A Need for Speed

In Which the Chapter Title is Not a Drug Reference, We Swear

I led the visitors onward, tripping lightly (and falling heavily) down the meadow towards the lower riverbank. Behind me came the less-than-rhythmic sobbing of the fat boy, as the other children taunted him with the sort of time-honored jibes often employed on schoolgrounds after the bully has beaten the small boy into submission, and a pulp— which I know from first-hand experience, I'm sorry to admit. (Not that I was the small boy, you understand— no, no, I've known for years that its much more worthwhile to be the bully.)

"Your mother got sucked up a tube, nyah nyah nyah nyah."

The remaining parents did little to shush their repellant offspring. In fact, George Becky joined in with a will, and he and his daughter appeared to be having great fun. Tempted as I was to join them, I was having to pay attention to my own footing, for the Oompa Loompas had appeared out of the blue, as they were wont to do, and I had to tapdance my way out of stepping on them, although perhaps it was more of a cockeyed waltz.

"Yes?" I bent down in order to hear the Oompa Loompa's whispered words. When my ear hove into view, he leant forward to relay his message, and ended up screaming in my ear instead. As my eardrums rattled and an expression of distaste passed over my face, I wondered what it was about this that they found so all-fired entertaining. Gosh darn it, they do it all the time!

I turned to the group, slightly apprehensive at how they were going to take the news.

"Well," I said brightly, "I have good news and bad news. Y'wanna hear the bad news first? Good policy, always take the let-down before th' high. Not that I know about highs any more than I know about the suicidal depression that comes after them, but we are trying to convince people that the title of this chapter has nothing whatsoever to do with drugs, so I'll skip th' lecture and just let you know right now that the li'l boy's mother appears to have drowned in the chocolate vat."

There was a shocked, horrified, awestruck, aghast, stunned, bowled-over, bedazed, appalled, dismayed, traumatized, scandalized silence. At this point the Oompa Loompa took my thesaurus away from me.

Agustus Glood appeared incapable of forming a coherent sentence, but he was kind of like that anyway. Mr. Nebbish filled in with, "What's the good news?"

"The good news, well, is that she had been about five minutes away from being made into strawberry-coated, chocolate-flavored fudge— no wait, isn't that a little redundant?— chocolate-flavored strawberry-coated fudge— hmm— still doesn't sound right, but she was nearly put in a new batch and we managed to get her chocolate-bloated body out before that happened! Yes, we found her floating on the top and pulled her right out!" I added with a smile and an illustrative gesture. "We had to use a crane!"

"But," said the now semi-orphaned li'l boy.

"Aww, come on, you can't tell me you wanted to have your mother made into chocolate-covered, strawberry-flavored fudge," I coaxed. "I knew I'd get it right eventually!"

The boy appeared to be considering for a moment.

Then he said, "Mmmmmmmm."

I leaned back from him, more than a bit appalled myself. "—on with the tour." Grimacing, I turned from him and walked down towards the river, signalling to the attendant Oompa Loompa to have the boat brought around. Clearly, in letting the boy's mother drown, I had committed a bit of a fax pas."

Too late, I realized I'd been voicing my thoughts aloud again.

"That's fo pah," corrected Mr. Nebbish, and I rounded on him in outrage.

"What did you call me?"

The boat came then, and so Mr. Nebbish was saved from a violent caning. They stumbled onboard, nearly falling over as the boat rocked, not an able pair of sealegs between them. I myself got on with my usual grace; it was entirely Mandy's fault that I was tripped up and landed lying lengthways across both her and George Becky's lap. I scrambled to extricate myself from this situation, a job that was made infinitely more difficult by the fact that Mandy had clamped all available limbs around my lower body, and George Becky was engrossed in examining my upper. Finally I flailed my way into falling off their laps, landing on the pink hard-candy floor of the still-rocking boat at their high-heel-shoed feet with a jarring thump, which I just realized is rather a lot of description for one sentence with very few commas.

I pulled myself upright and dusted myself down. The boat started off with a lurch and I was forced to support myself on Ms. Gum Chewer's, for lack of better word, shoulder. She gazed at me with such passion that I let out a squeak of alarm; for all I know she was about to rip off my waistcoat right then and there! I stumbled back and sat on a seat by myself, eyeing the other occupants of the boat with a jaundiced eye. Maybe it wasn't jaundice. Maybe it was pink-eye. Anyway, I was less pleased with things than I should have been. Certainly we did not expect Ms. Gloop to bite the big one, to go to the Big Fudge-Mixer in the sky— what now would we do with her blister of a son?

Keep on truckin', I supposed.

We passed a variety of rooms, and as I could have expected, the one that took Mr. Nebbish's eye is the one I wish he would have stayed away from. He looked shocked and turned to stare at me.

"Sex toys?" he said. "Sex toys?"

"Eatable," I placated, but this didn't seem to make things better. Luckily, Ms. Gum Chewer had been looking as well, and inquired, "Hair cream? What do you use hair cream for?"

"Why, to lock in moisture!" I replied, and gave my sleek hair a primp to demonstrate, trying to ignore the mutters that came from Mandy and her father.

"I'll show him moisture—"

"I'll show him locking in—"

The next scheduled stop was the Inventing Room.

The next stop in actuality was just outside it, when Mandy fell into the river.

A/N: The inspiration for Becky is deep in the midst of Hurricane Katrina (not to mention several of my in-laws) so here's thinking of you, kid! Stay safe and dry.