The Virtues of Cannibalism

In Which Things Transpire that the Author Wishes She Hadn't Thought Up In The First Place

Luckily (for Mandy, anyway) she wasn't such a sinkable battleship as Mrs. Gloop had been. We fished her out in good time before she drowned, and she stood on the bank shivering for a moment, as if in shock. Hers was a resilient personality, however, and she soon began licking herself off with every evidence of enjoyment. I watched her, somewhat askance, a little leery of the tongue action.

"Cannibal," said the spoilt girl nasally, her nose in the air. Mandy tromped on her toe, producing a very satisfying, "Ow, Daddy, that hurt!"

"Now children," I said, "there's nothing wrong with cannibalism. Many great nations have been founded on the practice: Rome, Ireland, Ethiopia, the Donner Party. Why, in Russia they've been eating people for years!"

Mr. Nebbish, never one to remain silent when there was complaining to be done, stared at me with an expression fast approaching outrage, via way of concern and almost-but-not-quite-lingering-constipation. "I find your views on that subject highly disturbing, Mr. Wonka."

"Bite me!" I said brightly. I was merely trying to reinforce my opinion in the most effective way, but he seemed to take offense.

"There's no call to be childish about this—"

"Then, by all means, please don't be. There are far too many children present as it is. Shall we proceed?" Hiking my cane in the air and swinging it a bit, I succeeded in clocking Nebbish the Third in the nose, biffing the fat boy on his stomach, and jodying Ms. Gum Chewer on the shin on the return swing, although she seemed to regard this as a friendly overture. Feeling rather proud of my efforts and adopting an expression of blithe ignorance, I walked on by.

"Mr. Wonka," purred Ms. Gum Chewer, "I couldn't help but wonder if you—"

She fumbled. I quirked an eyebrow. She stuttered. I frowned. She spat a little on accident. I grimaced. She muttered. I waited, but she seemed to have run out of sentence endings.

"—dropped this handkerchief?" she finished finally, whipping one out of her pocket. I managed a pained smile and took it delicately between forefinger and thumb, glad once more that I wore my gloves. It's the germs, you see— I can't stand the idea of billions of tiny invisible orgasms crawling all over my poor defenseless body.

—is orgasms not the word I mean?

Oh dear.

Organisms! Organisms!

"Nope," I said, smiling determinedly. "Not mine." With it still in my hand, held quite carefully pinched between pointer and thumb, my other fingers arranged neatly as well— pinky folded neatly, ring finger bent beneath it, middle finger pointed straight up— I turned on the rest of the group and offered it to each one in turn. "Yours? No? Yours? No? Yours? No? Yours? No? Yours? No?"

It turned out not to belong to anyone. As a matter of fact, thinking back on the fixed smile which Ms. Gum Chewer wore throughout this whole thing, I believe it may have been nothing more than a ploy which would enable her to speak to me. There is something very wrong with Ms. Gum Chewer. I should have advised her to see a doctor immediately.

Now, you see, I say "thinking back" because afterwards, there was a sort of— mishap in the inventing room.

I did everything I was supposed to do. I warned the children not to touch, experiment, inhale, imbibe, drink, inject, lick, insert, hold, smoke, or breathe heavily on anything in that room. That should have been enough; but it wasn't, of course, because I made a simple mistake— I didn't warn the parents.

I've invented this candy, you see, that does some fairly spectacular things to your face.

"What is that?" asked the gum chewer, sounding very grossed out.

"Stretch candy!" I exclaimed, getting rather excited. "My newest and bestest invention, if I do say so myself, and since everyone who tried it had their mouths stretched beyond usefulness, I have to! Chew one of these buggers, and wonderful and amazing things happen to your skin, it stretches out and sags and hangs and basically makes you look like Joan Rivers before her multiple surgeries! Disgust your friends, amuse your enemies!" I finally petered to a stop, breathing a bit harder than normal and waiting, mouth agape in a giant grin, for them to make some sort of comment.

"Is it gum?" asked the gum chewer.

"It could be," I said. "I imagine if you swallowed it, it would—"

"Let me try," commanded the li'l girl, and held out one hand, imperiously. I moved to put it into her palm, then stopped.

"No, I don't think so," I said thoughtfully. "Its too strong a dose for a li'l girl like you— you don't have enough skin for it to work correctly. We need someone with a considerably bigger head, like, for instance—"

Can I help it that my eyes alighted on Ms. Gum Chewer? She was practically in my face as it was, it wasn't as though I had a lot of choice. And the mischievous smile that appeared on my lips at this moment wasn't entirely one of anticipation— although, to be perfectly truthful, which I always, always am, I looked forward to the following events with excitement bordering on organism.

—again, probably not the word I mean.

"Care to try it?" I enquired, quirking an eyebrow at her challengingly.

"Of course," she said smoothly, and popped it into her mouth.

"Not my finger," I said. "The candy."

"Beg pardon," she said, still smoothly, around my inserted digit, "I got momentarily confused."

The gum was, in due time, tucked in and almost ferociously masticated as she tried to outdo her li'l girl, who was staring at her in outright fascination and chewing furiously as well. I looked back and forth between them both and shivered slightly, my lip curling up in its familiar way at the disgusting sight. The gum chewer shifted her gaze and eyed me.

"If you hate gum so much then why do you make it?"

"If you like gum so much why don't you marry it?" I retorted smartly.

"You can't marry gum, its an inanimate object!"

"So're you!" I said, and was satisfied with that end to the argument. I turned my attention back to Ms. Gum Chewer, and covered my smirk with my hands. It was quite amusing—

So were the shrieks of terror.

"Mom!" screamed the gum chewing girl. "What happened!"

"What do you mean?" asked her mother, perkily.

"Your skin is melting off your face!"

"No need for so many italics," I warned her. "Your voice'll get stuck that way."

"Mirror," said Ms. Gum Chewer, eyes wide.

Her face was, in fact, rather gruesome. The skin had drooped so it hung a few inches below her chin, leaving scant covering on the rest of her, her eyes looked sunken and red. It wasn't harmful in the least, and the effects wore off after a few hours, unless of course she happened to swallow—

Gulp!

Oh dear.

"That would be the part I was about to mention," I said. "Swallowing it is a very, very, very, very, very very bad thing." Ms. Gum Chewer turned eyes wide with shock, horror, and other things on me.

"What. Did you. Do. To my. Face."

"We can clear it up!" I said brightly, momentarily astounded at her ability to turn one sentence into many short ones. "Maybe. It's a possibility. There's a chance. I've been thinking about making a cure. We'll work on it." Turning from her and ignoring the shocked faces of the rest of the tour, I hollered for an Oompa Loompa. One presented himself quickly, ready to receive my instructions.

I bent down to tell him.

"Take her down to the Rhinoplasty Arena. Alert the usual observers, will you, we want to sell all the tickets this time."

When I turned around, oddly enough, the gum chewer's mother wasn't the only one looking horrified. I looked at them for a minute. "I'll give you a cut of the profits," I promised her, tucking my crossed fingers behind my back. "After all, you're providing the show!"

For some reason, this didn't help. Funny, it worked with the Oompa Loompas. So, now somewhat at a loss, I simply shooed her along.

"Shoo," I said. "Shoo shoo, shoo."

She shooed. The Oompa Loompas assisted. And then there was much singing; once more, entirely made up on the spot.

"The story of Ms. Beauregarde,

Should be on a Hallmark card

One upon which words are wrote

Descriptive of a condolence note

As in, 'I know things are quite bad,

'Your parents' death has made you sad,

'Your dog is sick, you have no life,

'You're being sued, and your wife,

'Of maybe twenty years or more

'Has just pelted out the door

'And run off with the mailman.'

(Please top that one, if you can.)

'But just remember,' says the verse,

'Life could always become worse!

'Cheer up! Although your life is hard,

'At least you're not Ms. Beauregarde!'"

They took a bow, and I couldn't help but applaud.

"Aren't they marvellous!" I rhapsodized. "I declare, they just get better every time! Well, you know what they say— improvisation is an art."

All I got was silence. Eventually the force of it dimmed my grin somewhat, though I was determined not to let them entirely get to me. I stared at them haughtily.

"Lunacy is supposed to be subversive," I said primly, "not dullness."

I don't think they got that.

We watched as Ms. Gum Chewer was led away by the Oompa Loompas. The father of the spoilt girl stood up straighter.

"Still," he said in his silly British accent, "at least she's not in any mortal danger, unlike—" By a series of stilted, stiff gestures, he managed to indicate that he was talking about one of the children; about which one, I didn't know, but I frowned and squinted at him, trying gamely to figure it out.

"Oh!" I said at last, pleased with myself. "You mean the mother of the fat boy! Oh, yeah, well she was doomed from the start. It's a wonder she didn't drown right away, but I guess she floated a bit more than normal—"

"Mr. Wonka," said Mr. Nebbish, "your attitude towards Agustus and his poor mother—"

"I'm sorry," I said acidly, "I didn't realize you two were in love. Perhaps next time you should avoid eating so much chocolate, it does tend to give rise to those sorts of feelings, y'know— ick." I shuddered slightly. "Yes, avoiding it would be just the ticket. Shall we roll onwards?"

I waited, bright smile intact, for some sort of contradiction or argument or nay-saying of any sort. I didn't receive any.

We went on.

A/N: Almost entirely unhappy with this chapter. Sorry.