The Missing Golden Ticket and Other Splendiferous Secrets by Roald Dahl Read Free Book Online Page B

story. So, somewhat reluctantly, he reduced the number of lucky Golden Ticket finders to seven, and gave all the children distinct characteristics:
    Charlie Bucket
    A nice boy

    Augustus Gloop
    (previously Augustus Pottle) A greedy boy

    Marvin Prune
    A conceited boy (we never find out what happens to him)
    Herpes Trout
    A television-crazy boy (he became Mike Teavee in the final version!)

    Veruca Salt
    A girl who is allowed to HAVE anything she wants

    Violet Beauregarde
    A girl who chews gum all day long

    And one more
. . .
    Miranda Mary Piker
    A girl who is allowed to DO anything she wants
    And it is in this draft that Charlie’s grandparents are introduced for the first time, and tiny people called “Whipple-Scrumpets” become Mr. Wonka’s workforce, reciting poems as each child leaves.
     
     

    The Swiss eat more chocolate per person than any other nation in the world.
    Belgium is the third biggest producer of chocolate in the world.

    Just like Willy Wonka, many Belgian chocolate makers keep their recipes secret.

    Cocoa was discovered by the South American Indians over 3, 000 years ago.

    The word “chocolate” comes from
chocolatl
, the Aztec name for their chocolate drink.
    The scientific name for cocoa means “food of the gods.”

    Cocoa beans were considered so valuable, the Aztecs used them as money—ten beans would buy a rabbit!

    Originally, chocolate was used just as a drink. The Spaniards took cocoa to Europe from Mexico in the sixteenth century. They kept the recipe for drinking-chocolate secret for nearly 100 years!

    In 1606, an Italian took the recipe to Italy, and chocolate drinking became popular throughout Europe.

    There was a royal chocolate maker at the court of Louis XIV.
    At first, chocolate was only for the rich. They drank it in “chocolate houses,” which were like cafes.

    The first chocolate factory in America was set up in 1765.
    Cocoa powder is made from dried beans that are roasted and ground.
    It takes a year’s crop of cocoa beans from one tree to make just one tin of cocoa

    Cocoa pods are as big as rugby balls. They contain about thirty beans.
    Factories can produce over five million bars of chocolate a day.

Roald Dahl’s February
    “Only once have I discovered a new molehill in our orchard in the month of February. I love seeing molehills because they tell me that only a few inches below the surface some charming and harmless little fellow is living his own private busy life scurrying up and down his tunnels hunting for food. . .
    “Do you know anything about moles? They are remarkable animals. They are shy and gentle and their fur coats are softer thanvelvet. They are so shy that you will seldom see one on the surface. . . The molehills that you see are not of course their houses.

    They are simply piles of loose soil that a mole has pushed up out of the way because, after all, if you are digging an underground tunnel you have to put the excavated soil somewhere.
    “His food consists of worms, leather-jackets, centipedes and beetle grubs, and the fantastic thing is that he actually has to eat one
half of his own body weight
of these tiny delicacies every single day in order to stay alive! No wonder he’s a busy fellow. Just imagine how much food
you
would have to eat to consume half your own body weight! Fifty hamburgers, one hundred loaves of bread and a bucketful of Mars Bars
and
the rest of it each and every day. It makes one quite ill to think about it!”
     
     
The Whipple-Scrumpets
    Have a look at an early version of the Whipple-Scrumpets’ song about greedy Augustus Gloop, and compare it to the one that actually appears in
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
, sung by the Oompa-Loompas. Can you spot the differences?
    The Whipple-Scrumpets. . . began dancing about and clapping their hands and singing:
“Augustus Gloop! Augustus Gloop! The great big greedy nincompoop!

    How long could we allow this beast
    To gorge and guzzle, feed and feast
    On