Chapter 11

Sorry this took so long, Chapter 12 will be up later today. Also, asterisks don't work, so I'm usingone of these.

"Lauren?" the garrulous voice said, echoing up into the rafters where Lauren was lying on the small bed. She sat up, brushing tear tracks from her eyes. "Come down here, girl. I'm too old to be climbing up rickety ladders."

Obeying without thought, Lauren descended to the ground floor of the little house. Her muscles protested being used so soon after their unexpected exercise, but she ignored them. She stood, head down, awaiting the scathing words from Grandpa George that were sure to come. A minute passed in silence before Lauren finally looked up, a bit annoyed that the expected lecture had not materialized. Grandpa George was looking at her with the most peculiar expression on his face, a combination of understanding and pride. "Well?" Lauren asked, sounding very cowed.

"Well what?" George asked, backing up and hopping onto his bed. "I'm not the one who has some explaining to do." He patted the side of the bed next to him.

Blinking slightly, Lauren climbed up and settled in next to him. There was another silence, this one expectant. "I don't know why I did it," she stated quietly.

"That's not the part I'm concerned with," George said, a bit of a smile on his face. "I know why you did it. You're a Bucket, competitiveness is in your blood."

Lauren lowered her eyes again, tracing the pattern on the coverlet with one finger. "Maybe that's it," she said noncommittally, feeling horrible all over again.

"I know you don't like Mr. Wonka," Grandpa George stated incontrovertibly. "That's a natural reaction. When I first met him, I didn't like him either. I thought he was rude, annoying, and a bit light in the loafers, actually."

Interest peaked, Lauren had to ask, "What changed your mind?"

"What makes you think I've changed my mind?" George asked cantankerously. She sent him a look that quite plainly asked who he thought he was fooling. Grumbling a bit, he capitulated. "I saw what he did for Charlie. He made him the happiest little boy in the world. Besides, after awhile you get used to the bluntness and it's kind of refreshing to always be told the absolute truth. That's very rare, you know."

Lauren stared at her grandfather for a long moment, eyes narrowed. Something was slightly off about his reasoning. She thought for a moment what would make her change her mind about someone as insidiously annoying as Willy Wonka. It would have to be something big, for she was a notorious grudge holder. "Grandpa…" she said, unsure exactly how to phrase the accusation.

He glanced at her, taking in the expression. "All right, all right," he said wryly. "There was something else…" He trailed off and when he spoke again, his voice was grave and soft. "Before we came here, Georgina was very different. She didn't know where she was most of the time, didn't know any of us really. It was like I'd lost her but she was still there so I couldn't really mourn her properly," his voice broke, but he cleared his throat and continued. "Then, about a week after we moved in, Wonka came to us with this drink, WonkaVite. He said it would make us feel younger. I didn't want to take it, because why would I want to be younger when my Georgina was gone? He was very persuasive; I don't think I've ever seen him so charismatic as he was that day. He convinced me to give some to her, and bit by bit she's getting better. She hasn't had a bad day in weeks. For something as precious as what he's given me, I can put up with his quirks."

Lauren considered this and had to admit that helping Grandma Georgina went a long way towards redeeming Wonka in her books. She wasn't even really angry with him anymore, if she had ever been. She was angry at herself, because she was the mature one who shouldn't have let such insignificant words and actions upset her. By his very nature, Wonka was childish, not an insurmountable character flaw but one that consistently rubbed Lauren the wrong way. She had no right to put him in such a situation so distasteful to him, especially one that went so completely against his disposition. She wouldn't serve pork to a Jewish man and she wouldn't flirt with a Priest, so why should she put any less value on Mr. Wonka's beliefs? She felt ashamed of herself, never mind that she had been provoked and never mind that he had agreed to dance with her, she shouldn't have done it. Perhaps they had both been wrong but that didn't absolve her. She felt a very strong desire to seek out the man and apologize, but she had no idea where he might have gone.

"I can't believe I let it go this far," she said, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "It's so ridiculous…"

"You're a cynic, a realist," Grandpa George said easily. "You'll always have problems with people like Willy Wonka. They're so different from us; they have so much faith in dreams and fantasy. You just have to accept that part of them, like I accepted that part of Georgina. Even though I don't understand that part of her, I still love it." He smiled then, the first true smile she had ever really seen on his face.

"I hope you don't expect Wonka and I to fall in love," Lauren said, a bit amused at the idea.

"I do not expect anything except the unexpected," Grandpa George replied, sniffing pompously.

Lauren smiled at his antics and flopped down across the foot of the bed. She began relaxing her muscles, trying to alleviate some of the aching. "Well, I'll try not to pick any fights with him. And there will definitely not be any more dancing."

"Why not? You two looked good out there," Grandpa George said honestly. "Right up 'til the end. You're very talented, the both of you." At her disbelieving look he waved a hand at her. "Oh, it was a little surprising, but who doesn't like a good surprise? That was part of the reason I told the others to wait awhile before coming back, so I could talk to you. We're British, and proud of it, but just because we don't dance like that doesn't mean we can't see the beauty in it."

Giving him a faint smile, Lauren replied quietly. "You guys surprise me too."

There was a bit of a pause, which stretched long enough for Lauren to glance curiously at the man who thought he was her grandfather. He had a soft expression on his face, a very unusual occurrence. "You do look like Irene, about the eyes," he said out of the blue. "I didn't say it when I first met you, you being a stranger for all you're family. I don't warm up to people like your grandmother, you know. I don't like to get personal and make everyone uncomfortable." He paused, eyes suspiciously damp, as Lauren's were for an entirely different reason. Her heart sank in her chest as he continued. "I know you're a good girl. You've none of Irene's wildness in you, and that's a good thing. Wildness never brought anything but sadness to our family. You got the best of me and Georgina's families, the Bucket competitiveness and all the sweetness of the Masbeth side." He stood, leaned forward, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Don't ever change." With those somewhat surprising words, he left the little house to search out the rest of his family. Lauren, her heart breaking a little, was left behind to contemplate his words.


Charlie awoke the next morning before his cousin and took a moment to study her. She looked different without her glasses, not better or worse, but different. Truthfully, he was very impressed with her. The few times when Wonka had been angry with him were horrible because it was so hard to meet Wonka's strange, expressive eyes when he was truly upset. That Lauren had managed to do it so many times made her something of his hero. He almost didn't mind that he hadn't managed to satisfy his curiosity regarding this whole 'sex' thing. Besides, if he had never even heard of it before, the information couldn't be all that crucial.

Of course, before he'd come to the factory he'd never heard of snozzwangers either and they were pretty important.

Charlie pulled himself out of bed, grabbed his change of clothes, and headed to the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later he was off to work, making his way quickly to the great glass elevator. After yesterday's incident he wasn't sure exactly what he would find in the inventing room, but since it was pretty normal for him not to know what to expect of Wonka, he wasn't too worried. The elevator gave a low beep and opened, allowing Charlie to step into the cavernous room that housed Wonka's most secret inventions.

"Mr. Wonka?" Charlie asked, peering through the colored smoke and around the machinery. "Are you here?" Instead of the long-legged, purple-clad man he was expecting, an Oompa Loompa appeared. He tugged twice on his jeans and Charlie obediently bent down. A few whispered words in his ear, accented badly but not unintelligibly, and he was headed towards the elevator again. Apparently Mr. Wonka had chosen to deal with yesterday's confusion in a rather mature way.

"I saw them all just staring at us, just like the time my f-father made me be in the talent show that time in third grade. I think I told you about that. Anyway, I had to get out of there. I just ran and ran and ran. I don't really remember anything after that until I woke up this morning in the inventing room." Willy said, twiddling his thumbs on top of his chest.

The Oompa Loompa looked up from his notes and peered over the tops of his glasses. His looks clearly said, "Pull the other one."

"All right," Willy admitted reluctantly. "I do remember, but I don't want to talk about it." Another look from the doctor had Willy squirming a bit. "Ok, fine. I ran to my room and I pulled the covers over my head and I talked to myself for awhile until I fell asleep." He sighed in relief. "Boy, am I glad to get that off my chest." He started to sit up, as though the session were complete.

The Oompa Loompa raised an eyebrow and gave him a stern look.

"Whaaaaat?" Willy asked, laying back and crossing his arm petulantly. "I was just stretching.

There was a moment of stubborn silence.

"I am not talking about my feelings."

Another silence, this time more stubborn and a little accusatory.

"You can't make me."

The doctor made a note on his pad, not looking at his recalcitrant patient.

Willy caved like a marshmallow sunroof. "I just feel so confused," he confessed. "I don't like cous…" He gave up. "I don't like them. They're evil. They hate candy. They tie ribbons around your braces and poke you with sticks and sit on you for an hour while they watch TV." His voice got softer and dreamier as he went on. "They step on your toes and they smile all the time and they press up close to you until you can feel every inch of them against you…" He trailed off, a bemused smile on his face. The doctor sat forward, looking interested. "She always smells like oranges…"

The Oompa Loompa scribbled an observation onto his notebook and then snapped his fingers. Willy looked up and blinked a few times. "What?" The pygmy shook his head. "You think I like her?" he asked accusingly. The Oompa Loompa tilted his head to one side. "I don't like her. I like Charlie. I like Mrs. Bucket. I don't like her."

The Oompa Loompa made a complicated gesture, his first time communicating in more than meaningful glances. Willy watched the gesture then shook his head as though the very notion was ridiculous. "Poppycock. Besides, wasn't that a little redundant?"

There was yet another silence, which is much better at conveying a message than you would think. Wonka understood it well enough.

"I know you think I should talk to her, but the answer is no." He pursed his lips and shook his head emphatically. "No, no, no, no, no."

This time the look he was getting from the Oompa Loompa was smug. It clearly conveyed the message, "You wanna bet?"

Willy lifted his head and glared. "Fine. But I'll do it because I want to, not because you tell me to." The doctor shook his head at his patient's statement and hopped off the chair. "Hey, where are you going?"

The Oompa Loompa turned and tapped his watch, behind him the door opened to admit Charlie. The bewildered boy looked from the psychiatrist to Wonka, who hadn't yet noticed him. "My session isn't over. I still have time left!" He held up his watch to check, noting the places of the hands. In place of numbers, the face had writing: Not enough time, no time, killing time, plenty of time, tea time, half time, time and a half, and timeless were written in bolt lettering. "It says I have plenty of time!"

The miniature doctor continued for the door, giving Charlie a nod a he exited. Wonka stood then, looking a little put out, and glanced at Charlie. "I guess you think I'm crazy now?"

Charlie grinned. "I've always thought you were crazy; I was just being polite and not telling you."

Willy did a double take and squinted down at his heir. "You've been spending too much time around your… Lauren," he said decisively. "It's really quite unattractive." Unrepentant, Charlie shrugged. There wasn't much he could really say to that, and besides, it was probably true.


Alternate phrases I considered here:

caved like a house of cards in a wind tunnel

caved like Denny's in the face of a class-action law suit

caved like a hollow chocolate Easter bunny

caved like a pair of cardboard shoes in a mud puddle

caved like a wet dishrag

caved like a cold chicken pot pie

caved like a tin-foil umbrella

caved like a couple of sand castles in a tsunami

caved like a folding chair

caved like a bad saline job

caved like a something-that-caves-easily

caved like a mud hut in the rainy season

caved like a coal mine propped up with Barbie dolls


Reviewers, like chocolate, should be consumed... and what better to be consumed with than my story?