THE WAY UP TO HEAVEN
By Roald Dahl The main character of the story is Mrs Foster, who is introduced from the first sentence as someone who has a “pathological fear of missing a train, a plane, a boat, or even a theatre curtain.” We could already have a premonition that the scenario will be built on this fear. Excepting this strange particularity, Mrs Foster seems being an average woman, probably a member of the English middle-class. His husband is the second character to appear: he is nearly seventy years old and also seems very ordinary without sharing his wife’s “problem”. In fact, he doesn’t appreciate it and sometimes “he had wanted to miss the train simply in order to intensify the poor woman's suffering”. He and his wife have four servants. After the presentations of the characters, the situation is given: the Foster have a fly to take, and obviously Mrs Foster “[is] thinking of nothing at all except that she [is] going to miss her plane”. While she is waiting for Mr Foster, this one takes one’s time. Walker, the butler, puts the luggage in the car. Mrs Foster asks him a lot about the time. However, they think during the car trip that the fly will be cancelled because of the bad weather: “they never fly in this sort of weather.” In fact, it will be delayed until 11 o’clock the next day. Mrs Foster comes back to his house and sleeps there. We could imagine that the same scenario will be repeated a second time. Mr Foster says to his wife that there is “no reason why [him] shouldn't drop [him] at the club on [his] way” the following day. It doesn’t seem to be a big problem, but the club is downtown, out of the airport’s way. Even if Mrs Foster has plenty of time, we know his pathological fear, and she doesn’t appreciate this new traject. Next morning, they are leaving the house at time, but on the way, Mr Foster says that he had forgotten a present for his wife in his bedroom. He was looking for it in the house when his wife saw the little box in the