"Charlie?" Willy knocked on the door to the crooked cottage, nervously fixing his goggles. "Are you ready, Charlie?"
"Could you open the door? I can't see." Charlie's voice was muffled and sounded slightly garbled. Willy pulled the door open, no easy feat as it scraped against the porch steps.
"Are you all right, Charlie?"
From inside there was a heavy THUD and a sharp, "Ow!"
"Charlie? Have you melted your eyes out?" Ever since the dolls, it was a recurring fear.
"It's this sheet. I just missed the door. I'm okay." A little ghost came trotting out, walked straight past Willy, and fell off the porch. "Ow!"
Willy picked Charlie up and said in a puzzled way, "Where're your eyeholes?"
"Well, that's the problem." Charlie put out his hand and asked in the muffled voice, "Is this your face?"
"That's a chocolate mushroom. Erm, you were close, though." Willy rotated Charlie until they were facing each other. "Can you even breathe?"
"I cut nose-holes, of course."
"You'll get hurt if you can't see." Willy, feeling a tug at his coat, looked down. "What's wrong?"
The Oompa-Loompa Chief pointed at Charlie.
"Let him be a ghost if he wants."
The Chief gave a very evil grin and held up a sort of silvery cloth square. Its form was unknowable, though it sent little shimmers of light everywhere. Striding over to Charlie, the Chief unfolded the cloth, whipped off Charlie's other sheet, and through the cloth over his head.
It was a ghost costume. But it shimmered, sparkled, flashed bits of rainbows and light everywhere. It was made of the holographic Inventing Room suits, little bits of metallic cloth stitched in waves and spirals. The Chief made a few quick hand movements, then stepped back, satisfied.
"He says the Oompa-Loompas wanted you to sparkle," Willy told him chokingly.
Charlie twirled—light danced. "I love it!" He gently hugged the Chief with one hand. "It's great!" He spun again, laughing ecstatically. "Isn't it great, Mister Wonka?"
Willy tried and failed to speak.
"I can't wait to show Dr. Wonka!" Charlie tore off, dashing along the bank of the chocolate river and still wearing his enormous smile.
"I can't believe you made that," Willy said distractedly.
The Chief stuck out his tongue.
"He's so bright," Willy said, still watching Charlie. "I was always such a shadowed child, always shrinking from the light but—but it seems like he is the light." His voice caught. "How am I supposed to teach a child like that? What does he have left to learn from me when—"
When in my eyes he's already perfect.
The Chief blew his nose loudly. Willy gave him a dirty look.
"I have to go." Willy began to stride off, then turned and said, "It really was a genius costume."
The Chief gave him a cheeky grin that distinctly meant, anything to make you uncomfortable.
Willy slipped through the gates and stepped out into the sunshine, searching for Charlie. He wasn't hard to find.
Wilbur Wonka stood beside the little ghost, beaming down at him. He had a proud smile, as if Charlie were his son.
And for the first time in more than twenty years, a tight clench of jealousy closed around Willy's heart.