The first of the candidates showed up the next morning.

Willy's alarm clock had gone off promptly at 8-ish that morning. It was a nice alarm clock, that started the wake-up cycle be releasing the scent of fresh chocolate into the air. Then it started to glow with a soft plum light that grew brighter and purple-er as time progressed, until exactly at 8-ish it began to play in most cheerful tones, "Willy Wonka! Willy Wonka! That famous chocolatier!" It's a delightful way to be awakened. After brushing his teeth and dressing himself impeccably, Willy Wonka activated the controls that made his glass room rise up the waterfall, giving him a stunning good-morning view of the chocolate room. From there his room went to rest in its proper resting spot, but he was never sure exactly where that was, because when he reached the top of the waterfall his door opened and he stepped into the glass elevator, which was ready to take him anywhere he needed to go. Of course, sometimes the room, or the elevator, or both would be in a mischievous mood and not open the doors. This morning Willy was especially careful of that trick, and tapped the space in front of him with his cane to be sure that the room had opened the door. "HA!" he shouted in triumph when he tapped glass, "Thought you got me this time," he said with a smirk as the door swooshed open and he walked cockily straight into the elevator's door. He didn't even reply to the smug attitude of the elevator, but his mouth was turned down at the corners, and he flexed his hands, making the rubber squeak threateningly. The elevator had the decency then to seem to be sorry.

"Hmmph," sniffed Willy Wonka, taking his time peering at the hundreds of buttons. "Candy and flowers, that's the way to a woman's heart," he muttered, "Candy we've got, but flowers…" his voice trailed off as he tried to think of what he could offer his lady in place of roses. At last a smile creased his face. "A lovely basket of candy apples might be just the thing," he decided, pushing the proper button.

Around ten o'clock that morning, Willy Wonka was waiting anxiously in his chocolate room for his potential bride. He had been waiting for just enough time to set his nerves on edge. When he first entered the room he had been too flustered to take his usual time to notice the beauty of the room. He sat down on a rock candy rock, his gift tucked by his feet, but then he began to think that this was perhaps not the best way to present himself. He'd taken extra care dressing that morning. His jacket and pants were a lovely milk chocolate brown, the tails of his jacket gradually darkening to the color of bitter dark chocolate. His toffee cream colored shirt was an elaborately ruffled one, and for this special occasion he had put on a brand new pair of squeaky gloves, brown of course, and even foregone his usual dapper top hat for a russet felt bowler.

Overall, he felt it was a pleasing effect, but now as he sat on this rock he thought that maybe he blended in too well. The lady's first view of him would be more dramatic if he was leaning against a marzipan tree with its brilliant red fruits. On reaching this conclusion he jumped to his feet and snatched up the apple basket, sprinting to the nearest marzipan tree. This particular tree was really stunning. It looked a bit like a weeping cherry tree, except that nothing in this place could ever weep, so Willy Wonka had instead called it a sleeping cherry tree. The long branches that hung out over the chocolate river did look as if sleep had made them entirely too heavy for the tree to hold up. Willy had always been pleased with the graceful sleeping cherry trees, but now as he looked at its smooth lines he realized that it had not really been grown with leaning in mind. He sat down his apple basket and attempted to lean against the drooping branches, but they did not hold up his weight and he found himself deposited unceremoniously on the ground in an undignified heap. "Well!" he said aloud. His next thought was to lean against the trunk of the tree, so he fought his way through the tangled limbs to the crusty brown sugar bark of the trunk and leaned against it languidly. It was a pose meant to be masculine and enticing, but it is hard to do either of those when you are tangled up in marzipan and brown sugar. Besides, the brilliant gleam of the candy apples would be greatly diminished by the splendor of the marzipan cherries. With a sigh Willy Wonka dropped to his knees and crawled out from under the stuffy tent of branches, wiped the cake mix dirt from his knees, and stood up.

The trick was to pick a spot in his chocolate room that had colors that would complement his dashing attire, somewhat less dashing now, being liberally decorated with cake mix, brown sugar, and bright red marzipan. "Now what goes better with brown, brown, brown, and red than…" he looked around thoughtfully until his eyes caught sight of a brilliant flash of orange, "pumpkins!" he shouted triumphantly, scurrying toward the pumpkin patch, tripping on a root and sending rosy red apples bouncing all over the minty grass. Now if I, or even you, had been there, we might have told dear Willy that orange and red really clash terribly, but he was so excited at his find that he might not have listened anyway. At any rate, after he had rescued all of the apples except for the one that now graced his left elbow, wiping them free of mint stain and returning them somewhat bruised to their basket, he found a comfy perch in the midst of the pumpkin patch and sat and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

It wasn't until he'd been waiting for almost two hours that he realized that Prettylina had failed to mention the exact time that the first fairy tale lady would arrive. They'd agreed that the lovely chocolate room would give him the best chance to impress fair lady. At first Willy had wanted the lady to show up at the front gate so she could see the impressive puppet song and dance number he'd created, but Prettylina, who seemed to know a lot about the factory had sniffed disdainfully and vetoed that idea. After that there was really no better place to see first than the chocolate room, which even the fairy seemed to be impressed at. They'd departed with a sense of satisfaction, but now Willy realized that the fairy tale lady might not even show up until dinner time. He was just considering jumping in his elevator for a quick peek into the inventing room when his watch cuckooed ten. And then he saw her.

Actually, she made an entrance that put any he'd ever made to shame. First a particularly large pumpkin to his left began to swell to enormous proportions, changing color from orange to silver as it did, and developing the accoutrements of a full-grown carriage. When it was finally finished growing, the door swung open, and out of the depths of the carriage a dainty glass-slippered foot appeared and rested on the step. Next came a slender hand, but it merely poised in the air as if waiting for something. Willy looked in awe at the carriage and the hand and the foot, but after a few awkward moments he began to worry that Prettylina had sent him a hand and foot to marry. If there was anything else inside of the carriage, it seemed to have no inclination to come out. Willy coughed, and then cleared his throat meaningfully, but still nothing happened. The foot was still poised on the step and the hand still extended into the air. Willy rocked from one foot to the other, completely at a loss. At last he gathered up a little courage and tapped lightly on the side of the carriage.

"Hello in there?" he said softly, "Everything all right."

"If you please," a voice said coolly, making Willy jump several feet in the air and yelp.

"You really shouldn't scare people like that!" he remonstrated, leaning weakly against the side of the pumpkin – carriage. "You just let me think that you were nothing but an arm and a leg and then a voice comes out of nowhere," he grimaced as a thought came to him and he dared to peer into the darkness of the carriage. "It's not your arm talking, is it?"

"Of course not," came the exasperated voice, "and if you would be so kind as to assist me, the rest of me would appear."

Now Willy Wonka really had no way of knowing that the hand was extended for him to grasp and hold as the lady descended from the carriage, but blind luck was with him, because he thought the lady was unable to come out of the carriage on her own, and as her hand was the only visible part of her (even Willy Wonka would not grab a lady's leg) he was forced to clasp onto it and pull her bodily from the carriage. It was not quite what she was expecting, and she nearly fell flat on her feet, but by a trick a fairy tale gracefulness she caught her balance after a few stumbling steps forward and then whirled to face Willy Wonka.

You already know the eccentric sight that met her eyes, from the bowler set upon the odd haircut to the pointy-toed boots. What he saw was a lithe girl, perhaps in her twenties or so, although with fairy tale creatures it was hard to tell. She had straight golden hair, clipped back from a very pretty face, and large, expressive blue eyes. Although she had the manners of a queen, and had arrived in an elegant carriage, she was dressed very simply, in a dark blue woolen gown with a sash of paler blue tied around her waist. The fanciest thing about her was the delicate pair of glass slippers on her tiny feet. She was, of course, Cinderella, as you likely guessed when she appeared in a pumpkin carriage. Willy Wonka, however, had not grown up on fairy tales, and hadn't the foggiest notion of who the girl was.

She glared at him for a while, trying to decide whether or not she should reprimand him for his lack of manners, and then wisely decided that she could teach him all of that after they were married. Instead, she gave him her most winsome, shy smile, and extended her hand. He flinched and snarled up his lip, looking at the outstretched hand as if it were a slimy toad. He knew enough to know what he was supposed to do this time, but he hated touching people. He flexed his latex glove once, then quickly, as if her were pulling a loose tooth and just wanted to get it over with, shot out his hand and squeezed hers, pumping it once, and then dropped it as if it were on fire. This necessary formality over, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Welcome to Willy Wonka's amazing chocolate factory," he recited, "we're terribly pleased that you decided to visit us." It was then that he remembered that the little speech had gestures, all of which he had forgotten. He quickly executed them: first the right hand stretched out in welcome, then the left sweeping out to indicate the factory, and last both hands clasped together. That done he pointed stiffly to himself, "I am Willy Wonka." His speech finished he dropped both hands to his side and looked at her expectantly.

She dropped a lovely curtsey, something he had not seen done before, and then said in her sweetest tones, "And I am Cinderella. I am most pleased to meet you, Mr. Wonka."

"Oh please," he said trying to sound pleasant, "you must call me," he cleared his throat, "Willy." It must be said that he failed miserably at being pleasant, but Cinderella was too well bred to mention it. Instead she said,

"And you must call me 'Ella."

His only reply to that was his trademark giggle. "Maybe you'd like to see the factory?" he asked. She smiled in reply and slipped her hand through the crook of his arm. His eyes widened to gigantic proportion, but he managed not to fling away her hand. "This way, then," he said, leading her toward the bridge. He'd been so shocked by his meeting that he left the basket of candy apples lying in the pumpkin patch.