Chapter Text
Night had fallen over the town, and set on the weirdest day Sarah Bucket had ever had. She was sitting in an enormous bay window on the top floor of the massive chocolate factory that had shadowed their home for decades, gazing down at the town below. If she squinted, she could see their tiny shack from here, dark and empty.
The rest of the Bucket family had gone to bed hours ago, exhausted from the whirlwind of activity that had broken loose the moment Charlie had shown up with the most curious man Sarah had ever seen, and proudly told her that this factory was now their new home. That Mr. Willy Wonka had made an offer, and that Charlie had won. Grandpa Joe had tried to explain it to her, but she had to admit she’d been too overwhelmed to take in much detail.
The buzz of thought and theory in her head had refused to die down all through the evening, making sleep impossible. At last, she’d given up, and she could only think to try and walk it off, to slip out of the penthouse and find this wide window in the hall outside.
Looking out over the view without really seeing it, she had just been contemplating what on Earth she was going to tell Mrs. Walinsky tomorrow, when a pleasant ding! rang out behind her, followed by the sound of elevator doors.
Footsteps, soft pads on the velvet carpet. Sarah turned, and the dark figure making its way towards her stopped dead and let out a small, startled noise, clutching at their chest for a moment before they straightened their shoulders, cleared their throat and stepped out into the light.
Willy Wonka, even at this late hour of the night after a busy day, still looked as if he had just had a good cup of coffee. His eyes were wide awake, ready with that glint of mystery and mischief.
“Ah! Good evening, Mrs. Bucket.” He gave a little half-bow. “I didn’t expect anyone to be up here. Would you believe, I’d already forgotten my new neighbors!”
Sarah was silent, and Mr. Wonka’s hand briefly squeezed the purple dome of his cane as if it were a stress ball. "I, uh, hope everything is to your liking."
“Oh, it’s- it’s wonderful.” Sarah hurried to assure him, because it was wonderful, or seemed that way, even if she did feel as if she and her family had been dropped onto the surface of an alien planet that also happened to resemble a luxury hotel that smelled of chocolate all the time. The gigantic rooms were impersonal and sparkling new, and their décor was… well, it was certainly interesting. She put her cardigan down in the first room they were shown into in a sort of daze, and she hadn’t been able to find it again since.
"Oh, brilliant!" His smile practically beamed in the dark, as bright as that purple orb at the end of his striped cane.
"I believe, in all the hullabaloo, I never had a chance to properly introduce myself." He was next to her now, giving maybe a quarter-bow. "But I'm rather sure you've heard of me."
“Yes, of course.” Sarah was smiling, uncertain. She was almost positive that they’d shaken hands, earlier, somewhere in the whirlwind of the evening, but she could barely remember a thing about it. Probably it was only a few hours ago, but it felt like something that happened in the distant past. Maybe it felt the same to him, although she had a feeling he was used to this kind of chaos. He looked as if he thrived on it.
She didn’t exactly know what to do in response to a bow. She had never curtseyed in her life. Not to mention, there was something about him…
“Mr. Wonka,” she said, to cover her confusion. “Joe- Charlie’s grandpa explained... a little... about all this, but I’m not sure I-”
"Long, terribly boring story short-" He bumped his cane on the floor, and the thing sprang up an impossible amount, only for him to catch it round the middle. "Your wonderful boy Charlie is now my new apprentice, and, when he’s ready..." He gestured, with a smoothness so natural it was as if he breathed it, down at the factory immediately below them.
"This will all be his. The factory, my empire, everything. Sure, we loved and lost some friends along the way, but I'm sure they will all be fine... what matters is, that boy of yours-" His gaze fixed on her again. "He has exactly what I was looking for. I would have made the transition for you all easier if I could, but I'm afraid it’s been quite the day."
What was it that was nagging at her? The more she looked at him, the more Sarah couldn’t help feeling as if she was missing something, something she should have fallen in on at once. It was such a distracting conviction that she almost couldn’t follow what he was saying. Luckily his words were staggering enough to force her to collect her thoughts.
“I- your apprentice?”
"Oh, yes!" Mr. Wonka beamed.
His smile weakened, and he seemed be considering something, but the next moment he evidently decided to move past it. "Oh yes, fresh blood to, uh... I mean, a fresh mind, I-" He made a frustrated jazzy pantomime in the air.
"I needed a successor." He gave up, staring past her out of the window. Through the colored glass, the moonlight shone purple on his face, and for a moment, Sarah could have sworn he looked familiar.
And that did it. All of a sudden, she was somewhere else, stepping in from the cold street to see another darkened window and purple-tinted moon, to the jangle of a shop bell. Dead on her feet after her shift, a few minutes shy of six, and the man turning from the window-
You're just in time- I was about to shut up shop. What can I get you?
The same hawkish nose, the same intense eyes. The same voice. All that was missing were the dowdy little spectacles and the drab shop-coat. Sarah snapped back to the present and stared at him in disbelief.
“I know you.” She advanced an incredulous step and made a movement as if she meant to twitch his ridiculous hat from his head, only held back by her sheer shock. The impulse didn’t make any sense at all, but then neither did anything else right now. As she stepped forwards, Mr. Wonka instinctively grabbed the brim of his hat. Her eyes were only level with his chin, but they met his worried look as he leaned back, clutching his cane defensively.
“I know you. That candy shop across the road... the whole time… that was you!”
"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about, my dear lady." Her eyes were very much like Charlie’s. Mr. Wonka couldn't meet them, and chose to look back out the window.
True, some of the Oompa-Loompas had poked fun at how he'd have to get used to being back in the world, but confronting a mother- the bane of every child who wanted to buy one of his bars- felt like jumping into the deep end a little too quick.
“Oh, no, don’t you ‘my dear lady’ me,” Sarah insisted. By this point, she had practically cornered him in the large bay window. “It was you, all right. You sold me Charlie’s birthday Wonka bar two days ago!” It was hard to try and glean some meaning from someone’s expression when they wouldn’t look at you, but she was too bewildered to do anything but press on, push for answers. “Why on Earth would you go to all that- what for, I mean- why?”
"You were- he was- well, I'd wish you'd told me sooner you were Charlie's mother!"
Come to think of it, he should have put the pieces together when he saw how she had paid for it mostly in pennies. And-
"That doesn't answer my question, Mr. Wonka-"
Oh, that scolding voice, the hard reality in it and the threat of no dessert after supper- Mr. Wonka really wondered why they didn't make horror movies about mothers.
He wasn't proud to think of it, but he broke.
"I needed an heir, alright?! Someone with imagination and drive, who creates something out of nothing and never stops dreaming, someone who does it purely for the sake of creation-" his voice rose as his posture straightened "-and not someone who would stab me in the back after being my friend for thirty years over a MARSHMALLOW RECIPE-"
He choked when he saw her face, and lowered back onto his heels, clearing his throat and needlessly straightening his tie.
Sarah took a step back as he raised his voice. Despite everything, she felt a surge of pride to hear Mr. Wonka describe her son in such glowing words, and under ideal circumstances she would have agreed with him to the letter, but his face stopped her. As he twitched at his neat silk tie, something warned her that he was off somewhere in his mind, staring not at her or anything in the room but directly into some deep, unpleasant mental pit… and it wasn’t a good idea to try to follow.
She didn’t understand him at all, and of course that left her worried and uncertain, but she’d lived with worry and uncertainty for long enough to know that you could cope with it, if you had to. If other people needed you to. Right now, Charlie needed her to cope with this… bizarre situation, the lack of answers and her sense of disquiet about the whole crazy, astonishing thing.
No, she didn’t think she could understand this man, but she was determined that she would keep up with him, for Charlie’s sake.
“I’m sorry. I- didn’t mean to accuse you of anything, it’s just… everything’s happened very fast.”
Her words seemed to lasso him back into reality, and he finally put his hand down. He continued as if absolutely nothing had happened.
"Suppose it's been awhile since I've had to adjust my pace. I do apologize again, we had to cut some corners, as the load of demand the contest brought upon us took us quite by surprise. Tomorrow, I'll be escorting Charlie on a proper overview of the factory, and I suppose if you would like, you may tag along. We also apparently have to talk to the media tomorrow..." Sarah followed Mr. Wonka’s gaze to the Chocolate News teams still camped outside the factory gates, alongside a smaller but still sizeable army of reporters.
"The email and snail-mail requests are knee deep in the receiving room right now, and if I can't stem them, I'm sure I'll lose some mailroom Loompas to-" He paused, looking up as if the brim of his hat would give him inspiration. "Whatever the paper equivalent of Davy Jones is."
I have to go to work tomorrow. Sarah opened her mouth, then hesitated. She would never ordinarily have dreamed of asking Mrs. Walinsky for time off on less than a day’s notice- if that had even seemed like an option, she would have accompanied Charlie on his Golden Ticket trip herself, in a heartbeat. On the other hand, this wasn’t ordinary. Nothing about this was ordinary.
She would just have to cope with Mrs. Walinsky, too. Tomorrow was Saturday. On Monday, she would have to go back to work- assuming she still had a job- and Charlie, of course, had school. Two days, and by then, she promised herself, she would have puzzled out the right thing to do.
“Charlie’s over the moon about all this,” she said, quietly. “He went to bed hours ago, but I can’t imagine he’s asleep. I’d better go check on him- he needs his rest or he won’t be up for anything tomorrow.” This wasn’t strictly true- Sarah knew her boy well enough to know it would take more than a sleepless night or two- or six, or a hundred- to make him pass up another chance to explore the factory. Wild horses wouldn’t stop him.
Mr. Wonka breathed a laugh as he set both hands atop the dome of his cane. "I know the feeling. If you need anything, Mrs. Bucket, feel free to call on Perdia- you know her, that orange-haired assistant of mine, the one Grandma Josephine took against so strongly- have you managed to talk her out of the bathroom yet, by the way?”
“Josephine? Yes, um, she’s-”
“Excellent news! Anyway, Perdia will be happy to accommodate you." He pulled a pocket-watch from his coat, gold with a W engraved on the cover, checked the time, then returned it. "I suppose I should be getting some rest as well."
He glanced out the window once more.
"Mars sure looks lovely tonight."
And with that, he tipped his hat to her.
“Goodnight,” said Sarah, although it wasn’t particularly clear if he even heard her. She thought he inclined his head in response as he vanished down the dark hallway, and a little later the melodic dinng! of the elevator and swish of the doors told her he was gone.
Letting herself back into the penthouse, she bit her lip and wrapped her arms together as she stopped in the doorway. She had no idea what to make of Mr. Wonka, so far. That he was determined to be friendly, seemed pretty self-evident, but how far could she trust it? How far could she trust any of this? Sarah had learned and seen over and over again in her life that if something seemed far too good to be true, it usually was. For the sake of her family, she couldn’t just walk into this whole thing blinded by how grand, how lucky it all seemed. It wouldn’t be lucky, if this mercurial, eccentric stranger just up and changed his mind about the whole thing tomorrow. It would be the furthest thing from lucky- it would hurt Charlie terribly.
She turned, navigating the vast room by the light of the purple-tinted moon. She still had no idea where she’d left her cardigan, but at least she was one-hundred-percent certain where she’d left her son.
They had the entire floor to themselves, the whole place styled like the kind of apartment she'd only seen in the windows of real estate showrooms. There was a living room- she'd never had a living room- and a kitchen that actually had four working burners and a refrigerator.
Everyone had their own room now. Sarah pushed the thoughts away, knowing if she mused on this... gift any longer she would become overwhelmed again.
Charlie’s room was purple, set up with all the things boys his age liked. There was a desk for writing, a bookshelf of stories, even a set of toy cars on the shelves. All these wonders, and she still caught the last few seconds of flurry as Charlie frantically shut off his flashlight, shoved his notebook under his pillow, and flopped back down into the covers.
“Charlie...”
No answer, and a conspicuous lack of movement, as if a certain someone was holding their breath. Smiling, she sat down on the edge of his bed, in much the same way she’d perch herself on the arm of the chair he slept in at home, to tuck him in or tell him a story.
“Charlie Bucket, I know you’re awake.”
The covers flipped as Charlie emerged, gasping for breath a little. He'd had a good bath, and his hair was lighter when you got the dirt out of it. The pajamas that had been left for him were a size too big, giving the impression he was submerged in a sea of purple and gold stripes.
"Oh, hi, Mom-"
She could see part of the notebook sticking out from under his pillow.
“New notebook?” She knew he often used the books they garnered for his schoolwork for his drawings, his odd inventions- for definite non-educational purposes. Charlie never hid things as well as he thought he did- not that he often tried. He was as bright as a firework, but he didn’t have a sneaky bone in his body. This book was bound in bright purple, catching the light as she clicked the bedside lamp on.
“I thought you’d be tired out.”
"A little," Charlie admitted, as he sat up. "But then I keep thinking about all the things I can make now, and I just get too excited!"
She could tell he was beginning to meet his match though, as the allure of a soft mattress -instead of a chair that had already lived at least three lifetimes before it arrived at the Buckets- was a powerful force.
“Well,” she said, briskly, “a little bird told me Mr. Wonka wants to show you around properly tomorrow, so you’d better get some sleep now while you can. From what your grandpa told me about how your tour went today, we’re going to need to stay on our toes.”
Joe, whose stories usually had a touch of the fantastic and a heavy helping of the completely incredible, had been oddly light on details even when pressed... and the details he had given, Sarah hadn’t known what to make of at all. Yet another mystery, to add to the pile.
Gently, she pulled Charlie’s notebook from between the pillows, and put it on the bedside table. She tapped it, with a wry grin. “Now, come on- pen, please. You don’t want to get ink on these nice new sheets.”
Reluctantly, he handed over his pen. He lay back, and Sarah pulled the covers over him.
"Mom? I love you."
Whatever her own misgivings, Sarah was still so glad that he could be so excited, that he could always look to tomorrow with nothing but hope and excitement. Her brave boy.
She ruffled his hair, then kissed his forehead.
“I love you too, Charlie.”
Sarah Bucket woke up feeling more rested then she had in years. Normally, she slept in Charlie’s chair while he was at school, or a small hammock in the back shed, the draftiest spot in the house, but today she found herself waking up in a sea of blankets and soft pillows. She had to wonder if she was still dreaming, if everything before had been a dream. If it was, she was sleeping too long, and would be late for work.
On the hook on the closet door were her clothes from the day before, cardigan included. They had been washed, smelling vaguely of lavender, and the hole in the pocket of her cardigan had been mended. In a daze, moving mostly by habit, she pulled them on.
She was just setting off to go wake Charlie, when there was a knock at the penthouse’s front door. Hurrying across the huge main room, winding between sofas and at one point hurdling a small, weirdly-placed side table, she made it to the door. If they stayed here any length of time, she was definitely going to have to rearrange the furniture to be a little less of an obstacle course, although most of it looked far too heavy to budge. She had no idea what to do with so much room.
Slightly out of breath, she opened the door.
Standing there was Mr. Wonka, poised and prim and proper as always. He was in a different suit today, Violet velvet tailcoat with a loudly-patterned vest, cream-colored pants and wingtip shoes. He was wearing a bowtie today, to which he gave a cheeky adjustment, before beaming brightly.
"Ah! Good morning, Mrs. Bucket!" He leaned to the side, seeing she was the only one awake, and clicked his pocket-watch open.
"Oh, my apologies for being early, I still have this silly thing set to central Oklahoma time. Mind if we come in?"
Before Sarah could answer, Mr. Wonka pushed himself in, followed by Perdia and a pair of other red-headed assistants, pushing carts of breakfast food and a vase of beautiful flowers.
"Big day ahead, best to start it with a great breakfast... in the words of my good associate, Mr. Tony the Tiger." He stood by the dining table, helping his assistants set up a spread of chocolate chip pancakes, buttered toast and oatmeal with sprinkled sugar. When Sarah arrived at his side, he plucked a flower from the vase, offering it like a gentleman.
"Flower, Mrs. Bucket?"
She took it, mostly out of surprise. A fresh rose, petals the color of new butter, it was cool and light in her hand.
“Thank you, I...”
“Mom?” Charlie appeared in the doorway of his room, sleepy-eyed and struggling on a dressing-gown that might have fitted two of him. His face lit up as he saw them, the table and the breakfast that was now more or less laid.
"Charlie!"
"Good morning, Mr. Wonka!" The boy nearly tripped over the edge of the gown as he scurried in, immediately reaching for a pancake.
"Ah-ah, not until you're dressed," warned Sarah, too focused on Charlie to see Perdia elbow Mr. Wonka in the knee to bring his thoughts back to earth. He gave a pouty frown down at his assistant, before he realized Charlie was looking at him expectantly.
The fact was, Charlie’s new dressing-gown, meant for an average-sized eleven-year-old, made it very clear exactly how small the boy was, and how skinny. It wasn’t exactly a revelation for Mr. Wonka, but it was distinct enough now to be a little heartbreaking. He coughed.
“Uh, what she said."
With this incentive, Charlie disappeared almost supernaturally fast, although not before Sarah caught him for a quick hug (and to make sure he left the pancake on the plate where it belonged) The three Loompas, having finished setting the table, vanished just as speedily.
“Thank you,” she called after them, uncertainly, and Perdia, the last one to slip out the door, responded with a wide friendly grin and a wink.
“Why-” she started to ask, turning back to Mr. Wonka. She stopped, mostly because he had moved again and wasn’t where she’d expected him to be standing at all. This seemed to be his habit, never stopping in the same place for more than a moment.
She couldn’t exactly think of how to phrase her questions, so it was probably for the best. Instead, she busied herself with pouring a glass of water from a jug for her rose, going to set it down somewhere safe.
“Will you be having breakfast with us, Mr. Wonka?” she asked, tentatively.
He'd already seated himself at the table. He was about to answer, when his eyes widened, and he slid out of the chair and crossed to her in one fluid motion.
"Wait-wait-wait!" He plucked the rose from her hand. "No, no water, it’s not meant for that."
He looked at her with an expectant smile, which fell when she only replied with a confused expression. "Watch."
He plucked a petal and opened his mouth, popping it in. His face contorted and he coughed, making a childish "Blehhhh!" sound as he spat the petal onto his spare hand. He straightened, staring at the rose.
"Ah. My mistake. This is a real one. I forgot I..."
He looked from the rose to Sarah, and slowly set the flower back into the water.
"Hope you like strawberry jam, that’s what we brought today," he said, as if nothing had happened, returning to his seat.
“Come on, Mom!” Charlie was back, towing her towards the table, and before she could catch her balance she found herself in a chair, with Charlie between her and Mr. Wonka. He’d chosen one of the newer sweaters that had been laid out for him, a greyish-purple knit that should have fit a boy his age but instead hung off his slim shoulders. His pants were new too, cuffed properly, but he still wore his old shoes. Probably, the ones in his room were too big.
The food was delicious. Sarah couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a really satisfying meal, let alone one where she’d been able to eat as much as she wanted. Out of sheer habit she kept half an eye on Charlie, to make sure he was eating properly too. Not that she had to worry- Charlie had never had chocolate-chip pancakes before in his life, and he was clearly happy to make up for lost time.
“Mom, what about Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine?” he said, stopping mid-bite. “And Grandma Georgina and Grandpa George?”
“I’ll take some in to them later,” she told him. “Nobody else’s up yet, Charlie. Your grandpa’s tired out from yesterday- he’ll probably sleep for a week.”
"The Loompas will take care of anything they need. As for Grandpa Joe, my head of security will be happy to help him back into his old job, should he want it."
Mr. Wonka had helped himself to oatmeal, sipping something that looked like one of those fancy Starbucks drinks one of the higher-maintenance patrons at the dry-cleaners might have, except his seemed to have twice the usual amount of whipped cream. The plastic cup had his full name on it in fancy purple and green script, with copious quantities of glitter sticking to it.
"If you thought yesterday was big, today is going to be ginormous."
"Is it going to be as… as…" Charlie, trying to be polite, searched for a word.
"As much of a catastrophe? Oh, no," finished Mr. Wonka. "Just do what you did yesterday, stick close, and you'll be absolutely fine."
“Wait, wait a minute, what do you mean, a catastrophe?” Sarah looked from one to the other, alarmed. “What exactly happened yesterday?”
Charlie and Mr. Wonka exchanged looks, before Charlie looked into his food. Mr. Wonka straightened his jacket.
I suppose she was going to hear about it anyway, he thought.
"We had a few... Incidents, yesterday. Nothing serious. The other children, I'm afraid, were not very good listeners."
Sarah, on the other hand, was. She was a good enough listener to tell an Incident with a capital I when she heard one, and she was certainly a good enough listener to tell when a ‘nothing serious’ came served with a massive dose of ‘probably.’
“What kind of… Incidents?”
They told her.
It took a while. Sarah didn’t contribute much, mostly because she could hardly believe what she was hearing. There were several points where she had to ask both of them to slow down, so she could process the information before they dropped another bombshell on her. Chocolate rivers, blueberries, obstacle courses, worker squirrels, chocolate on television. The explanation, which had to be stopped and restarted several times due to Sarah’s bewildered questions or Mr. Wonka and Charlie excitedly talking over each other, lasted long after the pancakes and toast were completely gone. Once it finally ended, it was quite a while before she realized she was still holding her teacup aimlessly in mid-air, and set it down.
“But, you know what they say; no harm, no foul,” finished Mr. Wonka, cheerfully.
“Mr. Wonka, whoever ‘they’ are, I don’t think they’d say that about this!” she managed. “It sounds like these children were seriously injured, if not- and- and Charlie saw all this?”
“Demonstration is the best education?” said Mr. Wonka, a little less cheerfully. Sarah stood up, putting a reassuring hand on Charlie’s shoulder.
“Mr. Wonka, can I speak to you for a moment?” she said, as steadily as she could. “Alone?”
"I, uh-"
"Now?"
Mr. Wonka looked to Charlie, then slowly rose from his chair. Following after her, he was yanked into the kitchen the moment they were out of Charlie’s line of sight. Reflexively, he grabbed the brim of his hat to keep it from falling.
"Mrs. Bucket-" he tried to start.
Sarah had pressed her fingers to her temples, as if she was trying to prevent her head from coming off. Looking up sharply at the sound of his voice, she stopped him with a hand.
“Mr. Wonka, I’m- I- I need a moment.” She tried to breathe, and fought herself to a point where she could go on. “You’re telling me all of this happened yesterday in this factory of yours and now you want us- you want him to go back? If something like that happened to Charlie-” She couldn’t even say it. Her voice faltered, and she stopped, biting her lip into a thin line, collecting herself.
For the first time, she could see he was a little off-balance, staring off in the distance for a moment. He reached out a hand, seemed to play chicken with the thought of setting it on her shoulder, then decided against it, setting it back atop his cane.
"Mrs. Bucket, I can assure you, all the children are still alive and- "
Well, not ‘well.’
"...alive. Anything that happened to them was their own undoing. I cannot stress enough that Charlie was a model kid during the whole affair, and was never anywhere close to getting hurt, I wouldn't have allowed it-"
“But you ‘allowed it’ with the others! How do you think their parents feel? And he’s just a child, Mr. Wonka, I know Charlie is a sensible boy but you couldn’t have known he would stick to your rules! Or-”
Or could he? Sarah stopped herself short, yet again thinking of that weird purple twilight, the jangle of a shop bell. For a reason she couldn’t have explained, she felt a tiny bit less frantic.
"Mrs. Bucket." Mr. Wonka’s voice, calm and measured, with an energy that commanded the attention of the whole kitchen, cut through her thoughts.
"I'm assuming you must have watched the opening ceremonies yesterday."
She had, in a crowd with her fellow dry-cleaners, huddled around a television set so old the screen was maybe the size of a shoebox. She'd barely been able to hear over her colleagues riffing on the other children, but she’d still been proud as a mother could be at Charlie’s stumbling attempt to talk to the press.
"Allow me to direct your attention to one Mr. Beauregarde." Mr. Wonka raised two fingers, a shredded slip of a business card pincered between them.
"One of four parents who joined us yesterday, whom I did my research on. Former actor in a beach-body sitcom, fell from grace after only one season. Several failed attempts to break back into the industry, misguided movie roles, advertising stunts. He really only came back onto the scene behind his daughter, Violet, who’s been starring in their 'family vlogs' since she was two years old."
He flippantly tossed the strip of card away.
"I would like to think that young Violet’s undoing wasn't solely of her own engineering. But then there's Charlie. Charlie Bucket. The boy whose mother works, what was it, three jobs? Who takes care of all four grandparents in the stead of a man who worked in a toothpaste factory by day and the theater by night... Well, I think it isn't just luck that Charlie is where he is now."
Now it was Sarah who couldn’t hold his gaze. She looked away, into the huge, brand-new kitchen, looking but seeing nothing of it. The hard, inescapable realities of her life, her daily struggle to keep everyone safe and fed and together, these things were hers, alone, to keep as best as she could. She never wanted Charlie to know how much of a struggle it really was, and maybe the thing pained her the most was that to some extent, of course he knew. He was just a child. Worrying about where the next meal was coming from was supposed to be her job, not his.
Sarah never wanted to burden the people she loved, and to hear a stranger with no reason to care state these same facts so baldly and calmly felt like a frightening intrusion. Mr. Wonka had done his research. With all the resources at his fingertips, he must have looked into the lives of all five children- and moreover, in Charlie's case, it seemed he’d been literally just across the street for weeks. God alone knew why, but he knew as much about her as-
She turned.
“Mr. Wonka, can you… promise me he’ll be safe today? No more...” She waved a hand, in a shade of the way he’d waved his. “Incidents?”
"Mrs. Bucket."
Mr. Wonka straightened, with one of the first serious faces she'd seen out of the man.
"I promise to do absolutely everything in my power to keep Charlie safe today. You have my word."
He offered a hand.
She looked hard at him, trying to size him up. There was a sincerity in his voice that she couldn’t deny. As flippant as he usually sounded, right now he seemed completely and utterly in earnest.
“Alright,” she said, at last, and took it.
His handshake was firm, and the moment their hands let go his face brightened, as if a switch had been clicked.
"Right then!" He turned on his heel, heading back for the dining room. "So much time, so little to do- Charlie?"
The boy looked up, seeming surprised and relieved when he saw his smile.
"Are you ready to go?"
"Yes please, Mr. Wonka!" He bounded from his chair.
"Good lad! Now grab your notebook, the Glass Elevator awaits!"