Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (Charlie Bucket 2)

' "I'm ecstatic!" he cried, jumping up and down. "I'm happy as a horse in a hay-field!" He ran out of the Testing Room to show himself off to his family and friends.

'Thus was Wonka-Vite invented!' said Mr Wonka. 'And thus was it made safe for all to use!'

'Why don't you use it yourself, then?' said Grandma Georgina. 'You told Charlie you were getting too old to run the factory, so why don't you just take a couple of pills and get forty years younger? Tell me that?'

'Anyone can ask questions,' said Mr Wonka. 'It's the answers that count. Now then, if the three of you in the bed would care to try a dose...'

'Just one minute!' said Grandma Josephine, sitting up straight. 'First I'd like to take a look at this seventy-year-old Oompa-Loompa who is now back to thirty!'

Mr Wonka flicked his fingers. A tiny Oompa-Loompa, looking young and perky, ran forward out of the crowd and did a marvellous little dance in front of the three old people in the big bed. 'Two weeks ago, he was seventy years old and in a wheel-chair!' Mr Wonka said proudly. 'And look at him now!'

'The drums, Charlie!' said Grandpa Joe. 'Listen!

They're starting up again!'

Far away down on the bank of the chocolate river, Charlie could see the Oompa-Loompa band striking up once more. There were twenty Oompa-Loompas in the band, each with an enormous drum twice as tall as himself, and they were beating a slow mysterious rhythm that soon had all the other hundreds of Oompa-Loompas swinging and swaying from side to side in a kind of trance. They then began to chant: 'If you are old and have the shakes,

If all your bones are full of aches,

If you can hardly walk at all,

If living drives you up the wall,

If you're a grump and full of spite,

If you're a human parasite,

THEN WHA T YOU NEED IS WONKA-VITE!

Your eyes will shine, your hair will grow,

Your face and skin will start to glow,

Your rotten teeth will all drop out

And in their place new teeth will sprout.

Those rolls of fat around your hips

Will vanish, and your wrinkled lips

Will get so soft and rosy-pink

That all the boys will smile and wink

And whisper secretly that this

Is just the girl they want to kiss!

But wait! For that is not the most

Important thing of which to boast.

Good looks you'll have, we've told you so,

But looks aren't every thing, you know.

Each pill, as well, to you will give