Veruca was the first to speak again, in an anticlimactic and predictably uninvested drawl: "Yeah, sure. It's a bit small, but I could slum it here for maybe a month, I'm sure..."

"Could you not do your 'dry British humor' thing for a second?" Augustus demanded.

"No," Veruca replied. Dryly.

"Why would you want us to live here?" Violet asked. "Are the Oompas tired of being your test subjects or something, so you wanted to screw around with us again?"

"No, of course n-"

"You do know we have parents, right?" Mike interrupted Charlie's placative response. "How do you expect me to run it by Frank and Ellen Teavee that the guy who gleefully stretched my entire body until I was two-dimensional is also maybe offering lodging? And what about his mom?" (He gestured to Augustus.) "Have you seen one of her interviews lately? She wants your factory torn down if she has to eat the bricks herself!"

"You watch my mother's interviews? I don't even watch my mother's interviews."

"I actually did make an edible building once," Wonka interjected brightly. "A palace. But the prince let it melt..."

"Were you inside it?" Violet and Veruca asked at the same time, then shared a smile. Mike wondered if he should start seeing Veruca as potential competition, too.

"I'm off candy," Augustus digressed. "And I'm not trying to relapse."

"Because you care about your health, or because you care about being able to say you're off candy?" Veruca asked.

"Because I know how it feels when people look at you and define you by what you eat," Augustus replied.

Perhaps a touch sympathetic, Veruca answered, "Sure. Now they define you by what you don't eat. All better, right?"

"More to the point: Veruca, you said you're in?" Charlie asked hopefully.

"If you can convince all the others," Veruca replied, with a slight smile as if she knew that she had just set an impossible task and looked forward to seeing the hoops jumped through.

"You're willing to cohabitate with the squirrels that attacked you?" Mike asked.

"I'm sure they're not the same squirrels," Augustus said.

"Actually, they probably are," Veruca said shrewdly. "For a lark, I looked up the life expectancy of a squirrel a while back thinking it would cheer me up, but then I found out they can live for over 20 years, in captivity. So unless they were already quite old or Wilbur's been feeding them exploding jelly beans or some nonsense, they're probably still alive."

They stared at her for a second.

"I'm not living here," Violet said.

"Thought you said you weren't chicken," Veruca said.

"I've literally done so much impressive crap since leaving this craphole, and people still ask me about the factory tour," Violet said. "I'm not moving in and letting them all but delete 'Olympian' from my Wikipedia description."

"Do you actually read your Wikipedia page?" Augustus asked, like he honestly just didn't know what kind of ego he was dealing with here.

"Yeah. Regularly," Violet said. Because of course she did.

"Me too," Mike said, then caught himself, "I mean, mine. I also read my Wikipedia page. Not yours."

"Smooth save. Very convinced," Veruca snorted.

"Shut up; it's true," Mike lied, blushing violently. He caved and grabbed a dinner roll to munch on just so he didn't have to look at anyone.

"We, er..." Charlie seemed noticeably less sure of himself than he had before; he was beginning to assume his old humble, unassuming posture. But then he glanced at his mentor and sat up straight again. "We know that it would be a difficult change for all of you. But we also believe that we would all stand to benefit. Violet, you said that you're treated like a spectacle out there. Here, we have loads of Oompa Loompas who are blue!"

Violet exhaled hard and wore an expression as if she was no longer sure her patience was going to be worth it.

"Same to you, Mike," Charlie carried on, and Mike stirred from his mortified curl-in. "There are all shapes and sizes of Oompa Loompa here."

"For clarity, a part of your pitch is that your slaves have also been subjected to workplace accidents, probably untreated, and therefore we'll fit in?" Mike said. He still had his recording device, and that sort of admission should play well in court.

"No!" Charlie said, and now he was blushing. "That's not...And they're not..." He huffed. "I'm saying, if you're having such a rough go out there, maybe here is a better place for you. It's been a better place for me."

"Weren't you, like, really really poor, though? Before coming here?" Veruca pointed out.

"Lay off him, with that," Violet defended, unexpectedly.

"He was, though," Veruca said, with just the barest hint of a self-justifying whine creeping in.

"That's none of your business," Violet insisted.

"It's alright," Charlie said, though he seemed slightly cheered by having someone stand up for him. "I don't mind; she's right. I was very lucky to even find a ticket. I only had candy once a year, before."

Veruca rolled her eyes. "You should have told me to bring my violin; I'd play a sad song for you."

"Maybe they should throw you down the chute again," Mike teased her, as payback for her mockery earlier. "I don't think the first time did the trick."

"Believe me; I asked if they'd let me have a dive," Veruca sighed, playing with her food as she spoke. "Sad Violin here said no. And you're only mocking me because you think Violet will approve and everyone here wants her to like them."

"I don't," Wonka interjected again. "I find her dislike for me very comforting."

"And yet you're asking me to move in," Violet said.

"Charlie wants you to move in," Wonka said. "I just don't care, and I like indulging him; he needs it."

"What do you want then?" Violet asked Charlie. "No fluff; just tell us straight."

"I...well...Alright." Charlie folded his hands. "I've been living in the factory for the past several years, and it's been amazing, but it, er, doesn't lend much opportunity for social interaction. I haven't spoken to anyone my own age in...probably since I moved in."

"My gosh, did you fly us in to be his friends?" Mike asked Wonka.

"Not necessarily 'friends'," Charlie qualified. "I guess...company. It had to be you, because you've at least already seen the factory. It wouldn't be like bringing in someone new who might try to sell our secrets."

"Even with that reason, we are the worst people to invite," Mike said. "Violet's an athlete, I require physical therapy, Augustus has his diet thing, I'm pretty sure Veruca is more or less a sociopath…"

Veruca raised her shoulders and dropped them apathetically.

"I'm in," Augustus said, ridiculously.

"Pardon?" Mike said.

"I've got to face my demons eventually."

"What's your non-angsty reason?" Violet sighed. "Because if angst is your only reason, I can buy you angst on a t-shirt, no move-in required."

"If I last even a month here, then I'll know I'm definitely not going to relapse," Augustus said. "Then I can stop walking on eggshells all the time. And if I do relapse, at least my mother won't know. And I'm sure Wonka will provide some sort of punishment."

"That isn't even close to a healthy reason," Violet said.

"I'm in," Augustus reaffirmed regardless.

"What about you, Mike?" Charlie was beginning to beam, which was insufferably precious. Ugh. "We do have physical therapists here."

"Are they Oompa Loompas?" Mike asked flatly.

"Yes."

"Hard pass."

"But they're quite good at-"

"Hard pass."

"That's too bad," Wonka sighed, working his knife and fork ruefully over a piece of meat. "I thought you might want to get a look at some of my newer inventions."

Uh-oh.

"Care to recall what happened last time I gave a crap about one of your science projects?" Mike said, largely to cover up the fact that his curiosity was piqued. What could the maniac be up to now? What insane innovation was he applying all wrong at this very moment, in this very building?

"No, no, you're right," Wonka said, clearly aware that he was in Mike's head now. "I was just being silly..."

"Fortify, Mike," Violet urged. "Don't get tempted." Oh, her hand was on his arm.

"You're the one who said that the amount of power it would take to convert energy and matter would be like nine atomic bombs," Wonka recalled, word for word, which was deeply eerie. "I'm sure you're not curious how I generate that sort of power. Not even a little."

"He's probably just got the Oompas on giant hamster wheels or something," Violet said.

"He's going to cave," Veruca said, looking at Mike's painfully-tempted expression with amusement.

"I'm..." Mike paused, and looked at Wonka's smug face. And sighed. "Are you doing anything illegal?" That would be the obvious answer, the un-tantalizing one: that he was just stealing energy that was supposed to be powering a small nation or something.

"Nope," Wonka said, so clearly pleased with himself.

"I'm in; I have to know," Mike said, fully defeated. "I'll get Dad to sign a permission slip."

"Mike," Violet groaned.

"Knew it," Veruca said.

"So, Violet, you're the only hold-out," Charlie said expectantly.

"Peer pressure doesn't work on someone who thrives on being different," Mike told him, scornful at such an ill-conceived effort.

"I'm in," Violet relented grudgingly.

"Wait, really?" Mike said, doing a double-take.

"If I'm the only one who doesn't move in, that'll be all anyone asks me about for the rest of my life," Violet explained sharply. Mike couldn't tell whether or not she was mad at him. If she was, that was not something he knew how to handle. "Better to just bite the bullet."

"Chew the bullet, in your case," Veruca teased.

"You know what? I changed my mind," Violet said. "I'm only in if I get to push Veruca back down the chute myself."

"Are you...joking?" Charlie hazarded. "Or...?"

"Does it matter?" Violet pushed her plate away. "I'm in, we're in, Wonka gets what he wants. All that's left is for Mike to break it to his parents."

"Can I go with you, to watch?" Veruca asked him.

"I doubt that would be constructive," Mike sighed. They really had all been suckered into this. Willy Wonka had actually convinced the four people who had more reason to hate him than anyone else on the planet to stay in his home. And crazier still...Mike couldn't help feeling that a part of him had actually wanted to be convinced. He couldn't even almost wrap his head around that; if pressed he would say that it was a need for closure, but he wasn't sure that that was the entirety of it, either. Maybe he had somehow become addicted to the enhanced reality in this ridiculous place.

"So, I assume you have guest bedrooms or something?" Veruca prompted, rising from her seat and stretching. "I'd better check it out, see if I need to buy new furniture."

"Oh," Charlie said, "I can take you t-"

While they were still talking, Violet got up and took long, irate strides out of the room. Pausing only for a second to pick a direction, she set off down a random corridor, leaving the rest of them with only the sound of her roller skates.

"That's safe," Veruca said sarcastically.