Notai faoi an sceal. LEAMH, FANACHERS!! ;)
~Being Poor Really Sucks~
oOo
In all honesty, Aoife and Paula were far too old for anything to do with Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, except to giggle over it's owners unfortunate name.
And in truth they were even too old to do that. But they did anyway. They didn't take much notice of anything around them, because, in all honesty, how much time do Irish fifth year students really have to themselves, especially when one is a poor drama student, and the other is a lunatic learner driver?
And so, it was unsurprising that they discovered the contest precisely four and a half days before the closing date.
But first, take a walk down memory lane, to a February afternoon, a Friday, as it was, with a glorious two and half days of freedom stretching ahead of the two Irish teenagers …
oOo
Paula had crashed the car. That, and that alone was the reason she and Aoife had to walk back to her house. It had nothing to do with the fact that she had failed her provisional test, or that fact that Aoife had screamed four decades of the rosary the last time Paula had driven her anywhere, or even the fact that her parents were investing in two lawyers to examine the Constitution, looking for some loop-hole to render their daughter unable to legally attempt driving for at least another four years. It was just being fixed. And that was all.
The puddles lay thick of the ground as Aoife and Paula splashed moodily through them, swaddled in the ugly school scarves and mossy green jackets they were incarcerated in for far too long, it being supposedly Spring.
The best friends were carrying out an in-depth conversation when we happen upon them.
'… telling you, Paula, I'm so poor, it's not even funny. Damned recession! No one can afford to go to the theatre any more, and theatre is all I can do these days! Still a student, trapped by the confines of my bank-account, and lack of good Irish movies … I'm telling you, Paula, some day, I'm going to blow this joint, and live in Hollywood! … or maybe not. Hollywood's kind of superficial.'
'Okay, am I the only one who just got a really clear mental picture of you detonating Ireland with a massive stick of dynamite?'
'Um … I'd say "yes", but then again, I can only vouch for myself,' Aoife said, in a superior way, flipping her long dark plait over her shoulder, and sighing.
'God, our lives are so freaking boring, Paula. What happened? We used to be cool!'
'Yeah. Life really sucks once you hit seventeen. And don't have a boyfriend. OMG, DEEEEAN!'
Paula squealed and stabbed the air in front of her with one highly polished fingernail, in the direction of a skulking figure. Aoife, the only one in glasses peered short-sightedly down the road.
'Eh, no, Paula, that's just a skanger.'
'Oh. I'm sad.'
Sigh. 'I'm sad too.'
Supernatural had long been one of Paula's only true loves. Aoife had never really jumped on that bandwagon, but at this stage had a rudimentary knowledge of it.
She kicked a bottle out of her path.
'Paula, this sucks! Seriously, if we're not careful, we're going to turn into placid old biddies, and marry a set of bankers wearing matching pin-stripes and never see the world, or have adventures, or tackle-glomp hot guys! We need a lift! Some excitement! Something … something …'
'Hey look!' Paula yelled, cutting Aoife off, and jabbing at the air again, but this time, to a huge bill-board, plastered with a large eye-catching sign, advertising a miraculous chance, a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity to see the inside of the wonderful Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, and to be guided by he, the man, himself through this labyrinth of wonder and amazement, all
'Just below that billboard is one big-ass seagull! Seriously! It's like, the size of a cat! Jesus!'
Aoife's mouth was hanging unattractively wide open.
'Oh my sweet Jesus, Paula … do you see what I see?'
Paula took a double-take.
'Um … the seagull?'
'No! The sign about the chocolate factory!'
Paula was silent for a moment, reading, before exclaiming, 'OH MY GOD!! CHOCOLATE!!' in such a loud pitch that more than a few passers-by turned and stared unashamedly, including the Dean-skanger, to whom Paula paid no attention whatsoever, her lips moving silently as she read the sign, which was odd, because normally she didn't do that. But then again, she was having a pretty odd day.
'AOIFE!! We have to find a golden ticket,' Paula told her, gripping her shoulders. Aoife looked a little nervous.
'Eh … Paula … am I the only one thinking that that is most likely a huge scam? They've made, to date two movies about the book, 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' by Roald Dahl. But this is real; a real ad. Well, "real" … most likely fake. So, I'm getting rather a shivery spine … Paula? PAULA, COME BACK!! I CAN'T GET INTO YOUR HOUSE WITHOUT YOU!'
And so, Aoife gave up and trotted after Paula.
Though she didn't mention it for a while, the nagging creepy sense that there was something extraordinarily wrong with the situation never left Aoife. Or at least, not for a very long time.
A very, very long time.
oOo
Paula slammed the piece of paper onto her kitchen table, and Aoife jumped, before sighing.
'God, Paula, drama much? Phone-calling here … hey! It's Aoife. Yeah, I'm good … you? Oh, that's good. Oh … oh, that's not good. Oh. Ouch. How long before you walk again … oh. Oh. Maybe never, you say. Ouch. Well, did they get the knife out … oh. Oh. Maybe never, you say … And the fist? Well. Um … did you know about the chocolate contest?'
Aoife cringed, as the babble on the other end was noticeable even to Paula.
'Right. Okay, well … see you around, sweetie … okay … feel better … bye …'
Aoife stabbed the end-call button, and moaned.
'How did we not know about this? How could the internet let me down like this? I need to go.'
'Yeah! Me, too.'
Paula picked up the paper again, just to have the effect of slamming it on the table again. Aoife sighed, and got up to steal some of Paula's families' communal pop-tarts as ever. By this stage, she was convinced Margaret, Paula's mother, bought them specifically for her.
She saw Paula's elbow moving quickly as she popped the tart and made a strong pot of tea. Placing the teapot on the table, and pulling her pop-tart closer, \nd reaching behind her to toss a bar of chocolate in her direction, Aoife inspected Paula's drawing, or at least tried to, before Paula ripped it off the table with a flourish, throwing her yellow crayon down on the table, and beaming.
'Behold, my friend, our ticket to our destinies!'
Aoife blinked sceptically.
In Paula's hand was an A4 sheet of paper, coloured streakily yellow with a very waxy crayon, with
GOLDIN TICKET TO CHOCO FACTORY
written across it in Paula's scrawling hand.
'Um … Paula? There's no 'I' in 'golden', you know.'
Paula said nothing, took the sheet back, and fixed something, before handing it back to Aoife. It then read,
EN
GOLDIN ^ TICKET TO CHOCO FACTORY
'Eh … right. Well, then … we're sorted so,' Aoife said, feeling rather confused, and running quickly through various other plans for sneaking in, or sobbing convincingly to garner pity at the gates, or –
'Hey, Paula? Where the feck is this factory, anyway?'
'Iuhno,' Paula mumbled through a mouthful of chocolate, and shrugged, breaking off a square and tossing it at Aoife, who promptly missed, and the chocolate went skittering onto the ground behind her, to be eaten by the family dog, Rox-C. But Aoife didn't notice. Nor would she have cared, if she had noticed.
Her attention was a mite preoccupied by the suspiciously golden glint from the chocolate wrapper in Paula's hand.
She couldn't say anything, or make any kind of cognitive sense at all, really, but luckily, Paula knew her well enough to recognise that the shaking finger, raised to point tremulously towards her chocolate bar might be pointing out an important plot point.
Which it was. Paula raised the bar to look at it at eye-level, before squinting, and, grasping it between forefinger and thumb and carefully extracting it from the foil. Aoife forgot to breathe as the thin sheet of beaten gold wobbled in her hand. Paula peered at it, and then to Aoife as if asking advice, before distrustfully back to the ticket, and then to her own sheet, and readying her arm to toss the gold behind her.
'NO, PAULA!' Aoife cried, diving forwards and snatching the ticket from her hands, and surveying it, panting.
Paula looked affronted, and chucked some more chocolate into her mouth.
Aoife skimmed over the text quickly, not taking much in, knowing the general gist already, but stopping when she saw the date.
'WOW!! Paula, this tour thing is on January the 17th! That's two days from now! And it's in London! WE HAVE TO GO, LIKE, NOW!!'
And with that, Aoife leaped up, and Paula stumbled to follow suit, as Aoife glanced over the rest of the text.
'It says we need a kid with us …'
Aoife's eyes lit up.
'Paula! You can be the kid! You're not eighteen for a good while yet.'
'I'm eighteen in four days, Aoife.'
'… and I can be your guardian. Yes … yes, that'll do nicely.'
She looked Paula over critically for a moment, all five foot five inches of her, from her dolly-shoed toes to her violently curly hair, and then frowned at the obviously well-applicated eye-liner, mascara, and by this stage, green-eye-shadow, before shaking her head.
'But we have to make you look young … hmm … we can do this. We can totally do this. Okay, Paula, we pack your stuff really quickly, then we go to mine and pack, and then we go to London. We'll be fine. What's the worst that could happen?'
As she shepherded Paula towards a suitcase, for a brief moment, Aoife pondered her words gravely. Perhaps those were not the smartest words she could have uttered.
The fact bothered her for one and a half seconds, tops, before she fought her mobile out of her pocket and dialled a number.
'Hi, mum? Yeah, just to say, I'm running away to London with Paula to go to a chocolate factory …'
xXx
A/N: Just to tell you, yep, I'm Aoife, ShiverySox is Paula. There you go. But we're not Sues. I'm not that kind. However, I am an impoverished drama student. And Paula is an aggressive artist. I hope you like it. I think CATCF fandom could do with us. We don't have Suish qualitites. We're just quite comedic when the moment strikes us.
Hope you likey, my loves! Review and I'll update yoo! If you would like to appear in the next chapter, just yell, and in you'll go. Mwa! -Wraithlike
Disclaimer: I do not own Charlie, or his Chocolate Factory. Roald Dahl does. However, I once alluded to Johhny Depp in an interview ...
