Yay! New chapter! Trust me, I'm as happy about this as you all are.
Reviewer thanks: Wicked Seraphina, hikari-no-tsubasa, Anon (now becoming most intriguing reviewer if only because of mystery factor), MaRaMa-TSG, Padawan Jan-AQ, Maleficent Angel, boogle, The Wonkamatic, Drummergirl148, savage benediction, Artoveli, Whale of the World, RussianPrincess, Chocolate14, Crayz x ALPS, Jennifer, teshara, and Icarusy. Cheez-Its all around!
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"I never…" Willy Wonka's eyes slid lazily across the perimeter of the Chocolate Room, admiring the way the dimming of the artificial light blended the landscape into its dark walls, making them seem endlessly distant. "I never wore white after Labor Day." He folded his hands behind his head and arched his back against the sugary green grass and turned to his companion with a lopsided grin.
Mrs. Bucket smiled ruefully and took a gulp from the bottle of Wonka's Sizzling Sweet Strawberry Smoke she held casually across her stomach. "I never did have a good grasp on fashion taboos. It's interesting that you're so certain about it, though."
"Simple," said Willy in reply. "I've never worn any more white clothes than my school uniform shirt or a pair of gym socks."
She looked aghast. "Never?"
Willy smiled indulgently and pronounced firmly. "Never."
She snorted. "Liar."
He ignored her and gestured vaguely with his own bottle (Wonka's Tangy Tart Toothsome Toddy). "C'mon, it's your turn."
"Mmmm…" She lifted her eyes thoughtfully to the distant ceiling. "I never drank booze custom-made by the world's most famous candy maker before."
"Most famous, most handsome, most talented, most intelligent, most modest…" Willy listed contemplatively as he took a drink.
Emma rolled over onto her stomach and propped her chin up on one palm, looking at Willy.
"Hey," she said. They were both by this point somewhat inebriated.
"Heeeey," he replied, his eyes drifting closed and open again before wandering over to meet her gaze.
"How come you don't sell this stuff? It's exccccellent. You'd make a fortune." As if to emphasize her point, she ran her tongue around the mouth of the bottle.
"Now you see—(hic)—here, Mrs. Emma Bucket," he gestured violently with his bottle. "I'm a famous chocolatier. I have a reputation to maintain. I can't go around—"
"You don't go around." Mrs. Bucket interjected.
"—I can't go around selling alcohol when there are millions of children out there who cherish my candy. What kind of example would that set?"
"You're a nice guy, Willy." She yawned widely. "I think I've known that for a long time. I think that's probably why I…why I…" She trailed off.
"Why you what?" Willy craned his head around to look at her. Mrs. Bucket had dozed off, nestled comfortably on folded arms with the half-empty bottle pressed against her cheek, an endearing half-smile on her face. He smiled indulgently and took a moment to examine her sleepily. She really was much more fun to be around when she was like this. He propped himself up against a licorice-whip willow and let his eyes trace the curve of her jaw, her neck…
He had never been so entranced by another person before. Maybe it was something in the air, maybe it was the drinks. The night had started out normally enough…
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"Mum!" Charlie called through the house. "Where are you?"
"Back here, dear," Mrs. Bucket replied. This particular afternoon, she happened to be lounging on a hammock she had set up between the two particularly sturdy candy apple trees that had sprouted up mysteriously a few years ago. There were by this point quite large and picturesquely framed the Bucket house, also discretely providing a method of late-night escape from Charlie's bedroomthat Willy and Charlie didn't know she knew about.
After a long day of cooking, dusting, and mopping the floors (a frequent task due to the sticky residue which quickly built up on itfrom so many feet tromping in and out from the candy wonderland), she'd wanted to unwind and had curled up in the hammock with her favorite old, dog-eared paperback. Alas, her much-needed R&R was short-lived. Mothering sure was bothersome sometimes.
"Hey, Mum," Charlie poked his head around the corner of the house. "Do you think I could spend the night at Jake's house?"
"That depends," she replied patiently. "What are you planning to do at Jake's house?"
"Er…just watch some movies, you know, hang out and all that."
"Which movies exactly and what does "all that" entail?"
Charlie slipped into traditional "teen sulk"-mode and muttered something resentfully.
"Pardon?"
"Jake rented 'Saw' and 'Dawn of the Dead.'" He said with slightly more volume.
"Now that wasn't too hard, was it?" Mrs. Bucket smiled inwardly. "You can go, Charlie."
His eyes lit up. "Really?"
"Really really. Just be back by noon tomorrow; you still have to do your chores!"
"Yeah, yeah." He was already disappearing back around the corner of the house.
Mrs. Bucket leaned back into the hammock, paperback resting open on her chest, and sighed. Mothering was indeed very bothersome.
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Grandpa Joe, noting his daughter's somewhat tired and sedentary mood, volunteered to escort Charlie to the factory exit, and Mrs. Bucket only asked if he'd packed his tooth brush before they left. Both he and Charlie found it considerably unusual.
"Grandpa Joe," Charlie asked as they ducked through the undersized door and into the entrance hall. "Has mum seemed a bit…off to you recently?"
The old man gave a wry smile. "Yeah, I've detected something unusual. You never know what it is with women, sometimes not even your own daughter."
Charlie, who had only very rarely encountered something his grandfather couldn't explain was even more disturbed. "It's like…it's like she's different. Less like herself. She never would have let me go see 'Saw' and 'Dawn of the Dead' before. Today it was like she had no problem with it! I mean, it's not that I'm complaining," he said hastily, glancing about as if his mother might leap out of some corner and shout Ha! No sleepover for you! in the manner of the Soup Nazi.
"Of course not!" Grandpa Joe laughed and gave Charlie a light push out the door. "Now stop worrying and enjoy yourself! Just don't come home with any ideas."
Charlie grinned impishly and gave a brisk wave before striding purposefully toward the gate, shouldering his backpack.
Grandpa Joe's smile slowly melted as he thoughtfully closed the door. He certainly had noticed a difference in his daughter's mood in recent weeks. She had seemed more carefree, less intently focused on the order of the house. As today's events effectively illustrated, she was being less—for lack of a better word—tight-assed.
He couldn't honestly say her behavior displeased him. She had been far stricter than she normally was ever since Randolph had died. He had been worried that she was so permanently damaged that she had forgotten how to be happy.
This sudden mood shift, though obviously in the right direction, was disturbing. He wasn't exactly sure he knew its cause, but he strongly suspected that it had something to do with a certain chocolatier who had been spending an increasingly large amount of time with his daughter.
That was, for some reason,what really worried him.
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That very same chocolatier was at that moment perched on a stool in the Inventing Room, prodding what appeared to be beach balls floating in a vat of pink goo with a long metal stirring rod and talking to himself.
"Simply not thin enough to be light and un-filling…but what can I add? Turpentine is certainly not a choice…water has no flavor…I wonder what some ethyl alcohol would do…"
Two oompa-loompas in lab coats stood on the floor next to the vat and took careful notes of Wonka's mutterings on clipboards.
Willy smirked secretly and nudged some of the beach ball-like things out of the way with the stirring rod before thrusting one hand towards the two oompa-loompas demandingly. "Ladle!"
A ladle appeared as if by magic in one of the oompa-loompas' hands and hegave it solemnly to Willy. The candy maker spooned a large quantity of the goo into the ladle and poured it into a nearby beaker. With the skill and ease of long practice, he added several liquids to the goo until it had an almost water-like viscosity. He held the beaker up to the light and swirled it gently, appraising it.
"This one's going to be good," he murmured, a grin slowly spreading across his face.
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"Mrs. Bucket?" Willy poked his head through the door of the Bucket house. The main room was empty except for Grandma Georgina (who was asleep and snoring lightly) and Grandpa George (who was reading and looked up at him sharply when Willy spoke).
"She's not in here, Wonka," Grandpa George snapped in a low voice.
One side of Wonka's mouth twitched in irritation. "May I ask where she is, then, Mr. Bucket Sr.?"
"Maybe you should go find her yourself!"
"I'm bloody well in the back trying to have some peace and quiet!" Mrs. Bucket's voice was still clearly irritated despite being muffled.
"Ah," Willy's eyebrows jumped slightly and with a half-smirk at Grandpa George, he backed out of the house and walked around back.
"What's the trouble?" Sighed Mrs. Bucket, looking up from her book to see Willy rounding the corner.
"Er…no trouble. Just, ah…" His eyes rolled up and to the left for a moment as he struggled to remember why he had come. "Oh yeah!"
He reached into his coat and somehow produced two rather sizable bottles of garishly-colored liquid. Mrs. Bucket eyed them suspiciously. The last time he'd brought her bottles of liquid, they had turned out to be special fertilizer for a particularly delicate sugared-rose bush that had ended up near the Bucket house. He hadn't fully explained this though, simply stating "This is for the roses." Mrs. Bucket had tasted it, liked it, and decided to make it into a vinaigrette and put it in a salad garnished with petals from the sugared rose bush.
When Willy found out, he had demanded the entire family have their stomachs pumped as the fertilizer apparently contained a potentially lethal concentration of 1,3,5-cyclohexatriene. Grandma Georgina soon thereafter proclaimed that she found benzene to be inexcusably rude.
Meanwhile, Willy was grinning at her expectantly.
"Um…what are they? Tell me now if I'm supposed to water something with them."
"Don't be ridiculous, my dear lady! Here, read the labels!" He thrust the first bottle (filled with fluorescent pink liquid) into her hands.
"Wonka's Sizzling Sweet Strawberry Smoke," she read aloud. "Swirls of scrumptious strawberry mixed with snappy red pepper for a sweet yet spicy sting. Caution: Do not consume while pregnant, ill, unaccustomed to extreme flavor, or already inebriated to the point of being a nuisance to fellow partygoers, significant others, friends, automobile drivers, ocelots, etc."
"Isn't it an absolutely fantastic label?" Gushed Willy, practically bouncing with glee.
"Willy…" Mrs. Bucket began hesitantly. "Is this…alcoholic?"
"If it wasn't alcoholic," Willy smiled eerily, a slightly deranged glint in his eye, "would I really bother adding the warning about ocelots?"
There was a long pause, wherein Mrs. Bucket shrank back uneasily.
"Ahm…" She cleared her throat. "So why are you showing them to me?"
Willy's smile slipped off his face and he looked around shiftily, as if trying to come up with a suitable answer. "Er…well, I obviously can't taste test these with Charlie since he's underage, and the oompa-loompas have an incredibly low tolerance for alcohol. Two sips and they'd be getting into the supply of edible silly string and trashing the T-Bone Steak Jell-O Room again."
Emma couldn't suppress a giggle at this, and Willy's smile returned, relieved.
"Anyway, I knew you needed a break and thought 'Hey, Mrs. Bucket could give me some pointers!' I'm not extremely experienced when it comes to the finer points of alcohol. Not that I think you are or anything!" he said quickly. "I mean, it's just I know you have had vodka and brandy and stuff and I don't typically like either of them. Not that they're bad drinks, but I tend to be more of a wine guy myself even though I have an extremely high tolerance for alcohol and—"
"Willy, it's fine, I understand," she cut in. She made as if to open the bottle and paused. "Shall we?"
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Artificial and completely unjustly cheerful daylight once again pried Emma Bucket's eyes open.
"Bloody HELL," she shouted, upon realizing that aforementioned sunlight had the effect of sending daggers of pain through her eyes and into her brain. She forced her loudly protesting body to sit up and felt an even louder and angrier protest from her back. "How did I fall asleep in the middle of the Chocolate Room?" She asked herself perplexedly.
She looked around and with a small 'a-ha!' of triumph, noticed Willy Wonka sprawled unceremoniously against a marshmallow toadstool. The previous night's events came back to her all the sudden as she rubbed her aching head. "'Extremely high tolerance for alcohol' my ass," she muttered in Willy's direction.
The chocolatier mumbled something and stirred, snuggling closer to the toadstool.
"Hey," Mrs. Bucket prodded him in the side. "Hey. Wake up." She prodded him harder.
All the sudden, he sat bolt upright, eyes wide, and shouted "Tree Sap Lampshades!"
"It's good to know that one of us is still thinking clearly." Mrs. Bucket stood and fetched her nearly empty bottle from where it had rolled dangerously close to the river.
"What was it? Did you write it down?" Willy was looking around, wide-eyed and frantic.
"Write what down?"
"My morning epiphany!"
"Oh. No, you're on your own there." Absolutely bonkers, she thought. Still slightly resentful that Willy had initiated the most massive hangover she'd had for ten years, she left him sitting on the hill and tromped back towards her house, squinting against the unnecessary light.
Things were not better inside the house, however.
"Emma!" Exclaimed Grandpa Joe as she entered. "Where have you been? Where's Mr. Wonka?"
All four of the grandparents were out of the bed and dressed, even Grandma Georgina. Something was seriously wrong.
"What is it?" Willy had appeared behind her at the door and was looking in apprehensively.
"It's Charlie," responded Grandpa George gravely. "He's gone missing."
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Ack! Suspense! I'm extremely sorry for the very long wait. School has been increasingly hectic, what with very long essays and college apps to do. I hope the next update won't take as long!
Chemist's note: If you're really on the ball, you'd easily be able to spot the 1,3,5-cyclohexatrieneis in fact the same thing as benzene, a common part of aromatic compounds. I'm sure Willy knows this as well.
Read? Review!