NOTE: This fanfic is based on the 2005 movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," not the first movie or even the book. Therefore, Wonka is Depp-Wonka (alright, I'll probably through in a little Wilder too, but it's mostly Depp), and all the other characters are based on the characters in the movie. The one exception is that I might tweak things a little so that they resemble the musical "Willy Wonka" I was in at my camp, such as references to the original songs or Violet's southern accent. If you were wondering, I played Wonka in the musical. God I love telling people that. Anyways, onward and offward, backward and forward. Off we go!

Chapter One: The Greedy Boy

"Augustus," Mrs. Gloop cried, wringing her hands in the air dramatically as she spoke in rapid German, "how many times have I told you to stop eating yourself?"

Augustus gave a guilty smile and looked up from the chocolate-covered fingers he'd been licking. The fingers themselves had been cleaned long ago, but every so often Augustus would take a few and dip them into his pockets or his shoe or anywhere on him where chocolate reigned, which happened to be almost all of his immense body. "I'm sorry, Mother," he replied, also in German. "But I taste so good! Can't I just have a few more licks?"

Mrs. Gloop shook her head slowly and turned away. "What am I going to do with you, Augustus?" she muttered to herself, forcing her eyes on the landscape flying by outside the window instead of on her son. She'd deal with him when their flight arrived back home. For now it was all she could do to ignore the slurping sounds coming from the seat next to her. "Just don't get any chocolate on my dress, all right, dear?"

Augustus nodded, his many chins wobbling. "Arrigh, Muh." His voice was muffled by the chocolate-coated fingers that had already found their way back into his mouth.

Fortunately, the cabdriver did not speak German, or she would have been completely and utterly disturbed by this mother-son conversation. Who ever heard of a mother asking her son to stop eating himself? But then again, she'd been in the cab with them for a good half-hour, so maybe it wouldn't be much of a surprise at all.

The cabdriver was in a bit of a foul mood. She'd admitted the odd pair into her cab under the pretense that they could give her information, but they hadn't given her much of anything at all. The chocolate boy in the backseat did nothing but lick at his fingers and talk dreamily of food, and his mother did nothing more interesting than scolding him from time to time. The whole idea had been a complete waste, and now the seats were dirty, too. So much for the fame and fortune that the cabdriver thought she could have had. Augustus knew nothing about Wonka's factory save that there was the chocolate he loved inside it, and of course you didn't have to have won a Golden Ticket to know that.

The cabdriver had been extremely reluctant in the first place to allow a boy covered in what appeared to be chocolate into her cab—think of how much it would cost to clean the upholstery! But she'd let him in anyway, on the hopes of getting famous. Bah. Dark thoughts clouded the cabdriver's mind, most of them a tad nasty towards the boy called Augustus Gloop. She shook her head, remembering exactly how the boy had gotten in, and how much she regretting not running when the boy had first waddled into view.

--

Around a half-hour earlier, the boy and his mother were walking quite slowly from the general direction of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory to the general direction of a certain taxicab. The boy, who could easily outweigh as a small elephant, was lapping excitedly at his brown hands as his mother loudly cried out in what sounded like German. The cabdriver blinked in surprise. They were heading for her cab. She knew they were, but at the same time she couldn't help wishing they weren't. The huge boy frightened her from his size alone, but the substance that covered the boy was even more alarming. What could it be? the cabdriver thought fearfully to herself. Mud? Droppings? But the boy did appear to be licking himself, so the only logical answer could be…

The cabdriver's jaw literally dropped open in surprise. But that was preposterous! Surely the fat boy wasn't covered in chocolate!

The boy and his mother finally puffed in front of the cabdriver. The woman sighed, presumably exhausted from scolding her son over and over, or maybe it was just the long walk from where they'd come that had tired her out. Up close the cabdriver got a good look at her. She was just as large around as the boy was, but she was a good two feet taller than him, so it didn't look quite so alarming on her. She was wearing a suitably wide and considerably ugly dress, the outfit topped with pearls and too much make-up and a very high hairdo. She spoke with an accent, and her voice was hoarse, her eyes teary as the words tumbled from her fat lips. "Please, Miss, may we have a ride in your taxi back to our hotel?"

The cabdriver suddenly remembered that she was still gaping. She hurriedly shut her mouth tight, and then replied in the politest voice she could muster, "Ma'am, if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not. Your son would get chocolate all over the seats and they're a fortune to clean."

The woman stared at her with a very perplexed expression. The cabdriver simply stared back until it came to her why the woman looked so confused. She could have hit herself for it. Chocolate! She'd actually said chocolate aloud, hadn't she? In all likelihood, the boy just had an odd taste for mud, and now his mother would think the cabdriver insane for even suggesting the boy was covered in chocolate. Who knows, she might even spread the word to all her friends that the cabdriver was crazy until no one would ride in this particular cab for fear of the driver inside. And it would be a breeze for them to spot the right taxi, as it would be the one with brown goop smeared all over the back row of seats.

But to the cabdriver's surprise, the woman didn't say anything about how many marbles she'd lost. Instead, to her complete shock, the woman burst into violent tears and threw herself into the cabdriver's arms. "Oh, please, Miss, please! We have no other way back to the hotel and as you can see, my Augustus needs a bath very badly!"

That was one fact the cabdriver couldn't disagree with. "Please, Ma'am, it would help a bit if I knew what's all over your son here." She held Augustus's mother awkwardly a foot away from her body, as if afraid of being contaminated by the woman's tears. "Some things are harder to clean from my cab's seats than others. You know how it is." As Augustus's mother gave a nod, the cabdriver felt a little pang of guilt. Her statement was only half true. Whatever was covering the boy, it would surely be near-impossible to get out of the seats' leather, and it wouldn't make much a difference whether it was excrement or chocolate pudding. But the cabdriver couldn't help being curious as to what had happened to this strange, fat boy and his overemotional mother. It wasn't a crime to try and figure it out.

The woman's tears now had the front of her dress soaked through, eye shadow streaming down her cheeks as she hiccupped uncontrollably. She shook her head numbly in response to the cabdriver's question. She was in too much of a state to answer.

The cabdriver released one of her arms from around the woman's middle to pat her awkwardly on the back. "There, there." It was a very strange moment.

The fat boy was eyeing the cabdriver curiously, ignoring his mother's sobs. Suddenly his piggy eyes flitted to the cab and back again, his pudgy fingers twitching slightly.

"Is there anything I can help you with?" the cabdriver asked him crisply. It looked as if the boy was wondering if there was anything in the car worth robbing, and that was exactly the last thing the cabdriver needed right now—not that there was much she owned worth stealing, anyway.

The boy looked at the cabdriver's face, choosing his words carefully. "Do you have any food in that cab of yours, Fräulein Driver Woman?"

Fräulein Driver Woman? Well, one thing was for sure: the boy certainly wasn't starving. He could do without food for an hour or two. The cabdriver shook her head. "No, I'm afraid I don't." She chanced another look at the boy's mother, whose sobs seemed to have subsided a little. She heaved the woman out of her arms as quickly as she could without looking rude.

The woman wobbled slightly on her feet, but at least she was all right enough to stand up now. She wiped her teary eyes on a sleeve and sniffled a few times. "I am sorry about that, Miss. And to answer your question, my Augustus is covered in… chocolate." Another sniffle.

So it was chocolate. The cabdriver breathed a sigh of relief. It was certainly odd, but at least now the woman wouldn't go telling everyone she knew that the cabdriver was crazy. And she'd said the boy's name… twice now. What had she called him? Ah, yes. Augustus. The name sounded distinctly familiar. The cabdriver racked her brain to think of where she could have heard it before. It wasn't very common. She looked over at the boy, Augustus, and saw him sneak a few licks at his fingers now that his mother was occupied.

"Ma'am, if you don't mind me asking, how exactly did Augustus get covered in"—the cabdriver paused there, struck by the insanity of what she was about to say—"chocolate?"

The woman heaved a great sigh and shook her head. "Augustus was the first finder of the Wonka Golden Tickets. I thought everyone would know that by now. It was all over the news—at least, back in Germany it was. Maybe it was not as widespread here."

A kind of reckless excitement spread in the cabdriver's heart at this realization. So that's why "Augustus" had sounded so familiar—he'd won one of Willy Wonka's Golden Tickets! Augustus Gloop, from Germany. Yes, that sounded familiar for sure. Now more curious than ever, she pushed on. "So you were actually inside the factory? What was it like?" The cabdriver would have given anything to have found a Ticket herself, but having no children of her own, it would have been a little awkward for a grown woman to take place on a tour meant for children. And now here she was with one of the Golden Ticket winners themselves! Surely that was the second-best thing to actually being inside the factory.

The woman, who she assumed was Mrs. Gloop, shrugged. "I would not know. Augustus and I only got into the first room before he fell into the chocolate river!"

Augustus didn't seemed at all abashed by this, still licking clumsily at his fingers. The cabdriver leaned in closer, as hungry for information as Augustus was for food. "There's a chocolate river in Wonka's factory?"

Mrs. Gloop waved it away. "Yes, but poor Augustus has a cold and he sneezed so hard that he tumbled into the river!" She shook her head, her voice slowly rising in what seemed to be fury. "That insensitive Mr. Wonka did nothing about it! He just sat and watched my Augustus get sucked up a pipe into the fudge room with a smirk on his evil little face! And then he sends a little man off to take me to Augustus, and when we arrive he starts stabbing at the fudge with a long, sharp stick!" Tears sprung up in her eyes again as she recalled these painful moments.

"A little man?" inquired the cabdriver excitedly. "What kind of little man?" Maybe she'd finally be the one to discover the mystery of Wonka's workers' identity! Then she'd be as famous as a Golden Ticket winner, famous being something she'd always hoped to be.

To her immense disappointment, Mrs. Gloop ignored her and pushed on. "Poor Augustus! I heard him cry out when he was poked and then the little man tried to pull him out by his hair!" The tears were flowing fully again now. Mrs. Gloop gave a great shudder and sobbed, "Finally he had to call five other men like him over to pull my Augustus out! By then Augustus was covered from head to toe, but of course he was not allowed to stay and dry off—that beastly Mr. Wonka pushed us out at once!"

"What was Wonka like?" asked the cabdriver, slightly irritated now that she wasn't getting any answers. So the factory had a chocolate river and was filled with little men. That was a start, but she needed more if she wanted fame for her discoveries.

"Simply awful!" cried Mrs. Gloop. "He did not care about Augustus at all! All he cared for was his own candy!" She glared wildly at the cabdriver, as if Wonka's behavior was somehow her fault. "Plus, he seemed to be completely out of his mind when he did bother to talk to us. Always saying strange things that do not make any sense!"

Wonka was crazy? Great, just perfect. That was not what the public would want to hear. "What else did you see in the factory?" the cabdriver asked, effectively veering the subject away from the question of Wonka's sanity. When the reporters came to her house asking for information on the factory, she could overlook that one particular fact.

Mrs. Gloop sighed again and shrugged her massive shoulders. "I do not want to waste any more of your time. And my son and I really must be going now. Come along, Augustus." She turned to face her son and promptly cried out in annoyance. Augustus had chosen that moment to start licking his forearm, his fingers now clean, if not a little slimy. "Augustus!" Mrs. Gloop cried, enraged at her son's behavior. The next accusation was in German, but the cabdriver could easily tell that it wasn't something pretty.

Augustus apologized and shoved his hands into his pockets, looking forlornly at the ground. Mrs. Gloop nodded in approval, and then said something in German that made Augustus's face contort into one out of a horror movie.

"No!" Augustus shook his fat head back and forth several times. "Mother, no! You cannot do this to me! I refuse!" He stomped his foot on the ground in fury, his face very red now. "I refuse!"

"What is it?" the cabdriver asked, trying to sound slightly concerned. More than her concern was the drive to keep Mrs. Gloop talking, to keep the information rolling.

Mrs. Gloop sighed. "I was just telling Augustus that starting tomorrow he will be going on a diet straightaway. Back at the factory it was dead embarrassing, how many comments those awful little men made about Augustus's size." She shook her head just like Augustus had done, as if trying to convince herself of otherwise. "He is a growing boy, and everyone in our family has always been big-boned. But…" She looked at the cabdriver with pleading eyes. "If socially he cannot fit in because of this, then measures must be taken, yes? It is all for the best."

The cabdriver gave a sharp nod. "Yes." Indeed, she agreed heartily that a diet would do Augustus some good, if only for his own health more than his social life.

Augustus's eyes were huge in his sockets, and his hands were now out of his pockets and flinging dramatically through the air. "No, Mother, please! You cannot make me!" He stamped his foot on the ground once more. "Herr Wonka promised all the Golden Ticket winners a lifetime supply of chocolate, and I will eat that lifetime supply of chocolate!" A piggish sort of delight lit up Augustus's eyes. Apparently this was the thing he'd been looking forward to the most. "He said we can even get refills if we run out!"

"Augustus, dear, please at least try this for a few days," Mrs. Gloop suggested timidly. "You will have your chocolate eventually. It will not hurt you if you save it tucked away for a short while."

Judging by Augustus's expression, he was positive that it most certainly would hurt him. He pouted, his huge bottom lip jutting out below the top one, but all he said was a muttered, "Fine."

Mrs. Gloop put her hand on her son's shoulder, making sure to avoid the more chocolatey areas as not to spoil her silk gloves. "Good boy. Now come along, dumpling, we will find another cab to take us back to the hotel."

The cabdriver blinked. Here was a Golden Ticket winner and his mother, right before her very eyes, and here they were getting away! "What's wrong with my cab?" asked the driver haughtily, hands on her hips and a stern look in her eyes.

Mrs. Gloop looked taken aback. "I thought you did not want to get chocolate on the seats."

The cabdriver shrugged in what she hoped looked a friendly way. "No, it doesn't matter. I don't mind. I can get it cleaned. I mean, I'd love to hear more about your tour of the factory," she said eagerly, clapping her hands together. "So, where is this hotel of yours?"

Mrs. Gloop gave directions and allowed herself and her son to be guided into the taxi's back seats. The cabdriver watched them both with a mischievous gleam in her eye as she climbed into the driver's seat. Images flashed through her mind of a possible future: magazine interviews, TV hotspots, a major motion picture even! And of course it would be all over the news: "Simple cabdriver talks to Golden Ticket Winner and learns the long-coveted secrets of Willy Wonka's factory!"

No, she thought happily, "simple" just wouldn't do at all. "Pretty" cabdriver, now that would do quite nicely. Or "intelligent" cabdriver, perhaps. Possibly even "remarkable"?

And maybe, she thought, as the key turned in the ignition and the car started off towards the Gloops' hotel, having this little chocolate-coated fat boy in her taxicab would pay off after all.