Nora slid smoothly across the leather of the cab's worn bench seat, until the sagging of its decrepit springs decided for her where she should sit. Oblivious to the dilapidation, Nora settled herself for the ride, her mind ping-ponging between imagining Willy, and then Charlie, in the nightmarish situations she'd heard and seen this evening. She found her mind wouldn't imagine those things for Charlie, making her feel all the worse for Willy.
"Where to, lady?" the cabbie asked dejectedly, sorely disheartened to find he'd failed to drop the meter's arm when he started waiting. His calloused hand reached for it now, dropping it wearily.
The normalcy of the cabbie's routine question and tired voice pierced Nora's reverie. Mechanically, she leant forward and told him; but her voice sounded strange to her, and having answered, she leant back, willingly retreating into an icy numbness, imagining nothing at all.
The driver grunted an acknowledgement Nora didn't hear, and the cab pulled away from the curb.
"You sure this is where ya wanna go, lady?"
Her driver's incredulous voice roused Nora from her daze. The rumble of the cab's engine, and the vapor of the exhaust filled her senses. Beyond the rising vapor, between the puffs that obscured everything else, Nora made out the lately modified outline of her old house, and the broken cabbages, trampled underfoot, in the garden she'd so lovingly tended.
Lovingly. Quick tears stung the backs of her eyes, as the pity and pain smoldering within her surged to the surface and found a focus: her cabbages—her dear, sweet, innocent cabbages. Nora's thin hand reached meaninglessly toward them and then dropped sadly to her lap. Someone should have saved them: gathered them up, for some useful purpose. Like brave little soldiers, her hardy, uncomplaining cabbages had done their duty: sacrificing their sad little cabbagey lives, one after the other, so her family might live. Blurred through the lens of her tears, it broke her heart to see the battered shapes of the survivors being ground into pulp.
"There ain't nothin' here, lady," declared the cabbie, "'cept some kinda dump, and that rott'n old house that's bein' tore down."
Touching the back of her hand to her eyes, Nora blinked back the stinging tears. Her driver's uncaring tone reminded her the world was an uncaring place, and falling to pieces in maudlin sentimentality wasn't going to change that. Honestly! Tears over cabbages—whatever was wrong with her?
"That rotten old house, I'll have you know, is my family's rotten old house, and it's not being torn down," Nora sniffed defiantly; but she muttered her words carefully under her breath, wanting to give this uncaring man and his cavalier attitude what for, but feeling too spent to try to explain. Recovering her bearings, if not her composure, Nora was a little shocked to discover she'd given this address in the first place: but then, from deep within, she found the strength for a half-hearted laugh. Her new, correct address would never be believed, and this one, at least, got her within walking distance.
"It ain't funny, lady, an' if this ain't where ya wanna go, yer wastin'… Hey!" The cabbie interrupted himself with his own exclamation, his eyes widening in surprise. "Will ya looky up there at the Chocolate Factory! It's all lit up! Like daylight!" The cabbie's hand tapped the steering wheel reflexively, and he let out a low whistle. "Well, I'll be."
Nora turned her head to the glow of light her carousel of emotions hadn't let her notice before, at the top of the hill.
"I ain't seen it lookin' like that since afore that Wonka fella' closed the place down." The grizzled man sat back in his seat, shaking his head with childlike wonder at the spectacular sight. "Ain't it somethin'?"
Her cabbie was right. The usually dark Chocolate Factory was ablaze in light. A soft smile crept on to Nora's face: she had wondered if she should wait till morning to return—it was very late, and she had no idea Willy's views on late night excursions—but this took the guesswork out of it. The Factory looked lovely, and beckoning: bright white lights shone in lantern sconces built into the outer wall, with the buildings and chimneys bathed in brilliant blues.
Nora's soft smile became a full-fledged grin, and she laughed merrily. This was probably Willy's idea of leaving a light on in the window. "Take me up there, please. It's so pretty. Let's go and see it up close."
"Right you are, lady," agreed her driver cheerfully. He coaxed his transmission into first gear, and stepped on the gas.
"You sure yer gonna be okay up here, lady?" It baffled the cabbie that his withdrawn, sorta mousey fare had opted to end her trip at the top of the hill, outside the very gates of the mysteriously lit up Chocolate Factory. "It's late, ya know, an' there ain't nothin' open up here now. T' tell ya the truth, even bein' lit up an' all, bein' this close t' this factory a' night is givin' me the creeps."
Nora leant forward to pay the man, his uneasiness prompting her to counter with lightheartedness. "What would Mr. Wonka say, if he heard you calling his Chocolate Factory creepy?" She stifled a giggle, knowing she was paying this man with Willy Wonka's money—albeit twice removed—and for waiting for her without dropping the meter, Nora included a generous tip.
The cabbie, glad of the hefty tip that would mean a special treat for his family—maybe part of it some Wonka candy—looked flummoxed by the question and his passenger's attitudinal about-face. "It don't matter what Wonka says, lady. He ain't gonna hear nothin' I say."
Nora tossed her head and whispered back impishly, "Well, if Mr. Wonka 'ain't gonna hear nothin',' then he's going to hear something. You said it yourself— look how close to his Factory we are. It wouldn't surprise me if Mr. Wonka didn't have this whole area bugged."
The cabbie blanched, looking fretfully this way and that, but catching himself, he felt like a fool. This woman, gettin' in his face about his grammar, didn't know any more about Wonka than he did. "Yer pullin' my leg, lady, and I gotta go. You gonna be okay or not?"
Nora smiled, amused by her cabbie's bravado, and touched by his concern. "I'll be fine," she said, as she stepped out of the cab. Now that she was actually standing on the pavement in front of the Factory, her lightheartedness evaporated, and she closed the door with a confidence she didn't feel. Her voice carried conviction, but Nora wondered if what she said was true. She still wasn't inside, and she had no clue how Willy would react to her fraternizing with his godfather. She hoped Terence would have stopped her, if it was a really bad idea, but honestly, she wouldn't have listened to him, and fiddle-dee-dee, Terence didn't know everything—and he wasn't in charge of her.
Seeing his generous tipper just standing there, the cabbie hesitated; but the squawking of his radio alerted him to another fare, so with a shake of his head and a muttered "It's yer neck, lady"—on account of the bugging comment—he drove away.
Nora watched the cab roar off in a cloud of bluish exhaust, and with the street now devoid of anything moving, she hesitantly tried the Chocolate Factory's left hand gate. The cabbie was right again: it was her neck: but the gate opened easily at her touch, and the breath she let out in relief was louder than the slight sound made by the magnetic lock on the gate releasing. The bugs and cameras the cabbie doubted existed were working perfectly, and the gate's opening proved she was still on the 'insider' list.
Taking a calming breath, Nora stood inside the gate and studied the Factory's expansive courtyard. In the moonlight, it loomed before her like a sinister No Man's Land, and for a moment, Nora shivered to think she crossed it at her peril. "Don't be a silly goose," she whispered. The sound of her own voice was soothingly familiar, and she scolded herself for letting the cabbie's creepy assessment make her jumpy. Even so, making her own assessment, Nora decided to hug the wall, as she had seen Willy do.
Her fingertips lightly brushing the cold stones reassuringly, Nora walked along the wall until she reached the loading bays. She had driven the truck from here, but the closed up bays were uninviting, and she wasn't of a mind to look for another way in. Following the bays toward the main building, she crossed the remaining bit of courtyard, and boldly strode up the steps to the left most door of the entrance complex. Gingerly trying it, Nora found that it, too, on silent, well-oiled hinges, opened easily.
Whew! She was in! The Chocolate Factory—cracked! With relief Nora sagged against the door, her hand still on the handle. She stayed that way for a moment, and thought about her next problem: how to get from here to the suite. Then she laughed, and stood up, because the route was a mystery to her and the Factory was huge. She didn't stand a snowball's chance of finding her way on her own. Willy must know that. Nora took a step forward, and then another, and another, until she was through the narthex, and into the main hall. There, on the floor, sitting on a petit, golden doily, she spotted movement.
"You're not a breadcrumb," Nora laughed, picking up the small, inanimate object responsible for the movement. "You're a Square-Candy-that-Looks-Round, and you look darn cute. Are you playing breadcrumb tonight?" Nora looked around for another one, that might show her the direction to go, a clever idea, but there were no more Square-Candies. There was Willy Wonka, standing like a statue, in a shadow in a recessed area along the wall.
Warmest thanks to dionne dance and Celeste K. Raven for your reviews. I do not own Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in any of its many forms, and there is no copyright infringement intended. Thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think.
