Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (my version)

Chapter 1: Charlie Bucket

This is the story of a regular, but cheerful young lad who was named Charlie Bucket. He lived in a shady English town with his family in their small, shabby and somewhat rickety house sitting all by itself. His family consisted of his parents and four of the grandparents. There was the parents of his mother, Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine and the parents of his father, Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina. Because they were so old and fragile, they sat in one large bed together, given they have been bedridden for as long as they could remember. Grandpa Joe and Grandpa Josephine sat on the left side of the bed while Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina sat on the right side of the bed. Charlie and his parents slept in the other room on mattresses on the floor. Charlie's father worked at the local toothpaste factory. He sat by the conveyor belt and screwed caps on the tubes after they've been filled. The hours were uncomfortably long and the minimum wage was hardly acceptable by standards. Not enough to help support his family. His mother was a stay-at-home type of person who looked after her family, one member at a time.

Now Charlie wasn't stronger or faster, but he was smarter than other children. He and his family never had any good food to eat like other people. While the rest of the children got to have delicious sweets like chocolate and sodas, all Charlie got to eat was cabbage soup. Nevertheless, nothing was more satisfying as cabbage than cabbage. But the one thing that Charlie Bucket longed for and was most desire to eat was chocolate.

Everyday on his way home from school, he would pass the local candy shop of the town with stacks of chocolate bars and lollipops and cookies all stacked up in the windows. But he had very little pocket money to buy any. Of course, every year on his birthday, he would get a slab of chocolate. But having chocolate only once a year was like torture. It was just torture not having enough chocolate. It was torture to see other children have their share of chocolate while he just watched. It was torture not even having so much as a ten pence to buy chocolate for himself. But the one that was the most torturous of all was just miles down the block.

In the very town he lived in, sitting just a mile down the street away from his house was the biggest chocolate factory in the history of chocolate factories in the entire world. The most mysterious and most famous chocolate factory Charlie could feast his eyes upon. But it was no ordinary factory. This chocolate factory was owned by the greatest, legendary candy maker, Willy Wonka!

A chocolatier as he was so called because he loved making the sweetest, creamiest and most delicious chocolate that you could ever eat! But it wasn't just chocolate he made. Oh, no! He made other assortments of candy and confectionery of his own design, brand and flavor. Nothing than any living human on the planet could ever resist. Yes, he was the toast of the whole world. A celebrity, an icon, a role model, etc. Every candy shop in the world wanted in on Wonka's legendary candy.

Charlie Bucket would stare upon the giant foundation of the factory itself with looks of awe and amazement and get a whiff of that sweet scent of chocolate that drifted from the factory and got caught on the wind for everyone to smell; enough to make your mouth water.

"Quite a sight, isn't it?" cried an elderly voice, making Charlie turn right around to face an gentleman no older than any of his grandparents staring back at him with a haunting frown on his face, making Charlie feel uncomfortable.

"Uh...yeah. It sure it." Charlie nodded nervously in agreement.

"Home of the world's most successful confectioner." The man replied, approaching the front gates where Charlie stood. "Every damn year, he's the talk of everything. Never has he disappointed. But no one has ever seen him in person."

Charlie stared at the stranger with listening ears and curious eyes as he continued.

"Never once leaves his precious factory. Nobody ever goes in and nobody ever comes out. Ever."