'We've got you out of bed at last,' said Grandpa Joe. 'Shut up and help us back!' snapped Grandma Josephine.
'Forget it,' said Mr Wonka. 'You'll never stay down. Just keep floating around and be happy.'
'The man's a madman!' cried Grandma Georgina. 'Watch out, I say, or he'll lixivate the lot of us!'
2
Space Hotel 'U.S.A.'
Mr Wonka's Great Glass Elevator was not the only thing orbiting the Earth at that
particular time. Two days before, the United States of America had successfully launched
its first Space Hotel, a gigantic sausage-shaped capsule no less than one thousand feet long.
It was called Space Hotel 'U.S.A.' and it was the marvel of the space age. It had inside it a
tennis-court, a swimming pool, a gymnasium, a children's playroom and five hundred
luxury bedrooms, each with a private bath. It was fully air-conditioned. It was also
equipped with a gravity-making machine so that you didn't float about inside it. You
walked normally.
This extraordinary object was now speeding round and round the earth at a height of 240 miles. Guests were to be taken up and down by a taxi-service of small capsules blasting off from Cape Kennedy every hour on the hour, Mondays to Fridays. But as yet there was nobody on board at all, not even an astronaut. The reason for this was that no one had really believed such an enormous thing would ever get off the ground without blowing up.
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.