The Missing Golden Ticket and Other Splendiferous Secrets (2 page)

“As a matter of fact, I got so wrapped up in all those nasty children, and they made me giggle so much that I couldn’t stop inventing them. In the first full version of
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
, I had no less than ten horrid little boys and girls. That was too many. It became confusing. It wasn’t a good book. But I liked
them all so much, I didn’t want to take any of them out.

“One of them, who was taken out in the end, was a horrid little girl who was disgustingly rude to her parents and also thoroughly disobedient. Her name was Miranda Mary Piker. . . ”

Nature is full of secrets if you look hard enough. And Roald Dahl kept notes about the habits of butterflies and frogs, the color and songs of birds, and the different flowers, plants and berries that blossomed in the countryside. Find out what Roald Dahl liked or disliked about every month of the year, including his favorite animals and birds. (And read about some of the hilarious pranks he got up to when he was a young boy too!)

“For the last twelve months we have all been living in one year and now all of a sudden it is another. It is extraordinary how this
tremendous change takes place in the space of a fraction of a second. As the clock approaches midnight on the thirty-first of December you are still in the old year, but then all at once, one millionth of a second after midnight, you are in the new. I have always found this sudden change from one year to another awfully hard to get used to, and all through the new January that follows I keep writing down the old year instead of the new one on letters and other bits of paper. . .

“There is just one small bright spark shining through the gloom in my January garden. The first snowdrops are in flower.”

As you now know, Roald Dahl wrote several versions of
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
and included lots of very naughty characters. In a very early draft of the story, as many as
ten
children are lucky Golden Ticket finders who each win a tour of Mr. Wonka’s Chocolate Factory:

Augustus Pottle
who falls in the chocolate river

Miranda Grope
who also falls in after him

Wilbur Rice
and
Tommy Troutbeck
who climb in wagons running from the vanilla fudge mountain and end up in the Pounding and Cutting Room

Violet Strabismus
who turns purple after chewing the three-course-meal gum

Clarence Crump, Bertie Upside
and
Terence Roper
who each cram a whole mouthful of warming candies and end up overheating

Elvira Entwhistle
who falls foul of the squirrels in the Nut Room

And
Charlie Bucket
who gets stuck inside a chocolate statue and witnesses a burglary—and receives a very unusual reward. . .

Roald Dahl soon decided there were too many naughty children in the 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!)