AllFreeNovel
Share Us
'Don't you have any idea?' said Mr Wonka.
'Of course I don't,' gibbered the old woman. 'Nor would you if you were as old as I am.'
'Think!' said Mr Wonka. 'You've got to think!'
The tiny old wrinkled brown walnut face wrinkled itself up more than ever. The others stood waiting. The Oompa-Loompas, enthralled by the sight of this ancient object, were all edging closer and closer to the bed. The two babies slept on.
'Are you, for example, a hundred?' said Mr Wonka. 'Or a hundred and ten? Or a hundred and twenty?'
'It's no good,' she croaked. T never did have a head for numbers.'
'This is a catastrophe!' cried Mr Wonka. 'If you can't tell me how old you are, I can't help you! I dare not risk an overdose!'
Gloom settled upon the entire company, including for once Mr Wonka himself. 'You've messed it up good and proper this time, haven't you?' said Mrs Bucket.
'Grandma,' Charlie said, moving forward to the bed. 'Listen, Grandma. Don't worry about exactly how old you might be. Try to think of a happening instead... think of something that happened to you... anything you like... as far back as you can... it may help us...'
'Lots of things happened to me, Charlie... so many many things happened to me...'
'But can you remember any of them, Grandma?'
'Oh, I don't know, my darling... I suppose I could remember one or two if I thought hard enough...'
'Good, Grandma, good!' said Charlie eagerly. 'Now what is the very earliest thing you can remember in your whole life?'
'Oh, my dear boy, that really would be going back a few years, wouldn't it?'
'When you were little, Grandma, like me. Can't you remember anything you did when you were little?'
The tiny sunken black eyes glimmered faintly and a sort of smile touched the corners of the almost invisible little slit of a mouth. 'There was a ship,' she said. T can remember a ship... I couldn't ever forget that ship...'
'Go on, Grandma! A ship! What sort of a ship? Did you sail on her?'
'Of course I sailed on her, my darling... we all sailed on her...'
'Where from? Where to?' Charlie went on eagerly.
'Oh no, I couldn't tell you that... I was just a tiny little girl...' She lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes. Charlie watched her, waiting for something more. Everybody waited. No one moved.
'... It had a lovely name, that ship... there was something beautiful... something so beautiful about that name... but of course I couldn't possibly remember it...'
Charlie, who had been sitting on the edge of the bed, suddenly jumped up. His face was shining with excitement. 'If I said the name, Grandma, would you remember it then?'
'I might, Charlie... yes... I think I might...'
'THE MAYFLOWER!' cried Charlie.
The old woman's head jerked up off the pillow. 'That's it!' she croaked. 'You've got it, Charlie! The Mayflower... Such a lovely name...'
'Grandpa!' Charlie called out, dancing with excitement. 'What year did the Mayflower sail for America?'
'The Mayflower sailed out of Plymouth Harbour on September the sixth, sixteen hundred and twenty,' said Grandpa Joe.
'Plymouth...' croaked the old woman. 'That rings a bell, too... Yes, it might easily have been Plymouth...'
'Sixteen hundred and twenty!' cried Charlie. 'Oh, my heavens above! That means you're... you do it, Grandpa!'
'Well now,' said Grandpa Joe. 'Take sixteen hundred and twenty away from nineteen hundred and seventy-two... that leaves... don't rush me now, Charlie... That leaves three hundred... and... and fifty-two.'
