Little Wonka, Part 7
3 weeks later, Weldon lay on the operating table, his father at his side.
"Weldon, I'm with you every step of the way..." he said, trying to be supportive. Weldon shuddered a little as they injected the anesthetic, and was able to say one thing before blacking out:
"Don't worry, dad...I'm sure everything's gonna turn out perfect...or pretty darn close..."
Half an hour later, the medication wore off and Weldon fluttered into the real world, back from his drugged-up dreamland.
"Boy, brown hair, blue eyes, 6 and a half pounds...healthy..." Willy said as soon as Weldon looked at him. Weldon raised his eyebrows, astonished at the fact that his father bothered to commit that to memory. He voiced this, too.
"Oh, no, not really, they were my statistics, they were yours...and there doesn't seem to be a change..." he said.
"So, where is he?" Weldon asked.
"Right here..." Willy said, handing a tiny little infant to Weldon.
"My goodness..." said Weldon, at a total loss for words.
The press wasn't at a loss, though.
Issues absolutely flew off the racks with the news that, for 2 generations, now, the Wonka family had used male pregnancy. As Weldon, Willy, and Winston -the new baby- sat and watched the news, interviews of them were constantly on, asserting that what they were doing would be seen as rather normal within a few years. Interview requests were piled in front of the door each morning. Finally, Willy and Weldon decided to hold one inside the factory, in the candy meadow.
"And what led you to take this path, Mr. Wonka?" a reporter in a pink business suit asked, jabbing a microphone in Willy's face.
"Personal choice and desperation." he replied curtly, pushing the microphone away. Even more reporters were bothering Weldon.
"And so what led you to do what your father did?" the same pink-clad reporter asked him.
"It was personal choice and consideration of the emotional aspects of it all, which I was able to get a small taste of through my father's journal." Weldon said, hiding his frustration.
"Journal, you say? Did you keep a journal, Weldon?" she continued to ask him.
"Yes, of course I kept a journal!" Weldon said, pulling it from an inner pocket in his coat.
"Would you read it for us, Weldon?" she asked. Weldon smiled with a hint of sadism and slipped it back into his pocket.
"No." he said, getting up and giving an 'I don't care' gesture as the reporter glowered at him. Willy requested that they leave, and the reporters packed up their things.
"So what do you say to a nap, Winston?" Weldon asked; Winston had essentially draped himself across Weldon's left shoulder, tugging at his hair. Weldon winced as another one of his fudge-colored locks was yanked. "Quit it, Winston." he said, setting him down. Winston tried to roll over. Weldon simply let him, as that was the only way Winston would get to sleep. As Weldon slowly inched out the door, turning the lights off, Willy was walking up behind him.
"It's 4:00, how about we head to the inventing room?" Willy asked cheerfully. Weldon jumped, startled, and accidentally kicked one of his heels against the door frame. The resulting scream from Winston caused Willy to look away in discomfort as Weldon tried once again to subdue his son.
"I just have to deal with a screaming baby..." Weldon said, shooting his father a look. Willy frowned.
"At least he's healthy, Weldon." Willy said, walking off in the direction of the inventing room. Weldon picked up Winston and tried to calm him. He's right... Weldon thought to himself, at least Winston's healthy.
"I'll just bring you with me..." Weldon thought aloud to Winston. Winston was fast asleep, draped once again across Weldon's shoulder.
"Why did you bring Winston?" Willy asked, not looking up from his liquid candy recipes. "This room is no place for a baby, far too dangerous."
"Because he wouldn't shut up without me in the room." Weldon said, leaning over the recipe as well. "Why dissolve the sugar?" Weldon asked.
"Not just the sugar, Weldon." Willy said, tapping his pen on the page of the notepad. "But the liquid flavorings. You know the things we use for gobstoppers, Weldon?" He tapped his pen on his chin in thought.
"Yeah...so?" Weldon asked.
"Well, we're going to use that same stuff and dissolve the sugar in diluted amounts of those flavorings, that way, it's essentially a gobstopper, but in liquid form." Willy explained, moving his hands around in the air with every word.
"Is there a way that it could be made everlasting?" Weldon asked.
"No, cause it goes down in specified amounts. Everlasting gobstoppers are constantly fluctuating...it's very difficult to explain, Weldon, but in reality, everlasting gobstoppers don't last forever, they are simply very long-lasting."
"That makes sense..." Weldon said, smacking a hair toffee from Winston's hand. "I think near-bald's a better look for you right now, sonny." Weldon joked. Willy let out a little "Ha-ha!" when Weldon said this.
"I haven't lost my youth..." Willy said, his expression suddenly changing as his wrist made a loud cracking noise. Weldon flinched. "...entirely..." he amended. He took an eyedropper and put 3 drops of the liquid he was stirring onto his tongue, thinking hard.
"How is it?" Weldon asked, taking another hair toffee out of Winston's hand and dropping it back in the tin.
"I think we've got it!" Willy shouted, jumping up and skipping with glee. Weldon picked up the test tube and swirled the clear candy liquid around, and his eyes widened as he saw it change colors.
"I think we've made one that changes flavors!" Weldon said, showing the tube to his father.
"By Jove, I think you're right!" Willy shouted, sampling some more drops. "It is changing flavors!" he skipped and danced with excitement, and several Oompa Loompas gathered around for a sample of the newly created candy.
"This is great!" Weldon said, taking a taste as well. He then poured some into a spoon and tipped it down Winston's throat. Winston licked his lips and grabbed at the tube, wanting more of the candy, then stopping as the next flavor came onto his tongue.
"Come, Weldon, let's have a butterscotch in celebration!" Willy said, already halfway across the room, headed for the door that led to the hall.
"Aren't I too young to have butterscotch?" Weldon asked, struggling to keep up. Willy suddenly stopped and turned.
"Oh, dear, silly me, I'm terribly sorry about that..." he said. "I guess you can have some hot chocolate with whipped cream and help yourself to anything in the candied meadow..." Weldon licked his lips at the mention of this and bolted to the chocolate room.
As Weldon filled up with rich hot chocolate and whipped cream, yanking swudge from the chocolate dirt at his feet, Winston also shoveled swudge into his mouth, and eventually began to binge on melted chocolate. Weldon smiled proudly at his son, and Willy smiled proudly at his. He lost sight of his heavy sugar-"glass" tankard of butterscotch as another flashback went through his mind.
"Can I see it, buddy?" Willy remembered asking as Weldon handed him a picture that would rival Picasso's works. He remembered the picture with perfect clarity...a cotton candy bush with the boiled-sweet boat in the background...
"Dad? You didn't answer my question...Dad?" Weldon asked, poking him with a branch of a peppermint candy tree. Willy snapped his head in Weldon's direction, making quick eye contact.
"What was your question?" Willy asked.
"You had another flashback...didn't you?" Weldon wondered before asking his question. "Anyway, I was wondering where the donut tree is..."
"Oh, it's over there..." Willy said pointing somewhere to the left. Weldon stood up, gently nudging Winston in front of Willy.
"Can you supervise him as I go and get them?" Weldon asked, walking to the tree.
"Sure..." Willy said, knowing that Weldon couldn't hear him. He picked up Winston. "You're a cute kid, you know that?" he asked. Winston reached for Willy's hair.
"Don't even start, kid." Willy warned, tucking the targeted lock of hair behind his ear. Winston then reached for Willy's hat. "You like my hat, don't you?" Willy asked, putting it on Winston's head. It was far too big and it went over Winston's eyes, but Winston seemed to like it nonetheless. Weldon came over with a heaping 2-handful of donuts, popping one of them into his mouth and swallowing it near-whole.
"Aw, that top hat's cute on him..." Weldon said. "I always imagined him in a little top hat like yours..."
"Let him grow into it, I'm retiring by the time he gets to be about 10..." Willy said, laying back into the curve of the hill. Weldon dropped the donut in his hands.
"So the great Willy Wonka, founder of Wonka's Candy Company, is retiring at 77?" Weldon asked.
"Nope, 70." Willy said, taking a final swig from his butterscotch.
"But that's..." Weldon did the math quickly. "11 years from now!"
"Weldon, let me tell you something..." Willy said, plucking a donut from the pile and holding it between his fingers, not eating it yet. "nobody lives forever unless they can afford Wonka-Vite pills, which are worth nearly a million a pill."
"My goodness, a million! And what's Wonka-Vite?" Weldon asked, stuffing another donut into his mouth after he finished the sentence.
"Wonka-Vite, my dear child, is a revolutionary medication I made. The brewing stage is so very complex, though, you see, and it takes several weeks simply to produce one pill."
"But gobstoppers take several weeks, and they sell cheaply..." Weldon said.
"Gobstoppers can be mass-produced, Wonka-Vite, however, cannot." Willy said, still not having put the donut into his mouth. "But back to my original point, Weldon, nobody lives forever, and while it's rather nice spending your life doing something you love, you have to take time to relax..." as if to prove his point, he finally put the donut into his mouth. Weldon had been nodding knowingly, making sure Winston didn't get too far away.
"So you're going to spend the last 10 or 20 years of your life just watching your grandson grow?" Weldon asked.
"Yeah, basically..." Willy said, having swallowed his donut. Weldon stared at the ceiling of the chocolate room, his hand resting on his chest, thinking.
"I think Weldon could do with a trip through the park?" Weldon wondered, standing up and brushing swudge off of his jacket.
"Probably, he seems a little antsy...but watch out for reporters..." Willy said, also getting up. "Do you want me to come with you?" he asked.
"If you want to come along, sure." Weldon said, picking up Winston and making his way over to the door. "Oh, and by the way you have a blade of swudge on your right arm." Willy promptly brushed it off.
At the park the sun was starting to sink behind the clouds and the warmth of spring was starting to take a break, giving way to a chilly night. Winston was in the carriage, fast asleep, and Willy and Weldon would take turns pushing it, the other walking along and trying to think of a topic for conversation. When it was Weldon's turn to think of a conversational topic, he decided to talk about Minusland, somehow having remembered it being mentioned nearly 6 months ago.
"I remember you mentioning Minusland..." Weldon began. "What is Minusland, anyway?" Willy's pace slowed slightly at this question. Weldon took over and Willy began to talk.
"Minusland is...um...well...remember how I was telling you about Wonka-Vite?" Willy stammered.
"Yeah..." Weldon said, showing he was listening.
"Well, imagine taking too much of it, as each pill adds 20 years to your life and makes you 20 years younger...if you take too many, you'd become a Minus."
"A...Minus..." Weldon asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, a Minus..." Willy said. "Someone who isn't born yet, so they have negative age...if a person goes under the age of zero, they have a negative age, and they have to wait out the surplus in Minusland."
"So why did you bring it up way back then?" Weldon asked.
"I was thinking 'oh, well, we can go and see how Weldon's baby will look when he's 15...' but then I realized that those horrible little creatures..." Willy shuddered. "I'm not going to even say their name...they subtract you and long divide you and make you one of them..."
"...Long division, you say?" Weldon asked, on the verge of laughter. Willy suddenly stopped and looked at him.
"I'm not joking, Weldon. The only reason I changed my mind about it was because I realized that you might never have a son if I did that." Weldon gulped at the thought.
"I think we need to head home now..." Weldon said, turning the carriage around.
On their way, they passed a candy shop that was still bustling with people. Willy read the sign.
"'Bucket's Bakery and Sweet Shop'...oh dear lord...Charlie started his own sweet shop..."
"This probably isn't good..." Weldon said. Willy rushed into the store.
"Charlie..." Willy said, squirming in the extremely uncomfortable chair. "I really hope you're not using my recipes..." Charlie smiled, his hands folded on the desk.
"Of course not. Your recipes aren't really what I do..." he said. Willy sighed with relief.
"That's good, that's good..." his tone changed slightly. "But if you use my recipes, I will find out and I will sue you for every penny it's worth."
"That's quite alright with me, Mr. Wonka..." Charlie said, still the same old kid he always was.
"Oh, and Charlie..."
"Yes, Mr. Wonka?"
"For goodness sake, stop calling me 'Mr. Wonka'...I hope your shop does well, you know, fair competition and all..."
"Well thank you, Mr. Wonka, you too." Charlie said. Willy silently scoffed at Charlie's somewhat ignorant consistency.
"Weldon, might I just say that you are a wonderful father..." Willy said a few days later at breakfast.
"Really? You really think so?" Weldon asked, sighing slightly as Winston flicked more baby food in his face.
"Yeah, it took all of my patience to put up with that..." Willy said.
"I'm getting very impatient here, actually..." Weldon said, ironically calm.
"You don't sound very impatient..." Willy said, taking another bite of his waffle.
"Your asking questions is what's making me impatient..." Weldon snipped.
"Ooh, snippy, aren't we..." Willy said, looking down at his food. Weldon sighed apologetically.
"Winston's just being a total pain...that's all...I'm sorry..." Weldon said.
"I understand...he'll be easier when he gets to be older." Willy said. Weldon sighed.
"I wish I didn't have to wait..." Weldon said. A thought popped into Willy's head.
"Vita-Wonk..." Willy said to himself. Weldon put down the spoon and looked up at him.
"What?" he asked.
"Vita-Wonk, Weldon, Vita-Wonk...if we were to give Winston just a little bit of Vita-Wonk, he'd be older in no time flat!" Willy clapped his hands like a child as he said this. Weldon tapped his lips in thought.
"I rather like that idea...but we'd need to get larger clothes first, right? I remember you saying something about Vita-Wonk being instantaneous..."
"So it's settled? You can get the clothes and I'll search for the Vita-Wonk, it should all take about 10 minutes- no, wait, stay here, I remembered something...I have some of your old clothes...how old do you want Winston to be?"
"...I dunno, 10, I guess..." Weldon thought.
"Oh...goodness, you'll have to have some Vita-Wonk, too...lucky you're almost at your full size..." Willy said.
"Why would I need to take Vita-Wonk?" Weldon asked.
"Well it would seem rather illogical if Winston was only 5 years younger than you, right?"
"...right..." Weldon expressed his understanding.
"So...what age do you wish to be?" Willy asked. Weldon thought about this for a moment.
"25..." he said confidently.
Willy slowly poured the black, sticky liquid into two spoons, handing each of them to Weldon, who tipped the contents of the fuller spoon down his throat, bracing himself for the sudden changes to follow. Not much happened except for Weldon growing a few inches taller. It was a different story for Winston, for as soon as he swallowed the tonic, he really did grow like a weed, ending up as a boy rubbing his legs and complaining of growing pains. Weldon cast a look of astonishment at his father, who tipped his hat slightly as if to say "told ya..."
"Winston..." Weldon began, wondering if Winston had gained knowledge along with his age.
"Yeah, dad?" Winston replied.
"Do you have any idea what just happened?" he asked, quizzing him.
"I don't know...but I've got this weird taste in my mouth..." Winston said, sticking out his tongue.
"Vita-Wonk doesn't necessarily have the best taste..." Willy said.
"What's Vita-Wonk, grandpa?" Winston asked. Willy's eyes widened and he let out a pleased gasp at being referred to as 'grandpa', but he quickly regained his composure.
"Vita-Wonk is a medication I created to reverse the effects of Wonka-Vite..." Willy said. Grandpa...I like the sound of that...he added to himself.
"Which is..." Winston prompted him to continue.
"Which is a miracle anti-aging pill, it actually makes you shed 20 years a pill!"
"You're kidding..." Winston said.
"Nope." Willy said, grinning.
"You have yet to find out just how many amazing things your grandfather can do, Winston." Weldon said, pulling on his frock coat. Willy smiled at the word 'grandfather' as well. He really liked being called that for some strange reason.
"Well then let's go find out!" Winston said, jumping out of his chair.
"It's...not that simple..." Willy said.
"Oh?" Winston asked, putting his hands on his hips.
"Indeed, we must take into consideration the stipulations of transportation, comprehension, and motivation."
"Um, dad, I think he's at a bit of a loss, if you could put it in a sentence with less stilted speech..." Weldon said, calling attention to Winston's confused expression.
"Oh, uh...well, I'm not sure if your stomach can handle the glass elevator, cause it's not like an ordinary elevator, you see...and I'm not sure if you'd quite understand how my candies and machines work...and last, but most certainly not least...are you in the mood for it?" Willy translated.
"Um...yeah..." Winston said.
"Oh, goody, then let's get going, huh?" Willy said, picking up his cane and opening the door.
As they went past the pink candy wool sheep, Willy finally decided to explain.
"Weldon, Winston, I think I will explain why I have these sheep...firstly, it's a side effect of swudge...and...secondly...this is a nice, natural way to make cotton candy...". Winston's face was pressed flat against the glass. Weldon tapped his shoulder.
"You're going to leave smudges on the glass, sonny." he said. Winston stood straight. Willy coughed and tried to change the tone.
"Say, what does pink make you think of?" he asked.
"It makes me think of Lillian and...Helena..." Weldon said, retreating into a flashback. Winston, who didn't notice that his father had gone silent and had started to stare into space, chimed in with his opinion.
"It makes me think of babies." Winston said, matter-of-factly.
"Me too..." Willy said, slipping into a flashback of his own. Winston finally noticed that his paternal figures had gone silent.
"Um..." he gave his father a gentle nudge, then his grandfather.
"Uh? Wha?" Weldon stammered as he bumped into the wall. Willy had a similar reaction.
"What just happened?" Winston asked.
"Flashbacks..." Willy and Weldon said in unison.
"Runs in the family, Winston..." Willy said.
"What were they about?" Winston pried. Weldon's face twitched with nervousness, and Willy squeaked his gloves.
"Um...well...Lillian and Helena were...well, Lillian was my first...and..." Weldon sighed as he said this. "my first and only girlfriend, and we had one daughter together...then she found out about you and she freaked out at me, smashing a little statuette on my head...Helena was the name of the daughter we had...she's about 2 now, I think..."
"But if she's older than me...then...wha?" Winston tried to do the math.
"Nothing is logical here, Winston...but here's the thing, since you took Vita-Wonk, your age instantly increased, therefore making you older than Helena...even though she was born before you..." Weldon explained. Winston processed this new information.
"And what was your flashback about, grandpa?" he asked of Willy. Oh, say it again, please! Willy thought to Winston (who, of course, could not hear the message).
"It was...about...um...well, you don't want to know..." Willy stammered.
"I think I would, seeing as I asked you." Winston said. Weldon gave him a look of warning for this back-sass, and Winston bowed his head in apology.
"When you're older, Winston..." Weldon said. "But let me tell you, I did the same thing..." Winston looked absolutely perplexed at this point.
"Now I'm dying to know!" he said.
"You'd die if you knew..." Willy said. Weldon looked at his watch.
"It's almost time for us to go give the nut-sorting room a quick supervision..." he muttered. Nodding, Willy pressed the respective button on the elevator wall, and off they rocketed.
I'M GONNA LET YOU GUYS TAKE A BREAK FROM ALL THIS READING, 'KAY?
'Kay...
