AN: Yikes, this was a long hiatus . . . But, I've said it once and I'll say it again, it's been a busy year. I started this I'm January and it's almost May? I can't believe everyone has stuck with this story for that long. Incredibly, I still have so much inspiration for this story a year ago from yesterday when I first posted. (Can't believe it's been that long since this whole thing started!) I'm actually here enjoying the 10th Anniversary Blu-Ray of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (also cannot believe it's been that long since I've seen it in the movie theatre!)

Well, thank you again for the continued support of this silly little story of mine and hopefully it won't be much longer until there's a brand-new chapter!

Once, Charlie had been a Boy Scout.

But that only lasted a year or so; his parents couldn't afford the uniforms and the Jamborees and the popcorn selling and all the pricey events the troop did. Even if they believed that the organization would teach him moral character and practical skills. It was a pride thing, not asking for handouts to afford a new official shirt or material to build a car for the derby or juice boxes and cookies for twenty seven ravenous boys when it was Charlie's turn to bring in snacks.

But in that short time that he had donned the uniform of a Scout, he had learned a few lessons. And not just how to find clean water in the wilderness and how to use a compass.

How to be a leader. How to be resourceful.

And he was now in charge of making sure that he and the three others got back to detention, safe and sound. With no yellow detention tickets waiting for them.

No one wanted a repeat of today.

Charlie's voice struggled to be both quiet so Turkentine wouldn't hear four teenagers scamper through the hallway but be loud enough to sound leader-like. "Follow me."

They did. Without question, because he had a plan.

He eventually chose to go back from where they came, towards the history hall. They slowed back when they came to the familiar alcove of the history's trophy case. The library was just down the hall, the back door so close in reach.

"Keep going down the hall and head up towards the back door. I'm going to Turkentine's office to distract him for a bit."

"Distract him?" Violet repeated.

"Mike still needs to be there to convince him we didn't leave the library," Charlie told them.

"Let Mike get another detention; he's already doing next Saturday and it's not like he cares." Violet scoffed, rolling her eyes.

Augustus didn't say anything about Charlie's sacrifice to save Mike, but Veruca said,

"Why on earth would you want to save him?" She said this plainly, rationally but Charlie knew she would ask, Why would you save his doomed behind? When he was rude to everyone? When he got you in this mess so he could get some booze? When he's nearly gotten you in trouble again twice in five hours?

Because Charlie pitied Mike.

That was the truth and the reason. He couldn't bare to simply let this be, because he deserved it. Charlie was no revengeful. When everyone was going to be saved, everyone was going to be saved.

"Just act normal and hopefully Mike will join you before I come back in," Charlie told them.

Then they parted ways.

Charlie walked down the hallway and rounded the corner. And there Mr. Turkentine was. Shuffling some papers in hand before his "office."

"Charlie Bucket!" he exclaimed. Surprised, but bright. Like he was happy to see him, despite the fact that he was deliberately disobeying the rule of no leaving the library. Charlie initially thought that Mr. Turkentine would put his yellow detention slip pad out of the air and grant him another Saturday of soul-searching and essay-writing and vodka-fetching.

But he didn't.

Instead, he asked quite plainly, "What are you doing here?" As if this wasn't Saturday detention. As if Charlie wasn't a convict in said detention. As if this was instead a normal Tuesday morning and they were just passing each other in the hall. Like everything was okay.

It was then that Charlie was forced (again) to abandon his honesty policy.

First the screw, then the vodka.

"The. . . lavatory." Yeah. Believable. That was good enough . . . except for the water bottle.

"Oh, and uh, to fill my water bottle."

"It looks pretty empty, Charlie," Mr. Turkentine noticed the swishing empty space.

"I was pretty thirsty . . ." Charlie laughed weakly, all while praying that Mr. Turkentine would buy this. Wouldn't smell the booze. I don't want to get into trouble.

Might as well apologize now. "I'm sorry, but it was an emergency and . . . "

"I understand, Charlie," Mr. Turkentine said, holding his hands up. "You did what you needed to do. Anyway, how is the essay coming along?"

"The . . . essay?" Charlie just broke one of the principal rules of Saturday detention and all the teacher could think about was if he got his assignment done. "It's going alright. I have a good two pages done . . . "

And that was the truth. He had actually managed to write a good deal, even with the many distractions. But. . . he wasn't sure if was good enough, what Mr. Turkentine wanted. The obvious choice was to write about his home life and how that impacted his character. But he was embarrassed to write about all of that. So he wrote about Wonka's factory. How it inspired his imagination. How it inspired him to invent and craft and think outside the box.

He thought Mr. Turkentine would just view it as adequate. It wasn't the life-changing, soul-searching quest he might have wanted or expected from Charlie, but it was a good-ish essay nonetheless.

"Good. Excellent," Mr. Turkentine nodded his head. "I look forward to reading it. I remember how well-written your lab reports were back in the seventh grade, I can only assume that your essays are even more well-crafted." He looked side to side then craned his neck closer to Charlie's level. "And, between you and me, I think that your essay might be the only one worth reading today. . ."

"How come?" Charlie asked, puzzled.

Mr. Turkentine "Have you seen some of those kids in there with you? Headaches, that's what they are."

"Headaches?"

"Everyone of them. They're all rotten. Augustus can't seem to keep anything clean. He's in one of my periods for chemistry and the boy never talks, but believes he has the liberty to eat a Wonka bar during a quiz. Veruca interrupted my class once to hand out pins to get everyone to vote her the Homecoming Queen and when I complained about it, she got her father to calm the whole mess down. Didn't matter in the slightest because she didn't win, now did she? And we certainly heard about that for weeks . . . "

"Right," Charlie said quietly.

Was it really Mr. Turkentine's right to talk about the others like this? So rudely? So cruelly? Didn't that make him a hypocrite? Telling them to find their souls when he already believed he knew who exactly all five of the students were?

He didn't know these kids.

Not Augustus. Not Veruca. Not Violet. And certainly not Mike.

Maybe not even Charlie.

But he just nodded along.

His glance shifted away from Turkentine for just a brief second and -

"And Violet!"

There she was. Behind him. Like he had called her name, even. And she had Veruca and Augustus trailing behind her, following the leader.

Charlie tried to stifle a gasp. His hand clenched around the bottle of vodka.

"She's here for assaulting a girl in gym class, did you know that? Poor Cindy Jacobs, girl never seems to catch a break . . . Violet would do anything to win."

Violet was currently leading the group on their tiptoes down the hall behind Mr. Turkentine's very back. The three non-ventilation-crawling members of the detention group were right. behind. Mr. Turkentine.

"Of course the apple doesn't rot far from the tree," Mr. Turkentine continued. "When she was in my class years ago, she got less than a perfect grade in my class during a project. And then, not a day later, I got the most scathing email from her mother. Infuriated, she was. . . Violet spent the next few weeks begging for bonus. . ."

Slowly, ever so slowly, they slunk to the library door. Stealthily she peeled it open just wide enough and in crawled Veruca, Augustus ( who had to suck in his stomach to squeeze through the smallish Violet-sized gap), and finally, Violet. She pulled the door behind her gently, and the only sound heard was the soft click of the door as it closed.

Safe. And. Sound.

"And that Michael! Don't get me started about him. We could talk all day about what he did to deserve detention, but we hardly have the time for that. But, you Charlie! You're different than all of them."

Charlie just stood there, with his vodka-bottle and a small nod of the head.

He understood but . . . were the four others really so bad? Sure, they had character flaws and made wrong decisions that lead them here. But Turkentine didn't know what had shaped them, what had stamped the label on them. He hadn't been in detention with them for the past five hours. He hadn't heard the conversations, the fragments of back stories that helped piece together a larger puzzle.

Charlie thought of Violet's mother with her drive to push her daughter to the winner's podium. Of Mike's mother and how she had more interest in sherry and sleeping pills than her son sometimes.

And he was pretty sure that Veruca and Augustus's mothers and fathers had a role to play on how they turned out.

He couldn't judge them by what it said on their yellow detention ticket.

"Which, by the way, is why I don't mind the bathroom trip. But, don't do it again, or everyone else is going to get the same idea that they can just waltz about the school. Shall we move on then?"

Charlie followed Mr, Turkentine back into the library where they found Violet writing her essay, Veruca reapplying her blush, Augustus finishing up the bag of chips, and (incredibly) Mike drumming on the table with two pencils (one of them Charlie's).

Mr. Turkentine cleared his throat loudly, calling all four other detention-servers to semi-attention. "How are the papers coming along?"

Mumbles of annoyance followed.

Charlie went back to his seat next to Violet. He sat the bottle on the desk.

"That doesn't sound like much progress to me," Mr. Turkentine said, then looked to the clock. "You all have another . . . four hours to complete your essay."

"Well, I'd had better hurry up then, it's just around the corner," Mike snarled.

Mr. Turkentine looked down at him, too tired perhaps in his post-lunch state to just told them, "Get back to work."

Mike mock saluted him, but his hand snapped back into an obscene gesture.

But Mr. Turkentine had already turned and left.

When the door closed, the four others snapped back to right where they had left off.

"Well, we're alive," Charlie sighed laughed weakly because honestly he hadn't been more nervous in a long time.

"Yeah. Barely," Violet scoffed. "The back door was locked and we couldn't get in.

"That janitor must have locked it before he left," Veruca said,rolling her eyes as she closed her compact and stuffed it back into her makeup case.

"I don't think he appreciated what Mike said about him earlier," Augustus said, looking sheepishly towards Mike.

"The guy shouldn't be so fucking defensive about his career wiping down chalkboards and cleaning puke in the nurse's office," Mike said and hopped off the desk he was sitting on top of.

He walked straight to Charlie. His palm out-stretched, he made a grabbing motion. "Chuck. Booze."

Whatever happened to 'please'? Or complete sentences?

Charlie handed him the cursed blue water bottle, glad to have gotten it out of his possession.

"I'm glad you found your way alright," Charlie said as soon as Mike snatched it from him. He was actually curious about Mike's venture through the ventilation, and if he had made it back before the rest of the group.

"I've done it before; I knew what I was going," Mike told him bluntly, rudely. But then he stopped. Paused. Before adding, "Thanks for getting the rest of these losers back here."

And for that brief compliment, Charlie could start to see through Mike's armor.

It was a small success.