"Augustus, mein child, that is not a good thing you do!"

Mrs. Gloop was right. That was not a good thing Augustus was doing. He was on his knees on the opposite bank, scooping chocolate out of the river with his hand and slurping it down in the messy way he eats everything. Someone should tell him his mouth has edges. He reminded me of a traveller lost in the desert finding an oasis, and sticking his head in the water to get some. But this wasn't an oasis, that wasn't water, and he'd been eating chocolate all morning. Why was he being such a pig? What was the need?

"Hey, little boy!" Mr. Wonka had raised his voice, but it faded as he went on. "My chocolate must be untouched by human hands."

Untouched by human hands… That train had left the station—probably why Mr. Wonka let his voice fade—but, cool, Mr. Wonka wasn't objecting to Augustus drinking the chocolate! Just to how he was doing it! Wow! We could try the river chocolate? How great would that be? It couldn't be very hot; Augustus would've been screaming if it were, and not going back for more and more, like a conveyor belt.

But Augustus didn't stop. He fell in instead. Wow! That wasn't a good thing! If human hands are bad, just think how bad a whole human body would be! I quickly looked over at Mr. Wonka. He had closed his eyes, and was turning his head away. Was it disbelief? Dismay? Disgust? All of the above, as they put on our tests?

Augustus surfaced, covered in chocolate, and began flailing around, flinging chocolate everywhere. It was kinda cool, seeing the thick chocolate fly about. It looked kinda fun. A chocolate river splashing contest! Violet would go for that. I would. Mike wouldn't. He said on TV he hates chocolate. Augustus, of course, was already having the fun. Mrs. Gloop was going nuts.

"He'll drown!"

He'll drown? Augustus can't swim? That's why he's doing that? Oh. That would be a problem. But we learned in science class that fat floats. If he calmed down, he'd float like a raft. Mr. Wonka had turned back by now. His eyes were half closed. He looked like he was considering what to do.

"He can't swim! Save him!"

When he heard that, Mr. Wonka moved his eyes sideways and up to look at one of the pipes on the ceiling. It had started to move towards the river, and he smiled and looked back over at Augustus. The pipe was positioning itself over the river. It lowered. And then it started to suck. Chocolate went up, the river went down, and a whirlpool formed. Augustus got caught in it. We heard him calling out as he went 'round and 'round, and then he went under, and came up in the pipe! It was scary, and thrilling, and a heck of a way to give us a demonstration of how the pipes work!

We saw Augustus came up in the pipe. He was head first, which was good, because there was a lot of chocolate behind him, and the other way would have been no good at all. He took a deep breath, and then he was fine, because he was out of the river, and his head was out of the chocolate, and he could breathe.

"There he goes," said Violet. She was fine with that: if he stayed in the pipe that would be one less person in the competition for her to beat.

Mrs. Gloop was still going nuts. She wanted the fire brigade. I went back to watching Augustus in the pipe. If this was Mr. Wonka's idea of the best way to get a person out of the chocolate river, it was a cinch he'd never been a parent. But it was for sure he'd been a child. You had to admit, this was sure a different way to solve the problem, and it was handy, too! The pipes were right there, and they could be dropped anywhere.

"It's a wonder how that pipe is big enough," said Mrs. Beauregarde, sharing her daughter's view, and not being too concerned.

"It isn't big enough," I said. "He's slowing down."

As soon as I said it, I wondered how that could be. Augustus had to be sixty feet above us by now. The pipe had been big enough for sixty feet, and now it wasn't? The pipe was the same diameter the whole way; it didn't make any sense, unless… Mr. Wonka was smiling, and rocked his head once, the way you do when you know music is going to start, and you like the music. Something more than Augustus was up. Sure enough…

"Look," I said. "The Oompa-Loompas."

They'd begun to bob and hum in rhythm.

"What are they doing?" asked Veruca, politely.

That was a question Mr. Wonka couldn't have been happier to answer.

"Why, I believe they're going to treat us to a little song. It is quite a special occasion of course; they haven't had a fresh audience in many a moon."

Hundreds of Oompa-Loompas streamed into the room. They formed dance lines wherever they could find a space, and danced and sang about Augustus Gloop. They all knew the dance, and they all knew the song. Some of the things they said in the song weren't very nice, and I was reminded of my grandparents' comments as we watched Augustus' interview on TV. The Oompa-Loompas must have been watching too, and thinking about him.

In the middle of it all, some of them put on swim caps and dived into the river and did synchronized swimming. Augustus had a better view of that than we did, but I don't think he was enjoying it. He'd been licking the chocolate off his face that his tongue could reach, but that was gone, and the rest of the chocolate was doing what he'd done, and giving in to gravity. His arms were pinned, so he couldn't use them to get at the chocolate below him, and that must have been driving him crazy. The Oompa-Loompas were enjoying it, though, and so was Mr. Wonka. He was smiling away… Maybe he was smiling so much because the Oompa-Loompas were singing about someone from outside the factory for a change.

With so many of them in front of us, I couldn't believe how all the same the Oompa-Loompas looked. They were all wearing the same shiny, red jumpsuit, but it was more than that. Their faces looked the same, and their hair was the same; it was the way kinds of birds all look the same, like red cardinals, or the way deer all look the same. Was that because the Oompa-Loompas lived in a country that was nothing but fierce beasts, who would eat ten of them for breakfast at a time? Mr. Wonka had said that when he told us the Oompa-Loompa story. If they went around in a pack when they left their tree houses, would it be hard for the animals who wanted to eat them to know where one Oompa-Loompa started and the other ended? Maybe that was why they all looked the same: because it helped them survive. They'd lived a long time in Loompaland before they'd come here.

"…Slowly wheels go 'round and 'round, and cogs begin to grind and pound…"

That didn't sound good. This song was getting to where they wouldn't let us sing it in school. People are squeamish.

"…This greedy brute, this louse's ear, is loved by people everywhere, for who could hate, or bare a grudge, against a luscious bit of fudge…"

That didn't sound good either. They were planning to turn Augustus into fudge? I don't think that's allowed. It seems to me the Oompa-Loompas aren't fond of Augustus. This song better end soon, before Augustus gets into real trouble. The Oompa-Loompas agreed with me. On the word 'fudge' Augustus went up the pipe again. We saw him in the saucer-like section of it, and the song ended, and the Oompa-Loompas ran out, disappearing the same ways they had come in.

I decided Augustus hadn't been stuck at all. What they'd done was, they'd adjusted the suction to hold him in place while they did their number, and when it was ending they upped the suction again. You can do that with a straw; why not with a pipe?

Mr. Wonka clapped at the end of this song the same way he had clapped at the end of the song with the puppets. Did the Oompa-Loompas do that song, too? "Bravo!" he said. "Well done! Aren't they delightful? Aren't they charming?"

Well. I guess, when they're your workers, and without them you have no work force, you've going to have to tell yourself they're delightful and charming. What else are you going to do? They seem on the bloodthirsty side to me, but they come from that kind of background, so maybe that's hard to leave behind.

Mr. Salt was thinking the way I was, and, I think, the way we all were. Mr. Wonka must have been in on the whole thing. He wouldn't admit it, though.

"I do say, that all seemed rather rehearsed."

"Like they knew it was going to happen," said Mike.

Mr. Wonka was having none of it.

"Oh, poppycock," he said, and strode away from us to end the conversation.

Mrs. Gloop hurried after him, wanting to know what had happened to her son. Mr. Wonka assured her her son would be fine, he wouldn't be made into candy and sold all over the world, because, Mr. Wonka said, Augustus wouldn't sell well. He'd taste terrible. Do people taste terrible? Cannibals would know. Cannibals eat people. Mr. Wonka said so.

While we were standing around wondering what to say next, Mr. Wonka made a strange noise with his tongue that carried a long way. It was like nothing I'd ever heard before. I'd like to try to make a noise that sounded like that. I wonder if he'd show me how to do it?

In no time, an Oompa-Loompa appeared. Mr. Wonka gave him instructions to take Mrs. Gloop to her son. Mr. Wonka seemed happy about it, though he scared Mrs. Gloop by talking to the Oompa-Loompa about using a big stick to find her boy in a mixing barrel. Huh. He does use mixing barrels. I think he said those things to make Mrs. Gloop hurry away, because I got the impression she was afraid to leave the group in the company of an Oompa-Loompa. I don't know that I'd blame her.

Mrs. Gloop did hurry away, though, because now she was more afraid for her son than of the Oompa-Loompa, and Mr. Wonka was beaming. He and the Oompa-Loompa had traded salutes when he'd finished giving his instructions, and that had been cool to see. They'd crossed wrists over their chests and bowed in turn. I got the impression that Mr. Wonka and the Oompa-Loompa were pleased with each other. If that were so, then…

"Mr. Wonka," I began.

"Huh?"

'What' was 'huh' now, he was getting used to people talking to him, and I went on: "Why would Augustus' name already be in the Oompa-Loompa song, unless they—"

He cut me off. "Improvisation is a parlor trick. Anyone can do it." He turned to Violet. "You, little girl, say something. Anything."

"Chewing gum."

Figures.

"Chewing gum is really gross; chewing gum I hate the most." Mr. Wonka recited that in an impatient sing-song, staring at a spot across the river. He finished and looked back at me. "See? Exactly the same."

Exactly? Who did he think he was kidding? A big production number against a simple rhyme? That's not the same at all. But I didn't have to say it, because Mike said it for me. He said exactly that—"No, it isn't—and that got him his head handed to him by Mr. Wonka in the guise of being accused of mumbling. Mike hadn't mumbled.

I wonder why Mr. Wonka is being so sensitive about this? Just admit it. He's right that anyone can do it. My family could have taken the nasty comments they made about Augustus and got up a number like that, if they ever got out of bed, which they don't. Grandpa George could of, for sure, and Grandma Josephine would be glad to help him; maybe not Grandma Georgina, but maybe she would, with something really wild for the chorus or something. My Mum and Dad would keep it toned down more than the Oompa-Loompas had, and I don't think my Grandpa Joe would be pleased, but it's only a song. Maybe Mr. Wonka doesn't want to own it because he didn't write it, and he knows hearing the truth can hurt. Maybe.

"Now," said Mr. Wonka brightly, interrupting my thoughts. "On with the tour."

It half sounded like a question, but we all followed him to the edge of the river again, so I guess the tour was still on. I waited for my My Grandpa Joe, who put his arm across my shoulders.

"Are the Oompa-Loompas really joking, Grandpa?"

"Of course they're joking," he said.

I hoped so, but I decided with what I'd seen of the Oompa-Loompas and Mr. Wonka so far, I'd stay wary. This was the first room we'd seen, and we were down one winner and one parent. What would Mr. Wonka be showing us next?

Are these my characters? They are not. Is this purely for entertainment? It is.
Thanks for reading.
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As it ever is in my stories, direct quotes from the 2005 movie are in italics.