I apologise for my absence. I have been dead for the past few days.

----

The Troupe go to the sea

"Oh I do like to be beside the seaside! Oh I do like to be beside the sea!" The bald man sung loudly.

"Oh shut up!" Moaned one of the white faced women.

Count Olaf and his Troupe were going to the seaside. This idea was first raised by Fernald, during a debate about whether to have a day out somewhere, or whether to play scrabble.

They were now driving along in the car, having to listen to the bald man's awful singing.

"Can't we sing something else?" Asked the other.

"Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!" Fernald half sang, half yelled.

"NO!" Everyone cried.

There was silence.

Olaf, who was driving, was trying to overtake the car in front, rather stupidly as there was cars coming the other way, and he was getting honked at angrily by many of them. His mind was elsewhere, trying to work out ways of stealing the Baudelaire fortune, in numerous strange ways. The idea of the eraser had been abandoned, and now he was working out a scheme involving a protractor and a bottle of window cleaning liquid.

One of the white faced women, who was sitting in the passenger seat, was trying to look anywhere but at the driver. The double dare that she had been unfortunately chosen to perform was still haunting her, and would not go away. But the others, who were either trying a spot of matchmaking or thought it was just funny had made her sit next to Olaf by taking up all of the other seats. She suspected that it was the latter.

The other white faced woman was sitting in one of the middle seats, staring out of the window at the scenery. The scenery wasn't particularly fantastic considering that it was hard to see past the layer of dead bugs that had met their demise by splatting most painfully on the glass. She wasn't looking forward to going to the beach, she was bound to get a tan, and that would mean more white powder, which would take up more of the valuble time that she spent irritating her sister.

The bald man was sitting in the back, pondering on what song to sing next. He wasn't really bothered about going to the sea, it was just a very big puddle with fish and salt in, nothing special about it at all. Still, he thought. Beats Scrabble.

Fernald was sitting next to him in the back, peering out of the front window trying to look for the sea. He couldn't wait to get there, and see the sea again. It had been a very long time since he had been there.

All in all, the majority of the troupe were not terribly excited to be going there.

"Well, here we are," Olaf sighed, getting out of the car when they had parked.

It was a rather dismal place to look at. The beach was covered in rocks instead of sand, the water was a dim murky grey and they seemed to be the only ones there.

"EEEKK!" Fernald cried in excitment.

They turned to look at him.

"What?" He asked.

"Yes..." Olaf said, glancing at him, looking highly disturbed. "Well..."

-

Five minutes later and most of the Troupe were sitting on a large pile of rocks on the beach, looking rather fed up.

"How long is he going to keep this up?" The bald man with the long nose asked.

"I don't know," Olaf sighed. "Could be hours."

"Take that!" Fernald cried, a little way in front of them. He was fighting a 'pirate' (a pole stuck in the ground), who was trying to take over his 'ship' (a pile of rocks with his jacket on a stick flapping above it."

"I spy with my little eye," one of the white faced women said. "Something beginning with... Poe?"

The others turned around and followed her gaze, and, sure enough, Mr Poe was walking along the beach, he had apparantly not noticed them yet.

"Hide!" Olaf hissed, and they dived behind a rock.

"Land Ahoy!" Fernald shouted.

"Grab him!" Olaf whispered dangerously, and his associates dashed out and pulled him behind the rock.

"Now all of you shut up!" Olaf said, peering around the rock to see that the banker was approaching their hiding place.

"Boss," Fernald whispered.

"I said shut up!"

"But, my jacket's still out there."

"So?"

"So he'll recognise it, won't he?"

There was silence.

"You stupid boy."

"I'm not a boy," Fernald sniffed. "I'm a grown man."

"You're a young man," Olaf glared. "And young men are always foolish."

"Oh no," ne of the white faced women whispered, breaking up the row. "There are two children there."

"What?" Olaf asked, peering out again, and, sure enough, he saw the Poes having a family picnic on the beach, their two sons, Edgar and Albert running around hitting each other with large pieces of heavy driftwood.

Suddenly, Edgar spotted the large green jacket hanging on the pole, and stopped beating his brother about the head for a moment to look at it.

"What's that?" He asked his brother.

"Pirates," Albert replied, with a wicked grin.

"We're going to fight some pirates!" They called to their parents, who were sitting on the picnic blanket.

"All right," Mrs Poe called. "Just be back soon."

The two irritating youngsters ran over to the jacket and pulled it off.

"My jacket," Fernald whispered in dismay, and the others had to hold him back to stop him from running out to get it back.

"If Mr Poe sees us," Olaf whispered urgently. "We'll be locked away. Now what's more important? Your freedom or your silly old weather-beaten green jacket?"

"The jacket." Fernald replied decisively.

The others held him there as they watched the boys regard the garment with expert eyes.

"Looks like it belongs to a man," Edgar said.

"In about his twenties," Albert added. Fernald looked up in astonishment.

"Brown curly hair," Edgar continued, looking at the sleeve.

"And hooks instead of hands," Albert said, glancing disdainfully at the collar.

"How the hell do they know all that?" Fernald asked softly. The others were just as shocked, however, and remained silent as the boys began to speak again.

"You know, Edgar," Albert was saying. "I think this person sounds fascinating."

"Indeed he does, Albert," his brother agreed. "Wouldn't it be wonderful to actually meet such a person?"

"Yes," Albert said. "In fact, I think I know where to find the very person who owns this jacket."

"Why, where on earth could that be?"

"Behind that rock."

There was a moment of silence, in which the two young boys turned to look at the rock behind which Count Olaf and his Troupe were hiding, and the latter took a moment to comprehend those words, which had been so casual that they hadn't quite understood them at first. Of course, Mr Poe had undoubtedly told his sons about Count Olaf and co. and probably given them all descriptions so that 'Daddy could turn them into the Police for a nice little reward to go towards new scooters.'

It was therefore hardly suprising that when Olaf and his Troupe had decided that the game was up, and appeared from the rock, that Edgar and Albert took a deep breath each and yelled at the top of their lungs:

"DADDY! COUNT OLAF IS BEHIND THIS ROCK!"

Mr Poe, who had been, up until now, relaxing on the picnic rug, enjoying a nice cheese and cucumber sandwhich, leapt to his feet at once and hurried over, wife in tow.

"Run!" Olaf yelled, and he took off, the Troupe behind.

"I'll take that," Fernald snapped, snatching his jacket, pulling it on and running off after them.

The Poes, as I am sure you may have guessed, were not the most athletic family in the world, and all of those times running from the police had given Olaf's Troupe quite the good set of running legs, so it came as nothing of a shock when they outran the yelling Poes, dived into the car and drove off as fast as they could.

There was a tension filled silence in the car, and a horrible atmosphere of intense annoyance was thick in the air, most of this directed at Fernald, who was brushing some sand off of his jacket. When he had finished and put it back on, he gave a huge sigh and spoke.

"Can we go back again tomorrow?"

----

You can never have enough irritating little kids. For those of you who have read The Misadventures, I don't think I will turn Edgar and Albert into the equivalent of Stewart Mallory, not only is the world not ready for two more demonic strangely clever boys, but I don't want the antics of the Troupe to be too much like what happens to the Death Eaters. They may pop up again, but not as much as Stewart does.

Reddy.