Around 4:00 AM, the Baudelaire orphans returned to the Orphans Shack, tired as anything after running a ridiculous amount of laps for the S.O.R.E. program administered by Coach Genghis, better know as Count Olaf.
Violet collapsed on her bale of hay and fell asleep immediately. Klaus helped Sunny onto her bed before passing out on his own pallet. A few hours later, the orphans woke up and sleepily trudged off to the cafeteria where they met the Quagmires.
"How many laps this time?" Isadora asked anxiously as she munched on burnt toast.
"I lost count after 526 laps," Klaus replied, struggling to keep his eyes open.
"Nine hundred and four," Violet announced. "Its so flipping ridiculous. I hate this stupid school."
"Violet, don't be so negative. It could always be worse…" Duncan tried to calm his friend.
"Worse than this? Our parents died, we've moved from guardian to guardian and some crazy actor is trying to steal our fortune! What could be worse?" Violet was near tears.
"We could be dead…" Klaus suggested.
"You're right. I'm sorry, guys, it's just that…" she trailed off.
"We understand." Isadora smiled weakly, trying to be of some help to her friend.
The orphans finished their meal in silence before heading off to class and Sunny to Nero's office.
Instead of writing down the monotonous details of Mr. Remora's trip to an island covered in green potatoes, Violet found herself doodling "Duncan" and hearts all over her parchment. Wow, could I really like him? Violet snapped back into reality when she saw Carmelita staring at her. She blushed and began writing about the potato island and its inhabitants.
Meanwhile, Duncan was busy doodling the name of one of the other Baudelaire orphans. He, too, was completely oblivious to the whales that performed ceremonial dances on the island of green potatoes.
Over in Nero's office, Sunny was fashioning metal sticks into staples, well, attempting to anyway. After seven staples, she got bored and began fashioning the metal rods into six different letters: D U N C A N