by Roald Dahl
‘Mike!’ screamed Mrs Teavee. ‘Stop! Come back! You’ll be turned into a million tiny pieces!’
But there was no stopping Mike Teavee now. The crazy boy rushed on, and when he reached the enormous camera, he jumped straight for the switch, scattering Oompa-Loompas right and left as he went.
‘See you later, alligator!’ he shouted, and he pulled down the switch, and as he did so, he leaped out into the full glare of the mighty lens.
There was a blinding flash.
Then there was silence.
Then Mrs Teavee ran forward… but she stopped dead in the middle of the room… and she stood there… she stood staring at the place where her son had been… and her great red mouth opened wide and she screamed, ‘He’s gone! He’s gone!’
‘Great heavens, he has gone!’ shouted Mr Teavee.
Mr Wonka hurried forward and placed a hand gently on Mrs Teavee’s shoulder. ‘We shall have to hope for the best,’ he said. ‘We must pray that your little boy will come out unharmed at the other end.’
‘Mike!’ screamed Mrs Teavee, clasping her head in her hands. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’ll tell you where he is,’ said Mr Teavee, ‘he’s whizzing around above our heads in a million tiny pieces!’
‘Don’t talk about it!’ wailed Mrs Teavee.
‘We must watch the television set,’ said Mr Wonka. ‘He may come through any moment.’
Mr and Mrs Teavee and Grandpa Joe and little Charlie and Mr Wonka all gathered round the television and stared tensely at the screen. The screen was quite blank.
‘He’s taking a heck of a long time to come across,’ said Mr Teavee, wiping his brow.
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said Mr Wonka, ‘I do hope that no part of him gets left behind.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’ asked Mr Teavee sharply.
‘I don’t wish to alarm you,’ said Mr Wonka, ‘but it does sometimes happen that only about half the little pieces find their way into the television set. It happened last week. I don’t know why, but the result was that only half a bar of chocolate came through.’
Mrs Teavee let out a scream of horror. ‘You mean only a half of Mike is coming back to us?’ she cried.
‘Let’s hope it’s the top half,’ said Mr Teavee.
‘Hold everything!’ said Mr Wonka. ‘Watch the screen! Something’s happening!’
The screen had suddenly begun to flicker.
Then some wavy lines appeared.
Mr Wonka adjusted one of the knobs and the wavy lines went away.
And now, very slowly, the screen began to get brighter and brighter.
‘Here he comes!’ yelled Mr Wonka. ‘Yes, that’s him all right!’
‘Is he all in one piece?’ cried Mrs Teavee.
‘I’m not sure,’ said Mr Wonka. ‘It’s too early to tell.’
Faintly at first, but becoming clearer and clearer every second, the picture of Mike Teavee appeared on the screen. He was standing up and waving at the audience and grinning from ear to ear.
‘But he’s a midget!’ shouted Mr Teavee.
‘Mike,’ cried Mrs Teavee, ‘are you all right? Are there any bits of you missing?’
‘Isn’t he going to get any bigger?’ shouted Mr Teavee.
‘Talk to me, Mike!’ cried Mrs Teavee. ‘Say something! Tell me you’re all right!’
A tiny little voice, no louder than the squeaking of a mouse, came out of the television set. ‘Hi, Mum!’ it said. ‘Hi, Pop! Look at me! I’m the first person ever to be sent by television!’
‘Grab him!’ ordered Mr Wonka. ‘Quick!’
Mrs Teavee shot out a hand and picked the tiny figure of Mike Teavee out of the screen.
‘Hooray!’ cried Mr Wonka. ‘He’s all in one piece! He’s completely unharmed!’
‘You call that unharmed?’ snapped Mrs Teavee, peering at the little speck of a boy who was now running to and fro across the palm of her hand, waving his pistols in the air.
He was certainly not more than an inch tall.
‘He’s shrunk!’ said Mr Teavee.
‘Of course he’s shrunk,’ said Mr Wonka. ‘What did you expect?’
‘This is terrible!’ wailed Mrs Teavee. ‘What are we going to do?’
And Mr Teavee said, ‘We can’t send him back to school like this! He’ll get trodden on! He’ll get squashed!’
‘He won’t be able to do anything!’ cried Mrs Teavee.
‘Oh, yes I will!’ squeaked the tiny voice of Mike Teavee. ‘I’ll still be able to watch television!’
‘Never again!’ shouted Mr Teavee. ‘I’m throwing the television set right out the window the moment we get home. I’ve had enough of television!’
When he heard this, Mike Teavee flew into a terrible tantrum. He started jumping up and down on the palm of his mother’s hand, screaming and yelling and trying to bite her fingers. ‘I want to watch television!’ he squeaked. ‘I want to watch television! I want to watch television! I want to watch television!’
‘Here! Give him to me!’ said Mr Teavee, and he took the tiny boy and shoved him into the breast pocket of his jacket and stuffed a handkerchief on top. Squeals and yells came from inside the pocket, and the pocket shook as the furious little prisoner fought to get out.
‘Oh, Mr Wonka,’ wailed Mrs Teavee, ‘how can we make him grow?’
‘Well,’ said Mr Wonka, stroking his beard and gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling, T must say that’s a wee bit tricky. But small boys are extremely springy and elastic. They stretch like mad. So what we’ll do, we’ll put him in a special machine I have for testing the stretchiness of chewing-gum! Maybe that will bring him back to what he was.’
‘Oh, thank you!’ said Mrs Teavee.
‘Don’t mention it, dear lady.’
‘How far d’you think he’ll stretch?’ asked Mr Teavee.
‘Maybe miles,’ said Mr Wonka. ‘Who knows? But he’s going to be awfully thin. Everything gets thinner when you stretch it.’
‘You mean like chewing-gum?’ asked Mr Teavee.
‘Exactly.’
‘How thin will he be?’ asked Mrs Teavee anxiously.
‘I haven’t the foggiest idea,’ said Mr Wonka. ‘And it doesn’t really matter, anyway, because we’ll soon fatten him up again. All we’ll have to do is give him a triple overdose of my wonderful Supervitamin Chocolate. Supervitamin Chocolate contains huge amounts of vitamin A and vitamin B. It also contains vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin F, vitamin G, vitamin I, vitamin J, vitamin K, vitamin L, vitamin M, vitamin N, vitamin O, vitamin P, vitamin Q, vitamin R, vitamin T, vitamin U, vitamin V, vitamin W, vitamin X, vitamin Y, and, believe it or not, vitamin Z! The only two vitamins it doesn’t have in it are vitamin S, because it makes you sick, and vitamin H, because it makes you grow horns on the top of your head, like a bull. But it does have in it a very small amount of the rarest and most magical vitamin of them all – vitamin Wonka.’
‘And what will that do to him?’ asked Mr Teavee anxiously.
‘It’ll make his toes grow out until they’re as long as his fingers…’
‘Oh, no!’ cried Mrs Teavee.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Mr Wonka. ‘It’s most useful. He’ll be able to play the piano with his feet.’
‘But Mr Wonka…’
‘No arguments, please!’ said Mr Wonka. He turned away and clicked his fingers three times in the air. An Oompa-Loompa appeared immediately and stood beside him. ‘Follow these orders,’ said
Mr Wonka, handing the Oompa-Loompa a piece of paper on which he had written full instructions. ‘And you’ll find the boy in his father’s pocket. Off you go! Good-bye, Mr Teavee! Good-bye, Mrs Teavee! And please don’t look so worried! They all come out in the wash, you know; every one of them…’
At the end of the room, the Oompa-Loompas around the giant camera were already beating their tiny drums and beginning to jog up and down to the rhythm.
‘There they go again!’ said Mr Wonka. ‘I’m afraid y
ou can’t stop them singing.’
Little Charlie caught Grandpa Joe’s hand, and the two of them stood beside Mr Wonka in the middle of the long bright room, listening to the Oompa-Loompas. And this is what they sang:
‘ The most important thing we’ve learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never,NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set –
Or better still, just don’t install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we’ve been,
We’ve watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone’s place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they’re hypnotized by it,
Until they’re absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don’t climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink –
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSES IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINA TION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CAN NO T THINK – HE ONLY SEES!
“All right!” you’ll cry. “All right!” you’ll say,
“But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children! Please explain!”
We’ll answer this by asking you,
“What used the darling ones to do?
How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?”
Have you for gotten? Don’t you know?
We’ll say it very loud and slow:
THEY… USED… TO… READ! They’d
READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
TO READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it’s Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel JVutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs Tiggy-Winkle and –
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How The Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr Toad, and bless my soul,
There’s Mr Rat and Mr Mole –
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks –
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They’ll now begin to feel the need
Of having something good to read.
And once they start – oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They’ll grow so keen
They’ll wonder what they’d ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean.
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.
P.S. Regarding Mike Teavee,
We very much regret that we
Shall simply have to wait and see
If we can get him back his height.
But if we can’t – it serves him right.’
28
Only Charlie Left
‘Which room shall it be next?’ said Mr Wonka as he turned away and darted into the lift. ‘Come on! Hurry up! We must get going! And how many children are there left now?’
Little Charlie looked at Grandpa Joe, and Grandpa Joe looked back at little Charlie.
‘But Mr Wonka,’ Grandpa Joe called after him, ‘there’s… there’s only Charlie left now.’
Mr Wonka swung round and stared at Charlie.
There was a silence. Charlie stood there holding tightly on to Grandpa Joe’s hand.
‘You mean you’re the only one left?’ Mr Wonka said, pretending to be surprised.
‘Why, yes,’ whispered Charlie. ‘Yes.’
Mr Wonka suddenly exploded with excitement. ‘But my dear boy,’ he cried out, ‘that means you’ve won!’ He rushed out of the lift and started shaking Charlie’s hand so furiously it nearly came off. ‘Oh, I do congratulate you!’ he cried. ‘I really do! I’m absolutely delighted! It couldn’t be better! How wonderful this is! I had a hunch, you knew, right from the beginning, that it was going to be you! Well done, Charlie, well done! This is terrific! Now the fun is really going to start! But we mustn’t dilly! We mustn’t dally! There’s even less time to lose now than there was before! We have an enormous number of things to do before the day is out! Just think of the arrangements that have to be made! And the people we have to fetch! But luckily for us,
we have the great glass lift to speed things up! Jump in, my dear Charlie, jump in! You too, Grandpa Joe, sir! No, no, after you! That’s the way! Now then! This time I shall choose the button we are going to press!’ Mr Wonka’s bright twinkling blue eyes rested for a moment on Charlie’s face.
Something crazy is going to happen now, Charlie thought. But he wasn’t frightened. He wasn’t even nervous. He was just terrifically excited. And so was Grandpa Joe. The old man’s face was shining with excitement as he watched every move that Mr Wonka made. Mr Wonka was reaching for a button high up on the glass ceiling of the lift. Charlie and Grandpa Joe both craned their necks to read what it said on the little label beside the button.
It said… UP AND OUT.
‘Up and out,’ thought Charlie. ‘What sort of a room is that?’
Mr Wonka pressed the button.
The glass doors closed.
‘Hold on!’ cried Mr Wonka.
Then WHAM! The lift shot straight up like a rocket! ‘Yippee!’ shouted Grandpa Joe. Charlie was clinging to Grandpa Joe’s legs and Mr Wonka was holding on to a strap from the ceiling, and up they went, up, up, up, straight up this time, with no twistings or turnings, and Charlie could hear the whistling of the air outside as the lift went faster and faster. ‘Yippee!’ shouted Grandpa Joe again. ‘Yippee! Here we go!’
‘Faster!’ cried Mr Wonka, banging the wall of the lift with his hand. ‘Faster! Faster! If we don’t go any faster than this, we shall never get through!’
‘Through what?’ shouted Grandpa Joe. ‘What have we got t
o get through?’
‘Ah-ha!’ cried Mr Wonka, ‘you wait and see! I’ve been longing to press this button for years! But I’ve never done it until now! I was tempted many times! Oh, yes, I was tempted! But I couldn’t bear the thought of making a great big hole in the roof of the factory! Here we go, boys! Up and out!’
‘But you don’t mean…’ shouted Grandpa Joe, ‘… you don’t really mean that this lift…’
‘Oh yes, I do!’ answered Mr Wonka. ‘You wait and see! Up and out!’
‘But… but… but… it’s made of glass!’ shouted Grandpa Joe. ‘It’ll break into a million pieces!’
‘I suppose it might,’ said Mr Wonka, cheerful as ever, ‘but it’s pretty thick glass, all the same.’
The lift rushed on, going up and up and up, faster and faster and faster…
Then suddenly, CRASH! – and the most tremendous noise of splintering wood and broken tiles came from directly above their heads, and Grandpa Joe shouted, ‘Help! It’s the end! We’re done for!’ and Mr Wonka said, ‘No, we’re not! We’re through! We’re out!’ Sure enough, the lift had shot right up through the roof of the factory and was now rising into the sky like a rocket, and the sunshine was pouring in through the glass roof. In five seconds they were a thousand feet up in the sky.
‘The lift’s gone mad!’ shouted Grandpa Joe.
‘Have no fear, my dear sir,’ said Mr Wonka calmly, and he pressed another button. The lift stopped. It stopped and hung in mid-air, hovering like a helicopter, hovering over the factory and over the very town itself which lay spread out below them like a picture postcard! Looking down through the glass floor on which he was standing, Charlie could see the small far-away houses and the streets and the snow that lay thickly over everything. It was an eerie and frightening feeling to be standing on clear glass high up in the sky. It made you feel that you weren’t standing on anything at all.
‘Are we all right?’ cried Grandpa Joe. ‘How does this thing stay up?’
‘Sugar power!’ said Mr Wonka. ‘One million sugar power! Oh, look,’ he cried, pointing down, ‘there go the other children! They’re returning home!’
29
The Other Children Go Home
‘We must go down and take a look at our little friends before we do anything else,’ said Mr Wonka. He pressed a different button, and the lift dropped lower, and soon it was hovering just above the entrance gates to the factory.
