Up and out

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 to 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!'

***

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Chapter 28