My Mom was right about the kids at school. I went the next day, my Dad running interference for me with the press, and when we got there, I could barely make it up the steps for all the interest I was getting.

"Children, children, don't crowd Charlie!" said the principal, as my Dad, whispering 'good luck' in my ear, handed me off. Smiling to myself, I clutched my books against my chest and kept my head down. What would a crowd do, except crowd? The principal had been waiting for me. She spread her arm across my shoulders and escorted me to class.

Old Mrs. Fauser, my teacher, tried to get everyone to settle down, but they wouldn't. After ten minutes of fussing, the tight bun on her head bobbing up and down like a chicken pecking corn, she gave up. Crooking her boney index finger at me, she asked me to come to the front of the class and give a report about the tour. The kids all cheered, and I had no choice, but as I made my way from the back right corner to stand beside her desk, I felt bad about it. Mr. Wonka is a hermit, and I don't think detailed stories to strange groups about their doings are what hermits like. But Mr. Wonka couldn't mind too much—he must have known this would happen—and he wasn't here, and I was, so I did my best.

I started by telling them about what the rooms looked like, and that went okay with the Chocolate Room, and down the chocolate river, but when I got to the Inventing Room the kids wouldn't stay quiet. They yelled questions at me like bullets, like they'd been doing since I got to school. I could see they weren't listening to me anymore, so I stopped talking and let them yell. From the side of the room, Mrs. Fauser made be quiet motions at them with her hands, but that did next to nothing, so she came back from where she'd been out of the way and stood beside me. Clapping her hands, together with a fierce look that would stop a bear, she got them quiet.

"That's better, class," she said. "Now, I'll point to you, one at a time, and when I point to you, you can ask your question. Charlie, you'll answer."

That worked pretty well. Every hand went up, and she started with the first row.

It turned out most of their questions weren't about the factory. They wanted to know what happened to the other kids. They'd seen the news the other night, the way I had, and they wanted the dirt. I could have gone into the details, but I didn't, because that would make the other winners look foolish. Take Augustus. We're supposed to believe he's lived on this planet for over a decade, but he doesn't understand the concept of gravity yet? Or that he thinks leaning out over a river, when he knows he doesn't know how to swim is a good idea? It boggles the mind. Like I said, I didn't go into it. Augustus isn't here to tell his side of the story—none of them are—and going into the nitty-gritty wouldn't be fair to them.

I kept what happened as vague as I could. That turned out to be not hard to do, because my class didn't want to listen to me tell them the first-hand story, they wanted to make up what had happened for themselves. They took the details they'd heard on the news, and let their imaginations run wild. Not all of them, but most of them. Seeing the way it was going to be, I gave up trying to set them straight, and just listened.

They gave it to Mr. Wonka in the neck. Everything was his fault, but, I thought, with blame flowing like chocolate, why stop with him? Spread it around! Get his parents into it! Without them, there'd be no Mr. Wonka, so it was their fault! I hid a smile by pursing my lips. Maybe that's why Mr. Wonka has such a problem with that word. Parents. But, nope. The kids didn't go there. They left it with Mr. Wonka being the problem. Okay.

Whatever.

I didn't agree with them, but that's because Mr. Wonka being to blame didn't make any sense. I'd gone to the same factory those other kids went to, on the same day, at the same time, with the same guide, seen more than they had, and I'd come out without a scratch. Why? Because I knew enough to listen, and pay attention. Those other kids… Well. I don't need Mr. Wonka to take care of me, and they shouldn't either. I can take care of myself, and if I can't, it's not his fault. Same for them. Mr. Wonka didn't trick anyone. He told Violet to spit out the gum. Veruca could see how many squirrels there were. They didn't belong to her. She had no business stalking one. There was no stopping Mike. He could see what happened to the chocolate bar. What was he thinking? But unless I was asked what I thought, I wasn't going to bring any of this up. This blaming Mr. Wonka is a tide I can't turn.

That wasn't a problem, either. I wasn't asked what I thought.

Getting used to the gleeful spite of the majority, I let the hubbub wash over me, speaking when I could, getting cut off before I finished, getting used to that, until they asked the question I knew I wouldn't answer. It was the question I'd been dreading. My Dad wasn't here to save me with his joking answer. Actually, it was Mrs. Fauser who asked it, her horn rim glasses perched on her narrow nose.

"What was the special prize, Charlie? I'm sure the class would like to know what that was. Did you win it? What was it?"

You could hear a pin drop now. I felt my neck go red, and it was climbing to my face. I looked down at my shoes, thinking hard. I couldn't tell them what it was. If I did, I'd have to tell them I didn't accept it, and they'd call me Mike's words: an idiot. I didn't want to be called an idiot, and I knew I wasn't one, but I'd never be able to explain it to them. My family wasn't like the Gloops, or the Beauregardes, or the Salts, or the Teavees. I'll bet my family isn't like my classmates' families, either. Maybe we are… but I don't know that. My tongue was thick in my mouth, and dry as an empty cabbage soup pot. I just couldn't tell them what the special prize was. The special prize was a dagger made of sugar, and it was buried in my heart.

The class was waiting. I started speaking, but I was stalling. "The special prize was, ah, and, ah, I did win it, and it was, ah, the special prize was…"

"Was it a CAT? That's got your TONGUE?"

That was from Phil, from his desk at the back of the room. He'd gotten tired of waiting. In a high tenor voice, someone else mimicked a cat. "Me-ow" A ripple of laughter went through the room. Others quickly jumped in.

"Was it two cats?"

"Nah, two cats is a booby-prize."

"For boobies"

Titters from the class.

"How many cats do ya think hang around that dump?"

"Zero of the cool kind."

More titters. The talkers were Phil's friends, backing him up. The laughter gathered steam. They weren't being nice. Phil is the class bully, but I could have hugged him. When I heard him say 'cat', I remembered the button in the Great Glass Elevator labeled 'Cocoa Cats'…

"Hereee, kitty, kitty—"

"Boys!" Mrs. Fauser got their attention. She shushed them with a look.

"It wasn't a cat," I said, now that there was quiet again. "It was a ride in the Great Glass Elevator."

"The Great Glass what?"

"You saw it, Phil," I said. "It was on the news."

"Where'd you go?"

A new voice. Bored. The red reached my cheeks. "To my house."

"To your house? You mean to the bottom of the hill? That's it? A few blocks?"

It was Brad. Phil and his friends wanted to be Brad. Brad was cool. I thought under his devil-may-care white-blond hair Brad was brain-dead. "Do you even know what 'it' is?" I could hear Mr. Wonka say, his words ringing like an echo pinging off the insides of my skull. Mr. Wonka wasn't answering Brad, he was answering Mike Teavee. Could I say what Mr. Wonka said? No. I couldn't. It would mean more explanation. I nodded instead.

"What a gyp," Brad said, scuffing his shoes back and forth on the floor under his desk. "A few blocks in a square old gold-fish bowl, without the water. Couldn't Wonka have taken you to somewhere exciting? Like, Rome, maybe? You coulda got some pizza, and sent us a postcard."

Laughter erupted like Old Faithful, right on cue. The factory is pretty exciting, I thought, but I said nothing. Grandma Georgina would have said it the other way around: get myself some postcards, and send them a pizza. Thinking of it that way—a squashed pizza in the mail, all cold and looking like week-old road-kill—made me not mind the laughter.

Brad waited a few beats more. The laughter died. "Wonka's a jerk," he said. Brad had spoken, and the class murmured agreement. Mrs. Fauser told me I could go back to my seat, and the day wore on.

Are these my characters? They are not. Is this purely for entertainment? It is.
Thanks for reading.
Charlie from 1971 your thing? Take a fling with A Chocolate Factory? by Squirrela. That story's right up your tree. As for me? Couldn't be. '71 is beyond my ken.
Can I thank you for reviewing? If you do, I do, and thank you again!
As it ever is in my stories, direct quotes from the 2005 movie are in italics.