The next morning was different. And it was better. My Grandpa Joe got out of bed and helped with serving breakfast. He stayed out of bed helping my Mom and Dad and me move the big pieces of the roof—for use in the fixing—into a pile by the door. We'd done some of that the night before, but there was more to do. When it was just little pieces we couldn't use, my Mom and Dad handed my Grandpa Joe the broom to sweep them up. We put on our coats to tackle the rest of the job: fixing the hole.
"Do you think Mr. Wonka always makes holes in roofs when he visits?" asked my Mom, putting her arm in a sleeve.
"He made a hole in his own roof when we left his factory," I said, with a little gulp. It would be my factory now, if Mr. Wonka were reasonable. I could hear him saying in Mr. Salt's voice, 'Mr. Wonka is being unreasonable'. At least Mr. Wonka knows some of his flaws. I finished putting on my coat.
"If he does, it's a good thing he doesn't go out much," said my Dad, shrugging into his.
My Mom nodded. We were ready. I was out the door first, so I was the first to see a flatbed truck with building materials on it parked at the corner. When they saw us, three workmen got out and came our way.
Newspaper and TV people followed them. They'd figured out where I lived, but that wasn't hard. They had a Great Glass Elevator to follow yesterday.
"Where would you like us to unload this?" the driver asked, waving at the truck.
"What was the special prize?" shouted a reporter. "Did you win it?"
My Mom and Dad exchanged a look. The reporters had notepads, and cameras, and microphones. On the truck was everything we needed to repair the roof, including a ladder. We didn't need those big pieces.
"Here is fine," said my Dad, as if he took deliveries like this every day. "The special prize was building materials," he told the reporter. "Mind the unloading."
We all pitched in, except, you know, not the press people. Maybe they thought helping would make them biased. When the truck was unloaded, the men from the truck began to set up the ladder.
"Did you like Mr. Wonka's factory, Charlie?"
This wasn't the first reporter. It was another. There were buzzing now, like a swarm of bees, swarming through our little gate.
"Sure," I told him, a microphone thrust in my face. I was being pushed back onto the cabbage patch. I had to be careful. We needed those cabbages!
"Get off our property," said my Dad, stepping between me and them, "and stay off, or we'll take this party to the police station."
The men from the truck helped my Dad make a line. The reporters retreated to outside our fence, but they called out questions. Sound doesn't care about fences. The men from the truck went back to the ladder, one of they carrying a roll of tar paper.
"We can do that," said my Mom, blocking the ladder so they couldn't climb it.
"Our instructions are to repair your roof."
My Dad smiled, but my Mom frowned.
"Were you afraid in the factory, Charlie, when you saw what was happening to the other kids?" called a reporter.
"No," I said.
"Why not?"
"They were being foolish."
"Is Mr. Wonka a monster?" called out another.
"No! Of course not! Dad, why are these people saying these things?"
"Tell them 'no comment', Charlie;" said my Dad, putting his arm around my shoulders and drawing me close. "It's their business to sell ads, and if they can make you angry or upset, they can sell more."
"I thought they were selling newspapers," said my Mom.
"With ads in them," said my Dad.
Nodding to my Dad, my Mom turned back to the building supply people. "We'll fix the roof ourselves" she told them. "You can go on your way. Thank you for bringing us these things, but our house is unique. We want the roof repaired to look a certain way, and it's best if we do it."
"Did Mr. Wonka make that hole in your roof?" yelled a reporter.
"No comment," said my Mom, as quick as she could, and I laughed.
The men exchanged glances, and the driver shrugged his shoulders.
"Okay, lady. Have it your way. We were told not to argue."
They got in their truck and left, and that was that. The reporters milled about, not knowing whether to follow the truck people and get a story from them, or to stay with us. My Dad helped them.
"It's going to be 'no comment' from now on, folks," he told them. "And you heard my wife. We don't need any help with the roof, if you thought you'd lend a hand."
I watched the truck disappear down the road. It wasn't going to the factory. The reporters pooh-poohed the help-fix-the-roof idea with grunts and hand gestures, but they stayed for a bit, until they realized 'no comment' was all they were going to get. After awhile, they left.
When they were gone, I asked my Mom: "If it wasn't okay to accept their help, from the people who brought us the building supplies I mean, why was it okay to accept the supplies they brought?"
"Mr. Wonka owes us those," said my Mom. "He broke the roof. But the work is for us to do as a family."
It was a difference my Mom could see, but I couldn't. We got back to work, and I wondered about it.
Later in the morning, a Wonka truck came down the hill, full of chocolates and other candies. I put down the pack of shingles I was wrestling with, and thought of the reporters. I'll bet they'd have liked to be here to see this! But maybe Mr. Wonka had waited until they were gone before he sent the truck down. He could see our house from his factory. Every winner won a lifetime supply of candy. The Golden Ticket had that written on the back of it in small print. I had forgotten about that, but Mr. Wonka hadn't.
The driver got out of the truck. I'd been thinking I could show my Mom and Dad what an Oompa-Loompa looked like, but it wasn't an Oompa-Loompa driving. It wasn't Mr. Wonka driving, either, and my brain didn't know whether to be glad or sad about that. Maybe, if I saw him again, Mr. Wonka would change his mind. My heart was nervous or afraid, I didn't know which. It didn't know whether it wanted to see Mr. Wonka again, either. I didn't know my heart wasn't talking to my brain until I saw it wasn't him. Then I knew, because my heart started beating again and my lungs went back to breathing.
My Mom and Dad climbed down from the roof and looked into the back of the truck. The driver had raised the door. My Mom shook her head. Now what?
"We can't store all this," said my Mom.
"How about under our parents' bed?" asked my Dad.
"Not enough room," said my Mom, "but some can go there. We'll take some of it. Which boxes do you want, Charlie?"
All of them, I thought, but I pointed to the boxes with chocolate bars in them. I helped unload a few cases—plenty, really—and we sent the rest back. With the boxes stacked at our feet, I watched the exhaust puff out of the Wonka truck as it chugged its way back up the hill, its brake lights glowing red when it stopped at the light. My Mom and Dad stood on either side of me. It would be a shame to waste it, they told me, each patting my shoulder.
"Can't we sell what we can't store?" I asked.
"You'd need a permit, dear," said my Mom.
"Do kids with lemonade stands need a permit?"
"I don't think so," said my Dad.
"I don't want you sitting for hours out by the street, Charlie," said my Mom in her we're-done-with-this-conversation voice.
I shrugged my shoulders. We needed the money the candy would bring, but my Mom was probably right. We couldn't sell a whole truck full of candy in one day, even a weekend day, and then where would we store the candy we hadn't sold? That would be a problem.
I thought about it. Would Mr. Wonka let us keep the truck? We could store the candy in that, and the truck could store the candy properly. It had to be able to do that if it took it places. No one wants frozen candy, or worse, melted candy. And we knew it would fit. I smiled. It would be fun to have a Wonka truck parked beside the house. Maybe Mr. Wonka would let us drive it places. I decided he probably wouldn't. He'd need it at the factory.
Oh, well. I turned away. It probably was a good idea to send what we couldn't use in a month back up the hill. I'm sure Mr. Wonka will store it for us, and send it down again when we're out. I wonder how he will know when that is? One thing I know: eating Mr. Wonka's chocolate won't be a treat for my birthday anymore. I can have some every day. More than some! As much as I want! We all can! I wonder if that will make Mr. Wonka's chocolate less special. Will I get as fat as Augustus? I smiled to myself then. It would be a long time—for all of us!—before that was a worry!
We worked for awhile more, and then it was time to take a break. We ate some of those chocolate bars. I had my favorite, a Whipple Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight, and my parents had Nutty Crunch Surprises. "The best kind of prize is a sur-prize, ha, ha." I remember Mr. Wonka saying that. Another chance to smile.
Letting my smile fade, I sneaked a glance at the top of the hill. Mr. Wonka's factory looked the way it always looked. I knew exactly how to imagine Mr. Wonka now, but I wasn't imagining him. What I was imagining was sitting in the Chocolate Room, enjoying this chocolate bar, and the chocolate fall, and the candy trees and flowers, and the Oompa-Loompas, and thinking of them, I couldn't figure out why my parents didn't want the help of the carpenters Mr. Wonka sent us. I'd been wondering about it all morning, ever since my Mom had sent them away. Sure, it was fun working together, but we could have been done in half the time with their help. Is accepting help bad? Are there times when you should accept help? Mr. Wonka accepted the Oompa-Loompas' help, and gladly.
I finished my chocolate bar, and smoothed out the wrapper. My Mom and Dad were finished with their bars, and I reached for their wrappers. It was a solemn moment. My Mom and Dad knew it. They handed me their wrappers without a word. Bending over them, I smoothed them out across my thigh. These three wrappers were special. They were first time we'd had more than one Wonka bar in the house at the same time. They deserved to go on the wall. But now, with so many wrappers, so easily had, they'd be the last. I knew it, and they knew it. In a circle, holding hands, we bowed our heads, and after a moment, got back to work.
We didn't have much left to do, and when we were done, we had enough supplies leftover to fix the hole on my side of the roof, but I didn't bring it up. Neither did my Mom and Dad. I didn't know if I wanted it fixed, and they were letting me think about it. It was our house, and not someone else's, so I had that privilege.
As we cleaned up, and stacked the leftover supplies, I thought about what it would be like at school tomorrow. I should have been in school today, but my parents told me to stay home. That was fine with me. The news last night had been all about the mishaps that the other winners had blundered into, and because of that, my whole family thought school would be a madhouse today. The kids would want to hear my story, and I wouldn't get a minute's peace.
Grandpa Joe had told the rest of my family our story last night, with all of us gathered at the bed, just as if it was an old story, and not a story that had happened that very day. When he finished, my grandparents said they thought the other kids got what was coming to them. My Mom and Dad said the same thing.
Those kids did get what was coming to them—because, you know, it came to them—but I don't know if that means they deserved it. Because when you say someone got what they had coming to them, there's the hint underneath it—that people don't say out loud—that they deserved it. Maybe those kids did. Maybe they didn't. I don't know, really, but what I do know is that they could have avoided what happened to them. I don't know why they didn't. They were smart. They could think for themselves. Well, maybe not Violet. Violet was like a trained animal. She was always looking to her mother for her cues. I guess Violet's problem was that she listened to her mother, and her mother cared more about being first than she cared about Violet. The other kids didn't listen to anyone but themselves, and what they were telling themselves wasn't doing them any favors.
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.