Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (10 page)

Madame Bon-Bon was just as nice as Monsieur Bon-Bon and there were two rumbustious children about the same age as the twins, called Jacques and Jacqueline, and everyone, talking a mixture of bad French and bad English, got on tremendously well together.

The French police paid several visits during the rest of the day and took everybody's statements in writing, and announced that the Pott family, for their collective efforts in catching the gangsters, would be rewarded no less than one hundred thousand francs, which is about eight hundred pounds, and Madame Bon-Bon added her own reward, which was to reveal the closely guarded secret of the Bon-Bon family on how to make Bon-Bon "Fooj," which was the way she pronounced fudge. (And at the end of this adventure I will pass on to you the recipe, which you will find very easy to make and absolutely delicious.)

The next morning, after another of those wonderful French breakfasts, Commander Pott went round to the garage and, sure enough, CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG, although still wearing a slightly battered look, was in splendid order and came booming round to the Bon-Bon shop where the whole Bon-Bon family insisted on being shown every detail of her. Then Monsieur Bon-Bon beckoned Jeremy and Jemima back into the shop and told them to hold out their arms, and piled box after box of wonderful candies and chocolates into them until the twins could hardly stand upright. And since the piles of boxes rose higher than their faces, they could hardly see their way to the door and had to be helped as they staggered out to pack their scrumptious presents into the back of CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG.

Then there were affectionate farewells all round and both families promised to keep in touch and visit each other whenever they had a chance. (I may say that the families remained firm friends forever after.)

And then CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG went motoring docilely off down the street with quite a different expression on her face from the furious snarl she had worn in that same street the day before.

They got out onto the open road for Calais and for either the car ferry or the "Air Bridge" to England (they hadn't yet made up their minds which way to go) and Commander Pott said, over his shoulder, to Jeremy and Jemima, "Well, I think that's quite enough adventure for the time being. It's high time we all went home to peace and quiet."

And Mimsie said, very forcibly, "I entirely agree."

But in the back, Jeremy and Jemima both gave a squawk of protest, "Oh, no," they cried, more or less together. "More adventures! More!"

And at that, believe it or not, there came a whirring of machinery from somewhere deep down inside CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG. The front and back mudguards swiveled out into the wings, the radiator opened up and the whizzing propeller of the cooling fan slid out and with a tremendous "whoosh" the great green car soared up into the sky.

"My hat," shouted Commander Pott (which was the right thing to shout as his hat had, in fact, been blown off), "I can't control her, she's taken off. Where in heavens is she taking us?"

And, to tell you the truth, even I haven't been let into the secret.

TOP SECRET

Monsieur Bon-Bon's

Secret "Fooj"

INGREDIENTS :

1
lb. granulated sugar

1
small can evaporated milk

¼
lb. finest butter

1
tablespoonful water

1
tablespoonful corn sirup

4
tablespoonfuls unsweetened

chocolate

Put all the ingredients into a saucepan. Melt slowly on a low gas until the mixture thickens slightly and is absolutely smooth. Turn up gas and boil very quickly until it forms into a soft ball when a sample is dropped into cold water. Remove from heat and beat well with a wooden spoon. Pour the whole mixture into a flat, greased pan, mark in squares, and leave to set.

When cold, DEVOUR!

A Note About the Author

Born in England in 1908, and educated at Eton, Sandhurst, the University of Geneva, and the University of Munich, the late Ian Fleming mastered two languages in addition to English—French and German. In 1929, he joined Reuters News Service and was based in London, Berlin, and then Moscow. Following his newspaper work, Mr. Fleming spent two years with a merchant bankers firm and four years with a stock brokerage house. In World War II, he spent a number of years in Intelligence Service, a job which amply qualified him for writing his best-selling spy thrillers about superspy, James Bond.

After the war, Mr. Fleming went back to writing. He became foreign manager for
The Sunday Times
of London, Vice President for Europe of the North American Newspaper Alliance, and foreign manager for the Kemsely Newspapers.