But you cannot send guests to a hotel unless there are lots of people there to look after them, and that explains why there was yet another interesting object orbiting the earth at that moment. Several kings and queens had cabled the White House in Washington for reservations, and a Texas millionaire called Orson Cart, who was about to marry a Hollywood starlet called Helen Highwater, was offering one hundred thousand dollars a day for the honeymoon suite.

It was rumored that the President of the United States himself was going to be among the first to stay in the hotel, and of course there was a mad rush by all sorts of other people across the world to book rooms. “But the launching had been a great success and now that the Space Hotel was safely in orbit, there was a tremendous hustle and bustle to send up the first guests. But now that it has taken us up into the sky, it has become an ELEVATOR. Lifts only go up and down inside buildings. ‘Madam,’ said Mr Wonka, ‘it is not a lift any longer. ‘What in the world keeps this crazy thing up in the air?’ croaked Grandma Josephine. 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. Everybody on board was wildly excited at the thought of going to live in the famous Chocolate Factory. The Great Glass Lift was a thousand feet up and cruising nicely. Grandpa Joe, as you remember, had got out of bed to go around the Chocolate Factory with Charlie.

Grandma Josephine, Grandma Georgina and Grandpa George were still in bed, the bed having been pushed on board just before take-off.

Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina, Mrs Bucket’s father and mother. Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine, Mr Bucket’s father and mother. Mr and Mrs Bucket, Charlie’s father and mother. Mr Willy Wonka, chocolate-maker extraordinary. The passengers in the Lift (just to remind you) were: Charlie Bucket, our hero. Only a short while before, Mr Wonka had told him that the whole gigantic fabulous Chocolate Factory was his, and now our small friend was returning in triumph with his entire family to take over. “Mr Wonka Goes Too Far The last time we saw Charlie, he was riding high above his home town in the Great Glass Lift.

Glass elevator book