A Chocolate-Coated Ending
In Which The Unexpected Happens, As Usual
I didn't feel inclined to reply to the li'l boy's question, which was, if you recall, or even if you don't,"Why is this door so bleepin' small?" or something of that ilk, and so instead I simply opened the door to the chocolate room, an anticipatory smile fixed on my face. This is undoubtedly my favourite room. The set-up here is, in a word, sweet. Vibrant colors assault the eye upon entering, giving one the sensation of embarking on an acid trip, as they say, or an LSD-induced daze. Not that I know from personal experience, of course. And not that either of those things have anything to do with the continued popularity of my candy.
Because they don't.
I swear.
Anyway.
Upon entering the chocolate room, the children went wild, although many of the adults were apparently blinded by the light. Or the sheer beauty. Yes, that sounds better. The parents were blinded by the sheer beauty.
The children being, as they so appropriately were, children, they ignored the sheer beauty and concentrated on the possibility of sheer sugar intake.
"Welcome to the chocolate room," I said. "Note the chocolate river, mixed by the chocolate waterfall, fully patented. Observe the chocolate grass, the chocolate walls, the chocolate plants. Please obey the chocolate signs, which are clearly marked (I hope you're beginning to comprehend why this is called the chocolate room, because if you are not, you are quite stupid), and above all, remember that there is someone up above."
The chewing gum girl's mother frowned at me thoughtfully. "You mean God?"
"No, I mean the extremely tall man to your right," I said, and gestured. There was, indeed, an extremely tall man to their right. He's always had a good sense of timing, knowing quite well when to show up, and waved and smiled right on cue.
"Who is he?" asked— someone. I don't believe I was paying attention; I was instead smiling gently up at the giant.
"I believe he wandered over from 'Big Fish,'" I answered, and walked on, swaying gently as I overcame the hills and tussocks— or is it tills and hussocks? Thills and ussocks? Or something else entirely; mounds of chocolate dirt and candy grass is what I mean, at any rate.
Behind me were mutters of, "Big what?" and "Fish?" and "I'm hungry," and "Watch him walk!"
"I know!" "Omigawd!" I left them to their confusion, hoping they'd get used to the sensation, went and admired my grass.
"Have you tried it?" I asked of no one in particular.
"Tried what?"
"Tried my grass, you silly li'l girl. You can chew it, lick it, swallow it—"
"Can you smoke it?" asked Nebbish the Third eagerly.
"I suppose you could," I said thoughtfully. "Though I don't know why you—"
"Cool," said Nebbish the Third nonchalantly, and started stuffing handfuls into his pockets. His father caught at his hands and glared daggers at me.
"What kind of person are you?" he demanded. "Don't pay taxes, push drugs on children—"
"What? He didn't go near the drugs!"
"Question," said the mother of the gum chewing girl, with dubious sense of timing. "How exactly are we supposed to obey the signs?"
I turned to her. "Well, by doing as they say, of course."
She blinked. "But this one says 'No breathing.'"
I blinked back and tipped my head slightly. "Your point?"
"But—"
"Close your eyes," I said, "hold your breath, make a wish."
One by one, they all did.
"I wish he won't start singing," said the li'l boy.
"I wish I had braces," said the li'l girl.
"I wish my gum hadn't lost its flavor two and a half months ago," said the— other li'l girl.
"I wish my hand was a pie so I could eat it," said the— other li'l boy.
"I wish I wouldn't pass out from lack of air," said Mandy.
They did anyway, of course, and I had to wait around whilst they slept. Eventually, they woke up, and things moved on. Regrettably.
"Moving on, regrettably," I said, "I was about to point out that everything in this room is eatable."
"Edible," corrected Mrs. Gum Chewer. I glared at her.
"Eatable."
"Edible," she persisted in a kind of thorough yap.
"Grammar Nazi," I said, "you just try to 'ed' something and see how far you get."
Suddenly there came a scream remarkably like that of an irritated and upset vampire bat. After ducking and looking about a bit, in some surprise as I hadn't known this was bat country, I discovered it had in fact come from the mother of the fat boy— Mrs. Gloop.
"Zat ees not a goode shing you doo!" she cried, her accent growing more marked by the moment. With lightening rapidity, I discerned that she wasn't actually talking to the spoilt girl, who was picking her nose, but instead was directing her invective towards her own son, who was— and I gasped in theatrical horror— using his fat hands to scoop up chocolate out of my river.
"Li'l boy—"
"Agustus!" screamed Ms. Gloop, bouncing forward with a grace previously achieved only by extremely stimulated sperm whales.
"Li'l boy," I repeated, "my chocolate must remain untouched by human hands, you see—"
"Can it be touched by human other things?" asked the one called Mandy, popping up beside me. I blinked at her. "I mean, for instance, suppose I dipped your—"
Her mo— father clapped a hand over her mouth immediately.
"My apologies," he— she said sweetly. "She tends to get a little randy."
"Randy?" I repeated, leaning back to survey her. "Mandy gets a little randy?"
"She does," said George Becky gravely. Mandy giggled. I stepped a little closer, fascinated despite myself.
"Have some candy, Randy Mandy."
"Fine and dandy," she agreed, picked up my hand and licked it. I jumped backwards with a squeal of disgust and had just started Boraxing my hand when it reached my attention that someone had fallen in the chocolate river.
Not just some someone. Mrs. Gloop.
In trying to prevent her corpulent offspring from falling prey to the same fate, her enormous bosoms had caused her to overbalance and tumble headlong. Or, more likely, breastlong. At any rate, she was now in my chocolate river, swallowing it at a truly alarming rate.
"Hey!" I protested. "Save some for others!"
"Herp!" she said, once again having her words obscured by her thick accent, though I suppose the chocolate coating her throat and filling her mouth didn't help. "Herp! Ashishtensh! Herp me! Arm drowningbrkgbrgk!"
"Arm drowning, you silly woman," I said, tsk-tsking severely. "Why are you worried about your arm? I should take care of the rest of you first."
"She said 'I'm drowning,'" clarified Mr. Nebbish. "Its just her accent."
"Ah," I said, comprehending. "I suspect I should have known that by now."
"Is she going to be sucked up by a pipe?" inquired Mandy.
"Whatever makes you say that?"
"Because there's a pipe just there, in the river, and she's going around and around and about to be pulled into—"
SssssTHUNK!
There was a pause.
"She's stuck," said Nebbish the Third, needlessly.
"Such superfluous observations," I lectured, "take up valuable oxygen and should be done away with if at all possible."
He stared at me. "What?"
"That means shut up, li'l boy."
There was an alarmed scream from the spoilt girl. Everyone turned to her in worry, except me— I turned to her in enjoyable anticipation to see what had disturbed her so. She was staring bug-eyed at something on the hill just near the waterfall, pointing wildly.
"What is it?" she screeched. "Its tiny! Its frightening! Its— it's a little person!" So saying, she fainted with ceremony. Not one person moved to catch her.
"Yes, it's a little person," I said, stepping close and treading, quite by accident, on her outstretched hand. She moaned but didn't awake, so it couldn't have been causing her too much pain. " Or rather, no, it isn't a little person. Its an Oompa Loompa; my workers here at the factory. They are quite effective, except when it comes to volunteering to be experimented on. Usually we have to hold some sort of lottery. I suspect that the amount of them that blew up when I created exploding candy was a bit off-putting—"
"What are they doing?" demanded Mr. Nebbish.
"They're making lascivious movements with their hips!"screamed Mrs. Gum Chewer.
"Nonsense," I said. "They're dancing. Very soon, they'll be singing."
I confess to being a bit worried about what, exactly, they would be singing; when it came to writing words to the song, they had assumed, of course, that it would be Agustus himself who fell into the river. They're very quick on the uptake, are Oompa Loompas, but I doubt they can rewrite a song this fast. However, it remained to be seen—
And seen it was.
They went ahead with their choreography; the words, however, came out somewhat muddled with haste.
"Mrs. Gloop/ Mrs. Gloop/
She's fallen headlong in the soup/
Leaving her little son behind/
except he's not that small, you'll find/
when you look at his fat face/
your lunch leaves you without a trace/
you start to retch, the room will swirl/
if your stomach is weak you'll certainly hurl/
There's no getting around someone this big/
there's nothing to do about this pig/
except avoid him if you can/
this monstrosity unknown to man/
that's why we envy Mrs. Gloop/
who's fallen headlong in the soup/
when you only have chocolate-covered sight/
you no longer can see this horrible fright."
I couldn't help but applaud anyway. E for effort, and all that. After all, its not every day you get this sort of opportunity.
"That's horrible," said Mrs. Gum Chewer. "I mean, singing about a woman who's stuck in a pipe, singing about her son that way—
Indeed, Agustus had started to cry.
"Please, fat boy," I said kindly, "cease and desist. You're blubbering all over my grass."
Becky, meanwhile, was still watching Mrs. Gloop. "Is she going to be stuck in there forever?" he— she— asked wonderingly.
"Yes," I said. There was another ssssthunk! and Mrs. Gloop shot the rest of the way up the pipe as the pressure propelled her upwards. "I mean, no."
"Mommy," sobbed Agustus. I eyed him for a long moment.
"On with the tour," I suggested, and no one denied me.
A/N: I think I'm being influenced a little more by Dahl's book, now. Not on purpose or anything, it just seems to be happening. But Wonka is undoubtedly the Depp version. And I suppose some of you might not know this, but Mandy and Becky are in fact somewhat based on people I know on PPN. Thanks for letting me use your names, guys!