She walked directly down the middle of the dusty old courtroom and strait up to the podium. She was wearing a tattered gray dress, which was probably once a dark purple. But the dirt and sand that had worn on it for so long made the poor thing look withered- ready to retire and it didn't seem to fit her as though it were made for a much smaller person. It clashed with the bright expression on the face of the young girl. Her confidence shone like a sun against the black-haired backdrop.
The ghostly judge leaned down, trying to look menacing to the youth who could not have been older than 17.
"Who are you?" he gruffly ordered.
"I am here to discuss the Baudelaire fortune." Despite her shabby attire she expressed herself well. The Judge sniffed under his rather large white mustache and began again trying to shake any fear out of the girl.
"What business do you have with that family? They have long since died in a terrible fire."
"They have not."
"Who is asking about the Baudelaires?" A pretty, but much older woman came out of the back judges quarters adjusting a great white wooly wig to fit her head.
The tattered girl grinned at the older judge who now had crow's feet etching at her eyes, and worry pulling at her mouth. But she was still the same kind judiciary she had been just a few years past. The mustached man brusquely moved aside so the superior judge could see the young woman who stood before the bench.
"Your honors, I have come to collect the fortune allotted to the Baudelaire children on the day of the great and terrible fire that consumed their home."
"You can't." The old woman sadly replied. "No one can except for the children of the parents."
"And they can't either." Interrupted the mustached man. "They're dead in a pile of ashes somewhere."
"They didn't die." Calmly said the girl below.
"Even if they didn't burn, dear girl, they definitely died some years ago. Fires do that." The mustached judge corrected them. The woman judge nodded slowly and sadly. But as he was finishing up speaking she squinted down.
The girl patiently insisted, "The children did not die. I can prove it."
Slowly the woman judge pressed the mustache aside and leaned forward. The females' faces were about a foot apart when she asked.
"How?"
The bright young face smiled again and brightly answered with all confidence.
"I am Violet Baudelaire. I have just turned 18, as you can see, I am not dead and I am here to collect what is my inheritance."
From the back of the room three figures carefully entered. One was a young man with round glasses followed by two much smaller girls, one with her hair in a dark ponytail and the other with short brown locks framing her fat three-year-old face.
"Violet?"
Again, the young girl smiled brightly. "Hello Justice Straus. We all missed you terribly."
