"Yes," said Mr. Bucket. "In every way. Do you disagree, Keerthi."

Mr. Bucket was smiling. Keerthi had seen him smile before, but she realized that he must have on every other occasion done it with his mouth closed.

He did not have teeth. He had thousands of tongues, each no larger than a fingernail, all lined up and packed on top of each other like the petals of a spiral flower, a hole in the center where food and air went. How he spoke was a mystery.

"Remember when he made that fondant statue of himself? That had regular teeth. He might be insecure about it! Use that insecurity against him," said Chetan.

"This isn't helping," she said.

"Do you disagree, Keerthi."

"Yes," said Keerthi.

"I disagree too!" shouted Lim's voice synthesizer. Other than when they were inside the Cake Room, Keerthi had never heard him sound so excited.

Mr. Bucket turned to smile at Lim, grinding his tongues together.

"You do."

"Yes!" said Lim. "Of course I do! The metaphorical cost of life isn't a fare! It is a charge! I cannot believe Keerthi forgot the difference between a charge and a fare."

"Oh," said Mr. Bucket. The tongues disappeared behind his lips, and the question marks in his voice came back. "Is that what you meant?"

"Obviously that is what she meant," said Tide. "Mahuika agrees with us too."

"I vape."

Mahuika vaped.

Mr. Bucket looked at the three of them, and then back at Keerthi.

"I misunderstood then! I thought you were saying another thing."

"I..."

Tide and Lim, who were standing behind Mr. Bucket, shook their heads at Keerthi.

"Did not," said Keerthi.

"Good," said Mr. Bucket. It's water under the grave."

"Um," said Keerthi. "You mean under the bridge."

"Sure."

He pressed a button on his cane. The Convenient Chocolate Conveyor did not start moving. Instead the ground shook slightly.

"Isn't it going to start conveying us again?" asked Tide.

"I was going to take us to the Safety Room, where everything is safe and it is impossible to be maimed, but I had a better idea. The Convenient Floor Conveyor is shifting ahead to account for our new path."

"The Safety Room sounds nice," said Keerthi.

"You wouldn't like it! It doesn't suit you at all," said Mr. Bucket.

"Mr. Bucket," said Tide. "You aren't angry at anyone, are you?"

Mr. Bucket raised his eyebrows and laughed.

"Me? Angry? Not at all, Tide. I am cool as a cucumber! Let screaming dogs die, I always say."

The Convenient Floor Conveyor started conveying again. It went down several hallways and made a sharp turn to the left before passing under a thick shower of orange mist.

"What is it spraying on us?" asked Tide.

"It isn't for us," said Mr. Bucket. "It is so that what is inside the room cannot escape. There is one on both sides, which is necessary."

Past the mist was another giant room. Inside of it there were hundreds if not thousands of chocolate fountains spurting colored chocolate in blue, pink, red, green, orange, purple, yellow, gr[redacted]y, brown, and dark brown.

"Keerthi," said Mr. Bucket. "Take a deep breath and hold it until we are conveyed out of here, or you will die."

Keerthi inhaled and covered her mouth with her hand. The Convenient Chocolate Conveyor did not move fast and the room's exit was far away. She closed her eyes.

"Why only her?" asked Tide.

"This is the Disease Room," said Mr. Bucket. "It is where I keep the diseases. Disease-keeping is all chocolate fountains are good for. Lim is inside of a Taranturoo, you are inside of an airtight diving suit, and Mahuika vapes, so none of you can get sick."

"I vape," said Mahuika.

"Yes, Mahuika, but Keerthi does not. She will die if she breathes in the diseases. It is the only way you can get what I keep in here, and they are the worst ones. So do not! Or do if you want, Keerthi. Maybe you can befriend the viruses. The ones that are viruses, anyway. Some of them are parasites, prions... Oh Keerthi! You will love the prions. They are all terrible at origami."

Do not breathe do not breathe do not breathe do not breathe do not breathe," said Chetan.

"Vaping does not prevent you from catching diseases," said Lim.

"My ears must be full of the diseases from the last time I was here," said Mr. Bucket. "I'm hearing all kinds of silly wehs and wahs."

"Why do you need diseases?" asked Tide. She leaned toward Keerthi and said in a quieter, quicker voice, so Mr. Bucket couldn't hear. "We are almost there. Be extra careful, but slowly, slowly exhale what you took in little by little. Not at all once."

Keerthi nodded and did what Tide told her. It did help, but not enough. She knew she wouldn't be able to keep it going for much longer.

"I don't need them, but they add to the decor."

Keerthi opened her eyes. They weren't even halfway there. Tide had been lying to her so that she wouldn't get discouraged.

She wasn't going to make it.

A pair of metal claws clamped themselves against Keerthi's face and back, and she was suddenly conveyed forward at a speed that only a Taranturoo could reach.

"Lim! No! You cannot run on the Convenient Chocolate Conveyor! You do not understand! It will be marginally less convenient for you that way! Truncate! Truncate!"

As soon as they made it through the mist, Lim set Keerthi down, and she started breathing again. The Convenient Chocolate Conveyor was quickly stopped so Mr. Bucket and the other two children could catch up.

"I thought you wanted to win," said Keerthi.

"I will," he said. "Don't worry."

"Lim," shouted Mr. Bucket. "How dare you! You could have inconvenienced everyone!"

"It was an accident," said Lim. "I apologize."

"Do be more careful," said Mr. Bucket.

"I will," said Lim.

Mr. Bucket pressed another button on his cane, and the ground shook again.

"Don't worry, children. I thought of another brilliant room for us to try. The Candy Tiger Room! It is filled with violently delicious candy tigers! But do not worry, Lim, Tide, and Mahuika. They only like to eat people who aren't you."

W

The Convenient Chocolate Conveyor moved forward again. Everyone was busy:

Mr. Bucket was trying to murder Keerthi.

Keerthi was trying not to be murdered.

Tide and Lim were trying to prevent Keerthi from being murdered.

Mahuika was vaping. Keerthi, who wanted to think of her as a friend, decided to assume that she was trying to help her as best she could.

Keerthi was not devoured in the Candy Tiger Room because Tide spoke with the tigers and told them about the litany of diseases Keerthi had contracted in the Disease Room. They did not believe her until Lim directed their attention to Chetan.

"I'm sorry about all that trouble," said Mr. Bucket once they had all made it out. "They don't like the taste of babies, and they hate seafood. They are superstitious too, thinking the vapes are unhealthy. You were the only option."

"What about you?" she asked.

"I am bald, Keerthi."

Keerthi was not sliced into pieces in the Slicing Room thanks to Tide's quick reflexes, and she was not diced up in the Dicing Room, since Lim was excellent at Yahtzee. Mr. Bucket was very apologetic about the slicer that almost fell on Keerthi's head immediately after he started fiddling with his cane. He was equally remorseful about the incident in the Icing Room, which involved too much non-Wonka fondant for anyone to comfortably dwell on.

The Commedia Dell'arte Mask Room came next. It was where Mr. Bucket made his Wonka branded Commedia Dell'arte masks.

"It works like the Cake Room. Ask for any Commedia Dell'arte mask and it will fall out of the ceiling. They will disappear if they leave this room. Watch! A Commedia Dell'arte mask that will murder people who solved puzzles after exactly four other people."

A Commedia Dell'arte mask in the style of il Capitano fell out from the ceiling and grew arms and legs. It reached into its own eyeholes and pulled out a knife.

"This isn't even tangentially related to candy anymore," said Lim.

"As I already said," said Mr. Bucket. "They add to the decor. Also they are made of chocolate. If you see something here and aren't sure if it is made out of chocolate, it is."

"I don't know what a Commedia Dell'arte mask is," said Tide.

"You would be laughing if you did," Mr. Bucket said.

"I doubt it," she said. "As Ocean says, good humor is more than simple reference. It must invoke the fundamental structure of all comedy: clever subversion of established audience expectation."

"I vape," said Mahuika.

Il Capitano began creeping towards Keerthi.

"Keerthi, fresh masks are like sharks in the womb. They love having friends. Please be friends with that mask."

"Mr. Bucket," said Keerthi. "Stop trying to kill me. Please."

"Why," said Mr. Bucket. "I ask for one small favor and you accuse me of trying to murder you. For shame."

She sighed. "A Commedia Dell'arte mask that makes it impossible to be murdered."

An il Dottore mask fell from the ceiling. Keerthi picked it up from the floor and put it on as il Capitano went in for a stab. Her skin glinted a golden light as the knife bounced off of it, as if it had tried stabbing a wall made of diamonds.

"Keerthi, my word!" exclaimed Mr. Bucket. He slapped the mask in the face. "You never told me you were a puzzle solver!"

"I solved the puzzle on your website," she said.

"This modern generation and their click machines," said Mr. Bucket. "I will never understand it."

He took il Capitano's knife from it and stabbed it once in the face. It died.

"You didn't have to kill it!" yelled Keerthi.

"It was a criminal," said Mr. Bucket.

"You made it to be a criminal!"

"Keerthi. I know he was a criminal because I stabbed him and he died. Since I successfully executed him for being guilty, we can know that he was guilty."

Lim picked up Mr. Bucket with one claw and held another seven to his neck. "Her face! What did you do with her face? My scanners aren't detecting-"

Keerthi took off her Commedia Dell'arte mask. Lim dropped Mr. Bucket and giggled.

W

Mr. Bucket and the four children made it to the end of the Convenient Chocolate Conveyor. There was another door.

"Children," said Mr. Bucket. "Our time with the Convenient Chocolate Conveyor has come to an end. You will all need to walk again. Or Taranturoo."

"I vape," said Mahuika.

"Or that," he said. "But be excited. The Comparison Room is the most exciting room yet!"

Mr. Bucket opened the door and went inside. Everyone else followed him.

The Comparison Room was much taller than it was long or wide. File cabinets shaped like bricks lined the walls in rows, the columns reaching eighty stories in height before reaching the ceiling. Some of the cabinet bricks were open, most closed, a continuous beat of soft echoed slams representing the ones in transition.

In the center of the floor there was a hole. Thick white strings, too numerous and fast moving for Keerthi to count, came out of the hole and opened the cabinets to take what they needed before shutting them again.

"What is this?" asked Keerthi.

"Children," said Mr. Bucket. "This is one of the most important rooms in my factory. It is where I make the comparisons."

"Comparisons?"

"It would require a long speech, I am sure none of you want to hear it."

"Sure," said Tide. "We can move onto the next room."

"Fine!" yelled Mr. Bucket. "I will tell you, I will tell you! Only because you are all so insistent! Today Wonkaland makes many products! We make bombs and jeans and pollution! If we make it, with only two exceptions, we make it the best! Better than everyone else!"

"I vape," said Mahuika.

"Yes," he admitted. "Vapes and..."

He shook his head. "It does not matter! Wonkaland is almost always the best and no one disagrees! That does not mean that people are not going around making inferior bombs and jeans and pollution. I cannot stop them from doing this! Actually! I can! But I won't. It does not matter to me."

"So what?" asked Lim.

"This is not the same for candy! After Mr. Wonka passed away, I said to myself-"

"How did he pass away?" asked Lim. "You never released that information. I'm more curious about that."

Mr. Bucket brought the tip of his cane to his mouth and sucked on the end, which was covered in chocolate and had touched the floor of the Disease Room. After ten seconds he took off his hat and began speaking.

"It was in 2005. Almost thirty years ago... we were working on a development in the most important project Mr. Wonka ever took upon himself to complete. His two specialties, children, were chocolate, which you already know... and transportation. He was always interested in transportation. Where people are coming! Where people are going! How they are getting there, how they can get there faster, and how to get to new places. There was one place... it is special. He had been trying to get there for longer than he had known me. There were less than five people in this world who knew about this place, but he wanted to go there! We worked hard, toiled, mucked with the vinegar for years to find out what it needed... until the accident."

"What happened?" asked Keerthi.

"We found the fuel we needed," said Mr. Bucket. "Our translation was correct! I am more sure about that than I was back then. Our method, not our fuel, was the issue. We settled on the day that we were going to do it! We ate a big breakfast to celebrate, the three of us! I had never seen him smiling as wide. He was so happy, he started a food fight with me! The mess we made... Mr. Wonka and I."

Mr. Bucket stopped talking and put his hat back on. He was finished with his story.

"But how did he die?" asked Lim. "You didn't answer."

Mr. Bucket looked at the hole in the ground.

"He was brined," said Mr. Bucket.

"Brined?" asked Tide.

"Brined. The fuel we attempted to use was rejected. Mr. Wonka was furious... I understand why. He demanded an explanation, but there was a misunderstanding, and he was brined."

"Leave the factory," said Chetan.

"Interesting," said Lim. Keerthi knew that Lim did not think it was interesting.

"He did not want to have a closed chocolate casket funeral, but it was necessary," said Mr. Bucket. "His face! I still..."

He pointed to the hole in the center of the room.

"This! I made this room because of him! He should be honored! He should be reverified! I wanted the world to remember him, so after his death, I decided that Wonkaland must hold a monopoly on all candies to prove he was the greatest. We were almost a monopoly already, but I finally finished the job and bombed out the competition."

"Bought out," said Keerthi.

"Sure. I did not raise my prices after that, but I issued a decree to all the stores that sold my treats to take all candy that wasn't Wonka off the shelves and throw it all away. They were all happy to do it! All other candy companies at the time only made terrible candy that everyone hates! Turkish delight! Candy corn! Circus peanuts! Horrible, all of them. But! After I freed up all that space, my sales did not go up even one lousy percent!"

"Why not," said Tide. She sounded bored.

"I did not know, until I went to the stores and checked if they were keeping their promise to only sell Wonka! They were, but people were going and digging through the trash to eat the discarded candy corn instead of eating my delicious Dongleriffic Delights! I was confused why this was happening, so I abducted enough customers to conduct a study and discovered something shocking. The Law of Sexdecuplentomy!"

Mr. Bucket stopped talking. He wanted someone to ask him what the Law of Sexdecuplentomy was. Keerthi didn't want to, but she also didn't want him to remember that he had been trying to murder her.

"What was it?"

"Sixteen percent!" shouted Mr. Bucket.

"Sixteen percent?" asked Lim.

"Yes," he shouted. "Sixteen percent of all people have bad taste. The group you choose does not matter! They can be old, young, anything! In any large enough group of individuals, sixteen percent of them will incorrectly think that they enjoy what is obviously terrible!"

"This is ridiculous. If a person enjoys something," said Tide, "It is not terrible to them."

"No," said Mr. Bucket. "Turkish delight, for example, is universally despised. Sixteen percent of people would disagree with this but they are wrong."

"It isn't universal if-"

"Baby! Do not cry into my ears. As I was saying! I could not ignore one-sixth of the market, so I knew I had to begin producing terrible candies on purpose. It was impossible... I am too good at candy engineering! Whenever I tried to make something revolting, I always ended up creating scrumptious sweets instead. I was cursed!"

"This room helps you make bad candy?" asked Tide.

"Yes! Filed away is every awful ingredient in the world, from shellac to cellophane. In the hole is the Stringed Shite Sorter, a monster I created. She is only strings and a nose, and she has a sense for the worst that has ever been or will ever be! She smells all the ingredients and brings them into her hole, where she lives, and mixes and cooks and packages them up for consumption. She makes the comparisons between good and bad! She is worth all the VIPs put together!"

One string came out of the hole and wrapped itself around the right foot of Lim's Taranturoo.

"No," said Lim. He turned one of his claws into an electrical saw and cut himself free. Another three came to replace it. "Tell them to stop."

"The Stringed Shite Sorter only sorts shite! Lim! The Taranturoo is not awful, but it must be hiding a secret if it is being sorted! What have you been doing with it?"

Lim made quick work of the three strings around him but hundreds more followed as the Stringed Shit Sorter focused all her attention on the Taranturoo. The claws were overwhelmed.

"Chopin," said Chetan.

"Lim," said Keerthi. "Are you... listening to any music right now?"

"No," he said.

"It's Chopin," said Tide. "Isn't it?"

"If I was listening to music, which I am not, and it were Chopin, which it would not be, it would not matter! The Stringed Shite Sorter only sorts shite! Chopin isn't-"

"Baby! You must cease with that racket! The Stringed Shit Sorter can hear all of it, even if it is only inside your machine! She has excellent ears! You will not be able to escape her strings! Chopin has never made a meaningful contribution to music! Never, ever! You must accept this!"

"Funerals," said Lim, who was almost in the hole. His suit's exterior burst into blue flame, which Keerthi understood he had done on purpose, but the strings did not burn.

"Turn off the music!" shouted Keerthi. "It isn't worth it!"

"What?" shouted Mr. Bucket.

"Marche Funèbre! They play it at every funeral! Every! Funeral! Even at Wonka's! I watched the tapes! You can't tell me that he is that bad of a composer if... stop it! Stop it! I don't have bad taste! He isn't that bad! You are exaggerating! No! No!"

The strings pulled Lim into the hole. He fell fast.

"Baby!" shouted Mr. Bucket. "If only you had thought about it! Why didn't you realize why everyone always cries at funerals?"

Tide and Keerthi looked at Mr. Bucket.

"Do something!" they shouted. "He will be made into candy!"

"Have no fear. Food safety is important to me, and none of it will be sold. After he is broken down into his base components and cooked, the machine will recognize that human flesh has-"

The sound of a cannon exploded from the hole, and a Taranturoo pouch shaped object shot upwards. A parachute expanded out from it and it slowly drifted to the floor.

Mr. Bucket and the children walked to the spot where it landed as it opened up and exposed Lim. All of the wires connecting him to his system had disconnected.

Mr. Bucket bent down and looked at him closely. "I do not see what all the fuss is about! Without the Taraturoo, this is an ordinary baby."

Lim spit in Mr. Bucket's face. He did not wipe it away.

"Hmm," said Mr. Bucket. "This will not do! You are in no condition to continue a tour in this state. You are drooling everywhere!"

Lim spit again. He looked upset.

"I can carry him," said Keerthi. "It isn't any problem."

"No," said Mr. Bucket. "It would be unfair to you. I may be going out on a Lim here, but I think I have a solution that all parties will find agreeable."

Mr. Bucket picked up Lim by the ankles and swung him back into the hole. Keerthi and Tide screamed.

"Thank you," said Mr. Bucket. "It isn't easy to make a shot like that. He didn't even touch rim!"

"You killed him!" screamed Tide. "You killed a baby!"

"He will not die," said Mr. Bucket. "I think. The Stringed Shite Sorter should not have any reason to cook him if he is not in the Taranturoo."

"You threw him in a deep hole! The fall alone will kill him!"

"It will not," said Mr. Bucket. "He is a CHOCOR-2 baby. They are resilient. Even if he did need medical treatment, the floor of the hole would swallow him up and bring him to a Wonkaland non-citizens hospital. He will be fine."

"But-"

"Keerthi! Tide! Mahuika! You must stop with the panicked complaining and vaping! It will not make this situation better.

"I vape," said Mahuika.

Mr. Bucket looked at Keerthi and struck himself on the chest.

"Yes, you do! But do it out of love, not fear. It is what Lim would have wanted."

Mr. Bucket sighed and wiped his sleeves.

"Well, what are you going to do. Next room! It is even more fun than this one!"

"Fun rooms are dangerous rooms," said Chetan. "Take the initiative. Make a change."

"I want to learn about chocolate," Keerthi said. It was the first idea she had.

Mr. Bucket smiled without his tongues.

"Oh! You do? Forget the fun! Education is much more important during a professional tour. What would you like to learn about?"

Keerthi froze.

"Say something," said Chetan.

"Ingredients," said Tide. "We want to know more about the ingredients. In chocolate."

"Smart thinking!" said Mr. Bucket. "Which ingredient would you like to learn about?"

"Um," said Keerthi. "What ingredients are there?"

Mr. Bucket tapped his cane against the ground.

"Many! There is sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa liquor, slavery, lecithin-"

"What?"

"Lecithin is an emulsifier, which means that it helps to homogenize and stabilize all the other ingredients. The oil and water components in chocolate would not mix together properly without it. Food science is interesting!"

"Not that!" yelled Keerthi. "The slavery!"

"Oh," said Mr. Bucket. "The slavery. What of it?"

"It exists! You said you weren't a slaveowner!" said Tide.

"I made no such statement," said Mr. Bucket. "I said that the VIPs are not my slaves. Which they are not."

Keerthi's jaw dropped. She shook her head.

"Why? Why not use normal workers? Why not use the clams? You could have, you could have..."

Mr. Bucket's face twisted into a genuine, soft confusion, as if he could not even understand how Tide and Keerthi had not previously known what he was telling them.

"Keerthi," said Mr. Bucket. "I make chocolate."