Dedicated to Beatrice
For this is the last I'll ever write about you
Or anyone
Love, a word which here means a dreadful and aching passion for another person that, in the long run, is not returned.
She was an actress. Well, we all were, but she was more of the theater performance type than disguising yourself to resemble a prize winning horse to learn a secret a so called "farmer" had on a certain secret organization type.
It was often customary to have good relations with the other members. However, ours was something less permitted. We admired each other and that wasn't part of the plan. Never get too close to anyone. Never fall in love with anyone. Never trust anyone. That was the way of the V.F.D.
I write these memoirs not in the hopes that they will be published like my other case of the Baudelaire Orphans, but to let go of all that has happened to me and to come to terms with it myself. After I am done I will hand my writings in to my trusted, but not too trusted, great niece of mine, Brianna, for her to do with it as she will.
Beatrice and I met how I met everyone else who I met as a child- in school. We were taught how to spell, decipher codes, and pronounce our ABCs. It was a quiet and simple life of training how to be a code breaker, escaper, kidnapper, hostage, or anything else that was needed to become a member.
One day during class, I began itching at my ankle when Beatrice elbowed me in the side and told me to stop. I turned to her and whispered "4, 15, 1,6, 21,6" she nodded then looked back at the teacher who was telling the difference between a combination lock and a key lock and how both can be opened with a certain silent explosion.
That afternoon I waited at Beatrice and I's hiding spot, a tree surrounded by high, uncut grass. Sitting down you could barely see the top of the heads of any children who were hiding amongst the weeds. Beatrice walked directly over to me and sat down under the shady oak.
"I got your note from inside my lunchbox." she told me, "How you got it in there amazes me, as there are round the clock patrols of all lunch boxes, bags, and thermoses."
"I disguised myself as the lunch lady and slipped it into your decorative sack." I told her.
"Very good job." she congratulated me.
"Did you read it?" I asked, feeling a slight nervous twinge in my stomach."
"I skimmed for the words 4, 15, 1, 6, 21, and 6. I shall read the whole if you'd like." she told me.
"I'd like." I urged her.
"When I first met you, my first thought was how to get you and me together. At our first meeting, when our hands touched, I was beyond ecstatic and wondered from then on what you were hiding and how I could figure it out. I hope you have a place for me in your heart. L." she read out loud then looked at me, a smile appeared on her beautiful face.
"That was very kind of you." she told me.
"I believe it was how I truly feel about you." I told her, "And I was not very sure what love was…until I met you. Then I was sure that I want it not matter what anyone tells me."
"You were always the rebel, Lemony." she said.
"And I'll always be, if it means being with you."
That was my fondest and clearest memory of Beatrice. As of right now I am being hunted by a variety of people, so for right now this is all I can give you right now Brianna. The world is a dangerous and heartbreaking Earth and the longer I write about her the more I discover it.
Brianna, I leave you with some vital information that you need to know about me. Tomorrow afternoon at exactly three-forty nine, look out the window closest to your kitchen and there shall be a note that'll read.
Dear Readers,
The following information is vital for my survival and yours and by reading this you are endangering your safety, so please stop reading. There is a person among your closest acquaintances that you cannot trust; and their name is
[The rest of my great uncles letter ends there. It looked, perhaps that it was torn beyond this point. Lemony Snicket is now missing and I have no further contact with him. Please note that any information of a certain secret organization is classified and should not be distributed amongst your peers. You are all being watched]