Charlie had been particularly distressed after the third winner was revealed to the world, and had gone to see his mother in the laundrette she worked in. She'd done her best to comfort him as he told her that he'd never be able to find a ticket, especially as there were now only two left to find. It was just so hard, life was so difficult, and he didn't stand a chance of anything to brighten up the bitter realities. Mom had told him that he had to hold on to hope, that one day life would get easier, would get better.
Unfortunately, she didn't have an answer to his question of when that would happen. If only he knew how much longer he would have to hold on for. It would make life so much easier, knowing when better times were coming. While he was sure some people had it worse than he did, it was hard to believe it, and Charlie had finally had enough of the difficult things life could throw at you.
He couldn't remember a day when he hadn't felt hungry and cold, and his memories of his father were... practically nonexistent. Just the half remembered sensation of a warm voice and the gentle touch of a hand. Charlie sometimes wondered if he'd imagined them. With his grandparents stuck in a bed, Charlie often felt like he was the second adult in the house, and they were the children, dependent upon him and Mom for everything. He knew it wasn't quite like that, but... He so wanted the chance to be a child again, but he didn't know how. If only thing were different.
His Mom had given him a warm hug before sending him home; telling him that what she longed for the most was to see him smile again – because seeing him smile was the most precious thing to her in the whole world. It didn't make the current difficult phase of life feel much easier, but it did warm his heart a little to be reminded of how much his Mom loved him.
Half of the issue was that Charlie couldn't really see why any of the children who had found a ticket so far were particularly special. Not special enough to be brought all the way to this town to tour Mr Wonka's wonderful factory surely? The spoilt brat Veruca would be coming all the way from the UK! Why couldn't one of the tickets have gone to someone... ordinary?
While Charlie would have loved it were he the lucky winner, he believed that any of the kids in his class would have been a more worthy recipient than the ones who had found a ticket so far – even his more privileged classmates had hardly anything when compared to those on the screen – their parents owned businesses, the parents of him and his classmates simply worked for those who owned businesses. Even Mr Turkentine, who was as keen as anyone to visit the factory, would have been a better candidate than the four lucky winners. None of these kids needed more recognition!
One evening, about the 15th of September, there was a lovely surprise for Charlie. The Great Ticket Hunt was still ongoing, and everyone was on tenterhooks to find out who the next lucky winner would be. Knowing how much Charlie longed to find a ticket, but that he would never spend his hard earned wages on something as trivial as a bar of chocolate, Grandpa Joe had decided to give him a second chance of finding one. Charlie had insisted on regularly handing over some of his weekly wages to Grandpa Joe so he could purchase some tobacco. Joe felt incredibly guilty about the fact his Grandson was now working to provide him with a little luxury, and he'd decided on this occasion that he would purchase a Wonka Bar for Charlie instead.
The evening after he had secretly bought the bar, Grandpa woke Charlie up late at night, and called him over to the bed. Once he'd found out what Grandpa had done, Charlie had told him that the money was for buying tobacco. Exasperated though he was, Charlie couldn't help but feel excited at the possibility as well, and the two of them had opened the chocolate bar clandestinely while everyone else was asleep, but it was all to no avail. True to form Charlie tried to hide his disappointment by pointing out that he thought the taste of the chocolate would be spoilt by the gold wrappers... It didn't work so well this time though, as he then broke down on his Grandfather... There was so little hope of him finding one of the golden tickets, and Charlie felt his chances slowly slipping away.
For him to have two chocolate bars in such a short period of time was unheard of before now. How could he even dream of being able to open another one before someone else found the last ticket? Charlie would just have to imagine that he had found one, and all the wonderful treats which would be in store for those lucky people. Maybe it would be hard to do, but it would keep him going through some of the harder days which would likely be coming up... Winter was approaching, and winter was always a difficult time for his family.
Two weeks later, on the 29th of September, when Charlie was tucked up in bed, he heard the news coming through the wall from where his Mom and grandparents were listening to the TV. Some multimillionaire who owned casinos in Paraguay had found the last remaining ticket. With that news, Charlie turned over and cried himself to sleep. That was all five tickets found by those who apparently had more money than sense, though he didn't know anything more about the 5th ticket winner than that he owned several casinos and had lots of money.
The roller coaster wasn't over there though. In class the following morning Mr Turkentine had decided to teach them about percent, and went on about how many chocolate bars everyone had opened during the great ticket hunt over the previous months. The two before him said they'd opened 250 bars between them – or 25% of 1000. When Charlie admitted to opening just 2 bars Mr Turkentine rounded it up to 200, and when Charlie explained what he meant the man's response had been demeaning. Didn't he realise that not everyone could afford to spend that kind of money on chocolate? To hide his bruised pride Charlie had lied through his teeth, stating that he didn't care very much for chocolate. Thankfully the lesson had carried on. If that wasn't enough for one day though, another high point was coming up, hidden just round the corner.
He was lucky enough to stumble on a half-dollar coin (a sixth of his weekly wage), on the way home from school that day. It had been hidden down a drain, obviously dropped by someone as they went about their daily business. Astonished by his luck, he'd been torn in two different directions. The sensible part of him thought he'd better purchase something for his family. He well knew the huge difference fifty cents would make to the weeks finances and this thought was a big pull. Any other day he would have simply taken it home and handed it over to his Mom.
Today however, his boyish heart was still stung from the insults thrown in class that morning, and he was aching to have a taste of some chocolate – it wouldn't take much out of the money he'd found, Charlie rationalised. Chocolate cost twenty cents at the very most. The thought of actually being able to have something sweet made the day feel so much better. He decided that the first shop he came across would be where he spent it.
As luck would have it, it was Bill's candy shop – the shop he often took a few minutes to gaze longingly though the windows of on his way to collect the papers for his round. He was soon the proud owner of a new Wonka's Scrumdiddlyumptious bar, and shoved half of it down his throat as quickly as he could. He even forgot to pay for it he was in such a hurry, but the shop owner soon rectified that, giving him thirty five cents change in return for the half dollar. Charlie had always thought Bill looked nice, but this was the first time he'd ever managed to talk to him – not surprising, given the amount Charlie had to spend on candy. Now he knew that Bill was a kind and thoughtful man, who had plenty of patience and knew his stuff when it came to candy.
He was on his way out of the store when he suddenly had the thought that he might buy a bar for Grandpa Joe while he was at it. It wouldn't make any difference to his chances of getting into the factory, but it would be nice for Grandpa to open a chocolate bar without the extra excitement about the place. If he got one knowing it was just a chocolate bar, there would be no cause to be disappointed at the lack of gold paper surrounding it. That was one of the reasons that Charlie didn't like the ticket hunt all that much. For the first time in his life he had experienced the feeling of disappointment after opening a bar of chocolate. One thing Charlie was sure about – chocolate should have nothing to do with regret!
Things didn't quite work out as he'd planned though. Bill had suggested he try a 'regular Wonka Bar' and Charlie had handed him the ten cents he knew it cost before leaving the shop and walking towards the newspaper stand, making sure the remaining twenty-five cents were safely tucked away in his pocket. To his surprise, he couldn't get close, as the stand was crowded with patrons... This might make doing his round difficult! Getting as close as he could, he soon heard that the finder of the last gold ticket was a fraudster who had made his own ticket up – meaning there was still a chance that someone else would find the last ticket.
Charlie knew there wasn't a ticket in his first bar, but there was always the chance that there would be one in the regular bar of chocolate he'd got for Grandpa Joe. Shaking with excitement, he quickly walked over to a nearby doorstep and ripped off the outer paper, before gingerly peeling away the silver foil. He could hardly believe his eyes when instead of the dark brown of the chocolate; he was confronted with a glimmer of gold. A second later he had whipped the rest of the wrapper aside to reveal the last golden ticket, which had been hidden beneath it! Without even thinking about what he was doing Charlie quickly abandoned the wrapper and the precious chocolate which had been so important to him a few minutes before. Holding the newly revealed ticket in his hands Charlie tried to take in the fact that he had actually found the coveted last golden ticket.
He was still staring at it in wonder when he found out he hadn't gone far enough away from the crowd as a lady interrupted him with a call, telling the world that he'd found the last golden ticket. She pulled him by the arm to the dense crowd surrounding the newspaper stand, waving the arm which held his ticket in the air. Charlie quickly got scared as visions of someone pulling the ticket from his grasp flashed before his eyes.
It didn't take long for them to be surrounded by bodies, an awful feeling as he couldn't see a way between them all, and everyone wanted to see the ticket. Thankfully Mr Jopeck was there, and he quickly took charge, somehow freeing Charlie from the woman, and steering a path through the crowd. Pulling Charlie's arm out of sight, Mr Joepeck advised him to run straight home and not to stop until he got there. Just before he let Charlie go Mr Jopeck whispered into his ear that he should take the next two days off and start work again after school on Monday, when everything should have returned to normal again. Still hardly believing his luck Charlie ran for it.
Even being free of the crowd Charlie wasn't free from fright however, as Arthur Slugworth, one of Mr Wonka's sneakiest rivals, confronted him as he was going through a particularly dark tunnel on his way home. He wanted Charlie to procure him an Everlasting Gobstopper, one of Mr Wonka's newest inventions, still not ready for sale yet. The carrot dangled for doing this was particularly tempting to Charlie – he would be paid enough to support his entire family for life.
Charlie didn't want to do it – he felt it would be betraying the factory that he had grown up beside, and loved hearing about. His favourite bedtime stories were about the magical land it had been before Mr Wonka was betrayed by spies. Spies Mr Slugworth had sent, in an attempt to put Mr Wonka out of business. To use the chance he'd been so wonderfully given for such a deed troubled him. The very idea cast a pall over the whole experience, and he decided he needed to talk about it with Grandpa Joe when he had the chance. The man had never steered him wrong yet, and his feelings about the factory were very similar to Charlie's. While Grandma Josephine, Grandma Georgina, and Grandpa George all agreed with his Mom, that there was too much hype about the place, both Charlie and Grandpa Joe felt it was a wondrously special place. They were so lucky to live practically next door to it – just down the street a little and around the corner.
When he got home, it took him a few minutes to convince his relatives that he had actually found a Golden Ticket as they hadn't heard of the discovery that one of the previous ticket finders had lied about finding one. They soon believed it when Grandpa Joe read the wording on the ticket out to them though "Greetings to you the lucky finder of this golden ticket, from Mr Willy Wonka..." and when the reporters descended on the house later that evening it clinched it for them.