Author's Note: Your reviews made me giggle! Loved hearing your reactions to Mary Sue and Amalda's interviews.
Charlie led Ms. McCaine to the Beverage Room where the other women were waiting. Noting that they had already helped themselves to the punch, he filled a cup for Ms. McCaine and took it to her where she stood a little ways from the others.
"Thanks," she muttered, staring at the floor.
"No, thank you," Charlie said with a smile. "That was exactly what Mr. Wonka needed." She frowned and looked up at him. He gave her a nod and then, seeing the others watching, moved quickly away.
Charlie hadn't had a lot of practice when it came to hosting guests. Taking a deep breath, he did his best impression of Mr. Wonka's flamboyance.
"Ladies! Now that you've all sampled the punch..." He gave a mischievous wiggle of his eyebrows and several of the women glanced at their empty cups. "...it's time to plan our tour. Now, I could just ask you what you'd like to see, but of course you don't really know everything about anything that's everywhere...er...here..." He frowned into space for a moment and decided it was best just to move on. "...So please take a pair of glasses and step onto the podium!"
He gestured to the plastic case that held several pairs of what looked like white, plastic sunglasses. When none of the women seemed eager to go first, he beckoned to Ms. McCaine and she stepped forward hesitantly. He presented her with a pair of glasses and helped her step up on the podium near the center of the room. The lights in the room dimmed automatically and a light began to glow on the far end of the wall.
"The punch has a chemical in it that communicates with the glasses," he explained. "It determines what would interested you most in the factory and helps you visualize it. Tell us what you see," he urged Ms. McCaine.
"I...I see a park, except the trees and bushes and everything are made out of candy. There's a river and a waterfall that look like they're made-"
"Made out of chocolate?" Charlie interrupted. The women gasped as the lenses in the glasses began to glow and a picture formed on the wall, as if projected straight from Ms. McCaine's eyes. "You would have read about that in the papers after all the kids were here. That's the Chocolate Room, an excellent choice." He had already planned to stop there first.
After allowing them to study the image for a moment, he helped Ms. McCaine down and Ms. Aranack, the health nut, took her place. "I see...plants! And windows. Lots of light."
"The Greenhouse," Charlie guessed, as the picture began to appear. It was only a short ferry-ride from the Chocolate Room, so it would be a good second stop.
"You have a greenhouse here?" she asked in surprise.
"Of course," Charlie said matter-of-factly. "Chocolate comes from plants." She looked thoughtful as she stepped down.
Next up was Ms. Stolp and it was no surprise to Charlie that she wanted to see the Inventing Room. Charlie decided to save it for last, in hopes that the chaos from earlier would be cleaned up and safely under control.
Ms. Weston stepped up next and Charlie tried not to cringe as he took her hand to help her onto the podium. "I see," she began, licking her lips daintily, "a large picture window overlooking the city. A bed..." The picture began to appear and it was indeed dominated by a large window. From one corner of the picture, the end of a four-poster bed was visible. The posts were twined dark and light wood, looking vaguely like spiraling chocolate monoliths, and the lumpy, pale blue bedspread managed to appear both warm and fuzzy and light and fluffy.
"Is that...cotton candy?" Ms. Stolp asked, touching the image on the wall as if she could feel the blanket's unusual texture.
Charlie cleared his throat. "That's...that's, um..."
"Not part of the tour," said Mr. Wonka.
The group turned as one to see the chocolatier lounging in the doorway. He had his top hat tilted at a jaunty angle and seemed to have recovered some of his poise.
Ms. Weston snatched off her glasses and the image vanished. "Is that...your room?" she sighed dreamily, stepping down from the podium. Before she'd managed a second step, Ms. Lauper and Ms. Stolp stepped between her and Mr. Wonka, blocking her path with folded arms and twin glares. Mr. Wonka looked pleasantly surprised.
Ms. Weston pouted and cast a quick glance Charlie's way, but Ms. McCaine, who was closest to him, stepped up to his shoulder in a show of support. He gave her a grateful look.
"My turn," Ms. Lauper said flatly, holding out her hand authoritatively for Ms. Weston's glasses. She handed them over with a sniff and stepped aside. Ms. Lauper stepped up and settled the glasses on her nose. "I see lots of people," she said after a moment. "Little people."
The picture that appeared on the wall showed neat rows of small buildings, with narrow streets between them and several orange-skinned folks in strange clothes going about their daily business. The other women gathered around the wall to see. "What did the papers say they were called? Oomples?"
"Oompa Loompas," Charlie corrected. "That's the Oompa Loompa village."
Ms. Lauper grunted. "Makes sense. Want to check out the workers," she said to herself.
Charlie glanced at Mr. Wonka. The Oompa Loompa village took up the north side of the factory and was hard to reach. No outsiders had ever seen it and Charlie wasn't sure how the Oompa Loompa's would feel about it. Mr. Wonka nodded to his apprentice. "We'll take the glass elevator," he told the boy, and Charlie grinned. The glass elevator was his favorite way to travel.
Several of the people in the picture had moved closer and actually seemed to be watching the group watching them. "Can they see us?" Ms. Aranack asked, edging back from the wall. Charlie shrugged.
One of the young Oompa Loompa women waved. Ms. Lauper half raised a hand uncertainly, then snatched the glasses off her nose instead. The glowing image faded and the overhead light brightened. "Very observant, Oompa Loompas," Mr. Wonka remarked.
"Will you be joining us on the tour, Mr. Wonka?" Ms. Stolp asked politely.
Mr. Wonka raised an eyebrow at Charlie, then let his eyes wander across the women, lingering with a curious gleam on Ms. McCaine. "Yes, I suppose I will," he murmured.
"That's great!" Charlie cheered before remembering he was supposed to be in charge. "Shall we begin, ladies?" he asked, gesturing to the door with an exaggerated bow.
Mr. Wonka stepped back, indicating the direction, and the women filed past. Ms. Stolp and Ms. Lauper flanked Ms. Weston on either side, preventing her from accosting Mr. Wonka again. Ms. Aranack and Ms. McCaine followed with Charlie and Mr. Wonka bringing up the rear. Charlie noticed the bemused smile on Mr. Wonka's face with relief.
"I seem to have acquired some protectors," Willy murmured to Charlie. The boy grinned at him before hurrying to the front to lead the way.
While Willy still wasn't sure if any of the women would work as employees, at least some of them were proving that they weren't completely hopeless. He frowned at Ms. Weston's back, wishing he'd had a way to exclude her from the tour.
Ms. McCaine, walking in front of him, momentarily blocked his view of the offending woman and Willy thought again about her aborted interview. What had she meant about the gorilla? He wished he could ask her, but she'd seemed so bothered by it...and he didn't want it to look like he was showing favoritism to any of the women. Not yet, anyway.
Charlie led the group to a different entrance than the one Willy had led the children through years ago. Though still barred with a musical lock, the large double-doors were set into a wall at the end of a perfectly boring hallway that stayed the same size from one end to another. The doors, dark wood with impressive black metal latticework, made an admirable attempt to make up for what the hallway lacked.
Charlie stopped before the doors and gestured the group to silence. With great solemnity, he pressed the four ancient-looking levers on the door in a specific sequence. Several of the women jumped as the sound of a grandiose pipe organ echoed through the hall.
"How in the world do you fit that much sound into a door?" Ms. Lauper grumbled as the doors unbarred with a heavy clank.
"Ladies," Charlie said, looking over his shoulder with a twinkle in his eyes. "I give you...the Chocolate Room." He placed both hands on the heavy doors and slowly pushed them open.
The women crowded past Charlie onto the landing with gasps and murmurs of delight as they got their first look at the room they'd heard so much about after the first Golden Ticket contest. The newspapers had interviewed each of the guests after their visit to the factory and all had spoken extensively about the marvelous room where everything was edible.
Willy strolled in behind them, exchanging a knowing glance with Charlie as they pushed the doors shut together. "It seems like only yesterday," Willy began, with a fond smile for his apprentice.
"I know," Charlie said, looking sheepish but pleased. "I still remember that day whenever I come in here."
"What did you think, the first time you saw this room?" Willy asked curiously.
Charlie looked around at the idyllic setting and inhaled the unique scent of nature and candy. He listened to the astonished comments of the women and thought back to when he had stood where they were, when he had been the one staring in awe at the most beautiful place he had ever seen. He felt a thrill at the memory of that first moment of delicious discovery.
Charlie sighed happily. "I thought it was magic."
It had to be magic.
Even after reading the stories in the paper, Amalda couldn't believe that this room could be real. It was huge, with quaint winding paths, trees that offered shade from the artificial sun, and bushes that sprouted every kind of candy imaginable. And every bit of it edible.
Ms. Stolp and Ms. Aranack, an unlikely pair, were already examining one of the nearest bushes. Ms. Stolp had a mouthful of candy berries and Ms. Aranack was fingering the leaves, remarking on their realistic texture and scent.
Amalda took a few steps forward, leaving the path behind. Without a thought for what the others would think of her, she kicked off her shoes and let her toes wriggle on the soft green blades of grass. She wondered if it was edible too, and if so how Mr. Wonka kept it from melting when someone like her walked on them with warm, bare feet.
Both the chocolatier and his apprentice had joined Ms. Stolp and Ms. Aranack, fielding the bevy of questions the women were tossing out. Checking that Ms. Lauper had Ms. Weston well in hand, Amalda picked up her shoes and strolled casually away from the group. She picked a candy apple from a tree as she passed, enjoying the tart, juicy flavor.
It didn't take her long to find what she was looking for. Settling on the bank of the chocolate river, Amalda stared at the chocolate waterfall with appreciation. How in the world did one even come up with the idea of mixing chocolate by waterfall? She giggled at the idea of a wild-hair Mr. Wonka tumbling over a waterfall in a barrel, yelling "Eureka!" even as he plummeted.
She was leaning forward to dip a finger in the chocolate river when a voice said softly, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Amalda jerked her hand back and looked around to see Mr. Wonka standing not far behind her.
"If you read the papers, you remember what happened to the last person who touched my chocolate."