Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory franchise or any characters associated with the franchise. All rights belong to Roald Dahl, Tim Burton, and Warner Bros. Pictures. This is not my intellectual property, and no financial gain is made from this nor will be sought. This is purely for entertainment purposes only. Most of the events and dialogue in the 1st and 2nd chapters are borrowed from the movie.
Chapter 1 - When Squirrels Attack
~Charlie's POV~
Today was a day I had been looking forward to ever since I first laid eyes on Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. My family, especially my grandpa Joe, always told me stories about the factory and Mr. Wonka for as long as I could remember. On every birthday, my family saved up all of their money to buy me a Wonka chocolate bar as a present.
As the year 2005 came around, little did I know that Willy Wonka would slip five Golden Tickets into five ordinary Wonka bars to allow five children to visit his factory on the first of February. The first winner was Augustus Gloop, a fat, greedy boy from Düsseldorf, Germany. The second winner was Veruca Salt, the spoiled daughter of a very wealthy family from Buckinghamshire, England. The third winner was Violet Beauregarde, a girl from Atlanta, Georgia, who not only had a black belt in karate, but she also held the world record for chewing a piece of gum for three months solid. The fourth winner was Mike Teavee, an eleven-year-old boy from Denver, Colorado, who was obsessed with watching television and playing violent video games. With a stroke of luck, I was the winner of the world's last Golden Ticket, and on the first of February, the first four winners and I arrived at the gates of Willy Wonka's factory.
I would have liked to say that the tour went smoothly, but Augustus Gloop, being the nonstop eating machine he was, fell into the chocolate river and was sucked up the pipe to the fudge boiler. Violet Beauregarde met her fate in the Inventing Room when she tried a stick of experimental gum, only to swell up and turn into a giant blueberry. Once we exited that room, there were now only three children left: Veruca Salt, Mike Teavee, and myself. Our next stop was the Nut Sorting Room.
The Nut Sorting Room was a large, circular room, dominated by a blue-and-white swirl on the floor that bordered a large hole in the center. The perimeter of the room was lined with no fewer than one-hundred blue stools, and the occupants of those stools were...
"Squirrels!" Veruca cried in delight.
"Yeah, squirrels," Mr. Wonka smiled. "These squirrels are specially trained to get the nuts out of shells." A network of white tubes that snaked down from the ceiling deposited one walnut at a time in front of each squirrel. I looked closer and I could see each squirrel sorting the good nuts from the bad ones.
"Why use squirrels?" Veruca's father inquired. "Why not use Oompa Loompas?"
"Because only squirrels can get the whole walnut out almost every single time," Mr. Wonka responded. "You see how they tap each one with their little knuckles to make sure it's not bad? Oh, look, look!" He excitedly pointed to one squirrel who was holding a walnut up to its ear, listening intently to the sound it made. "I think that one's got a bad nut!" Sure enough, the squirrel threw the nut over its shoulder, and it rolled towards the large hole in the floor before it fell in and disappeared.
"Daddy, I want a squirrel," Veruca demanded. "Get me one of those squirrels, I want one!"
Here we go again... I silently moaned. I knew that this would happen sooner than later.
Mr. Salt smiled at his daughter. "Veruca, dear, you have many marvelous pets."
Veruca frowned at her dad. "All I've got at home is one pony and two dogs and four cats and six bunny rabbits..." I exchanged looks with my grandpa Joe as Veruca rambled on and on, "...and a silly old hamster! I WANT A SQUIRREL!"
"Alright, pet," Mr. Salt said in a soothing tone. "Daddy'll get you a squirrel just as soon as he possibly can."
"But I don't want any old squirrel!" Veruca said. "I want a trained squirrel!"
"Very well," her dad sighed as he took out his wallet. "Mr. Wonka? How much do you want for one of these squirrels? Name your price." Veruca smiled at Mr. Wonka, showing her pearly white teeth to try to impress him.
"They're not for sale," Mr. Wonka told him. "She can't have one."
Veruca's smile instantly turned into a frown, and then a glare as she whipped her head around towards her father.
"Daddy," she said in a very demanding tone.
"I'm sorry, darling," Mr. Wonka sighed, and I was astonished once I realized he was giving a perfect impression of Mr. Salt's voice. "Mr. Wonka's being unreasonable."
"If you won't get me a squirrel," Veruca said nastily, "I'll get one myself!" With that, she ducked under the gate and swiftly walked down the stairs to the floor of the Nut Sorting Room.
"Veruca," Mr. Salt warned, but she completely ignored him as she continued walking across the floor.
"Little girl," Mr. Wonka warned as well, but to no avail. Veruca still didn't pay any attention, too focused on deciding which squirrel to grab. The squirrels all stopped what they were doing and stared at her with their tiny black eyes.
"Veruca, come back here at once!" Her father's voice was much more stern this time, but she continued to ignore him. I gasped and held my breath when Veruca's gaze fell upon one particular squirrel at the back of the room.
"Don't touch that squirrel's nuts!" Mr. Wonka cried as she started making a beeline towards it. "It'll make him crazy!"
I was actually getting quite worried about the spoiled brat. Augustus and Violet both got into trouble because they didn't heed Mr. Wonka's advice, and now Veruca seemed to be destined for the same fate as the other two. We all watched with bated breath as she stopped before the squirrel, who didn't look very eager to become Veruca's new pet.
"I'll have YOU," she proclaimed as she began to reach for it, and then...
In a split-second, the squirrel leaped right onto her, and ninety-nine other squirrels raced towards her in a flash of brown fur. Veruca was screaming and jumping and desperately struggling to fight them off, but she was quickly overwhelmed by the sheer number of squirrels. I frantically looked around at everyone else, and their faces shared the same horrified expression as Veruca when the squirrels succeeded in bringing her down to the floor, where she landed flat on her back.
"Veruca!" Mr. Salt cried, desperately shaking the locked gate. Mr. Wonka dug out a keyring that contained at least fifty different keys, and he tried each one.
"Nope, not that one," he said as he tried each key, all to no avail. "Nope!"
"Daddy!" Veruca cried as the furry creatures continued to swarm around her. The squirrels caught hold of her, and her father was horror-struck as twenty-five pinned down her right arm, another twenty-five pinned down her left arm, twenty-five more pinned down her right leg, and twenty-four pinned down her left leg.
"Daddy, I want them to stop!" Veruca wailed. The remaining squirrel, who was the same one that Veruca tried to claim as her own, climbed up onto her chest and placed its front paws on her forehead. Veruca tilted her head upward to look it straight in the eyes. With its knuckles, it tapped her on the forehead three times, and the hollow sound echoed all around the room.
"What are they doing?" I asked, with panic clearly showing in my voice.
"They're testing her to see if she's a bad nut," Mr. Wonka replied. The squirrel who tested Veruca made a squawking noise that filled me with dread from head to toe. "Oh my goodness," Mr. Wonka said quietly. "She is a bad nut after all."
At once, all one-hundred squirrels began to carry Veruca towards the black abyss in the center of the room. The girl's arms and legs were splayed out like a starfish as she helplessly screamed, kicked, and wiggled, all to no avail. Two-hundred tiny paws held her down and she had no hope of escaping whatsoever.
"Veruca!" Mr. Salt cried.
"Daddy!"
Mr. Salt turned towards Mr. Wonka in desperation. "Where are they taking her?" I looked at both of them, and I was desperate for an answer as well.
"Where all the other bad nuts go, to the garbage chute," Mr. Wonka calmly replied. He was intently watching the scene unfold before him as if it were a movie.
"Where does the chute go?" Mr. Salt asked in a very panicked tone.
"To the incinerator," Mr. Wonka said coolly, with a hint of a mischievous smile. Mr. Salt gasped in horror, and I was sure he was now plotting to sue the master chocolatier for millions of pounds. "But don't worry, we only light it on Tuesdays."
"Today is Tuesday," Mike Teavee said in a slightly bored tone.
"Well, there's always a chance they decided not to light it today," Mr. Wonka smiled.
Time instantly slowed to a crawl. I may have idly watched Augustus and Violet as they were suffering, I thought, but Veruca could literally be burned alive in that incinerator! My heart was racing, and before I could consider the consequences, I had already threaded myself through the gate just like Veruca did, leaping and bounding down the stairs two, sometimes three, at a time. I didn't care if I would be one of the rotten people as a result. All I cared about was making sure that Veruca wouldn't die a fiery death, even if she was a bad nut.
"Charlie!" My grandpa Joe gasped. Like Veruca before me, I completely ignored the adults' warnings as I sprinted across the blue-and-white floor towards her screaming form. Her blue eyes, which were wide with fear, helplessly watched me as the squirrels continued to carry her closer and closer to the garbage chute.
"Veruca!" I exclaimed as I leaned towards her and extended my right hand. In response, she frantically tried to reach for it with her left arm, but the squirrels wouldn't let her arm budge. Only when she began to slide into the mouth of the chute did they let go, and I seized that opportunity to grab onto her arm now that it was free...
Author's note: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of my story, even if it was nothing more than a recap with a plot twist in the end. Now I'd like to hear from you guys! What do YOU think should happen to Charlie and Veruca next? (Please keep your ideas K+ or T rated. No M-rated stuff since I do not write that kind of material.) Please comment!
Update: Chapter 2 is almost done. It's just in the editing process and it will be up in a few days! Stay tuned! :)