Disclaimer: Now for Part 2 of Prototype 1! Aw yeah, I am completely in the zone, listening to Black Kids "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance" with the TV on simultaneously playing VH1. I am proud to say that I own Sonny Salt, so ©. I do not however own Willy Wonka or any other original characters, that belongs to Roald Dahl.
BTW: I'm really trying to stay with the original dialogue but while my brain says one thing my fingers do another so please, please excuse any chronology errors.
Chapter Two
When Sonny decided to grace the young man at the Sweet Haven candy store with her presence, it'd been quite early. Really early, actually, as in, say, 6 AM or so. Sonny's Mother only occasionally got up at about 7, if only to rummage through the mail and start with a morning latte mixed in with a little wine. Mother also insisted that girls like her and Veruca didn't have to get up early; they were people who could do that for them
Sonny didn't regret her decision, though. For one thing, the little town that Sweet Haven in was far more peaceful during sunrise than good ol' Buckinghamshire; it was nice to see the physical darkness just dissolve away for a while so that light could come back and instead give a new day. As lovely as that sounded, that wasn't the only reason as to why she arrived so early.
The Golden Ticket Contest was another; everybody was scrambling. Even Veruca - especially Veruca, if there was a special prize, she made it her business to see to it that no other person had it except her. Since the day the Contest was announced, home was becoming more and more chaotic, she heard Veruca pacing around her room, her parents chattering, and the hired help clucking their tongues. Every noise in the palatial abode had just intensified, like one enormous headache.
Which was why, at about 12 at night, she was lying in her warm bed, staring at the ceiling, fidgeting every few seconds. Something was unnerving her - perhaps the bed was too warm, perhaps the room was too cold, perhaps every noise in the house is as headachy as long nails on a chalkboard. All Sonny knew was that she wanted to see Sweet Haven. Do you know how when one gets interested in something, that they just cannot leave it alone, that that it is all on their minds? That was Sonny thought. Sanctuary was the word ringing out in her head as she caught the next bus to Sweet Haven only hours later.
Now the trip to Sweet Haven felt like it'd only been for a quick second, and in a way, it had - the chaos of the Contest had people showing up only an hour after the young man decided to let Sonny in and watch Good Morning London! with him. Only over the world, people were grabbing at Wonka bars straight-away, as the reporters managed to get correspondence from other equally-hectic places such as Tokyo, Japan and New York, New York. The two of them just looked at the TV screen, Sonny in a chair and the young man standing by the counter, both speechless.
He'd gulped, "I can already feel a darkness rolling in, it's already happening; it won't be long before people start to scream, stumble, and fall."
"Odd, I never accepted the world to succumb to this type of demise, one based on chocolate. Honestly, I just always thought someone would, I don't know, press a button they weren't supposed to and suddenly, the world would end." The button would probably be an inconveniently-placed red one, marked under a sign that says, SELF-DESTRUCT BUTTON, MUSN'T PRESS AT ALL COUNTS.
"If it'd end that way, I think I'd just call my mum, tell her I love her, put the phone down and just relax at my desk. After all, havoc would be breaking loose, but why worry? I'd just unwind there quietly and hum 'Doctor Demento' to an excitingly apocalyptic tone, y'know?"
Sonny had smiled, she suppose that in comparison, she wouldn't take this apocalyptic way the world was acting in strife, in fact, maybe she, too, would just sit there quietly relaxing, possibly munch on a Wonka bar and just think, I really ought to be panicking but then again, there will other places or worlds to live on; it's almost as if Lady Earth is on her monthly, just having an attack, is all. No need to break this calmative…
"I'll tell you one thing, though," Sonny had opened her eyes to the young man's voice, still intently watching as cameramen on TV were ran down by people trying get to stores that sold candy, "The first one who finds that Golden Ticket is going to be a porker. Mark my words, they will be fat, fat, fat."
Now Sonny sat in front of her own TV set, this time in her bedroom, sitting Indian-style on her fluffy bed. Right now was a news bulletin from a sister news-team from Dusseldorf, Germany as a more than hefty (wimpy, wimpy, wimpy, wimpy) but rather overweight boy with a chocolate-covered face appeared on the screen, an enthusiastic-though-just-as-portly woman stood beside her son holding his fat wrist to flash the ticket to all the cameras.
Speaking of the ticket, a corner of it was bitten off.
Well, done, my clairvoyant friend.
The boy's German accent was thick but he was speaking English. "I took a bite out of the chocolate. Or coconut. Or peanut butter. Or caramel. Or nougat. Or sprinkles. I look at it and I find the golden ticket!" He exclaimed.
The mother mentioned something of her child, Augustus Gloop Sonny thought that it was, that with him eating some much candy that it didn't seem unlikely for him not to find the ticket as she flashed a smile towards her also-portly husband behind her and Augustus Gloop, as they appeared in a butcher shop while he seemed to be turning animal intestines.
"Augustus!" Asked a reporter. "How did you celebrate?"
"I eat more candy!" How long has been holding that chocolatier bar?
It was the middle of the evening now, which meant that perhaps her Father would be pulling another all-nighter; he had been at work since Veruca wanted a Golden Ticket. It'd been an odd yet predictable situation; odd because Veruca had been almost meticulous in waiting for her chance to ask (look up: demand) a Ticket. Predictable because as always, she'd told her Father that she wanted it right after school, same as she always does with everything she demanded. It became a daily routine, Father waiting in middle of the spacious sitting area expectantly, glancing at the window to see Veruca's limo pull up and watch her stomp her way up to him, her desire having been bottled up after a long day at school. Mother just rolled her eyes with a slightly nonchalant nod as she held an elegant glass between her fingers, something that Sonny didn't like as she'd nearly walked in on the conversation - if you could call it that. Jeez, Mother, at least try and take a stand. But she didn't, she remained seated at her miniature bar and ignored her husband's almost pleading glance for her to step in, instead leaving him to his work.
That is, if you could call work having all your workers - female workers - stop shelling nuts to open candy bars in search of a ticket that millions of other children in the world though they deserved, at least the nice ones did, at least - the ones who barely got any at all, much less a chocolate bar.
Not a snob like Veru, that's for sure. Sonny smiled broadly at the nickname as she turned down the TV volume.
She brushed a large chunk of her hair over her shoulder, leaning back into her expensive feathered pillows, not wanting to hear Veruca's demanding any longer. The search had been going on three days, and Sonny, for some reason, hadn't lost hope that Veruca might just end up getting what she wanted.
Her temples ached when she heard shouting, some of the lines muffled but what she could make out was, "I want the ticket! I thm-thm-thm won't go to school or thm-thm-thm or thm-thm-thm ever!" She fingered the hem of the D&G purse that laid fishtailed from her on the purple fluff of a bed, the tip of fingers rubbing circles onto the gems on the platinum prong that allowed the purse to open and close.
For God's sake, why am I hesitating? I mean, it is my chocolate bar, I bought it with my own money and my parents know that I'm not obligated to just cater to the madness that is Veru's greediness. It's not as if she'll come stomping around at the sound of a wrapper being torn. As far as Sonny was concerned, when he little sister was in a tantrum, she was in her own world when things would always turn out the way she wanted them to and the look-alikes she called Mother and Father were mindless lumps of mush that bent to their youngest child's will when she said "Jump" they would reply, "How high?"
That's right, Sonny encouraged her trembling as she pulled the bar out of her purse and started at the tot of the bar. It wasn't as if the ticket really mattered, because she would still have the candy, and that was enough to fill with sweet dreams. Her eyes ran across the words of the bar, WONKA'S WHIPPLE-SCRUMPTIOUS FUDGEMALLOW DELIGHT, it said on the wrapper.
So what if there were only three tickets left? It wasn't as if she would be lucky enough to find it, she was blessed with such a family that can afford the necessities most family can't, but to be lucky twice in a row - she shook the thought away, telling herself that the ticket didn't matter, how matter how many times her heart kept saying something else.
When Sonny couldn't bare the suspense any longer, with heavy intensity in her fingers, she torn the wrapper straight down…and look down at her lap when all she was the back of a crème-colored chocolate bar. No Golden Ticket anywhere.
She looked to glance at the TV, that repulsive boy who only turned to be nine-years-old was still on the screen, his two chins that jiggled making her uncomfortable.
She brought the bar up to her lips and sighed, taking a bite of it from the corner, might as well make it last, she ate slowly.
Licking her lips, relishing it was all she felt she could do to get that image of the porky one named Augustus Gloop, still smiling and stuffing his fast on screen as Sonny took a fearless bite. She felt a spurge of envy - not about the ticket, believe her, it was far from it.
He had bigger breasts than her, and that just didn't seem right, she told herself breaking the chocolate into bars and stuffing two into her mouth at the same time.
It isn't fair, she kept telling herself lowering her to glance at her chest. It just wasn't, she felt moisture at the corners of her eyes. She didn't deserve to cry about this, when there were millions of others who deserved a chest like that any day. She couldn't just sit in bed and feel sorry for herself, could she? She couldn't help but try to reassure herself - people earned what they deserved…didn't they?
. . .
Sonny woke up to an irksome ringing nose in the center of her ear, followed by sounds that sounded like someone was switching the lights in her room on and off rapidly, as she tossed her head from side to side on the suddenly lumpy pillow.
She looked around, her eyes almost popping out of their sockets, though they seemed far too beady to do so.
Her hair was sprawled all over her pillow, she stared at the diamond-speckled ceiling she had known for twenty-two years. She blinked, not daring to take a side glance she could tell that the next day had already started, but the light seemed to dim. She struggled to sit up, not really wanting to, she just turned her head and saw the midday sun hid behind some puffy clouds.
That light switching was still in her ear, though. And her window was closed so what - ?
She stopped moving, not letting the fluffy bed make a squeak as she listened intently with a frozen face. She heard people's voices. People telling Veruca to look over here. Telling her to look over there. Telling her to spell her name. Telling her to flash her prize (that sounded oh-so-wrong on many levels)…
Her green comforter thrown over her shoulders, she crawled out of bed and on her knees, crept the wide door open slowly. Flashing lights flashed around every corner of the spacious house, some occasional towards her eyes, causing her to turn head away, her eyes were sensitive. She hugged the comforter tighter around her shoulders, that feeling of envy returning as an smile was on Veruca's pink lips as she held up the Ticket nice and high to the cameras.
Her stomach churned miserably for a Wonka bar, but patting her stomach, she listened:
Sonny's Father was eagerly explaining himself and the Ticket to the reporters: "You see," he was saying. "As soon as my little girl told me that she simply had to have a Golden Ticket, I went out and started buying up all the Wonka bars I could lay my hands on. Thousands of them… Hundreds of thousands! Then I had them loaded into trucks and sent to my own factory. I'm in the peanut business, you see, and I've got about a hundred women working for me over at my place, shelling peanuts for roasting and salting. That's what they do all day long, those women, they sit there shelling peanuts. So I say to them, 'Ok, girls. From now on you can stop shelling peanuts and start shelling the wrappers off these chocolate bars instead!' And they did. I had every worker in the place yanking the paper off those bars of chocolate full speed ahead from morning till night. But three days went by and still we had no luck. Oh, it was terrible! My little Veruca got more and more upset each day and every time I went home she would scream at me, 'Where's my Golden Ticket! I want my Golden Ticket!' And she would lie for hours on the floor, kicking and yelling in the most disturbing way. Well, I just hated to see my little girl feeling unhappy like that, so I vowed I would keep up the search until I'd got her what she wanted. Then suddenly… today one of my women workers found one! So I rushed home and gave it to my darling Veruca and now she's all smiles; we have a happy home once again."
Somehow Sonny pictured differently from the explanation - she understand her little sister wanting the ticket, but the fact that one of the women workers found the ticket and then so willing gave to Mr. Salt didn't make much sense. No one in there right mind would do that, let alone the superior you happened to loath very much - oh, yes, the gossip in the peanut factory got around very quickly - no, he must have changed the story, Sonny half-expected that.
The part about the kicking and yelling was the truth. Veruca could be the girl from The Exorcist when she wanted something so badly that she wasn't getting it right away, saying words backwards and puking all over the house while making furniture levitate. That, Sonny could understand.
But she couldn't put her finger on it, what her Father had changed - ah, yes, the fact that his youngest daughter's such a spoilt little toad and that - Sonny's hand quickly went to her mouth even though she hadn't said anything, afraid she might.
She didn't want to think that way, not at least about Veruca, the little sister she used to love to watch in her crib during the few hours that her colick hadn't kicked in and she almost looked like a normal little baby. No, she held her breath as her stomach churned again in silence, her stomach could keep its opinions to itself, her gut was telling her.
Admittedly, her gut was right: what kind of children asked their parents for another pony after finally getting what they wanted in the first place? What kind, Sonny asked herself, what?
Crawling back towards her bed, she laid there as a lump on the bed. The fact that her sister of people won was just - rotten. Bloody, bloody rotten! She shouted in her head.
She cheated! She thought nothing good ever came from spoiling your child, leading them to believe that they were special than most children - yeah, Sonny scoffed to herself, special ed!
She clutched her comforter tighter, digging her face into her pillow. If nothing good ever came from spoiling a child, then why had Veruca just gotten the opportunity of a lifetime and she didn't even have to eat a single candy bar, let alone even know what it tasted like…
. . .
End Disclaimer: Ohh, and the Prototype Saga continues!