Author's note: It's long. Longest chapter I've written, possibly ever. But I'm proud of it. I'm still not quite at Gloopeth's demise, but that'll definitely be next chapter! Peace out!

6

There was a substantially long pause as Willy Wonka stood in front of the small crowd, a look of tension clear in his features. Mike sighed, but refrained from crossing his arms and tapping his foot.
"Good morning, Starshine!" Wonka suddenly exclaimed, "The earth says 'hello'!"
Now Mike wanted to bury himself in the snow, if only to cool his burning cheeks; he couldn't believe he was being photographed with this guy. Everything he was doing made Mike want the ground to open up and swallow him (or Wonka; either way was good) and his production of cue cards was no different.
"Dear guests. Greetings! Welcome to the factory. I shake you warmly by the hand," he extended his arm in illustration. Mike – and from the looks on there faces, quite a few of the others – wanted to take that arm in a firm grip, pull him to the floor with it and land a few punches in his stomach. The purple, latex gloves squeaked horribly as Wonka withdrew his hand and continued, looking decidedly perplexed, "My name is Willy Wonka."
We'd gathered that.
"Then shouldn't you be up there?" Satanic Kid asked, pointing up to a throne with a large 'W' emblazoned on it that Mike had somehow missed; he'd been too shocked by the dolls. But now she mentioned it, she had a point – why wasn't he up there? He glanced over at Satanic Kid and saw yet another sarcastic, scathing look, that wasn't quite as good as Possessed Junior's had been, but was still pretty Mike-ish. Again, he scolded himself for being very un-Mike; again, he blamed it on Daniel and Claire.
"Well, I couldn't very well watch the show from up there, now, could I, li'l girl?" Wonka answered. Mike rolled his eyes. Only one word was going round in his head: freak. He followed the others up to inside the factory.
"Don't you want to know our names?" The Blob said. He was definitely Augustus – the accent told Mike that he was Augustus.
"Can't imagine how it would matter," Wonka replied. Mike took a closer look at the doll display to take his mind off how bored and/or scared he felt. Wonka may have seen him taking an unusually fascinated interest in burnt dolls as he said, "Come along, far too much to see."

Mike was then taken into a stark white cylindrical corridor. He eyed the place with curiosity; if the rest of the factory was like this, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. It was the big, bold, in-your-face, trying-too-hard, kindergarten colours that adorned Wonka's candy wrappers that Mike had been afraid of.
"Just drop your coats anywhere," Wonka said. Mike shrugged off his coat gratefully. He noticed how sweltering it was for the first time.
"Mr. Wonka," Mr. Teavee said, "It sure is toasty in here."
Eloquently put, Dad, Mike cringed, Which college was it you graduated from, again?
Wonka didn't seem to mind his dad's lack of vocabulary, "Oh, yeah. I have to keep it warm in here 'cos my workers are used to an extremely hot climate. They just can't stand the cold."
"Who're the workers?" Scruffy asked. Mike really didn't care.
"All in good time," Wonka replied. Mike groaned.
Wonka turned and walked a little way down the corridor and Mike reluctantly followed. After a little while Possessed Jr. ran up to Wonka and threw her arms around his waist. Mike stopped dead in his tracks. This wasn't something he wanted to be involved in.
"Mr. Wonka," she said in a bright voice, "I'm Violet Beauregard."
"Oh," Wonka replied, then added (after a long hesitation where Possessed Jr.'s gum-chewing echoed revoltingly around the corridor), "I don't care."
He set off again, but Possessed Jr. was right behind him, "Well you should care, 'cause I'm the girl who's gonna win the special prize at the end."
Mike reluctantly put one foot forward and started to walk again.
"Well, you do seem confident," Wonka replied to Possessed Jr., "and confidence is the key."
Possessed Jr. shot a delighted look back at her creator who gave the most creepy smile Mike had ever seen. He guessed it was supposed to be encouraging. Satanic Kid then stepped in front of Wonka. Mike didn't blame him for grimacing and stepping back.
"I'm Veruca Salt," she said, sweetly but firmly, "It's very nice to meet you, sir."
As she curtseyed, Mike suppressed a giggle. Veruca? What kind of a name was that? Mike had always thought a veruca was a kind of wart you got on the bottom of your foot.
"I always thought a veruca was a kind of wart you got on the bottom of your foot, ha!"
Mike blinked in shock, then snapped himself out of it. OK, so this guy was cleverer than he looked; didn't make him better than Mike. Right?
The Blob suddenly stepped in front of her, "I'm Augushtush Gloop. I love your schocolate!"
Too right, Mike thought to himself, and how long did it take you to memorise that speech? He shook his head sadly and began to follow the others a little further down the corridor before Wonka suddenly stopped and span round to look right at him. Right into his eyes. Boring into them uncomfortably, like he was trying to read his mind. Mike made a mental barrier to stop that from happening.
"You. You're Mike Teavee."
And the prize for stating the most painfully obvious goes to…
"You're the little devil who cracked the system."
Mike drew his head back a little, partly because he was creeped out by Wonka, and partly because he was confused. Cracked the system, Wonka had said. Mike hadn't cracked the system. He'd just used his own, more effective, one. Anyone with half a mind could do it, surely. Mike smirked as he realized he was the only person in the world to successfully track down a Golden Ticket via mathematics. That made him the best. And being the best was what Mike did…well, best. He caught Possessed Jr.'s eye for a second whilst Wonka talked to Scruffy. She looked vaguely impressed, and Mike presumed that that wasn't an emotion she expressed very often, given her ultra-competitive attitude. He felt a small glow of pride and walked on with the rest of the group.

They stopped at the end of the corridor in front of a kind of porthole.
"An important room, this," Wonka announced, "It is a chocolate factory after all."
Mike ignored the presumably-irrelevant latter part of that comment, and focused on the much more perplexing former part. An important room? How could that tiny porthole – or door – lead to the most important room in the factory? Mike renewed his theory that Wonka was crazy.
No one else seemed as worried by this as him, so he voiced the question: "Then why is the door so small?"
"To keep all the great big chocolaty flavor inside!"
Ask a stupid question…
Wonka produced a key and proceeded to open the 'door' to reveal a huge room that looked like something out of a fairytale. There were huge candy trees everywhere, and a chocolate river with accompanying waterfall. The grass was the greenest grass Mike had ever seen. There were reds and blues and yellows and pinks and colours he'd never even encountered before scattered around. Half of Mike wanted to throw up, the other half was inspired (though he leaned a little more towards the 'throwing up' side, as the whole room smelt of sugar).
Mike found himself on a grassy bank, looking around in wonder, letting his legs take him along.
"Now, do be careful, my dear children," Wonka warned, "Don't lose your heads. Don't get over-excited. Just keep very calm."
In front of Mike, Augustus dropped the candy bar he was carrying. Mike looked away in disgust – dropping candy for more candy. That was lower than low.
"It's beautiful," Scruffy said in a sickeningly sycophantic tone of voice.
"Wha…?" Wonka said, "Oh, yeah, it's very beautiful."
He didn't sound all that passionate about it. Either he thought he could improve on his work, somehow, or he was so used to getting compliments that he just took them in his stride. Mike secretly hoped it was the first option.
He followed blindly as the group trekked across an arch that stretched over the chocolate river. He noticed Wonka doing some weird traffic-director-esque hand movements (his purple gloves squeaking irritatingly), and took great pleasure in hurrying along in the direction he was signaling. Just as he had dashed past the insane chocolatier…
"People!"
What do you want now?
Wonka pointed towards the ceiling and Mike saw a huge contraption that resembled a three-legged spider with extendable legs.
"Those pipes suck up the chocolate," Wonka explained, "and carry it away. All over the factory."
Mike's dad prodded him in the back and looked at him in an 'isn't-that-interesting?' sort of way. Mike knew this was one of his dad's pathetic attempts at asserting his power over him. In response, Mike pulled a face and turned away.
"And do you like my meadow?" No. "Please try some of my grass, please do. It's so delectable, and so darn good-looking."
Mike remained stony-faced and looked around for Possessed Jr. whilst Scruffy asked something about the grass. She caught his stare and smiled at him. He tried to smile back but then caught a few words of Wonka's reply to Scruffy that made him turn his head away from her.
"Everything in this room is eatable. Even I'm eatable. But that is called cannibalism, my dear children, and is in fact frowned upon in most societies."
Wha…?
Mike, like many of the others, decided to ignore this fairly inappropriate – and incredibly creepy – comment, and turned back to Possessed Jr. but she was still looking at Wonka with an incredulous look on her face. She'd even stopped chewing that damn gum. Mike fought the urge to laugh as he was reminded of something Daniel often said: "You know the situation's hit rock-bottom when the players stop playing and the dancers stop dancing." Mike had never fully understood it before, but adding on 'and the gum-chewers stop chewing' it all made sense.

Mike looked up to see a couple of the kids run off from the group. He tried to follow them, but his dad held him back. Mike sighed; he knew why his dad had stopped him – in fact, he'd practically read his son's mind – but even though his main priority was to wreak as much havoc as possible, he also wanted to talk to Satanic Kid and Possessed Jr…no, Veruca and Violet. He certainly couldn't say those names in front of them. One pleading look at his dad, and he set off.
He caught up with Satanic Kid…Veruca…first.
"Hi," he said nonchalantly.
"You're the cheater," Veruca said bluntly, "Daddy said not to go too near you."
Great, Mike thought, I've been talking to her for ten seconds and I already want to rip her throat out.
"Always do what daddy says, huh?" he asked.
"Of course."
"And I guess he returns the favour…"
Satanic Kid's eyes flared in anger, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You brought up the subject of cheating," Mike said casually, "How many Wonka bar's did you buy?"
"Shut up. You're just jealous that my parent's give me everything I want, whilst yours…" she eyed his skull shirt and low-quality sneakers, "…don't."
"They give me what I need, when I need it. I don't want any more than that."
He felt a sudden guilty lurch; of course he wanted more than that. Who wouldn't? Trouble is, he didn't know exactly what he wanted…and his one suspicion was out-of-bounds.
"Do you have a girlfriend?" Veruca suddenly asked. Mike gave a start – had she read his mind or something?
"No."
"Oh."
Mike's eyes nervously flickered round the room and he noticed Possessed Jr. talking to The Blob. Or attempting to; from the looks of it, the language barrier was proving a problem. Mike assumed the main problem was that Violet didn't know German for 'I'm better than you in every way'. He then smirked as he realized that he did. He could have waltzed over there and said it, but he thought that could seem a bit presumptuous, so he decided to let his excess anger out on a candy pumpkin.
For a few blissful minutes, Mike felt at home again. Until…
"Son…"
He looked up to see his dad looking rather embarrassed.
"Please."
"Dad," Mike replied, "He said 'enjoy'!"
And he would…