Disclaimer: All material of familiarity is owned, copyrighted, and otherwise credited to the parties to which it belongs, that being Roald Dahl, who penned the book from which this story and its chapters are adapted, and perhaps Warner Bros. Studios for the production of the film adaptations of Dahl's book. This story merely borrows the characters for use in a different reality...
CH II: The Space Hotel
Inside the Great Glass Elevator there was a good deal of excitement, especially when Mr. Wonka told them that they were going to the Space Hotel, which they could all clearly see now. It was a huge silvery shape, looking almost like a giant sausage, and the smaller, but still enormous Commuter Capsule just beyond it. Wonka floated up close to Charlie. "Let's beat them to it, Charlie," he whispered. "Let's get there first and board the Space Hotel ourselves!"
Charlie gaped. Then he gulped. Then he said softly, "You've got to have all sorts of special gadgets to link up with another spacecraft, Mr. Wonka."
"My Elevator could link up with a crocodile if it had to," Mr. Wonka said seriously. "Though that would be a very nasty procedure indeed. Just leave it to me, my boy!"
"What if they come after us?" asked Mr. Bucket, speaking for the first time. He was thinking of all the toothpaste caps he had taken from the factory he used to work at, and was worried he might get arrested for it.
"What if they shoot us?" Grandma Georgina asked.
"That wouldn't really matter," Wonka said with a smile. "The glass is bulletproof. It would take nothing short of an atomic bomb to shatter this elevator!"
"Like that makes me feel much better!" Grandma Josephine snapped, but Wonka ignored her.
"Off we go, then! But wait…this is a very tricky maneuver and I'm going to need help. We have to press lots of buttons, all in different parts of the Elevator. I'm not quite sure why I built it that way…but I suppose we can fix that after we get ourselves back home."
"You mean if we get home," Grandpa George muttered.
"Come now, dear sir, you underestimate me!" Mr. Wonka said calmly, ignoring the glare of Grandpa George. "Now, Charlie, I shall take those two buttons over there, the white and black. " he made a funny blowing noise with his mouth and glided effortlessly, like a huge bird, across the Elevator to the white and black buttons, and there he hovered. "Grandpa Joe sir, kindly station yourself beside that silver button there, yes…that's the one. And you, Charlie, go up and stay floating beside that little golden button near the ceiling. I must tell you that each of these buttons fires booster rockets from different places outside the Elevator. That's how we change direction. Grandpa Joe's rockets turn us to starboard, to the right. Charlie's turn us to port, left. Mine make us go higher or lower or faster or slower. All ready?"
"No! Wait!" cried Charlie, who was floating exactly midway between the floor and the ceiling. "How do I get up? I can't get to the ceiling!" he was thrashing his arms and legs violently, like a drowning swimmer, but getting nowhere.
"My dear boy," said Mr. Wonka, smiling in amusement, "You can't swim in this stuff. This is air and very thin air at that. There's nothing to push against. So you have to use jet propulsion. Watch me. First, you take a deep breath. Then you make a small round hole with your mouth and you blow as hard as you can. If you blow downward, you jet propel up. If you blow to the left, you jet propel to the right, and so on. You can maneuver yourself like a spacecraft, but using your mouth as a booster rocket."
Suddenly everyone was practicing this business of flying about, and the whole Elevator was filled with the blowings and snorting of the passengers. Grandma Georgina, in her red flannel nightgown with two skinny bare legs sticking out of the bottom was trumpeting and spitting like a rhinoceros and flying from one side of the Elevator to the other, shouting "Out of my way!" and crashing into anyone who was unfortunate enough to be obstructing her path. Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina and Grandma Josephine were doing the same, while Mr. Wonka looked on, brow scrunched in consternation. "Please calm down, everyone! If we don't' hurry, those astronauts in the Commuter Capsule will get there before us! Don't you want to see the inside of the Space Hotel before they do?"
After several minutes, the old people grew tired and out of breath, and finally heeded Mr. Wonka's request. They settled into a floating position, while Mr. Wonka looked to Charlie and Grandpa Joe. "All set, everyone?"
"All set, Mr. Wonka," Charlie answered, hovering near the ceiling.
"I'll give the orders," Said Mr. Wonka. "I'm the pilot. Don't fire your rockets until I tell you. And don't forget who is who…the last thing we want is to go off course and smash into the side of the…" he caught a glare from Grandma Josephine, and shook his head., a smile coming to his face. "Never mind! Let's be going! We've wasted far too much time already! Charlie, you're port. Grandpa Joe, starboard!" Mr. Wonka pressed one of his own two buttons and immediately booster rockets began firing underneath the Great Glass Elevator. The Elevator leapt forward, but swerved violently to the right. "Hard port!" yelled Mr. Wonka. Charlie pressed his button. His rockets fired. The Elevator swung back into line. "Steady as you go!" cried Mr. Wonka. "Starboard ten degrees! Steady…steady…keep her there!"
Soon they were hovering directly underneath the enormous Space Hotel. "you see that little square door with the bolts on it?" said Mr. Wonka. "That's the docking entrance. It won't be long now. Port a fraction…Steady! Starboard a bit! Good….good…easy does it…We're nearly there…"
While all this was happening, the astronauts aboard the Commuter Capsule had watched, quite bewildered by the strange flying box and the even stranger astronauts inside. These men, Captains Shanks, Shuckworth, and Showler, had been chosen for their bravery and stellar records. But as they watched the glass spacecraft linking up with the Space Hotel, they could only wonder if all the recommendations and praises behind them really mattered at this point.
"What do you think they're doing, Shanks?" Showler whispered as he watched through the viewport, knowing the President and Space Control were listening in.
"I don't know," the other replied after a moment of thought. "The President says they want to blow the Hotel to smithereens, but if he's wrong and that so-called bomb really is a bed, well…we'll just have to wait and see."
There was no floating in the Space Hotel…special artificial gravity machines made sure of that. So once the docking had been achieved, Mr. Wonka, Charlie, Grandpa Joe, and Mr. And Mrs. Bucket were able to walk out of the Elevator into the lobby of the Hotel. As for Grandpa George and the Grandmas, none of them had let their feet touch the ground in twenty years, and they weren't about to change their habits. So when the floating stopped, they all three plopped back into bed and insisted that it, with them, be pushed into the Space Hotel. Though Mr. Wonka was visibly reluctant to do so, he and Grandpa Joe and Mr. and Mrs. Bucket managed to complete the operation, and the whole group soon found themselves in the massive atrium of the most magnificent construct imaginable.
Charlie gazed around the huge lobby. On the floor there as a thick green carpet. Twenty tremendous chandeliers hung shimmering from the ceiling. The walls were covered with valuable pictures and there were big soft armchairs all over the place. at the far end of the room there were five elevator doors. The group stared in silence at al this luxury. Nobody dared to speak. Mr. Wonka had warned them that every word they uttered would be picked up by Space Command in Houston, so they had better be careful. A faint humming noise came from somewhere below the floor, but that only made the silence more spooky. Charlie took hold of Grandpa Joe's hand and held it tight. He wasn't sure he liked this very much. They had broken into he greatest machine ever built by man, the property of the United States of America, and if they were discovered and captured, they would surely be jailed for life, or tortured for being terrorists, or worse.
Mr. Wonka was writing on a little pad he had produced from within his coat. He held it up for the others to read.
It said ANYBODY HUNGRY?
The three old ones in the bed began waving their arms and opening and shutting their mouths, suddenly remembering their empty bellies and bony frames. Mr. Wonka turned the paper over. On the other side it read: THE KITCHENS OF THIS HOTEL ARE LOADED WITH LUSCIOUS FOOD. LOBSTERS, STEAKS, ICE CREAM. WE SHALL HAVE A FEAST TO END ALL FEASTS!
Suddenly, a tremendous booming voice came out of a loudspeaker somewhere in the room. "ATTENTION! FOREIGN ASTRONAUTS! THIS IS SPACE COMMAND IN HOUSTON TEXAS, USA! YOU ARE TRESPASSING ON AMERICAN PROPERTY! YOU ARE ORDERED TO IDENTIFY YOURSELVES IMMEDIATELY! SPEAK NOW!"
"Shhh!" whispered Mr. Wonka, his finger to his lips.
There followed a few seconds of awful silence. Nobody moved except Mr. Wonka, who kept saying "Shhh, shhh…" though it was unnecessary, as everyone was frozen in foreboding.
"WHO ARE YOU?" boomed the voice from Houston, and people all around the world, watching the drama unfolding on their televisions, heard it.
"I REPEAT, WHO ARE YOU?" shouted the urgent angry voice, and five hundred million people crouched in front of their televisions, waiting for an answer to come from the mysterious strangers in the Space Hotel. The television was not able to show a picture of these mysterious strangers. There was no camera in there to recorded the scene. Only the words cam through. The television watchers saw nothing but the outside of the giant Space Hotel in orbit, photographed by the astronauts in the Commuter Capsule, who were following behind. For a whole minute, the world waited for a reply.
But no reply came.
"SPEAK!" boomed the voice, getting louder and louder, ending in a frightening shout that rattled Charlie's eardrums. "SPEAK! SPEAK! SPEAK!"
The three old ones cowered under the sheets of the bed, as if trying to hide themselves from the terrible voice. Mr. and Mrs. Bucket held each other, visibly quaking. Grandpa Joe and Charlie were scared, too, but they were significantly calmer, looking over curiously to Mr. Wonka, who was standing very still, eyes glowing with some unspoken plan of action.
"THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE!" boomed the voice. "WE ARE ASKING YOU ONCE MORE…WHO ARE YOU? REPLY IMMEDIATELY! IF YOU DO NOT, WE SHALL BE FORCED TO REGARD YOU AS DANGEROUS ENEMIES. WE SHALL THEN PRESS THE MERGENCY FREEZER SWITCH AND THE TMPERATURE IN THE HOTEL WILL DROP TO ABSOLUTE ZERO. ALL OF YOU WILL BE INSTANTLY DEEP FROZEN. YOU HAVE FIFTEEN SECONDS TO SPEAK. AFTER THAT YOU WILL BE TURNED ITNO ICICLES!
ONE…TWO…THREE…"
Now, of course the Space Hotel had no such Freezer Switch. It would have been ridiculous to put such a dangerous thing aboard the vessel, especially since it would have been servicing the most influential individuals in the world and it would have been a danger to them if anything like that existed on the ship. But Charlie and his family didn't know this, and were afraid.
"SIX…SEVEN…EIGHT…"
Mr. Wonka had not moved. He was still gazing straight ahead, still quite cool, perfectly expressionless. Charlie and Grandpa Joe were staring at him in horror. Then, all at once, they saw the tiny wrinkles of a smile appear around his eyes. He sprang to life, spinning on his toes and skipping a few paces across the floor. Then, in a frenzied unearthly sort of scream, he cried. "FIMBO FEEZ!"
The loudspeaker stopped counting. There was silence in the Hotel, and all around the world. Mr. Wonka continued, barking words that at once frightened and mystified Charlie.
"BUNGO BUNI! DAFFU DUNI! YUBEE LUNI!"
Again, there was silence. The next time Mr. Wonka spoke, the words were fast and sharp, like bullets out of a gun. The noise echoed around the lobby of the Hotel, and again around the world.
The effect of this on the world below was electric. People watching in front of their televisions cowered in fear of the strange, unearthly voice that sounded angry and terrible. The men in Space Control in Houston all exchanged ominous glances, thinking for sure that extraterrestrials did exist. And in the White House, the President's advisory board watched the large television screen in the President's office with wide eyes and perplexed expressions, while the President himself was looking over at the Vice President and wondering how old she really was.
"What should w e do?" someone cried.
"Summon the Chief Interpreter," the Vice President ordered. She was a very large woman, and was rumored to once have been Nanny to the President. She was not someone to be taken lightly.
"Chief Interpreter here, ma'am."
"Quick, Interpreter, tell me what language those astronauts were speaking."
"I honestly don't know, ma'am." The man twitched, trying to avoid the Vice President's chilling glare.
"What do you mean? I understood some of it myself!"
The Chief Interpreter swallowed nervously. "What I mean, ma'am, is that it is not a language of this world. it is clear that these people have tried to learn some of our easier words. The rest of it was something I've never heard before…it's not of this earth!"
"Wait!" cried the President, jumping up suddenly and hitting one of his advisors with his elbow, "you mean to say that they could be from….from somewhere else?"
"Yes, Mr. President."
"Like where?" asked the Vice President, still glaring.
"Who knows? said the Chief Interpreter. "But did you notice how they used the words Venus and Mars?"
"Of course I noticed it," said the President. "But what should we do, then? These men from Mars…what should we do with them?"
"We've got to treat them nicely," the Vice President said. "The one who spoke just now sounded extremely cross. We've got to be polite, butter them up, make them happy. The last thing we want is to be invaded by men from Mars and Venus."