Author's Note: Yeah, this chapter's filled with Valentine's Day stuff, and I know that I'm several weeks late on all this V-Day goodness, but I'm a procrastinator and also quite busy, so I apologize, but I guess you'll just have to read this story and pretend that it's based several weeks ago before Valentine's Day, if you want to.

To NitrusOxide: Dark chocolate has also been proven to release some sort of cleansing chemical that helps clean out the arteries and thus help prevent heart-attacks. CHOCOLATE SAVES THE DAY AGAIN! (cue heroic music)

To TheWolfInTheShadows: I'm planning a special Valentine's Day thing in the upcoming chapter. Single-Awareness Day! Woot!

To Cheorl: I really wish you would update your story; I've really missed your chapters! If you'll look, you'll notice I used your strange paradox in my chapter, because I'm just… in desperate need of weird things for this story like that, yo.

Please review. Please? Please? Pretty please? Even if you just skim through this story, I really appreciate it. You can even just put something totally random in there if you feel like it, like what you had for breakfast this morning, but I'd really prefer some constructive criticism or praise or anything. For the sake of all things random, please review!


It was February the 12th. An unnaturally dreary winter day. As I have told you before, readers, February is naturally a dreary month, because it is stuck in between fall: the lovely month of Halloween, autumn leaves, and high candy sales; and beautiful spring: the month of baby chicks, Easter bunnies, fresh growth, high school exams, high hormones, and high candy sales. The worst thing about February was that it was in the terrible part of winter where Christmas had already come and gone, and all children were already bored with their presents, and New Years had come and gone, and all children were bored with their little happy-New-Year-blowing-horns, and that all the sparkling winter snow had melted away into sludge because spring was approaching. February is sort of like the puberty month of all the twelve months of the year: gangly, dreary, uncomfortable, nostalgic of the past and not quite approaching the future at the same time, and covered in horrible acne. However, the one good thing about February was that candy sales were still up- which was why February was one of Willy Wonka's busiest years.

Now, most of you I'm sure know about Valentine's Day, the Lover's Holiday, as it were, where hormone-induced lovers laden each other with bouquets of roses and chocolates and occasionally diamonds, and tell each other how lovely they think the other really is; while the single people go off and drink things that should not be ingested if one is a designated driver, and go buy little dangerous weapons and shoot harmless woodland creatures mocking them in a nearby wood. Well anyway, Valentine's Day was only two days away, and every year Charlie's high school held a fabulous Valentine's Day masquerade ball, in which couples would dance to many well-known tunes while getting sugar-high on boxes of candy and cake and punch. (Sometimes some of the more malevolent and mischievous teachers such as Mr. Warsaw who taught humanities in room 13D would spike the punch and take pictures of all the intoxicated post-dehydrated teachers and students and then post them up the next day in the teacher's lounge. However, Mr. Warsaw always framed the students for this crime, and the students would always receive a lecture from him on the damaging effects on one's life of… well, things that one who was lonely on Valentine's Day would drink at home with a weapon.)

Charlie returned home from school that day with huge, sloppy grin on his face. He had been getting into the routine of coming home late with a big grin on his face, but today he was on time, and the grin was simply oozing off his lips and cheeks. In fact, one of the Oompa-Loompas had to mop it up off the floor, it was so superfluous.

Sarah had been sitting outside on a candied mushroom, cross-legged and barefoot with large sunglasses with enormous black lenses perched on her small ski-slope of a nose; she had stolen a box of matches, and was in the process of plucking the little white spots off the red mushroom she was sitting on, taking a match to them, and watching each one sizzle. Charlie approached his aunt, the Oompa-Loompa with the mop following close behind, and plopped down on the cool mint-flavored grass; the Oompa-Loompa with the mop sighing in exasperation and leaving.

"Afternoon, lovey," Sarah said, not looking up from her work, "Home a little early, are we?"

"We decided there wasn't anything to really tutor about today," Charlie sighed dreamily, his brown eyes aglow with sweetness. Did that sound cheesy?

"Oh, there's always something to tutor about," Sarah lit another match, "Something just happened that made you two awkward or excited or something. Would it have anything to do with the fact that Valentine's Day is not but two days from now?"

"I asked her to the Valentine's dance, and she said yes," Charlie rolled over several times, squirming with glee. "Me? Can you imagine it? I'm going to the dance with the prettiest girl in the whole school. In the whole city. In the whole world!"

Sarah didn't take her eyes off the white sugary splotch that she was lighting aflame, but if she had she would have rolled them. "It seems that you been bitten by the Cupid bug, ducky, and bitten hard."

"However do you mean?"

"You have it in your eyes. It's oozing out of you. Look, it can't even be mopped up, there's so much. It's so cheesy I could dip a nacho in it and have it with wine."

"I can't help it," Charlie sighed, leaping and thrusting his fist in the air, "I feel like flying!"

"I'm sure you can do that, because your wonky old boss wants to see you in the Soda Room or something like that."

"CHARLIE!" a high shriek came from the tunnel as the pink dragon boat appeared.

"Speak of the devil," Sarah mumbled, tossing the shriveled, charred white blob aside and lighting another match.

"Thank goodness, my boy! You're not late! Wonderful, we have so much to do. Valentine's Day is quickly approaching you know, and Friday will be very busy indeed. And so many things are breaking down lately, we'll need to work doubly as fast and doubly as hard to make due. Now first we need to…" Willy paused, narrowing his eyes. "Charlie, you look ill. Are you quite alright?"

"He's been bitten," Sarah burnt her thumb and sucked on it.

"By what?"

"The lurrrrve bug," Charlie sighed happily.

"I'm sorry… what?" Willy looked more confused than usual.

"He asked his bonny sweetheart out to a dance on Friday, and she said yes." Sarah dropped another white blob.

"What." Willy's eye twitched as he tried to keep his control. "Charlie, you have your work here. You are the sole heir of this candy factory, and running a factory is a big responsibility. If you can't-"

"Oh, don't get your panties all caught up in a knot, Mr. Wonka," Sarah sighed, throwing a dud match down after trying to light it several times and getting nothing, "It's Valentine's Day, and he's in love. Let him have just a little fun."

"Ugh, Valentine's Day," Wonka cringed at the word and rolled his eyes. "I remember it in my… naïve… days. Listen Charlie, the story of Valentine's Day is a silly and pointless one. Once upon a time, Cupid (the son of Venus, in some cultures,) got extremely bored. It was February, and everyone knows February is a naturally dreary month. After all, it comes in between Christmas and Easter. So, he decided to shrug off his ethereal chores that day, and go randomly skewering people with his dangerous bow he got for Christmas from Athena (the god of shiny dangerous weapons) and pack of spiked arrows, while dropping giant heart-shaped boxes of glorious calorie-laden chocolate (which he got for Christmas from Hershey, the god of sweets,) upon poor human's heads. While Cupid caused turmoil, suffering, and major thigh amplification, some holy dude named St. Valentine (or sometimes in fancy dance clubs 'Valentino') suddenly got an idea and shouted out, 'Hey! We should make this into a holiday or something, because there needs to be some sort of holiday between Christmas and Easter!' The people with big thighs were overjoyed. 'Great idea, St. Valentine/Valentino!' they frivolously cried. Ever since that fateful February day, once a year people all over the world gather to buy extravagant heart-shaped boxes of chocolate, cry over soppy old romance movies starring Carey Grant and sulk about how being single (or not single, for that matter) stinks; and mercilessly slaughter many innocent roses. To get Cupid back, however, artists like to portray Cupid as a naked blushing baby, or sometimes called a cherub. Cupid really didn't like that; his manliness was forever sprained. Valentine's Day is a day of high candy sales, and a day to appreciate the neccessity of chocolate, nothing more."

"That was a lovely story." Sarah watched, entranced, the flames of the match lick the sugary white blob and causeits victim to twitch and sizzle away slowly.

"Thank you." Willy grinned proudly, shoving his thumbs in his vest and bobbing on his shiny heels. "I was saving it for the opportune moment."

"If you have nothing better to do than to just think up of stories to reprimand my dearest darling nephew, then you obviously do not have much to do by means of making candy, so why are you reprimanding Charlie for lagging in his work in the first place when you yourself haven't done much to help the situation?" Sarah grinned smugly for a moment, lighting another match.

Willy glowered menacingly down at the not-young-not-old woman. "Did you get those sunglasses from the TV room?"

"I don't know where they came from."

"Did you steal them? You know, I do not tolerate thieves in this factory." He rapped his cane on the ground.

"I got Larry over there to fetch me some. The sun today is simply unbearable."

Willy looked up. "If you were sane at all, you would clearly see that there is no sun in this room, my dear Miss Bucket. They are but a few lights to help the workers see and the candy grow. If you haven't noticed, the occasional simulated snow isn't snow either, it's just powdered sugar. And I would not make such comments about my form of work, being as you are a guest in my home."

Sarah said nothing at this, just wagged her head slightly and mumbled a few inaudible words under her breath, mimicking the chocolatier, who now had his turn to grin smugly.

"Please, Willy," Charlie lost his love-struck gleam for a moment to look at his employer with sad puppy-dog eyes. "It really means a lot to me. Please let me go?"

Willy's lip curled, and he tensed up at Charlie's sad puppy-dog eyes. "Oh no, no… not the face with the eyes and the… ugh. Fine. Have it your way. Just go to the stupid thing, and leave me to do all the work. It's not like I'm getting any younger. Maybe I should just make someone else who doesn't have a 'life' my heir. Like… like her." He gestured to Sarah. Sarah looked up blankly for a moment.

"Say, I've got an idea: Charlie, why don't you work extra hard today and tomorrow on the 13th, and try to get all the candy ready for the next day, so that way there won't be as much trouble for Mr. Wonka here on the 14th?"

"That's a wonderful idea!" Charlie cried gaily, regaining his silly love-struck glow and frolicking off into a field of lemon-flavored daisies, singing. "Lalalalalalala…"

Willy sighed, scratching his hair under his tall hat and glancing down at Sarah, who had resumed her burning. "Practicing for the Noble Society of Demented Arsonists, are we?"

Sarah paused, staring at the sizzling abating blob of candy in her palm. "Sometimes my brain feels like this," she sighed.

Willy blinked at her for a minute. "Mine too," he said quietly. Sarah paused, and smiled up at him. It was the crazy, bug-eyed, toothy smile, and Willy jumped a little. "Erm… I notice you're… not wearing your stockings today."

"What?"

"The green-and-black stockings. You seem to wear the same outfit every day, and I notice today you're not wearing them."

"Oh… they're in the wash."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes. You have to wash stockings eventually, you know."

"Yes. I rather like them."

"What?"

"The stockings. They're very… you know… Tim-Burton…ish."

"Yes," Sarah smiled, "I've always been a fan of Tim Burton."

"Me too."

"That's rather strange, because it seems you've been rather sheltered for fifteen years, or so the story goes, so I can't really imagine you seeing any of his recent movies."

"I've seen a few of them, when I care to."

"How?"

"The TV Room."

"What's that?"

"It's sort of hard to explain."

"Oh, okay, well then don't bother explaining it to me, because it will just confuse me."

"Alright." Willy stood awkwardly there for a moment, before saying, "Well, I'd better get going. Lots of things to do, you know."

"Of that I'm sure. I'll just stay here and continue to burn… stuff."

"Okay. Oh, and by the way, how's your almanac project going?"

"What?"

"You know, trying to find out why duck's quacks do not echo."

"Oh! Oh, yes. I haven't found anything yet, but I did find an interesting little tidbit: did you know that dragonflies prefer orange posicles over blue ones?"

"I love dragonflies!" Grandma Georgina shouted from indoors.

"I didn't know that."

"Well, now you do." Sarah shoved her enormous sunglasses up her nose, and continued with her work. Willy shrugged, and turned, before turning back around and giving her an abruptpat on thefrizzy bun on top of her head, and striding after Charlie, who had picked up the Oompa-Loompa with the mop and was swinging the poor being around, singing a well-known Commodore's song in a very nice baritonevoice. He could sing well if he wanted to.

Mrs. Bucket's voice came from the inside of the house. "I smell… something sweet. Like a marshmallow burning. Is something burning?"

"I think Sarah's roasting something outside." Grandpa Joe remarked.

"Wait… where's that box of matches? It was here a minute ago; oh dear, it was a 64-pack- Sarah!" Mrs. Bucket stuck her head out the window. "Sarah! You're not supposed to have matches, remember? We talked about this now dear! Give them back!"

Sarah hurriedly snuffed out the match, glancing behind her, and then whispered to an Oompa-Loompa nearby, "I was never here, understand?"

The Oompa-Loompa nodded solemnly, and went back to his work as Sarah went to go hide behind a tree, Charlie's mum chasing after her with a wooden spoon.


I forgot to mention this in my author's note: you've probably noticed I've started using weird but true paradoxes in my chapters, specifically for the dialogue between Willy and Sarah. I would be eternally grateful if you guys, when reviewing, (wink wink hint hint) would just drop something totally random and weird but true in somewhere, because I'm running low on facts. Actually, even if you're too lazy to tell me what you thought of my chapter, if you could just put something that you read in Ripley's Believe it or Not, that would be great. I promise I will try to put it in as soon as possible; so keep a look out for your fact, it'll be in there for you!

Thanks again,

anotherblastedromantic