Okay, this is a story on Aunt Josephine. She's so cool. Here's a little story on about when the Bauds were with her. Enjoy!

As I sat in my library, lecturing the Baudelaires on grammar, I thought of what they were thinking. They must have been bored to death.

"Aunt Josephine," Klaus said, yawning, "when can we go to bed?"

"Klaus!" I scolded. "We can always go to bed, but we won't always know what sounds like it! Now, repeat after me: a homophone is a word that sounds like another, but has a different meaning."

Violet said, "Aunt Josephine, he's just tired. But so are we. Can we please go to bed, and discuss homophones in the morning?"

"Oh no," I said, folding my arms. "You children haven't been in school for a long time. Now, when I was younger, I went to a good school called Prufrock Preparatory. It's a boarding school, and very high-skilled in grammar."

"Napired!" Sunny shrieked.

"No, no, Sunny," I said, frowning. "You're supposed to say, 'that's sounds like a very interesting school', not 'napire!' Goodness me, you three children need good grammar lessons. And yes, you may go to bed."

"Good night," Violet and Klaus said as they walked to their bedrooms. "Evenleep!" Sunny said.

"Sunny," I said crossly, "it's 'good night', not 'evenleep'! We'll continue in the morning."

I walked into the kitchen and was about to get a little more chilled cucumber soup when the phone rang.

I jumped back in surprise and held a hand to my heart.

I remembered how Ike had almost always answered the telephone. He was my husband, my best friend, and partner in grammar.

Everything had happened so quickly to his death. I could remember it just like yesterday as we were heading down to Lake Lachrymose for a swim:

"Oh Josephine, don't be afraid," Ike said, stretching before peeling off his shirt.

"But Ike, you've just eaten," I protested. "Shouldn't you wait at least an hour?"

"One banana won't make a difference," he said, trying to reassure me.

"But the smell of banana is still on you," I argued. "And the Lachrymose leeches hadn't been very gracious in the department of letting their food-scented prey pass them up."

"Haven't been," Ike corrected, kicking off his flip-flops.

"What?" I asked.

"You said 'hadn't been,'" he explained. "That is not grammatically correct. You should have said, 'haven't been."

I watched him prepare to dive, and a leech head popped out of the water, staring straight at Ike.

Unfortunately, Ike didn't notice; he was too busy practicing his diving stance.

"Ike!" I cried. "The leeches are-"

He dove right in, and everything was silent for a moment.

"See?" Ike said, making wading moves with his arms. "There's nothing to be sca-"

A leech sprung out of the water and attached itself to Ike's neck.

"Ike! Ike!" I screamed, waving my umbrella about, trying to attract someone's help.

The leech's blood-sucking attack turned Ike's skin a pale white, and he screamed bloody murder.

Blood dribbled down his neck, and several other leeches attacked him as well, on his stomach, back, arms, legs, and head.

Ike was viciously torn apart, in a bloody mess. The last I saw was a leech severe his head, and he disappeared beneath the water.

I cried and cried for days, but little comfort came.

When the phone finally stopped ringing, I saw a dark shadow hurry around a corner. "Aaaaaaaaaaahh!" I screamed.

It was Violet. She was wearing her pajamas and was barefoot.

"Aunt Josephine, what's going on?" she asked.

"Oh, it's just you, Violet," I said, calming down a bit. "I thought you were a burglar."

"Aunt Josephine, if it calms you down a bit, I doubt anyone would want to come into a house at the top of a hill about one hundred or so feet above a leech-infested lake at the risk of drowning or being eaten," Violet said. "Besides, we can always keep the phone nearby to call the police."

"I never thought of it that way," I said, reconsidering the whole burglar idea. "The Lake Lachrymose Police Department isn't far from here."

Klaus, carrying Sunny hurried into the kitchen to join us. He wasn't wearing his glasses.

"Is everything okay?" he asked. "Trouglar?" Sunny said.

I decided to ignore Sunny's speech impediment and said, "Yes. Everything's okay. I was just a bit frightened by the telephone."

"If you'd like, I can tell you a bit about how a phone operates," Klaus offered. "There's a better chance of eating pizza in Lake Lachrymose and not even seeing a leech than being electrocuted."

"And I could take the phone apart," Violet said, "to show you how it works. There's no reason to worry."

"That's okay," I said, realizing Sunny was asleep in Klaus's arms, so I whispered. "You children get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning.

So, was the leech attack a bit vicious? I hope so. Well, expect another chapter coming to a computer near you!