Disclaimer: I am not Lemony Snicket and I did not create the Series of Unfortunate Events books. But the Allemaire children are my own creations, even though they are basically the same as the Baudelaires. Also note that the Mr. Poe that appears is the brother of the Mr. Poe from the Baudelaire story.
A/N: Dear reader, you have clearly clicked on the wrong link, as you surely do not wish to read this woeful tale. This story is one of many recording the lives of the Allemaire children, young children whose lives are full of woe and unfortunate events. In this dreadful tale alone we witness a terrible fire, murder, an evil count, A dramatic car chase and strangely shaped oranges; so it would be a most wise decision to turn your computer off right now, and run as far as away from it as possible. I myself have dedicated my life to researching the lives of the Allemaire children, and suggest you do not join me.
With all due respect,
NOT Lemony Snicket
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Sorrowful Start
To Beatrice-
When I first met you I knew we'd be together, til death do us part.
Soon afterward death parted us
Chapter One
If you wish to read a book about rainbow smiles and happy faces, then this is the wrong book for you. This book contains nothing but misery and sorrow; hence the name The Sorrowful Start. But I have of course explained this already and it is unlikely I will be able to stop you from reading this now, so let me take a page from a Mr. Bruce's book, and skip straight to the interesting part. In a large house on a highly aristocratic street- a phrase which here means "A street full of spoiled snobs with such an enormous amount of money they could buy a small island off the cost of Africa"- a tragedy occurred. To be precise- a word which here means "To say the exact place where a terrible fire engulfed an entire house and killed two people"- this tragedy occurred in the home of the Allemaire family, and this tragedy just happened to be a fire. At the time there were five members of the Allemaire family. Mr and Mrs. Allemaire, and their three children: Eliza, a vivid young inventor aged fourteen who often enjoyed spending long days with her father, helping him fix his broken appliances and drinking lemonade and smiling as she did so. Then there was the second oldest Allemaire called Richard. Richard was twelve years old and loved to read, he read anything he could get his hands on and remember practically everything he remembered, he loved to sit on his mother's lap and listen as she read him stories about pirates sailing the seven seas and warriors doing battle with fierce monsters. And even when he grew too large to sit on his mother's lap he still enjoyed reading with his mother in their special reading corner. He hated being called Rick or Dick or any kind of nickname, his name was Richard and only Richard. And then there was the youngest Allemaire, Bella. She may not have been smart or good at inventing or well read but there was one thing Bella could do; she could bite. Bella was just about one year old and had five very sharp teeth; she enjoyed biting too and enjoyed tenderising the meat her mother was going to cook by biting them as hard as she could. She would bite anything hard, tables, books (Which made Richard rather angry, but he was never angry with Bella for long) anything. All the family loved to get together and have fun whether they were watching a movie or having dinner, they were always happy. But now the good times were gone forever, burning away along with the Allemaire children's home and their parents. The Allemaire children were walking down the road, they had been to the park for a few hours and had no idea that their house was currently burning down with their parents in it.
"Did you have a nice time at the park Bella?" Eliza asked her younger sister.
"Galoo!" Bella replied, like many babies Bella was having difficulty communicating in the English language but instead of saying normal baby words like "Mama" "Dada" and "Bottle", Bella preferred to speak in clusters of unintelligible words- a phrase which here means "Said things that meant no sense whatsoever to anyone but her siblings"- so both Eliza and Richard knew that Bella meant something like "I had a most enjoyable time at the park"
And all three Allemaire children nodded in agreement. "Indeed" Richard agreed "I enjoyed sitting under the tree and reading my book in the shade"
"Yes" Eliza also agreed also "And I liked watching the Frisbees flying through the air before the dogs caught them in their mouths, the spinning remind me of cogs and their rotary mechanism"
"Spif!" Bella cried in agreement and she meant something like "And I liked to catch the Frisbees in my mouth! They were hard and fun to bite" Then, as they rounded the next corner, the children saw smoke rising up from their house, their home was on fire. The children gasped, fire fighters were fighting the fire, but to no avail- a word which here means "The Allemaire children's parents, their home and all their worldly possessions were gone and the fire fighters couldn't do anything about it" Finally they put the fire out, but everything was already burnt to a crisp, the children ran up to one of the fire fighters and asked what was going on.
The fire fighter placed his left hand on Eliza's shoulder and his right hand on Richard's shoulder and said. "I'm sorry kids but, your parents are dead"
A/N: See, terrible wasn't it? I bet now you want to rip your heart out and cry until your eye sockets bleed. If for some reason you wish to read more of this heart wrenching tale, return tomorrow for the next chapter is this horrible story.