Rejoice, dear hearts, and be glad! The wayward authoress has at last returned!


Alarm clocks are the most contrary things in the whole world. Well, except for weather, women, and cheesecakes. Still, they have a tricky habit of never working when they should. Willy Wonka's alarm should have gone off promptly at 8:30-ish that morning to give him plenty of time to be dressed and ready when his guest arrived. As it happened the clock didn't go off at all and something else entirely woke him.

He was right in the middle of a terrible nightmare involving frogwomen who once kissed turned into pink terrors who made special bleach cookies when a large object fell from above and landed smack on him. Have you ever had something happen in the real world that translated differently in your dream world? In this instance Willy Wonka's dream told him that his frogwoman-turned-pink-terror wife had just pitched a pan of bleach cookies at his head and the only way to save himself was to push them away with all his might. So he did. And immediately woke to see something crumpled at the opposite side of his glass room.

"Oh dear," he murmured. It's not the best thing to wake up to, really. I mean, you expect that the pan of bleach cookies is nothing more than your quilt and that you were really jolted awake by your alarm clock. You don't expect to find that you really have thrown something large and moderately heavy across your room. (Something which appears to have absolutely nothing in common with cookies except that it has perhaps eaten too many of them.)

Willy rolled out of his bed and slunk to the cabinet to retrieve a candy cane. (Despite his fear in the moment he noted approvingly that it was a stunning mahogany cane with a cream de menthe centre.) Once the reassuring object was in his hand he dared approach the… whatever it was. Standing as far away as was possible he stretched out the cane and touched the something tentatively, then jumped back. If anyone had been around to see him they might have thought he was remarkably like a cat when it encounters an unfamiliar object and dances about it poking it with its little paws. At any rate, when the something did not react he dared step a little closer and poke with his cane. It was then that Willy Wonka realized that the "something" was actually a girl, and quite possibly his future bride.

He stood up straight, his cane clattering to the ground, stuttering and stammering as he went, "I'm so terribly sorry. You see, I wasn't expecting you until later, except that maybe later is now (or it could be that now is actually later) because my alarm didn't go off, and anyway I didn't think you'd be coming up here. And maybe you were waiting for me there for a long time and just came up to see me which is fine but then you jumped on me and that was kind of scary plus we barely even know each other and maybe we should just be friends first and…"

At some point during his rather embarrassing tirade it came to Willy Wonka's mind that the girl had not moved since he poked her, and that she was not reacting to what he was saying. "Um," he cleared his throat and shifted his feet a little, trying to see her face which was currently hidden by a mass of very long, very blonde hair. "Um, hi, sorry. I know we've got off to an awkward start, but maybe we should try this again?" She didn't respond but he thought that might be an agreement. "Right." He said nodding as he bent to pick up his cane. "My name is Willy Wonka. Welcome to my factory. I'm so pleased that you came to meet me today. May I ask your name?" During the very long pause that followed a terrible thought came into Willy Wonka's head. "What if I killed her?"

When he thought that he let out a long wail and dropped to his knees beside the still form. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean it! Come back!" By now he had grabbed her shoulder and turned her so that she was half lying on his lap. "Come back to the light!" He shook her until her blonde hair whipped him in the face. "You still have your whole life ahead of you!"

The long-suppressed hero in Willy Wonka came to the forefront and he snapped into action. Perhaps the girl was only on the brink of death. If he could do something to shock her back into life… He knew that when people fainted they could be revived with a little cold water on their faces. Maybe when they were dead they could be revived by complete immersion? "Water water everywhere…" He muttered as he danced nervously around the room trying to think. It was at that unfortunate moment that he looked out of his glass room through the waterfall and noticed a very available river of melted chocolate in the room below. "Aha!" He shouted as he danced toward the elevator. "Open both sets of doors, if you please," he said, all business, "We've got a life to save."

Once both the room and elevator door were opened the next thing was to get the girl into the elevator. The rescuing seemed to hit a snag here, as this fairy tale bride was a bit chubbier than the one from the day before. "You don't work out much, do you?" grunted Willy as he half carried, half dragged the girl into the elevator. He panted as he hit the button to close the door. "Not that that's a problem or anything. I mean, I like a girl who can enjoy her food." The elevator dropped through the waterfall and landed on top of the river. Hard. After Willy had peeled himself off of the roof of the elevator and sniffed disapprovingly he traded elevator-feud-mode for fairy-tale-princess-rescuing-mode. (Which is also known as Prince-Charming-mode, but in case you haven't picked up on it yet, Willy Wonka wasn't up on his fairy tales and therefore had no idea that he was being so err… princely.) "Right then," he said, straightening his robe, "No worries! I'm here to rescue you!" With that he unceremoniously rolled the girl out of the elevator and into the river.

She sunk.

Willy spent five horrified seconds watching the last strands of blonde hair disappear under the thick chocolate before beginning the best rescue in his power. That is to say, he began hopping up and down and screeching. Now this is a part of the story that I should go back and change just to make you all happy, but I don't think that I will. I've told you the truth and that's that. Well, anyway, there was a sort of luck that followed Willy Wonka, because the girl hadn't been under water too awfully long when a set of pipes dropped down from above and began sucking up chocolate. The sight of a slightly chubby and thoroughly chocolaty figure being sucked into the tubes was enough to finally galvanize the candy maker into action. He dove dramatically from the doorway of the elevator just in time to catch the girl's feet before they disappeared up the pipe.

A few minutes later Willy Wonka lay panting on his minty grass while a group of Oompa-Loompas clustered around him poking, prodding, and grunting to each other. At last he sat up and wiped the chocolate out of his eyes. "I'm fine," he declared, "But I think I killed her." He pointed at the indistinguishable chocolaty blob lying on the grass nearby. "Twice," he winced. One of the Oompa-Loomas went over to investigate.

"But she's not dead!" he said. Actually, he didn't actually say it. It was really a strange sort of sign language that they used to communicate. In this instance he jumped up and down three times and then pulled on his ears right-left-right. "Really?" Willy said, rolling to his knees and scooting over. He now had the brilliant idea of seeing if she was breathing. Yup. "Well!" he said, rocking back into a sitting position. "See. I told you there was no problem. She just…" He scrunched up his nose and looked at the Oompa-Loompa. "If she's not dead then what's going on?" The Oompa-Loompa closed his eyes and imitated snoring. "Oh," said Willy Wonka. He and the Oompa-Loompa exchanged impish grins.

That night when Prettylina showed up Willy was ready for her. He was sitting on his bed laughing softly to himself. "Well?" she asked, but this time there was open hostility in her voice. "What?" said Willy innocently. "Do you care to explain how Sleeping Beauty came to have her entire face painted with permanent dye?" She shrilled. Willy grinned but quickly replaced it with an innocent face. "It's an Oompa-Loompa sign of friendship," he protested. Prettylina narrowed her gaze. She was truly frightening. "Sorry?" he tried. She snorted and disappeared. "Soo… the next bride arrives tomorrow," he shouted at the trail of glitter, "Right?"