Disclaimer: I own Willy Wonka. I own Johnny Depp. I own Tim Burton. I even own Roald Dahl, even though I believe he is dead. WHATCHA GONNA DO ABOUT IT? Mwahahahaha…ha…ha. Yeah okay I'm lying. I own nothing but Sarah Bucket, the poor demented thing. Alas.
Author's Note: Dang. It's been a reeeeeeeaaaaaalllllllyyyyy long time, hasn't it? Oh, well. I'm not perfect, quite the opposite. I'm a WRITER! Plus I am also a PROCRASTINATOR, and I am especially LAZY! And, I ALSO LIKE TO ABUSE THE CAPS LOCK BUTTON AS YOU CAN SEE! REVIEWS!
TO CHEO… ahem… To Cheorl: I think everyone chooses blonde over grey. Unless you are Cary Grant. Or Steve Martin.
To NitrusOxide: Well THANKS A LOT! I haven't even read the sixth book yet! That's okay, though. My friends are spoilers also.
To SilverBlaze55: I hope to see your fic, it sounds awesome! Just let me know when you post it and I'll take a lot. Thank yo for putting my story on your alert list, by the way.
To NerdyforWonkaNerds: You know what's awesome about the word 'noggin'? It sounds like eggnog! I LOVE EGGNOG! YAY FOR EGGNOG! And noggins…
Ms. Helkinson, the librarian at the local library, was having a taxing day. More taxing than usual, that is. First, some kid came in saying he had some sort of research project to do, and then tried to rip pages out of the textbooks and stuff them in his pocket for later. Later on, a middle-school girl came in with a load of books that were already overdue a week ago, protesting that her calendar told her the due date was today. When she took out her calendar to show Ms. Helkinson, Ms. Helkinson noticed the calendar was dated back to 1983, clearly out of date. A woman with three rowdy spoiled children sauntered in to go check out something on one of the computers, letting them run freely about the premises. The children had to be quieted several times, and when playing a game of what looked like some weird lovechild of tackle football and hide-and-seek, consequently knocking down one of the weaker shelves and causing the Dewey-Decimal-ordered books to topple down in one big messy pile. The worst part was that the mother merely shrugged it off and let her children go run around some more, leaving Ms. Helkinson to put everything back. Now the worst had come. Two lovesick teenagers had come in at around 3:30, and had been there for two hours. Ms. Helkinson had seen them for the past five days come in and flirt endlessly, disturbing what few people were inhabiting the library. The truth was that not many people visited the new library, expensively built to look like an open book (the money had been raised by the local librarians, people who really cared about books, people who really cared about librarians, people who really cared about librarian's cats, frightened small children who had recently been threatened by librarian's cats to raise money, and people who have a strange need to raise lots of money to build shiny things that don't get used very much in the end); but Ms. Helkinson would never be the one to admit it. She loved the big new library. She loved every single one of the books residing in it. She had loved libraries and books since she was very small. That was why she went through thirty-nine years of not getting out much into the world to develop a human capacity to be somewhat social, and why she had too many cats for her own good, and why she had never had any sort of romantic relationship with any man ever, excepting Gerald Brian, the skinny perverted boy who worked volunteering in the library one summer back in 1971. But that didn't matter, she had the library. It was her library. It belonged to her and her to it. Sometimes she forgot about going home to her cats and her apartment, and just slept on a pile of dusty books in the Paleontology section, caressing the books and singing them lullabies primarily influenced by the writings of Edgar Allen Poe. Ms. Helkinson had begin to forget all about her hectic day, now focused on how she was beginning to scare herself at the thought of how extremely sad her life was, but remembered promptly.
Anyway, those two teenagers had been visiting her library for five days straight now. The first time she saw them, which was several weeks ago, they had stuttered through studies, apparently tutoring, blushing at gazing at each other with nervous affection. Ms. Helkinson had been observing them from afar without realizing it. Over the course of a few weeks, they had been getting used to each other, studying little, and chattering and laughing much. It aggravated Ms. Helkinson to the point of near madness. She was constantly having to remind them that they were in a library (her library, but she did not mention this), and to use whispering voices. They acknowledged her, but never obeyed. It gave Ms. Helkinson somewhat of a green eye, seeing them giggling and flirting in giddy frivolity; it reminded her of the life she never had deep down. This made her understandably irritated. How dare they flirt in her presence! They were mocking her. How dare they flirt in the library's presence! She could feel the library communicate with her in her head. It didn't like to be some place to take your date like a diner or a dance; it was too grand to stoop to such a level! Ms. Helkinson's vein in her forehead twitched with anger. They needed to be stopped. At once!
Ms. Helkinson approached them, fists clenched. The library, her true, passionate lover, was screaming at her to bash that little boy's head in with The Chronological History and Included Texts of Alfred P. Honkadoo, World's First Thinking Genius (and Slightly Ambidextrous) Peanut. Finally, the kids looked up from their giggling.
"Sorry, ma'am. What was it you said?" the boy with shaggy brown hair smiled.
"Get… out…" she said through clenched teeth.
The boy's eyebrows raised. "I'm… I'm sorry?"
"Get…… out….. now…"
"Have we-"
"NOW! Leave me and my lover in peace!" the mad librarian roared. Charlie and Chelsea jumped up, Chelsea knocking over her books, Charlie shielding her from Ms. Helkinson in case she might suddenly attack.
(The term "mad", dear readers, can be used in many ways. It can mean "angry, spiteful, or indignant", or it can mean "crazy, insane, wonky, or loony", or in some parts of southern California it can mean "awesome, righteous, or extremely cool". Here the term "mad" means all of the above. Oh, wait. Excepting the last one mentioned, because I don't believe they were in southern California at the time.)
Charlie and Chelsea hurriedly recovered their books, binders, and backpacks, to race out the nearest fire exit without another word. As the door closed, Ms. Helkinson could be heard sobbing: "They're gone, precious, they're gone. It's alright. We're alone now. Everything will be alright. Oh, don't be angry, my love, they're gone, and they're never ever coming back. Don't-"
After several minutes of running as far as they could away from the wacky library, it's simulated open pages staring as they ran like some menacing… uh… stone book… menace. Charlie stopped to catch his breath. "Wow… that was… freaky."
"Totally," Chelsea panted, looking around. "So… what do we do now?"
"I… I don't know," Charlie paused. What could he do? Invite her back to his place? Certainly not. Willy would never allow it. But he couldn't just leave her out here to walk home alone…
"I guess if we're through studying, I should be getting home-" Chelsea turned to leave.
"Wait! Chelsea!" Charlie called. She turned, hair a-swishing in the February breeze. It was cold; she was bundled up in a light blue scarf, and it suited her. Her cheeks, nose, and ears were red as strawberries, and in the cold Charlie thought she never looked more beautiful.
"Yes?"
"Do you… do you…"
"Do I what?"
"Do yo want to go have, like, and ice cream with me?" Charlie spat it out.
Chelsea stared at him. "An ice cream?"
"Yes. No. No, wait. It's below 20 out here. Would you like to get some… some…" Charlie's mind went blank as… well, blank as the pile of snow shoveled on to the curb beside him.
Chelsea smiled. "Like, some hot chocolate?"
Charlie brightened. "Yeah. But I personally prefer ice cream."
Chelsea laughed. "Yeah, okay. Let's go!"
So the two adolescents turned to go down to the nearest café, but when remembering that they had to pass the library to get there, decided to go the long way instead. Neither of them minded. In the biting snow on the slippery cobblestone streets, Charlie and Chelsea slipped and slid to the café, falling over and picking each other back up and laughing hysterically the whole way; and in the quiet empty library, Ms. Helkinson caressed her love's plaster walls, and sang lullabies to her adoring books; and all of them had never felt warmer.
Yup... it's sorta short, isn't it? Well, I'll try to have another chapter sooner this time. Please review, so I will know which of you are still alive and which of you have died of old age from such a long waiting period. I'm going to go eat pickled corn now!
