Willy whirled down the steps from the upstairs rooms and scooted in front of Ally and Fred, who were manning the cash registers and currently serving a serpentine line of customers.

"What color is this?" he asked, yanking the hem of his long, velvety coat up to their eye level. The customers looked on impatiently.

"Purple," Ally said.

"Red," Fred said. RHYME! I feel like Dr. Seuss!

"No! False! Incorrect! You're both very, very wrong! Although it was a nice guess." Those towards the head of the line backed up a little. Ally and Fred just waited for the inevitable lesson on the specificities of hue. Willy whipped out a laminated color-wheel, though its psychedelic rainbow ranging far outside the lines didn't match ROYGBIV even a little. "Examine Exhibit A. Hey! You! Squirt by the gummy worms! Don't drop the bags or – here. Study this." Willy flung the color wheel at Fred and squeezed between shoppers to the threatening child.

Fred set Exhibit A on the counter and continued working.

Before long, the gummy worm bag tossing emergency had been ameliorated by Mr. Wonka, and he vaulted over the cash registers and slid underneath the counter. He set to work spawning inconceivably spectacular flavor elixirs, one of those skills only he seemed to have out of everyone on Cherry Street. As cinnamon-tangerine wafted up, Fred glanced down.

"Wil- Mr. Wonka – Sir – Willy? May I ask why you're not doing that in the back?" Willy tipped his top hat back to see Fred.

"Well because if I did that, that mean old Josie would make me take a nap. Do you know how dreadful naps are? They're like sleeping at night, except during the day, which everyone knows is bright, and if you're bright you're smart, which means you function better and are therefore increasingly efficient, and efficiency produces superuppitized amounts of candy, so a nap just sort of makes all that like night time, when everybody goes home and there's only the one me and the chocolate birds and beetles and worms, which are not very disciplined workers! Here – how does this taste to you?" Willy held up a beaker of russet liquid. Fred dipped in a finger, then licked it.

"It's great!"

"Course it is. It's cinnantine – y'know, cinnamon clementine. Plus a couple other things. Oh! Hey! Fred and Allllllllly! Let's go trick-or-treating tonight!" Their hands mechanically continued purchases, but their previous shared snickers over Willy's nap explanation immediately subsided.

"Well, Willy, you see, we would love to go," Fred began.

"Wondrifical!"

"Butwe'regoingonadate," Ally finished. Both turned bright, redhead-at-the-pool-for-three-hours-without-sunscreen pink.

The icy blue of Willy's eyes almost masked their shadowy sleeplessness. He flipped his hat down to shield them again, flashed a smile at Ally and Fred, and pocketed his cinnantine ingredients.

"Oh." And he walked into the back room.

He pranced back in five minutes later, laden with bananas, exotic herbs, almond extract, and sunflower seed oil, once again arranging a kitchen/laboratory under the cashier counter.

"So, what're you guys doing on your – thingy – tonight?" The other cashiers' ears perked up.

"We're going to that masked ball together, then stargazing," Ally said. The female cashiers sighed in synchronized romantic fantasies. Fred and Ally blushed.

"Oh." For a while, the women at the counter gushed over young love and their first dates and what a cute couple Alfreda and Alfred were. Fred ducked his head and futilely tried to occupy himself in ringing up purchases, while Ally enumerated every stitch of the gown she'd be wearing to the squealing ladies. Ignored, Willy slipped away to the back room.

Not soon enough for the 'eager young pair of lovebirds', as one wrinkly old lady called them, seven pm rolled around. Wonka shooed everyone out, workers and customers alike.

"And tomorrow, nobody come, cuz it's a holiday! The day after Halloween should always be a day of candy feasting and celebratory didgeridoo concerts!" He waved wildly as they departed, then closed the door. It jingled. Willy was motionless, hand (gloved now by habit) still resting on the doorknob. He stared through the display window – the sunset of cherry/watermelon/grape set off silhouettes of chimneys and trees, and shone on that curious wasteland, a big patch of cracked dust where nothing but earwigs dwelled. But that was all distant. Hovering just outside, bearing irresistible expressions of longing, were the tiny painted faces of vampires, princesses, and super heroes. Various troupes of children had been filing slowly past for over an hour.

A Charlie-Brown-like ghost trudged by, sheet flapping. Wonka neglected respiration as his labyrinthine mind cycled dark metal cheerful lady Ruthie Terrence leaf leaf leaf leaf CANDY – and there his mind found what most would see as a dead end. Actually, the maze continued, but now it went up and out of the past and present and even future into the all-encompassing Nirvana of Willy's imagination: simply put, he was one with the candy.

Shortly, though, the puppy-dog eyes of trick-or-treaters set him in his typical labyrinth once more. He tried to ignore them, straightening racks and doing clean-up, but despite his most fervent efforts, they breached his defenses. He reluctantly unlocked the door. And opened it. It jingled again.

"Come on in, childs. You guys just take whatever your hearts pitter-patter after! Happy Halloween!"

Kids ran in from every neighborhood, from Rotten Pear Road all the way to Paradisefruit Avenue. A few parents snuck in, too, but Willy usually had his beetles delicately remove them.

"Hey W," said the urchin kid who'd been at the Grand Opening. "How'd you make the birds?" One of them was perched on her finger, politely disregarding the dirt under her fingernails.

"Huh?" He'd been in his Candy Nirvana again, sucking a Pumpkin Pop. "Oh – well, just like anybody else makes birds. From springtime and hair."

"So if I wanted to make a bird I just need springtime and hair?"

"Yeah!"

"But my hair's sorta yellow, and yours is brown, and your birds are brown, so would mine be yellow?" Wonka's eyes were bright blue in surprise.

"Well, you're a pretty smart cookie," he said. He was about to say more, but Zanna appeared, having squeezed through the mass of costumed kids.

"Hey Willy-o. Whatcha doin' with my little sister?" Somehow, Willy wasn't fazed by the fact that they were sisters, that the urchin-girl was in fact under the supervision of a keen, cool, groovy family with a keen, cool, groovy house which sheltered a person who knew words like keen, cool, and groovy.

"We were discussing the epitome of avian evolution."

"With Mandy? Are you seriously in the know with stuff like that?" Zanna asked her sister, putting Wonder-Woman gloved hands on her own Wonder-Womanly hips. Mandy shrugged, eyeing Zanna's freshly-dyed black hair.

"Hey, what color bird would Zanna make?" Mandy asked Willy. "She changes hair all the time."

"Remember Punnett Squares, with the little probabilitangles? It's like that. Oh! You! Kid with the funny overalls and orange skin!" Willy raced to the problem child, leaving Zanna and Mandy lounging on the counter.

"He's weird," said Mandy.

"Yeah," said Zanna. "But in a good way, unlike you." She pinched her sister's cheeks playfully, ducking when Mandy took a swipe at her.

"Too bad, cuz Willy's not coming when we move, and I am! Ha!"

"You're moving?" Willy frowned, eyebrows tilted up towards his forehead, eyes lavender and impossible for any estrogen-dominant human to ignore.

"Awww!" Zanna and Mandy smothered him in a hug. Then Mandy broke away.

"Yeah, pretty far 'way. Wanna give us candy as a goodbye present?"

"Mandy!"

"Of course!" Willy suddenly had a very big box with a broad blue bow, and was gently piling in the contents of the store.

"Dude, we'd be peachy with just a 'sure, see ya later.' Mandy doesn't know what she's talking about."

However, in the end, both girls were toting farewell confections as they walked home close to midnight. The shop had grown no less crowded, but now the little cowboys and ghosts had been replaced by masks and elaborate beasts. These sorts lingered nigh dawn, but even they trudged away when 5 a.m. rolled around. Besides, the shop was practically devoid of products by that point. All the shelves, cupboards, jellybean canisters, and even the walk-in refrigerators had been scraped clean. Willy was grateful for the reprieve from cleaning. On the other hand, this also meant the stashes of candy in the back room had been depleted to nothingness, which in turn meant that Willy would have to start confection-making nearly from scratch.

This was a slightly overwhelming thought.

Therefore, Wonka locked himself into his shop, popped a butterscotch drop (miraculously preserved on the edge of a cash register) into his mouth, and scampered up the steps to the dusty rooms above.

Hi! Happy lovely fantastic July to you all! I'm so delighted you're still reading this. Since you've invested so much time in reading it, what are your opinions? Is there anything you think I should include in the future? Is my technique slipping? I just want you all to enjoy the ride!