Cinderella took a few moments to admire the lovely, if strange vista of the chocolate room. The experiences of a humble cinder maiden cum fairy tale princess had brought her to many curious places, but she was certain that none were quite so curious as this room. Though she did recognize some of the plants, the pumpkin patch, for example, was quite familiar if a little different from normal pumpkin patches, for the most part the trees and flowers and plants in the huge room were a strange kind that she had never seen before. She turned to Willy Wonka to ask him the name of a particularly strange flower, patting his arm to get his attention when she realized for the first time the sad state of disarray that Willy's clothes were in. She grimaced and pulled her hand from his arm, her hand coming away sticky with some unnamable red substance.

"Are you – bleeding?" she asked curiously, although the red stuff didn't seem to be blood.

"What?" he asked, stopping his brisk walk and frowning at the little blonde.

"You've got some weird red stuff on your arm," she explained, wiping it on her woolen dress.

"Oh," he said, "Yeah, I forgot." He turned sharply on his heels and headed back for the pumpkin patch leaving a bewildered Cinderella to stare after him, noting the other stains and grime on the once dapper brown suit.

"Did you get into a fight?" she asked after him, "Or something…?" her voice trailed off questioningly as Willy came back carrying a slightly squished basket. He presented it with a proud smile. "Ah," she said, taking it from his hand and looking at the very damaged red fruit. "That explains the sticky red stuff, then," she mumbled.

"How's that?" he asked.

She paused, unwilling to tell him her opinion of the fruit. She naturally wished to make a good impression on the chocolatier, and be known in Fairy Tale land as the first to bring in a new citizen. Instead she smiled and turned on the feminine charm. "I was only saying," she said sweetly, "that this is very lovely fruit, and wondering if you grew it yourself."

"Oh, yeah," he said with an elaborate twirl of his cane. "We grow it all right here in the factory. I can take ya to the orchard if ya want. I've got a boat that will take us there."

Now Cinderella was a woman, and was thus naturally curious, but there was a war between that part of her nature and another part – the cleaning maid part. The momentary sideline of the candy apples had not distracted her from the dilapidated appearance of Willy's suit, and the maid part of her desperately wanted to clean the various stains from the brown cloth. The maid part won out.

"Actually," she admitted, "I was wondering if you wouldn't let me clean and press your suit."

"Huh?" he queried. She delicately touched the red spot on his elbow and brushed some cake mix from his shoulder. He frowned as he saw what she was talking about. "Well," he said with some disgust, "That's just – gross."

She agreed with him, "Absolutely. And I'm terribly good at getting off stains, so if you want to just," she floundered, waving indistinctly at his clothing, "just put on a robe or something, I can wash it out in the river."

Willy Wonka was faced with a quandary. There was a part of him that was taken aback by Cinderella's request and wanted to tell her to buzz off, but another part of him was remembering that lovely little immortality bonus, making chocolate for all eternity, and keeping the dear Oompa-Loompas safe. The second part won out.

"Well, yeah!" Willy squawked. "I'll just have one of the Oompa-Loompas bring down my robe an - "

"Splendid," she interrupted. "Just do it spit-spot and we'll have you all cleaned up in no time."

Thirty minutes later found Willy enshrouded in his fluffy robe enthroned on a rock-candy-rock. (As a side note, have you ever sat on rock candy? It's a bit prickly and painful, but Willy didn't even notice. That's how bothered he was.) A few feet away on the grass was Cinderella, her sleeves rolled up above the elbow as she scrubbed away at his suit. The thirty minutes had been dreadful beyond belief. First had been Cinderella's surprise at the sight of the Oompa-Loompas and her insistence on calling them "toad-men."

"One of my dear friends kissed one once and he turned into a prince, but I've always thought she was taking a risk," she told him when he protested.

He thought of telling her that he thought that the prince was the one taking the risk, but thinking of that lovely immortality, he resisted. The next trouble had come when the robe had been procured and Willy had needed a place to change. Cinderella wouldn't hear of him calling for his room or leaving or anything. She told him just to hop into her carriage and change out of those "nasty rags." So poor Willy had climbed into the overgrown pumpkin and changed out of his soiled suit as quickly as possible, leaping from the dark interior as he was still tying the belt of his robe.

The final problem was when Cinderella actually got a good look at the river and realized that it was dark brown. Of course she started to lecture him about the importance of a clean water supply, but he informed her with pride that the river was pure frothy chocolate. Cinderella was momentarily distracted by that thought, because, after all, it was chocolate! But the dirty clothing weighed heavily on her mind, so in a matter of minutes she turned the Oompa-Loompas into her own personal work force, and in almost no time had a wash tub full of warm water, a bar of soap, a washboard, and another tub of clean cool water.

"How do your clothes normally get clean?" she asked Willy.

"Doris or Emelda pick them up for me," he said mournfully, tucking his feet up underneath him.

"And Doris and Emelda clean them?" persisted the busy blonde.

"No. Doris and Emelda burn them up and then bring them back to life. That's why I've always called my clothes my phoenixes. Of course it gets complicated whenever you try to go shopping and ask for a blue phoenix coat."

The sarcasm was not lost on Cinderella, but she just "humphed" and continued her cleaning. When at last the suit and shirt were cleaned dried and the hat neatly brushed and the shoes shined, Cinderella told Willy to get dressed again. That meant another intense moment in the confines of the pumpkin carriage, but Willy got through it all right. Those last few minutes in the carriage had decided him, though. Cinderella was definitely not a woman that he could be tied to for all eternity. He would tell her that. As soon as he got out of the carriage. He would. He was getting out. She was looking at him expectantly. He coughed. He cleared his throat. He coughed again.

"I…" he managed.

"Yes?" she said with her eyebrows upraised.

He weakened. "Are you ready to eat?"