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'How splendid!' said Mr Bucket to his wife. 'You'll be the first person in the world to change her father's nappies!'
'He can change his own rotten nappies!' said Mrs Bucket. 'What I want to know is where's my mother? Where's Grandma Georgina?'
'Ah-ha,' said Mr Wonka. 'Oh-ho... Yes, indeed... Where oh where has Georgina gone? How old, please, was the lady in question?'
'Seventy-eight,' Mrs Bucket told him.
'Well, of course! laughed Mr Wonka. 'That explains it!'
'What explains what?' snapped Mrs Bucket.
'My dear madam,' said Mr Wonka. 'If she was only seventy-eight and she took enough Wonka-Vite to make her eighty years younger, then naturally she's vanished. She's bitten off more than she could chew! She's taken off more years than she had!'
'Explain yourself,' said Mrs Bucket.
'Simple arithmetic,' said Mr Wonka. 'Subtract eighty from seventy-eight and what do you get?'
'Minus two!' said Charlie.
'Hooray!' said Mr Bucket. 'My mother-in-law's minus two years old!'
'Impossible!' said Mrs Bucket.
'It's true,' said Mr Wonka.
'And where is she now, may I ask?' said Mrs Bucket.
'That's a good question,' said Mr Wonka. 'A very good question. Yes, indeed. Where is she now?'
'You don't have the foggiest idea, do you?'
'Of course I do,' said Mr Wonka. T know exactly where she is.'
'Then tell me!'
'You must try to understand,' said Mr Wonka, 'that if she is now minus two, she's got to add two more years before she can start again from nought. She's got to wait it out.'
'Where does she wait?' said Mrs Bucket.
'In the Waiting Room, of course,' said Mr Wonka.
BOOM!-BOOM! said the drums of the Oompa-Loompa band. BOOM-BOOM! BOOM-BOOM! And all the Oompa-Loompas, all the hundreds of them standing there in the Chocolate Room began to sway and hop and dance to the rhythm of the music. 'Attention, please!' they sang.
'Attention, please! Attention, please!
Don't dare to talk! Don't dare to sneeze!
Don't doze or daydream! Stay awake!
Your health, your very life's at stake!
Ho-ho, you say, they can't mean me.
Ha-ha, we answer, wait and see.
Did any of you ever meet
A child called Goldie Pinklesweet?
