A/N: Hello again! Just a few responses to my wonderful reviewers:
PucktoFaerie: Thanks for the advice. I hope Grandma Georgina is suitably 'random' enough this chapter...
Quill in Hand: Can't tell you if there'll be any character deaths, I'm afraid, that would sort of ruin the suspense, wouldn't it? And what do you mean 'over the hill'? Poor Mr Wonka would be quite offended if he heard you say that...
boogle: Many thanks, dear!
Maleficent Angel: Hey, I'm sure you could do a much better job of his birthday than I could! And exactly when is he going to work up the guts in 'Circus of Life' to tell Rosanna how he feels? Poor Mr Wonka...
The Lady of Light: Hmm, serious head inflation going on here. Stop it, I won't be able to fit through the door!
And now... on with the story!
Chapter Three
Charlie Bucket, being a very ordinary child, did not notice anything amiss with Mr Wonka until his mother brought the subject up one night after dinner. Mr Wonka had left, claiming he needed to test his newest invention – sugar puff space hoppers. Charlie had at first been disappointed that he hadn't been invited along, but any such thoughts rushed from his mind as his mother said:
"You know, I don't think Mr Wonka's very well at all. What do you think, James?" James was Mr Bucket's first name. He frowned.
"I'm not sure. I wouldn't like to say." He glanced over at his son, clearly worried as to how Charlie would react to their conversation. And sure enough, the boy was sitting there wide-eyed, hanging on to their every word, an expression of utmost dismay upon his face.
"I must admit he's been looking rather pale recently." Grandma Josephine said primly, drawing a snort from Grandpa George.
"The boy's always pale. Whey-faced young thing..." Grandpa George, the second-eldest of the grandparents, called everyone under sixty 'boy'.
"Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet..." Grandma Georgina sang. "Eating some curds and whey..." Grandpa George allowed himself a small smile.
"That's right, dear." He said loudly. Grandma Georgina shot him an alarmed look.
"I'm not deaf, you know!" She said, wide-eyed. Charlie smiled: he loved all four of his grandparents very much, but his Grandma Georgina was particularly dear to him. She was, as Mr Wonka had once put it 'special'. Grandpa George had then gone on to mutter that if Georgina was 'special' then Mr Wonka was 'extra special'.
"And he's been getting thinner, I'm sure of it." Mrs Bucket said, ignoring the exchange and biting her thumbnail anxiously. Now Charlie spoke up.
"But Mum," he said, "surely if there was something wrong Mr Wonka would tell us?"
Mrs Bucket sighed, smiling gently at her son.
"Well, yes Charlie, you'd think so... but sometimes when adults are worried about something then they don't like to tell anyone else, because then they can pretend it will all go away."
Charlie contemplated this for a moment before looking up at his family. Every one of those faces was smiling and sympathetic.
"But... but Mr Wonka isn't like a normal adult!" He said quietly, looking around and hoping to see agreement in their faces, but saw only concern. Silently, he thought that as soon as he got the chance he would ask Mr Wonka about it... and then his worries would surely be dispelled.
888
Strangely enough, however, it was not Charlie who eventually confronted Mr Wonka over his failing health. It was, in fact, Grandpa George.
Both Grandpa George and Mr Wonka had been wandering about in the Chocolate Room, and Grandpa George, spying the tall top hat in one of the bushes, had crept up on the hapless chocolatier.
"So, Wonka. What's wrong with you?" He had asked, bluntly, at which poor Mr Wonka had almost fallen out of his bush. After standing up and brushing his coat down, he had given Grandpa George a most affronted look and said haughtily:
"I don't know what you're taking about." Grandpa George had snorted, a thing he enjoyed doing very much.
"Oh, yes, boy?" He'd said. "You may be able to fool Charlie with that, but I've been around a lot longer than he has, and I tell you, Wonka, you're a fool and you're a liar. So what's going on?" Mr Wonka stared at Grandpa George for a moment. It is quite possible that no-one had ever spoken to him with such open frankness before. Eventually, he sighed, and shrugged.
"I... don't really know." He said in a small voice. Honesty, it must be said, is always the best policy around someone like Grandpa George.
"Aye." Grandpa George said eventually. "But when you do, boy... you do know that your family will always be here for you to tell, don't you?" Mr Wonka held his gaze for a long moment, before nodding awkwardly. Then, wordlessly, the two turned and began to walk back to the house by the river.
"Oh, and boy?" Grandpa George spoke up suddenly. Mr Wonka looked up in surprise.
"Yes?"
"This - " he waggled a finger between the two of them "never happened. Alright?"
Mr Wonka nodded. Even he wasn't silly enough to disagree with Grandpa George.
888
The conversation with Grandpa George had highlighted for Mr Wonka a great many things. And it was for this reason that, one sunny afternoon in July, he was to be seen slipping out of the gates of his factory and into the world beyond.
I cannot tell you what Mr Wonka got up to whilst outside the factory gates, but I can tell you this; when he returned to the factory that evening he hurried not to the Bucket's house but to his own, secret part of the factory where he sat down at his desk and pondered.
As he sat there, his hand began to fiddle, almost of its own accord, with a pencil and a scrap of paper lying before him on the tabletop. Due to his great dislike of paperwork, Mr Wonka's desk was piled high with tax forms and the suchlike dating back to 1985, when he had first opened his chocolate shop on Cherry Street.
Slowly he put the pencil to the paper and began to scribble, still staring absent-mindedly out of the window. After a while he looked down, and was as surprised as anyone to see that he had written himself a note.
"Well well... what have I got to say to myself?" He murmured, picking up the scrap of paper and holding it close to his eyes. His sight over the last few months had been becoming increasingly blurry, but he would never get reading glasses – they were the sort of thing old people wore and would ruin his image entirely.
He squinted, and at last managed to make out the words scrawled across the paper. This is what it said:
Show Charlie factory.
Mr Wonka nodded briefly, a faint smirk of satisfaction crossing his face. He'd always known it, deep down... even his subconscious self was a genius!
888
Charlie was the first up that morning, and as he peered out of the window into the Chocolate Room he grinned, for he caught a glimpse of a top hat behind one of the many bushes. He crept downstairs, careful not wake his sleeping parents or grandparents, and slipped out of the house.
He hurried across the river and towards the bushes, pausing for just a moment to sample a small, sweet, plum-like creation that he and Mr Wonka had cultivated together. He stopped in his tracks, frowning slightly.
"Needs a bit more juice..." Charlie was about to continue walking when a thought occurred to him – for a moment there, he had sounded just like Mr Wonka.
"Good morning, Charlie!" It was Mr Wonka, who just at that moment had materialised by his shoulder. Charlie almost leapt a foot in the air.
"Mr Wonka!" He exclaimed, certain he had not heard the chocolatier walk up to him. The man had the rather disconcerting habit of suddenly appearing just when he was least expected.
Mr Wonka suddenly paused and smiled down at Charlie, a thoughtful expression in his eyes.
"Say, Charlie. How d'you fancy taking a tour of the factory today?" Charlie looked up in surprise.
"You already have. In February - " He started to say, but Mr Wonka cut him off with an impatient wave of a hand.
"Yes, yes, I know I showed you and those naughty little children round in February." He smiled, his eyes sparkling, and he lowered his voice to a whisper. "But Charlie... there's so much more of the factory to see. So, so much more."
Charlie gazed up at Mr Wonka with eyes as wide as lollipops. An adult might have wondered why Mr Wonka suddenly felt the need to show Charlie the entire factory, but Charlie both trusted and adored the eccentric little man with his candy-cane stick and beautiful chocolate factory. And he was hardly going to object to seeing every single wonder in that amazing factory. Would you?
888
A/N: So there you go! Please tell me what you think.