Every morning for the next two weeks, an unsigned letter arrived in Veronica's mailbox. They were counting down the days Veronica had to agree with the EHA and her father, before they seized her house. Every day, Veronica took her things and drove to Wonka's gates, screaming to be let in. Every day, she heard the same message.
"Go home. Face your fears! It builds character!" Wonka would broadcast over the factory loudspeakers.
Every day, Veronica contemplated driving straight through the factory gates… but she seriously doubted that her car would hold up to the impact.
She never unpacked, not once in two weeks. She supposedly had a month to just sit and get letters of warning before they would take away her house, the last true link to her mother. She had the photographs and the mementos stored in her car, but she grew up in this house. Sometimes she could still smell her mother's perfume, cookies baking in the oven, or spaghetti simmering on the stove. She could look at the old tan couch and see her mother and a much younger version of herself, in outrageous looking make-up, watching old movies on TV. Her mother had her hair rolled in enormous rollers, and even now Veronica knew, she was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. Thinking about it now, she wondered why Mary Lightfoot had ever gotten involved with someone like Slugworth.
Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka, the amazing Chocolatier...
Mary Lightfoot was nineteen years old and the new wife to an up and coming chocolatier. He was fifteen years older than she was, but he had always treated her like an equal. He had even shown her how to make the most delicious strawberry flavored, chocolate covered fudge. His name was Slugworth, and he was planning on introducing the world to this fudge just as soon as he could afford a little street-corner shop to sell it in. It was his claim to fame, and the fact that he had shared this secret with her impressed Mary very much. But life seemed to interrupt their plans, and soon a tiny baby girl named Veronica was taking up much of her mother's attention… and her father's money. By the time he had opened his little street-corner shop, several other budding candymakers were making their mark on the little British town. Slugworth spent so much time in the back rooms of his shop, as a result, that Mary Lightfoot no longer even knew the man she married. By the time Veronica had turned two, the couple had divorced. Slugworth moved into the apartment above his shop, leaving Mary and Veronica with the little flat. Years later, a young chocolatier named Wonka moved in down the street. He was shy, rarely coming out from his own back rooms, but he did on occasion… Mary Lightfoot happened to be in his shop on just such an occasion. She engaged the young man in conversation for hours, clearly a record for him, and he was very much taken with the woman he had met. She sold him the secret recipe for Slugworth's fudge, and promised to return. But on her second visit, the unthinkable happened. The young Wonka, so taken with Mary Lightfoot's beauty, fell to his knees proclaiming his everlasting devotion, begging her to marry him. But Mary couldn't live with another dedicated chocolatier. She rejected the boy and never again returned to the shop, instead sending her young daughter. Veronica, just five years old, came weekly to the shop to buy candy and fudge, far superior to her father's, and to see Willy Wonka. But Wonka, so stricken by rejection, never again ventured out of his shop's back rooms.
Slugworth, meanwhile, caught wind of his ex-wife's treachery. He vowed revenge on the young Wonka, and redoubled his efforts. By the time Wonka was building an empire, Slugworth was building an army. An army of spies, armed with the technology to steal all of Wonka's most closely guarded secrets.