Accept Chapter 1: Falling, a charlie and the chocolate factory fanfic

At some point during the two hour movie, I became captivated by Willy Wonka's erractic personality - loneliness, hilarity, quirkiness, charm, and all. I became greedy. The entire point of this story was originally so I could see more of this intriguing yet all too real character. I invite you to join the fun, and perhaps along the way, we'll find that we've stumbled across one truth or another. :)

Enjoy!

Ping. Ping. Ping. Clank.

Charlie Bucket looked up from his homework. The erratic sounds above his head had been getting steadily louder with ever increasing urgency for the past hour.

Clunk. Ping. Ping.

Maybe his father was trying to fix the gutter. The sugar-fall just a few weeks ago had dumped such a heavy load of powdered sugar on their gutter that it had bent and caved in towards the roof altogether. His mother had suggested calling the Oompa Loompas to repair the damage, but ever since his father had patched up the machine that replaced him at the toothpaste factory, he believed he could fix anything.

Ping. Ping.

Then came an inevitable loud 'clunk', followed by an even louder 'crash'.

Charlie expected his father to let out a string of profanity – not, of course, that his father was prone to swearing. But whatever just happened out there sounded particularly painful.

"Yeeeowch!"

Sufficient to say, he was somewhat surprised when this reached his ears instead. However, he was less surprised as he heard the resulting "That HURT", through a bout of giggling.

It hadn't been his father up there after all.

Charlie shut the book he had been pouring over – 'Style and Form – an Interpretive Guide to the Dances of LoompaLand' – stood up, and went outside to investigate the damage.

There was nothing on the roof.

A soft chuckle caused Charlie to look high above him. And there, suspended between the sugar shakers by a loop of wire that had gone obviously awry, desperately holding on to his top hat with one free hand, clung a man wearing a plum-colored velvet overcoat, and black pointed boots. He knew this strange apparition well.

It was Willy Wonka.

"Umm – Little Boy?"

The slightly anxious nasal voice floated down to him as he stared up in incredulity. Even after four years, this man never ceased to astound him.

"Mr. Wonka? What in the world are you doing up there? Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I'm a bit scared of heights, and it's so darned high up here. But no worries. I'm okay. Heh." His feeble giggle trailed off as he struggled to straighten himself, still dangling from the thin wire.

Charlie could almost hear the inaudible gulp in the silence that followed, only broken by Willy Wonka's arduous breathing. He bit his lip, unsure whether it was due to worry, or because he was holding back a laugh.

"Umm – Mr. Wonka? I hate to inform you, but the wire you're holding on to is snapping at the top."

"Oh. Yeah. I'm very glad you pointed that out. About that."

He looked down at him, smiling pleasantly – Willy Wonka was always smiling pleasantly, it seemed – and even from this distance, Charlie could see the glint of his sparkling, white teeth.

Suddenly, there was a loud ripping sound. "Whoa, Whhhhhoa!"

Willy Wonka was now dangling from a single fiber. "Umm – I don't like it so much up here. There is a way down, right? I'd greatly appreciate it if you could point that out for me, too."

The thought, 'I'm sure if you just hang on for a few moments longer, falling could be your way down' crossed Charlie's mind, but he vetoed that. He knew Mr. Wonka was a whole lot more scared than he let on – it probably wasn't a good idea to push him over the edge.

He thought for a moment longer, a bit harder.

"Wait. Mr. Wonka, there's a long piece of wire right behind you. Can you grab it? It's closer to the ground than the one you're hanging on to. You could swing yourself down."

"Swing?" Willy Wonka's voice climbed several octaves and became twice as childish.

"Yes. Right behind you. There's a wire."

"I can't reach it. I'll fall if I let go. I'm a candy inventor – not a trapeze artist! Duh."

"Let go of your hat, Mr. Wonka! ("My hat?") You can reach it then." In these four years, Charlie had developed a patience unheard of with this peculiar, idiosyncratic man.

He watched as Willy Wonka dropped the hat, and caught it before it hit the floor. This outdated top hat was Mr. Wonka's prized possession – next to his candy, of course – it wouldn't do if something happened to it.

"Now. What was the next step?"

"Reach! Wire! Behind you!" He hopped shorter sentences might be able to have a larger effect on Mr. Wonka than his previous long-winded explanation and persuasion.

"Oh. Right-O. Here goes, then. Here I go!"

The figure above him deftly made the leap onto the adjacent wire, and slid down its length until he was less than five feet from the ground.

Not bad, Charlie thought, not bad at all, for a candy inventor. It must have been all the practice he got in LoompaLand.

"…Now… what?" Mr. Wonka's voice, he thought with much amusement, (now that it became evident that his strange companion wasn't going to break his neck with a long fall, he felt he was entitled to some amusement.) was trembling.

"Jump?" Charlie suggested.

Willy Wonka looked like he was going to throw up at the idea – and as Charlie was standing just beneath him, this didn't look like such a promising prospect.

"It's not very far," he hasty rejoined. "Just swing yourself to this nice patch of beautiful green grass right over here… like so. It won't hurt a bit."

"Are you – are you sure? Absolutely sure? Absolutely positively sure?"

"…Yes."

Moments later, Willy Wonka stood beside him, dusting off his hands with a very accomplished (and silly) grin on his lips. At this close proximity, Charlie could see a moist veil of perspiration covering his pale face, and his sleek hair was rather ruffled, but other than that, he looked all right.

He smiled widely as Charlie wordlessly handed him back his top hat, and reached up to rest it jauntily on top of his head. Charlie thought it might be best to wait until he caught his breath before striking up a conversation, but Willy Wonka beat him to it, breathless as he was.

"Wow."

"Wow?" Charlie stared. "Are you crazy? You could have been killed! What were you doing up there, anyways?"

"Changing your rain spouts, of course, Little Boy." Giggle.

Despite his frustration, Charlie couldn't help but feel a spark of gratitude. To make them feel more at home, Willy Wonka had the Oompa Loompas install several rainspouts over their heads, along with the sugar shakers. After all, you might as well enjoy both the snow and the rain if you're going to enjoy any at all.

That was all very nice and dandy – but the problem was, the fluid falling from the spouts wasn't water. It was cherry soda. Now, this would also have been nice and dandy, if it didn't create a sticky mess every time it rained. Charlie had managed to convince Willy Wonka to change the spouts so it rained actual water ("but what is the fun of that?"), but never supposed he would take it so much to heart that he would actually attempt the task himself.

"That was fun."

Oh. I'm glad to know you enjoyed your encounter with death. Charlie had learned to hold in most of his repartees towards Mr. Wonka, partly because he didn't want to hurt his feelings, and also because he didn't think Mr. Wonka would get it, anyways.

"…But it didn't work out quite as well as I had expected. It's very hard to hold on to nothing but thin wires and fix them at the same time, especially when you're afraid of heights, you know."

Two pairs of eyes surveyed the scene above them. The violet pair blinked bemusedly, while the dark brown pair looked skeptically at the tangle of wires suspended in midair.

Charlie smiled. Seeing Willy Wonka look slightly disappointed and perplexed (more of the latter), he said quickly, "Don't worry, I'm sure the Oompa Loompas can have it fixed by tomorrow."

"Oh, hey. Yes. Yes, that's a good idea. I don't think I'm quite ready to try again." Willy Wonka looked around and made the sound that Charlie secretly called 'the goatlady call' – based on a French play he had once seen, where an orphaned girl grew up with goats and made that sound with the tongue all the time. Although now he knew from all his LoompaLand reading it was actually the 'Get-your-ass-over-here-I-either-just-want-to-say-hello-or-I'm-in-trouble-and-need-to-be-saved' call.

From a nearby chocolate powder covered path, a tiny man wearing a red jumpsuit came forwards and bowed before Willy Wonka. Willy Wonka bent forwards and gave the Oompa a few directions, punctuated with much hand gesturing and jabbing at the air.

Once both parties had bowed, arms crossed, and the Oompa Loompa had scampered off, Willy Wonka straightened up with a big smile.

"Beautiful. Now, we've still got tons to do today, Little Boy. Come on, I want to show you this new idea I had been working on all morning. You know those roasted marshmallow drops?"

He began walking towards the small door at the far side of the room, eyes shining with the excitement of his new idea, lips curved in a slight smile. In fact, he was so absorbed in his thought that he failed to see his brightly stripped cane lying innocently on the grass. Charlie, who was following close behind, reached out and grabbed his arm to stop him from tripping. He had stopped Mr. Wonka tripping so often in the past, the motion no longer required thought.

Absentmindedly, Willy Wonka reached down to pick it up (after staring at it for a moment), saying all the while, "Well, I think I made the perfect ingredients to grow the most darn beautiful marshmallows. See, you need a thick green minty syrup, with a bit of walnut, hazelnut and a dash of dark chocolate…"