Author's Note: FALL BREAK! I am soooo excited! A week to myself, giving me time to update this lunatic tale! Yay! I'm over exaggerating exclamation marks! WOOT! Reviews!
To angil: I adore flying monkeys! Fly, fly my pretties! (cackles)
To NerdyforWonkaNerds: Thank you very very very very much. Very. :)
To PucktoFaerie: I'm glad you reviewed! I look forward to updates from your stories as well! Hope ya like this chapter!
To ILoveLock: (skims over glowing crystal ball) All questions will be answered in this chapter… no wait, I take that back. Your beloved Chelsea-Mary-Sue-Joe-Bob-Larry will not make an appearance in the chapter. Stupid cheap crystal ball! (hits crystal ball, only to find that it is attached to an electrical cord, and electrocutes self.)
Charlie was indeed having a bad day at school. He had dozed off again in English, when his teacher was droning out the history of the semicolon. He hadn't gotten much sleep last night, as he was up half of the night with Willy trying to figure out what on earth could possibly take purple color out of one's skin. He had scrubbed his face with every sort of acne medication he could think of, and after his mother had gone to the pharmacy to go get some more and his father was arguing with the puzzled Oompa-Loompa doctors (who were trying to argue back at him, but as he didn't know the language the argument was rather one-sided,) when his auntie sauntered in.
"Still have that lovely lilac color, do you dear?" she smiled.
"Yes," Charlie grunted, looking for a good pillar to bang his noggin against, but remembered his manners and added, "ma'am."
"I believe it's turned into a very lovely shade of violet red," Sarah took a long, slender finger and ran in down her nephew's cheek.
"That's from the acne medication," Charlie groaned. He was now matching his employer's evening wear, satin with golden Ws all over it.
Willy yawned. "We could try some Wollapaloozle juice. That stuff is mighty tart. It's so acidy it nearly took my taste buds off one time. I stayed puckered for weeks."
"That will obviously take his face off," Sarah scoffed.
"Yes, but at least the purple will be gone," Willy retorted. He was giving her one of those looks like when those four brats and their deadbeat p-p-p-p…caretakers two years ago waltzed into his factory with all their silly facts about how Loompaland really isn't a place and how Willy was once extremely short when he was a kid.
"I… I dunno," Charlie said uncertainly, "We could try it,"
"And then you'll go to school looking like King Tut out of his sarcophagus," Sarah said, "Trust me on this- I know chemistry. And that won't work. No Charlie, all you need is half a cup of lemon juice, half a cup of water, a teaspoon of salt, and a loofa. Once, one of my colleagues had a rather nasty accident with some of that tanning cream gunk. Took it right out."
"Colleagues?" Willy snorted, "Were they also locked up in whatever correctional institution you broke out of?"
Sarah turned around slowly, her left eye twitching a bit. Her round little nose wrinkled up at the bridge, causing the dusting of freckles on her nose to ripple. "That was a little below the belt, Mr. Wonka," she said darkly. Willy stepped back in alarm. She was getting a little frightening. And he knew when to step back from frightening things. Like germs. And wangdoodles. And Care Bears.
"Especially for a man who locked himself up from human contact for 27 years." She added, looking him up and down.
"What are suggesting?" Willy's voice lost its usual pitch, swooping quite low.
Charlie stepped back. He knew from Willy's knowledge to step back from frightening things. Like spiders. And poisonous dart-throwing knozzlebobs. And Care Bears.
"Really, Mr. Wonka," Sarah's upper lip curled, rather unattractively. "Can you honestly call me a madwoman before looking at yourself in the mirror?"
"I am most certainly not… not wonky, if that's what your saying!" Willy objected, putting his hands a little too high on his hips. Dangerous territory for a man.
"Oh please," Sarah made a move to imitate him, tossing an imaginary bob hair-do, and talking in a voice that sounded like a combination of Michael Jackson and the dearly departed Mr. Rogers from 'Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.' "Oh my good golly gumdrops gosh! Germs! Germs!" With that, she started waving her arms eccentrically, running in mad little circles.
Willy stood back in insulted rage. His pale fist tightened on his cane. He had the sudden urge to whack her on the head with the candy-filled accessory, but kept his composure. "At least my hair maintains a sort of shape to it. Your hair is frizzy, broken, and graying."
Sarah's hands flew to her head. "I'm not graying! Those are blonde hairs! Blonde!" but her hands still remained nervously nested in her frizzy bun.
Charlie would've supported his little aunt with a big frizz problem by reminding Willy of the famed silver hair which he found 2 years ago, giving him the glorious idea of finding an heir to the factory. But he didn't wish to get caught in a crossfire. He was purple already.
"Come on, Charlie my boy," Willy smugly said, turning on his heel, "Let's go get some of that Wallapaloozle juice to clear your skin up."
"Well… you… I…n-not before I clear it up first!" Sarah cried, twisting a piece of hair.
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Unfortunately, the Oompa-Loompas reported that the Wallapoozle juice had been discontinued due to the extreme side-affects that came out when one consumed candy with the liquid ingredient in it.
"What? You- you mean… there's none left?" Willy demanded. The lead Oompa-Loompa in charge of the Inventing Room shrugged, moving his arms about in a waving action and then doing something that looked like the Hand Jive.
"Well then, get the guy in charge of the Ingredient Room to go look, then!" Willy cried, his voice breaking.
"Y-you know… um… Willy, I-I don't have to-"
Willy wheeled around, shooting him a twitching, purple-eyed look of death. Charlie backed away, and when Willy turned around again, made a mad dash for the pink elevator. Jamming his fingers onto various buttons, the door quickly shut, and whizzed off into the factory.
Charlie slid down the wall of the elevator, his chest heaving. This was going way too far. Willy wanted to sizzle his face off, Sarah wanted sizzle Willy's face off, and Charlie wanted to sizzle away in general to get away from the bickering and chaos. He sat like that, glaring at his violet complexion reflection on the other wall. Life was getting a tad too zany.
Well, an annoying little voice in the way back of his head said, what did you expect? You should've thought of that before agreeing to become Willy Wonka's heir. That was a binding contract that certifies you will follow in his footsteps and take care of the factory. And in order to preserve the factory's famous ways, you must act just like the man who makes it famous.
"Yeah, but not exactly like him," Charlie said. He could've sworn he heard someone snicker. But there was no one in the elevator except him. He sighed. Too many things happening in one day. The elevator zoomed off, to where- Charlie didn't exactly know yet.
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Charlie was busy with his homework (Trigonometry, page 65, numbers 1-49,) when Sarah burst through the door.
"Ha-ha!" She cried triumphantly, holding up a beaker with some frothy yellow stuff in it, "Lookie here!"
Charlie looked up. "Is that…?"
"It is indeed, my dearest nephew." Sarah grinned crazily. "This will take that purple out in a jiffy!"
"Aunt Sarah, it's really alright-"
"HA!" squealed Willy's voice from an open window, "Consorting with the enemy, are you, Charlie!"
"Oh no," Charlie groaned, slamming his head on his textbook.
Willy kicked one tall leg through the window, then bent himself forward in a 60-degree angle, scrabbling through with the other one; but getting his foot caught, and so pummeling to the ground, sprawled out all over the floor with another beaker in his hands. None of the fluid spilled.
"You could've come through the door." Sarah said, looking down at him.
"I know," said Willy, standing up and dusting himself off, "but I wanted to make a dramatic entrance. As I was saying," he held up his beaker full of green bubbling stuff, "I have found the Wallapaloozle juice!"
"Not fair!" Sarah said indignantly, "I saw him first!"
"This is my factory, you forget," Willy said, shoving the beaker in Charlie's direction, "where anything I say goes. Rub this on your face, Charlie my boy."
"No! Mine works best!" Sarah shoved the beaker in Charlie's direction as well.
"Mine!"
"Mine!"
"Mine!"
They both shoved their beakers far enough into Charlie's face, that they knocked both of their tubes together, causing both liquids to slosh out of their containers onto Charlie's face. Charlie yelped, and tried to duck, but it was too late. For the second time that day, Charlie was on the ground, his face drenched in Wallapaloozle-lemon-water-salt concoction.
"Oh my God!" Sarah screeched, lunging down at her nephew, "Charlie, darling, are you all right!"
Willy put two gloved fingers in his mouth, emitting a shrill whistle. An Oompa-Loompa immediately appeared at the open window Willy had clambered through. "Get the Oompa-Loompa doctors immediately. Fetch Mr. and Mrs. Bucket, and sound off the emergency alarm."
The Oompa-Loompa quickly made a frantic gesture. Willy paused. "No, I don't suppose it's as bad as the factory being taken over by an army of crawdads, so sound off the mild-not-quite-an-emergency-but-still-pretty-darn-important alarm."
"I don't think there's a need," said Sarah, aghast, "Charlie, your purple's gone!"
"Really?" Charlie said, jumping up and dashing to the bathroom. Sure enough, the cursed purple color had disappeared from Charlie's face. "YESSS!" Charlie cried, overjoyed, thrusting his fist into the air, and doing a merry jig. Sarah grinned, and Mr. and Mrs. Bucket burst through the door.
"Wow," Willy said, "That was fast. Props, Herbert, props."
The Oompa-Loompa named Herbert who had fetched the parents gave himself a pat on the back, which he found difficult, as his tiny midget arms were rather hard to reach with.
"Charlie!" Mrs. Bucket cried, "Thank goodness you're alright! And the purple's gone!"
"I guess the combination of Willy's Wallapaloozle juice and Sarah's tanning-cream-remover got it out. How strange," Charlie said, pondering the chemical properties of both. He stopped soon enough, because honestly: who ponders on chemical properties of liquid candy and tanning-cream-removers?
"Well, I think we've learned a valuable lesson here today," Mr. Bucket said wisely, with an air of paternal manliness, "That you could've easily solved your problems by learning to work together instead of bickering about your differences."
"Oh, stop acting like something out of the Brady Bunch, John," Sarah snapped, "That Wallapa-whatever didn't do squat. It was obviously all the lemon-salt-water that got the purple out."
"It was not!" Willy argued.
"It was so!"
"Was not!"
"Was so!"
"Was not!"
