A/N: Response time!

Verucabeyotch, the cliffhanger is over!

Gs33022, ditto for Verucabeyotch's response! About the DinaSour Eggs you mentioned, I think you might like to know that they make a detailed appearance in "The Anniversary Tour" by Softkitty55. (It's a post-canon 1971 story in which, twenty years later, Charlie (to Mr. Wonka's reluctance) decides to arrange a reunion tour for the other kids, who are now adults, to see some newer parts of the factory. While the reunion seems innocent at first, it turns out that at least one of the runner-ups, still angry at Mr. Wonka, has decided to use the occasion to an advantage to carry out an illegal and highly damaging plan...) The DinaSour Eggs appear in Chapter 10, IIRC, and the way that the factory produces them is quite ingenious! I do have to let you know ahead of time, though, that the story is currently on hiatus.

Violet jumped up from the table abruptly.

"Charlie, I won't be able to follow you outside. Get out yourself!"

"But, Violet, I'll need the gates unlocked. You have the key."

"Get it from that Oompa-Loompa in the Wonkavator!" After saying this, she dashed out of the kitchen and ran quickly towards the hallway.

Charlie was worried. He began to follow her at walking pace. This was sudden. He hoped that it wasn't something he said, which, given his character, was unlikely.

"Are you okay?" he called after her.

Violet was now standing outside the door to her bedroom, at a bit of a distance from him. She put a hand on the T-bar and nudged it down, not even looking at Charlie.

"For the second time, I can't go outside with you!" She vanished into the room after this.

"Well, okay," Charlie said quietly. He walked to the kitchen to throw away the wrapper of the Wonka Bar that Violet had just shared with him.

Suddenly, as he dropped the wrapper into the kitchen's wastebasket, he had another consideration come to him. Chocolate could give some people indigestion if they weren't careful. Additionally, this bar had had almond halves in it, and nuts were a common source of allergies. Had Violet fled him and gone into her room because she had just gotten sick?

He decided to head to where Violet had rushed, so that he could make absolutely sure that she was feeling well physically. Even if she couldn't leave, he figured that it wouldn't hurt to check.

...

Violet stood in the wide, empty space in her room after flicking on the light, awaiting the inevitable. Finally, she had some privacy.

She felt her body starting to blow up momentarily, her skin having changed color just seconds after she got settled. She mindfully widened her stance ever so slightly.

Then, she remembered something. She unfortunately still had her gum tucked behind her ear from eating that Wonka Bar. She tried bending her right arm at the elbow to get her gum back, but her arms were too swollen to bend. Too late now.

"Drat!" she muttered softly, but still audibly. What could she do about it now, let that sticky wad get tangled in her hair overnight?

She was interrupted from this ponderous bit of frustration when she heard an unexpected, multi-tap knock on the door. "Violet? Are you okay?" she heard Charlie ask.

Her heart jumped. "You're supposed to be outside!" she called back. She could have sworn that she would be left alone now!

Well, you went to your room specifically, so if you're changing, then it surely is an odd time to be doing so, Charlie thought. While he meant a different use of the word "changing" in his private statement, he didn't realize just how right he was when taken in the literal sense.

"I'm just making sure," he replied finally.

Violet began feeling a bit of mysterious pressure on her abdomen. Huh. Normally, the transformation didn't hurt. She usually felt like a full water balloon rather than like she was being physically tortured, and while her clothes usually felt a little tight for the first few seconds, they relaxed afterwards. This pressure was new. Hopefully, it would go away, as would Charlie.

The pressure graduated to a constricting feeling that just got more severe. Violet finally looked down at herself. While her pantsuit had been growing with her as expected, her belt had not, and was in fact blocking some of the juice, just like a normal belt. She could see that it was forming an hourglass on her torso, and by this point, her arms seemed to become totally stiff.

Ugh, she thought as she continued to look down, this belt is almost killing me!

SNAP! Suddenly, the belt popped open and landed on the floor, just behind her. Immediately, her belly surged outwards, catching up rapidly to the state in which it would be normally by this point, and the constriction went away. The stiffness in her arms also lessened, although they still were not bendable.

"What the…that was new!" Violet exclaimed to herself as she looked from one side of her bulbous stomach to the other. She decided to assume that this was a case of belts not being stretchy in the first place, hence being unable to accommodate her even by magic. If she had a bracelet on one arm, said arm probably would go through the same hassle.

Meanwhile, Charlie was still in the hallway. He had started to turn to leave after he was told once again to go outside, but upon hearing the sound of Violet's belt giving in and her following surprised remark, he feared the worst. He returned to her door.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he called through it.

"Ugh! Buzz off, Charlie!" Violet called out, close to hollering. She was now starting to take on the final, round shape of the blueberry, with her thickened arms and legs still sticking out halfway (the parts past the elbows and knees, specifically).

Charlie was now getting truly concerned. Violet had not given him a clear answer and, in fact, sounded like she was both distressed and annoyed. He especially spotted the distress.

Violet's transformation was now over. No more than ten seconds afterwards, she heard the door to her bedroom creaking open.

She grimaced and squinted her eyes shut. Oh, please don't come in! Please don't come in! Please don't come in! she thought desperately. If only there had been a lock.

It was too late. Charlie opened the door and stepped into the room.

"Violet, you were really worrying me, so I had to be certain that—"

He stopped in his tracks. He obviously thought that he simply would see Violet in some sort of normal situation when he entered, so nothing could have prepared him for this spectacle.

For a moment, he didn't even know what he was seeing. At first, it appeared to be a large, decorated ball. He noticed within seconds that it had a blue head with brown hair in Violet's style, as well as a stubby pair of blue hands. The ball appeared to be dressed up in an oval version of Violet's pantsuit, too; he could see that there was definitely a sort of blue fabric over most of the ball, especially since a series of pleats was visible around the top half. A column of yellow shank buttons ran down the center of the jacket. What looked like an elongated zipper fly was stretched along the now legless slacks, vanishing under the overlap that the jacket made. At the last moment, Charlie spotted a pair of brown shoes identical to Violet's. He still doubted that this could be Violet, simply because this mysterious mass wasn't wearing Violet's red belt, but when he saw it lying unbuckled on the floor, he realized that this was in fact the girl he had seen like any other just a moment ago. The total observation, from entering the room to making this realization, took only about five or six seconds.

Violet glared at him, narrowing her eyelids. She also gave her hands a few flaps as if trying to shoo him. "What part of 'buzz off' did you not understand?" she snapped loudly.

Charlie took note once again of Violet's blue skin and jumped to conclusions. Oh, my word, he thought, she's severely swollen from an allergic reaction, and she can't breathe! He obviously forgot, in his surprise, that speaking is impossible with suffocation.

He looked hurriedly for someplace where she might be keeping medications. He made a beeline to Violet's vanity, at the wall to Charlie's left, in hopes that something would be in or on there.

"Violet…Violet, just…hang on!" he called nervously as he looked around the top of the vanity. "Please tell me that you have a kit here somewhere!"

"Charlie, no!" Violet answered in irritation. "This is my body!" It was a good thing that she had no such kit, or she quite possibly would be fearing for her life. Speaking of which, if she died at some point while still cursed, would her rotting corpse still change forms as it decayed? She decided to dispose of this thought.

Charlie turned back to her. "Violet?"

"Charlie, I don't have anything to help with allergies. There's nothing going on here."

Charlie approached Violet very slowly until he was within leaping distance of her. He had not been any closer than about four meters to her this whole time up to now.

As he did so, he suddenly caught an unusual whiff. He sniffed audibly.

"Does something smell like blueberry juice around here?" he asked in confusion.

"Yes. It's coming from me," Violet said, groaning.

"From…from you?"

"Yes. I'm filled up with blueberry juice."

"It's not a…not a…"

"It's not a trick. Examine me if you must."

Charlie just stood immobilized.

"Come on, do it!" Violet spat out. "I can tell that you don't believe this!"

Charlie very slowly crouched to his knees and put a hand on the left side of Violet's body. Beneath the taut fabric, he could feel a definite, form-fitting shape that had barely any give.

He retracted his hand. "I don't want to risk ripping your clothes by accident."

"You won't," Violet told him. "They formed around me. If they can stretch, they always do. Well, my belt obviously didn't, but it can't stretch anyway."

Still not entirely convinced that this bizarre human blueberry wasn't a trick, Charlie focused his gaze to her collar (which, appropriately, had flipped up to look like a blueberry's petals), trying to see if he could peer down it for more confirmation. He brushed aside her hair for a moment and pulled back the collar itself, still somewhat bracing himself for the tearing noise that never came, but he couldn't see down the region due to Violet's round back blocking the way.

As an alternative, Charlie set her hair back into position, walked around to her front, undid the top three buttons of her jacket, and used his fingertips to spread apart the resulting V shape very gently. He was greeted by a protruding patch of blue skin that connected to her neck. He set a soft hand on the area, and this time, he could feel the hair follicles in addition to the liquid-backed shape. Okay, so she definitely still had human skin despite this, but it had filled up enough to become almost spherical.

"Now do you believe me?" Violet asked, now closer to ashamed than angry.

Charlie just gave her a small nod, too surprised to speak. His look of surprise remained as he rebuttoned the jacket's segment (with extreme caution; despite Violet's correct claim that most of her outfit had formed around her, he still wasn't sure that at least one of the buttons in question wasn't going to burst off and nail him in the face). The whites were visible all around his eyes.

Violet's gum withdrawal started to take effect right about now. She started to chew on her tongue, as always. Charlie could see its discolored tip.

She stopped chewing for a moment. "What? Do you want more?"

She opened her mouth and hung her tongue outside of it to show Charlie. Her tongue was a slightly darker hue of blue than her skin—not nearly to the extent of a giraffe's tongue, but about a shade darker than cobalt. Her gums, the roof of her mouth, and her uvula all shared this new blue color as well. Her teeth, like her hair, had remained unchanged. Her breath especially smelled like blueberry juice, and if Charlie had any way of looking down her esophagus, he would note that it was filled halfway with the settled juice that was causing this smell.

Charlie finally found the words to speak. "How…did this happen?"

Violet let her eyelids sag for a moment, giving Charlie the 'Are you for real?' look. "I just like eating so many blueberries in the evening that the old 'if you eat any more of them, you'll turn into one' threat comes true. No, I was cursed, you dope!"

"Cursed?" Charlie asked, ignoring the multi-insult.

"Yep." Violet resumed gnawing on her tongue.

It was just then that Charlie noticed Violet's bed on the far end of the room. Was it just him, or was it at a slanted angle, with toddler rails on the sides? He started to walk towards it.

Suddenly, he nearly tripped. He regained his footing immediately and looked down to see Violet's red belt right in front of him. He had almost stumbled on it while walking.

He picked it up and showed it to Violet, who still had her back facing most of the room. "I'm going to hang this up somewhere if it's okay with you."

Oh, goodness, Violet thought in half-terror, half-relief, I would not have been able to see that if I tried to turn around. I could have fallen forward and lost all of my mobility! While she couldn't see Charlie's near stumble, she could hear it.

"Okay. Yeah. Please do."

Charlie walked over to the closet, to the left of the bedroom door, and hung the belt on the first empty hanger he saw. While he was occupied, Violet waddled very slowly to her right, just in a conscious effort to distance herself further from the kid who now knew her most embarrassing secret.

Unfortunately, six miles per hour beats twelve feet per minute any day. Violet was only partway to her vanity when Charlie caught back up to her.

"Is there anything that I can do to help?" he asked.

"No. It's only at night. I'll turn back into myself at daybreak. It's how the curse works."

Violet finished her waddle to the vanity. In the mirror, she could see that her reflection was nearly all blue, her blue clothes not offering a pattern break this time. To add insult to injury, the disappearance of her shoulders had forced her collar to turn upwards like the petals on a real blueberry, as mentioned earlier. Excepting turtlenecks, this always had happened with every collar she had worn at night, but they had been different colors, thus making the comparison very hard to draw up to today. She sighed in irritation. What had she been thinking this morning? She should not have decided to wear this pantsuit today. Granted, she had not anticipated that Charlie was going to ask to see the factory, but still.

"Yes, every single night, I turn into this fat, hideous freak of nature!" Violet said, more to herself than to Charlie, although he took it as continuing her reply to him. To prevent crying, which she believed to ruin her perfect ego if done in front of someone, she clamped her eyes shut tightly and pivoted right to waddle a few steps in that direction, no longer seeing the mirror.

Charlie set a gentle hand on what now could pass for Violet's back. He truly didn't believe that she was hideous, just at a disadvantage. "Hey, at least you look like this only at night. You still can do a lot of higher-expense things that I can only dream of doing."

Violet wanted to swat his hand. She turned her head to him, but he was a little too far back. Turning 180 degrees would take time-consuming effort.

"Charlie, come around front, please!" she ordered.

He did so, making eye contact.

"Do you have any idea just what sorts of restrictions I still face?" Violet asked, her voice rising. "I have to be in my living area in the nick of time. I can't eat out for dinner. I can't have anyone visiting in the evening. I can't participate in fireworks shows. I can't go to drive-in movies—"

"Hey, I can't go to drive-in movies either," Charlie said, attempting to console her. "They require a car, and my family can't afford one."

"Cool it, Charlie!" Violet snapped, glaring at him. "I didn't even get to my physical problems. I can't do any motions except inefficient waddling, and somebody has to roll me slowly like a ball if I need to get somewhere fast. I can't see anything below my fingertips. If I have an itch somewhere, I'm out of luck because I can't reach to scratch it. I can't fit through normal doorways. If I stumble and fall, I'm stuck. Going to the bathroom and doing other simple tasks require physical assistance, and don't even get me STARTED on the ENORMOUS, new hassle of handling that time of the month!"

Charlie was confused. "Why, what happens once a month? Does the blueberry juice in your body start to ferment or something?"

Violet made an embarrassed cringe. Oops. Motormouth alert. "Never mind. You wouldn't understand," she told him quickly.

Charlie gazed around the room. The purpose of the design of Violet's bed was anybody's guess, but he drew the conclusions that her vanity, dresser, and homework desk had rounded corners to prevent poking, and her door was extra wide with that odd handle so that she could open the door and fit.

"So, this is why you're here," he noted.

Violet sighed. "Yes. I lied to you about the radio weather program yesterday. This is why I resent my name."

Charlie looked at her again. "I understand why you did."

"Also, promise me this: You will NOT tell anyone about this. Seriously. Do NOT."

"I understand," Charlie agreed. "I won't."

"You need to leave. Like, right now. You've seen far too much already."

"I can't help you?"

"No. Do I need to say it again? GO!"

"Well, okay. I'm going." Charlie headed over to the closed door and nudged its protruding T-bar handle, with a push. The door creaked open slowly.

Suddenly, before he could step out of the room, he heard Violet call out to him again. "Charlie! Wait!" Unlike the rest of her dialogue, this was the kind of tone that prefaced a polite request.

"Yes?" he responded, turning to her. He was expecting, from the tone, that this might be a sort of apology for her attitude, or some other nicer talking point. Instead, he got the one question that he would have been dreading had he known about it ahead of time.

"I still have my gum lodged behind my ear. Would you mind peeling that sucker off and sticking it somewhere I'll find it in the morning?"

Charlie wasn't sure what to make of this request. He approached Violet again, walked around to her right ear, and bent down the top of the pinna. There was the gum, all right.

He peeled it off very carefully and looked at it. He could see both white and blue dandruff flakes, very obviously from pre- and post-transformation shed skin, scattered around its surface. That poor piece of gum had gone through a lot of abuse, mostly today; it had been fished from a wastebasket, seized in a pygmy elephant's trunk, in contact with mulch, and soaked in soda. Now, as the icing on the cake, it had embeddings of dead skin in it.

"Do you want me to toss this?" Charlie asked.

"No! No! Don't toss it!" Violet nearly shouted at him. "I'm trying to keep it for at least three months! Someone at home claimed a world record that I'm trying to beat!"

Charlie was taken aback. She was trying to do what with it? Had that seriously been the same piece in her mouth every time he had seen her?

"So, where do you want this to go?"

"The side of the mirror on my vanity should be fine." She was looking straight ahead, rather than at the indicated spot or at Charlie, since both were behind her.

Hesitantly, he did so, making sure that the gum would stick to the glass. He still could see the skin flakes from here, and he wondered how Violet was going to deal with them?

"Thank you!" said Violet cheerily as Charlie opened the door again.

"You're welcome," he replied, solely as a courtesy.

Charlie wanted to ask her so much more that had puzzled him. Why was she cursed? Could she get rid of it? Why a human blueberry, of all things? He would have asked these questions had Violet not tried to get rid of him for seeing her.

Once he was gone, it occurred to Violet that parts of this very moment had mirrored the terrible dream she had had just before she got up this morning. Charlie had seen her as a blueberry (although it had been only a partial one in her nightmare), he had investigated her physical body in confusion, and he even had threatened to stab her, albeit unintentionally in the real version. He had not thought her to be embarrassing, unlike the Charlie from the nightmare, but he may as well. Now he knew about it; she couldn't bother to face someone who needlessly did.

...

As Charlie approached the common room by the kitchen, not far from the conjoining hallway, he spotted Rungdin looking around in worry. Since Charlie was a new face to the Oompa-Loompa, he had not recalled Charlie's name, thus making calling out for him out of the question.

"Oh, there you are!" exclaimed Rungdin as the two crossed paths. "It was getting dangerously late, so I've been trying to find you to get you out of here. Did you see anything?"

Charlie hesitated. He knew exactly what Rungdin meant by "anything", but at the same time, Charlie was not someone ever to tell a heavily burdened lie about another person.

"No, nothing was alarming," he said finally. That wasn't a lie; Violet was not in any inherent danger from her blueberry form, and she would revert problem-free in a handful of hours.

"Good," said Rungdin. "Let's get you home. It's likely close to suppertime where you live."

Seeing that they were right by the kitchen again, where there was a sink, Charlie excused himself to go wash his hands thoroughly before they left, the sort of washing that gets the hands coated in soap. He had just been made to handle someone else's ancient, chewed gum, and he was not going to take any chances with what else besides skin flakes might have been on it.

Rungdin had to retrieve the key from Violet's trench coat hung up in the main foyer and then accompany Charlie outside so that he could leave. Fortunately, what with the supper hour approaching, nobody was around to see a funny-looking, short man with orange skin and green hair coming out of the building. The tones would have been shaded a little, since it was just moments after dusk, but his factory uniform still would have grabbed some attention.

Charlie arrived back at his own place at just ten minutes after five, which was just in time for supper. When prompted during the meal what the trip had been like, Charlie told his family just summaries of the explored rooms, especially about feeding pygmy elephants and making wax candy models, not disclosing the parts that Mr. Wonka had said were integral to his business. Charlie also kept his promise to Violet not to reveal her curse, but he still felt quite uneasy about the revelation for the entire evening and sensed that he may have revealed this emotion in his tone.

A/N: The "kit" that Charlie mentioned was a complex set of medications to keep life-threatening allergic reactions at bay. The EpiPen hadn't been invented yet; at the time, some well-off people (outside of calling the emergency room) relied on a bunch of epinephrine-based therapy that was packaged together in several formats, both topical and injectable, in a little kit. They worked, but they required multiple attentive steps and weren't nearly as efficient as today's little portable treatment. The most common form of taming the anaphylaxis involved sticking the medication into the lower abdomen by means of a big needle, and yeah, NO version of blueberry Violet ever would want to be faced with that!