On Friday, right after I got home from school, there was a knock on the door. It was people from the toothpaste factory. My Dad could have his job back, they said, starting Monday. They gave him an envelope. It was a signing bonus, they said, if he'd come back.
"Sure," he told them, taking the envelope. "What would I do? You replaced me with a machine."
"We'll train you to fix the machine," they said.
After they left, my Dad sat down at the table. The envelope had papers for my Dad to fill out and cash in it: three thousand dollars.
"We'll be eating well tonight, Buckets," he told us.
"Buckets of fried chicken," said my Grandpa Joe, peering over his shoulder.
My Grandma Georgina laughed.
My Grandpa George rubbed his hands together. "Hot diggity!"
My Grandma Josephine attacked her crocheting, clackity-clack.
My mother sat at the table next to my father, fingering the money.
"Why couldn't they have done this when they replaced you with the machine?" she asked.
I thought it was a good question.
On Monday evening, Mr. Wonka and his factory were back in the news. Mr. Salt had been making noises about suing him. Commentators were saying that the other winners were going to sue Mr. Wonka, too. My Dad snapped off the television, looking around at all of us in our astonished silence.
"I'm tired of the news channels winding up their viewers for ratings. Those children won't sue."
"Of course they won't sue, dear," said my Mom. "Their parents will sue."
"Will we sue?" I asked.
"We won't," said my Dad. "We've no reason to."
"What reason do the others have?"
A long conversation got going, about what had happened to the other kids. To me, it sounded like their day in the factory hadn't gone as they'd thought it should, so it was up to Mr. Wonka to pay them money for their disappointment. To me, that sounded like getting paid for life being what life was like, particularly if it was unpleasant. My family said 'trauma' is what a lawyer calls what other people call 'unpleasant' in life. I looked around my house. It was shabby. There wasn't a square corner in it. Would a lawyer rub their hands together? Is my house unpleasant enough to want to sue someone? Who would they sue? My parents? My grandparents? We all lived here. It seemed to me, suing only worked if who you were suing had money.
"Is suing about money, Dad?"
"That's a lot of it, Charlie. There are valid reasons to sue, but suing is abused a lot, too."
I shrugged my shoulders. If what happened in the factory is trauma, then life is trauma. There's no use complaining about it. You make the best of it. You wake up to a new day, and look forwards to it. Anything can happen. You can find a Golden Ticket… That's not something I'd expect happening in a day. Is finding a Golden Ticket trauma?
"Why don't people sue everyone, for everything? Stuff happens all the time that people don't like."
"Because it costs money, Charlie. Lots of money."
"So it is about money."
A long conversation about how lawyers got paid got going. I decided the whole thing sounded like winning the lottery, but with more chances. It seemed to me, if the kids wanted to make money from their adventures in the factory, they ought to write a book about them. That wouldn't cost them much, and they could self-publish. That way, they could keep all the money for themselves.
"Mr. Salt could sue. He has lots of money."
"So he could," agreed my Dad, "but trial transcripts go into the public record, for anyone who wants to, to read. Mr. Salt might not like that."
I bet Mr. Salt wouldn't. I bet Veruca wouldn't. But I thought about our earlier conversation. Suing helped pay for medical bills. "What about Mike Teavee?" I asked. "He didn't look all right when he left the factory. He looked bent out of shape."
My Dad nodded, his face thoughtful. "There is Mike," he agreed. "Maybe we will be seeing more of Mr. Wonka in the news."
The days went by, and despite the press trying their best, Dad was right. Augustus didn't sue. When interviewed about his view on suing, he clasped his hands across his chest—getting chocolate on his shirt—ecstatic about his experiences in the factory—better than any carnival ride!—and telling the reporters he was going to learn how to swim. He would build himself a lap pool—heated, of course—and he would fill it with Wonka's chocolate, melted. "That way," he said, in that German accent of his—dat vey—"I can exercise and eat at the same time! Wunderbar!" As he stuffed another chocolate bar into his gob, his mother stood beside him, beaming. Augustus hadn't changed at all.
Violet didn't sue. She was convinced, with her newfound flexibility, that she would be the world's next champion gymnast. What if Mr. Wonka wanted her to pay him for her new abilities? She wasn't going to take the chance, even if she was blue. As far as she was concerned, if she was blue, then blue was in!
Mike Teavee didn't sue. Mike Teavee, when we saw his interview—because my Dad did relent, and let us keep television tabs on Wonka developments—looked the way he had when we first went in. How did Mike do that? Did he go back to the way he started on his own? Did Mr. Wonka do something?
Even the Salts didn't sue. Veruca announced she was going to start a squirrel farm and train squirrels. She was dressed like a lion tamer, with a stylish fascinator top hat, and a long coat, with big lapels, and those funny looking trousers, and black leather boots. She held a miniature chair, squirrel size, I suppose, and a whip. Maybe Veruca thinks squirrels are as ferocious as lions, but I felt sorry for the squirrels.
Later that night, snuggled in my bed, I looked through the hole in the roof at the factory. It was true I didn't go by the factory anymore, but I hadn't been able to close up the hole and not look at it. I kept telling my parents maybe tomorrow we would do it, but tomorrow never comes, and the hole stayed where it was. Had Mike Teavee gone to see Mr. Wonka again? Had Mr. Wonka offered him the factory? Had Mike turned him down, the way I had? Maybe I should call Mike and ask him. I'll bet we could find out his number. We had lots of food now, and a telephone, and my Grandma Georgina had been right: my Dad's new job was great, and things had gotten much better.
I closed my eyes and imagined the call. Mike would come to the phone, and snap at me for taking him away from his video game.
"No need to snap."
There was Mr. Wonka again. He may have left our house, but he hadn't really left... He was in my head.
I decided not to call. It would be nice to know I wasn't the only one who didn't want a Chocolate Factory, but that wasn't true. I did want a Chocolate Factory! I just didn't want a Chocolate Factory without my family. Would Mike feel the same way I did? It was hard to tell. His dad and him did nothing but argue. If they weren't doing that, they weren't talking at all. I bet he'd take the factory, and leave his family behind.
I kept waiting for the announcement to be made. The one where Mr. Wonka said Mike Teavee was going to take over Mr. Wonka's factory. It put my stomach into knots, because I knew if that announcement came, it would be like death.
Three weeks later, it hadn't come. Not for Mike, not for Veruca, not for Violet, and not for Augustus. I began to wonder what Mr. Wonka was going to do—decide not to grow old?—but then I decided it was none of my business. Whatever it was, it wasn't going to have anything to do with me. It was time to get on with my life. The kids at school had. Mr. Wonka being a jerk was the end of that discussion, and although some kids stopped by the house sometimes to bum candy bars off me—which I always gave them—that petered out, too. My Mom made a rule that they had to eat the candy here. They couldn't take the candy home with them. "Don't let them use you, dear," she'd said.
We'd go inside and sit at the table while they ate their candy, but I think my grandparents all in one bed listening to them creeped them out. There was no going to my room. My room was too small, and not private, anyway. Once they knew inside was no good, we'd stay outside while they ate their candy, but then they'd get cold, and they'd leave. After awhile it dawned on them. They had money to buy candy bars. They didn't need me to get them, and when they thought they might have to pretend to be friends with me, in my tiny house, just to get chocolate, they stopped coming.
That was no skin off my nose. They were boring. I'm sure they thought I was boring. I'd tell them about the rooms in the factory, and all the cool inventions I'd seen, over and over. I sounded like my Grandpa Joe. I thought about what my Mom said about why my Grandpa Joe did that. Would a lawyer be interested in me? To change it up, I'd talk about what Loompaland must be like, but after they'd heard my stories for the billionth time, they'd break in, and talk about the latest scandal at the mall. I'd talk about what a Whangdoodle sting might be like, and they'd talk about their brother's girlfriend's bad habits. It was never going to work.
Mr. Wonka kept his end of the bargain. He figured out early on how much candy we ate in a week, and sent a truck down on Tuesdays. He always sent extra, and we always sent it back.
Over a month went by, and life got back to the way it was before there was a Golden Ticket contest, only, as I said, better. Except I still avoided the factory. I decided that should stop. I should grow up. Now that I had food, three squares a day, I had plenty of energy to go up that hill, and why, exactly, was I avoiding a place I loved? Because its owner was a let down? Well, yeah. That would be it. Isn't that reason enough? But the factory was still beautiful, and it hadn't turned down my family. Besides, there was no getting around it. The candy smells were the best at the gates. There were so many of them there… not just chocolate.
"There's other candies, too, besides chocolate."
Mr. Wonka wheedling in my head. He was still in there. Great. Not.
The next school day, on the way home, for the first time since the tour, I did go to the top of the hill. But I didn't cross the street to the gates. I stayed on the other side of the road, where it was safer. I figured Mr. Wonka might brave the courtyard, but I had my doubts he'd cross the road. The Greystone Cafe cooking smells—mostly grease and grilled meat—mingled with the candy smells, but it wasn't too bad. Kind of dinner and dessert at the same time, but, yeah, I'm not kidding myself, this side of the street isn't as good as the other side.
I was leaving when I noticed there was a two-seater shoeshine stand tucked by the Greystone Cafe that hadn't been there before. I went into the cafe to ask about it. Maybe I could shine shoes. Maybe make some money of my own. That would be a good thing; for me and my family. They told me the stand was open to any shoe-shiner who wanted to use it. The cafe got ten percent of what you made as rent, and for providing supplies, on the honor system, that anyone could use, and they had a sign up sheet for hours of use. The sheet was first-come first-serve, put up on Wednesdays, and you could work as many or as few hours as you wanted. Any fist-fights over who worked when and you were barred for life. They set the prices. It was three dollars for shoes, and six dollars for boots. Tips were yours to keep. They had the rules on a sheet of paper I could take with me.
I took it home and showed it to my Mom and Dad. I wouldn't even have to buy brushes.
"What an odd system this is," said my Mom.
"They must be catering to the crowd that wants less structure than a paper route would be," said my Dad.
Handing back the paper, they told me fine, as long as shining shoes didn't interfere with my school work. My Mom tousled my hair, and my Dad gave me his lopsided grin. I'm guessing he was happy to have some company in the income department. My Grandpa George asked me to hand him the paper, and when I did, he scanned it, sniffing at the honor system part.
"You're too cynical, George," said my Grandpa Joe.
"On my honor," my Grandma Josephine cackled, "I second that."
My Grandma Georgina shook her head. "I love bees!"
Bees? Bees. Bee's wax for shining shoes. A few dots to connect there, but that was my Grandma Georgina. I grinned.
At the end of that same week, Mr. Wonka came out with some new candies. He included them in the box he sent us on Tuesday. The color blue was in every one of them, and except for the Two-Course-Meal gum—tomato soup and roast beef—none of them tasted very good.
It was a first.
Are you curious as to what happened to restore Mike? Check out—shameless plug—my story The Restoration
Are these my characters? They are not. Is this purely for entertainment? It is.
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As it ever is in my stories, direct quotes from the 2005 movie are in italics.