Image via flickr
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"'That hole,' said Mr Wonka, 'leads directly to what we call The Pounding And Cutting Room.'"
Think you know Roald Dahl's classic "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"?
Image via David Churbuck / flickr
Think again.
On Friday, the Guardian published a never-before-published chapter of the iconic children's book, taken from an early draft preserved by the late Dahl's foundation.
The chapter, entitled, "The Vanilla Fudge Room," features Dahl's trademark dark whimsy, as evidenced by the passage below:
"Nuts!" Exclaimed Tommy Troutbeck. "Nuts to you!""Crazy old Wonka!" shouted Wilbur Rice, and the two boys ran forward and jumped on to one of the waggons as it went by. Then they climbed up and sat right on the top of its load of fudge.
"Heigh-ho everybody!" shouted Wilbur Rice.
"First stop Chicago!" shouted Tommy Troutbeck, waving his arms.
"He's wrong about that," Mr Willy Wonka said quietly. "The first stop is most certainly not Chicago."
"He's quite a lad, our Wilbur", Mr Rice (Wilbur's father) said proudly. "He's always up to his little tricks."
"Wilbur!" shouted Mrs Rice, as the waggon went shooting across the room. "Come off there at once! Do you hear me!"
"You too Tommy!" shouted Mrs Troutbeck. "Come on, off you get! There's no knowing where that thing's headed for!"
"Wilbur!" Shouted Mrs Rice. "Will you get off that … that … my goodness! It's gone through a hole in the wall!"
"Don't say I didn't warn them," Mr Wonka declared. "Your children are not particularly obedient, are they?"
"But where has it gone?" Both mothers cried at the same time. "What's through that hole?"
"That hole," said Mr Wonka, "leads directly to what we call The Pounding And Cutting Room. In there, the rough fudge gets tipped out of the waggons into the mouth of a huge machine. The machine then pounds it against the floor until it is all nice and smooth and thin. After that, a whole lot of knives come down and go chop chop chop, cutting it up into neat little squares, ready for the shops."
Read the whole chapter here.
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Follow Zach Noble (@thezachnoble) on Twitter
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