Weirdest Boy's Chocolate Factory Plan

Isn’t it just too bad when your parents drag you everywhere? Mum knew that I don’t like Camper and Coral but still she forced me to come. She said I was being childish but then again she doesn’t know a thing about Camper’s weird ideas and Coral’s Voldimod. So there I was, on my way to Camper’s home. I wondered what it would be like ….it’d be dark, bleak and huge mansion where witches and vampires come out of their holes in night and haunt you …that’d be coral’s version or it could be a huge castle located on the top of the hill surrounded by trees and a lake. It’d be ruled by Bobble. Pixies and elves would be his servants, imps and brownies would be his guards…. Huh?! Pixies and elves and imps? No way! What’s happening to me?? Am I going mad? Have I become one of them?? No I haven’t! Then why on earth I’m thinking about elves and pixies! I felt sick.

Me (faintly): Mum, I’m going to be sick!
Mum (alert): Don’t be! I just bought these seat covers.
Me (shocked): MUM! I’m feeling SICK.
No reply.
Me (groaning): I wanna go home!!!
Mum (angry): Sidrah, stop being so childish. I know you’re just pretending to be sick so that you don’t have to go to Jane’s place.
Me (in pain): But Mum! I really am feeling sick!!!
Mum (cheerfully): Well, if you don’t want to go to Jane’s ….we can go shopping.
Me (surprised, relieved & happy): Yeah, that’d be just so cool! Can I buy that blue dress we saw in the mall last week? Please?’
Mum (skeptical): You’re feeling alright now?
Me (lamely): Yes …. No…well…I like shopping’
Mum (annoyed): And I’d like to have tea in Jane’s home. So now just sit quiet.
Oh shit!
God! Mum can be so tricky sometimes. My brothers snickered at me. Well, I’d get to see Camper’s home …I wondered what it’s like …hmm ….maybe it’s big and …STOP! No daydreaming or I’ll go insane and I don’t wanna go insane because I like to be sane and I don’t want to be one of them, insane people, I mean. Oh well!
Mum stopped the car in front of a small neat cottage with a thatched roof.
‘Well, here we’re kids!’ my mum said, cheerfully.
My brothers and I got out of the car and looked at each other.
‘I think Mum has got the wrong address’ my little brother whispered
‘Mum, I think this is not Camp…’ I stopped in the mid-sentence when I saw Coral peering from the window.
Mum rang the bell. Jane opened it instantly and hugged us all. Camper came wearing his goggles and he looked genuinely happy to see my brothers and...Well, snarled at me. Coral greeted us with a smile. Actually it looked like a smile, sort of. It was terrifying as she was glaring too.
Jane led us to the lounge and we sat down. It was like the déjà vu; everyone was talking except me. I looked around the house and surprisingly it looked ok. Just normal; no elves or pixies. It was kind of disappointing. I was expecting something different, not just this. Humph! And it was neat and clean too, no broken stuff or weird paintings hanging on the walls. Maybe they’re just pretending to be normal. Maybe the tea they’re going to give us is poisoned. Maybe they’d kill us or even worse eat us alive. Maybe they’d smuggle us into another dimension. Maybe they’re of one of those Christopher Pike’s evil characters. Maybe they’re all imaginary. Maybe I’m imagining everything. Or maybe ….. These terrible thoughts were floating in my head when Coral brought me back to earth.
‘Camper’s having a meeting in his office. He has invited you. Come with me. Hurry …you don’t wanna be late, believe me’ she was whispering. I shuddered. I’d goose bumps all over me. You see, I don’t want to tell you actually, but this Coral girl frightens me. This little 8 years old child frightens ME! And it is frightening to know that she frightens me. Can you believe to this? 17 years old girl afraid of an 8 years old girl, how weird is that!
Anyway I followed her to a small and dark room which I supposed was Camper’s ‘Office’. Or bedroom.
Camper and my brothers were already there, waiting for me.
‘You’re late’ Camper stared stonily at me.
‘No I’m not, Coral just told me about this …this...’ I didn’t want to say ‘meeting’, it sounds so professional and Camper is not! ‘This meeting’, I finished lamely.
‘Well, I guess we should start the meeting. Our dear friends, Bobble, Voldimod, X-boy and Jolly Jo have been waiting for almost an hour’, he banged the table loudly and looked at us. Smiling at my brothers and Coral and sneering at me. But did you notice there were two more imaginary friends, X-boy & Jolly Jo?? I bet they’re my brothers’ friends. I smiled knowingly at my brothers and they looked away, blushing. At least they’re embarrassed. I began to plan that how I’d blackmail them….threatening them that I’d tell their friends. It’ll be fun! Ha-ha *evil smiles*
‘Silly girl, we’re talking to you’, I jumped as I heard Camper’s voice.
‘Yeah?’ I asked annoyed that he interrupted my plans.
‘I said how much can you donate?’ he said, for the first time time, calmly. Well of course he wanted money, that’s why he was being polite.
‘Why? Why do you want money?’ I looked at him suspiciously. He can’t fool me!
The four of them looked at each other, knowing looks passing between them.
Coral: Scowling
Camper: Thoughtful
My brothers: guilty, nervous & excited.
Me: confused.
After an eternity or it seemed so they nodded at each other and looked solemnly at me.
‘You’re in but you must take an oath that whatever we do here you won’t breathe a word to an outsider’, I thought about telling his mum or mine when he said, ‘including our parents’. Maybe it’s a trap.
‘Wait. First tell what is it, what if I don’t like it?’ I asked
‘Sorry, we can’t. You take an oath you’re in and THEN we tell you about it. And if you don’t like it then there is nothing you can do. There’s no way out when you’re in’, Coral sounded so evil that I just nodded.
‘Okay, I’m in’, Sidrah! I scolded myself, why are you doing this? This is not some movie or a book, this is life! Real life!! Get it?
‘Good, give me Rs1000’, they all looked at me expectantly.
‘WHAT?’ I know they’re trying to trick me in to something. I just know!
‘You said you’re taking the oath so give us Rs1000’, Coral said quietly
‘But why should I? Giving money is not an oath!’ what are they talking about, they’re on to something, I was so sure of that.
Then Camper opened his mouth and explained it to me, ‘Listen silly girl. This is important. Really important; to me, to Coral, to your brothers and to our imaginary friends’, he stopped to catch his breathe. This imaginary friend thingy was getting too far. I mean it was okay at first when he just bragged about Bobble but then Coral came, then my brothers made some too and now this ‘meeting’ in his ‘office’. I mean come on! We’re talking about IMAGINARY friends! They’re imaginary! Then the great idea hit me…
‘You want money for imaginary friends?’ I asked.
‘Yes, we do! I know you don’t a thing about imaginary land and you also don’t care but let me tell you something about them’, I nodded.
‘Well Imaginary people only eat one thing ….and its chocolate’, he looked at me waiting for me to be surprised or whatever but what could I do? This was all such nonsense. All imaginary.
‘Well’, he paused. I noticed he was using the word ‘well’ again and again. Hmm ‘well, the thing is they’re short on chocolate. Money is tight these days and chocolate is expensive, so we have got to help them or they’ll die’, I fought an urge to laugh.
‘So you want me to contribute some money so that you can help them?’ I asked trying to look smart
‘Yes, we do! But we need it fast or they’ll die’, he said darkly.
‘But this is so easy! How come you didn’t think of it’ I put on my best ‘i-am-so-surprised-&-dissappointed-at-you’ face
‘Why? Why are you saying that?’ Coral asked startled, ‘Tell us what you know’
‘Sure, our friends are imaginary …so we just have to imagine money and then we imagine chocolates and then we give it to them, done ...easy!’ I smiled brightly at them. Coral looked doubtful but Camper was delighted! Ha! I fooled him!
‘That’s great! That’s so brilliantly great! Just great!!!’ Camper had a faraway look on his face, ‘Silly girl you do have some brains’, he was clearly pleased with me.
‘Well, people, start imagining and save our imaginary pals’, he said and got lost in the imaginary world. So did my brothers but Coral was gazing at me.
‘You’re not imagining?’ I asked innocently
‘You can’t fool me, silly girl’, Coral smirked ‘Camper’s a fool so are your brothers but not me’,
‘It is because you’re a girl’, I told her ‘You don’t believe in this silly stiff, right?’
‘I used to; But it all changed last year’, she smiled faintly
‘Why, what happened?’
‘I got lots of gift from Santa, or I thought so, I bragged a lot in front of my friends and my pure-evil babysitter. And they’d made fun of me, even my friends didn’t believe in Santa. So last year at Christmas, I hid behind the tree to met Santa and saw my own mum putting our gifts in the stockings. I was crushed! All the year being good so that Santa would come for nothing! It was my OWN MUM! I started crying loudly and she came running to me. When I asked her about Santa, she told me the worse news…..that Santa doesn’t really exist. That was the worst Christmas I ever had’
‘Ohh!’ that was all I could say and then ‘But what about Voldimod?’
‘Oh that was just me having fun’, she laughed ‘I loved it when you freaked out! You were afraid of me’
‘I was not!’ I said indignantly
‘You were too!’ she said. We glared at each other for a moment and then burst out laughing.
‘Hey! Coral is getting along with Sidrah’, Jane came inside with my Mum
“would you like to be Coral’s babysitter’, she asked me
I looked at mum, she just shrugged smiling. I looked at Coral; she was pleading me to say yes.
‘Ok, sure!’ Great! Now I could earn money! Yay!! And Coral is not mad!
And then it was time to go. And it was then it began again. I was going to the closet to get my jacket. As I was about to open the door I heard two voices, one was Coral’s and the other one I couldn’t identify. My heart was beating fast as I listened to their conversation:
‘So, she is your new babysitter now’ the voice said
‘Yeah, and she thinks I don’t believe in imaginary land’, I could hear them laughing.
‘Sidrah, we’re going!’ my mum called out. I was startled and I think Coral and the voice were too as they went dead quiet.
Coral came out and stared at me. I gave her the look. She sneered.
Camper waved at me and my brothers. Jane hugged us all and said to me:
‘Would you come next week to baby-sit Coral? Camper wouldn’t be home and I’ve to go to the work’ she sighed. I sighed and nodded. What could I have done? I was doomed. But it was not over yet.
As I was sitting in the car I heard two voices in my head
‘Do you believe in us now, silly girl?’ the voice was like that of cartoons
‘We love chocolate’, it was the same voice I heard before in the closet.
Bobble and Voldimod.
Right now, I’m at home …my brothers yelling around me…my mum watching TV …and I’m writing this and cursing my luck, cursing Coral, Camper, Vodimod, Bobble, Jane, Mr. Flight and Summer fun classes. I don’t want to baby-sit Coral! I would go crazy!!
Hey …what’s this? …oh no……..!
‘You’ll be ok! A soothing voce said.
‘No you won’t be’, the other one said. And it laughed its oh-so-evil laugh.
I wonder if I’m still sane.