"I think there's someone at the door!"

Oh, wonderful, marvelous! That's my Grandma Georgina's voice, and she's as calm and chipper as I could want! That means my other grandparents are safe—she's closest—and if they are, my parents are probably safe too, because they can move out of the way, and if they were in the way, I'm betting they moved, and fast!

"Hi, Mom!"

There she was, her back against the kitchen wall, dust and plaster bits dropping down on the cabbage she'd been slicing. I waved to her from the elevator as hard as if Mr. Wonka was shaking my hand. Mr. Wonka was standing in front of us, by the door of the elevator, but when the doors opened with that happy ding! he hung back, and let us pass him by.

Thrilled to be home after such an exciting day, my home so snug and safe, well, maybe not as snug as it was a minute ago, I ran into my mother's arms, hugging her with all my might. My Dad left the couch where he was huddled to stand behind her, putting one arm around my Mom and me, the other on my Grandpa Joe's arm, which was on my shoulder, as my Grandpa Joe was hugging her as I was, kissing his daughter-in-law first on one cheek and then the other—big, smacking kisses—as happy as I was to be back with the people we loved best! Seriously, I couldn't have been any happier had Mr. Wonka told me I had won his Chocolate Factory! I was that glad to be home! Part of that gladness was the pride I felt in the fact that Mr. Willy Wonka himself had been the one to bring us home! In a flying glass elevator, no less! How many people can say that? Mr. Wonka had taken himself out of his elevator by now, and though I didn't have a puppet show ready, I wanted to make him feel at home, too.

"This is Willy Wonka. He gave us a ride home."

"I can see that," said my mother, looking up at the afternoon light that had until recently been blocked by roof.

Mr. Wonka spoke up, had trouble saying the word 'parents' again, but my Dad helped him out. He called me 'the boy' when he asked if that's who they were, my parents, and it crossed my mind that Mr. Wonka is bad with names. Grandpa Joe, tired of the suspense, and to get us by this sticky moment, told my Mom and Dad that Mr. Wonka had said I had won something. We still didn't know what it was. That announcement sent Mr. Wonka on a turn around our house. He began looking in our cupboards as he talked, every cupboard he could reach, high and low, and it was pretty strange to watch. This wasn't his house, or his cupboards, but I don't know if he could have got the words out if he hadn't been distracting himself this way.

"Not just some something," Mr. Wonka said, as he snooped. "The most something something of any something that's ever been." He didn't look at us. He kept looking inside cupboards and cabinets. There was more. What we had been waiting for. Finally. "I'm gonna give this little boy my entire Factory."

What! I looked at my parents and my Grandpa Joe they looked at me. I was glad I was surrounded by them. I could lean my shaking self on them. It couldn't be true! It was impossible! It was too good to be true! But my joy bubbled up anyway, because with Mr. Wonka anything might happen, and what an anything this something would be!

My Grandpa Joe couldn't believe his ears, either.

"You must be joking," he said.

Now that Mr. Wonka had said the words, he relaxed. He left the cupboards and cabinets and launched into a story about his semi-annual haircut. He found a silver hair, and thought he was growing old. He needed to find an heir to take care of the Oompa-Loompas.

"And I did, Charlie," he finished. "You."

He does remember my name!

"That's why you sent out the Golden Tickets," I told him.

My Mom wanted to know what Oompa-Loompas were. My Dad lifted a shoulder. He didn't know. I knew! And she'd find out when we went to the factory!

"Uh-huh," Mr. Wonka said back, but I had started him off again, and he was back in the cupboards. "I invited five children to the Factory, and the one who was the least rotten would be the winner."

So that was the plan. The least rotten? Is that any way to pick a winner? Seems like a pretty low bar for someone who makes the highest quality candy on the planet to pick as his standard. And d'ya know what? I don't think I'm rotten in the least.

Having told us his secret, Mr. Wonka was getting down to brass tacks. He wanted to know if I'd come and live with him in his factory. If I'd leave all this behind. Of course I would, but wait! He'd left something out! I'd have to make sure.

"Sure," I began. "Of course! If it's all right if my family come, too."

Mr. Wonka used a lot of words that sounded like he was saying 'yes' but in the end he said 'no'. Then he said: "You can't run a Chocolate Factory with a family hanging over you like an old dead goose. No offense."

"None taken. Jerk."

That was my Grandpa George. I love my Grandpa George. He isn't afraid of saying out loud what other people are thinking, and he doesn't mince words. It didn't help him keep jobs, but it is a plus for people around him who want to say what he says, but won't do it themselves. Only a jerk wouldn't take all of us, in a factory the size of Mr. Wonka's. I'll bet, in a factory that size, Mr. Wonka would never even have to ever see my family, if he didn't want to.

Being called a jerk didn't faze Mr. Wonka. If he's been bullied, and I bet he has, he's been called a lot worse. He launched into raptures about chocolatiers running free, and solo, but maybe my Grandpa George did upset him, because by the end of that speech he'd put himself back inside his Great Glass Elevator, and that's a place that would be pretty good protection from the lot of us if we turned on him. We weren't going to turn on him, but I had to be sure I understood him.

"So, if I go with you to the factory, I won't ever see my family again?"

"Yeah," he answered, perking up. "Consider that a bonus."

A bonus? Is he out of his ever lovin' candy-making mind? I stepped forward. He had to hear me. Understand me.

"Then I'm not going. I wouldn't give up my family for anything. Not for all the chocolate in the world."

It didn't work. Mr. Wonka missed my point.

"There's other candy, too, besides chocolate."

Mr. Wonka wheedling. Me. That was something I never thought I'd hear. The tears I felt forming behind my eyes stayed out of sight.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Wonka," I said. "I'm staying here."

He heard me this time. Understood. He spent a minute getting used to the idea, deciding he thought it was weird. He said so. I thought him thinking it was weird was weird. He wondered if I'd change my mind. I wondered what would make him think I would. In the end, he left. He leaned his finger on one of those buttons in the Great Glass Elevator, and lifted himself out of our lives. I couldn't look as the rockets roared. I kept my eyes on the floor, where my hopes and dreams were lying, knocked down, and then erased, by the blast of the very same rockets that had brought them to me.

When the elevator had gone, I wanted to turn to my mother and bury my head in her apron, letting my tears flow, because this would be the only chance I'd get to do it. With my head buried, my family wouldn't to able to see, and when I turned back again, dry-eyed, this would join all those other subjects in our family that don't get talked about in front of me, or maybe, ever. I knew it. When I turned back, I'd be my pleasant, accepting self, and we would all go on as if winning Mr. Wonka's Chocolate Factory was no different than eating an ice cream cone. Nice if you could get it, but no big deal if you couldn't.

But I didn't do that. I couldn't. My family was already accepting the reality—they're tops at that—just another blow in a life of blows—and putting it behind them. I couldn't be the weak one, and I wasn't going to be. Hanging my head, I swallowed my tears, being careful not to choke on them. Swallowing tears was allowed. We were all allowed to do that, and we all did it.

Except my Grandma Georgina.

Of course.

Tears weren't for her. She'd been smiling the whole time, and she was smiling now. Didn't she get it? That this was a big deal? We all, except her, knew the score. And we also all knew—and I did too—that some things aren't worth the price you have to pay to get them. It turned out Mr. Wonka's factory was one of them. What had Mr. Wonka said? "Ah, look at me. I had no family, and I'm a giant success." Is that what he is? The sad thing—the really sad thing; the thing I still wanted to cry over—was now we all knew: success or not, Mr. Wonka is a fool.

The silence between us grew as big as the holes in our hearts. Until my Grandma Georgina broke it.

"Things are going to get much better!"

My Grandma Georgina has never liked gloom and doom, and we for sure were all standing around like the world had ended. It hadn't really. If you cut out everything from when I'd found the Golden Ticket to now, the world—my world—was exactly the same as yesterday, and the day before that.

I could live with that. I've been living with that. I lived through yesterday. I lived through today. And that had taken more courage than I'd known I had.

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.