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Charlie reached into a garbage can and grabbed the newspaper a previous man had tossed in there. It said the third ticket was found.
He headed back home and gave the paper to his mother. "The third ticket was found by Miss Violet Beauregarde."
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In Atlanta, Georgia, a crowd had formed outside the home of the third ticket finder, Violet and her mother.
Inside, there was an interview currently going on. "These are just some of the 263 trophies and medals my Violet has won. I'm a gum chewer mostly, but when I heard about these ticket things I laid off the gum, switched to candy bars." She announced proudly.
"She's just a driven young woman. I don't know where she gets it." Her mother smirked at the camera, obviously trying to hint.
Violet glanced back at one of her trophies before looking back at the camera. "I'm the Junior World Champion Gum Chewer. This piece of gum I'm chewing right now I've been working on for three months solid. That's a record."
"Of course, I did have my fair share of trophies, mostly baton." The mother boasted, gesturing to the two batons that were hung on the wall.
Violet looked like a carbon copy of her mother, and that was not a complement. "So it says that one kid's gonna get this special prize, better than all the rest. I don't care who those other four are. That kid, it's gonna be me."
Her mother smirked. "Tell them why, Violet."
"Because I'm a winner."
Y/n groaned, rubbing her hands over her face. "Okay, that's it." She made eye contact with her son. "If the next person is as bad as the other three, I'm going to splurge and we'll have...potatoes."
Charlie shook his head. "The next kid won't be as bad as them."
The e/c woman smirked back. "Well, what do you want if you're right?"
"...Tomatoes." Charlie thought for a moment.
"Deal."
"This just in. the fourth golden ticket had been found by a boy called Mike Teavee."
In Denver, Colorado, there were loud noises coming from inside a home. A boy was sitting on the ground in the living room playing videos games while his parents were standing about a foot away, nervously smiling at the cameras. All the reporters stood around the tv with their microphones held out, waiting for the boy to speak.
"All you had to do was track the manufacturing dates offset by weather and the derivative of the Nikkei Index. A retard could figure it out." Not once while he was talking did Mike move his eyes away from the screen.
His father shrugged. "Most of the time I don't know what he's talking about. You know, kids these days, what with all the technology—"
He was cut off by his son screaming at the tv. "Die! Die! Die!"
His parents looked at him before the dad continued. "Doesn't seem like they stay kids very long."
Mike finally looked away and finally at the other people in the room. "In the end, I only had to find one candy bar."
"And how did it taste?" Someone asked.
"I don't know. I hate chocolate."
Y/n resisted the urge to yell out profanities in front of her kid but it didn't stop her from glaring at the tv. She glanced at Charlie and noticed his mood was slightly dropping so she decided to turn the tv off.
"That question is, who will be the winner of the last gold—" The tv cut off as the screen turned black.
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Y/n ran back home as quickly as she could, dodging by any other townspeople to avoid bumping into them. She had just heard from the whispers around the town that some kid in Russia had found the last ticket.
She threw open the door to her house and tossed her coat on the floor without a care. She shut it and looked around the room, spotting her son sitting at the dining table with a sullen expression on his face. It made Y/n's heart tighten, knowing that he had heard the news. "Charlie."
Charlie's head snapped over to his mother, who was panting trying to catch her breath. Wordlessly, Y/n opened her arms, and without a second thought, Charlie darted towards her and wrapped his arms around her midsection, letting the tears in his eyes finally fall.
Y/n frowned, feeling his wet tears soak into her shirt. It sucked. It didn't seem fair. Charlie did have as much of a chance as anybody, even if that chance was a little slimmer than the others just because they didn't have a lot of money, and they were just scraping by.
And it's horrible when you have to grow up knowing that even if you do work hard, there will always be people who will have a better and bigger chance at something, whether it be from money or status.
