Tarantella

Chapter 2 : The ticket

It is a chilly spring morning when I hear the announcement on the radio.

"To show good faith and cheer, the renowned chocolatier Willy Wonka has decided to open up the gates to his factory once more! But it will not be an open house for all – only five lucky people will be invited inside. And who will these five lucky individuals be? If they can find a golden ticket hidden inside the wrapper of a wonka bar, they have the means to enter the mysterious factory! Already, long lines are forming up at every candy store across the world – everyone eager to win the prize of admission. Will you be one of the lucky few? Only fate will decide!"

The news, while surprising, have little impact on me at first. I simply shrug and move on with my day. But it seems like everybody else is going bananas over this hunt for the few golden tickets. When I pass by the candy store in town, people are clamoring to get inside and buy as many chocolate bars as possible.

And just like they'd said on the radio, its the same everywhere else. A mass hysteria over buying Wonka bars commences for the next month.

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"Your birthday is coming up, isn't it Charlie?"

Its somewhat ironic that the man on the bench knows my birthday, and my own grandparents don't. I pause in my latest attempt at fishing out a triangular sandwich from the vending machine and look at him over my shoulder.

"It is – why do you ask?"

"Well, perhaps you should by a bar of that chocolate then. "

I give him a look that says "you should know better" – because if I'm on my knees trying to fish out a free sandwich from a vending machine,I certainly cannot afford a wonka bar. They're really pricey now too, since the hunt for the tickets began. It's a good marketing scheme, if anything.

"You know that's not possible."

"Here – let me buy it for you."

He holds out a shiny penny for me to take. It doesn't make sense – especially since I suspect he could use it far more than myself.

"That's nice of you, but no thank you."

The man on the bench is usually just that – an ordinary, old man – harmless and not fit to hurt a fly. He wears his sunglasses and a wide-brimmed large hat, hunched into a large brown overcoat. His hands look old and brittle, shaky and quiet just like Grandpa's.

But suddenly his voice changes. It does not wobble, or creak. It is a sharp line, sharp like a knife in the dark.

"No thank you. That's what you always say. No. " his voice darkens, and I swallow. I look at the ground, and do not know how to answer him at first.

"Are you angry?" I ask, because he sounds like it. Or something like it, at least.

The hand holding the penny lowers, and he turns his head away.

Then unexpectedly, after a moment, he laughs. It is a strangely youthful laugh – like it does not belong to an old man at all.

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Two weeks pass, and several of the tickets are found. Most of the winners are people my age – one of them, Veruca Salt, won because she had the money to do so. She bought over 5000 chocolate bars and had the staff of her factory open them all for her.

Augustus Gloop is just lucky, it seems. He eats plenty of them anyhow, and almost ate the ticket when he found it.

Mike Teevee apparently hacked something so that he could find out exactly where ticket number 3 would be. An investigation was opened and is still pending. Just like all the other winners, their face s are photographed and printed in the newspaper – but Mike is the only one giving the finger to the viewer. How charming.

Violet Beauregarde, like Augustus, seems to have been lucky as well. She is also the only child so far to find a ticket. A general outrage among the local children start up, saying how it isn't fair.

"Fair? Nothing is fair – certainly not for us." Grandfather says upon hearing this. One of his many blurted out sentences during the day, when he isn't napping or just staring into space. He rarely speaks for long these days, his voice giving out.

Another week passes, and the final ticket is found by a child in Brazil – so maybe everything is fair after all.

A grand opening ceremony has been announced, to be held the very next day for those few lucky winners. Those of us who live in Cobbswatch are invited to watch – from a distance, of course. Flyers for the event have been put up everywhere in town, and every time I see one I scoff and keep walking.

Who would want to see an old chocolate factory so bad for anyway? It couldn't possibly be anything like Grandfather has described. To him, it was a place that was truly magical – but it's hard to believe him now. If it was just to make my childhood just a little brighter with his tales or due to his dementia, it's hard to know for sure.

I look up at the clock in the kitchen and see that its almost three pm in the afternoon. I smile a little and start putting on my coat.

But when I get to the park that afternoon, for the first time in months, the old man is not there waiting. But there is something in his place on the bench. At first I'm too far away to make out what it is, but as I walk closer and sunlight catches on it, I freeze.

It can't be. It just can't.

But it does look exactly like those golden tickets – down to the watermark in the corner. It gleams like its actually made of real gold. I stare at it for a long time, not daring to pick it up.

But didn't they just announce the last ticket winner? Then surely, this one must be a fake. A joke from the old man – that's what this is.

Finally I pick it up with cautious hands, turning it over this way and that.

I don't know why I feel a twinge of fear just then, instead of joy.