Ahoy, readers! Wow… I've been lacking slightly in updates… but it's not as bad as some of the OTHER stories where authors haven't bothered to update in FOREVER (cough cough I'm talking about a certain reviewer who never updates anymore on a certain lovable fir on Aragorn and a lovely OC cough cough) but whatever. I am happy to be back! Okey-dokey, reviews!

To ILoveLock: STOP IT! You'll givethe twistaway! (But I'll give you a hint… it's NOT the last one.)

To PucktoFaerie: Yeah. Actually, it's more like five grown-ups and two mad-people with odd hairdos. But still, seven against one isn't too good for Charlie. Poor dear.

To NerdyforWonkaNerds: I got the cooties idea from back in 5th grade when I had a hopeless crush on one boy, and his mother informed mine that he still thought girls had cooties. So anyway, I was thinking about that while destroying some random city with my craziness, (the usual), when I was like "DUDE! That TOTALLY works!" Isn't life funny like that?

To Cheorl (x3): I find it very annoying that I have to refer to you in my beginning part of my A/N. UPDATE YOUR STORY CUZ I'M DYING HERE! And thank you fro the loverly reviews. (P.S. Security guards are oversized H20 molecules here. Hydrogen-Oxygen Power! HOP!)


Morning. I love this time of morning, when the snow hasn't exactly poked its gleaming head above the muddy gray marshes, and the sky is a smoky, silver blue. I gazed over the dismal hills and puddles of mud, which had turned an interesting shade of slate from the sky. This was the time of morning where you had time to yourself; reflection. Not a sound could be heard except the gentle cooing of whooper-wills in the distance. I chose this time to think about my life so far: my youth, my studies, my budding career in biochemistry, the trial, and… here. A balmy morning breeze was blowing through today, but I couldn't feel it. Not with this annoying will sitting before me. I had requested a room with a window, soundproof- something that would block out all the moans and shrieks form the moans and shrieks from the inside and let in the soft calls of the outside. I said it would help ease my mind and calm my senses. The authorities reluctantly agreed, not seeing how it could do much harm. They sent me to the "Special Room", although I never understood how exactly they could have afforded all the "special" technology and work that goes into making a room like this. For highly trained specialists in psychology and medical knowledge, the nurses and doctors of St. Luna Tik's Facility for the Mentally Questionable did not think things through very well. I could feel the faint clicking rhythm of uniform nurse shoes coming closer. I sighed. Speak of the devil. An unlocking sound tramples though the peaceful quietness, like a thick-skulled rhinoceros bounding dumbly through a field of dainty, thuriferous little flowers. Behind the rhinocerosness flooded in all the haggard, dithyrambic echoes of the kleptomaniacs and crack jobs that shared the prison I am bound to. In clicked my nurse, Ms. Olgenson, with a hypodermic needle.

"Good morning, Helga," I greeted her, still staring out the window. "I trust you had a good evening."

Olgenson didn't say anything. She never said much in t he first place, being from Ugoshlovekistanland she didn't speak much English anyway; and the authorities had told her that all the residents here that were not nurses, doctors, or authorities were raving psycho maniacs- and she didn't take any chances by talking to one. I'd been trying to dissuade her of my alleged "insanity," but she showed little sign of progress.

"What's on the schedule for me today?" I asked while she strapped my jacket up. The authorities thought it best that I was kept in a temporary jacket, nothing to tight or hard to get out of, of course; just in case. They had never seen a case of insanity like mine, where they patient talks and acts as a sane person; and ignored my failed attempts to explain that I was, in fact, sane.

"Medicine first, obviously. Then are we to go for a nice walk in the fake botanical garden, or head down to mess hall to try to get my to intake of that rank stuff they like to call food?"

Olgenson did not answer.

"Don't play that 'I'm foreign, I have no idea what you're saying' game with me, Helga. I'm talking to you. Yes, I see that nervous look in your eye. No, no- don't turn away from me. One of these days you'll crack, I know it, yo thick-headed loaf of a nurse. They wouldn't have hired you if they didn't think you were completely blatant. You listen to me, you Ugoshlovekistanlandian, you. I know you hear me, and I know you're afraid of me. You think I might do something maniacal and try to strangle you or something. No, dear Helga, only insane people do that. I am perfectly sane. And, being a sane person, I will get out. And in the mean time, dear old Ms. Olgenson, I suggest you stop being so rude to me and answer me when I try to speak to you. Otherwise, who knows? Maybe when I do get out, I'll decide to indeed show off my crazy side and attempt to strangle you. Or something, like that." I gave her my craziest, scariest smile I could muster.

The effect was quite satisfying. Olgenson had sheer terror written all over her calloused old face and she made a move to inject me with my medicine. Practically drove the thing through my skinny arm. Her obvious fear mixed with offended rage had compelled her to try to stab me. There. I knew she could understand me, she was offended. The infection hurt like St. Elmo's fire, and I stared at her darkly with cold, unblinking eyes. She withdrew the needle from my pale flesh, crying some Ugoshlovekistanlandian curse at me,(alright, maybe she didn't understand English as well as I'd hoped) and clicking out of the room in tears, slamming the door behind her.

I sat back against the cold wall, jamming my fingers through my thin, tangled hair. Limp and frizzy, there were always a few disobedient strands hanging down in front of my face, no matter what I did with it. My arm was throbbing in a pounding rhythm, and it soon spread across my whole body, numbly beating against my mind. I slid down to the cool floor, my hand against my forehead. The stuff they were giving me made me change- I would become more absent-minded, and babble senselessly for hours. It was like I couldn't find my head. And sometimes I would develop a terrible temper and lose it often. I've had experience in dealing with this field- the courses I took in college let us study this type of medicine. If what's in my system is what I think it is, then soon it will alter me completely, so that my mind will be permanently abstract and loose, and I really will be mad. I sighed. Hopefully that time won't come soon; I could already feel the medicine taking effect. Well, at least it's quiet again. The cries of St. Luna Tik's were suffocated when Ms. Olgenson slammed the door; the rhinoceros shot down by silent poachers. Poor Ms. Olgenson. I had not meant to hurt her that much. Only to keep her on her toes. It was that blasted medicine. I have to watch my temper. She's going to be resentful and suspicious for weeks, and the authorities will be hanging over me like some dead goose. But not now. Now it was quiet. The whooper-wills were back, and I could hear the zephyr breeze gently coaxing me from he other side of the window. Someday, the window will be gone and I will be free and Ms. Olgenson will be rid of her greatest annoyance. Someday. I closed my eyes and settled against the wall, drifting into happy dreams of plans of escape.

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Sarah woke with a start. She had been dreaming. Again. Just dreaming. It's not real anymore. It's gone. She was fine now. She was safe. Everything was going to be all right.

Sarah sighed, and held her head in her hands for a moment, just breathing.

"Golly, I'm a wreck," she quietly said to herself, before getting up and going outside: one to take a walk and get some fresh air, two to see if Larry could help her with a chocolate fix she was in at the moment. He was very kind like that.

Sarah was strolling outside, enjoying the scent of candy in the air. (Actually she was really just trying to locate Larry, but she couldn't automatically tell one Oompa-Loompa from the other as they were all identical, so she just wandered randomly amongst them, looking at their nametags.) She was so busy looking at Oompa-Loompas and then feigning casually walking away, she did not see Mr. Willy Wonka come round the corner, turning at the knozzle-berry tree. They were both so consumed in themselves, they collided with each other, their noggins smacking painfully together.

"Yowch!" Sarah yelped, keeling backwards and falling on her rump like some comical puppet toy without any strings from a popular Italian folktale or Disney movie.

Willy was making a desperate attempt with one hand to straighten his brown girly do, and with the other hand went down to help her. "Oh darn. Norman," he called, "Hurry down to the Hair Cream Room immediately, and fetch a comb as well."

"Oh, thank you for helping me up-" Sarah started, taking his hand, and when firmly on her feet finished, "Oh. It's you." Begrudgingly.

"Don't sound so begrudging," Willy said, trying to slick down his hair and straighten his hat, "You're the one who collided with my noggin and made it smack painfully."

"I certainly was not!" Sarah put her hands on her waist. "If anything, your noggin wanted to collide with mine and make a painful smacking sound because it is dastardly and pale and…" she stopped for a moment, rubbing her smarting head. "Oh drat. I've lost my train of thought. What was I saying again?"

"You were insulting my noggin."

"Oh yes. Thank you. Wait, I take that back. I don't have to thank you, because you've got a dastardly noggin!"

"Stop insulting my noggin!"
"Only if you teach it some manners and tell it that it is not polite to be dastardly and collide with another person's noggin and make a painful smacking sound!" Sarah cried.

"Fine! But only if you buy some anti-frizzing cream and dye your gray strands because they are VERY distracting to my work!"

"THEY'RE BLONDE!"

"GREY!"

"BLONDE!"

"Oh, I don't have to deal with this kind of interrogation," Willy said, tipping his hat very low so that it shadowed his eyes and made his noggin look very dastardly indeed, "Good day, Miss Bucket."

"Good day, Mr. Wonka-and-his-menacingly-dastardly-noggin!" Sarah shouted, turning on her heel and stomping away in the opposite direction in a very girly-tantrum way.

Larry looked out from behind the knozzle-berry tree. He breathed a sigh of relief, and got back to work.