Chapter Six! Finally! I am so sorry it took so long, but I was out of town for a while, and had a major case of writers block! And since I didn't want to write something crappy, I waited until I had a brain blast, and well, I finally did. A big thanks goes out to Wicked Seraphina, who gave me a review I still can't believe I got. Thank you so much! huggles
Well, anyways, onward and upward!
"I warned you about sleeping outside..."
"Wha?" For what seemed like the millionth time today, Misty uttered that word before the world spun into focus, a bit blurry this time as she realized her glasses were no longer on her face. She sat up slowly, feeling a bit lightheaded as she did so, but she wasn't about to allow herself to fall back down. "Where are my glasses?" she asked quietly.
"Here you go..." a blurry hand held an equally blurry curl of metal that were her glasses out to her as she took them, putting them on her face, this time the world coming into clear focus.
She looked around. The room was a pale white, with a strange design of purple and gold boarding it- well, at least until it reached the middle of the wall, where the swirls separated from one another and seemed to crash into the bottom trim with the seeming of an explosion. It was as if someone had gotten lazy on the job but still managed to make it look so intriguing that it was hard to pull your eyes away.
She briefly remembered the barren landscape in the brainstorming room, wondering for a moment if the two things were somehow connected- but, of course, something... make that someone, snapped her out of her thoughts.
"Well, you certainly know how to make a lasting first impression, little girl," Willy Wonka said as he side stepped in front of her line of vision, both hands on his cane.
Misty blinked as her eyes grew slightly wider. So it wasn't a dream.
Willy quirked one dark eyebrow. "Well Charlie, it seems she's not a mumbler but a mute!" He smiled in the strangest way once again.
She blinked again. "Charlie? As in the Charlie Bucket?!"
The boy she had first met in the Brainstorming room stepped into her line of vision next to the amazing chocolateer, nodding slightly. "I guess I never did tell you who I was," he said, rubbing the back of his neck embarrassedly. "I'm terribly sorry about that Miss Misty." He smiled. "I'm Charlie Bucket and it's a pleasure to have you in our factory this afternoon."
Again she blinked.
"First she screams and now all she does is blink," Willy tilted his head to the side before chuckling. "You're really weird."
Now it was Misty's turn to tilt her head and give him a curious look. "Uh... thanks... I think."
"Willy, be nice," Charlie muttered quietly, but the candy man simply shrugged his shoulders and seemed to be about to say something when, to Misty's bitter surprise, one of the little men that had gotten her into this mess came walking in. He was pushing a small wheeled tray with a dark blue china tea cup and a silver pot with a candied handle on a silver platter.
"Oh look! The Oompa Loompa's brought you your drink!" Willy seemed utterly excited about this as he clapped his purple gloved hands together a few times before crouching down to the small man's level, it whispering a few things in his ears.
"Oompa...Loompa?" Misty asked quietly, eyes never leaving the creature as Willy took the tray off of the Oompa Loompa's cart and handed it to Charlie, who took it with little hesitation. Crossing and uncrossing his arms over his chest, the small man mimicked Willy before turning around and wheeling the tray out of the room.
"Yes, an Oompa Loompa. They work at the factory," Charlie explained as he poured a steaming liquid into the tea cup. Misty turned her head slightly to look at him. "One day Mr. Wonka will have you tell you the whole story. But for now, drink this. It will help you feel better." With that he handed her the cup.
She took it with little hesitation as she began to blow on the liquid to cool it, only to stop in mid pucker.
She blinked.
"It's... it's purple..." she stated confusedly.
"Hm?"
"The cup... it turned purple." Sure enough right before her eyes, the once blue cup was changing to a bright purple. "How... how is that possible?"
Charlie smiled. "Anything is possible here. That particular cup is like a mood ring. The color it turns is how you are feeling."
Misty's eyes grew wide as the cup turned a bright orange. Charlie chuckled. "See, orange means that you are surprised."
Misty stared at her cup. "I- I am..."
Charlie chuckled in a good nature again. "Well, don't let the cup frighten you. It's just another famous Wonka and Bucket work in progress. The liquid inside is what you should be drinking."
She nodded slightly as she placed the cup to her lips cautiously, the bottom of it beginning to turn a dull green.
"Don't be nervous. It's really good, I assure you."
She raised one eyebrow. "How did you-" she looked at the cup. "Oh... right..." It was still taking her a while to get used to the fact that a china tea cup was changing colors because of her mood.
Once again she put the cup to her lips and took a small sip of it, a warm, delicious liquid going down her throat. "Wow..." she whispered, taking another sip as the cup began to turn a light rose color. The cup turned a brighter shade of pink as she took a longer sip of it, till soon, by the time the cup was empty, it was a bright shade of neon pink.
Charlie smiled as he took the cup away from her and placed it on the tray, it turning back to it's original dark blue shade. "How was it?" he asked.
Misty smiled. "It was like magic in my mouth!" she exclaimed. "It was like a chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon, and a bit of coffee mixed together! It was like a- like a-" she struggled to find the right words, though she finally did find them. "Like a Wonka's scrumdillioumptious, deliciously thick, melt in your mouth, better than any medicine you've ever tried hot chocolate."
Charlie laughed good heartily. "That might be too long a name to put on a wrapper!"
She shrugged, smiling slightly. "Can't blame a girl for trying."
"So I take it you're feeling better."
She nodded. "Sure do. Whatever you call that stuff, I would buy it no matter if I was sick or not!"
"Ah, but that's where the genius part comes in," Willy Wonka walked back into her line of vision, holding up his pointer finger. "See, with this when you're sick, it tastes like a mix of the finest cinnamon, vanilla, chocolate, and coffee, or the finest flavors you choose out of ten, yes ten, completely different choices. But, when you're not sick, it will taste like the foulest, dirtiest, nastiest thing your poor little tongue could ever taste! One Oompa Loompa tried it when he wasn't sick and ending up with a mouthful of dirty gym socks. Poor thing couldn't eat for weeks."
Misty's eyes grew slightly wider as a slight smile tugged at her lips. "That's amazing."
"Oh no, it was quite horrible," Willy said, placing a finger to his cheek. "I mean, could you imagine having a mouth full of gym socks? Ew."
She chuckled, knowing full well he hadn't understood her correctly. "Oh yes, I believe that would be quite horrible Mr. Wonka."
Willy smiled quite oddly. "Now little girl, if you don't mind, Charlie and I need to have a chat. Yes, a chat. We'll be in the Brainstorming room. Feel free to look around, but don't touch anything." He smiled differently, though it still produced the same weirdness factor as he held up his hands before heading towards the door. "Now come on Charlie, there's so much time and so little to do." He paused, blinking. "Strike that, reverse that. Good. Now, come along." With that he left the room.
Charlie shook his head slightly from side to side before looking at Misty. "So, feel well enough to get out of bed?"
She nodded, immediately throwing the covers off of her and jumping out of the bed. "Never felt better."
He smiled. "Good. Now, as Mr. Wonka said, feel free to look around. You can take the boat-"
A sickly look came over Misty's face at the mention of the boat which Charlie noticed right away. "-Or just feel free to walk around or take the glass elevator." The look disappeared right away. "But I do warn you, some rooms in this place are better left not going into."
She nodded, following Charlie out of the door. "I understand," she said watching as he stepped into the pink sea horse boat, sitting next to Willy. "Thanks."
"No," Charlie said, smiling slightly as the drum beat sounded. "Thank you." And with that, they sped away at a speed that made Misty's stomach turn.
"Never again," she whispered, holding her stomach as it stopped its' queasiness just in time to let her gaze around.
"Oh crap," she muttered, suddenly realizing that she was surrounded by a deep river of chocolate and that the boat, the same boat that she hated with a chocolatey passion was the only way to get off of the platform at which she stood.
But wait, hadn't Charlie said something about a glass elevator? Ah, yes, yes he had.
"But he never told me where to find it..." she though aloud, turning around and pacing to one side. "Just great. How am I supposed to find a glass ele-" But before she could finish her sentence she slammed quite unknowingly into something hard, falling down on her rear end. Blinking, she looked up to see, indeed, a glass elevator standing there, seeming to laugh at her position as she slowly stood up.
"I guess that's how you find them..." she muttered quietly, straightening herself out before pressing the white button on the elevator. With a ding, the doors opened and she stepped inside, another ding sounding as the doors closed, leaving her to gaze in wonder at all the buttons that seemed to fill the entire elevator.
Some sounded quite interesting. For instance, 'The T.V. room', 'The Cotton candy room', or 'Fudge mountain.'
Some sounded a bit more than odd, but just odd enough to want to go into them. Like 'Hair cream', 'Taffy puller room', or the 'Incinerator room.'
But her fingers traced over all of these before hitting one room she was surprised her brain allowed them to hit. But it was too late to question as with a jolt of speed that sent her flying into the side of the elevator for the second time that day, the great glass elevator tore off to the right, before flying up into what seemed like nothingness.
"What have I gotten myself into?" she thought as wide eyes gazed up, wondering if the wild ride would ever stop.