Thanks again to Jimmy-wonderBoyOncologist (if you haven't, review the story she's working on - argh! I just forgot the title! Something about an Eccentric Chocolatier. ) My computer's being slow, so I can't check who else helped with this chapter via encouragement in reviews, but thank you too! And let me know how I can fix anything.

For a few seconds, Willy was as immobile as celery. After all, what does one do when one’s metaphorical children are murdered? However, a gust of smoke began to float towards Willy. The cloud of dusty particles ominously drifted down, and of course, just as it reached Wonka-nose-level, he inhaled. And quickly exhaled in a fit of irrepressible coughing.

Slugworth whirled around, spotted his former pupil/employee, and dashed out the back door, vainly praying that Wonka hadn’t seen his last sabotaging act.

The firemen weren’t so quick.

“The Whipplescrumptious Fudgemallow Delights!” Willy squeaked between sputtering chokes (a lot of chokes. ‘Whipplescrumptious Fudgemallow Delights’ had at least nine syllables, and Willy could only manage 2/3 of a syllable before his lungs ran into trouble. Fortunately, in the midst of this rather distressing situation, he did firmly determine to never, ever, ever smoke). “Why?”

The firemen turned to their briber, but he, of course, had vanished at an opportune moment. Thus it was that they were left to appease Willy Wonka, eyes now gleaming black, albeit somewhat watery from his acquaintance with the smokiness.

“Actually, me dear fellows, we have absolutely no time whatsoever for any sort of delay! No no! We are now 2,148 Whipplescrumptious Fudgemallow Delights behind, not to mention 206 gumdrop baggies, half a bajillion lollipops, 385 taffy candies…” He kept muttering on, and grabbed the men and set laminated candy recipes in front of them. “Kay, choclify that chocolate now! Go on! Scoot!”

While they ‘scooted,’ Willy started on the lollipop assembly line, tossing sugar and water and kiwis and clementines and other round fruits into a procession of bowls, then whisking them with greatest ferocity, and boiling them, and scooping and inserting sticks and cooling at a rate beyond the speediest of assembly-liners. He chirped to the chocolate birds, and the flock immediately started aggregating nesting material, while gummy worms worked on shaping gumdrops and tossing them in bags. A squadron of beetles buzzed out the back door to the outside world, where the firetruck still stood surrounded by rubbernecking candy addicts.

Katherine was among those closest to the shop, along with the old crew of Doug, Joe, Josie, Ally, Fred, Courtney, Joyce, Doris, and, of course, Robin. They were trying to peer through the smoky windows of the back room, but various new employees kept elbowing in. Doug promptly shoved them back into the crowd.

“Yeeeeek!” Everyone looked at Katherine. She wiggled. A candy beetle scurried out of her collar and tapped her freckly nose a few times.

“Get it off! Get it off!” Joyce screamed, though the beetles were wisely staying well away from her. “Robin! She’s your girlfriend!” Robin turned Barbie-pink. “Brush it off her or something! Make it go away!”

“No no – Morse code,” Katherine said. “ ‘Help W.’” Panicked glances were exchanged. Ally was already off, sneaking behind the fire chief and slipping in. Fred was close behind, and the rest, new employees included, made a mad dash, bowling over the poor crowd control official and pouring into the back room.

“I hope he’s not unconscious, or allergic to smoke, or frightened by firemen, or stuck in flames, or—Oh. Nevermind. It’s just candy making,” said Josie once she’d entered and spotted everyone sheepishly slaving over various sweet endeavors.

“J… Just? Candy?” Willy whispered in her ear. Josie experienced slight cardiac arrest. “Candy is the overarching theme to the universe, the purest motivation behind every drop of history, science, and arithmetic, the inspiration for every jot and skittle of literation, dramation, artisticalation, even agriculturation. For cinnamon’s sake, my dear lady, if chocolate were not, there would be no government! No automobiles! No technology! No race of man! Candy is life!”

Over the fourteen days before October 31st, Josie discovered the exhausting truth of that.

Doris reorganized shifts so the back room was busy 24-7. Ally performed subversive maneuvers to deceive the attendance office into marking him present, despite (the welcome relief of) his unpardoned absence for two weeks.

“Joe, I really don’t know how I can do many more 12-hour days of gummy worms,” Josie said as she and her husband rolled ropes of gelatin.

“You can do it! An’ if you need a break, that’s why we got the super-spiffy take-a-break spot!” Wonka’s dark curliness bounced under his Davy Crocket coon hat. “I’ll just yodel over Jemima!” Referring, of course, to the floating glass platform, he ululated. It smacked into his frontiersman deerhide coat, which directly impacted his back, which skewed his balance, which caused a fluffy landing in the cotton candy plant patch. “Right!” he said, leaping up. “So refreshen, then come back quispedifast!” Joe thanked Willy and gently helped his wife onto the glass, then stepped up himself. They were carefully deposited in the Upsy-Daisy Place (aka Employee Lounge), where both collapsed on a big jelly beanbag, basking in the swinging tones of Glenn Miller from the ancient phonograph.

“Is he still down there?” Doris asked, peeking between leaves of her English ivy barrier. Joe cracked open an eye.

“Mr. Wonka? Yes.” He stretched, fingers brushing the chimes lining the walls. They tinkled softly.

“Hm. Joyce has first shift, and Courtney has third, and we have second – based on my calculation and what they’ve said, he hasn’t left for more than half an hour during any single shift since the fire a week ago.”

“Good gracious, it’s a wonder he isn’t asleep on his feet,” Josie said.

“Well, it’s not as if his blood sugar ever decreases, what with sampling candy all day. Though I do wonder who his dentist is.”

Over the next week, no one had much opportunity to wonder anything. Customers poured in without a lull, despite school, business, and miserable weather. Wonka workers toiled around the clock, all the while with Slave Driver Willy cheerfully egging them on and tossing Lemony No-Dozes like March cherry blossom petals in Washington DC. Even with “kajillions and metzozillions” of chocolate bars, lollipops, taffy, chocolate birds, gummy worms, gumdrops, bubblegum, chewing gum, fruity chews, hard suckable drops, crunchy little dots of candy, jellybeans, all the other traditionals, plus “extra-special groovy Halloweeny delightliciouses,” overproduction was one emergency they didn’t have to deal with (except for a semi-apocalyptic overpopulation of beetles).

Then, the evening of October 31st plopped into existence.

”Quick speedy expeditious fast” in condensed English, or “who foot proper ‘t’” in Latin.