Maybe I shouldn't worry. So what if Mr. Wonka is doing some out-of-body travel? The river is flat, and the room has no dangers… Well, aside from gravity, and drowning, and over-eating; splinters from the giant candy-canes running you through... Maybe sugar issues for people with diabetes, but I don't think anyone here has diabetes, so… I saw we were coming to a tunnel. The river went into it. The boat was going to go into it!

"Mr. Wonka," I said, trying to get him back from wherever he was. Day-dreaming is one thing, but we were in a moving boat. I didn't want to say it too loud and alert the others to the problem we had; they were looking ahead, and didn't know, but being quiet didn't work. I had no choice. I had to say it louder and maybe startle him.

"Mr. Wonka!" This time he heard me. He was flustered, but there wasn't time to let him settle down. "We're headed for a tunnel!"

"Oh, yah," he said, breathless. And then he called out, without missing a beat, his voice firm. "Full speed ahead!"

Mr. Wonka sure does recover quickly! Full speed ahead? Did we need that? The drummer at the front increased his drumming. As the boat glided into the dark space, Violet had her doubts.

"How can they see where they're going?" she asked.

Now, the Oompa-Loompas were facing in the wrong direction to see where they were going from the start. But they could use the banks of the river as a guide. We were in shadow by now, and I thought Violet was asking a good question. Mr. Wonka didn't give us much comfort with his answer, but it gave me a good idea how Mrs. Gloop had felt hearing about the big stick in the mixing barrel looking for Augustus.

"They can't," Mr. Wonka told her. "There's no knowing where they're going."

Before anyone could say anything else Mr. Wonka called out, "Switch on the lights!" and lights in the tunnel switched on. That was better, and maybe the lights would have switched on anyway, but I'm glad I woke him up.

Just then, my hair went flying up, my stomach left where it usually lives and jumped into my throat, and I got lighter in my seat. The boat had taken a plunge down a steep drop, and now I knew how the chocolate river got its current in the Chocolate Room, because this was one steep drop! In the next second, my hands curled around the edges and underneath the seat I was on, and Grandpa Joe did the same thing. I think the others must have done so also, because none of us fell out of the boat. Mr. Wonka sat with his hands on the top of his cane. There was that advantage he had over us again. He'd done this before. Or, he had a lot of faith in gravity. Or, both.

The boat picked up plenty of speed as we hurled through a tunnel that made twists and turns, right and left, and every time you thought you were going to get your stomach back to where it belonged, there was another drop! But then I realized the force of the twists and turns were putting me back in the boat, with prefect timing, and you didn't need to hold on. How cool! I unwrapped my fingers and started to enjoy myself. This was wonderful! Exhilarating! Wind in your face; your hair blowing around you, and you didn't have to do a thing! Just sit still. Fantastic!

I smiled, but then the river smoothed out again, and the boat slowed down. Darn it.

Mr. Wonka was enjoying himself. He told us to keep an eye out because we were passing important rooms. The factory has a lot of rooms. Most had names you'd expect, but one said 'Hair Cream' on the round door.

"What do you use hair cream for?" asked Mrs. Beauregarde.

"To lock in moisture," said Mr. Wonka, with a straight face, patting his hair from underneath, like a girl. And then he gave a little giggle, and I had a hard time not giggling with him. Mrs. Beauregarde was not impressed. Judging from this and the Chocolate Room, I don't think those two have the same sense of humor.

On the left, a door was open, showing us a milk cow being held off the floor in a sling. Four Oompa-Loompas on stands were underneath her. They had whips, and they were cracking them. At first I thought, oh, no, how cruel, but the cow wasn't flinching. She was mooing, but not in a hurting way. She probably wanted to get down. I don't think the whips were touching her—if they had been, she'd have kicked those Oompa-Loompas to kingdom come! She could easily have done that: her legs, with protective boots on, weren't tied in any way—but once I realized this was a set-up, I could see what Mr. Wonka was getting at by showing us this.

"Whipped cream," I said.

He swung his head my way, and as happy as I'd heard him be he said, "precisely," and then he giggled again, this time louder than with Mrs. Beauregarde, and I was beginning to think he couldn't end a sentence without a giggle. My Grandpa Joe hadn't mentioned that in any of his stories, but my Grandma Georgina would like that. She'd think it was adorable. I thought it was mostly nervousness, but not this time. This time it was happiness.

Veruca got all huffy about my comment and his, and told Mr. Wonka that didn't make sense. She meant we didn't make sense. Mr. Wonka, huffy right back, explained it to her, telling her whips whip the best whipped cream, but when you have to explain it, it loses its charm.

The chocolate river got fast again. It was much wider now, and the boat picking up speed stopped the conversation. Mr. Wonka was sitting cool as a cucumber, but I held on to the seat, just to be on the safe side. So did my Grandpa Joe. There weren't twists and turns here, just rocking and plunging. Oh, and turning in a full circle, because the Oompa-Loompas had all taken their oars out of the chocolate at the same time on a slide! They knew what they were doing. That got me dizzy, but it sure was fun!

We passed a room labeled 'Beetle Juicing' and I wondered if those were beetles from Loompaland, or from here, or from both. Mr. Wonka had said he'd gone to Loompaland to find exotic flavors for candies, and maybe that room was about that. He'd said the red beetles tasted better than the green caterpillars, but better than revolting isn't a very high bar. I noticed Mr. Wonka was now holding onto the brim of his hat with his right hand, and I tightened my grip.

The river and boat plunged on and on, melted chocolate whooshing and splashing every which way but onto us. By now, you either liked this ride or you hated it. Mike Teavee must have hated it. The smell of chocolate was everywhere; there was no getting away from it, and Mike hates chocolate. I decided I liked the chocolate roller-coaster—because that's what it was, a chocolate river roller-coaster—but maybe not every day. Or after a big meal. But big meals aren't usually a worry of mine, so that was silly for me to think about. I'm glad Mr. Wonka gave me the ladle of chocolate at the start of this part of the adventure, so I'd have the energy for it. Mr. Wonka is a thoughtful man.

At the end of the ride we came into a wide pond, flat as glass, as calm as the ride had been rough, with the sun shining from above, lighting everything, but as deep underground as we were—we'd even passed a room called the Deep Room, so I knew we must be—it couldn't be the sun. It had to be something else, a light of some kind, but as powerful as it was—so much like the sun—I decided Mr. Wonka could do wondrous things, exactly as my Grandpa Joe had always said. And then I had to laugh to myself, because the Chocolate Room was wondrous, and the chocolate river was wondrous, and this boat was wondrous, and how many wondrous things did I need to see before I was convinced? Well, it wouldn't hurt to add the light to the list.

What now?

"Stop the boat," said Mr. Wonka, in a voice so high it reminded me of the soloist in the boys' choir in The Bishop's Wife. My family and I watch that movie every Christmas season. We like watching stories where things work out, though I always wish it didn't have to be on account of an angel's magic. I haven't met any angels, and Mr. Wonka doesn't seem to be one, either.

"I want to show you guys something!"

Mr. Wonka had calmed down some, and so had the pitch of his voice. What he wanted to show us was the Inventing Room.

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.