A/N Hello All again, Sorry this took so long but my beta has been very busy and actually she never had time to read it and I got impatient and decided to post it, but I love her anyway. This is the third story in my Christy/Willy saga and it would be best if you at least read the second one. It might not be totally necessary though, but it ould make more references clearer. In case you didn't already know, I own nothing. Wonka bar to any reviewers. Enjoy.
Chapter 1 - Comparisons
Think growing up in the world's largest chocolate factory is the greatest thing in the world? Think again, at least it's not when you're me. I'm Laurana, one of Willy Wonka's daughters. My twin sister Alicia is his pride and joy and of course Charlie Bucket is his heir.
Don't get me wrong, I love Uncle Charlie even if we don't always see eye to eye on certain things. He and his girlfriend often take me and Alicia out when father is too busy, which is fairly often. Everyone already knows that father is quite obsessed with chocolate and maybe that's why we really don't get along. I like to have a piece of candy now and again just as much as the next person, but to me it's just candy. I made the mistake once of saying that to him; a mistake I don't intend to make again. I thought he was going throw me out of the factory, but instead just threw me out of the inventing room.
Tomorrow is my and Alicia's 15th birthday. Mother is probably trying to talk father into doing something special for us and I'd be willing to bet anything that he is only pretending to listen to her. It happens fairly often and I am surprised he doesn't know better by now because when he does that she often tricks him into promising the craziest things.
Alicia was walking down the hallway towards our rooms when I took a good look at her to try and figure out why people used to have such a hard time telling us apart. Even father used to have trouble sometimes until one of us spoke. Alicia is a beauty; there is no doubt about that. Her hair, like mine, is pure black but hers is full of volume and curls. My hair can be curly if I try, but most of the time it's just very wavy and flat.
She dresses like a princess, lots of colorful pastel dresses and sparkly barrettes in her hair. Me, I prefer to wear all black and I never bother to try and put something in my hair. Charlie often makes fun of us calling us the princess and the Goth, but I don't really mind. I just really like the color.
The biggest difference between us, physically, is our eyes. Alicia's are exactly like fathers, dark blue that almost look violet in certain lights. I have my mother's eyes, such a dark brown that they almost look black.
"Laurana, I'm glad you're here. I need help picking out something to wear tomorrow when Jake takes me out," Alicia said excitedly as she ran over to me. Jake is her current boyfriend and by boyfriend I mean flavor of the month. The guys in our school just seem to want to crawl through broken glass just to get a date with her, meanwhile I get the leftovers.
I looked at her like she was crazy, "You know I can't stand your taste in clothes. Anyway I thought father hated Jake."
She laughed, "Dad hates everyone and you might not like the clothes, but you know what looks good on us."
"On you, you mean," I replied sarcastically and ignored her as she childishly stuck her tongue out at me. I followed her into her room and made myself comfortable on her couch while I waited for her to change. From what I understand, the guest bedrooms in the factory have changed a lot since mother moved in. Our bedrooms used to be our mother's bedroom a long time ago when she worked as father's assistant. Then it was split into two rooms: a nursery for us and an office for mother. Once we were old enough to have our own rooms it was redesigned once again and combined with the room next to it. So now Alicia's bedroom is next to mother and father's and on the other side is a bathroom, closet and common area that we share and then my room.
Father was the one who designed all the rooms in the factory so it occurred to me that he might have just been bored and wanted to redecorate and was glad for the opportunity. He could have just given us one of the other rooms down the hall, but it doesn't really matter now. I like my room; Doris told me that it was done almost like my mother's when she used to work for father.
Alicia finally came out in a light purple short dress with spaghetti straps. After doing a little twirl for me I nodded that it looked fine. It wasn't my taste, but dresses usually weren't. I had one of my girlier moments and took a moment to compare the two of our bodies. We once tried wearing the same clothes and taking pictures below the neck line to see if we looked any different and I eventually had to agree that yes we were identical from the neck down, but for some reason it never looked that way from my point of view. Her body always seemed to be perfect, but maybe I'm just jealous of all the attention she gets.
There was a small knock at the door and as we turned we saw Jane, one of the many oompa-loompas that had taken care of us over the years. She came in quickly signing that father had a new candy he wanted us to try. Alicia squealed excitedly and I resisted rolling my eyes, but I followed anyway into the great glass elevator.
When I was young the elevator used to scare me, but now I love it. One of the few times that father and I actually got along was in this elevator. He pressed the up and out button on our tenth birthday. It was just the three of us and Charlie since mother refused to get on. Alicia was scared, but I loved the thrill of it; rushing to the ceiling at such speeds followed by the initial freefall, it was amazing. It still makes me smile to remember how he actually put his hand on my shoulder and laughed with me as we went for a ride around town. Father isn't very affectionate, so that light touch on the shoulder was probably equivalent to a full out hug in his mind.
The inventing room is probably one of my favorite rooms in the entire factory. There is so much going on in there and no one minds if I experiment with random things, except for the one time where I blew up half the room. I laughed to myself as I walked, I was only trying to help with the exploding gum, but I guess I was a little heavy on the exploding powder.
Father was sitting at his table waiting for us with Charlie at his side. He looked over at us happily and we could hear his strange giggle. Although I've grown up with it, I still think it's odd to hear an almost fifty year old man giggle. His grin widened as we approached, "Girls, I want to show you something." He pulled out a small piece of chocolate for each of us and told us to try it.
Alicia immediately started eating, but I was much more cautious. I couldn't count how many oompa-loompas were changed into odd shapes, animals and colors and I did not want to be one of them. After a few seconds I noticed nothing happened to her so I took a bite. It was strange, not bad, but strange. It tasted… purple. That was the only way I could describe it and I noticed that Alicia was having a hard time trying to explain what she tasted as well.
"Well?" father asked almost bouncing in his chair.
Alicia looked at me for a minute, "What's it supposed to taste like?"
I swallowed mine and added another question, "Is it supposed to taste like colors?"
Father giggled happily again and turned to write something in his notebook. We both looked at Charlie who nodded at us, so I guess it was supposed to taste like purple. Father turned back and stood up putting an arm around each of us without actually touching us, "Alright, now we have to get to dinner before your mother suspects that I've been avoiding her."
"Why are you avoiding her?" I asked with a smirk.
Looking down at me father slowly answered not wanting to tell the whole truth, "I think she wants to go somewhere tomorrow and if she doesn't see me she won't get the chance to ask." I tried not to laugh, but it was hard to keep it in. Father sent me an unhappy look, but I didn't really care. It was ridiculous how frightened he could be of the outside world; mother and Charlie could get him to leave and occasionally so could Alicia, but he very rarely left the factory just because he wanted too.