It was about an hour long wait of the two former Golden Ticket winners hanging out, away from much of the crowd of their fellow banquet guests, before the organizers summoned everyone to their tables for dinner. The conference room was set up with dozens of tables with ten chairs each spread about the brown and beige panel-walled room with an orange-red carpet with golden swirls embedded into the flooring while they all faced the main stage where a podium stood ready for the presenters to call the award winners up to collect their award. Soon after the guests took their seats, a team of waiters entered the room from every side entrance, pushing carts stacked with bowls of French onion soup for every guest. It took about 20 minutes for the waiters to bus away the bowls of soup and bring out the main course, a plate of lemon rosemary chicken and rice with a side of steamed vegetables and a slice of chocolate fondant tart for desert 20 minutes after that. Charlie, of course, valued every single bite he took as the food's presence in front of him was a testament to the fact that he'd come a long way from the impoverished world he grew up in, he especially savored the chocolate-based desert, even if he was surrounded by the confection every moment of his life. With so much time in between courses, the guests began chatting with the other guests seated at their table, and that included Charlie and Veruca, with each other, that is, seeing as how Charlie was not the kind of person to start a conversation with the stranger seated beside him.
The two former Golden Ticket winners shared more of their thoughts on the banquet, especially Charlie, which was something that bemused his guest, which lead her to point out, "I don't understand you, Charlie. I mean, you're unbelievably shy, yet you seem to have no problem talking to me about incredibly personal stuff. Hell, remember the restaurant? After you started talking, I couldn't get you to shut up."
The seeming contradiction that was Charlie's actions did not pass over his head, but neither did something odd he'd noticed about the little brute following years of research into the lives of the other Golden Ticket winners, and so he dodged Veruca's question by asking his own in response, "You know, I could say something similar about you. Your personality is not what I would think of after doing some research. Your family's wealth is inherited, correct?"
"Yes," Veruca responded cautiously and unsure of where her inviter was headed with this fact.
"So, the Salts are Old Money, yet you act Nouveau Riche. You flaunt everything you have, regardless of how such an ostentatious act reflects on you."
This was not the first time someone had pointed this out to Veruca, her fellow Blue Blooded boarding schoolmates often mentioned this whenever they got sick of her bratty antics, and she replied to the Good Boy's comment with the same take on life she dispensed in confrontational situations like this, "Well, it's like Daddy always told me, what's the point of having money and power if you're not going to use it?"
To the actual Nouveau Riche, yet still humble enough to acknowledge his downtrodden socioeconomic roots, Charlie, that was the most outlandish reason to blow through your family's money, yet Veruca still saw it as a valid explanation, so she decided to speak some more on what she was told growing up, elaborating, "Daddy would always tell me that I was the culmination of generations-long work, I was the endgame and that's why I was raised to live a life of opulence and decadence."
As out of touch and ridiculous as Veruca's claims about her purpose in life were, it proved that her family's ostentatious flaunting of wealth was not a case of status anxiety; the Salts weren't compensating for insecurities about not being consistent in their cultural environment among the upper echelons of society by engaging in the flamboyant consumption of material goods. They weren't compensating because they had no one who they needed to prove their status to as their wealth had been passed down from previous generations. And the reason this renowned family seemed to betray their culture's norms and mores when it came to rearing the next generation was apparently also exposed, seeing as the little brute gave it all away; simply put, Mr. Salt messed her up. Nevertheless, Veruca was no going to allow her inappropriate upbringing to get in the way of her being able to enjoy a night out, not that she could recognize what constituted an inappropriate upbringing if it hit her upside the head. But, regardless of whether Veruca's upbringing was proper, no one, not even Charlie, could deny that it had prepared her to go out into the world and interact with people without fearing the other people would ridicule her. And, without any sympathy for what was going on inside her inviter's mind, she wasn't going to literally sit there and feel sorry for Charlie because he got nervous in social situations, instead she was going to make him into the world-famous heir to the Wonka empire everybody knew him as. Even though her motivations were selfish, wanting to meet interesting people and the like, it did benefit Charlie having a guest that wanted to mingle with the other people. And like a mother getting her shy child to join a group of children playing together at daycare, Veruca literally pushed Charlie into the nearest gathering of people chatting about their new business ventures and pinched his back until he introduced himself and her, his guest.
The group recognized the heir's name and seemed friendly enough to welcome both of them into the discussion, but when the brat grew bored of the conversation, she grabbed the back of Charlie's tux and dragged him off to find another group, but not before the Good Boy made sure to bid the others farewell like the gentleman his mother raised him to be. The two Golden Ticket winners embarked on this journey across the banquet hall, bombarding different cliques, shaking hands and learning all about the future endeavors of British businesspeople, and even though he felt unbelievably uncomfortable at the moment, Charlie took the discomfort to be like the sore muscles one gets after working out for the first time. He was finally putting himself out there and meeting many interesting people, all the while maneuvering across the room like a literal social butterfly, and for the first time in his life, all of this constant mingling made him feel normal. Veruca's magic seemed to rub off on Charlie, the longer he talked to other people, the more he felt less awkward, slightly less that is, yet all he could think of was him asking himself where was the little brute when he was in school? If she could've literally had his back and pushed him when he was still in school, perhaps Charlie could've prevented some of the social awkwardness that plagued him today, or at least stopped some of the instances where the bullies picked on him for being poor and weird. But like all of his other regrets, those days were now in the rear-view mirror and all Charlie could do now was choose how he would act in social situations from now on.
With dinner wrapped up, you had a few people get up from their chairs and wander around the banquet hall, mostly to chat with other guests seated so far away they couldn't have a conversation sitting down. Out of this small group of individuals, one of them was focused on them, a fifty-something year old man with graying hair and an Edinburgh accent approached Veruca out of nowhere, and asked, "Excuse me, I saw ye from across the room and I just wanted to make sure it was ye. Ye're Rupert's girl, little Veruca, correct?"
The little brute beat her eyes towards the other direction, concerned how this man knew these personal details about her, and carefully asked, "Yes, who's acting?"
"I'm Jonah Gilchrist, I've done business with your father before. He invited me over to his home years ago and that's where I first met ye."
"You were a wee lass, I remember ye being this tall," Gilchrist added as he gestured with an open palm extended horizontally at the same level as his diaphragm.
By the looks of it, their introduction took place before she cracked double digits in age, even before she went on the tour of Wonka's factory, but even though she couldn't remember his face, Veruca just nodded, and replied, "That was years ago."
"Please, let your father know I send my regards. It's been so long since I've seen him."
"I'll let him know," Veruca assured him and hoping to wrap up this conversation and move on as she'd grown bored with the Scottish entrepreneur.
Sensing that he was losing his business associate's daughter's attention, Gilchrist switched his attention over to the familiar face sitting next to her, and pointed at him as he claimed, "And ye, I know who ye are."
At first glance, Charlie seemed to be preparing for an attack of some sort, which was to be expected considering his withdrawn personality, but luckily, Gilchrist simply recognized one of the night's honored guests, adding, "Ye're that chocolate laddie. Mmm...Bucket, aye, Bucket."
With a sense of relief overcoming him, Charlie put his hand out to shake Gilchrist's hand, and professionally introduced himself, "Indeed, Charles Bucket, Wonka Candies, pleasure to meet you, sir."
It was not every day one could meet a representative of the enigmatic Willy Wonka, so Gilchrist took advantage of this golden opportunity to ask something that bewildered him, saying, "Well, seeing as how ye work at that mysterious factory, maybe you can answer a question I have about what goes on in there. The one thing I always hear about Willy Wonka is that he lures kids into his factory and kills them to make his sweets. It can't possibly be true, but everyone I talk to always mentions that, so, what's going on?"
Out of all the bunk Wonka theories Charlie heard every time he went out to any social event, this was the one that bothered him the most, not just because it harmed the reputation of the Wonka brand, but because deep down he knew the truthers were not entirely wrong. Willy Wonka had no genuine remorse for what happened to the other Golden Ticket winners, but that lack also came at a cost, the eternal condemnation of him by the victims, in this case, Charlie's guest, who jumped into the conversation, and proclaimed, "Four kids, almost."
"What?" Gilchrist asked as he literally took a step back to Veruca's claim.
Of course, only to be outdone in shock by Charlie, who too blurted out, "What?!"
Veruca had never told anyone else what happened to her during the tour, mostly to save face as the tour didn't end pretty for her, but because in her experience she knew no one would believe her when she described the marvelous creations and contraptions that existed behind the factory's brick walls. But now, without having to admit she got thrown down a garbage chute and reemerged covered in trash, and while sitting next to one of the factory's owners as if that constituted consent to reveal unsavory details about the factory's operations, the little brute admitted to her own experiences, elaborating, "Four kids. Four kids almost died. Almost, but still."
Those few words were enough to send Charlie into a panic and now he had to clean up the mess his guest had made.