“All right”, said Mr Wonka, “stop here for a moment and catch your breath, and take a peek through the glass panel of this door…

“All right”, said Mr Wonka, “stop here for a moment and catch your breath, and take a peek through the glass panel of this door. But don’t go in! Whatever you do, don’t go into THE NUT ROOM! If you go in, you’ll disturb the squirrels!”

“Who says I can’t!” shouted Veruca. “I’m going in to get myself one this very minute!”

The moment she entered the room, one hundred squirrels stopped what they were doing and turned their heads and stared at her with small black beady eyes. Veruca Salt stopped also, and stared back at them. Then her gaze fell upon a pretty little squirrel sitting nearest to her at the end of the table. The squirrel was holding a walnut in its paws.

“All right”, Veruca said, “I’ll have you!”

She reached out her hands to grab the squirrel... but as she did so... in that first split second when her hands started to go forward, there was a sudden flash of movement in the room, like a flash of brown lightning, and every single squirrel around the table took a flying leap towards her and landed on her body.

Twenty-five of them caught hold of her right arm, and pinned it down.

Twenty-five more caught hold of her left arm, and pinned that down.

Twenty-five caught hold of her right leg and anchored it to the ground.

Twenty-four caught hold of her left leg.

And the one remaining squirrel (obviously the leader of them all) climbed up on to her shoulder and started tap-tap-tapping the wretched girl’s head with its knuckles.

“Save her!” screamed Mrs Salt. “Veruca! Come back! What are they doing to her?”

“They’re testing her to see if she’s a bad nut”, said Mr Wonka. “You watch”.

Veruca struggled furiously, but the squirrels held her tight and she couldn’t move. The squirrel on her shoulder went tap-tap-tapping the side of her head with his knuckles. Then all at once, the squirrels pulled Veruca to the ground and started carrying her across the floor.

“My goodness, she is a bad nut after all”, said Mr Wonka. “Her head must have sounded quite hollow”.

(DAHL, R. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Puffin Books, 2007. p.110.)