CHAPTER 26
NOTA BENE: This is a bit late. At least half a dozen people berated me for this in the first few chapters. Well, better late than never? Okay. Ally is now the daughter of George and Georgina, and Fred is now the son of Joe and Josephine. I'll change the rest of what I've written ASAP. Sorry everybody!
Willy was waltzing through the central square, where that morning, the first of November, the last farmers' market of the season was taking place. Traffic had been diverted, and tents sprouted up from the pavement like weeds. Our hero was loaded with brown paper sacks full of corn, watermelon, strawberries, herbs of all brands, and more, on the whole totaling a rather unwieldy weight. On the other side of a lavender vendor, Joe and Josephine were enjoying the unseasonably warm weather, accompanied by George and his wife.
"Ally! Catch up, dearie!" Georgina called to her daughter.
"Sorry!" Ally ran, dragging Fred along.
"What's the matter?" George demanded of them. "Tired? I told you that dance was too late."
"Really, George, try to be a little more supportive?" Georgina whispered to him. "After all, they were such a handsome couple!"
"Well, I still think – "
"Look! It's Willy!" Ally said, pointing to a wobbly stack of walking grocery bags. "Come on Fred. Let's go help."
"Shall we say hello, Josie?" Joe asked. "George, Gina, why don't we all go see him?"
"No." That was George.
"Certainly!" That was Georgina. As it turned out, Georgina won. The four aging parents squeezed past the lavender seller to where Ally was hoisting bags from Wonka to Fred. Willy looked slightly bewildered, but significantly less like he was about to topple over into the nearby llama yarn booth.
"There. See? Doesn't need our help," George muttered. "Let's go and – " But his wife was already patting Willy's curly noggin and complimenting Fred and Ally on their chivalrous act of service. George grudgingly followed Fred's parents to that dreadful candymaker.
"Hey, thanks a bunch for carrying those! Just gotta take 'em to the shop and then we can all make candy!" Georgina bit her lip, and Ally and Fred started looking guilty. Willy noticed. "Oh! No! Wait! We can't, can we? It's a holiday. Hm. Holiday. And nobody was there last night because you were… Oh yeah." Now they looked even guiltier. George got to them just as this emotional degradation was taking place, and immediately growled.
"Willy! What fool thing did you say this time, boy?" Willy smiled blindingly and scooped up all the bags again.
"Nothing! Nothing! No worries! See you all to-bright-and-happy-morrow!" He skipped off, and somehow nothing fell.
"Ally? Fred?" George said. "What was that all about?" They still had the attitude of puppies after someone whaps them on their noses because they chewed up a favorite pair of fuzzy bunny slippers.
"Oh, just that we're not helping when there's so much to do," Ally murmured. George wondered how this child could be his offspring.
"Well then either go help or quit being so down-in-the-dumps!"
"Thanks dad!" Ally hitched her hand-sewn purse on her shoulder and jogged in the direction of Cherry Street.
"Bye Mom, Dad. And sir? I promise to get Ally home safely after work," Fred told George, already following his friend.
"This is not a date!" George yelled.
Eventually Fred caught up to Ally at Wonka's shop. It was deceptively quiet, all doors peacefully sleeping in their doorframes, all damage from the two-week-previous fire nicely concealed with Doug's paint job.
Fred did the routine, tapping certain bricks in a specific musical rhythm to let the back door unlock. He graciously led Ally through the dark Sunrise Sanctuary and into the back room. Now things were considerably less peaceful.
"Hi!" Wonka said from the barren patch of cotton candy dirt. "You're back? Is today tomorrow?"
"No, we just thought maybe you could use a hand." Fred delicately walked to the garden, avoiding the remnants of the previous night's mayhem. "We could put the vegetables in the refrigerator if you'd like."
"Oh, Ally's here too? Then yes! Abso-bally-lutely! All the bagses are somewhere. You'll find 'em." Willy never glanced up, too absorbed in nestling freshly germinated cotton seeds into the pink soil.
"Hi Willy," Ally said when she passed in her search for the veggies. "How did it go, last night? Shop seems a little empty."
"Yes indeed! Ah, my life's work! Practically every molecule of sugary perfection consumed, triumphantly delectable! Now we just have to make the whole lot again before tomorrow." He beamed up at her, somehow excited about that. She gulped.
"But… We're the only ones here. You gave us all a holiday, and my curfew is – "
"Not to worry! It'll all be just dandy!" He went back to the cotton candy, but he patted down the dirt with a little less compassion and a little more rapidity. "Oh, guys, grab the milk from the cow in the special upstairs, would you? We've got to get snapping on the chocolate." Fred hurried to drag the last of the grocery sacks into the iridescent-shelved walk-in fridge, then he followed Ally up the stairs to the mysterious 'Secret Special Super Celestial Region of No Return.'
"So, do you know where this cow is?" Fred asked Ally in a whisper.
"No. But I bet it's not too hard to find. I mean, really, a cow?"
"True." Feeling like their footsteps were disrupting something sacredly silent, they peeked into the first room on the left.
"Oh, it's different now," breathed Ally. The twelve rust-riddled machines were now neatly scrubbed and efficiently churning out rows upon rows of colorful candies, each contraption a different sort: chewy round tiny ones, twisted red ropes, crunchy gravel-like stuff. Beetles buzzed around, wrapping the products and nudging them down a chute in the middle of the room.
"Isn't this where that desk was?" Fred pointed out a faded rectangle in one corner, one of the few spots not inhabited by a candy machine. Ally edged around a gumdrop maker and crouched next to the clear area. Fred squeezed next to her. She sat, preoccupied, long enough for Fred to gather up his courage and reach a hesitant hand to her hair. Two of his knobby fingers rubbed her braid, though they shot quickly back into his pocket when Ally shot him a shocked glance.
"Sorry! Sorry!"
"No, go ahead. It's fine." Fred, naturally, was quite a bit too self-conscious to recapture the dark hair, so he stood and pretended to be enamored with the machine. That failed when Ally trapped his ankles in a sudden unexpected hug. "You're nice."
"Um – um – w-w-w-well – th- Thanks I really l-lo-lov-like you and just out of curiosity not to change the subject but what was that paper you found here last time if you remember?" Ally grinned up at him, until she processed the question. She pulled herself up with his elbow and watched the machine pop out gumdrops.
"It isn't bad or anything, it's just strange." Her lips twitched. "Really strange."
"Well?"
"So, apparently his mom left for – Loompa-land – and was supposed to be back before he turned five, or else she says she got eaten by some weird thing – "
"A whangdoodle."
Ally automatically latched onto Fred at the unanticipated voice. Willy was half-hidden behind the door, face perfectly expressionless: no smile, no frown, no spasms of emotion, black eyes never blinking. Then he burst into a sunny grin and bounced down the hall, gesturing for them to follow.
"So, you didn't find the milk? It's in the cow, just like I said! See? See? Door number three on the right, the one with the picture of a cow on the doorknob. See?" His chilly gloved hand grabbed their joined ones, pulled them into the cow room, and let go to proudly flourish at a good sized room, carpeted with grass, with a basin of water in one corner and various cow delicacies in troughs circling the perimeter. And, in the middle, stood a very contented dairy cow.
"Wow…" Fred breathed.
"A cow…" Ally said.
"Yep! Now you guys get to work milking it, 'kay? Milk milk milk! Here's a bucket for each of you." He untied two huge pails from where they'd been hanging from the ceiling (painted sky blue). "Now, don't get into any trouble, all righty?" He skipped out the door, and they obediently approached the beast.
Ally, fortunately, was well enough versed in cow mechanics to teach Fred how to manage milking it. Nevertheless, it was a slow process, the two novices trying to fill multi-gallon tubs with milk, squirt by squirt.
"Did he seem a bit angry at us?" Fred asked quietly, pinching a cow teat.
"I think so. I guess I shouldn't have told you about that letter."
"Probably not. He couldn't still be sore about the fire, could he?"
"Well, we repaid him pretty well – all his homework for three months, forging absence excuses, eternal 'as-yet-unforeseen-scholastic-issue-resolvement.'"
"True." They squirted in silence for a few minutes.
Willy deliberately made the door creak as he walked in.
"How goes it?"
"Fine," replied Fred.
"Who does this normally?" asked Ally. Her fingers hurt.
"Me, unless it's really really busy, and then there's an electrical thing, but Yolanda doesn't like it very much." He giggled. "You guys are pretty slow at that."
"Well then why don't you show us the right way to do it?" Ally demanded.
"Nope! This is a learning experience for the twosome of yousome!" Willy bared his teeth, white as sugar, in a mocking smile. "Have fun!"
"Are you angry because I made Ally tell me about the letter?" Fred said quickly, before Wonka could dart out of the room again.
"I'm never angry. Except when people hurt the candy."
"But we already atoned for the fire, right?"
"Yeah! So see? I'm just peachy-keen!"
"Then will you tell me about – "
"Hey, uh, how was your thing you did last night?" Not Wonka's most brilliant conversational moment, but it did divert the current topic. Ally and Fred both blushed and ducked their head, and he himself cringed.
According to the jumbled chaos of embarrassed words that followed, the date had been very nice.
"Okay! Great! Um, keep on milking!" Willy sprinted out as if the ice cream truck was leaving without him.
When dusk began to descend a few hours later, Fred decided it would be best for everyone's health and well-being if he took Ally home straightaway.
"Mr.Wonka sir?" he called. Willy turned on the chocolate mixers and bounced over to Fred.
"Yup yup?"
"I'm sorry, but we need to go home now." Willy nodded three times, looking tremendously relieved.
"Okey-doke! I'll let Doris know you worked and worked and dig dig dig in our mine, the whole day through, to dig dig dig dig dig dig dig is what we really like to do – Heigh-hooooooooooooooooo!" he belted out the Seven-Dwarves' song all the way through, much to Ally's delight.
"I love Snow White! She's my favorite! Sooooooooome daaaaaaaaaay my prince will co-" Fred cut her off there.
"Thank you Mr. Wonka. We'll see you tomorrow!"