He wasn't there.

Charlie checked his watch nervously for the sixth time in seemingly as many seconds. 4:03. No doubt Wonka had forgotten. And now Charlie would never know the joys of Greek tragedy. 4:05. Or fetal pig dissection. 4:06. Or even playing dodge ball using cushy Nerf balls instead of old, hardened soccer balls left for the younger classmen. Charlie felt dodge ball might actually be fun if he wasn't in danger of rupturing his spleen from 1980's soccer balls in traction. 4:08.

Suddenly a door in the deserted hallway flew open and a dozen pots and pans, along with Mr. Wonka, came crashing into the hallway, followed by a woman's scream. "I'm sorry!" Mr. Wonka yelled back into the room as he stood up and brushed himself off. "Not to worry, though! I'm sure jello tastes just the same after being stepped on a few times!"

"Mr. Wonka!" Charlie hissed as he grabbed the bewildered man by the arm and began dragging him away. "Where have you been?"

"I had the most horrific adventure involving gelatin. You know, I think I came in the wrong door."

"And the entirety of the home economics class will have to re-do their meals now, no doubt. So much for stealth," Charlie muttered as he continued to drag Mr. Wonka towards Ms. Rickshickle's door. "Now remember. Act as normal as possible."

"Normal?" Mr. Wonka's face turned a shade paler. If that was possible.

"Yes. Please, Mr. Wonka, you have to act normal. If you don't…well…I don't want to think about it," Charlie said as he shut his eyes, trying to block the thought of being forced to listen to squeaky clarinets for the next six months.

"I think I should tell you Charlie, that normal has never been something I'm good at."

"Look, we'll practice, all right?" Charlie stopped their striding march and looked at his mentor seriously. "Now, I'm going to ask you how you are. And you answer as normally as possible." Charlie took a deep breath. "How are you, Mr. Wonka?"

Wonka frowned, threw a glance over his shoulder and said, "I just told you that I had a rather unpleasant encounter with green gelatin and walnuts. Furthermore, there seem to be gerbils in the plumbing, judging by the scratching noises I heard above me as I climbed in through the air shaft. I had to. I couldn't find the front door. Hey, this is your school, isn't it? Is this your locker? Do you have any gerbils inside? Can we put them in the jello? What if…oh, Charlie, what if we made Jello Jerbils, huh? Wouldn't that be neat?"

"See, this is where we run into problems," Charlie said patiently. "Why don't you just say, 'I'm doing fine'?"

"Because it would be a lie."

"Then lie." Charlie looked again at his watch and his eyes widened. "Oh, God. Come on, we have to go." The dragging began again. "Just…just…do your best, all right? And remember – normal."

The duo was met at Ms. Rickshickle's door by said woman and a rather pale, unkempt looking man in a business suit who looked as though he'd spent the last six hundred years in gridlocked traffic. Charlie swallowed. This wasn't good.

"So kind of you to show up," Ms. Rickshickle quipped snappishly. "And to think we'd been so stupid as to expect you to come on time."

"Sorry," Charlie said quickly, then practically shoved Mr. Wonka in front of him. "This is him, this is Mr. Wonka, Ms. Rickshickle. I told you I'd get him here, and I have."

"Ah, Mr. Wonka," the swarthy man said, extending his hand and forcing his lips upwards in an action that might have been an effort at a smile. "So pleasant to meet you. I'm a big fan of your candies. I especially like the Maple Whip Delight."

"Really? Those are awful!" Mr. Wonka laughed in his impossibly falsetto laugh. "I only sell them because there's so many of them stockpiled in boxes in the storage room. Do you know," he said, leaning in close to the man, "that I actually only made one batch of them, about fifteen years ago?"

The man looked a bit sickened at having eaten fifteen year old candy all this time. "That's…fascinating," he managed to stutter in what Charlie felt was a heroic attempt at not vomiting.

"Yeah! Waste not, want not," Mr. Wonka tittered.

"Mr. Wonka, I'm Philomena Rickshickle," Ms. Rickshickle said, unceremoniously pushing her way in front of the swarthy man. "How are you, sir?"

Mr. Wonka opened his mouth to speak, looked warily down at Charlie, and then forced a smile. "Fine," he said flatly. Charlie exhaled in relief.

"Good. Then we can get down to business."

Mr. Wonka looked slightly offended and apprehensive as Ms. Rickshickle motioned for he and Charlie to sit at the student desks. Gingerly, Mr. Wonka sat down and tried to smile. "Now then Ms. Shingles," he said. "Charlie says you wanted to tell me something."

"It's Rickshickle, Mr. Wonka. It's Anglo-Polish."

"So it is," Wonka said amicably. "My apologies." He wanted to add for being born with that last name, but managed to keep his mouth shut.

"And this is Mr. Ginker. He is a psychologist from the State office, Mr. Wonka."

Both Wonka and Charlie instantly did not like where this was going. However, Mr. Wonka nodded cheerfully towards the man and said, "How interesting! I always thought a Ginker was an Indo-Pacific species of retarded fish."

"Please, Mr. Wonka!" Ms. Rickshickle warbled. "Mr. Ginker is concerned, like me, that Charlie's home environment might be…how to put this kindly…too unconventional to equip him with the social skills he needs to excel in civilian life," she finished with a sickly smile. She had obviously practiced this moment in the mirror.

Mr. Wonka shifted uncomfortably. "What does that have to do with me?" he asked in a small, nervous voice, not looking up. "It's not like I'm his fa – uh, his fa – his – "

"No, and I suppose we should be thankful for that much," Ms. Rickshickle said, not masking the contempt in her voice. "I can't imagine what strange frivolities might ensue from your own offspring. Heaven forbid you ever procreate." Mr. Wonka smiled nervously, still not looking up, and looking completely out of place in the quite atypical classroom. "But you are, and Mr. Ginker agrees with me, a large influence on young Charlie here. Why, you are his mentor, are you not? He is your apprentice?"

"Yes," Wonka answered simply.

"And you must spend a large amount of time with him, training him and such. Am I correct in my assumptions?"

"Yes."

"Well!" Ms. Rickshickle chirped in triumph, folding her hands on her desk. "And we've seen what sort of influence that is."

"From what Ms. Rickshickle has told me, Mr. Wonka, Charlie often times comes to class in a rather…abnormal state," Mr. Ginker said. "For instance, just yesterday, he seemed to be covered in…what was it again, Ms. Rickshickle?"

"Goo," she answered, her mouth forming a perfect 'o.'

"Yes. Goo. And the home office is concerned that Charlie is being raised in an unsafe and unsuitable environment."

Mr. Wonka finally looked up, his eyes flashing anger for a moment before resuming his normal placid stare. He forced another smile. "He is perfectly safe, I assure you both. I wouldn't let anything happen to him." Charlie smiled a bit until Wonka went on to say, "I mean, do you know how much trouble I went through to even find an heir? Just the thought of going through that…that ordeal again sends shivers up and down my spine. No, this one will have to do. I have to keep him alive."

Ms. Rickshickle and Mr. Ginker gave each other knowing looks before Mr. Ginker said, "But what about Charlie's broken arm last year? And when he missed a week of school due to a strange strain of flu obtained in…where was it again, Mr. Wonka?"

"Leaky Bottom Lagoon. It's a lovely place."

"Where is it?"

"Somewhere between the Port of Indecision and southwest of Disorder," Mr. Wonka answered with dreamy look on his face.

Mr. Ginker shifted and let a frustrated sound escape his lips. "Mr. Wonka, I have to say, I don't feel comfortable in allowing Charlie to continue to live in his current situation."

"What about my parents? You don't honestly think they'd let anything happen to me, do you?" Charlie demanded.

Mr. Ginker gave him a condescending smile. "But you both just agreed that you spend an awful lot of time together. Don't you think, Ms. Rickshickle, that it is entirely possible that Charlie's parents do not know the conditions which Charlie is subjected to on a daily basis?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Ginker. I think it's quite possi – "

"What do you mean, 'subjected to'? The factory is the most wonderful place in the world," Charlie said in a shaking voice as he stood up. In the years since coming to the factory, Charlie had found one of his niches in being the voice of defense when it came to defending both the factory and Wonka himself. Often times, he was the only one who would do either. "Mr. Wonka wouldn't let anything bad happen to me. Just last week he pulled me back just as I was about to fall in one of the caramel mixers."

"Charlie!" Mr. Wonka hissed in a fierce whisper. Mr. Wonka wasn't stupid, and knew an ambush when he saw it; his heir was only making the situation worse by explaining what the two ignoramuses in front of them wouldn't, and couldn't, ever understand.

"And the week before that, when he told me to stay away from the notzwingers on the marshmallow tilling farm, I didn't listen to him, and sure enough I got bit! But he told me to stay away from them, because he knew they were dangerous!"

"Charlie, stop!" Mr. Wonka whispered again.

"Endangerment of a child, sounds like to me," Mr. Ginker said as he made a note on his pad. Ms. Rickshickle nodded brusquely.

"He's been to all the places that no one else has even heard of, he knows all the secret ingredients to make the best candy in the world, and what's more, he knows the zoology of all the species no one even knows about!"

"Really," Mr. Ginker said in an even voice. "He knows a lot about things that…no one else knows anything about?" Charlie nodded. "Then how does he know them?"

"He's been to those places and he's seen those things!" Charlie spat.

"Hallucinations. Interesting," he said, once more writing it down on his pad. He chuckled a bit and threw a withering glance at Wonka. "They always said you had a lot of…imagination."

"Hey!" Charlie shouted, slamming his fist on the desk. "You can't talk to him like that!"

"Dear boy, calm yourself," Mr. Wonka said, giving Charlie a sidelong glance that meant, My turn. "There are some people in this world who only believe what they have seen, or what they have been told to believe. They are ignorant, Charlie, and we just have to get used to it. There are a lot of them."

"Ignorant, am I?" Mr. Ginker said huffily, throwing his pad down on the end of Ms. Rickshickle's desk. Mr. Wonka sat back in satisfaction; he'd drawn the attention away from Charlie and back onto himself like he'd wanted. It was one thing to ambush an old hand like Wonka, but doing it to a young kid like Charlie was an unforgivable act in Wonka's eyes. "Well, you'd be surprised what 'ignorant' people can do in large groups, Mr. Wonka."

"Oh, I already am," Mr. Wonka said truthfully.

Mr. Ginker gritted his teeth. "I meant we have the power to take Charlie away if we felt he was in danger."

"No!" Charlie said in a panicked voice, suddenly grabbing the fabric on his mentor's overcoat as if they would be torn away that second.

"Charlie, you're not going anywhere," Mr. Wonka said in a reassuring voice and releasing himself from the iron grip of his heir. "I wouldn't allow it. Do I have to explain about the Ordeal again?"

"This piece of paper right here," Mr. Ginker said as he pulled a pink piece of paper from his briefcase and waved it around, "Gives me the absolute authority to do whatever I see fit in this situation."

"And what do you see fit?" Mr. Wonka tried not to betray anxiety in his voice. He hated being reminded that though he was not of the world, he was still required, in some ways, to be a part of it. Wonka rightly felt that bureaucracy, in a word, sucked.

"Look, Mr. Wonka, I'm a reasonable man. I don't want to have to take Charlie away." Liar, Mr. Wonka thought. "So I'm going to give you another option. Your mental stability is obviously in question here. I believe, as does Ms. Rickshickle, that it very well might be at the root of Charlie's…conditions each school day. In fact, I could give you a mental competency test right now, and feel fairly certain that you would fail it. However, there are ways to remedy the mental balance and perhaps rectify the entire situation." Mr. Ginker leaned towards Mr. Wonka. "Medications, Mr. Wonka, can do wonders. I will allow Charlie to stay with you on the condition that you take mental stability medications for sixty days, just to even you out. These pills will help you to see reality as the rest of us see it. Mr. Wonka, you will finally be able to operate at a rational level. They will fix you, Mr. Wonka. Won't that be wonderful?" Wonka stared at him blankly. Mr. Ginker cleared his throat and continued. "At the end of the sixty days, you can take the State mental competency test. If you perform well on this test, we will have no reason to continue our investigation."

"You mean, you'll leave me alone forever?"

"Yes," Mr. Ginker said. "But only – "

"If I take the stupid medication, I got it," Mr. Wonka growled. He sighed impatiently, ready to be done with this drivel. "What is the other option?"

"The other option, Mr. Wonka, is that Charlie would be immediately removed from the factory's environs and a restraining order placed against you."

"You can't do that! Only me or someone of my family could get a restraining order against Mr. Wonka," Charlie piped up.

Mr. Ginker gave him another condescending smile. "My dear child," he said in a syrupy voice, "If we suspect you are in danger, we can do whatever we want."

"Well he's not going to take any stupid drugs, because he doesn't need them!" Charlie cried. "He wouldn't be able to do the work that he does if he's…if he's taking something like that. You talk about mental balance. The balance needed for his level of creativity is already there."

"This isn't about creativity. It's about reckless endangerment of a minor," Mr. Ginker said, standing up. "But if that's the way you want it, I'll go ahead and escort Charlie to a local Safe House, and we can begin – "

"Wait," Mr. Wonka interjected softly. He heaved a shaky sigh and swallowed hard. "I'll take it," he said quietly.

Charlie looked like someone had slapped him in the face while Mr. Ginker looked elated. "Wonderful!" he cheered. "I knew you'd see it my way."

"Mr. Wonka," Charlie whispered to his mentor. "Those – those drugs, you won't be the same – "

"I'll be fine, as long as you're there to help me out, ok?" Mr. Wonka said, trying his best to put on a brave smile. "You're my helper, right? My apprentice. Well, now here's a little test to see how much you've learned."

Charlie felt like he might cry. "You don't have to this," he whispered. "We'll leave, the whole family, we'll go away and you can keep working, you – "

"Charlie," Mr. Wonka said in an uncharacteristically firm voice. He looked at his mentor straight in the eyes, which was unusual. "I've made up my mind." Charlie looked dumbstruck as Mr. Ginker handed Wonka a doctor's prescription for one of the strongest mental illness drugs on the market and smiled.

"I think you'll be seeing some pleasant changes in your life pretty soon, Mr. Wonka," Mr. Ginker said, daintily shaking Wonka's hand. "And we'll see you in sixty days."

"And then you'll leave me alone."

"If you pass the test, yes."

Mr. Wonka looked down at the prescription slip and swallowed again. He looked up and forced a smile. "Thank you, Mr. Ginky. And Ms. Rickyshicky."

Despite the situation, Charlie nearly laughed at the dark looks on Mr. Ginker and Ms. Rickshickle's faces. Mr. Wonka wasn't beaten yet.

"Come on, let's get out of here," Charlie said quickly, shooting Ginker and Rickshickle looks that could kill. He grabbed Mr. Wonka's arm and pulled him out of the overbearing atmosphere of the classroom. As soon as they were safely out in the hallway and beyond the sight of the two trolls in the classroom, Charlie grabbed the pink prescription slip and threw it in the nearest garbage can. "Don't need that, do we?" he said brightly. "And no one has to know."

Silently, Mr. Wonka fished the paper out and kept his eyes locked on it.

"Mr. Wonka?" Charlie asked in confused voice. "You're not really going to take that, are you?"

"Boy, you've got some fire in your belly, don't you?" Mr. Wonka said, evading the question and giving Charlie a strained smile. "Telling those…bureaucratically important…officials all about life at the factory. About dangerous animals. Open vats. And strange ingredients in my candies that they've never heard of. You know, you told me to lie."

It wasn't often that Charlie irritated Wonka, and Wonka never openly scolded his heir, but the times when he had to remind Charlie to pick his battles were increasing now that Charlie becoming a short-tempered teenager who had gradually become over-protective of those people – and places – he loved. Charlie's shoulders sank and he jammed his hands in his jeans pockets. "I'm sorry, Mr. Wonka. I just get so mad when people start asking questions about my family and about the factory…" He shook his head slowly, his gaze not leaving the marred tile floor of the hallway. "It's none of their business."

"That's never stopped people like them before." Mr. Wonka looked up at his heir, and Charlie was surprised to find Wonka looked worried. "But perhaps I should take them, Charlie, I mean if the things they were saying are true – "

"They aren't, and you know it."

"You do seem to have a lot of accidents."

"They're my fault."

"Charlie," Mr. Wonka said again in a strangely serious voice. "I don't know if you even realize how close I was today to losing you and your family." Charlie was speechless; anything like emotion coming from Wonka was indeed rare. Mr. Wonka continued on in a hushed voice. "And I don't want to do anything that might risk it further. What if they show up on the factory doorstep and test me to see if I've been taking it? What if they come to check up on things and see that nothing's changed? And when they come to give me that test and I fail it? They'll know something's up and they will follow through on their threats. No, Charlie, this is getting dangerous now."

"What's dangerous is that stuff they want you to take."

"It can't be worse than losing all of you," Mr. Wonka said, averting his gaze. Charlie bit his lip, amazed at this – for Wonka – emotional outpouring.

"Mr. Wonka," Charlie said in a frustrated tone. "These – these drugs aren't something that will just get flushed out of your system with time. They're going to alter the chemistry of your brain. Don't you get it? You'll never be the same."

Mr. Wonka did look a little shaken but said, "Nonsense, Charlie. Alter me? No. Impossible."

Charlie sighed. "All right," he said finally, scratching his temple. "If that's what you want."

"Charlie, there are many important things you need to learn about running my factory," Mr. Wonka said as they began to amble towards the front exit. "Chief among these is to never, ever underestimate your mentor…"