"I Like Grapes"
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Dear Readers, there are three things that are absolutely certain. First is, that the whole lot of us will one day die, be buried, and people might sob and slobber and whine over our tombstone. Second is, that sun and moon will spin in a scheduled order in their obits, respectively. Third is, Willy Wonka—the rightful owner of both Wonka Industries and the honorable title of World's Greatest Chocolatier—will always take a morning walk, to get his lungs pulsing and pumping for the day.
There was something special and grand about the lush emerald bank along the river of chocolate—the weeping willows crafted and twisted entirely out of sour-apple taffy, their limp arms dipping in the glimmering and shimmering stream of creamy chocolate, and making tiny brown bubbles and ripples in the gooey liquid—
One could call it magical and magnificent. And it was just that, indeed.
The Chocolate Room was Mr. Wonka's pride and joy… every acre of it, he loved with every speck of his heart. The peppermint stick trees, those red and white monstrosities striped round and round like zebra skins, gave off a pungent smell of Christmastime. The thick banks of mint-flavored grass were as luxurious as a gigantic fine plush carpet (to make it even better, the carpet was wholly eatable and edible). Sugar-candies spurting out of the ground in quantities like garden weeds, and pebbles made out of deathly sweet margarine and tangy lemon-lime meringue.
Always, always Willy Wonka made sure he got up earlier than the little family in the little shack. The Buckets—yes, that was their name—were too adorable to wake up, the chocolatier thought.
And for certainly sure, Willy Wonka never wanted to get on Grandpa George's bad side, either; Oh no, that was dangerous territory. One time, a little while ago, Grandpa George (who always was somewhat easily inclined to lose his temper with the chocolatier, anyway) had grown quite annoyed with Willy's early-morning whistling of "Singin' in the Rain", and, well, Mr. Willy Wonka's head still has a cherry-sized lump on it from the colossal thwack George had given him…
Willy Wonka liked those old farts a lot…
Hands behind his back, holding onto his walking cane and black-silk top hat, our famous chocolatier strutted along the fanciful world of the enormous and sweet-laden room—his violet-colored oculars surveying the details of every plant, of every whirlpool in the river, of every swaying blade of grass—
Oh, how Mr. Willy Wonka loved his factory! How he loved it! Every little thing…was splendid, delightful, and just keen! Even the shanty-shanty looking Bucket-shack seemed charmingly like a gingerbread house gone slightly soggy and fallen-over…frosted lightly with powdery sugarflakes, and already the chocolate truffle vines had begun to grow up the walls like ivy...even that was perfect.
The chocolatier puffed out a tiny, itsy-bitsy sigh, and his eyes zipped everywhere, in a sort of dreamy affection for just about everything.
Well—as nice as it was, and as much as Willy Wonka was enjoying himself—he had recipes to fix (since he had that regrettable—yet very brief—slunk in his career), and, just last night, a few Oompa-Loompas had had just a wee bit too much Butterscotch and Buttergin and went tiddly and started a huge brawl. They were whooping it up all night long—and, somehow and someway Mr. Wonka couldn't quite figure out, one of the rowdy workers had stuffed himself in the cannon-ball machine and shot himself off to Lord-knows-where. That needed to be dealt with, somehow.
Just as the plum-coated man was about to turn his heels and start off to a good day's hard work—Mr. Wonka caught something in the corner of his eye… it was a big lump of something… This was shocking; no, more like just plain scary…Willy, you see, prided himself on his knowledge and savvyness round his fantastic factory. Even the chance that he might've missed out on one particular part of the room, made his blood turn icy and his breath go terribly short.
Frantically, Willy hurried up to the spot, pushing various branches of candy-apples and lollipop willows out of his way and he saw…Grandma Georgina sitting there in a nook between two spiraling trees, the scrolling ginger ferns brushing softly against the old woman.
So, then, there the old Grandma was, bundled up like those Egyptian mummies in museums, with poorly-knitted scarves dangling about her and a corn-colored shawl coiled round her ancient wrinkled neck…and, a lumpy cap, which was a nice gentle color of cotton candy, pulled down over the old woman's wispy and snow-white hairs.
Grandma Georgina stared into the blue. Literally, her muscles never moved a solitary inch. The old lady just kept on staring into thin air, her bug-eyed oculars not resting in any particular place…just glancing at the swudge grass, soft marshmallow mushrooms, the pebbles made out of crystallized lemon jelly, the smelly peppermint sprouts…
The chocolatier felt his heart beating again, blood pulsing at a normal rate…That had really given him quite the fright. Gosh-darn it! That spooked me crazy… Mr. Wonka thought, as he slumped against the nearest plant that could support his weight.
After a minute of recovery, the man lifted himself up with the help of his candy-cane, and swaggered his way over to the old coot, eyeing her with a great deal of curiosity.
Willy thought of pouncing on the old woman from behind, and then yelling 'Did I scare ya? Did I? Did I? Did I?'…Yet Willy thought better of it; he knew that, like most senile people, Grandma Georgina was fragile and delicate and her plumbing was on its last legs. He liked giving the old people surprises—but he didn't, necessarily, want to kill the old people.
And, jumping on an old lady wasn't very nice, he guessed, but it did sound like fun. Biting his lip, Willy Wonka restrained himself from jumping on the granny…Willy didn't restrain himself from anything much, but Grandma Georgina was old, and…yeah, and senile…
And, there the man stood, his weight supported by the candy-filled walking cane, waiting for the granny to snap out of her comatose trance.
He waited, waited…
Willy Wonka's smile became more forced by the second, more impatient and more irritated. Little by little, his gums stared to ache. It's not that he didn't like the senile old lady—Willy just hated waiting for things. And, old people do tend to make everyone wait forever.
The chocolatier tapped his walking cane on the grass, again and again, and, then, grunted out a vexed little cough.
He waited, waited a bit more…
"Hey, there." The chocolatier said, slowly and a little too sourly. "How are ya?"
Instantly breaking out of her sedative state, old lady's bulging eyes blinked and glanced around from here to there with a look of utter confusion. Grandma's fading optics caught sight of our grinning chocolatier with the vampire-white complexion and choppy, yet impeccably combed, Prince Valiant haircut—almost on the spot, the granny displayed a delighted snaggle-toothed smile.
"Hello!" Grandma Georgina said, in a very whiny—but it was an adorable kind of whiny—welcome.
The giant smile on Willy's face broadened. His mouth kept stretching like an enormous elastic band…. And, he noticed, he wasn't even forcing himself to be so smiley. He just felt smiley, and Charlie's grandparents almost always made him feel all light and bubbly inside (even Grandpa George was affectionate, when he wanted to be), as though his insides were being churned up and beat up and frothed up like an internal chocolate waterfall.
"Hey!" Willy Wonka gave a merry nod to the wrinkled lady; pleased that he had, finally, drawn some attention. Gleefully he twirled his cane around; flashing an even brighter, whiter, more glistening grin to the decrepit thing sitting on the emerald banks.
"Winnie, how are you today? You're haircut is very nice—When are you going to get married to an honest gentleman?" The old lady squealed out, her cloudy brown eyes gleaming with a friendliness that Willy Wonka loved to death.
"Okay, heh, well—" The chocolatier tried his utmost to suppress a strong flood of giggles streaming up from his stomach, much like vomit (except, of course, less yucky), "I'm Willy. …Thank you, and I'm glad you like it, 'cause a lot of people don't like the 'do. See…" Willy let out a few shrill giggles. "He-he-he! Matrimony just ain't my thing, granny."
"Oh, I see…Matrimony." Disgusted by the word, the old lady scrunched up her already-wrinkled nose, and made it even more-so wrinkled. "Paahh! I don't much care for it, either."
Willy Wonka momentarily stopped his giggles, and frowned, supremely perplexed. His head tilted quickly to one side, in a way that seemed suspicious. "You're married, ya know."
Copying Mr. Wonka's baffled look, the old woman replied, "Really…?"
"Heh, yep! You're hitched to George!"
If Willy wasn't mistaken, he could've sworn he saw a trace of disappointment on the old lady's crinkled features. Still, the granny smiled and nodded, and muttered a soft, "Oh!"
The chocolatier grinned. Grandparents are so gosh-darn cute…
"Young man, young man…You're teeth! They're very big!" The granny gasped, in absolute surprise, as though she had just noticed Willy Wonka's infamously perfect dentals for the first time in her life (to no surprise, it most probably was the first time she'd noticed).
Willy beamed with pride. His chest swelled up, balloon-like, "I know they are. They're super-white."
The old lady shrieked in horror and coiled up, "Shark!"
"I am not!" He protested, very upset.
Overcoming the terror of it all, the old woman slowly nodded her head in a sort of slight understanding, and then, once again, smiled very happily, "Won't you sit down?"
"Well, right-O!"
Mr. Wonka never 'sat down', or at least not like the way you or I would sit down—He, first, hopped a little on his left leg and made it wiggle like a piece of string cheese…and then he'd do the exact same with his right leg. It seemed a little like a dance, and was an awkward sight to behold. And, then… WHOCK…Willy Wonka's walking cane would be thrown down to the ground, with almost violent force, and the world's most celebrated chocolatier would let his rear fall down.
The chocolatier bent his legs up into a pyramid and, tightly, wrapped his arms around it. Then he turned his attention to the deliriously happy old woman:
"What're you doing up in the wee hours of the morning, then, granny-o?"
Old Georgina kept a crooked smile on her face, and didn't reply. In fact, it seemed as though she didn't actually hear Mr. Wonka talking. But 'granny-o' did keep on smiling, and Willy Wonka only felt obliged to do likewise.
"That's a silly hat," Georgina squeaked, while poking it a bit with her arthritic, skeletal, lily-white fingers, "Why do you wear a silly hat like that?"
Willy Wonka loved his hat almost as much as he loved the factory—it was a good hat, a nice, good-looking, stylish hat—and it was upsetting that Grandma would even suggest that it was not.
He refused to even look at the laughing old lady. He huffed, grumbled bitterly, and crossed his arms.
"I wear my silly hat because my serious hat is too tight and makes my head hurt! And for your information, my hat isn't silly in the first place…"
The old lady was bothered by his tone of voice, but Grandma Georgina had already forgotten what seemed to make the chocolatier's feathers so ruffled.
"Sorry, dearie," Grandma groaned, very pitifully, not completely sure on what there was to be sorry for.
"Well, yeah, you should be! Don't get all up in my kool-aid, 'kay? Never talk about my hat like that, ever again."
The old woman vigorously nodded her head, not understanding a thing going on.
There was an awkward silence between the two, as Willy began to recover from the insulting comment about his precious, precious hat.
Mr. Willy Wonka glared at the old lady, with something sinister, something cripplingly creepy, glittering somewhere dark in his insane Doctor Frankenstein stare.
Confused on weather to do anything else, the old lady started glaring right back at him.
Glaring, glaring, and more glaring…the two of them, the granny and the chocolatier, not showing the slightest sign that they'd be giving up in the staring contest; not anytime soon, that is. It was stare to the death, and they both knew it. This was deadly serious stuff to them, you know.
All of a sudden (forgetting the seriousness, for no reason in particular), Grandma Georgina frowned and stretched out her aching, gnarled hands and grabbed Willy Wonka's entire head, and the old coot inspected his sallow face all over in amazement and straight-out bewilderment. Mr. Wonka was too stunned to pull away; he never really enjoyed being touched by human beings or even the beloved Oompa Loompas—Willy could just imagine all those creepy-crawling, slicky slimy and tentacle-armed germs swarming all over people. That's why Willy decided to wear the gloves, the latex gloves, so nobody could get him dirty.
Willy tried to wiggle away, but Grandma Georgina held onto the sides of his face, like there was no tomorrow.
The old woman said, with a ten-year-old girl's simple astonishment, "You have purple eyes, just like grapes! …I like grapes."
Willy Wonka tried, at least, to be civil, as he brought his hands up to struggle away from Charlie's grandmother… "Do ya, now?" He shrieked out a blatantly nervous giggle, one that probably even Granny Georgina could see through, "Which ones, which color? Purple grapes? Green grapes? Red grapes?"
Nodding, the old woman replied with her soberest voice, "Purple grapes."
"Oh, that's marvelous! Hey, Granny, I've got something for ya."
"A kettle?"
"Noooo. Try again, go on, try again…!"
"A kissy?"
"Yeah." Willy breathed, "First you have'ta let me go."
Ha!
I knew that'd work. You just love your kisses, don'tcha, Grannykins?
The old woman let go, without a moment of delay. Willy straightened himself up, still shivering, and patted his hair and desperately tried to wipe his face on his padded shoulders—it was very similar to watching a cat groom.
Quick as lighting, Willy Wonka gave the old lady a tiny peck on the cheek—
Ssmack!
The old woman's face lit up, as though it were a light bulb. "You dear, sweet little peach!"
He let out a high-and-flutey, bird-like giggle, "Oh, gees, Grandma," His powder-white cheeks turned a very shadowy shade of roses; Willy always blushed when Georgina called him 'her little peach', and he never completely understood why he had that kind of reaction—it just got him all bashful and flattered.
Willy's pearly white smile was so bright, it reflected like a newly minted coin in the chocolate water below.
"Granny—hey, Granny?"
The old lady's pathetically oblivious eyes bulged up and glanced over to the slightly pink-cheeked character squatting next to her.
Willy's gigantic grin grew more and more, curving like an upturned crescent moon—eyes beginning to shine like two bright, lilac-hued stars.
"You're a real cutie, ya know that, Grandma?" Mr. Wonka spoke in very self-assured and confident tones, nodding vivaciously towards the bug-eyed old lady, "Peas in a pod, you and I, when you aren't up in my grill and all. Hey, Granny? I like you a lot. You're pretty okay."
Grandma Georgina's mouth smiled a very uneven, delusional, cracked-eggshell sort of smile…A simple and sweet thing that only the very old are capable of doing.
"Jam is lovely...!" The old lady sighed, and flattened her lips in a ridiculous way.
Such preposterous answers from Grandma Georgina were not at all out-of-the-norm—so the best thing to do, little Charlie had once told Willy Wonka, was to follow along with the nonsense.
Mr. Willy Wonka loved nonsense.
"Well, how 'bout that?… I think jam is lovely, too."
Sitting alongside down by the glistening chocolate bank, yawning softly, Grandma Georgina rested her funny little head on Mr. Wonka's sharp and cartoon-like shoulder…
And, the two funny little people didn't bother getting up until Mrs. Bucket called them inside for breakfast.
Word of Disclaim:
Me no own, you no sue. Capeesh?
I love and adore and cherish and slobber all over my reviewers…yes, I'll slobber all over you. So, please, give me a little advice for my writing, m'dears, and I shall love you like a baby puppy forever and ever. And ever. I love you all, anyway (I know, I know, I'm a suck-up, but, hey…)!
This was pretty sickly sweet, no? I truly hope this story wasn't all sloppy and done all willy-nilly (No Pun Intended)...please, Dear Readers, I pray you, tell me your thoughts on my little story.
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