Chapter 28

Many, many thanks to all of my reviewers and the betas who have been instrumental in the continued high quality of this fanfiction. I'm sorry it's so short. Don't give up on me yet, we're almost there!

Willy wandered into the Chocolate Room a little after lunchtime. He had already eaten, but the smell of hot barbeque pork sandwiches drew him gently towards the Bucket house. He poked his head inside experimentally. Upon seeing Mrs. Bucket alone, he hesitantly stepped inside. He waited patiently until she finished scraping the leftover barbeque into the container before giving a hesitant peep.

Mrs. Bucket jumped, one hand reaching up to cover her heart, the other moving to lay against her stomach. "Willy!" She seemed to sigh with relief as she grabbed the lid and fastened it over the top. "You gave me a fright."

He gave a high, nervous laugh, which died away with unconvincing abruptness. "Is anyone… else… here?"

Turning around to place the container into the icebox, Mrs. Bucket replied, "No, I'm sorry, I don't know where they could have all gotten to."

"Oh," Willy started to turn back around, paused, pivoted, then pivoted back. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and gave a strange squeak. Mrs. Bucket promptly, and quite correctly, translated this into "I need to talk."

"Willy, have a seat," she said, point to the small couch in the corner where her and Mr. Bucket's bed used to be.

"Oh, I really have so much else to be doing," Willy protested, moving quickly towards the couch and sitting down. He looked at her expectantly.

Scooting onto the edge of the Grandparent's bed, Emma picked up her sewing bag and began to darn one of Mr. Bucket's socks. "Now Willy, tell me what's on your mind."

"Limalicious Sonic Slicks," Willy said promptly.

Taking this in stride, Mrs. Bucket neither sighed nor rolled her eyes. "All right, now tell me the truth."

Looking at her in amazement, Willy experienced for the first time the legendary 'Mother's Instinct.' He wondered if it might be possible to bottle it. Would Mrs. Bucket give him a sample? The other half of his brain was chagrined that someone, and a parent, of all people, should be able to read him so well. He supposed Charlie must have gotten his incisiveness from his mother, rather than acquiring it by osmosis, as Willy had previously hypothesized. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bucket was patiently waiting for Willy to cease staring into space and answer the question.

"Willy?" she prompted gently.

"Lauren," Willy said, the name slithering out of his mouth before he could stop it. He blushed to the roots of his hair, pale skin suffused with color. "I mean, I've been thinking about her a lot."

Mrs. Bucket began to piece a hundred little glances and comments together. "You like Lauren?" she stated neutrally.

Willy's tone turned slightly defensive. "Everybody likes Lauren," he replied airily. Mrs. Bucket gave him a steady look without missing a stitch. She was even better at it than Dr. Grukchtckt; Willy's resistance melted away like cotton candy in a tsunami. "I think she's swell."

"Did you tell her that?" she asked.

Looking everywhere but at Mrs. Bucket, he spoke. "Yes, at least, I think I did. Sometimes I have conversations with her that later turn out not to have really happened at all. It gets confusing after awhile."

"I see," Mrs. Bucket replied.

To his surprise, Willy rather thought she did. He plucked up his courage and posed the question that had been on his mind all week."How do you know when you're in love?" he asked faintly, his voice small and confused. He devoutly hoped her answer wouldn't be 'you just know.' He didn't know what he would do if she said that, but he imagined it wouldn't be easily forgiven. Luckily Mrs. Bucket was much too clever to say something so foolish.

She paused in her sewing to think for a moment. "Well, I suppose it's when you're a different person when that person's around, and when they're gone you don't just miss them, you miss yourself as well."

Something clicked in Wonka's brain as two previously unrelated ideas collided and merged with one another. Love, in his mind, was linked with all sorts of bad things that he didn't really comprehend. To his understanding, loving someone involved a lot of invasions of personal space, the asking of intrusive questions, the use of flowery compliments or obnoxious nicknames, and lots and lots of cooties. But the idea of love was now firmly connected to the idea of Lauren, to which no such unpleasant stigma was attached. Lauren meant shiny pink lipgloss, orange-scented hair, and intense eyes that shined with some sort of mysterious knowledge. Willy, always a curious sort, found those eyes irresistible. After he had pondered that for a moment, he wandered out of the house without so much as a good-bye.

Mrs. Bucket didn't take offense, though she was rather worried about their family's benefactor. He had never been the most stable individual, but he was family and she cared about him. She wondered if it would be good for her niece to be involved with someone as strange as Willy Wonka, always assuming she wanted to be. She didn't want Willy to be hurt, but Lauren was family too, and she was so young. Why, Willy had to be at least ten years older than the young woman! But Lauren seemed to be very together for a college student. Emma spent the rest of the evening puzzling over who would be the unequal in the relationship, balancing Lauren's age against Willy's complete lack of social aptitude. Eventually she gave up, upon the formation of the most blinding headache.


The days passed. Lauren's Crystalline ornaments and conversational pieces sold record-breaking numbers. Her novelty pieces, such as life-size chocolate sculptures of anything from the Venus de Milo to Orlando Bloom, were gaining popularity at parties. She created a line of chocolate coated caramel-marshmallow apples that had real seeds, ready for planting, in the center. There was coffee-candy that tasted like mochachino and gave you a caffeine boost to boot. There was endorphine bubblegum, that had to be approved by the medical review board first, and gum that you chewed and could blow bubbles in seven different colors. That wasn't even counting the co-ventures she'd prepared and released: a line of envelopes with candy-flavored glue to lick, edible cupcake-scented air fresheners, candy jewelry that looked real and never got sticky, lickable wall paper for nurseries, edible finger-nail polish, kool-aide flavored toothpaste, chocolate body-paint, and scented, edible ink.

She was making a fortune, and her new fat-free confections hadn't even finished preliminary testing yet. Once they were perfected, there would be a whole new target audience and they would be raking in millions of dollars. She was planning on throwing the kids a few bones too, with some edible pencils and other school supplies. Now if she could just get her new geriatric candy up to taste standards, she could begin producing vitamins and fiber-pills hidden within delicious candy coatings. Yes, life was good, and pretty soon the whole country would know it. Why, she even had an interview with a magazine tomorrow, and had been promised the cover story! What could possibly go wrong?


Willy stared at the magazine with a feeling that went beyond disbelief. She wasn't wearing her glasses. Her smile, lined in licorice red, made something in the vicinity of his heart ache. The pale blonde hair made her look older and, if that were possible, more beautiful. She was the very image of the skilled, shark-like American businesswoman. Ignoring the article, his eyes traveled down to the words, printed in lavender script below her picture:

"Chocolate Empress Reigns Supreme"

And further down, in darker purple:

"Trouble for Wonka?"

It was like being lost in the Loompan jungle, like having your workers steal your secrets, like coming home and realizing home wasn't there. He had never felt so betrayed, so alone. He must have been in shock, because he wasn't feeling much of anything. Intellectually he was angry, more angry than he could ever remember being, but inside there was only a terrible, calm stillness. He rose, jamming his hat decisively on his head. Charlie stood in front of him, an expression of confused incredulity and trepidation on his face. "Come on, Charlie. We have an appointment in New York."