CH 2

Help Wanted

"Oh, poppycock," Willy muttered as he and Charlie entered the Inventing Room, "where are we going to find your mom a new vase?"

"I'm not exactly sure," Charlie replied, "but we should try to find something soon. I know my mum really liked that vase."

The pair made their way past all sorts of strange machines and contraptions, until suddenly, Willy gasped and wheeled around to face Charlie. "We could make her a new vase!" he said excitedly.

"What would we make it out of, though?" asked Charlie.

"Out of chocolate, of course!" Willy replied, the excitement of his idea lighting up his face.

The boy patted Willy's arm. "Sorry to break it to you," he said solemnly, "but I really don't think a chocolate vase is going to work very well."

"Oh yeah?" Willy shot back, "and give me one good reason why it won't work? I'm sure you have been filled in on the story of how I built a gigantic palace for an Indian prince, which, by the way, was made entirely of either light or dark chocolate."

"And how did that end up turning out?" Charlie asked.

"It was one of my finest creations. It turned out just wonderful." Willy replied with smugness.

"But it melted, didn't it?"

"Oh."

Willy narrowed his eyes in thought, and then resumed his walk towards a counter filled with various liquids and other candy-making substances. He took the little blue candy ball out of his jacket pocket and placed it in a glass beaker, then placed the beaker over a small flame.

"What are you doing that for?" Charlie asked.

"What? oh!" replied Willy, "I have to melt the bouncy candy ball down because, as we found out, it's much too powerful still, and we just cant have it escaping and bouncing wild all over the factory, now can we?"

He proceeded to add together various liquids into containers in an attempt to create a better candy ball mixture.

"I don't ever remember if there were any places in this town that sold pottery or vases or things like that," Charlie thought aloud, "I suppose we could go and take a look, or see if we can find any information on someone who makes things like that."

"Mmm-hmm," Willy was too absorbed in his work at that point to really pay attention to what Charlie was saying.

But the boy continued nonetheless. "I wonder what mum would like, if she would want something new for a change, or if we should try to get a vase that looks like the old one. I wonder what we should have it be made out of..."

Willy looked up from his work to grab a bottle across the counter, when he suddenly froze.

"Newspaper..." he mumbled.

Charlie looked at him in disappointment. "Come on now, Willy, be serious here."

Willy blinked and looked over at Charlie. "No, newspaper!" he cried as he leapt from his seat. He ran over to one of his many workers, an Oompa Loompa, who had walked past them carrying a newspaper. Willy stopped in front of the tiny man and crouched down.

"Hello there!" Willy greeted the Oompa Loompa with an excess of enthusiasm. "Can I borrow this, please?" he asked, pointing to the newspaper. The Oompa Loompa nodded, handing the paper over to Willy.

"Thank you!" he said cheerfully, as he rose and patted the little man on the head.

"What are you going to do with a newspaper?" Charlie asked when Willy returned to the counter. The chocolatier only grinned as he pushed the bottles and containers out of his way to clear a place for the paper. Spreading the various parts of the newspaper around, he searched for one section in particular.

"Aah! Here we are!" Willy exclaimed as he pulled out what he was looking for.

"What is it?" asked Charlie.

"This, my dear boy, is the classifieds section. We can look for vases or pots or whatever we need in here!"

The two spent a good half hour scanning the "stuff" section of the classifieds, but ultimately had no luck. No one advertised their pottery making services, and no one was selling any pieces, either.

Willy slumped down in his seat, discouraged. "Now what are we going to do?" he asked.

Charlie thought for a moment, absentmindedly flipping through the pages of the newspaper section. His attention was suddenly caught by an advertisement on the bottom corner of the front page.

"I've got it!"

He read aloud his discovery: "'WANT TO BUY, SELL, OR ADVERTISE? PLACE YOUR AD HERE AND WATCH YOUR STUFF GO! CALL 800-555-3850 TO PLACE YOUR AD, OR MAIL IT TO 'CLASSIFIEDS', PO BOX 35676, WESTMINSTER.'"

Charlie looked up at Willy in excitement. "Willy!" he said, "that's exactly what we'll do!"

Willy looked at him blankly. "What?"

"We'll place an ad in here!" he smiled triumphantly, "we'll advertise our need for someone to make us a new vase!"

A huge grin spread across Willy's face as he heard Charlie's strategy.

"Oh my dear boy!" he exclaimed, "That is exactly what we'll do! We must come up with an ad to put in the paper right away!" he jumped up and crumpled the newspaper into a giant wad. "Now we mustn't dilly, or dally, because we have an enormous amount of things to do before the day is done!"

...

A half hour passed by, and finally Willy and Charlie had a respectable ad ready for the paper.

"Here," Charlie handed the written ad to Willy, "Read it aloud and let's see how it sounds."

"'YOUNG BOY SEEKS NEW VASE

EXPERIENCED AND TALENTED ARTIST NEEDED

TO CRAFT NEW VASE ACCORDING TO SPECIFICATIONS.

MUST BE WILLING TO WORK WITH BOY AND FRIEND.

INTERESTED? MAIL REQUEST TO PO BOX 67899, WESTMINSTER.'"

"It sounds wonderful!" said Willy, "we should get it in the paper as soon as possible!"

ok so, i hope the address on those classifieds ads wasn't too weird or confusing...i just totally made that PO box stuff up. its not a real address. So yeah.

Hope this is good so far!