Ian Fleming - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

The children looked at the sweets and Commander Pott said, “What do you see? What’s different about them?”

And Jeremy and Jemima said with one voice, or almost, “They’ve got two small holes drilled through the middle of them.”

Commander Pott nodded solemnly. “Now suck them.”

So Jeremy and Jemima popped the candies into their mouths and sucked busily away, looking at each other with raised eyebrows as much as to say, “What do you notice? And what do you taste? Mine tastes of strawberry. Mine tastes of peppermint.” And both pairs of eyes seemed to say, “They’re just candy, round hard candy, and our tongues can feel the holes in them. Otherwise they’re just like any other candy.”

But Commander Pott, who could easily see what they were thinking, suddenly held up his hand. “Now stop sucking, both of you. Twiddle the candies round with your tongues until they’re held between your teeth, with the twin holes pointing outward, open your lips, and BLOW!”

Well, of course the children laughed so much watching each other’s faces that they nearly swallowed the candies, but finally, by turning their backs on each other, they managed to compose themselves and fix the candies between their teeth.

And they BLEW!

And do you know what? A wonderful shrill whistle came out, almost like a toy steam engine. The children were so excited that they went on whistling until Commander Pott sternly told them to stop. He held up his hand. “Now go on sucking until I tell you to whistle again.” And he took out his watch and carefully observed the minute hand.

“Now!”

This time Jeremy and Jemima didn’t laugh so much, but managed to get their candies, which of course were much smaller than before, between their teeth, and they blew like crazy.

This time, because their sucking had hollowed out the holes still more, the whistle was a deep one, like one of the new diesel trains going into a tunnel, and they found that they could play all sorts of tricks, like changing the tone by blocking up one hole with their tongues and half closing their lips so as to make a buzzing whistle, and lots of other variations.

But then, what with their sucking and their blowing, the bit between the two holes collapsed and the candies made one last deep hoot and then crunched, as all candy does in the end, into little bits.

Jeremy and Jemima both jumped up and down with excitement at Commander Pott’s invention and begged for more. Then Commander Pott gave them each a little bag full of the candies and told them to go out into the garden and practice every whistling tune they could think up, as after lunch he was going to take them to SKRUMSHUS LIMITED, the big candy people at their local town, to give a demonstration to Lord Skrumshus who owned the factory.

And as they ran out into the garden, Commander Pott called after them, “They’re called ‘CRACKPOTS—CRACKPOT WHISTLING SWEETS.’ And you know what, my chickabiddies? They’re going to buy us a motorcar!!”

But the children were already dancing away into the woods making every kind of whistle you can think of, at the same time sucking like mad at their delicious candies. There really seemed to be something special about Commander Pott’s invention—just a little touch of genius.

Well, anyway, I can tell you this, Lord Skrumshus thought so. After he had heard Jeremy and Jemima whistling in his office, he sent them out into the factory and they danced around among the workers, sucking and whistling and handing out candies from their pockets, so that very soon they had all the workers in the factory sucking and whistling, and everyone laughed so much that all the SKRUMSHUS candy machines came to a stop. Lord Skrumshus had to call Jeremy and Jemima away before they brought the whole production of SKRUMSHUS candies and chocolates to a grinding halt.

So Jeremy and Jemima went back into Lord Skrumshus’s grand office and there was their father being paid ONE THOUSAND POUNDS by the SKRUMSHUS Company Treassurer, and signing a paper which said he would get an additional ONE SHILLING on every thousand CRACKPOT WHISTLING SWEETS sold by SKRUMSHUS LIMITED. Jeremy and Jemima didn’t think that sounded very much, but when I let you into a secret and tell you that SKRUMSHUS LIMITED sells FIVE MILLION every year of just one of their candies called CHOCK-A-HOOP, you can work out for yourself that perhaps, just perhaps , COMMANDER CARACTACUS POTT wasn’t making such a bad bargain after all.

So then everyone shook hands and Lord Skrumshus gave Jeremy and Jemima each a big free box of samples of all the candies he made. The three of them hurried off back to Mumsie to tell her the good news, and straightaway the whole family hired a taxi and went to the bank to deposit the check for a thousand pounds and then—and THEN they all went off together to BUY A CAR!

Now, I don’t know if you got it into your heads yet, but the Pott family wasn’t a very conventional family—that is, they were all rather out of the ordinary. Even Mimsie must have been rather an adventurous sort of mother or she wouldn’t have married an explorer and inventor like Commander Caractacus Pott, R.N. (Retired) who had, as they say, no visible means of support—meaning he was someone who doesn’t do regular work that brings in regular money, but depends on occasional windfalls from lucky explorations or inventions.

So when it came to buying a car, they were all determined that it shouldn’t be just ANY car, but something a bit different from everyone else’s—not one of those black beetle sedans that looks much the same back and front so that, in the distance, you don’t know if it’s coming or going, but something rather special—something rather adventurous.

Well, they hunted all that afternoon and all the next day. They looked at brand-new cars and they visited the secondhand showrooms where smart salesmen offered Commander and Mrs. Pott cigarettes and Jeremy and Jemima candies just to try and tempt them to buy. But Commander Pott knew pretty well all there is to know about cars, having been an engineer officer in the Navy and being an inventor as well, and one look under the hood and one trial, listening carefully to the sound of the engine, was generally enough for him—even if he didn’t notice that the speedometer had been disconnected or that the chassis was bent because of some crash whose scratches and dents the salesman had carefully painted over. (You have to be very cautious buying ANYTHING secondhand. You never know how careful the last owner has been. And anyway, whatever the thing is, if it is in good order, why does the person want to get rid of it?)

And then at the end of the second day, they came to a broken-down little garage run by a once-famous racing driver. It was really only a big tin shed with a couple of grimy gas pumps outside, and, inside, the concrete floor was slippery with oil and everywhere there were bits and pieces of old cars that the garage man had been tinkering with, really, as far as one could see, just for the fun of it.

But he was the sort of enthusiast Commander Pott always had a warm corner in his heart for. The two of them went on talking for a long time while Mimsie and Jeremy and Jemima, who were pretty tired by then, grew more and more impatient.

Suddenly they were surprised to see Commander Pott follow the garage man round to the back of his shed where there was a long, low object hidden under a tarpaulin. The garage man looked Commander Pott and the family, each one, carefully up and down and then went to one end of the tarpaulin and slowly rolled it back.

Well, I can’t tell you how disappointed Mimsie and the children were. From the way the garage man had behaved, they thought there must be some splendid treasure of a car under the tarpaulin. But what did they see? A wreck—that’s all. Just the remains, rusty and broken and bent, of a very long, low, four-seater open motorcar without a top and with the green paint peeling off in strips.