Illness, like bowling balls and barbed wire, can strike at any time for any reason. You might, perhaps, be in a never-ending class about the history of the pencil taught by an extremely boring teacher and feel a sharp pain in your throat. Or, maybe, you are running from an ex-indoor sports player with a grudge against you because you told him you could beat him at his own game and you did, and you might run into a barbed wire fence and proceed to try to climb over it, only to suddenly feel faint and fall down and get captured. Illness can come from anywhere, but it certainly doesn't help when you've been in a hot classroom or a crowded bowling alley. And illness, like bowling balls and barbed wire, constrains you until you figure a way out of it. On a steamy train coming from Paltryville, Klaus Baudelaire sat. He did not know it yet, but he was about to be struck with an illness.
In hindsight, his sister Violet would figure that it was very unsurprising that her little brother had gotten sick at this particular moment. They had, after all, been living in close quarters in a miserable mill owned by a mysterious man called Sir. They had been working very long hours with nothing to eat but bubblegum. And, in addition, Klaus had been taken by their ex-guardian, Count Olaf, who kept trying to steal their family fortune in various disguises. This time, Count Olaf had been pretending to be Shirley, a receptionist who worked for a crazy optometrist-turned-hypnotist named Georgina Orwell. Dr. Orwell had hypnotized Klaus multiple times for hours, and Klaus had been forced to do a number of dangerous things while hypnotized. Luckily, Dr. Orwell had been killed by the lumber mill. Orphans Violet, Klaus, and Sunny had been taken away from Lucky Smells by Mr. Poe, a inept, which means stupid with the Baudelaire's affairs, banker. But Olaf had run off once again, and the Baudelaire orphans were going to be sent away to boarding school very soon.
So, really, it should be no surprise that Klaus, drained after being subject to a number of horrid incidents, had contracted an illness. But, like fiftieth birthdays and bankruptcy, this illness was a surprise even though it shouldn't have been.
Violet Baudelaire shifted her sleeping baby sister Sunny in her arms as she turned to look out the window. The wilderness outside was rushing past as the evening lights got dimmer and dimmer. She sighed, happy at least that tonight, she and her siblings could rest without having to get up to work in a horrible mill or to do terrible chores. Even staying with Mr. Poe, who was currently coughing loudly as he tried to write up a sad letter about a business declaring bankruptcy, was looking like paradise after this week.
In the midst of Mr. Poe's violent coughs, Violet heard a softer, but just as rough, cough next to her. She turned her head to her younger brother. Klaus Baudelaire, who usually would be craving a book on a long train ride and whispering anxiously to his sister in boredom, was staring with glazed eyes at the ground. His face was very pale, and he seemed to sniffle every time he breathed. Violet was suddenly nervous. Was Klaus still hypnotized?
"Klaus?" Violet murmured to her brother. "Are you okay?"
Klaus looked up at her. His eyes were glassy, but he didn't seem dazed.
"I don't feel well," he whispered to Violet, his voice quiet and scratchy. He looked very tired.
"What hurts?" Violet asked softly, moving Sunny to her right side.
"My head," Klaus said, his eyes welling up with tears. "And my throat. And my stomach."
Violet thought his symptoms over quickly. She raised her free hand and placed it on her brother's forehead. She thought sadly of the last time she herself had been sick, back when her parents were still alive. Violet had contracted the flu from a friend at school, and she had been quite ill for a number of days. She remembered how her father had come and read to her one of the Baudelaire family's favorite books, Alice in Wonderland. At the time, Violet had thought she was much too old to have her parent reading to her, but now she wished she had asked her father to read another few chapters. She remembered her mother's cool hand on her forehead every few hours, and the tsk-ing sound she had made every time she had found Violet's fever unchanged. "You're warm," her mother had muttered in between her father's elaborate recitations of the Jabberwocky poem. "That's not good."
Klaus's forehead, like hers had been, was warmer than it should be.
"You're warm," Violet told him. "That's not good. You probably caught something at the mill."
Klaus nodded weakly, coughing again into his arm.
"Here," Violet said, moving her left arm to be around her brother's shoulders. "Take a nap. You'll probably feel better when you wake up."
"Yeah," Klaus whispered tearfully. Violet encouraged her brother to rest his head on her chest as she rubbed his back. He settled in next to Sunny, closing his eyes. Before Violet knew it, her brother's lip was quivering and his head had gone limp. Both her little siblings were asleep.
Violet softly ran her hand over first Sunny's hair and then over Klaus's. The two warm weights, snuggled in next to her, were comforting and terrifying at the same time. Klaus and Sunny were Violet's closest companions and best friends—but they were also her baby brother and sister. She had their love and support, but they also needed her protection. And that, Violet considered, watching as Klaus coughed quietly in his sleep, was scary. It was one thing to protect her siblings from Count Olaf, but it was another to protect them from the range of illnesses that might plague them.
Violet hoped desperately that Klaus simply had a cold. But I know what Klaus had, and unfortunately, as I must soon tell you, it was not just a cold, but a very unpleasant infection that would make the next few hours for the Baudelaire children even more miserable than they could imagine being Olafless. If you do not like tales of vomit, tears, and ignorant adults, please close this story right now and continue no more. But if you are a person who does like to watch the strike of illness like it is a bowling match or an amateur racing against a superior athlete, please feel free to keep reading, though I hope you will reevaluate your intentions.
—
Sadly, Violet had been wrong—Klaus did not feel better when he woke up as the train pulled into the city. In fact, he felt worse. His head was still pounding and his stomach was still turning, but now, his ears hurt, and his chest ached with every breath he took in. He coughed nearly as much as Mr. Poe when the Baudelaires got off the train and into a cab. He coughed when they walked up the stairs to the Poe's apartment near the city's banking district. He coughed at their bland dinner of chicken and potatoes, which he only ate some of at Violet's whispered urgings. He coughed as he laid down on the mass of blankets on the floor that would be the Baudelaire children's bed for the night. He coughed when Violet put her hand on his forehead once more and found that her brother was even warmed than before.
"Mr. Poe?" Violet called after putting Klaus in bed, knocking on the door of the banker's bedroom. She bounced a tired Sunny gently up and down in her arms. "Mr. Poe?"
"What is it, Violet?" Mr. Poe poked his head out of his bedroom. He still on his suit and tie. Violet sometimes wondered if he slept in it.
"Mr. Poe, I'm afraid my brother is quite sick," Violet explained anxiously. "I'm sure you noticed his cough, and he's very warm. I think he has a fever. I was hoping you could call a doctor for him."
Mr. Poe had started coughing halfway through Violet's request, so Violet stood in an awkward silence as he finished hacking away. When he looked up, he wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and shook his head.
"It's too late in the evening to call a doctor now," Mr. Poe replied. "I'm sure Klaus just has a cold. Let him sleep it off, he'll feel better in the morning."
"But, Mr. Poe, Klaus isn't himself, I know my brother, and he has a fever, I'm certain," Violet said.
"A symptom of the common cold," Mr. Poe shrugged in between coughs. "He'll be fine."
Violet sighed, angry that Mr. Poe wasn't more concerned about her younger sibling.
"Alright, well, can I at least bring him some medicine or something?" Violet asked in an exasperated tone.
"Oh no," answered Mrs. Poe, showing up behind her husband. She, unlike Mr. Poe, was dressed in an extravagant pink nightgown and a bonnet. Violet thought she looked like Pretty Penny, a gift the Baudelaires's old guardian Aunt Josephine had given her. "Oh no, he shouldn't have any cold medicine. Children die from cold medicine, you know. And it can give you liver disease. Oh no, he shouldn't have any unless he's really sick."
"But he is!" Violet exclaimed. She wanted to mention that Mrs. Poe had given her son Albert cold medicine this evening when he had coughed once at dinner, but Klaus had been hacking away the entire meal; however, Violet decided that was probably a bad idea.
"If he's still sick in the morning, he can have cold medicine," Mr. Poe compromised. "But for now, you should go to bed. You are all just tired. Goodnight Violet. Goodnight Sunny."
Given that Violet had no doctor or medicine to offer to Klaus, she tried to make her little brother as comfortable as possible before putting Sunny to bed. She hoped that Mr. Poe was right, that they were all just tired. Sunny certainly was—she had asked for a warm bottle ("Nuby!") that evening for when she went to sleep, something that hadn't happened since they had lived with Count Olaf. Violet had reluctantly dug out Sunny's bottle and stole a meager amount of milk from the Poe family fridge. Now, Sunny clutched onto her old bottle tiredly as she laid out on a throw pillow, her eyes already drifting closed as she drank.
Violet settled in between her two siblings and attempted to go to sleep. Mr. Poe, as it turned out, had been right on one thing—all three Baudelaire children were exhausted. Even though the floor was uncomfortable, Violet fell asleep not long after laying her head on the pillow.
Violet awoke several hours later to a quiet, dark room. She felt very uneasy, as if there was something off about the bedroom. The words from one of the first books she had read when she was very small came back to her. Something is not right. What was it? Sunny was asleep right in front of her, the bottle right next to the baby's tiny head. And she could feel Klaus—his warm weight was still beside her. The room was silent besides the Poe brothers's snores. What was it?
That's when she noticed that the blankets were shaking. No, Violet thought, swiftly rolling over in the bed. Not the blankets.
Despite being wrapped in a comforter, Klaus was violently shivering beneath the covers.
Violet quickly sat up and placed her hand on his forehead again, only to quickly move it away. Klaus wasn't just warm anymore—he was hot. Too hot.
"Klaus," Violet murmured to her brother, briskly rubbing his shoulder. "Klaus, wake up."
Klaus's eyes shot open, and he sat up far too fast, swaying dangerously next to his sister. Violet steadied him with a gentle hand, grabbing his glasses from behind his sweaty pillow. His eyes were wide and glazed over with fever, and he shook underneath Violet's hand.
"Shhhh, Klaus, it's okay," Violet whispered to her brother, squeezing his shoulder. "You are really warm, I think we need to go get you some water or something, okay?"
Klaus gulped, closing his eyes tightly. Out of nowhere, his shivers stopped.
"Klaus?" Violet whispered.
Suddenly, Klaus shot up, and without taking his glasses from Violet, he stumbled out of the room towards the bathroom down the hall. Violet followed quickly behind, reaching the bathroom just as her little brother violently threw up.
"Oh," Violet mumbled, startled. She watched her brother retch, his small body shaking once more. After he vomited the third time, he burst into tears, pushing Violet out of her shock. She quickly turned on the facet and grabbed a glass of water. Taking a tissue from the box on the counter, she settled on the ground next to Klaus and placed her arm around his shoulders.
"Shhhh, it's okay, it's okay," Violet soothed just as Klaus retched again, still crying. She rubbed his back slowly, urging him to take deep breaths. When Klaus was still for more than a few seconds, Violet grabbed the nearest towel and put it around his shoulders.
"Okay, you're okay," Violet muttered, handing Klaus the tissue to wipe his lips with. "Do you feel like you're done?" She hoped the vomiting was over with.
"I don't know," Klaus mumbled, swaying again. Violet steadied him.
"Does your stomach still hurt?" Violet asked.
"Not as much as before," Klaus whispered.
"Okay," Violet said firmly, getting the glass of water. "You're probably done for now. Rinse out your mouth, and then take tiny sips of the water, okay?" Violet stood up as she talked, opening the cabinet behind the Poe family's bathroom mirror. As Klaus slowly drank some water, Violet pulled her ribbon from her pocket and put her hair up before she scanned the shelves. Though she didn't find any medicine, she found something else she needed.
"Here, Klaus, open your mouth," Violet requested, placing a thermometer under her brother's tongue. As they waited for a reading, Violet grabbed a washcloth from the bathtub and wet it with cool water. Ringing it out, she brought it over to Klaus, wiping his flushed cheeks and forehead.
"102.5," Violet read from the thermometer, looking at her brother worriedly. "That's high."
Klaus rubbed his eyes before he coughed again, shaking once more. Violet thought hard as she watched her ill brother. She didn't think it was wise to move him—what if he needed to throw up again? But he also was obviously so exhausted. And she needed to figure out how to cool him down a bit, while also letting him rest. She also needed to keep an eye on Sunny.
"Do you feel like you'd like to move?" Violet asked Klaus gently, handing him his glasses. Klaus shakily put them on, blinking hard.
"I don't know," Klaus responded, shaking his head. "No."
Violet felt like crying herself watching Klaus. She thought for a moment about going to ask Mr. Poe for help again, but she knew it would be no use. Mr. Poe would turn her away with an answer of waiting until morning. It was going to be down to her to take care of Klaus and Sunny. It was always going to be that way.
"Okay," Violet said to Klaus, squeezing his shoulder again. "You stay here. I will be right back. I'm going to go get us some blankets and grab Sunny, okay?"
Klaus nodded softly, closing his eyes. Violet took one last anxious glance at him before heading back to the bedroom. Quickly, she grabbed the abandoned comforter and two pillows from the floor and carried them to the bathroom door. Then, she came back for Sunny. Gently, Violet picked her slumbering sister up, grabbing the throw pillow she was laying on. Sunny shifted fussily in Violet's arms, whimpering softly.
"I know, Sunny, I know," Violet whispered into her sister's hair. "I'm sorry, we have to move to the bathroom, Klaus is really sick, and we need to take care of him."
Sunny raised her head from Violet's shoulder with wide eyes, now fully awake. As Violet carried her into the bathroom and closed the door, Sunny struggled out of her sister's arms and crawled towards her brother. Sunny placed a very tiny hand on Klaus's knee, looking up at him concernedly.
"Klaus," Sunny said. "Malade?"
"Yes," Violet responded as Klaus nodded. "He doesn't feel well. Here, Klaus, I'm going to set up our beds. Sunny, you are going to sleep over there near the sink, I don't want you to get sick too."
Violet placed all of the towels on ground over the shower mat. Guiding a coughing Klaus down onto a pillow, Violet pulled the comforter over him as he removed his glasses once more. She quickly settled Sunny on her throw pillow closer to the door, though she was sure it would be hard for Sunny to sleep now as well. After wetting it once more, Violet placed the cool washcloth on Klaus's burning forehead. He shivered harder for a moment before exhaling a quiet breath, closing his eyes and drifting into an uneasy sleep.
Violet and Sunny watched their brother in a silent vigil from separate parts of the room. Violet occasionally got up to wet the washcloth again, hoping desperately that it was lowering Klaus's fever. Sunny watched her with weary eyes, confused as to how her brother could be so ill so suddenly. Whenever Violet resettled the washcloth over Klaus's forehead, she stroked back his hair softly for a few seconds in hope that it would provide him some comfort. This was something the Baudelaires's mother used to do to all of them, and as Sunny watched, she wished her mother were there right now to care for them all once more.
As the night droned on, Sunny eventually fell asleep, leaving Violet as the sole guardian of the night. Violet dozed at times, her head drifting onto the bathtub rim. Each time when she awoke, she stared quickly at the bathroom clock, changed the washcloth again, and told herself angrily to try to stay awake. But soon, even that failed to work. Violet was exhausted just like her siblings, and staying awake all night was not going to happen. She fell asleep once more.
—
Violet startled awake again after a deep doze. She was surprised for a moment to find herself in the dim bathroom before she remembered the night's earlier events. She took a glance at the clock. 2:43 am. She lifted her sore neck, peeking at Sunny, still slumbering on her pillow. Then, she turned to Klaus.
Violet gulped. She must have been asleep a good while. Klaus's washcloth had gone dry on his forehead, and his pale face was desperately flushed. He no longer shivered in his sleep but was strangely still, and if his breathing hadn't been loud with illness, Violet would have been worried that her brother wasn't breathing at all.
Violet quickly grabbed the thermometer from the sink counter and gently stuck it into her brother's quivering mouth. As she waited for the reading, Violet once again stroked his hair from his forehead. She already knew—he was somehow dangerously warmer than before.
When she took the thermometer from his mouth, she shook in fear.
104.2.
"That's it," Violet muttered to herself, moving quickly. She was going to get Mr. Poe, and quickly. Klaus needed a doctor or a hospital. A temperature that high was terrifying.
Violet put the washcloth under the water once more. She needed to take measures to take care of Klaus before calling a doctor—he needed some relief right now. Wringing it out, she quickly placed it on his forehead again.
"Don't worry, Klaus, I've got you, I'm going to go get a doctor right now, okay?" Violet whispered half-heartedly to her brother, knowing he was probably too asleep to understand her. She stroked his hair back once more just as his loud breaths stopped. His whole body tensed up beneath the blankets.
"Klaus?" Violet asked.
There was a moment of horrid silence before Klaus started to convulse violently under the covers.
"Klaus!" Violet screamed, pushing the blankets away from her brother. He shook in her arms, his eyes moving quickly behind his lids. "Klaus! Help! Help, please!"
Sunny had startled awake when Violet first screamed, and, noticing her brother's shaking body, she burst into loud, horrified sobs. Violet heard a door down the hall open and footsteps run towards the bathroom. Mr. Poe appeared in the door to the bathroom, Mrs. Poe behind him, Edgar and Albert staring with tired eyes from beside their mother.
"What's going on? What happened?" Mr. Poe asked loudly, taking in the scene.
"Will you please call a doctor now?" Violet shouted tearfully, not taking her eyes from Klaus. "My brother is having a seizure and his fever is 104 degrees and you didn't listen to me when I told you he was sick, so will you please, please call a doctor or an ambulance or something!"
Mr. Poe nodded at Violet, though she did not notice it. He pulled his family away from the bathroom door and ran to the phone. Violet was preoccupied with Klaus, who thankfully was starting to still, his convulsions slowing until they were no more. His eyes blinked open, extremely wide and confused.
"What…" Klaus whispered dazedly, staring in shock at his sister's teary eyes.
"You had a seizure," Violet explained, pushing his hair from his forehead again. Klaus breathed irregularly and tried to get up, his eyes mirroring Violet's in tears. "No, don't move, okay? You're okay, I've got you, we are going to get you looked at."
But it was no use—Klaus started to cry and cough once more.
"Shhhh, Klaus, shhhhh," Violet cried, her own tears dripping onto his pajama shirt.
"Violet," Klaus sobbed. "She strapped me into a chair, I remember now, it was so awful, and Count Olaf was there too, and they shocked me if I didn't keep my eyes open, Violet—"
"Klaus, sweetheart, you need to calm down, okay?" Violet never called her brother anything other than his first name, but their mother had always called her and Klaus "sweetheart," and desperate times called for desperate measures. She was horrified by what had just happened and what her brother was telling her had happened at Dr. Orwell's; it was really no wonder he was so sick, it was really unsurprising Klaus had a seizure of all things. Moreover, she was so upset that he was so scared, that she had allowed him to get so sick. Mother and Father would have never let this happen, Violet thought, tears in her eyes again. "Just relax, it's going to be okay, I'm going to fix this."
Violet took a deep breath as she listened to her own words. Klaus's sobs stopped as he took several heavy breaths, tears still drifting down his face. Violet gathered Klaus into her arms and rubbed his back slowly, comforting them both. Noticing that Sunny was still weeping quietly across the small bathroom, Violet opened one of her arms, urging her little sister forward. Sunny crawled over, howling, and Violet hugged her baby siblings, one horribly sick, one horribly horrified.
"I'm going to fix this," Violet murmured to them both.
—
The next morning, the Baudelaire children slept in the Poe guest room, which they had not been permitted to stay in before now, as the room functioned at a home for Eleonora Poe, Mr. Poe's sister, whenever she pleased. Mrs. Poe had argued before that the Baudelaires could not stay in the room in case Eleonora ever needed it last minute, but given the circumstances, Mr. Poe decided that Eleonora would just have to stay at her own home if she found she needed a space in the coming days.
A doctor arrived at the Poe residence near 3:15 am that very morning to look over Klaus Baudelaire. She quickly determined that Klaus did not have just a common cold but rather a quickly onset case of pneumonia. She ordered that the small boy be put to bed, inserted an IV of cool fluids into his arm, and prescribed him antibiotics, which would get rid of the infection in a few days. She additionally advised that all three children be given a proper place to sleep and rest before being bustled off the boarding school, and that perhaps, they should be given some peace and quiet to themselves. Violet thanked her repeatedly after the doctor ushered the Poes out of the room and promised Violet that what happened to Klaus was perfectly normal given his circumstances. As she left, Violet swore she saw the tattoo of an eye on her ankle, but she disregarded it as a sign of exhaustion. There was no way someone as kind as that doctor had Count Olaf's same tattoo. Violet just needed sleep.
And sleep, she did. Her brother rested softly next to her on Eleonora Poe's large bed; after he had whimpered at the needle of the IV, Klaus had relaxed remarkably, falling finally into a calm rest. Sunny slept on Violet's other side, biting into the hard plastic bottom of her baby bottle, protected from falling off the bed by a large pillow. And Violet slumbered between them, utterly exhausted from her night as protector. She dreamed, thankfully, calm dreams, of a poem about a Jabberwocky and the sound of her father's proud voice and the glance of her mother's kind, caring eyes and the image of her two younger siblings sleeping peacefully. You are doing the best you can, Violet. Don't you worry.
When they woke up, they would miraculously find a copy of Alice in Wonderland near Klaus's medicine. They would wonder where it came from, but they wouldn't dare venture out of their little room to ask the Poes. Instead, Violet would pick it up and start to read aloud, entertaining herself and her siblings in their shared exhaustion for the whole of the day. When Klaus's throat no longer burned so badly, he too would read it aloud to his sisters, and then Sunny would try hard to read by herself only to unsurprisingly fail. Her siblings would laugh and struggle through her babbles, promising her that someday soon she would be able to read to them it herself. They would keep reading until Klaus was better, until they were piled into a car, until they were taken to an austere academy called Prufrock, where they would once again meet misfortune and despair at the hands of a certain Count.
But for now, the Baudelaires slept as soundly as possible. And they supposed that this, in the end, was all they could hope for.