1975
The sky was baby blue and the clouds were big and puffy, looking like sweet soft cotton candy in the air. All was good and well, or as good and well as it can be, in the world of V.F.D. A large white school bus pulled up to the front of Prufrock Preparatory School carrying a large load of loud and rambunctious children. The children didn't attend Prufrock, this simply being their "beginning of year" field trip. The doors of the bus opened with a hiss and a blonde girl, looking no older than 15, in a green dress with two golden pigtails, leaped out of the vehicle. Quickly, two other girls, about the same age, followed behind, attempting to catch their friend.
"Kit! Slow down!" one of the girls, Olivia Caliban, yelled as she ran. Kit pushed the doors of Prufrock open and quickly dashed inside, giggling like a child.
"Why does she always do this?" the other girl, Georgina Orwell, moaned as she ran beside Olivia.
"Kit is entitled to have her "blonde moments," Gego," Olivia said smiling.
"Yeah, but that leaves us as the ones having to deal with her when she does," Georgina complained.
The two girls could hear Kit's laughing coming from around the corner. Olivia smiled as she saw her friend spinning and dancing in the middle of the hallway. Kit always got like this on field trip days. Kit stopped spinning and ran towards her friends and, being quite dizzy, accidentally ran into someone in the process.Both girls fell to the ground, landing on top of each other.
"Dammit Kit!" Georgina yelled, "you've been here for less than five minutes and you're already bumping into people!"
"It's quite alright," said the girl Kit had bumped into, even though she sounded annoyed, "it's always this crazy when people come to visit the school."
"Yeah I'm sorry too," Kit apologized, "my doctor says it's normal for me to get overstimulated when I'm in new places."
"Or in any places," Georgina grumbled.
"Fuck off, Gego!" Kit retorted.
Olivia snickered to herself as she watched the brunette girl's, who Kit had bumped into, eyes widen at Kit's vulgarity.
"They always told me they used such choice words over at the...less fortunate…. training schools," the girl said, struggling to be nice.
"Yeah it's crazy at our school," Kit said happily, not picking up on the other girl's nervousness, "apparently I'm not even supposed to be going there cause my real family is rich... or something like that."
"Excuse our friend's behavior, please," Olivia apologized on Kit's behalf.
"It's alright, really," the girl answered, although her face showed that she wasn't as "okay" as she claimed she was.
"Oh yes right," Kit agreed, "I'm truly sorry, honestly. My name is Kit, by the way."
"I'm Beatrice," the girl replied with a small smile.
"Nice to meet you, Beatrice," Kit said, returning the smile, "these are my associates, Georgina Orwell and Olivia Caliban."
The two other light haired girls curtseyed for Beatrice, who nodded toward them approvingly.
"Beatrice! Do you know where room 108 is?" A girl with long brown hair asked as she ran up to the four girls, "I've been looking around the whole building and I can't find it!"
The girl had a, quite noticeable, Canadian accent, although it seemed as though it had probably faded over time.
"Of course, I've been struggling with my schedule all morning, too," Beatrice answered, "girls, this is my friend Winnie, she's a duchess from Canada."
"Ooh royalty!" Olivia said, sounding fascinated, and making it clear, by her actions, that she had never been around royalty before.
"How do you do?" Winnie smiled and asked the other girls.
"How do I do what?" Georgina asked in confusion.
"Gego, she's asking how we're doing," Kit explained, "I'm doing very well today, thank you."
"That's good to hear," Winnie replied, sweetly.
"I'm Kit Snicket and these are my associates, Olivia and Georgina," Kit introduced to the duchess.
Winnie eyes widened in interest and Beatrice raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Did you say Snicket?" she asked, wanting to clarify, "that's my, um, boyfriend's last name."
Beatrice blushed as she said the word "boyfriend".
"Wow, I thought you were the only one with a last name that weird," Georgina snickered.
Kit sent her a sharp glance before turning back to face the two new girls.
"Yeah, Lemony and Jacques are brothers and they both have that name," Winnie commented, "do you have any siblings?"
"Not that I know of…" Kit replied, thinking.
"Ooh there they are now!" Beatrice gasped, "Jacques! Lemony, darling! Come over here!"
Two boys, one looking about Kit's age and the other looking slightly younger, made there way over to the girls.
"Hey B, who's this?" Jacques asked in a friendly tone, sending the girls a smile.
Kit could see, out of the corner of her eye, her friends taking a liking to Jacques' charm. She could admit, he was quite attractive himself. His hair was much darker than Kit's, but his eyes were the same soft, faded green color. However, he was much much MUCH, taller than she was.
The other boy was a little shorter. His hair, she could tell, was more messy than Jacques's was but was tamed underneath a cap.
"Kit, Olivia, Georgina, this is my boyfriend Lemony and his brother Jacques Snicket," Beatrice introduced.
"How do you do?" Georgina asked smugly, trying out her new vocabulary on Jacques.
"Kit's last name is Snicket too," Winnie explained to the boys.
"There's someone else out there with that name?" Lemony asked, sounding just as shocked as Kit had been, "I thought we were the only ones."
"Oh that's right, Ms. Denouement did say we had a sister," Jacques commented, rather nonchalantly.
"What?!" Lemony questioned, clearly shocked by his brother's confession, "when did she tell you that?"
"When we met each other, Lem," Jacques said chuckling, "she said that she was sure that we had another sibling out there, a girl named Katy...or something."
"Hey that's my name!" Kit exclaimed, "well...sort of. It's Katherine, but people call me Kit, instead of Katy or Kate."
"How am I just finding out about this?!" Lemony exclaimed, still not satistified.
"How do you think I feel?" Kit said smiling, "I've been eating in rat infested cafeterias, learning in classrooms that have more mold than students, and sleeping in dorms that are smaller than closets...when I could've been going to school and living here!"
"Yeah, this place is so much nicer than our school," Olivia said, sighing.
"Well, come on," Winnie said, grabbing Kit's arm, "why don't we show you around?"
"That's sounds nice to me!" Georgina agreed, following behind the other girls.
Over the course of an hour Winnie, Beatrice, Lemony, and Jacques had managed to impress Kit, Olivia, and Georgina with the massiveness of their school. They took them through the cafeteria, library, gym, art room, music room, auditorium, and into most of the classrooms, all while Kit and her friends gasped in delight and amazement. Georgina had ran up onto the stage and began singing and dancing to tunes she'd made up in her head, Kit dived into the stacks of books that filled up the library, and Olivia even sneaked some food back from the cafeteria.
"This place is awesome," Olivia commented, shoving a French fry into her mouth, "I wish we could stay here."
"Me too, Liv," Kit agreed, sighing sadly, "and I'd be able to see my brothers."
"Yeah, I still think it's crazy that I never knew I had a sister," Lemony commented, still sounding astonished.
"Well, here's your chance to ask," Winnie replied, pointing over at a woman at the end of the hallway.
The woman had long hard red hair that cascaded down her back and reached all the way down to her waist. She had rosy cheek and a slightly crooked smile. She seemed as if she was both old and young at the same time. Nonetheless, she was someone the kids liked.
"Ms. Denouement!" Winnie yelled, flagging the woman over.
The lady excused herself from the conversation she was in and speed walked over to where the children were standing.
"Hi kiddos!" She said excitedly, "Oh, who are these lovely ladies?Are you three visitors from the trip?"
"They sure are," Lemony said, "that's Olivia and Georgina, and this is Kit Snicket...my sister...the one you never told me I had."
The woman chuckled.
"I hope you're not too mad at me, Lemony," Ms. Denouement said, "I do apologize. The organizing didn't want me to say too much to you, they want you kids to focus on your studies and not worry to much about family issues."
"Well...to make up for it...why don't you do something for us," Kit said, she had a slight smirk on her face.
The woman let out a louder laugh and put her had. on Kit's shoulder.
"And what would that be?" She asked curiously.
"Well...if you want my brothers and I to focus on our studies, it would be really hard if we were miles and miles apart wondering how each other was doing. I think we'd do better if we were a little closer to each other."
"Are you saying what I think you're saying, Ms. Snicket?" Ms. Denouement said, giving a smirk of her own and playing along with Kit.
"She sure is!" Georgina cut it, "and she thinks that in order for her to stay here, her friends should be allowed to come too, you know, in order to keep her company."
"I agree with Gego," Olivia added.
"Hmm...now I'm not sure I'm allowed to do something like that, BUT if I were…" Ms. Denouement said, she picked Beatrice's schedule from out of her hands, "would you three girls want your schedules to look something like this?"
"YES!" the three girl's shouted in unison.
"Well...IF I am able to do this...I'd have your schedules back to you within five or so minutes," Ms. Denouement continued, "but in the meantime, I think you kids should take these three wonderful ladies back to homeroom with you."
"We will," Beatrice agreed smiling.
"Thank you, Ms. Denouement!" Kit said excitedly.
Winnie grabbed Kit's arm again and led all of them to room 108.
"And I thought the last name Snicket was weird," Georgina whispered to Olivia, "what kind of last name is Denouement?!"