Five Children and It

Nut Listening

It took another ten minutes to get to the next room, although Gaara wasn't really paying attention for most of it. He figured they were heading towards some kind of nut sorting room because of Shukaku's incessant nut puns, but he didn't care to speculate any further.

Shut up, he said, to the demon's latest attempt.

Shell I? asked Shukaku. He seemed to be grinning. (Gaara remembered having put a gag on him not long ago, and he couldn't remember when the demon had managed to remove it.) Or shell I nut?

I will milk your face-juices with pliers.

Pe-can nut stop talking to one another, Gaara! It's nut healthy!

I will use my teeth to grind your bones down.

D'omega big deal out of this Gaara! These are cracking good puns!

I will peel your eyes and bury them in salt.

Geddit? Because omega is in nuts.

I will cut up your organs.

Pine. I'll stop ca-shew can be a real pain-ut the neck when you wal-nut let me do something. Sometime you pist-ach-i-ourself if it's even worth the al-mond leg it takes to get me to stop-

I will sew your patella into your throat and crush your ribcage.

But hay! Zel be silence if I- Fuck that's a lot of squirrels.

"Squirrels!" shouted the wart girl, and it was the most convoluted English word Gaara had ever heard in his life.

"That is a lot of schrivels," said the German boy.

Ha! He said schrivels! Ha ha ah ha ha ha! Gaara he said schrivels! You try it! You try it! Say 'squirrels'!

Squirrels, thought Gaara in his head.

"Sukireru..." he muttered.

Shukaku collapsed in a fit of manic laughter and, mercifully, stopped talking.

The room they'd stepped into was large, white and plastic, with several giant nut dispensers in one corner and a large chute in the centre surrounded by pastel blue swirls. Some of the squirrels sitting round the edges of the room were throwing nuts into it every so often and the sound of tapping (which seemed to be the way the squirrels checked the nuts) was so constant, it could, with closed eyes, be compared very easily to several old-fashioned typewriters going at speed.

"Animals in a place of food!" said the German mother, not sounding impressed at all. "Another health hazard."

"For your information, these are trained squirrels," said Wonka.

"But why use squirrels?" asked the grey-suited father. "Why not use those Oompa-Loompa people you've got wandering about? Or, god forbid, a machine, like the one I was telling you about earlier?"

"They're not 'wandering about'," said Wonka. "They're paid labourers. And the reason I use squirrels, for your information, is because, frankly, I wouldn't use a Havvermavver Two Thousand if you paid me. They sound ineffective and boring, which is something my factory never will be and never is, and, for your information, the squirrels can get the nuts out of the shell whole every time, which I bet is a boast your machines could never live up to. And, in addition, if that wasn't adequate reasoning on its own, they notice a bad nut when there is one. Which there isn't often. Because they're my nuts. Plus, if you say 'god forbid' again in my factory, I shall kick you out."