Terence hadn't expected to sleep so soundly, or for so long, and waking, he hadn't expected to find Willy gone. What he expected was a poke in the ribs from Willy's cane when he was ready to leave, accompanied by a 'follow me' to some less sensitive area of the Factory.
As quietly as he could, Terence turned his head toward the desk. The muted glow of dials and lights on nearby machines threw out enough light to see by. Sure enough. The hat, the cane, and the mangy coat were gone.
Yup, alone in the Inventing Room. It was an impressive thought, but Terence doubted he was really alone. Not in this room. Not knowing his friend. Testing his theory, Terence kicked at his mummy bag blanket, adjusting it on the chaise. Holding his breath, he heard a rustle of clothing in the area behind the table to his back. There's one. Next he sat up, as if about to swing his legs to the floor. He stopped in mid-swing, in time to hear a quiet step from the shadows behind the worktop, that froze a half-second after he did. At least two.
That was enough theory testing; Terence settled back. He wouldn't ruin their night any further with ruses that forced them to drop the covertness of their delicate duty. This chaise was more comfortable than it looked, and anyway, it was already almost six. Terence rolled over to make the most of the remaining opportunity for sleep.
Nora took pride in being up before everyone, and most days she was. Getting the day underway was hers for the smoothing, and smooth she did, but on this particular morning Charlie had the wrinkles out ahead of her. With his arms folded on the dining table, fingers intertwined, Charlie was sitting staring at the bluish colored double doors of their suite as if they were a portal to another dimension.
"Expecting Doctor Who, dear?"
His mother was making light of his being up—they enjoyed watching those re-runs on the telly together—but Charlie could tell it concerned her. He glanced back at the grandparents. They hadn't woken. "Something will happen today," he whispered.
The trouble with staying in a bedroom not your preferred bedroom, was that the clothes you preferred were probably not going to be where you preferred them, and that, dagnabit, meant not there at all. This armoire must hold something, though. Willy began a slow rummage amongst its offerings.
When Terence opened them again, three pairs of eyes were staring into his. The thing was, he was lying down, they were standing, and all the eyes were on the same level.
Terence blinked. "Good morning."
"Good morning," came the cheerful, chorused response.
Terence stayed at eye level. "There're three of you? You've been my chaperones?"
Hands covering mouths, three voices tittered together, eyes crinkled merrily at the corners. Then, using sidelong glances to get their timing right, they spoke in staggered sequence:
"We think that…"
"Surely…"
"Since you were early…"
"Being late now…"
"Would make you…"
"Surly."
Round-robin rhymes before breakfast. Terence sat up, extracting his feet from his mummy bag, swinging his legs to the floor. These were three Oompa-Loompas he'd never seen before, but they looked so much like Eshle they may as well be twins— not identical, but darn close.
"Do you get this from Mr. Wonka, or does he get it from you?"
The leader merely grinned. "We're here to show you where you can freshen up."
Terence cast a glance at his rumpled self. "Lord knows I could use it. Lead on."
Nora turned to the cupboards and fridge in the little kitchen. "Something happens every day, dear."
The question consuming her was what to make for breakfast. With so many choices, how do you choose? Nora saw flour, and eggs, and milk, and walnuts—those were whole, she'd have to chop them up—and cinnamon, and butter, and nectarines, and had an idea. She'd whip up something else for herself; if she ate more than a bite of what she planned for the others, in short order she'd look like that porky, Golden Ticket winning boy's mother, if not Augustine Glopp, or whatever-his-name-was, himself.
Attached to the Inventing Room, the room his three guides showed Terence was more a utilitarian washing-up area than a proper bath—a place to deal with mishaps that required the immediate application of lots of water—but it would do. It had what you needed, and Terence made himself at home. Stepping out of the shower—a glorious experience: rivers of hot water, and pressure like a fire-hose!—an unexpected discovery had him unexpectedly speaking aloud: "These are not my clothes."
Terence scanned the room, but there was no one in it to hear him. In the interval he'd taken to shower, the clothes he'd draped over the bench had transformed themselves into a tidy, folded pile. "They look like my clothes. Except for this one." Dropping the sumptuous towel he'd used to dry his hair, Terence took up the camouflage patterned jacket. "Right pattern, wrong color."
Putting down the jacket, Terence picked up the shoes. They were his—the low winter boots he'd come with—but they were as clean as he'd ever seen them. Putting them back, Terence scanned the room again. "Why am I talking to myself?"
The black hat wouldn't work with this—well it would, black works with anything—but it wasn't what he wanted, and if black wasn't what he wanted today, what did he want? The coat he'd chosen didn't narrow down the choices much. Willy reached for a couple of top hats and held them up for comparison. Eshle stood by.
"Which?"
Eshle looked at the choices and decided to pass. "Shall I have Terence meet you at the Buckets'?"
"Nah. He survived the Inventing Room. I'll meet him there." Willy tossed the hat in one hand on his bed, and put the other on his head.
"Diving daisies, that smells delicious! What is it?" Grandpa George could barely contain himself, his nostrils flaring with anticipation.
"Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches."
The three Oompa-Loompas scattered at Willy's approach, laughing as they went.
Terence slid off the chaise lounge to which they'd re-escorted him once he'd completed his toiletries, and where he was beginning to feel like he was under house arrest. "And a very pleasant good morning to you, too, Mr. Wonka."
Willy stopped short at the wrong name for no reason. "What?"
"Do I get my clothes back?"
"If you want them." Willy's exuberance was seeping away.
Terence wasn't noticing. "Can I keep the jeans? These feel great."
A little came back. "Keep it all. I thought you'd want a change."
"I wouldn't need a change if I'd spent the night at my flat."
Willy put his eyes on a spot just above Terence's left shoulder and a hundred miles behind it.
The snappishness Terence heard in his voice surprised him. He didn't mean it, but as hard as it sounded, it came from somewhere, and Terence needed to figure out the why, fast. Willy's reaction was not good.
Turning off the lights had brought Terence up and in as Willy had known, as surely as he knew his Factory, it would. He shouldn't have done it, but he'd thought Terence one of those, who, as he did, chose what he wanted, and wanted what he chose. Willy's stare intensified. Thinking what he'd just thought was no better than what he'd done, because now he wasn't being fair. What he'd done had been a manipulation Terence hadn't seen through, not a choice, and this was the result: Anger. If he'd dared to move, Willy would be twisting his walking stick, but pushing, he'd already found, had its price. It was Terence's move.
A lot had happened last night. Terence flew through it all, ticking off each point, not getting the glitch. Meanwhile, Willy had subsided to a stillness Terence wouldn't have guessed Willy could achieve. Willy knew what it was, and was waiting for him to catch on.
Terence, Willy could see, though he had said it, still didn't see it. Willy decided to help him, so with a tilt of his head, he stirred enough to look pointedly around the room, which was most certainly not Terence's flat.
That's all it took. Terence got it, and to Willy's confusion, getting it started Terence laughing. "You think you suckered me in here."
"I did." Owning up to it, Willy stood taller.
"You think I didn't know that."
"You didn't."
"I did." Terence laughed one last time. "I came anyway. You needn't worry. I know what I'm doing. But this place really IS overwhelming. Not just the Chocolate Room. All of it. You were brilliant to put the Buckets in the most conventional corner of the Factory you have to start, and you have no idea how flattered I am you think you didn't need to take that precaution with me. But you really did. My flat is as familiar as a flat rock, and about as exciting. This place," he gestured with a flip of his wrist, "has flattened me. If I'm snappish, it's just sounding off to restore some balance."
Mulling, Willy shifted his walking stick to his other hand.
"Maybe not the best way to do that," Terence added.
A minute later, Willy shifted it back, and a minute after that, back again. "All that flat stuff. With flattery. That was pretty good."
Terence grinned. "Rhymes before breakfast. Between you and the Oompa-Loompas, it rubs off." He paused to let Willy regroup. "So. Are we gonna do this meeting or not?"
"Not or not," said Willy, leading the way to the Elevator, and deciding do to something genuine to make up for the manipulation Terence claimed not to mind. "By the way," he sang over his shoulder. "You asked. The names of the other spies I know about. Peabrain— nope, not that, I mean Peabody Prodnose and Aneurysm— nope, nope, not that either— Arthur Slugworth."
Terence hustled a quick step to catch up.
"I think there's someone at the door," sang out Grandma Georgina, looking up from her plate of food at the sound of a sharp rap from that direction.
There was no time to get over the shock of a knock that high on the door, or call out 'come in', because Willy Wonka had already swept into the room, Terence bringing up the rear, closing the door Willy abandoned as he strode in.
"Good morning Buckets, and other than Buckets!"
The chorus of responses was mixed—mostly Willys, some Mr. Wonkas, one Candyman—but it worked, and Willy was glad he'd taken Terence's advice about that being a good opener. His eyes darted around the room, taking it all in, as he sniffed the air like an elk testing the breeze during hunting season. Breakfast was well underway, and it smelled wonderful.
George and Georgina—who knew what their last name was?—were eating in bed, along with Joe and Josephine—known Buckets—with the paren Buckets and Charlie gathered 'round the table. Charlie was sitting at the far corner, facing the door, beaming away. Reaching into a pocket, Willy snapped a folding spoon into its open position and headed for him.
"May I?"
Delighted, Charlie nodded. Willy was like a whirlwind, and his coat today bowled you over.
Willy cut into the offering. What was on the plate looked like cinnamon buns, but were really a short stack of pancakes. Clever. It was an attractive presentation, drizzled with a nectarine butter glaze. Chopped walnuts gave it crunch, and Willy took another bite before licking the spoon clean, snapping it closed, and returning it to his pocket.
"Yours?" His piercing gaze fastened on Nora.
Dumbfounded, she could only nod, the pitcher of milk she'd been about to pour held in her hand, frozen in space.
"Very good," Willy said, only to cringe a second later, and then rush to her side. "My dear lady, let me help you." He took the pitcher of milk from her hand, putting it on the table, out of her reach. "Be very careful, don't move," he told her. "Quick, somebody get me something sturdy, and flat."
Charlie was up like a shot, returning with a notebook from his backpack.
"Perfect," Willy purred, taking it. "This won't take a second."
Nora wanted to move—she was sure it was a spider or other bug that might harm her—but Willy was as commanding as the captain of a ship that she stay still. She stayed still.
Willy quickly covered the bowl in front of her with the notebook, turned it upside down, laid it on the table, and simultaneously removed the notebook from underneath it. "There. All better."
Nora, uncomprehending, looked to Terence, who shrugged his shoulders in a how-would-I-know way. "That was granola," she protested, not seeing how she would get the bowl right side up without the cereal going everywhere. "I made it myself."
Willy was half-way to the bed. "That was pencil shavings, dear lady. We don't eat pencil shavings here." He whirled. "We have a watcher, everyone, and that means trouble. Does anyone want out?"
The family exchanged glances, murmuring.
"A watcher?"
"A what?"
"Trouble?"
"Trouble, toil and…"
"Out?"
"Does he mean leave?"
"No!" Charlie's voice rose above the others, and they fell silent.
After a few more glances, Noah spoke. "Charlie speaks for all of us. A watcher?"
"Someone with an unsavory legacy taking more interest than they should in the affairs of this Factory." Sighing, Willy sat on the edge of the bed at Georgina's knees, his shoulders slumping. "That happens to me, and if it happens you're with me, it'll happen to you."
"It happens we'll stick," said Noah again, to nods all around.
"We will," chimed in Charlie.
Willy, his wan smile soon fading, crossed his arms in the Oompa-Loompa salute.
In the silence that followed, Georgina, smiling warmly at Willy, held out her hands. "I love rainbows."
Returning her smile, the slump went out of Willy's shoulders. He took her hands in his, holding them gently.
So much for denying himself human contact, Nora thought. It's just all up to him.
Still holding Georgina's hands Willy rose from the bed, dropping them so he could turn for her. When he had, he reached for her hands again, sinking back down. "I'm a double rainbow today." And he was. His coat began with red at the center and marched around each side of him with vertical stripes in the order and colors of the rainbow, until they met at the center of his back, in a double stripe of deep violet. His top hat matched the back center stripe. "Do you still love dragonflies?"
Georgina looked into his face for a long time, and Willy waited for as long as it took for her to answer. "I'll love candy land. Then I'll love dragonflies."
Willy smiled with his eyes and squeezed her hands. "Good."
"Hey!" The quiet in the room was making George nervous, and he hated not knowing what was going on right next to him. "If you're talking about another one of those nymph-y thingies, I love dragonflies!"
Willy's smile turned sly, then saccharin, and he dropped Georgina's hands, turning to George. "Then double good, because I made this for you, Grouchy-man." Willy drew the box Terence had seen last night on the worktop out of another pocket, and opened it. George reached for it, but Willy drew back. "You can't see them, but there are strings on this one."
George put his hand under the blanket.
"Are you any good at retail?" Willy was serious now, speaking to George as an equal.
George had never seen this side of Willy before, and he knew he was seeing the man who made this Factory run. He nodded, remembering his younger days, working in a shop that sold and repaired clocks. Heck! He could still repair clocks.
"Would you be willing to run Terence's shop? In light of developments, I want the house moved here ASAP."
George nodded again.
"Then this is for you." Willy made a tower of his curled fingers with his thumb on top. He put the candy on that, and with a flick of his thumb, it sailed into the air.
George had no trouble catching it while Georgina and the others looked on. Georgina was smiling, and so was Willy. A real smile.
The candy looked different, and George turned it over. It looked— brittle. He popped it in his mouth. It felt nothing like the first one; that had been shiny with a glaze of sugar over a soft, melting core. This one was all hard edges, stacked against each other. But it wasn't. When he was sure the brittleness would cut his tongue, the edges melted away, doing no harm at all, the crackling layers collapsing harmlessly against each other, until at the center it was the same as the first one: A taste at first sharp and bitter, giving way to a glow inside his body better than the sweetest thing he had ever known. This candy should come in a fountain: it felt like youth. "When do you want me to start, Mr. Wonka?"
"Willy"
"Mr. Willy."
Willy sighed, contemplating the ceiling. This old dog's progress would be measured in inches. He grinned when out of the corner of his eye, he caught Georgina's elbow caught in George's ribs.
"Close enough." Willy jumped off the bed. "You, Mr. George," he pointed at the man's heart, "start today. Terence, the first thing you do today is show him the drill."
Terence saluted. "That will take all of ten minutes."
Willy couldn't care less. "You," he pointed to Charlie, "go to school. You," it was Noah's turn, "take him there, and then do your toothpaste factory thing. Terence will see Charlie gets home." The rainbow turned to Grandpa Joe. "You take care of these two," he pointed to the grandmothers, "because you," he wheeled to face Nora, "will be working with me. Today is the day we pick the home site, and you all," his hand included everyone else, "are otherwise occupied. Too bad." For a split second, Willy stuck out his tongue. "Unless," he turned to Charlie, his voice losing its commanding tone, "you want me to wait, Charlie, until you can pick with us."
Charlie was squirming with glee. He knew something would happen today, but not this good. This was the Willy he knew, and Willy was going to show his family the Factory. Finally. Charlie wasn't going to mess that up, no way! "No, don't wait. Mum will help you pick out a great spot."
Willy beamed. "Then we're done. Any questions? Comments? Additions? No? Then good. People leaving, get your things together and I'll see you off at the hall. Bye for now!" And like a leprechaun making off with his pot of gold, Willy was out the door.
Stunned faces looked from one to the other at the abrupt departure.
"Darn," said Terence.
They all, except Charlie, turned to him as if he were the Rosetta Stone of decoding Willy Wonka. Terence stared back at them. "I didn't get a chance to ask him why he mentioned Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches this morning."
Charlie smiled and tucked into his pancakes. They were even good cold.
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, please review, and enjoy your day.
And with Arthur, 1971 creeps in. Thank you, dionne dance, for your review. Those candies in the vial were vile and so were the bugs. Thank you, Ifwecansparkle, for your review. Friendships are my favorites.
