The Needy Beat The Greedy (Wonka 2023 fanfiction)

Chapter 3

Third person

Willy watched the girl being dragged away. He was so mesmorised by her, he almost didn't notice someone take his money jar off of him.

"Hey!" The chief of police was standing over him, holding Willy's jar of hard-earned money. "Sorry boy, the law's the law." There was that stupid 'imagination fine' and now this! Who knew a town could have so many rules?

"Could I at least have one sovereign? I need to pay for my room." The officer glanced around to make sure no one was watching and put a sovereign from his pocket into Willy's hand.

He walked back to Scrubbit and Bleachers, glumly. Even if it didn't go exactly how he expected, he still had a sovereign to pay for his room. He was even considering staying there for another night, if they let him.

"Evening Mr. Wonka!" Miss Scrubbit greets him. "How'd it go?" "Not as well as I hoped," he admits. "That's such a shame. We have to settle up now." "I believe it was a sovereign?"

Willy took the sovereign the man gave him and placed it on the table. "For the room, yes. But you have incurred a few extras during your stay." "Have I?" "Yes you have." She holds up a ledger and starts listing off his mistakes, one by one.

"And your total comes out to... 10,000 sovereigns!" "B-but I don't have 10,000 sovereigns!" Bleachor backed him up against the laundry chute. "Well, we're going to have a problem, aren't we, Mr. Wonka?" And that was all that was said before he was shoved down there.

He landed on a soft pile of dusty clothes, coughing up the dust. "Well, you must be Mr. Wonka." A man who looked at least twice Willy's age, said, "I'm Abacus Crunch, charted accountant. At least I was, now I..."

He paused, before a woman walked up to the laundry cart Willy fell in and helped him up. "He runs the place. Better do what he says, or you'll answer to me. Piper Benz, plumber by trade."

Abacus introduced him to the rest of the crew. "That's Larry Chuckesworth, and that over there is Miss Lottie Bell." The dog from before barked at them, apparently telling them to get back to work. 

"Come along now, Mr. Wonka, you're with me, on suds." Willy spent the rest of his day mixing laundry and listening to one of the most depressing songs he's ever heard.

Soon he found himself in front of his room. "Scrub, scrub!" They sang, wrapping up the song, finally, leaving Willy alone in the silence of his own room.

The room had leaks coming from the roof, that fell into buckets, making and incredibly annoying 'drip' sound.

~•~

"Room service!" The little girl, named Noodle by memory, peeked her head through the door.

"Told you to read the small print." "There's one problem with that." Noodle looked confused for a second, before realisation hit her. "You can't read, can you?"

"I've only ever studied chocolate. For everything else, I just relied on the kindness of strangers." "Oh, look where that's got you: staff headquarters. There is no 'kindness' in this world. The greedy beat the needy. Always."

She dumped a bowl of what Willy honestly thought was vomit at first, on his desk and head out the door. "Oh come on, Noodle, that's just your orphan-syndrome talking!" He called back at her. "My what?"

"And we're not having any slops tonight!" He pulled out a briefcase, ignoring Noodle's question.

"What are you doing?" "Why, making chocolate of course! How do you like it? Dark, white, nutty, absolutely insane?" She paused for a moment.

"I don't know. I've never had any." Willy started hyperventilating, while Noodle was backing up against the door, wondering if it was to late to escape. After a mini panic attack, he settled on making a chocolate called 'silver lining'.

Noodle put it up to her mouth, and took a tiny bite. It was the best thing she'd ever tasted! But then she stopped and put it back in the desk. "I wish you hadn't done that."

"Why, don't you like it?" "I do. It's just that... Now every day without chocolate will be a little bit harder now." "Then how would you like to have chocolate every day of your life? A lifetime supply!"

"What would I have to do?" Noodle questioned, knowing there was always a catch, though she couldn't blame him for not giving something this good for free.

"Oh, you just have to get me out of here." "ARE YOU CRAZY?!" "Shhh! It'll only be for a few hours. I'll sell my chocolate, we'll split the profits and we'll be out of here in no time!"

"It's a nice idea, Willy, but it'll never work. Miss Scrubbit watches everything like a hawk. Except... Huh." An idea started forming in her head. Almost like magic.

"What?" "It's nothing." "Oh, ok." "Huh." "Double huh! That's not nothing, that's the silver lining, it's given you an idea!" "Well the only time she let down her guard is when an aristocratic came in..."

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881 words
I hate writing dialogue, so I skipped most of it and now this chapter is really boring. Sorry about that.
- Amelia