The street was grey and dirty. Every house was exactly the same. The air was thick with early morning fog and the ground was moist and slippy, and the snow fell badly onto the ground, melting into it rather than laying. Even the sky was dull and miserable, and not a soul was out. Save for three men.
They were dressed in long grey trench coats and one of them carried a big heavy black umbrella.
There was a tall thin man, a little fat man and one that was in the middle, neither fat or thin, tall or short. They stood at the corner of the street, Jerry Street, staring at the shutters covering up the windows of the corner shop. The sign was covered up with wooden planks, but little splashes of colour within the cracks from the shutters told you this street was about to become something incredibly different. And these three men did not like the sound of that.
"This place surly isn't big enough to start a new business. Look at these windows. They're tiny. And the walls are crumbling…what a mess." The tall man said shivering under the umbrella. The two shorter men huddled underneath the umbrella trying not to get the snow on their coats.
"Now now, Slugsworth, we all started in similar places."
"Yes, Ficklegruber but they were in commercial areas. This is a residential area. Highly unusual. You would expect a newsagents or a family run place but this is unheard of."
"Who did you say bought this place?" the short chubby man said.
"They said it was some new comer, Prodnose. They didn't tell me his name,but apparently he has lived here in this street since hwas eleven years old and yet this is the first time I've heard of him. They also said he is not a bussiness man. Or at least he doesn't look it. They also said he came from a foster home. The Swich family or something.
"What about his own family? What happened to them?"
"That they didn't say much about. All they said was he's a young man from a middle class family"
"Middle class?…Oh dear…"
"What do you think he's selling here?"
Suddenly from around the corner came a fast walking exited young man, possibly only in his early twenties, or at least that was what his face told them. He wore a long brown tail coat and old dirty black shoes. His hair was messy but shiny. He wore big round black sunglasses. He trotted along, humming some unknown tune. He ignored the three men completely and took out a huge ring full of keys from the inside of his coat and started fiddling about looking for the right key to open the shutters and door.
The three men looked at each other, both confused and disturbed all at once. They didn't know what to make of this strange little man. They recognised the song he was humming as something called, 'Sweets for my sweets, sugar for my honey.'
"Excuse me young man, do you know the man that has bought this shop?"
The man paused and looked straight at them. His smile dropped momentarily, then sprang back up again. His teeth were daringly white against the blackness of his sunglasses.
"I certainly do!…" he returned to examining the lock and keys. "Is it this one...? Nope..." he continued searching for the right key.
"Do you know when he will be here, young man? We wish to speak to your manager right away."
"Nope! It's not that one either!...What? Oh! I don't have a manager!"
"You don't? But you just said you know the man who bought this shop!"
"And I certainly do!"
"Well, when will he be here?"
"Finally I found the right one! Scoot over!" he pushed the tall man out of the way while he finally unlocked the door and pulled the shutters on the windows up. They snapped up like magic, revealing nothing but red blinds on the other side. "Knock and the door does open eventually!" He opened the door and ran in.
"You don't think that this young boy is the owner do you?"
"Did you see his clothes? Filthy!"
"And his shoes seemed far too small for him."
"Not to mention how rude he was. He didn't even say who he was!"
"He has the face and energy of a school boy. Who would give him a job? He seems far too energetic for his own good."
The young man popped his head back out the door and smiled at them. "You three must be freezing! Come in then! Just don't touch anything…kay? Oh, and wipe your shoes on the door mat, it's a new floor you see. Just finished installing it yesterday."
The three men walked into the shop, hoping to find some clue as to what was going to be sold from this tiny little street corner shop. All the shelves and cabinets were pure clean white and the floor was a pattern of black squares with white borders. There were things on the shelves, but everything was covered up in either bright red, black or purple sheets. The smell of the place was adorable and sweet. But everything was still dark.
They walked up to the counter and hit the bell.
"Hello!" The young man popped his head up from behind the counter. His brown trench coat was gone. Now he wore a bright happy plum coloured coat with bright red gloves. "Thanks for making sure the bell works! Won't be long now!" he disapeared behind the counter again, then all the lights came on.
He popped back up and watched the three men look around.
The shop was bigger than they thought it was, but still no bigger than the average sized kitchen. There were stalls and small tables and glass cabinets dotted about everywhere, and old posters advertising 'Swich Candy Stores.' The floor was tiled in black and white, and the walls were white, the same as the shelves and cabinets. Everything seemed brand new and so clean. Only Prodnose seemed to make a little grin, but Ficklegruber decided to get straight to the point.
"Young man, we are bussiness men from out of town, and we wish to speak to the owner of this establishment right away."
The man behind the counter raised his eyebrows at him. "Why would you want to do a thing like that?" the man took out a handkerchief and began wiping the counter down, tutting as he did so. "What a mess…so much time, so little to do…"
"We are interested in what you plan to sell here. When will your boss get here?!"
"Strike the last thing I said. Reverse it. Thank you!"
"When will your boss get here!?!"
"Oh, I don't have a boss!" he paused silently, then ran into the back room.
"This is getting redicoulous..."
He reappeared dragging a bucket on wheels, a mop in the other hand. "Mind your shoes please, certainly don't want to get them all wet now, do we?"
"Will you please stop what your doing and tell us when your boss will get here! Surely he gave you a time!"
"You don't understand, bussiness man! I don't have a boss because I AM the boss of this...establishment...Wonka! Mr Willy Wonka at your service!" he stretched out a hand warmly and grabbed one of the gentlemen's hands and shook it violently. "Congratulations, sirs! You three are officially my first customers! Good for you! Aren't you lucky! That is...if you are willing to try some."
"Try what, for heaven sake?"
"My dear sir, if you could just be a little more patient...and never interupt someone when they are talking. It's very rude."
He ran over to one of the windows and placed a hand softly on one of the sheets. "This is what I will be selling." The sheets slipped off the shelf and revealed a whole rainbow of colours and shapes of every different size. Printed on every little shape in fat curly lettering was the name, 'Wonka.'
"This is candy. Sweeties. You wish to sell candy here?"
"Yeah. Jelly beans, jelly babies, squezazy pops, lolly pops, jelly tots, toffees, caramels, scumtious fudgemellows, marshmallows and of course chocolate of every and any flavour! Please have a bite, please do!"
"We wish to talk bussiness, Mr Wonka. Before you owned this store, you sold candy here but under another name."
"Yes, my dear friend Mr Switch owned this store! He taught me everything I know! He was my foster father for a time, you know. He taught me absolutely everything there is to know about making candy! And a few things I don't know! But...he passed away some time ago...very sad, realy...so he gave his store to me and said I could sell anything and everything I ever create right here! Haha! Isn't that neat?"
"We simply wish to make sure that you stay within the guidlelines that were given to Mr Switchy." Prodnose said nervously.
"We simply ask that you sell your candy just here, and only here." Slugsworth said, straight. "It would knock the entire consumer market off balance if you sold your candy anywhere else as well as here."
"Yes, because your candy is incredibly popular you see but this was a familly run bussiness and we wish to make sure it stays that way." Ficklegruber gave a sort of weak smile, like he was talking to someone sitting inside a dustbin.
Mr Wonka seemd to think for a moment, leaving a very comical confused look on his face. It went blank, then his eyes sparkled briefly, but he never raised his smile again. "So...what your saying to me is...you wish for me...not to sell my candy anywhere else but in my own little shop...that if you see my name anywhere else the consumer market will fall over...and that you wish this place to stay a...f...familly run...thing?"
"Yes. That's exactly it. Thank you very much for your time, could you please sign this contract stating that you will stay within the guidlines that were handed to Mr Switchy."
Ficklegruber flashed a piece of paper at Mr Wonka, then took a pen out of his front pocket. He held it in front of Mr Wonka, but Mr Wonka as thinking again, almost to a point where he forgot he was still speaking to them. When he finally stopped dreaming, he clicked his feet and laughed slightly.
"Ah...? There's just one little incy wincy but ever so crucial little tiny detail…"
"What's that?" Ficklegruber asked, confused.
Then Mr Wonka's face grew grim and pale. He drummed his fingers against the handle of the mop he was holding.
"I'm not Mr Switchy. I don't like guidlines...and I certainly don't like people telling me what to do and what not to do. It doesn't help the creative atmosphere you see. So I'm so sorry to waste your time. But my own time has run…" he stared at the short little man. He looked up at up then pinched one of the three samples off the trays and threw it in his mouth. "Short…and business hours start in fifteen minutes and I'm not even ready yet. So please...thank you very much but...good day to you."
The three men were pushed outside into the street, the sign on the door was flipped to open, then from around the corner from both sides, people appeared, children, parents, grandparents, anyone who was just as curious, perhaps even more so than the three bussiness men piled into the little candy store.
"He seems to know what he's doing." said Prodnose.
"He has no one in there helping him. He doesn't know a thing." Slugsworth said.
"Well those people buying his candy seem to think he knows quite a lot about how to make candy taste good. We best keep an eye on this one. I have a feeling we may have a little difficulty with this candy maker in the near future.
The three of them stomped through the rain, away from the most colourful thing that had ever happened in this city for a long time. Outside the store on the other side of the street was another man, a man silently watching the store, smiling but refusing to go in. "At least your happy, for now, son. He took out an old camera, shot a photograph, then nodded, smiled then walked away.
Author's note: The beginning of this story starts twenty years before the golden tickets story is set.
Since you are never told the age of Mr Wonka at any point in the book or the movies other than he was an older man when he opened the factory, I am keeping him at a respectful twenty nine at this point, making him 49 for the golden tickets story. But you are free to decide for yourselves the age he is.
Ficklegruber, Slugsworth and Prodnose are given very little to do in the books and movies. So this part of the story involving them is pretty much just me filling in the gaps.
It never said in the book that Mr Wonka did start off with small shops before the factory, but it would make sense that he would have. I took the street name, 'jerry street' and the description of the shop straight from the Tim Burton version, but tweaked it slightly.
The appearance that Wonka has at first is ordinary and almost civilian like. In the tim burton movie his father was a rich man, but then willy ran away, so I decided that he came from a middle class foster family. No reason behind it, other than I wanted him to come from a reasonably normal class family.
Switchy is a character I did want to include in this chapter but it was making it seem like I was trying to replace Willy's father. So I merely had him mentioned.
The character of willy himself is derived from both gene wilder and johnny depp. There will be some wilder things and depp things, but I have tried to keep him as energetic as the book originally portrayed him to be, so he is a hybrid of all three versions and I hope I got the balance right.
