Ian Fleming - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

“Not bad,” said Jeremy grudgingly, as if, in his family, they were given a three-pound box of chocolates every day.

“Not bad, he says!” shouted Joe the Monster angrily. “I’ll say it’s not bad. It’s the biggest box of chocolates either of you have ever seen.” He quickly calmed down, fished out a pocketbook stuffed with notes and took out one and handed it to Jeremy. “There you are, five thousand francs. I’ll tell you what, I’ll even let you keep the change. So there you are, duckies, all you do is walk into the shop together when I tell you, hand over the money, and say politely, ‘a box of chocolates for four thousand francs, please.’ The old geyser don’t know much English, but he’ll understand that sentence in any language under the sun. Then you hand him that bit of money and take the chocolates and your change, and that’s the end of that. Easy job of work, eh? Nice slice of cake. You’re a couple of the luckiest kids I ever did see. Now then, you got all that straight?”

They both nodded.

“O.K., then,” said Joe the Monster breezily. “Come on, Soapy, and let’s get our chow. Looking at the fine breakfast you’ve dished up for these kids is making me hungry.” He turned at the door, “Ta-ta, kiddies, and be good until Uncle Joe comes and fetches you.” He walked out followed by Soapy Sam who locked the door behind them.

Well, the china on the old tin tray was pretty chipped and not all that clean. But, by this time, Jeremy and Jemima were ravenous and they cheerfully squatted down on the hard concrete floor and set to.

A French breakfast is very different from an English one. To begin with, French bread, instead of being in loaves, comes in long thin shapes about the length and width of a policeman’s billy club, and it’s mostly crust, but very delicious crust. The big slab of French butter tasted much more like farm butter than most of the stuff we get in England, and the strawberry jam was very sirupy, like all French jams, but full of big, fat, whole strawberries. The coffee with milk, which the French call “café au lait,” was, if you happen to like coffee, better than the wishy-washy stuff you often get in England. So after a bit of rather cautious experimenting, Jeremy and Jemima set to with a will, and in between mouthfuls, cautiously whispered their thoughts and fears about Joe the Monster’s plans and, with the help of the snatches of conversation that Jeremy had heard in the car, they came to the following conclusion which, since it’s more or less right, I will pass on to you.

They guessed that they were going to be used by Joe the Monster and his gang to rob Monsieur Bon-Bon. They were to be the “innocent pair of monkeys” who would be “shoved in just before closing,” while, presumably, the gang waited round the corner with perhaps one of them apparently examining the sweets in the shop window, but really watching the twins through it. Jeremy had been given a five-thousand-franc note to buy a four-thousand-franc box of chocolates, and Monsieur Bon-Bon would have to go to the till to change it. (“Keys of the safe in the till.”) As soon as Monsieur Bon-Bon opened the till, the gangsters would dash in and knock him on the head and seize the keys, which were presumably the keys of the safe where he kept his money.

“But,” whispered Jeremy, “I simply can’t understand about this business of ‘Soapy using the jelly.’ What can that mean? There might be jellies in a sweet shop, I suppose. Do you think they are going to gag Monsieur Bon-Bon with his own jellies so that he can’t shout for help?”

They both giggled at the idea, but it was Jemima who got the right answer.

“You remember yesterday when we blew up Joe the Monster’s stores in that huge cave? Well, Daddy said that some of the cases were full of stuff called gelignite, and he said it was the stuff that gangsters use to blow open safes with. Mightn’t ‘jelly’ be kind of gangster slang for gelignite?”

“You’ve got it,” whispered Jeremy. “By jove, you’ve got it. That’s just what they’re going to do. They’ll get the keys out of Monsieur Bon-Bon’s till and those keys probably open Monsieur Bon-Bon’s safe. Now, for heaven’s sake, what are we going to do about it?”

At this moment, they heard a key in the lock and Soapy Sam came in to take away the tray and lead them off to wash their hands in an old bathroom at the back of the huge, deserted warehouse. Then they were back in their cell again and the door was locked on them and they squatted together in the farthest corner away from the door and went on with their urgent whispering.

“When we go up to the counter to buy the chocolates,” said Jeremy, “we’ve somehow got to warn Monsieur Bon-Bon that there are gangsters outside, but we don’t know half-a-dozen words of French between us. How can we possibly tell him?”

“Could we just make faces and point our fingers at him like guns and shout ‘bang’?” said Jemima helpfully.

“He’d think we were just being rude,” said Jeremy. “We’ve got to write him some sort of a note.”

“But we haven’t got any pens or pencils or even paper.”

“We’ve got the paper,” said Jeremy triumphantly, and he produced the big five-thousand-franc note and spread it out between them. “Now if we could just write in big letters ‘GANGSTERS’ across the note I am sure it’s a word Monsieur Bon-Bon will understand. But what can we possibly use for ink?” He looked accusingly at Jemima. “It’s a shame you’re not a bit older and then you’d have a lipstick. In adventure stories, girls are always using lipsticks to write notes with.”

“It’s not my fault,” whispered Jemima, fiercely. “Anyway I hate the stuff. I once tried Mummy’s and I ended up looking as if I’d smeared my face with raspberry jam. Mummy was very angry with me, at least she pretended to be, but I think she was really only trying to stop laughing.”

“Well, come on,” whispered Jeremy urgently, “it must be getting near the time. I’ve got absolutely nothing in my pockets except a handkerchief and some bits of string and my pocketknife. What’ve you got?”

“Nothing, absolutely nothing except my handkerchief,” said Jemima despairingly. “But isn’t there anything you can do with you knife?

It’s full of gadgets and things.”

“By golly,” exclaimed Jeremy, “of course we can use the sharp tip of the corkscrew and punch holes in the bank note to spell out the word ‘gangsters’ in big letters. Come on, let’s get going quickly. You come and sit between me and the door in case anyone looks through the keyhole,” and he fished out his pocketknife, opened the corkscrew and set to work with the five-thousand-franc note in front of him on the concrete floor.

They both examined his handiwork and agreed that anyone who handled the note would feel the holes and look at it very suspiciously and almost certainly hold it up to the light to see if the note were so badly damaged that it wasn’t worth five thousand francs.

Jeremy had only just stowed the note and his knife away in his pocket when the door opened and Joe the Monster came in followed by Man-Mountain Fink.

“Come on, duckies, time to go,” he said jovially. “Now, just one little formality before we set off. I’m sure you kiddies,” he looked suspiciously from one to the other, “I’m sure you kiddies haven’t been up to any tricks, but, just in case, I’d like to see what’s in your pockets.”

(Jeremy gave a sigh of relief. Thank heavens they hadn’t found a pencil and paper somewhere, or been able to do any of the other tricks they had thought out.)

He innocently emptied his pockets of his pocketknife and handkerchief and showed the five-thousand-franc note, well folded up. Jemima just showed her handkerchief.