As the two of them sat at their table in an awkward silence, it only then dawned on Veruca that so much had happened in the life of The Lucky Boy, and all of the other Golden Ticket winners for that matter, although, it was not like her to take other people and their lives into consideration whenever she made any kind of judgement. She had surely had unique life experiences from the last time she had seen Charlie in the Nut Sorting Room to when they encountered each other by complete chance at Fenston's. A life the little brute was more than sure the Good Boy, sitting patiently across from her, was just dying to hear about, and something she would oblige for the sole purpose of hearing the sound of her own voice. However, that did not mean that she would like to hear what Charlie, or anyone else she had not seen in years, had been up to during the time gap in their relationship, she was just not interested in anyone not herself, nothing that surprising for a spoiled brat. Yet, there was something about Charlie's mastery of a second language that actually intrigued her, for the first time in her life, she was taking an interest in the life of someone else. And, to make matters more shocking, it was not just that Veruca had taken an interest in someone else, but that she had taken an interest in the poor boy who found Willy Wonka's last Golden Ticket without having his father buy loads of boxes of Wonka Bars and have the employees of his large business do the work of shelling them to find the ticket for him. Veruca did not expect much from a person like Charlie, even if he was now a successful businessman, she knew he was still nothing more than a street urchin at heart as evidenced by his choice of clothing for their evening out, at least that is what she thought.
Nevertheless, the realization that someone who came from such a squalid background could grow up to be so intellectually capable baffled the brat's brain, which led her to ask with true curiosity in her tone, "Where'd you learn to do that?"
Finally, Veruca was beginning to show interests in someone besides herself; luckily, Charlie had rehearsed this scenario in his head for the past few days and he knew exactly what he would say, and so he recited, "Mr. Wonka got me a tutor from Madrid when I was in secondary school, but I mostly use it on my trips to Latin America to find new cocoa bean strains and ideas for new candy flavours. You can probably recognize the difference in accents between me and the staff, I think that is one of the reasons Doña Rosita likes me so much. I imagine the Spanish accent I use sounds to her a lot like how our British accents sound to Americans, peak refinement. Although, considering the history of Spanish colonial oppression of the Indigenous populations of the Americas, it could also be some sort of respect based on residual fear of retaliation…"
"Stop!" Veruca screamed with her palms wide open in the air, however still closed enough that they almost looked like claws.
The little brute had lost interest after Charlie mentioned his business trips overseas, and she was surely not interested in listening to his theory on the power of accents, so she added rather frustrated, "I don't need a bloody uni lecture, just say you can speak another language!"
Charlie always knew how to blow it, and in all honesty, he really was not as smart as he made himself seem; the little stunt he pulled was nothing more than a testament to what a mind of plain old average intelligence could concoct given days to prepare to answer a question about his multilingual abilities. And, even though his attempt at impressing Veruca with what seemed like a huge intellect seemed to have failed, the Good Boy got back on the horse to try again. After being reprimanded, the two of them sat in silence until the chocolatier's apprentice summoned the courage to speak again, claiming, "I can also speak French and Arabic."
"You say," Veruca hurled back in disbelief, flashing her large maxillary central incisors through that large, wide mouth of hers as she spoke.
In order to prove her wrong, Charlie pulled his other language skills off the mental shelf and began reciting sentences meaningful to his line of work where he often used them, coincidentally starting off with the language of love, "Oh, oui. La plupart des fèves de cacao sont cultivées en Afrique de l'Ouest, donc ma connaissance du français est très utile lors des voyages d'affaires sur le continent."
(Oh, yes. Most cocoa beans are grown in West Africa, so my knowledge of French comes in handy during business trips to the continent.)
With Veruca actually attentive to what Charlie was saying he continued on with his demonstration, now switching to a language that conveyed mystery and intrigue, adding, "'Amma al'arabyia. Airtafaeat mabieat 'alwah alshwkwlatt Wonka fi almaghrib alkabir wamisr bilad alshshami wadual alkhalij alghaniat khilal almusabaqat wabialttali jaeal aleallamat altijariat 'akthar shaebiatan fi tilk albuldan."
(As for Arabic. Sales of Wonka Bars soared in the Maghreb, Egypt, the Levant and the wealthy Gulf States during the contest, thus making the brand more popular in those countries.)
In true Charlie fashion, he did not become a polyglot to show off, there was always a practical calculation made when he decided to learn a new language, which he explained in the case of Arabic, "I'm working on expanding the business into Saudi Arabia, The Kingdom, I mean."
From having lived most of her life surrounded by her businessman father, Veruca understood the effect personal decisions had on your professional success, and Charlie continued to show the effect his literal choice of words had on his job by leaning in closer to the little brute and whispering as he was about to use some foul language in a public space, but not before looking over to make sure there were not people eavesdropping, "You have to learn to kiss arse if you want to succeed."
The Lucky Boy spoke four languages and hoped to learn more as time allowed for it, but he knew he could not spend the entire dinner talking about himself. He brought Veruca to this place in hopes that she would open up to him about her life, and what better way to start than to find out if they shared this ability, to which he asked, "Do you speak any other languages, Veruca?"
Her big, bright blue eyes didn't seem cold like they usually did, but they seemed more careless as she responded, "No. Just 'Hjälp! Jag behöver en läkare!'"
Charlie could tell the language Veruca was speaking was a Germanic one, most likely Scandinavian, but as he stared at her with a confused look on his face as he tried to both figure out the language The Bad Nut was speaking and what she had said, Veruca spoiled the thrill of the hunt by clarifying, "That's Swedish for 'Help! I need a doctor!'"
His guess seemed to be close to the target, but Veruca only saw the memory of her learning another language as a hurdle in her past she once had to overcome, adding, "Three years of Swedish in secondary school and that's all I cared to learn. My guess is if I am ever in Stockholm, medical attention is the one thing I can't wait for someone else to translate for me."
The poor kid from the East Side had grown up into a worldly man with worldly insights and Charlie thought he was being insightful when he informed his fellow Golden Ticket winner of a language factoid about the Nordic country, "Um, most people in Sweden speak English, they're really good at it, too."
The only problem was that Veruca did not seem to take the Good Boy's statement as an interesting tidbit about the proliferation of English as the Lingua Franca of the world, but instead as an attempt to humiliate her for what she viewed as time from her youth she would never recover, to which she replied by asking in an indignant tone, "Why didn't you tell me that before I got stuck in a classroom with Professor ABBA for hours on end?!"
At least from his perspective, Veruca seemed to react as if Charlie had been an active part of her life during her secondary schooling career and could have counseled her on what language to study instead, and all he could do now was plead that she spare him her wrath, nervously claiming, "I...I didn't know where you were until less than a week ago."
Luckily, Veruca seemed to have listened to Charlie's pleas and calmed down, meaning the final Golden Ticket winner could ask the second winner about her past without having to block every delicate part of his body, "So then, why did you learn Swedish? I'd assume the magnificent school you attended offered more practical languages to learn."
As it turned out, Charlie would learn something about Veruca, albeit it did not help him in any practical way, when she responded, "They did, but the Swedish teacher was fit so I chose his class. The problem was that he would neverrr shut up. It was always add an umlaut to this and conjugate that, he eventually got on my nerves so much that I just stopped paying attention. Well, to his lessons, that is, he always got the girl's attention, and some of the boy's too."
By the way she described her Swedish class, Charlie knew he was too scrawny to compete for the brat's attention on a physical level against whoever caused the events leading to the mental image he had of schoolgirl Veruca biting her bottom lip instead of doing the schoolwork laid out on her classroom desk. Instead, he would have to rely on his own strengths, in this case what appeared to be his wit, to capture her attention, and so he said, "Well, all I know is that if we drove from here in the West End of London all the way down to the souks of Marrakesh, I'd be the only translator you'd need."
His not-a-joke joke was a dud, instead of leading Veruca to agree with Charlie she simply took it as the logistical fact it was. Luckily, the tense, awkward silence that followed was broken when Doña Rosita brought over the two glasses of hibiscus tea Charlie had ordered for him and Veruca. The brat grabbed the glass full of the ruby red drink and sniffed it first before putting it to her mouth and taking a sip of the tropical drink. Charlie watched in suspense, afraid that the little brute would not like the taste and spit it out in disgust, something which would surely upset Doña Rosita, or even worse, damage the tenuous relationship he had with her. With the drink swishing through her mouth, Veruca picked up the similarities with cranberry juice; apart from the color, the hibiscus tea was also bitter and tart, it was also rather chill, a bit too chill for British tastes. Nevertheless, Veruca did swallow the sip she took and as Charlie's toes were about to burrow their way out of his bulky shoes after so much nervous sole-scraping, Veruca surprised him when she brought the glass back to her mouth for another sip. Charlie had dodged a bullet there, Veruca was content with the drink after all; Doña Rosita also told him that she was preparing their food and that she would bring it out to them in no time. It seemed that Charlie's plan was going off as he had planned, for now, at least.