4: The Golden Tickets

The following day Hinata rose from bed with a strange stuffy feeling in her nose and a chill down her spine. She shivered. She looked and noticed that her open window must be the culprit. The air was much colder than it had been the few mornings before. She reluctantly shut the window, feeling bad about not waking up to the pleasant smell of chocolate. She dressed, ate, and headed out onto the street.

As she headed down towards the forest, she noticed a large crowd of people congregating around a telephone pole, as if it was some sort of item of importance. The crowd muttered excitedly. Hinata walked over to discover what all of the commotion was about. She asked a nearby woman. "It's unbelievable! Fantastic!" she said breathlessly. Hinata pushed through the crowd to see a large poster plastered to the pole. This is what is said:

DEAR PEOPLE OF THE WORLD,

I, WILLY WONKA, HAVE DECIDED TO ALLOW

FIVE CHILDREN INTO MY FACTORY THIS YEAR

FOR ONE DAY!

FIVE GOLDEN TICKETS

HAVE BEEN HIDDEN UNDERNEATH THE ORDINARY

WRAPPINGS OF FIVE ORDINARY WONKA BARS.

THE FINDERS OF THESE GOLDEN TICKETS WILL

BE THE ONES ALLOWED INTO MY FACTORY AND

BE GIVEN A LIFETIME SUPPLY OF CANDY!

ONE OF WHICH WILL WIN AN EXTRAORDINARY

PRIZE! GOOD LUCK TO ALL OF YOU!

SIGNED, WILLY WONKA.

Hinata's heart skipped a very large beat. Once she had finished reading the poster, she dashed off to find her teammates to tell them the spectacular and amazing news. Upon finding them, Hinata was out of breath and quite exhausted. Despite this, she tried her best to explain the wondrous predicament.

"W-W-Wonka (gasp) giving a-a-away (wheeze) golden tickets (gasp) f-f-f-factory (huff) lifetime supply (puff) ordinary w-w-Wonka bars (gck)" she managed.

"H-Hinata, slow down! You're not making any sense!" Kurenai said, trying to calm her "Now…calm down, take a deep breath, and tell us what's the matter".

Hinata told them word for word what the poster had said. Everyone in the team (except Shino) gawked at her in astonishment.

"Candy for life!" Kiba shouted, "That's insane! The man must be mental!"

"You mean there are Golden Tickets hidden in Wonka bars right now?" Kurenai asked.

"Arf Arf!" Akamaru exclaimed.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful, Hinata, to open a bar of candy and find a golden ticket inside?" Kurenai asked excitedly "Being able to go into his factory…just imagine. You'll be going for it, won't you Hinata?" she asked.

Hinata gave a sad sort of smile, the truth dawning on her. "I'd love to…I've dreamed about it for years…but…I can't afford candy bars…I barely get one every few months".

"Hey," Kurenai said, lifting up Hinata's chin "Even one bar might have it. You've got just as much a chance as anybody else"

Kiba made a disapproving noise.

"Gomen-ne, Kurenai-sensei, but Hinata doesn't have a chance" Kiba said "The kids who'll find those golden tickets will be the ones that can afford to buy chocolate bars everyday. I promise you, the first kid who finds a ticket is going to be a total fatass!"

Akamaru 'arffed' at Kiba's joke, seeming to think it was funny.

In fact, Kiba's joke turned out to be quite correct indeed. The following day the first golden ticket was found. The finder was a girl named Yoriko Glupu, and Asuma's morning newspaper carried a large picture of her on the front page. The picture showed a young girl who looked to be about Hinata's age who was so enormously fat; she looked like an over-inflated beach ball. Great, flabby folds of fat bulged out from every part of her body and her face was like a monstrous ball of dough with two little piggy eyes peering out upon the Fire Country. The city in which Yoriko lived, the newspaper said, had given its citizens a holiday from school and work in honour of the now famous youth.

Kurenai had borrowed the paper from Asuma that morning and was now reading the article aloud for her teammates to hear.

" 'I just knew Yoriko would find a golden ticket' her mother had told the newspapermen. 'She eats so many candy bars a day, it was almost impossible for her not to find one!' One reporter asked 'Yoriko, how did you celebrate your finding of the golden ticket?' to which Yoriko responded in a sweet little voice that seemed unnatural for her size 'I went and ate more candy!' as she said this she stuffed a large piece of a chocolate bar into her mouth. 'What a thrill it will be for Yoriko-chan to visit Wonka-san's factory. We're just so proud of our daughter!'".

"Kurenai-sensei, yamete! What an awful woman!" Kiba shouted, disgusted with the article. Akamaru growled, showing his mutual disgust.

"That girl, Yoriko Glupu, she's quite repulsive" Shino added. For once, Kiba completely agreed. "What'd I tell you? I told you she'd be a total fatso!" Kiba added.

"Yes, well…there are many sins in the world. This particular child is guilty of Gluttony, the sin of overindulgence in food. No good ever comes from children committing such sins…it's horrible," Kurenai said, folding up the paper.

"T-There's only four tickets left…" Hinata said quietly "I wonder who will find those?"

"Now that they've found one…things will really start to get crazy" said Kurenai.

Kurenai couldn't be more right. Now the Fire country, indeed, the whole world seemed suddenly to be caught up in a crazy, candy buying spree, everyone searching frantically for the remaining golden tickets. Children and adults alike were going into shops and buying ten or twenty Wonka bars at a time, then tearing their wrappers off on the spot, searching for a glimmer of gold. Reports of people finding tickets cropped up everywhere, but they all were unmasked as clever fakes. One ninja in the Sunagakure (Hidden Sand) claimed he had invented a ninja technique that allowed him find a Wonka bar with a golden ticket inside without opening it. When he performed the jutsu, however, it made the gold fillings of a nearby woman to explode. There was an ugly scene when Suna's shinobi police arrived to arrest the man for using such a dangerous jutsu.

Suddenly, a few days later, it was announced on television that the second golden ticket had indeed been found. Hinata was with her teammates pulling weeds out of a villager's garden (a mission assigned by the Hokage, seeing how team 6 was out of work) when the owner of the house invited them inside to see the news report.

The lucky person was a short boy named Masaru Kawasaki, the son of a Rice country noble. The television showed the boy, who wore an expression of pure arrogance, sitting with his father in their royal mansion. The boy held out the golden ticket with a hand to show the camera.

Masaru's father, the famous Hito Kawasaki, explained how the ticket was found. "You see," he said "I am the owner of the largest rice plantations in the entire country. As soon as my son told me he must have one of these ticket things I went into town and bought up all the Wonka bars I could find. Entire storehouses of them! I had the bars delivered to my plantation site. You see, I have over a hundred women working for me, harvesting the rice. That's what they do all day long, harvest rice for sale to the commoners. So I say to them, 'Attention! From now on the rice collecting is postponed until further notice. I want all of you to instead tear the wrappers of these candy bars! The one who finds a ticket will receive their freedom!' And they did. They worked feverishly for days to find that ticket, but at first, there was no luck" The man's expression changed to one of shame "Oh it was terrible! My little Masaru-kun got more and more upset each day. He would scream, "Where's my golden ticket! I want my golden ticket!" and he would lie for hours on the floor, kicking and screaming terribly! I hated to see my beloved son unhappy like that, so I ordered my women to double their efforts or they wouldn't get another meal. Finally, on the evening of the fourth day, one of my workers yelled, "I've got it! A golden ticket!" and I said "Give it to me quick!" and she did. Then I rushed and gave it to my son"

One of the reporters asked, "How is the worker who found the ticket? Did you give her the freedom you promised?"

Hito Kawasaki only laughed.

"Of course not, you fool! I need all the workers I can get to finish the rice harvest. We lost a good deal of time trying to find the ticket!"

"Dear god! He's even worse than the fat girl!" Kiba exclaimed.

"Horrible father, using his poor workers like that, the nerve!' The woman said indignantly. She switched off her television.

"Despicable," Kurenai said at last, her temper flaring "Greed…the origin of all other sins. Both the boy and that man are simply evil!"

"I don't think it was fair," Hinata piped up "The boy didn't actually find the ticket himself…and those p-poor workers".

Kurenai sighed, "Well, our mission is complete. May we collect our payment please?" Kurenai asked politely of the woman who owned the garden.

"Oh, of course," she said reaching for her purse "You did such a marvelous job. Truly worthy of Konoha shinobi" she handed Kurenai a handful of ryou bills. As the team exited, the woman stopped Hinata and placed something in her palm.

"For you, you did such a wonderful job. Go to the store and buy one of those candy bars. Win a golden ticket and do our village proud!" The lady smiled toothily. Hinata walked over to join her teammates; she opened her palm on the way, revealing a hundred ryou piece! The perfect amount to buy, as the woman said, a candy bar.

"K-Kurenai-sensei!" Hinata called after her "B-before we go home, l-let's stop by the shop. There's something I'd like to do".

Kurenai smiled and motioned to Kiba and Shino. "Alright, we'll head down there together. Let's go!" And with that, the three-man team and their teacher made their way to the shop in the fading light of dusk.