It was raining again. The phenomenon hadn't been unusual in the past few weeks, as it had been raining practically non-stop for close to a fortnight. Charlie pulled his hood tighter around his face and jogged the rest of the way back to the factory in the rain, dreading the evening to come. Upon entering his house, he saw that his family and Wonka were already seated at the dinner table, obviously having awaited his arrival.
"Sorry I'm a bit late," he mumbled.
"Did you get them Charlie?" Mrs. Bucket asked nervously, echoing the thoughts of everyone in the room.
Charlie set his jaw. "Yeah. I got them." From his coat pocket he pulled a crinkled, white paper bag and threw it on the table, almost as if its contents disgusted him. Perhaps they did. "That's it, there. Sixty days' supply."
Mr. Wonka's face suddenly became drawn. Mrs. Bucket caught this. "Willy, you don't have to do this – "
"I don't know what everyone's so worried about!" Wonka said in a falsely bright tone that fooled no one as he ripped open the bag and eyed the meds inside. "I'm not worried. These things don't scare me at all. No, siree."
"And Audrey Hepburn will fly from my ass," Grandpa George muttered. He shook his head. "Look. It's going to be weirder having you be normal than it is for you to just be weird. At least we're used to it now."
"Dad, we've gone over this," Mr. Bucket said wearily. "It's Willy's decision. He has to decide what's best for him."
"That's right, and it's exactly the same thing Mrs. Bucket said about my Magic Twanger the other night," Wonka said, not noticing the bewildered look Mr. Bucket shot at his wife. Charlie put his face in his hands. "She said, 'Willy, it's yours. You can do whatever you want with it. And I'll certainly try some if you're offering.' Well, it's the same idea. Because whether it's a Twanger or a pill it's still going down the same throat, isn't it?"
Charlie snorted some of his water while the rest of the family, sans Wonka, blushed. Wonka looked up from his plate, ever oblivious, and smiled.
"Well, time to take the leap, I guess," he said, grabbing the plastic bottle. It took about twenty prolonged seconds of much twisting, turning and mumbling at the childproof lid before Mrs. Bucket took it from him calmly, opened it, and handed it back to him. He shook one pill from the enormous container and his eyes widened. "Charlie, are you sure you didn't go to the veterinarian's office?" he asked in a puzzled voice, the huge pill in his palm. "Because this pill seems to be much larger than anything a member of homo sapiens could swallow."
"Just take it with lots of water," Charlie suggested.
Eyeing the pill warily, Mr. Wonka gripped his glass of water tightly as though it could save him from the monstrosity he was about to swallow. Dramatically, he threw his head back, dropped in the pill, and managed to drink about half of the water in his glass before his eyes bugged and he emitted the most extraordinary erg-KACK sound, sending the pill flying across the table, where it hit a rather unamused Grandpa George squarely in the forehead before clattering to the surface on the table. No one moved for a moment, mesmerized by the pill as it rolled to a stop. Wonka then erupted into a violent coughing fit, complete with watery eyes and strange hic-y, gaspy noises. Mrs. Bucket patted him on the back gingerly until the fit subsided and turned her gaze to the soggy pill on the table.
"Let's cut one in half, shall we?" she said in a cheerful voice. She took a fresh pill, split it in two, and handed the two pieces to the still-recovering Wonka.
"Thank you," he rasped in the reedy voice that comes after a battle with a pill that refuses to be swallowed. These went down with no protest, much to everyone's (especially Grandpa George's) relief. Mrs. Bucket gave him an encouraging smile.
"There, dear. Now all that wasn't so bad, was it?"
Behind his hands, Wonka pouted.