Wonka

Chapter 4: Scrub Scrub

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Willy returned to Scrubitt and Bleacher's, feeling very dejected, to be greeted by Mrs. Scrubitt at the desk.

"Evening Mr. Wonka. How'd it go?" She asked.

"Not quite as well as I'd hoped." Willy confessed.

"Oh, shame. Well, I'm afraid we do have to settle up now." She said.

"Well, thankfully the room's taken care of." He muttered, placing the sovereign on the desk. "Believe we said a sovereign?"

"For the room, yes. But you have incurred a few extras during the course of your residency with ourselves." Mrs. Scrubitt told him, smiling smugly.

Willy looked confused. "Have I?"

"Yes, you have." She opened the folder with his contract that listed all of his expenses. "There was that glass of gin you had on arrival, and if I remember rightly, you warmed your cockles by the fire."

"He did indeed, Mrs. Scrubitt." Bleacher chimed in, closing the doors and locking them.

"Cockle warming's extra, see?"

"Used the stairs to get to his room an all." Bleacher added.

"Oh, then you've got your stair charge, and that is per step I'm afraid, up and down. Now, tell me Mr. Wonka, did you happen to use the mini bar?" Mrs. Scrubitt asked.

"The minibar?"

"Mini bar of soap." Bleacher specified.

"By the sink."

"I-I might have, briefly." Willy admitted.

"Oh-ho!" Bleacher grimaced.

"See? Even Bleacher knows you never touch the minibar, and he was raised in a ditch." She snorted. "And in the mattress hire, your linen lease, and your pillow penalty, and you are looking at...10,000 sovereigns."

Willy looked at her incredulously. "You gotta be kidding me."

"It's all in the small print, dearie." Mrs. Scrubitt replied smugly.

"I don't have ten thousand sovereigns." He told her.

Bleacher started stalking towards him. "Then we have a problem, Mr. Wonka."

"You're gonna have to work it off in the Wash House, ain't ya?" Mrs. Scrubitt said. "A sovereign a day."

"Ten thousand days is..."

"Twenty seven years."

Bleacher started shoving Mr. Wonka backwards.

"Four months."

"And sixteen days."

With one final push, Willy was thrown down a laundry chute.

...

Willy slid down the chute, landing in a laundry basket in the basement of the laundry place.