Disclaimer: I do not own Willy Wonka or his chocolate factory, but I do own some of his chocolate.

This is, unavoidably, a Mary-Sue. The character is not a Mary-Sue in and of herself, but the situation is Suey. It is a well-written, hopefully forgivable Sue, but I would be lying if I said it wasn't one. However, I do beg that you give me a chance before discrediting my work. I've actually put a lot of work into this, and I would appreciate your comments. Even if they're flames.

A note on the new Burton/Depp film: When I wrote and posted this, it was months and months before the movie came out. My Wonka is not the same as Johnny's, nor is it quite Gene's, nor is it quite Dahl's. It's probably mostly Dahl, with some Gene thrown in, in the skin of Depp, but as you read, I aptly encourage you to picture your favourite Wonka. I have tried not to describe him, physically, but when I have, feel free to ignore. All Wonkas are love. .

Also, any formatting errors should be blamed on our buggy host. Anyway, on to the fic!

Oh, sorry to interrupt...one last thing. I have a rule: If you're going to write a fic that includes an original character, make sure that it starts out in a canon character's point of view. This is an excellent rule for writing decent fiction, and I have completely broken it. I'm sorry.

The factory sign creaked on its hinges in the wind, squeaking like a trapped bat in the cold air. The nighttime sky was promising rain - and soon. Nicole stood on the footpath, against the brick wall, surveying the dark factory opposite. Her mission sounded so easy: get in, get a token to prove that she'd been, and get out. If she succeeded, she would be the talk of the town for months, and earn the respect of her tight-knit circle of male friends. Her female friends knew better, of course, and respected her all ready, but the male mind needs to be impressed.

"No one goes in, no one comes out..." she whispered to herself, staring at the iron gates that barred the factory and its elusive owner from the rest of the world. Not a single window was lit in the whole factory, and she thought that it was little wonder that no one ever went in...it may just have been the dinge of night, but the place looked positively, downright creepy. And she had to get in there, somehow.

The first few adventurous droplets of rain fell with plops onto the street, and a couple landed on Nicole's head, running down her hair to land on her sweater. It wouldn't be long before the sky unleashed its deluge on the girl's unprotected head, so she would need to get inside, and soon.

The walls seemed impenetrable, the gates tall and sturdy, and Nicole was not small enough to fit between them. There wasn't any immediate way to get in, and the young girl was really not at all sure she would be able to accomplish the task set for her. The rain was coming down harder, now, obscuring her vision. If she was going to get inside at all, it would need to be quickly, before all visibility was reduced to the meagre inch or two beyond her nose.

"This is stupid," she declared, and an observer may have been surprised at the thick English accent with which she spoke, "I should just go home."

But as she thought of her latest memory of home - her mother screaming at her meek father, while the children tried to hide in their respective beds - she conjectured that the rain might be prefferable. She tested the bars to see if any of them would come loose, but they were firmly welded, and barely rusted, at all.

The rain was so thick now that not even the creepy man who sold brushes and dirty odds and ends, who was infamous for trying to scare kids away from the factory and who smelled like a sewer, was out. Nicole could hardly see a thing, and her cold fingers groped at the stone wall blindly. She felt along it, stumbling in the dark, the fog, and the downpour of rain. She couldn't get home, now, if she wanted.

"Please," she mumbled to herself, or perhaps to the unforgiving concrete of the wall, begging it to offer her a crack or a step up or anything...

Nicole fell flat on her face. This was not due to excessive clumsiness, though it was fair to say that she was not the most graceful of girls. Neither was this due to lack of vision, though it was also true that she could hardly see at all. It was also not attributed to slipperiness of pavement, though, again, this was a fact. No, her sudden trip to visit the sidewalk was prompted almost completely by a tree root that had taken up residence in the asphalt. It was, conviniently enough, attached to a large oak tree that seemed to be trying valiantly to protect its bruised victim of perambulatory obstacles from the torrential rain. Nicole felt around herself. The tree was less than a foot from the wall, and, upon closer inspection and cautious experimenting, there was a stone just outgoing enough to provide a foothold for Nicole's small feet. Leaning against the tree with one foot on the stone wall, she managed to grab hold of the lowest branch of the oak.

She very nearly laughed out loud with delight when she managed to pull herself up on to the slick branch without falling or incurring splinters. There might very well be a way into the factory, this way! Or perhaps, at least, she could crouch down under an overhang somewhere in the factory grounds until the rain died down far enough for her to emerge. She climbed up two more branches, until she was on one strong enough to hold her weight further out - over the wall. She looked down. It seemed to be a pretty far drop, and she was not even a fair-weather friend of heights.

But there! There was the answer! There was a smaller branch, lower down, just big enough to hold her weight, so that she could swing safely to the ground.

When her feet finally touched the squishy grass, she breathed a sigh of relief. One obstacle overcome! Now, to get into the factory itself.

The wall was brick, and appeared as impenetrable as the outer one. But this time, Nicole doubted she would be able to climb a tree to surmount it. There had to be a door, somewhere!

Her small fingers were getting almost sore from feeling her way around. There was certainly no door around here...

"Ouch!" Nicole cried out. In her careless caressing of the rough brick, she'd knocked her fingers against an odd one, sticking out lengthwise when it should have been lying flat like the rest of them. She put her fingers in her mouth and sucked them as if trying to pull the pain out of them with vacuum.

Then it caught her eye. She'd nearly missed it, because it blended so well with the bricks, but it was most definitely a door. It was brick-patterned, but there were hinges, and a doorhandle. She gripped it, turned it, and pushed.

She was expecting it to be locked. She was expecting to have to walk away disappointed, and hide beneath the scarce cover of a bush. So when the door swung open, allowing Nicole to rush gratefully into the building, she was very surprised.

And also very wet. She was dripping puddles on the floor, to her dismay. She picked up her skirt and tried her best to will herself not to sully the clean, dry floor of the factory, but her clothes paid her silent admonishments no heed.

"Oh bugger," she swore, under her breath.

The inside of the factory seemed to be one, long, endless hallway. Nicole had, in her wanderings of the past hour or so, managed to become almost completely dry. When she had accepted that her clothes were not going to cease dripping, she decided to cut her losses and wring them out at the door. She removed her sweater and held it out in the hopes that it would dry quickly (it did), and wrung out her ankle-length skirt to the best extent modesty would allow. Of course, no one was about to see her almost-white legs and nondescript undergarments, but that did not quite forgive the exposure. Nonetheless, she was now comfortably dry, if not completely.

Her shoes, however, were still squishy.

The hallway she was in, with its lavendar walls and peach-coloured floor, was empty and seemed to go on forever. Nicole walked timidly down it, and her every footfall seemed as loud as a shout.

"My dear girl, what are you doing here?" came the startling sound of a bemused voice.

Nicole jumped and spun around immediately. Behind her stood a man with a starched violet shirt tucked into a pair of plain, black dress pants. His hair was brown, down just to the bottoms of his ears, and on his face was a most peculiar, almost worried smile. He seemed ageless, and so perfectly manicured it was almost unnatural. Nicole wondered, noting the man's shoes, how he had managed to come up behind her so silently.

"You're not an Oompa Loompa, are you?" he asked, one of his eyebrows raised, slightly. When he spoke, dazzlingly white, perfectly straight teeth peeked out from behind the fleshy curtains of his lips.

"N-no, sir," she stammered, wondering if this man was completely mad, or just playing some sort of trick on her. Who ever heard of a...what was it? An Oompa Loompa? Grown-ups were not supposed to fib.

"No, of course not," he agreed, "You're far too tall and you don't look at all like one. Why, your ears aren't even pointed. And if those are leaves," he indicated her clothing, "Then it must be from a tree that not even I have ever seen!"

"No, sir. They're clothes. I'm just a person."

"Ah," said the man, with an air of reprimand, "Oompa Loompas are people too, merely a different kind. They're people as much as you or I or the cats and dogs and hamsters and ferrets and ocelots and wogglebeasts that we keep as pets! How did you get in here?"

The man had decided to add a bit of sense to the end of his tirade, and Nicole was slightly taken aback by it. Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times, and she stammered, her voicebox apparently stuck on the word "I" for a moment, but she recovered soon enough.

"I got lost..." she said, wondering if a sentence that small was really worth all the effort she'd made to say it, and if perhaps she should just turn and run home. She might have done so, but she knew full well that she wouldn't be able to find her way out of the factory alone. Meanwhile, the man was looking at her with a vague disapproving air. "Please don't turn me away, sir. It's raining."

"Is it? Raining, now. My, my. Good heavens. Goodness gracious me. Oh deary deary dear, yes..." the man continued to mumble such nonsense as he turned to a wide screen on the wall behind him (had that been there a moment ago? Certainly Nicole would have recognised a screen that large on the otherwise blank wall...) and pressed a number of buttons. Suddenly there was a crack of thunder, and the hallway became even brighter. Nicole jumped, acutely ashamed. She hated when she did that.

"Certainly, raining it is. Well, now, that won't do at all." The man pressed a single red button and turned to Nicole. His face was wet, raindrops running down and threatening to soil his lovely silk shirt. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and daubed himself off. "Oh dear, I really must remember not to look so closely next time. I always forget. Dear me," he said, throwing off small, unenthusiastic exclamations of surprise like rice at a wedding. He looked down at Nicole, who was nearly a foot shorter than he, with contemplation. Eventually he shrugged and heaved a sigh. "Well, I suppose there's nothing to be done about it."

He turned to head off through a doorway just a couple of feet away. Nicole was positive that that hadn't been there before. His hand grasped the knob, and it suddenly occured to the young girl that this strange man was just going to leave her there! Partly because the man intrigued her, and partly because she feared the door would disappear once he walked through it (hogwash, certainly, for doors did not disappear into thin air), she spoke.

"Wait!"

The man waited. He turned his head to face her. "Yes, what is it, my dear? I really haven't the time you know...terribly busy."

"You aren't an Oompa Loompa, are you?" she asked, stepping forward.

"No, not the last time I checked. Of course, my checks aren't always accurate, and things may have changed without my notice. How tall would you say I am?"

"Um. Perhaps six feet?"

"Not an Oompa Loompa, then. Satisfied, or must I take off my socks?"

Nicole wasn't quite sure how that followed, but had more important questions to ask.

"Then, and pardon me if I'm being impetuous - "

"Ah, impetuous! Why, you certainly are! Impetuous, precocious, and impulsive, you seem to be. However, since you ask forgiveness, I shall grant it. And now, good night, good evening, good morning, good day, and good bye," the man finished, and made to shut the door behind him.

"Are you Willy Wonka?" Nicole blurted out, almost desperately.

A head appeared from the door, looking either way surreptitiously. "Where? Oh, me, you mean. Yes. William F. Wonka, at your service, except not really, because I am quite busy indeed, and were I really at the service of every - but that hardly matters. What might your name be?"

"Nicole," she stated, and continued quickly before the man, now identified as the eccentric owner of the chocolate factory, could say anything else, "Heltquist. Please, Mr. Wonka, I don't wish to intrude, but I don't know my way around, and I wouldn't want to bumble into anything important..."

Wonka appeared thoughtful. "Yes, I suppose you're right. Well, I guess you had better come with me, then. Yes, come on now, I haven't got all day, my dear." He ushed Nicole through the door and shut it behind her.

The room Nicole entered was a strange one, indeed. All of the furniture in it was cut in half, from the half-tiles across the floor to the half a lamp hanging from the ceiling precariously.

"Pardon the mess, I don't usually have visitors. I discourage them, in fact," Wonka said, half-heartedly rummaging through some papers as if to tidy them.

"Everything's cut in half," Nicole said, the words escaping her mouth a half-second before her brain could intercept them.

"No it isn't, don't be ridiculous. Why would I cut all my furniture in half? That would be completely nonsensical, my dear, and I am a very logical man. Very logical indeed," he professed, sitting on half of a chair.

"But...But there's only half of any one thing."

"Oh, that. Yes, I suppose I can see where you might have gotten confused. It's all a half-formed idea, really. You see, I get so distracted at times that I only have time to form half of a thought before I move on to the next. This room makes me feel comfortable because my half-baked ideas feel slightly more whole, here."

"I see," Nicole lied, not seeing at all. She wasn't at all sure this had been a good idea. She wondered if she might be dreaming?

"Now do sit down somewhere and be quiet. I have so little work to do and so much time to do it in. Oh, strike that. Reverse it. Thank you."

Whatever Nicole had been expecting to find in the factory, a crazed (perhaps half-crazed, she thought as she considered the partial rocking chair she'd been offered) old man had not been it. Well, not old, precisely. He didn't look much older than her oldest brother, and he acted as if he were a tangenital young adolescent. But there was an air of wisdom about him, as if he'd been alive many years, and seen many things. It was one of many mysterious things about him.

She turned to look around her again. There was half a diploma on the wall, awarded to a one "William F W-," and issued from "University of Wh-." Signed by Squiggle McSq-. She wondered what the F stood for, but hesitated to ask. Wonka was sitting at his desk, writing with half a quill, and occasionally sending half a glance back at Nicole.

"I say, could you be a bit quieter? I am trying to work."

"I - I'm sorry, sir, I wasn't making any noise."

"Yes you were. You're thinking, are you not?"

"Yes, sir...but thinking doesn't - "

"Certainly it does, my dear young lady. Now, I must ask you not to think. Just sit there, please."

"I can't not think!" Nicole protested, standing up in distress, "You always have to be thinking of something, otherwise how will you know you're alive?"

"Ah, the old 'I think, therefore I am' theory. You would make a terrible monk."

Wonka turned half his swiveling chair and faced Nicole with scrutiny. He stroked his chin. Then he looked at the floor and sighed.

"Well, if you will insist on thinking, then I suppose you shall have to wait somewhere else. But I can't just let you run loose, no. I have half a mind to just excuse you - " he caught Nicole's eye, and gave her half a smile, " - but I suppose it's still raining, isn't it. You shall have to wait in my room. I shall lock you in. Yes, yes, that's really the only thing for it. Oh dear." Wonka stood and went to half of the door. He turned the 2/4ths of a handle halfway to the right, and pulled the door 50 percent open. Beyond it was a predominantly purple-coloured room, the floor neat and tidy, the ceiling littered with clothing and crumpled papers. Nicole knew better than to ask, because she was certain she would recieve an explanation along the lines of "I kept tripping over the mess, and wardrobes are really terribly expensive..."

She entered the room.

"Please feel around, but don't look at anything. Wait. Strike that. Reverse it. Thank you. Especially avoid the drawer."

"The drawer?" Nicole replied, but the door had all ready shut, and the sound of a key turning in a lock could be heard. She sighed. She'd definitely gotten more than she bargained for, accepting that dare.

Nicole was fourteen and three months. She didn't remember getting so old, so quickly, but somehow it had happened. Fourteen had just snuck up on her and bound her up in its hold. Now she had to deal with things like boys. Emotions. Breasts. She was both excited about it and irritated at it. She was glad to be growing up...but at the same time, rather wished it would all happen at once, so that all of the silly, awkward feelings she was encountering would have been over by now.

Nicole was relatively pretty. Young-looking, for her age, at least around her face. She had rounded cheeks, eyes that were prone to squint when she smiled broadly, and a childish mouth full of small white teeth. Her hair was medium-brown and straight, and she was, truth be told, slightly plump. Not fat, just slightly rounded. She preferred to think of herself as fluffy, like a marshmallow, or a little yellow chick, though she wouldn't admit that to her male friends, who still thought that girls had cooties, and would probably throw a fit if she said the words "fluffy little chick" to them.

She kicked her feet against the side of the bed. She assumed that when Wonka instructed her not to touch anything, the four-poster had been exempt from that rule. Of course, Nicole thought with more than a hint of amusement, he might well be expecting to enter the room and find her levitating so that she was not even touching the floor.

There were bookshelves full of strange and interesting-looking tomes. Nicole ached to pull one off the shelf and delve into its contents, but she didn't want to risk getting caught reading. Once she started, she often found it hard to stop, and she might not even hear the man come in. She had risked, however, taking a pair of gloves (carelessly left on the wardrobe instead of the ceiling). They were embroidered with Wonka's initials, and had a small chocolate stain on them. She hoped that would be proof enough for her friends. They lay, mauve and shiny, in Nicole's comparatively drab pocket.

She'd found out what Wonka meant by the drawer. The third drawer down on his nightstand was encumbered by a weighty, carved plaque. Engraved on the plaque, in flowery writing, was the following inscription:

"Do not ever, under any circumstances, open this drawer! You will be sorry!"

Nicole was rather put off by the enthusiastic punctuation at the end, but not so much as she was by the curiosity that begged her to open it. She knew she shouldn't. Of course she shouldn't. He'd told her not to. There was a sign on it. Yet, somehow, she knew she would. She would just peek. It was all right. It couldn't hurt her.

Her fingers brushed the handle on the drawer. It was okay. Perhaps there would be a secret chocolate recipe in there! That would definitely show her friends! Excited anew, she took a firm hold on the handle, and tugged.

What followed was the most raucous, cacophonic, noisy din Nicole had ever had the misfortune to unleash. It screamed, it shrieked, it pounded, it thumped, it bumped, it clanged, it squawked, it crashed, it smashed, it sounded like a million circuses, concerts, and carnivals colliding. The drawer, which she had accidentally pulled straight out of the dresser, fell to the floor as Nicole's hands flew up to protect her poor, seashell ears.

"I told you not to open the drawer!" The door had flown open and Willy Wonka had entered, rushing like a train on butter, "They always open the drawer..."

He lifted the empty drawer from the floor and calmly replaced it in the dresser. Then he shut it, and the hullabaloo died instantly. Nicole cautiously removed her hands from her ears, a sheepish look on her face.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Wonka, I - "

"Can't you read, young lady? It distinctly says, 'Do not ever, under any circumstances, open this drawer! You will be sorry!'"

"Yes, and I am sorry, I really am!"

Wonka heaved a sigh and looked at Nicole. She felt like she was required to say something.

"What does it do?"

"Well, it makes a lot of noise, doesn't it?" Wonka said, making it sound more like a statement than a question.

There was silence in which Wonka got to his feet and put his hands on his hips.

Nicole's face turned slightly pink, like a pig in the sunshine. She'd barely been in Mr. Wonka's room for ten minutes and all ready she'd disobeyed a direct order. Her downcast eyes traversed the black pants, purple silk, and landed on the candyman's pensive face. She bit her lip, waiting for the admonishment that she knew was coming.

"No," Wonka said, finally, "No, I don't suppose a candy that eats itself would sell very well. Wouldn't make too many children happy, to find that the candy they'd just purchased was all ready gone. Still, an amusing thought, nonetheless. Now, Miss Nicole, it appears that I can't really let you out of my sight, but I can't work with you here. So I suppose I shall be forced to simply sit still and suffer sociality."

He took a seat on the bed, and gestured for Nicole to sit down, as well. "You'll have to pardon my lack of social graces, I don't often have anyone - as a matter of fact, I never have any guests, save for the Oompa Loompas."

Nicole's mouth opened, but before "What's an Oompa Loompa?" could get out from betwixt her lips, "Don't you get lonely?" shouldered its way past and escaped first.

"No, the Oompas are more than enough company. They're delightful creatures, really they are. So helpful. Would you like some hot chocolate?"

"Oh, um...yes, please," Nicole stammered, rather startled by the sudden, friendly smile on the man's face.

Wonka snapped his fingers, and a moment later, a short man, strangely garbed, appeared. Wonka smiled at him. "Do run to the nearest chocolate and fetch two mugs of hot kitchen, would you please?" He noticed Nicole's giggling, and looked to the elflike man standing beside the bed. "Did I say something wrong?" Before the Oompa could answer, though, Wonka slapped his forehead and let out a hearty laugh. "Strike that, reverse it. Thank you, my good sir, and do be quick, fast, speedy, rapid, and with alacrity about it."

Wonka then turned to Nicole, "Now, you never did tell me quite how you got into my factory. No one, to my knowledge, has ever gotten in, before, yet here you stand, all though, I tell a lie, you are, in fact, sitting, plain as day, on my mattress. How ever did you get past the rabid Hobblerabbits?"

"I...I didn't see any, Mr. Wonka."

"Well, you wouldn't, would you? They're invisible. I thought every child knew at least that much. What are they teaching nowadays in those fancy-pants schools of yours?"

"Reading, writing, maths - "

"Fiddle-faddle! Absolute codswallop! Not to mention a great deal of flimflam and tomfoolery, with just a pinch of flapdoodle, as well. Writing! Arithmatic! Tell me, young Nicole, what is your arithmatic and writing going to do for you when you're attacked by a Horrendeous Hort? Will you write down a description of its gnashing, slavering, giant teeth? Will you multiply your artillery and divide the beast's wits so that you might subtract from the Hort population? Ridiculous, my dear girl, completely ridiculous what they teach these days. All that logic and not an ounce of sense. Ah! Our hot chocolate. Here you go, do sip it carefully, it's quite hot."

"Er, thank you, Mr. Wonka."

"Oh, do call me - " Wonka began, but stopped short, "Actually, to save time, nevermind. Mr. Wonka will do. Drink up!"