Author's Note: Hey, guess what? I lied about updating sooner! April Fools! Hahaha…ha…ehem. Sorry about the long update. Y'know the deal: school is crazy, life is chaotic, ruling several third-world countries with a supreme military of Nazi Mangos takes up most of my time… yeah. But thanks anyway fro the reviews!
To NitrusOxide: Librarians have always scared me too… twitchtwitchtwitch… along with clowns. Now THOSE are scary. Shudder….
To Ridel: Wow! Thanks for the compliment! I'm so happy to know you love this story! I really need reviews to keep me going, so your thoughts would be extremely helpful. I hope you find the way this story goes agreeable, and I look forward to your reviews!
This chapter is also sort of short. Oh well. I promise- there's some pretty good stuff coming up soon. Mwahaha, you have no idea what fun is in store… twitch… well, maybe you do.
Willy Wonka paced about the factory, muttering to himself more than usual. Charlie hadn't been home for more than two hours. He was delaying business to an absurd degree! Willy needed his opinion on whether or not the new Razzle-dazzle-berry Gum should turn your tongue blue or make your teeth sing well-known Broadway tunes such as "Lullaby of Broadway" and "No One Mourns the Wicked", and now he was thoroughly behind schedule because Charlie chose today of all days to stop and smell the flowers on his way home from school! Wait, he thought, this is February! There are no flowers in February! It was February… Charlie's birthday was approaching soon… Willy should do something special for him. A lad doesn't turn 16 every day, now does he? February… oh yes, it was February, there were no flowers, so what could Charlie possibly be doing in all that snow if he wasn't smelling any flowers? He certainly couldn't smell the snow, because Willy knew for a fact that since snowflakes were composed of tiny crystal people who like to make things delightfully or terribly cool (such as cream), and that the crystal people had no taste or smell (that was why you needed to add flavoring to ice cream, like chocolate fudge or snozberry, because no one really likes buying snow-flavored ice cream, as it doesn't really have a flavor), so Charlie couldn't very well be stopping to smell the tiny crystallized snow people, unless it was yellow snow, and Willy didn't have the faintest idea of why Charlie would ever want to stop and smell and/or taste yellow snow, because it smelled and/or tasted horrific. Willy knew this from past experience. It was that winter day when he was young, his f-f-father had taken him out as a treat to go ice skating at the park, and when his f-father wasn't looking, Willy got curious and decided to take a taste of some oddly-colored snow. Ugh, that was gross. But it was rather funny to watch his f-f-father come running towards him, waving his arms and yelling at him to stop, because he had this wonderfully comic expression on his face. His father was funny when he worried. It wasn't funny when his m-m-mother was sick in the hospital with Willy's supposed new little sister still in her tummy and how his f-f-father paced around the room, worried to death. That wasn't very funny at all. Not at all…
Willy was lost in his own thoughts as he walked briskly through the Chocolate Room, knocking over Oompa-Loompas like bowling pins and muttering some sort of apology negligently. He would've probably continued on like this and scored a strike from knocking so many Oompa-Loompas down, had he not crashed into Sarah bucket at that point, who was standing around, looking about things blankly and her mouth open a little as she muttered things to herself. Willy collided with her, grabbing a branch of a nearby Bloomingdaleberry-twist tree to steady his long, lanky body. The aunt of his co-worker in a trance was not so fortunate. Her arms waved about quickly like sails on a windmill, her body swerving back and forth as she tried to steady herself, her back to the dreamy chocolate river. Willy stared at her in awe for a brief second, the Oompa-Loompas with him as they tried to recover from the Bowling Pin Incident, as Sarah finally lost her balance.
Time it seemed seem to go in slow motion as Sarah slipped and fell backward, heading towards the churning chocolate river, her eyes wild and fearful. Willy uttered a desperate "Nnnnooooooooooo…." And tried to grab at her before his worst fears were proven. His long, stick-like arm swooped to grab at her hair or the nearest thing to him in vain. Oompa-Loompas scrambled up to help, but stopped to watch Sarah emit a little gasping "oh!" as she fell with a splash into the chocolate river.
Time sped up again as Willy squealed much like the way the Wicked Witch of the West did while melting in the beloved story Wizard of Oz due to a terribly simple-minded revolutionary from a distant land trying to destroy one of Oz's lead power sources in hopes of freeing the common Munchkin from a communistic and slightly capitalism-influenced dictatorship, with the help of an effeminate man of metal due to a clumsy yet gory wood-cutting accident, a neutered cat, a naïve man who believed in the importance of intellectualism in the common agricultural worker, and a magical sparkly yet rather shifty medium who was later hung from suspicion of being an ally of the communistic/slightly capitalism-influenced dictator.
The Oompa-Loompas rushed in to fish the squirming woman out of the chocolate as Willy barked in as manly a voice as possible while trying to keep in sobs to fetch the thing out of his precious confection. "Get her out! Get her out! Ohh, my chocolate! What have you done! Ew, it's gross! Don't you realize that my chocolate cannot be touched by human hands? Except for that one time with that German Gloop brat… ugh, that was disgusting. Get out! Get out!"
Sarah was dumped upon the grassy mint-flavored shoal, sputtering and gasping. "Oh… oh dear… I could've drowned!"
"Not likely," Willy rolled his eyes, "Will you stop thinking about yourself for a moment? My chocolate could be ruined!"
"Why don't you just take your chocolate and shove it where-" Sarah stopped. A little dribble of chocolate on her lip touched her tongue while she spoke. Sarah stood there, in awe, her eyes bright, and she rolled the taste around in her mouth. "Oh my," was all she said, and commenced in licking her fingers after she ran them allover her forearm. "This… is… the best thing I've ever tasted in my life!" she cried happily, but with her fingers in her mouth it sounded like, "Thhhrrrllbb… rrllbb…. Thhrrrbllrrbbthnllbbllffghhy!"
"Yes," Willy flashed his scary pearly whites at her in the 'I'm-Willy-Wonka-and-I-think-you-are-a-raving-lunatic' way, "I know it is." He turned to go command the Oompa-Loompas trying to wipe her off but getting snapped at by Sarah, ("It's mine! MINE! Not yours, go get your own!") when he saw Charlie coming down the pathway to the house, a dreamy grin spread like peanut-butter-fudge-and-strawberry-custard-dip all over his freckled face. Sarah stopped for a moment to wave at Charlie as he approached.
"Charlie! Yoo-hoo!"
"Where have you been!" Willy roared, (well, it was Willy's way of roaring, it kind of sounded like a little girl throwing a temper tantrum when she has found out she didn't get the pretty doll house she wanted for Christmas) in angry tone.
"Where have you been!" Sarah cried giddily, forgetting the chocolate for a moment to lean in on potential news of her nephew'snew girlfriend.
"I hope you had fun doing whatever you were doing," Willy said sneeringly, a cold, dejected look in his eyes.
"I hope you had fun doing whatever you were doing," Sarah hinted, batting her eyelashes to teasingly indicate a certain rosy-cheeked, chestnut-colored-haired young lady.
"Loads of fun, thanks," Charlie said dreamily, gazing at the chocolate river and thinking of Chelsea. "We studied hard."
"Studying!" Willy cried, "What the Dentist-Who-Lives-Downstairs is that about! You don't need to be studying, you need to be here giving me your opinion on whether or not the new Razzle-dazzle-berry Gum should turn your tongue blue or make your teeth sing well-known Broadway tunes such as 'Lullaby of Broadway' and 'No One Mourns the Wicked'!"
"Studying!" Sarah laughed, "You don't need to be studying! You need to be taking your girlfriend out to restaurants and complimenting her on how dazzlingly lovely she is, and dancing slowly with her to your favorite Commodores hits!"
Willy turned menacingly to Charlie's aunt. "Why don't you butt out? This is business!"
Sarah scowled at him. "Why don't you? This is his life! He's a teenager! What do you think he wants to remember when he's your age-"
"My age!"
"Yes, your age- do you think he wants to remember being out there, experiencing the sweetest moments with his girlfriend; or being cooped up in here, making the sweetest candy- lovely chocolate bythe way, is that a hint of hazelnut I detect?-with Wonkers McScreams-Like-a-Girl!"
"I do not scream like a girl!"
"Oh, yes you do!"
"Well, at least I'm not gray!"
"MY HAIR IS BLONDE, FOR THE FIVE-HUNDEREDTH-AND-EIGHTY-SEVENTH TIME!"
"Eighty-eighth."
"Oh really?"
"Yes."
"Thank you."
"No problem."
"IT'S BLONDE!"
"GRAY!"
"BLONDE!"
"GRAY!"
"I'll be getting to my homework now," Charlie sighed dreamily, heading towards the house, "Hey Larry."
Larry waved hello from his work, stuffing some Pina-Colada-flavored cotton candy in his ears and continuing his work. The rest of the Oompa-Loompas (those who weren't still struggling to pick themselves up from the Bowling Pin Incident) did the same.
Review, or I shall set my rabid flesh-eating Elijah Wood on you! Go, Elijah, go! (Elijah spurts foam from mouth, growling.)
