Oompah Loompah Doopity Doo

“What’s behind this door?” asked Veruca Salt, pointing to an anonymous-looking door in the corridor. It was so anonymous, in fact, that the others had walked past it, unaware of its existence.

“Oh that door?” replied Willy Wonka, “There’s nothing behind there. Nothing worth seeing anyway.”

“Well I want to see.” declared Veruca adamantly.

“Honestly my dear, there’s really nothing of any note in there,” he replied, adopting his most gracious and sincere smile.

“Come on Wonka,” said Mr. Salt, sensing an oncoming tantrum from his little princess, “our ticket said ‘a full tour of the factory’. It’s not a full tour if you don’t take us into every room.”

“My dear sir,” said Wonka, straightening up and adopting a clipped tone, “if I were to take you into every room in the factory, we would be walking these corridors until well into next year.”

Mrs. Teavee gave him a playful shove, “C’mon Mr. Wonka. Spill the beans! What’s behind the door?”

“Yeah,” added Mike, “it must be something really cool if you’ve gotta keep it such a secret.”

Wonka winced. He hated the word “cool”. “Fine,” he said, “You want to know what’s in there, be my guests. But don’t get your hopes up,” adding under his breath, “it’s not all chocolate rivers and edible furniture.”

Sweeping the door open with one arm, he beckoned them to enter. Inside, the room was small and windowless. Each wall was plastered with a sea of multi-coloured sticky notes, some of which had fallen off and formed paper puddles on the floor. In the centre of the room was a large, wooden desk covered almost entirely in untidy piles of paper. Behind the desk sat an Oompah-Loompah staring intently at a computer screen. He looked different from the rest; he lacked the energy and joie de vivre of the others and his skin was pallid from spending too much time out of the sun. A pair of half-moon glasses sat perched on the end of his nose and, if you looked carefully, there were flecks of grey around the edges of his red hair.

“Hey!” shouted Veruca in his direction, pushing to the front of the huddle in the doorway. He looked up slowly, peering at her over the top of his glasses. “Who are you?” she demanded,  ”And what’s this room for?”

He didn’t reply immediately, taking his time to look over the group one by one. Drawing a long, considered breath, as if about to impart bad news, he replied, “I’m the project manager.”

There was silence in the room. The 3 remaining children looked at him blankly. Mike Teavee was the first to break the awkward silence, scrunching up his nose in confusion and asking, “The what?”

The Oompah-Loompah gave a weary sigh. “The project manager,” he repeated.

“Wh…what does that mean?” asked Grampa Joe.

“I make sure that, when we make a new batch of chocolate, we make it right and we make it on budget. It’s my responsibility to see that we work as efficiently as possible and don’t get distracted by…things.”

“What kind of things?” asked Mr. Salt.

He raised a single eyebrow and look straight at him. “Dancing, for example.” The more perceptive adults in the room picked up on the twinge of bitter sarcasm in his voice.

“And how’s that all working out for you?” asked Mrs. Teavee.

“Not good,” sighed the Oompah-Loompah, looking back down at his screen, “Not good.” There was an awkward pause.

“Do you…er…have a song?” asked Charlie, trying to be helpful.

“No, not really.”

The conversation having ground to a halt, the group turned around silently and filed through the doorway. Willy Wonka closed it behind them. “Keep up the good work!” he shouted cheerily as the door clicked into place.

“Screw you, you top-hatted weirdo,” muttered the Oompah-Loompah under his breath, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and going back to his 17th consecutive game of Solitaire.

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