The view was fuzzy and all Charlie heard were the sounds of squirrels squeaking, nuts clanging and being chewed on by said squirrels in the distance, but then he heard these faint footsteps moving away from his ears and towards the squirrels. With everything appearing nebulous, it was no surprise that, at first, spoken words too were fuzzy. The first voice Charlie heard was a muffled man's voice who uttered three syllables rather rapidly, which was followed by a separate soft and concerned soothing voice saying something that he also could not quite decipher. The first muffled voice returned to say something else the Good Boy could not completely decipher, except this time Charlie was able to understand the last words the man spoke: at once. The only other thing notable about that voice voice was that it sounded stern but confused, almost as if the speaker were doing something he had never had to do before. As the voices began to become more comprehensible, the view became much clearer as well. Charlie realized that he was back in the Nut Sorting Room, but he was not his normal self, he was a child again, a child on a tour of Willy Wonka's mysterious chocolate factory. To his left was his Grandpa Joe, still alive but not focused on him, to his right was Willy Wonka, along with the Teavees on the far right and Mr. Salt in between them and Wonka. Everyone was accounted for except for one person, Veruca, who Charlie now spotted standing on the floor of the room by spying her distinctive silver mink coat and the slinky curls of her brown hair she pulled back using two ornate hair clips. As it turned out, the muffled man's voice Charlie heard before was that of her father, who this time called her name to get her to come back and rejoin the rest of the tour group, but that was to no avail; the brat had found something more interesting and decided to pursue that instead of walking around a strange factory. Now, while it should have been enjoyable to be a kid again, after reassessing his situation the Good Boy realized what was happening right now; Charlie was reliving Veruca's punishment during the tour and all the emotions he felt at that moment all those years ago, feelings he thought he had repressed.
With an intruder on the ground floor, the squirrels stopped testing nuts for their quality and turned their attention towards Veruca, who was creeping slowly towards an individual squirrel she had marked for the pickings. Wonka knew this would only end one way if no one intervened, and even though Veruca was in no mood to listen to anybody else, the chocolatier still alerted her, "Little girl? Ey…don't touch that squirrel's nuts! It'll make him crazy!"
As expected, Veruca completely zoned out this warning and continued on her war path until she reached the squirrel she desired. By now, all the squirrels had focused their attention onto the little brute, they sized her up and sniffed her sent as they would to any other predator. The brat and the squirrel she had marked now stood in front of each other with both of them locking eyes, and even though the tension in the room could be felt all throughout the air, Veruca was still dead set on getting a squirrel as a pet, so reached out to grab her new pet, all the while proclaiming, "I'll have you."
That was her death sentence; the squirrel Veruca had marked jumped out of his seat and ran around her, easily startling the young girl. The rest of the squirrels came to the defense of their brother and joined in tormenting this trespasser, all the while, Charlie and the rest of the tour watched this karmic comeuppance from above where Mr. Salt once again called her name out to get her to come back, only this time the brat did listen. The Good Boy's attention was then drawn towards the victim's father, the nut magnate who nervously rattled the gate, almost hoping it would open, before turning to Wonka for help. The Lucky Boy then turned to face his Grandpa Joe, who was also mesmerized by what was going on below, before turning back to his right where he saw Wonka's response to the tragedy unfolding below, a large, full jingling key ring and a factory owner unsure which one to use. Back down below, the squirrels came from all sides of the room and descended on one point, the ostentatious girl with fear on her face rushing backwards towards the stairs while she swatted away the bushy-tailed rodents jumping all over her and scratching her.
For a brief second, as she turned around to face the stairs after her father called her name out again, the stairs she hoped to reach in order to escape the hoard of beasts pursuing her, both Veruca and Charlie locked eyes with each other. Needless to say, the typically prissy little princess looked rather awkward as she tried to escape, her mouth hung wide open and the slinky curls of her hair were flailing about in the air as she rushed backwards, but unlike the unbridled rage he received from her in her Penthouse, this time they connected on an emotional level, and all Charlie saw behind those big blue eyes was a mortified child begging for help. But help did not come, the squirrels began amassing around and on top of Veruca so fast that it almost looked as if rats were crawling all over her, leaving her with even more heightened anxiety levels denoted by her loud breaths. Unsurprisingly, the little girl whimpered and cried as she tried to swat the rodents away and the whole experience clearly left Veruca feeling nauseous, but even more intriguing, Charlie was experiencing the same sensations of disgust and unease at the exact same time.
The squirrels did not care who felt what, they just wanted to defend their space from intruders, and that's what they did when they quickly overpowered Veruca and slammed her down to the floor. Mr. Salt tried his hand again at magically opening the gate by shaking it, but the stress-relieving exercise did nothing to get him closer to his daughter who was in pain, and all he could do was call out her name another time from above. The brat called out for her Daddy and he called her name once more while Wonka kept on trying to open the locked gate with different keys, but to no avail. Even as Veruca kept on whimpering and crying as the rodents latched onto every edge of her body, the following events deeply disturbed Charlie as they must've also certainly traumatized Veruca for life. The squirrels began maneuvering Veruca into a position advantageous for any aggressor; Limb by limb, the squirrels began stretching Veruca's appendages out to keep her from swatting them, but even more fiendishly, they pinned her down to keep her from moving all together. They started with her right arm, then jumping to the left, and proceeding to do the same with her right leg and the left one after that. Most revolting was the split second when the squirrels spread Veruca's legs out, Charlie felt the same stomach-churning sensation that caused Veruca to lift her head up from the floor and see what was going on, fortunately none of them were treated to that most abhorrent of acts associated with such a physical manipulation of the body by an aggressor. The squirrels seemed to have won the battle, Veruca was successfully pinned and no one from the tour had yet to venture down to the floor of the Nut Sorting Room to help her because Wonka hadn't yet found the key to open the gate, something that obviously didn't stop Veruca from calling for help.
"Daddy, I want them to stop," Veruca cried out in a tone that sounded so relaxed, most likely because fear had overpowered her ability to overreact as she often did.
Mr. Salt was clearly on edge watching his daughter get attacked by waves and waves of squirrels but what really startled Charlie was Wonka nonchalantly testing different keys to see which one would open the gate. Charlie almost wanted to grab the key ring out of Wonka's gloved hands, pick a key at random, scream It's this one and have the gate unlock and swing wide opens. Mr. Salt had tried to open the gate by shaking it so many times by now, but that failed to deliver results, the only way he would be getting to the floor of the Nut Sorting Room would be by overcoming the obstacle created by the entry gate. Unfortunately, he was too big to slip in through one of the gaps in the gate like Veruca did to get into the room and it would not be safe for him to try and scale the gate as he was a man who had officially entered advanced age the year prior, meaning that if he made a wrong move, he could find himself tumbling down the narrow staircase and severely injuring himself. All he could do was watch as the squirrels pinned his daughter down and as the squirrel that started this whole ordeal jumped on Veruca's chest and treaded carefully towards her head where he began to sniff the structure, clearly disgusting Veruca, then knock on her forehead and place his ear next to it to get a better sense of what was inside the little brute's head.
Charlie's entire body had long ago become paralyzed with fear, he was as stiff as a board just like Veruca was down below, and all he could do was ask nervously, "What are they doing?"
"They're testing to see if she's a bad nut," Wonka replied without shifting his attention from the attack occurring below.
That was when the squirrel Veruca marked had concluded his examination and simply made a disconcerting squealing noise, leading Wonka to somberly declare, "Oh, my goodness. She is a bad nut after all."
The climax had passed, now all that was left was the descend, literally. With a single look, the squirrel upon Veruca signaled his kind to begin transporting their catch to her destination. The squirrels began to crawl underneath her in order to move her, thus looking even more like rats from Charlie's point of view, and the only response Veruca's fear-paralyzed body could muster were these whimpering and gasping sounds that were barely audible up on balcony where the rest of the tour group was. Mr. Salt called out her name one more time, but all the brat could do was call back for her Daddy, leading her father to ask, "Where are they taking her?"
Without any hesitation, Wonka gave the nut magnate a quick glance before refocusing his attention down below, and replied, "Where all the other bad nuts go, to the garbage chute."
As Charlie watched Veruca regain some of her motor skills and begin kicking her legs like she did during one of her fits, Mr. Salt made it clear he was not content with Wonka's response, he needed Wonka to elaborate, which is why he then asked, "Where does the chute go?"
"To the incinerator," Wonka responded, cold and unmoved by the dreadful situation this father, and more importantly, that young girl, was put in, and oddly enough, a bit gleeful, quite the opposite of Mr. Teavee and especially Mr. Salt's horrified reactions.
"But don't worry. We only light it on Tuesdays," he added, attempting to ease the tension in the room, but that comment only served to stress out the nut magnate even more as he remembered a crucial fact.
And unlike Charlie who could not move like the victim below, Mike had no qualm about ignoring Veruca's plight and instead turned to face the amazing chocolatier, and clarified in that most smug tone of his, "Today is Tuesday."
Wonka was in no mood for dissent, he quickly gave Mike a disgusted sneer and quickly returned to play the role of the optimist, something even he wasn't buying, yet still suggested, "Well, there's always the chance they decided not to light it today."
It was at that moment that every memory Mr. Salt had of Veruca flashed before his eyes, every moment of self-aggrandizement, every demand, every tantrum was on full display for him as it had all led to this. As Veruca continued to be dragged towards the mouth of the garbage chute by the hoard of squirrels, whimpering and wheezing loud enough for the Good Boy to hear her from a distance, Charlie could also sense something strange emanating from the victim's father. The fear in Mr. Salt's expression from the moment the squirrels first pounced on his daughter and especially after hearing Veruca would be heading to the incinerator was real, but his fear was not that of dreading the loss of someone, but the loss of something. The nut magnate almost felt as if he was being deprived of some sort of achievement or some other abstract concept that was not love for your child. By now, it was clear to Veruca that no one was coming to save her as she looked up to face the others one last time, she tried to stop the squirrels from proceeding forward by dragging her fingernails across the floor to create some traction but that did not seem to work. This excruciatingly long punishment had dragged on for far too long, but it was about to come to an end. The squirrels had finally reached the garbage chute and those in front began to scatter as to not accidentally fall down that dark, unforgiving abyss. When Veruca had looked up to face the audience of her fellow tour members one last time she again locked eyes with Charlie, who felt his heart racing as fast as hers and his muscles tense up as tight as her own. Neither of them wanted this to happen, but as Veruca began her descent down the garbage chute all Charlie felt he could do was to scream, and that is what he did.
"Noo…aah!" Charlie screamed as he woke up from his nightmare, accidentally smacking his head on one of the ceiling beams that would have held the roof shingles in place had he not removed them in order to create his makeshift skylight. He was no longer in the Nut Sorting Room and he was no longer a child, he was back to being his normal self, well, as normal as one could be after having been through what he had experienced.