Chapter 2- Mike's POV

I had to paint the backdrop for our film project. I painted it blue-grey with white clouds.

I'm not actually that good at painting.

The clouds kind of looked a little like circles. They didn't even look like clouds.

What.

Meanwhile in my brain, I was still thinking about what Veruca said earlier. I mean, she's pretty, and she's nice, but I would never have considered dating her.

About an hour of thinking later, I had compiled a list of all her pros and cons:

PROS: pretty, nice, she buys stuff, she's helpful.

CONS: she can be rude, she can be kind of scary sometimes, she wants everything to be perfect when it doesn't need to be.

Wow that last one's very deep. Uh, what? No! I'm never that... Poetic!

Aha. I need to sleep.

About an hour and a half later, I was fast asleep, but obviously my thoughts weren't. I wasn't thinking about Veruca, I was having a flashback. Very Wonka-style if you ask me. It actually was from when we visited that stupid factory. I could hear the psychopathic laughter of Willy Wonka faintly in the background as he told the tiny little Oompa Loompa freak to take me to the 'taffy puller'.

It was actually a really long distance from the Television Room to the Taffy Puller. The torturous motorised medieval killing machine was situated in the centre of a dark room, where a dull light shone a spotlight over the device. The rest of the room was engulfed in shadows. No matter how hard I kicked my little legs and swung around my tiny little arms, those Wonka minions would not stop, and I was soon strapped into the twisted torture device.

When the machine started, it was horrible. It felt like my arms were being pulled from their sockets and I was going to be ripped apart. I couldn't see my dad, just his glasses reflecting the dull light as he stood in the shadows watching me slowly die. Tears streamed down my face and I can't even count how many times I swore. Soon enough, my father had had enough, and left the room.

And then I woke up, realising it was just a dream.

I sighed and rolled over. It was 2:51am. I hate dreams.

But however hard I tried, I COULD NOT SLEEP!

Veruca's POV

Even though I was wearing my warmest pyjamas and I had at least five blankets, I was freezing.

So I took out my phone.

Flat.

I put it on the charger and stared up at the ceiling for a bit, until I heard the familiar sound of my phone charging.

It opened to my messages, a message I'd sent to Mike earlier:

'We got to work on the project'

I focused on Mike's name for a bit, until my focus was broken by a scratching sound.

Maybe it's just the parakeet. It could be the ponies, maybe the hamster.

Whatever it was, it was coming from the window.

I climbed out of bed and opened my curtains. It was just the tree outside. Or was it something in the tree?

I opened the window and leaned out.

There, I came face to face with the creature from my worst nightmare.

A small animal with big black eyes which reflected my face, a big fluffy tail and tiny claws.

A squirrel.

I screamed and slammed the window, shut the curtains and ran back to bed, hiding under the sheets.

"Veruca!" Dad yelped, running into my room. Mum was close behind.

"Th-th-there was a squirrel... Outside the window..." I puffed.

Dad sighed and shut the door, "Go back to sleep, darling."

I could hear his and Mum's footsteps going back to their room.

A message showed up on my phone, the light temporarily blinding me.

It was from Mike:

'I can hear you yelling from 2 streets away'

I giggled to myself a little.

'How did you know it was me?' I replied.

A new message popped up almost immediately:

'Dunno but I definitely know it was you'

I finally replied:

'Oh well it was me. There was a squirrel'

'WTF'

And that's how the conversation ended.

(A/N: Second chapter yaaay! Sorry it took forever, my laptop died while I was halfway through writing this and I lost the whole chapter! Oh no!)