Hello. I re-posted this because I didn't update, due to failure to think of an ending. Enjoy. If you've already read The Lousy Lair, give me suggestions for crack pairings between characters I've created! It provides me with sugar. Sugar is good and healthy.
If you've ever trudged up an unreasonably steep slope, somnolent as you can possibly be (a word which here means 'ready to faint') , you can certainly identify with the miserable plight of the Baudelaire orphans.
They were dripping wet, in spite of the summer sun beating down upon their backs as they plodded unenthusiastically up the matriarch of all inclines, due to the fact that they had all tripped into a stream on the way, and had gotten soaked.
Klaus spat a small leaf out of his mouth, one presumably from a rare water plant he had encountered upon his acquaintance with the stream, and pointed up to the mansion sitting at the top of the hill.
"That's where our new guardian's living," he said to his siblings.
"I'm glad we're finally here," Violet said, brushing damp locks of hair out of her eyes. "To tell you the truth, Klaus, the slope has been absolutely murderous."
Sunny looked up at her elder sibling and sighed. "It's been unpleasant," she agreed. "We should hurry to the mansion."
Hope flared once again in the siblings' eyes as they made their way up to the enormous house, where refreshments would likely be present. How they did it is not important, so let us skip to the part of the story in which the siblings found themselves at the door of the manor.
"Here goes nothing," Klaus said, and pressed the ornate silver doorbell set into a niche right by the intricately carved doors, in front of which they stood together.
Klaus didn't expect the door to fly open as soon as the bell chimed, nearly hitting him on the nose. Violet stepped back, rather mortified, and Sunny wondered what sort of maniac lived there, one so eager as to open doors for guests that promptly.
A short, rather pretty girl stepped out from behind the doors. Of about Klaus' height, she wore a red blouse and pressed white skirt, making the Baudelaires feel a little self-conscious about their current appearance.
"Hello," she said cheerily, giving the siblings a friendly smile, something they were relieved to see (regardless of whether it was genuine or feigned). "You must be the Baudelaires! Come on in."
She stood to one side and ushered them into a small anteroom.
"Sorry for the abrupt introductions," the girl said as she shut the door and locked it, then tugged at the doorknob to make sure the lock was secure. "My name is Lynette Christmas, and I'm your new guardian."
It was obvious from Lynette's expression that she expected the stunned looks the three siblings were giving her.
"You're… our guardian?" Violet tried to hide her surprise as she spoke up. "I'm sorry – what I meant was…"
"Don't worry about it," Lynette smiled, waving it off. "Sorry, but I don't know your first names, so would you mind very much if you could introduce yourselves?"
"Violet," said Violet, "and these are my siblings, my brother, Klaus, and my sister, Sunny. It's good to meet you, Lynette."
"I've got other wards here, besides you," Lynette informed them as she opened the double doors that led out of the anteroom. "You'll be able to meet them all at dinner, but, for now, I've asked a couple of them to help show you around."
"Thanks," Klaus and Sunny said in unison, appreciating their new guardian's thoughtfulness.
"They'll also explain why I'm a guardian in the first place, just in case it's provoked your curiosity," Lynette said, ushering them into a lavish sitting-room.
The Baudelaires followed behind Lynette as she led them up several staircases leading to a long passage. All the doors along the corridor were coloured differently, one lime green, another scarlet – it was as if a rainbow had impulsively decided to split itself among all the doors down the hallway.
"These are the rooms for my wards," Lynette explained as the Baudelaires followed her down the corridor. "I provide their lodging and all the comforts of home."
Lynette stopped at a turquoise door, one of the last few at the end of the hall, and tapped smartly on it, ignoring the electric guitar riffs coming from behind the closed door.
The room's occupant evidently heard the rapping on the door, even above the music. The melody ceased abruptly, and the door opened, by a fraction.
"Hi," greeted the guitarist from the blue room, before Lynette had even said anything (she just stood there with her mouth open, about to introduce her newest wards). "I'm Lorelei… you must be the Baudelaires, right?"
She looked round at them and pushed the door open wider. "Come on in."
"I'll leave you to it then," said Lynette serenely, and set off down the corridor. The Baudelaires were left with no other choice but to enter Lorelei's room.
Lorelei, dark-haired and green-eyed, smiled at the Baudelaires a little hesitantly, her somewhat untidy appearance contrasting with the neatness of her room.
As they had glimpsed when Lorelei first opened the door, her room was almost entirely blue, painted in different shades of cobalt. Lorelei ushered them in, reminding them most strongly of Lynette. After closing the door behind them, she invited the siblings to sit down.
"The bed and my beanbags are the only form of seats in my room," Lorelei stated apologetically, heading over to aforementioned bed and picking up a black electric guitar.
"Everything's blue," Sunny observed with a laugh as she sat down.
"That's right," Lorelei agreed happily, her smile growing a tad warmer at the topic of colours. "We all get to pick décor and colour themes for our own rooms – you'll be getting yours too – Gabrielle chose orange, you'll meet her soon."
"Gabrielle?" Violet questioned. It seemed as if they were meeting new people on a big scale at Lynette's mansion.
"A friend," said Lorelei enigmatically. "You're Violet, Klaus and Sunny, am I correct?"
"You're right," Klaus said, staring at Lorelei's bookshelf longingly.
Observing this, Lorelei waved her hand at him. "Go ahead," she said. "Take a look, I don't mind."
Klaus went over to the bookshelf to browse, having missed perusing a library, be it a private library, as belonging to Lorelei, or a public one. Violet and Sunny began to ask Lorelei about Lynette's weird guardianship, the history of the Christmas manor, and set arrangements that came with a lifestyle at Lynette's home.
Quite suddenly, though, as Lorelei was about to explain why Lynette, a young girl of thirteen, had wanted to be a guardian, the door flew open again, and a girl strode in.
"Hey Lori, I thought…" she stopped short upon seeing that her friend had visitors of sorts, and stood by to be introduced.
"That's Gabrielle," Lorelei said. "She's a friend, and Lynette's probably mentioned her. I'm glad she's here, she's good for conversation, and she's going to help me explain part of the questions you've asked so that I can practice my guitar while we're at it."
Lorelei smirked at Gabrielle, who came and joined them, giving Lorelei a push so that she could sit down beside her.
"Hi," said Gabrielle to the Baudelaires, giving them a sunny smile.
Gabrielle was immaculate by contrast, seated next to Lorelei – poker-straight hair and a bright smile countered Lorelei's scruffiness and meditative pout.
After introductions were made, Lorelei proceeded with her explanations, which Gabrielle had so helpfully interrupted.
"Glad you're here, Gaby," Lorelei said to her friend, putting her guitar tenderly down on the bed just behind her. "You can help me explain our special circumstances here, and after this we can show the three of you to your new rooms."
The Baudelaires were grateful to sit back and relax, literally, as Lorelei and Gabrielle launched into a detailed explanation about their lives at the manor.
"You see, Lynette's parents were politicians, and being influential politicians, naturally people would want to eliminate them," began Lorelei somewhat bluntly, wanting to get straight to the point. "They left Lynette, then seven, in the manor when they both went for a world meeting, and upon their return they were gunned down by an assassin. The irony of the whole thing is that they died, in their limo, on Christmas Day."
Lorelei paused emphatically, and Gabrielle took over from there. "That's the sad story," Gabrielle continued.
The Baudelaires could identify very well with Lynette's unfortunate plight, having lost both their parents in the fire which destroyed their home. Melancholic, the three siblings continued to listen to what Gabrielle was saying.
"Lynette got the news from a messenger named Marcel, who's now the official cook of Christmas manor. After the bad news he bore was received, you can guess how Lynette felt. Marcel made her a good chocolate soufflé, hoping to keep her spirits up. Knowing that she herself wasn't a good cook, Lynette hired him, and he's stayed on after all these years."
Gabrielle looked slightly cheered by this fact, and left the next part of the story to Lorelei.
"As you can expect, Lynette wasn't used to taking care of herself then, and she hired Tessa and Smithers, our maid and butler. They've stayed on for about as long as Marcel has. Knowing that there was an enormous amount of misery in the world, Lynette made a promise to her parents that she would help orphans like herself, and that's how she became a guardian. She fought for her license in court, and having gotten approval from higher authorities Lynette is now free to take in those who have lost their homes and families. You'll meet everyone down at dinner – I'm not surprised by the number of people living here. We're all orphans, you know. There's nothing to feel awkward about because we're all in the same boat."
"You may see that Lynette is a bit on the… eccentric side," Gabrielle said. "Since the deaths of her parents, and what with the drastic changes to her lifestyle, she's never been the same. Lori and I" – Lorelei glared at Gabrielle for shortening her name – "knew her before she was orphaned, and she was different then."
"I suppose nothing's ever static," said Violet. "I admire Lynette's conviction, taking in other people too."
"That's not all," continued Gabrielle. "Lynette helps us get subsidized education at a boarding school her family's sponsored for generations. As a result, the principal there helps her get education for students in that school, so that our lives aren't tossed about more than they already are."
The door creaked open again, making Lorelei groan in exasperation.
"Are you in there, Van Muir?" a girl drawled from the doorway. "It's almost dinnertime, and Lynette wanted me to call you down here before you and your… friends got too carried away and lost track of time, as you always seem to do."
The girl turned up her nose at the Baudelaires, looking very unimpressed at their currently bedraggled state.
Lorelei shot the girl a look. "Well, thank you, Scout. From the looks of things, you're wasting time too, and you'd better go down there before your seat is taken."
"That's Colleen Scout," Gabrielle said when the girl had left. "She isn't very pleasant, I'm afraid. Lynette disregards such faults when she takes people in – Lynette's good-hearted, but that doesn't make me like Colleen any more than I already do."
The Baudelaires, with Lorelei and Gabrielle, exited the room, the two girls leading the siblings through the cavernous manor to the dining hall, where they soon found that there were more people sitting at the long dining table there than they had expected.
This chapter may be a bit boring, but it's always good to introduce a new setting! Again, crack pairings please.