For Beatrice –
My love for you is eternal, very unlike your life.
Chapter 1
The story of the three Baudelaire children was a sad and miserable one. Unfortunately I, Lemony Snicket have researched that horrible tale. To make things even worse, I have written down every sad and miserable tale of their lives down on paper. To makes things even more heart-wrenching for me, I had to go over and over their tale while revising it and showing how truly miserable their miserable lives truly were. Fortunately for me, my connection to the Baudelaire's was over, or so I thought. The Baudelaire's sad story was published and released to the public, whose lives were already miserable enough. I thought from there that a few unfortunate people would pick up one or two of the unfortunate books and quickly put it down and walk away with one bit of knowledge of the orphans'. Though, many people instead picked up every last installment of the thirteen unfortunate books describing the unfortunate lives of the three unfortunate children. From there on I saw my books everywhere. Finally when Book the Thirteenth was released I thought it was over. But, here I am researching more and more of their lives.
Fortunately though, this is not the tale of the unfortunate tale of the three unfortunate children of the two unfortunate Baudelaire parents who were the unfortunate children of the many unfortunate ancestors of the unfortunate public that lives unfortunately in this unfortunate world of our unfortunate lives. Fortunately this is the fortunate tale of the fortunate child of the unfortunate sister of me, the unfortunate writer of the unfortunate tale of the three unfortunate children of the two unfortunate Baudelaire parents who were the unfortunate children of the many unfortunate ancestors of the unfortunate public that lives unfortunately in this unfortunate world of our unfortunate lives. This is the fortunate tale of Beatrice Snicket. Unfortunately not the Beatrice Snicket who could have been the unfortunate wife of me, the unfortunate writer of the unfortunate tale of the three unfortunate children of the two unfortunate Baudelaire parents who were the unfortunate children of the many unfortunate ancestors of the unfortunate public that lives unfortunately in this unfortunate world of our unfortunate lives. This is the tale of Beatrice Snicket, daughter of the unfortunate Kit Snicket who was the unfortunate sister of me, the writer of the unfortunate tale of the three unfortunate children of the two unfortunate Baudelaire parents who were the unfortunate children of the many unfortunate ancestors of the unfortunate public that lives unfortunately in this unfortunate world of our unfortunate lives.
Beatrice Snicket lived a fortunate life. When she wanted something to happen, things usually went her way. Meanwhile the Baudelaire's life didn't go their way. Beatrice Snicket found many answers to all the questions she craved answers to, unlike the Baudelaire's who had barely any of their endless questions answered. Surprisingly though, while the three Baudelaires' lived on their lives unfortunately and Beatrice lived on her life fortunately, they spent a big portion of their unfortunate and fortunate lives together.
The end of the unfortunate tale of the Baudelaire children had come and the beginning of the new, fortunate tale of Beatrice had begun. While reading this you may find it helpful if you had read the Series of Unfortunate events, but those books are so miserable that I wish you haven't and never will. Now on the sea where so many unfortunate events, like the sinking of the titanic, the death of many of the Baudelaire's friends and the death of the followers of a man named Ishmael, had occurred, the Baudelaire orphans and the Snicket orphan sailed off towards the horizon and away from a tropical paradise which was truly the last safe place.
"Kaboot!!!" Beatrice shrieked and pointed off towards the horizon. By this Beatrice probably meant something along the lines of I think I see something! As most toddlers do, Beatrice could not speak normally, but instead shrieked out gibberish.
"Really?" Sunny asked and covered her eyes and searched the horizon. Sunny who had once spoken just like Beatrice, now talked in full sentences. The youngest Baudelaire had sharp teeth and loved to use them to bite things. At the moment she was teething on an apple core she had left over from a bitter apple she had earlier devoured. Sunny also, had learned lately she was able to whip up wonderful meals with her talent for cooking.
"Beatrice! You've been saying that for the last three weeks!" Violet sighed. "Just like the past three days, it's just another cloud!" Violet, the eldest of the Baudelaire children was staring at the pile of the cores of the bitter apples the four of them had all consumed for food and some rope they had left over from supplies they used. Anyone who knew Violet well would know that the fact she had her hair tied up with her pink ribbon meant that she was trying to invent something. Violet would tie her hair up in a knot so she could keep her hair out of her eyes so she was able to think well. She was at the moment trying to invent a way to turn the apple cores and rope into a fishing pole.
"Violet, I don't think it's a cloud on the horizon this time!" Klaus, the middle Baudelaire exclaimed. Previously Klaus had just been reading a book called How to Sail a Home-Made Boat. Within such a book the author explains exactly how to sail a home-boat. Klaus loved to read. From all his reading he had already gathered more information at age 15 than many people do in their life time. Back before his parents' lives and their house were destroyed along with its huge library, Klaus would sit in bed with a flash light reading into the night. Sometimes he would even wake up the next morning with a book and a flashlight still grasped in his hand.
"Kaboot!" Beatrice shrieked once again, now that someone had believed her. "Kaboot!"
Violet squint her eyes and scanned the horizon. All around there seemed to only be clouds. But, alas Beatrice had seen something. On the far horizon, barely visible was the small, shadowy figure of a ship. "A SHIP!!!" Violet yelled with joy.
"Ship?!" Sunny yelped and threw the apple core into the air.
"It is!" Klaus sighed with relief. "We have to signal it!"
"But, how?" Violet asked. "I don't think that they can see us. Our little raft must look like just a tiny spec in the water from over there."
"Well, hopefully they're anchored. Then we could probably get close enough to them by the end of tonight." Klaus explained. "Then we'd just need to send a signal to them so they could come to us. Or if they're moving, hopefully they're coming in our direction."
"But, what are the chances?" Sunny asked.
"THREE!!!" Beatrice screamed and clapped her hands. "Three! Three! Three!" She giggled.
"Three?" Violet questioned Beatrice.
"Out of what?" Sunny pondered out loud.
"Whether the chance is… three… or not, we have to start sailing towards them." Klaus recommended.
"The sails are already up. Our boat isn't very easy to change the direction of. As long as they're just letting the winds carry them also, we'll meet up with them eventually. I think…" Violet figured.
"If we were to position the sails on a slight angle we might end up in the same position." Klaus estimated. So the three Baudelaires started to pull ropes and play around with the sails until the sails were positioned just right.
Meanwhile young Beatrice Kit watched in glee as she intently tried to memorize how to work the sails.
If you have ever chased some one for hours on hours, you know exactly how chasing the far off ship on the horizon didn't feel at all. Chasing someone is exciting, although it could be very tiring. Chasing a boat is the exact opposite. Nothing seems to change. A boat never gets tired and slows down, or gets a sudden boost of energy and almost catches its victim. Slowly and unsurely the boat sails around as the other goes the same rate as before. This can make someone very restless. Chasing a person on foot could be very exciting and tiresome while chasing on boats is almost always boring and hard to sit still in.
"Pirates…" Klaus suddenly spat out. The ship had slowly been coming into a clearer view. Klaus had the best eyes from reading, making him the first to receive the unfortunate news. The ship was an old fashioned ship from the sixteen hundreds. Its sails were pitch black with the white figure of a skull and two crossed bones.
"Pirates?" Violet asked aloud.
"Pirates?" Sunny pondered aloud.
"Pirates?" Beatrice wondered aloud.
"Pirates." Klaus repeated aloud. The word pirates used here can mean two things. One meaning is someone who practices robbery of ships on the high seas. I once knew a child who did such a thing. Meanwhile his parents were down in the lower seas stealing from boats, while his sisters, uncles, aunts, grandpas, grandmas, second cousins, second cousins twice removed, third cousins, third cousins three thousand, four hundred, forty six times removed and other weird types of relatives that I have only heard of in Germany were in the middle seas taking things without permission from rafts.
Another meaning is someone who practices the action of unauthorized use of a copyrighted or patented work. Although I don't know anyone, or have I known anyone who practices to get ready for the real thing, I have known people who had committed the actual crime. I once even knew a man who without authorization used copyrighted or patented work to entertain himself while he was on the high seas stealing, taking things without permission and robbing ships.
"Or at the least some people using an old fashioned pirate ship as transportation." Klaus explained. "I don't know why anyone would use an old pirate ship for transportation. Modern day ships are much more comfortable."
"So… what do we do?" Violet asked.
"Safe or sorry?" Sunny thought aloud.
"Hide or Seek?" Beatrice wondered. Beatrice had always enjoyed playing the game of hide and seek with her fellow orphan friends back on the island, although if you think about it many of us do enjoy that game. Every day we hide from our enemies and seek those who we desire answers to questions from.
"If we hide, we might be losing a chance to have a safer journey to land." Klaus considered.
"But, if we seek we might fall into the clutches of some modern day pirates." Violet countered. For awhile the four orphans stay still on their little boat, with their sails down and thinking about what to do.
"No choice." Sunny finally spoke up.
"What?" Violet asked.
"Look." Sunny demanded and pointed at the approaching ship. While the four of them had been on their own little boat, the sailors of the approaching ship had spotted them and decided to seek them out. The ship was quickly gaining on them and they would never be able to out run it. For the four of them, it must of felt pretty strange to one minute be hopelessly trying to catch a far off ship and the next to be stranded in the middle of the ocean like sitting ducks while a humongous ship quickly gained on them leaving them no way to outrun the ship.
"Maybe we'll be saved." Klaus chimed in happily.
"Maybe we'll be destroyed." Violet reminded him.
"Gunkofula…" Beatrice reminded them depressingly. By gonkofula she probably meant something by the means of Maybe it won't matter at all and those two outcomes we'll be irrelevant. For all we know the people on that ship could either not of seen us or be treacherous people and not care. They could zoom right by us without even hesitating.
But, for these four, a combination of two of those outcomes would be intermixed. Time passed and many thoughts went around in the four orphans' heads. Though in just an instant they would discover these people were not their allies. As the orphans sat on their little boat waiting for the ship to come, they realized they had been seen and that the sailors on the ship were indeed coming for them.
The sane 'coming for you' can mean two different things; one is a very lucky thing and another is a very unfortunate thing. The first meaning usually refers to when you are in trouble and your friends are coming for you so they can bring you out. For example, I was once in a burning shack that was locked from the outside, with only a cow, a bucket of pudding and a very suspicious looking dress that had the price tag of $999.00. Fortunately my friends who happened to be sitting on top of the shack realized as they sat their laughing at the practical joke they had pulled on me and listened as I pleaded to be let out, that the shack was on fire. To my relief, they shouted back to me that they were coming for me and going to save me.
Unfortunately it can also mean that someone is angry at you and wants to come after you so they can get revenge on the task you had just completed to make a fool of them or trouble their lives in any other way. For example I once ran out of a burning shack that contained a cow, a bucket of pudding and a very suspicious looking dress that had the price tag of $999.00. When I finally got out and caught my breath I turned towards my once good friends and yelled "I'm coming for you! You're going to pay for this." Unfortunately the fire had consumed one of them while another was screaming which made the other two unable to hear anything.
Unfortunately for the four orphans, this ship was indeed a pirate ship upon which a group of pirates sailed the 7 seas and several oceans. Not only that but, these pirates who were coming for them, were not coming for them to save them from the trouble of hopelessly floating around in the middle of an ocean or the trouble of the treacherous world around us. They were coming for them so that they could destroy the poor, lost and bored orphans.
At this point in time, the four lost orphans realized this as two lightning fast cannonballs hurled their way. You see, the orphans were a bunch of smart people and when they see cannonballs hurling their way, they are bright enough to understand they are under attack. The closest one whizzed over their heads and splashed into the ocean surface. Waves of all sizes rose up and spread out in all directions. The waves passed by the orphans' little raft, causing all of their items to topple over. Unfortunately just as these first splashes of waves passed over them, the second cannonball landed right next to them. Although the cannonball had missed them by an inch or two, the waves were stronger than before and their ship was flung to the side.
Beatrice, who was extremely light and wasn't able to hold on to anything at the time was flung off the raft into the uninviting and cold waters of the ocean. Meanwhile the Baudelaire's had quickly grabbed onto something stationary and had managed to stay on the raft as they watched Beatrice fly by them. She hit the water with a splash and opened her mouth to scream, but the water had already consumed her.
"Beatrice!" The three Baudelaires yelled in complete fright. Violet quickly let go of the side of the raft and dived into the water. As she franticly searched for her young friend, Beatrice was smiling at the fact that she had just learned how to hold her breath as she sank lower and lower into the water. Finally Violet spotted Beatrice and with much speed, brought her back up to the surface.
When Klaus and Sunny saw Violet with Beatrice in her arms, they quickly pulled the two of them up onto the wooden boat. Meanwhile three more cannonballs were flying towards them. The first one thankfully missed them.
"What's happening?!" Violet pleaded to know.
"I don't know! I don't think these people are very friendly though." Klaus guessed. Another cannonball fell into the ocean far enough away for them not to be affected by it much.
"No really?" Violet asked with much sarcasm.
"Heckler…" Beatrice whimpered as she shivered from the chill she had gotten from being thrown into the ocean water. By this she probably meant something by I'm very scared and even more confused. Why are these people trying to kill us?
"It's going to be ok." Sunny comforted Beatrice. In front of them another cannonball slammed into the surface, spraying a wave of water into the orphans' faces. The raft was pushed back and almost tipped over.
"What are we going to do?" Violet cried out.
"JUMP!!!" Klaus suggested without anyone calmness in his voice. Now you know as well as I do that in a situation like this that jumping would probably not fix anything. You might right now be wondering why Klaus wanted to jump with such urgency. If I had my eyes closed and heard that I would've been very confused. Although, the other three passengers had their eyes opened and saw why Klaus wanted them all to jump so much. A cannonball had finally been aimed at them with accuracy. Klaus dove into the water, followed by Sunny. Right before the cannonball slammed into their raft and the wood boat was shattered into seventy five thousand nine hundred sixty two pieces, Violet picked up Beatrice and flew through the air into the safety of the nearby, freezing depths of the ocean.
The four of them quickly resurfaced and grabbed onto pieces of drift wood. Beatrice, who was quite small at the time, climbed completely on top of a piece of drift wood and shook from the coldness of the water. Throughout the lives of the Baudelaires' they had come across many situations where they had very few choices of what action to take. Although, in those situations they had at least had more than one choice of action to take. Unfortunately for them, when you're floating in the middle of the ocean while people are shooting cannonballs at you there is nowhere to go and no way to fight back unless you just happened to be carrying around a very powerful, fully loaded, long ranged gun.
Neither the Baudelaires or Beatrice was carrying a powerful, fully loaded, long ranged gun, let alone could any of them work a powerful, fully loaded, long ranged gun. So instead of fighting back or swimming away the four of them floated there, while dodging very dangerous cannonballs for a long while.
"When are they going to give up?" Klaus asked once cannonballs had stopped coming at them for awhile. He had swum over to a big piece of drift wood to catch his breath and look around.
"Look!" Sunny screeched and pointed towards the deck of the pirate ship. Many figures of pirates scurried onto the deck and started to lift up sails and prepare their equipment.
"They've decided to come to us directly." Klaus concluded.
"Bad?" Beatrice asked while still shivering.
"Yes. Very bad." Violet explained to Beatrice.
"Should we make a plan?" Sunny wondered.
"There's nothing we can plan. We'll just have to wait until they come and see what happens from there." Klaus sighed with desperation.
"What do you think they want from us?" Violet asked.
"Money?" Sunny suggested.
"Elpon?" Beatrice suggested, by this she probably meant to hurt us?
"To take us in as prisoners?" Klaus suggested.
"This doesn't make sense though. Why would they think people on a raft would have anything of value? Why would they just randomly want to hurt us? Why would they think four kids on a raft could do any work on a ship?" Violet asked with confusion.
"Hello! Hellooooo, my poor, lost and shipwrecked friends!" A cheery and loud woman's voice rang out from the front of the deck.
"AYE!!! AYE!!!" The crew yelled quickly after the woman finished talking.
"Friends?" Sunny asked.
"Just a minute ago they were trying to kill us!" Klaus yelled in a shocked tone. This here does not mean that he had just been shocked by an electric surge of energy, but that he was very surprised by the events that were taking place.
"You may be confused, but we have a good reason for what just happened." The woman started to explain.
"AYE!!! AYE!!!" The crew shouted out.
"We did not notice that you were not men." She told the four of them.
"AYE!!! AYE!!!" The crew repeated.
"Or at least most of you." The woman said in a disgusted tone.
"Aye…" The crew muttered.
"In just a minute you will be saved and brought up onto my boat, oh happy day!" She cheered.
"AYE!!! AYE!!!"
"Crew, please bring aboard these three lovely young ladies." The woman ordered the crew.
"AYE!!! AYE!!!"
"And then get that… boy…" She said with a crept out tone.
"Aye…" The crew grumbled.
"Why no like Klaus?" Sunny asked.
"Sunny is right." Violet told Klaus. "They don't really seem to like you."
"Maybe that's because the captain seems to be a woman. That's odd though. These kinds of pirates are like the old fashioned kind. They didn't usually have woman for captains. I doubt there were even any women pirates." Klaus informed the rest of them.
As the ship came closer and closer to them they realized that these pirates dressed exactly like the colonial times pirates. Although they were dirty pirates with long shaggy hair, they didn't seem to have many muscles. Many of the crew members had come over to the side of the ship and lowered down a life boat.
"If you do wish to board our ship, climb aboard the life boat and we will pull it back up." The woman explained.
"AYE!!! AYE!!!" The crew bellowed out.
"Should we go?" Violet asked.
"Geenk?" Beatrice shrugged. By this she probably meant do we have any other real choice?
"They don't like Klaus though." Sunny reminded them.
"Let's just go. There's nothing else to do." Klaus said and swam towards the life boat. Sunny quickly followed as Violet dragged along the piece of drift wood Beatrice was floating on. The all tumbled into the life boat and caught their breath. For the first time in about half an hour, the four of them were able to stop treading water and finally rest their legs. If you have ever treaded water for an hour and a half then tumbled into a life boat some friendly pirates who were just shooting cannonballs at you and smashed your raft had just lowered down you would know how great the four of them felt at this moment. I for instance have been in a situation very similar to the four of them and know how wonderful your legs feel at that point.
"Hoist them up!" The women cried out.
"AYE!!! AYE!!!"
Slowly the crew lifted them up with much effort. Finally the four children had reached the deck of the ship and staggered onto the wooden platform.
"Thanks" Sunny quietly thanked them "for saving us."
"You're very welcome." The women who had been yelling all the time replied. She looked as though she was in her twenties and still had much youngness in her. Her long blonde hair went down to her elbows and her face was mostly covered by her huge, energetic smile. This lady was not the only female on this ship though. The whole crew was also girls and their mothers.