For A Moment - A Wonka AU

Chapter 4: Sweet Tooth

Charlotte was glad to have finally gotten back down to solid ground, because her legs were jello. It would have been a lot easier if she had just used a ladder, she realized.

But then, on the way back home, she ran into her father.

Her heart practically stopped beating as her mind rushed with all the possibilities to come. Had he come looking for her? If so, she had to think up a lie real quickly. She couldn't let him know she was plotting a whole escape plan for Willy. He'd probably board up her door and put bars on her windows or something. She shivered at the thought.

"Charlotte?" He raised an eyebrow and looked down at her. "Hm...what are you doing out so late?"

"Haha...hello, Father!" She gave him a fake smile to cover up all her inner thoughts and feelings. "I was just going on a walk to clear my head!"

"Couldn't sleep again?" he inquired.

She nodded. "Mhm! Yes, my insomnia is getting worse, you see."

Fickelgruber looked at her for a few moments, before sighing and turning away. "Very well, Charlotte. Now, go home and at least try get some sleep. I've got some business with some...friends of mine, if you know what I mean..."

She nodded and began to walk away, before a genius idea flashed through her mind and she turned around again. "W-Wait! Father!"

He turned to face her. "Yes?"

She put her hands on his tie and straightened it for him. "There we are! Don't want you looking silly, now do we?"

"I-" He looked at her, slightly confused, but he didn't question it. "Thank you, Charlotte."

She gave him a smile and turned away for real this time. "Of course! See you later, Father!"

He nodded and they went separate ways.

But what her father didn't know was that when she was straightening his tie, she slipped a small device into his coat pocket. A device that would let her hear every little thing he said while out with his...friends.

Haha! she thought to herself, a mischievous glint in her eyes. I always knew that thing would come in handy one day!

She hurried back home so she'd be able to listen in with no distractions.

She was grateful she remembered to do that. In any other situation, she probably would have forgotten.

Must have been the Silver Linings.

~

Back home, she collapsed on the edge of her bed and grabbed the receiving end of the device she slipped into her father's pocket. The thing that would let her hear everything.

She switched the device on and waited for a few minutes. At first, it just sounded like Fickelgruber, Slugworth, and Prodnose were just chatting amongst themselves about various things- nothing too important.

It wasn't until the Chief of Police came into the conversation that she started listening.

~

The footsteps of the Chief echoed in the vault as he approached the trio.

Fickelgruber sat on a comfy red armchair, sipping a glass of brown liquid; a chocolate martini, perhaps? Prodnose sat on a barstool, aggressively biting into a chocolate ice cream cone. Slugworth's secretary, Miss Bonbon, was sitting behind the counter, flicking through some paperwork. She raised an eyebrow in acknowledgement of the Chief before going back to work. Slugworth put away a green ledger he was scribbling in as the Chief arrived.