The room they entered was huge. The walls were painted a pale blue with realistic looking white clouds. In the center of the room was a large machine with several buttons with a faucet under each button. Bubbles came floating out of the top of the machine and drifted all around the room.
"This is the room for one of my favorite inventions," Willy told them, "Fizzy Lifting Drinks."
"What do they do?" Charlie asked.
"They lift you up, of course," Willy said. "The bubbles are made of a special kind of gas. They lift you all the way up to the ceiling and there you stay."
"What about if you drink it outside?" Charlie then asked.
"Oh, don't do that!" Willy exclaimed. "I had an oompa-loompa do that once. He just kept going up into the sky. I never saw him again. He's probably on the moon by now."
"He should have burped," Andreas said. Charlie shot him a puzzled glance.
"That's how you get down again," Willy explained, catching Charlie's expression. "Burp the biggest, loudest one you can to get rid of the gas and down you go!"
"Could we have some, Willy?" Andreas asked.
"Of course," Willy said. He pushed on a part of the wall and it opened to reveal a storage place with cups. He pulled out three and handed two to Charlie and Andreas. "Now go on," he said, "Choose your flavors." With that, he went over to the machine in the middle of the room.
Andreas had, of course, been in this room before a few times. He had decided one time that he would simply go around the machine and sample each flavor so that by the time he was Willy's age (if he was still at the factory at that point, of course) he could say he'd tasted them all. He walked along the side of the machine until he came to the next untried one, peach, and filled his glass. Charlie, he noticed, had chosen chocolate. Willy was doing a mixture of several different flavors: strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, marshmallow, pineapple, and banana. After each one had gotten his drink, they stood together at one end of the machine and drank.
Charlie was the first to start floating, followed quickly by Willy and Andreas. When Charlie realized it, even though he knew it was going to happen, it surprised him enough that he dropped his glass.
Tunk! Tunk tunk tunk-a-tunk tunk.
The glass bounced off the floor and bounced a few more times before coming to a stop against a wall. Willy, with a mischievous grin, then dropped his glass.
Tunk! Tunk tunk tunk-a-tunk tunk tunk. Clunk.
His glass bounced across the floor as well before knocking into Charlie's glass and rolling away. Andreas chuckled. "Go on, Andreas!" Willy urged, "Drop yours, too!" Andreas shrugged and dropped it.
Tunk! Tunk tunk tunk-a-tunk. Clunk. Tunk tunk tunk. Clunk!
Andreas' cup bounced across the floor, clunked into Willy's, bounced a few more times, and then clunked with Charlie's before rolling away in a different direction.
The three of them laughed. "What was that all about, Willy?" Andreas asked once he'd gotten control of himself again.
"I once heard about this thing called a cup drop," Willy explained. "People would push their cups off the table in order to hear them bounce across the floor. I always wanted to try it."
"I bet nobody ever did one while floating in midair," Charlie said with a smile.
"Of course not," Willy said. "How could they?" The three of them laughed as they floated around the room.
"Every time I come in here I think this is what being a balloon must feel like," Andreas said to Charlie.
"I'd think so, too," Charlie said. "It sure is fun."
"I know," Andreas said. He suddenly burped. "Whoops!" he said, starting to sink, "Excuse me!"
Then Charlie burped and started to sink. "Excuse me, too," he said.
Lastly, Willy gave a really loud burp and started to sink. "Excuse you!" Andreas said, looking up with a chuckle.
Once they were back on the ground, Charlie went over to pick up his fallen cup. "You don't have to pick that up, Charlie," Willy said, "The oompa-loompas will take care of it." With that, he turned around and walked out of the room.
"Come on, Charlie," Andreas said, hurrying to catch up with his foster father.
Charlie, who had already picked up his cup, quickly set it on a nearby shelf and dashed after them.
A/N: The cup drop is actually a trend from the cafeteria at my alma mater. I always thought it was funny, but I never joined in.
