See? Nice and prompt. If long enough to strangle a rhinoceros. Let me know what you think!

"Aerial forces!" Courtney shouted. "Assemble." A flock of beetles, plus one bare skeleton of the prototype of a chocolate bird, landed on her extended arm. She ducked behind the case of life-size candy canes. "All right, troops," she murmured, wedging herself between the wall with its built-in shelves and the crate of J-shaped sugar. "You and Joyce's infantry will split into legions of ten each. Beetles, we already know your specialty, so just find the most ticklish spots of the nemeses and do your worst. Bird, hover somewhere towards the middle of the room, and be sure not to get hit. You'll inform us from that view if They make any hostile maneuvers. Beetles, go listen to what Joyce has to tell you. Bird, to your post. Did you understand any of that?" The bugs scurried off, and the miniscule prototype pecked her finger then zoomed to a perch on top of the jellybean cylinder.

Katherine, the espionage coordinator, had shoved over all the contents of one of the cupboards beneath the built-in shelves and was now curled up in the darkness, trying to decipher the clack of beetles. They had had to develop a nonverbal form of communication, she not being quite as adept as Willy Wonka when it came to insect linguistics.

"Sh! Tick quieter. No one is supposed to know we're here," Katherine whispered to one of them. It obligingly accommodated. "Wait—was that two short ones, or one long one?" The bug shuffled its wings in frustration and crawled over to the appropriate mark on the Morse code key on Katherine's knees. Joyce suddenly popped her head into the dim interior.

"What's the word? We've had a change of plans. It'll be six beetles—" Joyce shuddered, and glanced apologetically at the bug on Katherine's leg. "To three worms, per group. Two beetles for every worm, to carry them to the location."

"And they'll be doing the…" the redhead flicked a few fingers.

"Yep. And Doris set up the marshmallow catapults, one for each of us, plus a few jellybean slingshots, though Robin took care of the actual building and designing."

"Oh good. Um—Here's what I've found out so far: It's Ally, Fred, Joe, Josie, and Mr. Wonka against us, which we already knew." Joyce nodded. Katherine kept talking quietly. "I caught something about crossbows, vinegar—oops, sorry, make that… New Hampshire? So says the beetle, anyway. Then something about something on top of the jellybean container—"

"Oh no. Courtney just sent the Bird up there." Both girls glanced up and over, to spot the penny-sized avian skeleton flapping around inside a toothpick-and-gumdrop cage. Joyce shook her head and motioned for Katherine to continue.

"Right. They built a wall so we can't go past the middle of the room or through either of the doors, outside or to the back room."

"A wall? What wall?" Joyce asked. Katherine looked slightly sheepish.

"An invisible barrier of scent." Joyce snorted, but had the good grace to make an attempt at concealing it with a sneeze. The noise came out sort of funny.

"Really? That sounds… Interesting. Hang on, I'm going to go check that one out." She hopped up from her crouching position and ran towards the fourth, and middle, twirly stool. She took a whiff of the air, then turned back to Katherine's hiding place with a shrug. However, when she tried to take another few steps forward, she, quite simply, couldn't. Ally, who was sitting on the fifth stool and weaving strands of licorice together, smirked and giggled with Fred, who was perched on the sixth engaged in the same activity. Joyce climbed carefully onto the counter and jumped behind to go that way. She actually didn't make it to the jumping part. Again, that mysterious something halted her in her tracks at the edge, and again Fred and Ally chuckled. Joyce glared good-naturedly at them and returned to Katherine. Speaking, as she had before, facing away from the cabinet and to all appearances as if she were having nothing but a pleasant conversation with herself, Joyce began.

"Okay. Wherever you got that information from, it's a reliable source. Boy, though, it's weird! You walk up to it, don't smell anything, try to walk past and bam! Drowning in the smell of cotton candy. Crazy." Katherine nodded in her dark sanctuary.

"Like the beetle said. Now, there are a few more things…"

"Fair one! Hast thou preparedst the nets?" Willy called to Ally.

"Yes, and I got Fred to help me out," she replied, skipping over with her friend to show Willy. Wonka had gotten himself into the narrow gap between lid of jellybean canister and ceiling, with most of him curled up on top and one arm hanging down. The birdcage dangled from that hand, though he almost dropped it a few times when the bird pecked his fingers.

"Marvelous!" he said, and fumbled with the cage as the skeleton bit him again. "Catch, would ya?" He released it, and the flimsy enclosure landed with a bounce on Ally's woven net. She carried it to the counter and sprinted back again.

"Are these all right?" Fred asked, holding up his carefully intertwined licorice strings. Ally lifted hers as well, both of them looking up at him eagerly for acceptance.

"Terribly well done! Now, you know what to do with them?"

"No," Ally admitted. Wonka wriggled so his face, cheerful while perfectly serious, turned towards them like a sunflower.

"You don't? Are you sure? Well then. They'll go all the way from that side of the room to the other side, and we can use them like enorgantic, ginormous catalines!"

"Wasn't Cataline a Roman?" Fred whispered to Ally.

"How should I know? I didn't actually pay attention to that part of history last year," she whispered back.

"That was Catiline. Roman politician and senator, right? So says the red goo, at least. And as we all know, the red goo knows all and tells all," Willy said solemnly. "Meantime, catalines! Catapult trampolines! Yeah! I'll connect 'em up here in the middle, and you guys do the sides. Get it?"

"Yes," Ally lied.

"No," Willy said, twisting so both index fingers were pointing upwards. "Got it."

"What?"

"Got it. Get it, got it, good. Get it?"

"Yes," Ally lied.

"Got it," Willy tried again. "Get it, got it, good. I say get it, you say got it, I say good. Get it?"

"Yes," Ally lied again.

"Got it," Willy replied patiently.

"I don't get it," Ally said.

"Get it, got it—oh, forget it," Willy sighed. He shifted again. The lid may have been fairly large, about the size of the rim of a sombrero, but still, it did have only one foot between it and the ceiling. Fred found it simply astounding that Willy could have gotten up there, let alone twist around in the strange contortions he did. He shook his head and raised his hand.

"Mr. Wonka?"

"Who's there? Wait, that's not right. Yeah?"

"How do we attach these to the wall?" Wonka folded his arms and looked down at him with his sharp amethyst eyes.

"You really don't know? Are you sure?" he asked suspiciously, cocking his head like the bird in the cage on Ally's net. Both kids innocently nodded. Wonka fluidly flipped onto his back and peered at them upside down. "Oh. I see. It's all quite simple, I suppose. All you got to do is lick it and stick it." He grinned and laughed, tugging his hands free to clap, in a fluttery sort of way. "Rhymes! Anyway, try to make them go from ceiling to floor, then over here. Get it?"

"Got it," Ally said with satisfaction.

"Hallelujah!" Wonka shouted.

"Good, actually," muttered Fred.

"What are they doing?" Doris mumbled to Robin. He shrugged, attaching the stretchy part to the ninth and final slingshot. He looked up at the accountant.

"Have they done it yet?" he asked.

"No, they're still putting it off. You'd think it wouldn't be that hard just to switch sides and abandon your commander in the middle of a war," Doris replied with a stifled smile. The two sat on the left side of the front door, once in a while catching whiffs of cotton candy from the wall on the right. Courtney was making precise gestures directed to the formations of insects, though even they couldn't manage to cross the aroma barricade. She caught sight of Robin and Doris whispering and paused for a moment to look questioningly at them. Doris winked. Courtney, with an expression of understanding, relayed the message to Joyce and Katherine, also by way of wink. Joyce, in turn, fluttered an eyelash at the dark cupboard then caught Ally's attention and did the same. She nodded, licked, and stuck, before doing some complex eye-narrowing at Fred. He stared at the series of blinks (none quite managing to have one eyelid open, the other shut at the same time). Slowly he comprehended, and passed the wink on to his friend's parents, who were crystallizing gumdrops for use as projectiles. They grinned at each other and halted briefly to glance up to Mr. Wonka, who was still up on his perch, fiddling with something.

As one, everyone but Willy shrieked a battle cry. Ally let loose the bird, which then released the scent wall. The battalions of worms and beetles struggled to rise to the top of the jellybean container, while Robin and Doris distributed slingshots. Over in her dark hidey-hole, Katherine remained with a single beetle, cautiously prepared in case the battle lasted longer than expected and the need for spies returned. Everyone else took up posts around Mr. Wonka's pedestal, Ally and Fred on the counter, Doris, Courtney, and Joyce close-range, and Robin on the outskirts next to the display window. A quick look behind him left him blushing and moving out of line-of-sight of the dozens of spectators staring in intently.

"Ally and Fred! Licorice nets. Trap Mr. Wonka once the beetles and worms get him down. Joe and Josie, strawberry syrup. Should be obvious. Robin, Joyce, and Doris, help where needed. That's the insect legions at the moment. Move!" Courtney shouted. Wonka looked upside-down at them all while she spoke, then curled up so none of him would slip over the edge. To the gratitude of the beetles (which were failing in their efforts to make it to Willy with their worm cargo), Robin, Joyce, and Doris came to their aid and lifted them as high as possible, to let them fly only the remaining foot or so without assistance. They buzzed in anticipation, getting closer and closer to Wonka. All at once, he disappeared.

The original employees had almost been expecting something like that. Granted, they were astonished: there was no sign of him, not a ceiling tile sliding into place, nor a rattle of tumbling jellybeans, not even his lingering scent of (that day) lavender (no doubt due to Francesca the gumdrop). Still, though, one doesn't spend a month working with Willy Wonka and not discover a few of his quirks. In fact, it barely requires a glimpse of the shop to find out some things. Even so, there were a great many unsolved (and possibly unsolvable) mysteries. First and foremost being where he'd spirited himself away to.

"Yes… All right," Courtney said slowly after a while. "Plan B. Find Mr. Wonka, then cover him in strawberry syrup."

"Why are we doing this again?" Fred asked his friend as Courtney started issuing orders.

"For the fun of it, I guess," Ally replied. "You must admit, Mr. Wonka dripping with red goo… And besides, as he's already shown, if we're going to have a civil war in the candy shop, Willy's more than a match for all of us." Fred shrugged in agreement.

The search began. According to the peppermint clock, there would be five minutes to find and attack Mr. Wonka before doors opened to the public.

"Check the cupboards," Joe suggested. Ally and Fred went to work at once, flinging open the doors to find all manner of oddities, including Katherine.

"What are you doing in there?" Ally asked, reaching out a hand to help her out. Katherine declined the offer to get out, instead snuggling closer to the far corner with her beetle informant. The rest of its kind, plus the worms and Birdy, were combining their futile efforts to try to open the last cabinet.

"Shall I send out the spies to find him?" Katherine offered mildly. Joyce, climbing on top of the counter to check the upper shelves, shook her head violently.

"No! I mean, let's keep the bugs as much out of the… dangerous action as possible, all right?" Katherine chuckled softly in her cubbyhole, and the beetle clicked.

"Going off and getting lost on us. Silly boy," Josephine grumbled, poking around the window display with her husband. "Where is his mother, to keep him out of trouble?"

"I believe she's upstairs, Josie" Joe said, overturning a few chocolate bars. No luck there. "A while ago, Mr. Wonka mentioned something about there being a lot of important business transactions, so she wasn't to be disturbed." Josephine nodded, preoccupied with searching for hidden panels Willy might have slipped into. Across the room, Robin examined the counter and nearby areas with Doris while Courtney, with Joyce and Katherine (whom they'd managed to extract from her cozy burrow), started an expedition into the back room.

At once, Katherine headed for the cotton patch. It seemed undamaged, for which she was very relieved, but it certainly would've made things simpler to find Mr. Wonka if he were sitting there playing with the plants. Just in case, Katherine set to work aerating the soil in search of Wonka-tunnels.

Joyce and Courtney crawled around on the floor like ants, though Joyce wouldn't have been pleased with the simile. They were mainly focused underneath things, since one never knew where Willy could squeeze. Courtney in the lead, the girls crept underneath the long white table running down the side of the room parallel to Cherry Street (which was, of course, just outside the window and teeming with customers waiting for the doors to open). Disturbing sugar bunnies (as opposed to dust bunnies) along their way, they discovered very little. They did have to bypass Wonka's feet, which were in their typical post, tapping and shifting behind the counter where Willy was most likely experimenting with the spoon mixtures. Courtney and Joyce carefully crawled around them and carried on their way, still spotting no sign of their quarry. The two exhausted the possibilities of two more counter underbellies, plus all the machines. With Katherine, they took a survey of the ceiling and found nothing out of the ordinary. They stood in the doorway to the front room one last time. Nothing at all was out of place. With a wave at Mr. Wonka, who grinned and lifted a yellow-coated spoon to them, the girls headed back to voice their failure.

"Any luck?" Josie asked kindly when they entered. Courtney shook her head, black braids swishing. She looked up at Josephine and straightened her candy-cane-striped skirt, then glanced at the clock.

"It's seven o'clock. Do you think we should open the doors now?" Courtney asked everyone. They gathered a little closer.

"Without Mr. Wonka?" Katherine said quietly, sliding onto a stool.

"Can't see why not," Joyce replied with a shrug. Ally and Fred looked at each other. Before the quandary could be resolved, however, Willy himself came sweeping in from the back room, hopping over the counter and flashing everyone a smile before skipping to the door. He scanned the employees expectantly. They were a little too overcome at the moment to do much of anything. He raised both eyebrows.

"You all going to stand around like a bunch of codfish—wait. Not codfish, seeing as they don't stand. You all going to stand around like a bunch of codfish that can stand, or are you going to get to your posts?" he said, mock-reproachfully. They all hurried to their stations. Mr. Wonka, fully drawing out every ounce of suspense, turned the doorknob and let the door squeal open. Then he dashed back to the back room before the incoming flock of people could squish him.