggy-brown rock-face,and all over the rock-face there were hundreds ofOompa-Loompas working with picks and pneumatic drills.
'Rock-candy,' said Mr Wonka. 'That's the richest deposit ofrock-candy in the world.'
The Elevator sped on. 'We're going deeper, Charlie. Deeper anddeeper. We're about two hundred thousand feet down already.'
Strange sights were flashing by outside, but the Elevator wastravelling at such a terrific speed that only occasionally wasCharlie able to recognize anything at all. Once, he thought hesaw in the distance a cluster of tiny houses shaped likeupside-down cups, and there were streets in between thehouses and Oompa-Loompas walking in the streets. Anothertime, as they were passing some sort of a vast red plaindotted with things that looked like oil derricks, he saw a greatspout of brown liquid spurting⁹ out of the ground high into theair. 'A gusher¹⁰!' cried Mr Wonka, clapping his hands. 'Awhacking great gusher! How splendid! Just when we neededit!'
'A what?' said Charlie.
'We've struck chocolate again, my boy. That'll be a rich newfield. Oh, what a beautiful gusher! Just look at it go!'
On they roared, heading downward more steeply than evernow, and hundreds, literally¹¹ hundreds of astonishing sights keptflashing by outside. There were giant cog-wheels turning andmixers mixing and bubbles bubbling and vast orchards¹² oftoffee-apple trees and lakes the size of football grounds filledwith blue and gold and green liquid, and everywhere therewere Oompa-Loompas!
'You realize,' said Mr Wonka, 'that what you saw earlier onwhen you went round the factory with all those naughty littlechildren was only a tiny corner of the establishment. It goesdown for miles and miles. And as soon as possible I shallshow you all the way around slowly and properly. But that willtake three weeks. Right now we have other things to thinkabout and I have important things to tell you. Listen carefullyto me, Charlie. I must talk fast, for we'll be there in a coupleof minutes.
'I suppose you guessed,' Mr Wonka went on, 'what happenedto all those Oompa-Loompas in the Testing Room when I wasexperimenting with Wonka-Vite. Of course you did. Theydisappeared and became Minuses just like your GrandmaGeorgina. The recipe was miles too strong. One of themactually became Minus eighty-seven! Imagine that!'
'You mean he's got to wait eighty-seven years before he cancome back?' Charlie asked.
'That's what kept bugging¹³ me, my boy. After all, one can'tallow one's best friends to wait around as miserable¹⁴ Minusesfor eighty-seven years …'
'And get subtracted as well,' said Charlie. 'That would befrightful.'
'Of course it would, Charlie. So what did I do? "Willy Wonka,"I said to myself, "if you can invent Wonka-Vite to make peopleyounger, then surely to goodness you can also inventsomething else to make people older!"'
'Ah-ha!' cried Charlie. 'I see what you're getting at. Then youcould turn the Minuses quickly back into Pluses and bringthem home again.'
'Precisely¹⁵, my dear boy, precisely — always supposing, ofcourse, that I could find out where the Minuses had gone to!'
The Elevator plunged¹⁶ on, diving steeply toward the centre ofthe Earth. All was blackness outside now. There was nothing tobe seen.
'So once again,' Mr Wonka went on, 'I rolled up my sleevesand set to work. Once again I squeezed my brain, searchingfor the new recipe … I had to create age … to make peopleold … old, older, oldest … "Ha-ha!" I cried, for now the ideaswere beginning to come. "What is the oldest living thing in theworld? What lives longer than anything else?"'
'A tree,' Charlie said.
'Right you are, Charlie! But what kind of a tree? Not theDouglas Fir. Not the Oak. Not the Cedar¹⁷. No no, my boy. It isa tree called the Bristlecone Pine that grows upon the slopes ofWheeler Peak in Nevada, U.S.A. You can find Bristlecone Pineson Wheeler Peak today that are over four thousand years old!
This is fact, Charlie. Ask any dendrochronologist you like (andlook that word up in the dictionary when you get home, willyou, please?). So that started me off. I jumped into the GreatGlass Elevator and rushed all over the world collecting specialitems from the oldest living things …
A PINT¹⁸ OF SAP FROM A 4000-YEAR-OLD BRISTLECONEPINE
THE TOE-NAIL CLIPPINGS FROM A 168-YEAR-OLD
RUSSIAN FARMER
CALLED PETROVITCH GREGOROVITCH
AN EGG LAID BY A 200-YEAR-OLD TORTOISE BELONGINGTO THE KING OF
TONGA
THE TAIL OF A 51-YEAR-OLD HORSE IN ARABIA
THE WHISKERS OF A 36-YEAR-OLD CAT CALLED
CRUMPETS
AN OLD FLEA¹⁹ WHICH HAD LIVED ON CRUMPETS FOR 36YEARS
THE TAIL OF A 207-YEAR-OLD GIANT RAT FROM TIBETTHE BLACK TEETH OF A 97-YEAR OLD GRIMALKIN
LIVING IN A CAVE ON
MOUNT POPOCATEPETL
THE KNUCKLEBONES OF A 700-YEAR-OLD CATTALOO
FROM PERU …
… All over the world, Charlie, I tracked down very old andancient animals and took an important little bit of somethingfrom each one of them — a hair or an eyebrow²⁰ or sometimesit was no more than an ounce or two of the jam scrapedfrom between its toes while it was sleeping. I tracked downTHE WHISTLE-PIG, THE BOBOLINK, THE SKROCK, THEPOLLY-FROG, THE GIANT CURLICUE, THE STINGING SLUGAND THE VENOMOUS SQUERKLE who can spit poison rightinto your eye from fifty yards away. But there's no time to tellyou about them all now, Charlie. Let me just say quickly thatin the end, after lots of boiling and bubbling and mixing andtesting in my Inventing Room, I produced one tiny cupful ofoily black liquid and gave four drops of it to a bravetwenty-year-old Oompa-Loompa volunteer to see whathappened.'
'What did happen?' Charlie asked.
'It was fantastic!' cried Mr Wonka. 'The moment he swallowedit, he began wrinkling and shrivelling up all over and his hairstarted dropping off and his teeth started falling out and,before I knew it, he had suddenly become an old fellow ofseventy-five! And thus, my dear Charlie, was Vita-Wonkinvented!'
'Did you rescue all the Oompa-Loompa Minuses, Mr Wonka?'
'Every single one of them, my boy! One hundred andthirty-one all told! Mind you, it wasn't quite as easy as all that.
There were lots of snags and complications along the way… .
Good heavens! We're nearly there! I must stop talking nowand watch where we're going.'
Charlie realized that the Elevator was no longer rushing androaring. It was hardly moving at all now. It seemed to bedrifting. 'Undo²¹ your straps,' Mr Wonka said. 'We must getready for action.' Charlie undid²² his straps and stood up andpeered out. It was an eerie²³ sight. They were drifting in aheavy grey mist and the mist was swirling²⁴ and swishing aroundthem as though driven by winds from many sides. In thedistance, the mist was darker and almost black and it seemedto be swirling more fiercely than ever over there. Mr Wonkaslid open the doors. 'Stand back!' he said. 'Don't fall out,Charlie, whatever you do!'
The mist came into the Elevator. It had the fusty reeky²⁵ smellof an old underground dungeon²⁶. The silence was overpowering.
There was no sound at all, no whisper of wind, no voice ofcreature or insect, and it gave Charlie a queer frighteningfeeling to be standing²⁷ there in the middle of this grey inhumannothingness — as though he were in another world altogether,in some place where man should never be.
'Minusland!' whispered Mr Wonka. 'This is it, Charlie! Theproblem now is to find her. We may be lucky … and thereagain, we may not!'

1 hustle   

v.推搡；竭力兜售或获取；催促；n.奔忙(碌)

参考例句：

• It seems that he enjoys the hustle and bustle of life in the big city.看起来他似乎很喜欢大城市的热闹繁忙的生活。
• I had to hustle through the crowded street.我不得不挤过拥挤的街道。

2 strap   

n.皮带，带子；v.用带扣住，束牢；用绷带包扎

参考例句：

• She held onto a strap to steady herself.她抓住拉手吊带以便站稳。
• The nurse will strap up your wound.护士会绑扎你的伤口。

3 straps   

n.带子( strap的名词复数 )；挎带；肩带；背带v.用皮带捆扎( strap的第三人称单数 )；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带

参考例句：

• the shoulder straps of her dress 她连衣裙上的肩带
• The straps can be adjusted to suit the wearer. 这些背带可进行调整以适合使用者。

4 buckled   

a. 有带扣的

参考例句：

• She buckled her belt. 她扣上了腰带。
• The accident buckled the wheel of my bicycle. 我自行车的轮子在事故中弄弯了。

5 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

6 swerved   

v.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She swerved sharply to avoid a cyclist. 她猛地急转弯，以躲开一个骑自行车的人。
• The driver has swerved on a sudden to avoid a file of geese. 为了躲避一队鹅，司机突然来个急转弯。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 lookout   

n.注意，前途，瞭望台

参考例句：

• You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。
• It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来，公司的前景可就不妙了。

8 quarry   

n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找

参考例句：

• Michelangelo obtained his marble from a quarry.米开朗基罗从采石场获得他的大理石。
• This mountain was the site for a quarry.这座山曾经有一个采石场。

9 spurting   

（液体，火焰等）喷出，（使）涌出( spurt的现在分词 )； （短暂地）加速前进，冲刺； 溅射

参考例句：

• Blood was spurting from her nose. 血从她鼻子里汩汩流出来。
• The volcano was spurting out rivers of molten lava. 火山喷涌着熔岩。

10 gusher   

n.喷油井

参考例句：

• We endeavour to avoid the old,romantic idea of a gusher.我们力图避免那种有关喷油井的陈旧的、不切实际的计划。
• The oil rushes up the tube and spouts up as a gusher.石油会沿着钢管上涌，如同自喷井那样喷射出来。

11 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

12 orchards   

（通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They turned the hills into orchards and plains into granaries. 他们把山坡变成了果园，把平地变成了粮仓。
• Some of the new planted apple orchards have also begun to bear. 有些新开的苹果园也开始结苹果了。

13 bugging   

[法] 窃听

参考例句：

• Okay, then let's get the show on the road and I'll stop bugging you. 好，那么让我们开始动起来，我将不再惹你生气。 来自辞典例句
• Go fly a kite and stop bugging me. 走开，别烦我。 来自英汉 - 翻译样例 - 口语

14 miserable   

adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的

参考例句：

• It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他，这是可耻的。
• Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。

15 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

16 plunged   

v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降

参考例句：

• The train derailed and plunged into the river. 火车脱轨栽进了河里。
• She lost her balance and plunged 100 feet to her death. 她没有站稳，从100英尺的高处跌下摔死了。

17 cedar   

n.雪松，香柏(木)

参考例句：

• The cedar was about five feet high and very shapely.那棵雪松约有五尺高,风姿优美。
• She struck the snow from the branches of an old cedar with gray lichen.她把长有灰色地衣的老雪松树枝上的雪打了下来。

18 pint   

n.品脱

参考例句：

• I'll have a pint of beer and a packet of crisps, please.我要一品脱啤酒和一袋炸马铃薯片。
• In the old days you could get a pint of beer for a shilling.从前，花一先令就可以买到一品脱啤酒。

19 flea   

n.跳蚤

参考例句：

• I'll put a flea in his ear if he bothers me once more.如果他再来打扰的话，我就要对他不客气了。
• Hunter has an interest in prowling around a flea market.亨特对逛跳蚤市场很感兴趣。

20 eyebrow   

n.眉毛，眉

参考例句：

• Her eyebrow is well penciled.她的眉毛画得很好。
• With an eyebrow raised,he seemed divided between surprise and amusement.他一只眉毛扬了扬，似乎既感到吃惊，又觉有趣。

21 undo   

vt.解开，松开；取消，撤销

参考例句：

• His pride will undo him some day.他的傲慢总有一天会毁了他。
• I managed secretly to undo a corner of the parcel.我悄悄地设法解开了包裹的一角。

22 Undid   

v. 解开, 复原

参考例句：

• The officer undid the flap of his holster and drew his gun. 军官打开枪套盖拔出了手枪。
• He did wrong, and in the end his wrongs undid him. 行恶者终以其恶毁其身。

23 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。

24 swirling   

v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Snowflakes were swirling in the air. 天空飘洒着雪花。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• She smiled, swirling the wine in her glass. 她微笑着，旋动着杯子里的葡萄酒。 来自辞典例句

25 reeky   

adj.烟雾弥漫的

参考例句：

26 dungeon   

n.地牢，土牢

参考例句：

• They were driven into a dark dungeon.他们被人驱赶进入一个黑暗的地牢。
• He was just set free from a dungeon a few days ago.几天前，他刚从土牢里被放出来。

27 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。