The Great Glass Elevator dutifully responded to Terence's call, while he quietly fumed. Heigh ho, heigh ho, the phrase that meant 'office' in Great Glass Elevator speak—that would be the buttons, don'tcha know—with that place the only place in his Factory Willy said he felt like he was working when he was in it. What bullshit! He lived above it! He must be in there half the time!

Terence hunted for the button, humming Crimson Tide's 'Roll Tide' under his breath. This wasn't a submarine, it was a glass, sometimes flying, he thought, Elevator, but the bars Terence hummed had a relentless, driving rhythm that suited his mood. He'd hum almost anything to squelch the other tune the words 'heigh ho' brought to mind from getting inside his head. He hated that tune.

Terence wasn't finding the button he wanted. This Elevator had scores of buttons, but one thing that was clear—other than the Elevator—was that this wasn't the Elevator that had taken him to France. Exasperation won out.

"Are you two coming?"

Doris and Eshle, flanking the door, were imitating garden gnomes. They knew where the button was. They could jolly well make themselves useful, and his inviting them would save them the awkwardness of coming up with an excuse to tag along. Willy's office was no where near the Factory's entrance, and full of secrets.

"Not us," said Eshle.

Terence straightened.

"Who then?"

They exchanged a glance.

"Just you then," answered in unison.

"Seriously?"

They nodded.

Terence dropped to a crouch. This was evidence the trip to the Inventing Room last night hadn't been a fluke.

"Then help me out, would ya? Where, in the name of cacao beans, is this button?"

Two fingers pointed in the general direction, and with the field narrowed, Terence found it. Hans Zimmer's 'Roll Tide' sounded even more appropriate once he'd pushed it, and the Elevator took off.


"Left, right, right, left, right, straight I tell you … now left."

It was the last in a long string of haphazard commands, but if Dr. Wonka thought his directions were random, the instant he sensed, and then saw, the approaching hole in the block, his real commander emerged: his subconscious.

"Pull over."

The defeat in his irascible client's voice persuaded the driver to do it, without the planned overshoot. The next word from the old man surprised him.

"Please?"

Dr. Wonka turned away, lest his driver's reaction dismay him. Even to his ears, the sweetness in his tone sounded out-of-practice. When had he forgotten, when it came to the hoi polloi, charming was the ticket?

The limo slid smoothly to a stop. Dr. Wonka rolled the window down to eye-level, peering at a sight he hadn't seen for years.


The quiet in the hall was eerie. Terence advanced to the great double doors of Willy's office, hearing only the sound of his footfalls and breathing. It wasn't until they weren't around that you realized just how ubiquitous the Oompa-Loompa presence in the Factory really was. Willy might be on to something with this privacy idea.

Terence's palm found the coolness of the door's handle, his fingers curling round it as he added pressure. It gave easily, and the door yielded. He stuck his head through the opening he'd made, his fingertips lingering on the handle. It wouldn't do to barge right in. What if Willy were sitting at his desk? Terence felt a smidgeon chagrined. He could have knocked first.

The room was as quiet as the hall; more so, in fact. The room's thick carpet absorbed all sound, and the eerie feeling was kept alive by the diffused light, leaking in from the fifteen foot tall, floor-to-ceiling window that dominated two-thirds of one wall. Straightening up, Terence slipped through the door on tip-toe, closing it softly.

His first glance told him the room was empty, but that was deceiving. His body might be absent, but Willy's presence was everywhere, not least in his famous initial. That initial floated nearly floor-to-ceiling in the frosted glass squares of the window. Turned on its side, the cursive trademark Wonka 'W' was like back-lit buttercream icing, white against white, a mosaic of strategically sized squares only slightly more frosted than the squares making up the rest of the window. The effect was grand, but subtle. Like an impressionist painting, the whole was best appreciated from a distance, and like a mirage, the 'W' waxed and waned with changing light intensities. In this light, it looked ghostly.

Frowning at his fanciful turn of thoughts, Terence moved to the wealth of books opposite, knowing their grandeur outdid the lone window. He had purposefully stayed as far from them as he could the last time he was here, but this time was different. The shelves that held them stretched wall-to-wall, and like the window, they also climbed floor-to-ceiling. A tapering, rolling ladder gave access to the otherwise unreachable. But they weren't books. They were Willy's secret recipes, the plans for his Factory, and the designs for his machines, concealed in magnetized file boxes, hidden in plain sight, with leather spines to make them look like books.

Reaching randomly toward the array, his fingers poised to touch one, Terence wondered if he could take it from the shelf. On his last visit to this office, with Charlie, before the move, Willy had said they were triple locked: individually, to each other, and to the shelf itself. But not all the time. Charlie had picked one up. A millimeter from the try, Terence dropped his hand. Willy wore gloves. No oils from his hands would be on these spines. Terence flexed his fingers. The oils, bound to transfer from his ungloved hands, might give his curiosity away. Hm.

The earthy smell of the leather enticed. Terence leant forward. If he dare not touch, he could still read. On most of the spines the writing was in Latin, but at eye-level—his eye-level—interspersed, a few volumes—noticeable for their thinness, and red, embossed, block lettering—were in English.

'ARE' Terence read. His eyes moved to the next red-lettered file, a foot or so away. 'NOT' he read. Terence stepped back, smiling. He hadn't started at the beginning. He moved back to his left. Sure enough. 'THESE' he found on another volume, and he started again. 'THESE ARE NOT YOURS' the volumes spelled out. Terence gave a rue chuckle, and looked for more. On other shelves, he found more, in more languages. 'Éloignez Loin de les Étagères' read one grouping. 'Tun Nicht Einmal Darüber Nachdenken', read another. About to give it up, he found another in English, almost dead center on the shelves. 'SCRAM!' it read.

"Not without you, Willy," Terence muttered.


Space would have to wait. Willy parked the Great Glass, racy version, with its companions in the Elevator Maintenance Room, pleased to see dozens of Oompa-Loompas swarming the Elevator, cleaning solutions and cloths in hand, even before he stepped out of it.

"Why, thank you," Willy squeaked, with a sunny smile, as he turned back to leave the Elevator with an affectionate pat. "With this many of you at it, you'll have the dirt off my darling in two shakes of a lamb's tail."

As pleased to see Willy happy as Willy was happy to see them, the Oompa-Loompas giggled together as they swabbed away.

"Carry on, dears," Willy called, with a wave of his hand, as he sauntered from the room.


The most likely door to the floor above had no framework around it. It blended into its wall with only the shadow of its cutout to give it away. Terence wouldn't call it concealed, as much as he'd call it discreet. The old drafting table had stood before it the last time he'd been here, but with the move, that piece of furniture had relocated to 'Reception'.

Without the table in front of it the door was more obvious. It had no doorknob, most likely there was some kind of spring activation to it, but that didn't matter. The door didn't budge when Terence tried it. Why should it? The room he suspected it led to was off limits. Terence had assured Doris and Eshle he wouldn't attempt it, and if he hadn't exactly kept his promise, he told himself he'd let the moment carry him away. If it had worked, why not? Test assumptions. Willy would be all over that. But it hadn't worked, and it was time to look around for something that would. Terence moved away, and began a prowl.


Reception was a ways away. He could walk, or call one of the Factory's Great Glasses. Willy twirled his walking stick, then tapped the floor. What the heck … he could do both. The sound of his heels, clicking along the floor, joined the tap of his walking stick, as he rounded a curve, and saw Doris, one foot flat, the other frozen in mid-step, looking for all the world like a fly, caught on flypaper. It was odd.

"Heya, Doris. Where's Charlie?"

Her mouth was moving, but no sound was coming out. After a second or two, Willy tilted his head, and grinned at her like a crow sizing up a shiny trinket … but no, make that a shiny lure. Now she looked like a fish, freshly landed. Willy waited for her to recover from whatever had caused her shock, but it wasn't happening. At the rate the blood was draining from her face, in a minute, she'd be as pale as he. It was very odd.

"Boo," Willy tried next, in a normal tone, having raised both hands and done his best to wiggle all his fingers with one hand holding the walking stick. That went okay, but it didn't help. The gulping was slowing, but the paling was unabated.

Taking a step forward, with a swirl of his hips and the help of his free hand, Willy launched the skirt of his long, bouclé greatcoat to billowing, and sat down before her, legs crossed, the black folds of his coat a lake of fabric, fanning out beside and behind him. He balanced his walking stick across his lap, and leaned toward her, his hair swinging gently.

"Are you in love with that cardigan, Doris? Cuz it's kinda frumpy. I could fix ya up with somethin' way cooler." And then he giggled, because a cardigan is a sweater.

Doris managed a half smile, and lowered her foot.

"Charlie okay?"

She nodded.

"Cuz I'm serious about that sweater. I could fix ya right up. Where is he?"

"Doing his homework, in his room."

Willy sat back, wrinkling his nose. "Ew. That school had him all day. Isn't that enough? I'll go rescue him." Willy made to get up.

"We thought you were in your room."

Willy's answering giggle was brief, and staccato, but full of satisfaction, as he settled back down, Doris's pallor partially explained. He lifted a brow. She knew what he meant.

"Eshle and I."

"I'm kidding about the cardigan, ya know."

Doris tugged at the hem of her sweater.

"Terence has gone to get you out of your room."

So that was the rest of it. Willy considered, and Doris waited on pins and needles.

"It doesn't look frumpy… on you."

Doris stamped the foot she'd lowered. "Of course it does, Willy, but look how much more dashing you look in comparison!"

Willy's laughter was quick and genuine. He reached out two fingers, to lift her hand, holding it as best he could.

"Please tell me you love your cardigan, and not that you dress staidly so I can look dashing. I doubt I could live with myself."

"I love my cardigan! What about Terence?"

"What about him?" Willy grinned a grin as mischievous as any Oompa-Loompa could mange. "He succeeded before he started. I'm out of my room. But I'd best go collect him. He must be getting awfully bored, hanging around my office." With a glint in his eyes, the tilt to Willy's head was back, his eyebrow ascending. "That is, I presume, where he's really gone?"

Doris gave a quick nod.

"Thought so. Help me up."

Willy needed no help getting up, and rose to his feet without Doris feeling the slightest pull. But it was a gesture that told her all was well, and that she and Eshle had been right in their judgement, letting Terence go. If she wasn't mistaken, Willy seemed relieved. Once he was up, he waved her farewell, and sashayed away with a spring in his step.

Doris matched it, in the other direction. For its rarity, Willy in his room during the day was an ominous sign, but today, out of it, he was better than ever.


Thanks for reading, enjoy your day, and if you'd care to, please review. I do not own Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in any of its many forms, and there is no copyright infringement intended.

Thank you, thank you, reviewers: 07kattho, and Linkwonka88. Making your day makes my day, and I appreciate your tolerance. As for me, when you're watching a show you'd never normally watch, that has nothing to do with Willy Wonka, and Willy Wonka is randomly mentioned at its end—as has just happened—it is probably a sign to stop messing with this, and post it. So post it I shall, and get on with the next chapter.