Here we go, 10th chapter anniversary…And I STILL don't own anything! Enjoy…

The light blinded his eyes; unnatural white rays coming at him from one foot intervals. The stale smell of old candy and popcorn entered his nose unsteadily, like a man using a walker. It was just as cold as it was outside, but the feel of the air conditioning made him uncomfortable. He heard muted sounds: a mélange of movie clips on the ceiling televisions, a constantly whirring fan…and a high-pitched squeal? He felt a tugging on his right arm and began to shake. The bright colours in front of him spun around – white, yellow, blue, red—

"YO, BIG BRO!" Sunny shouted, which meant something along the lines of, "Klaus." "Dude, what orbit are you in?" She said, vigorously shaking his arms. Sunny must have been trying to communicate to her sibling that there was an urgent matter to deal with at hand.

"Huh?" Klaus said, snapping out of his reverie. He never knew why, but entering a shop frequently overloaded his mind. Klaus couldn't possibly fathom what the appeal was of these inatimate objects. He'd also become lost in the expectant mother's department of the mall when he was three, and remembered trying to find his way out of a pink floral, third semester smock. The experience had permanently scarred him.

"Kiwi! Kiwi!" Sunny whined, which meant something along the lines of, "Look! A bubblegum machine!" Klaus turned and looked, and indeed saw the object of Sunny's desires. It was large, red, and the giant sphere was 70 full with marble-sized balls of bright, rainbow colours. Klaus immediately started calculating the volume of the sphere the gumballs took up. 4∏r3 /3…

"Cheapskate!" Sunny said, gnawing his ankle, which meant something along the lines of "Will you me buy one? They're only a quarter. Oh, and your shoe's untied."

"Sunny," Klaus said, slightly irritated that his calculations had been interrupted. "I don't think gum would be suitable for a baby. And wouldn't it be hard to chew with only four teeth?"

Sunny pouted and mumbled, "Caillou", which meant something along the lines of, "I'm a toddler, not a baby," or "rock" in French. The two siblings looked at the gumball machine for a while and thought; one doing equations and the other fantasizing popping a huge bubble in other's face. However, as they were looking they noticed something odd, but they couldn't quite place it…were there suddenly less gumballs then there had been before?

"Yoo hoo!" Violet (you didn't think I forgot about her, did you?) said, coming over to her siblings. She was holding up her dress, which was filled with gumballs. "Look what I got!" she exclaimed.

"Violet!" Klaus cried. "Where did you get—" he quickly scanned her lap "—$8.75 worth of gumballs?"

"Well," Violet said, grinning from ear to ear (which looked quite demented, mind you), "I was just going to get one for myself, because you guys are like, too dorky for gum, but the machine got stuck, so I was like 'Oh no, I'm always so unfortunate!' and I like, kicked, the machine? And, like, a bunch of gumballs came out! Some of them fell on the floor, but like, here, you can have them." Violet placed a gumball each into Sunny and Klaus's hand.

"Eeww…" Sunny said, which meant something along the lines of, "This isn't a gumball, it's a dust bunny."

"Well, I don't think gum would be suitable for a baby. And wouldn't it be hard to chew with only four teeth?" Violet said snottily, popping a bubble in Sunny's face. Her siblings didn't know it then, but she had gotten a severe case of popnoxiousness from the gum.

Sunny was feeling quite sore towards her siblings because they wouldn't let her chew gum; Klaus was ticked with Sunny for interrupting his calculations and at Violet for not giving him a cherry gumball, which he saw her chewing right in front of his eyes; and Violet, who was already on shaky ground after the cruise trip incident, was less then thrilled at her siblings' reactions at her miraculous gum-getting. The siblings looked at eachother, and felt a rise of animosity between them. With each pop of a bubble they made (or each hack in Sunny's case) they felt themselves drift further and further. Little did they know that they would have to work together to survive what was next coming to them…

Ah, those Baudebrats! Look at them, chewing their gum like they're so high and mighty. You don't think that I wouldn't chew gum too if I still had my real teeth? They think they're so special, it makes me sick. Well let's just see how they put up with this…

The three Baudelaires marched up the cashier's desk. They tried to distance themselves as much as possible, but as they were all going in the same direction it looked very awkward. As the desk approached, Klaus picked up speed and got there first, plunking the video down. "The chute outside was blocked so we're here to return this vid—" Klaus looked up at the person behind the desk and stopped short. He was a tall, bony man, with a hooked nose and gray tufts of hair behind his ears. The top of his head was bald, and the skin was wrinkled and stained, as if someone had spilled coffee on top of it, and hadn't wiped it off until it was too late. The rest of his face was covered with acne scars and a long, gray unibrow sat on top of two piercing eyes. He was wearing a rumpled blue shirt that said 'BLOCKBUSTER' and a name tag that said 'If you need any assistence, just call out my name…Ted!' with a carefully placed smiley face sticker. But the second the Baudelaires saw the man, they knew that his name wasn't Ted, they knew that he didn't work his BLOCKBUSTER and they knew that you could call his name all you want, and he wouldn't come to your assistance. And the three children knew one more thing.

That he was Count Olaf.

Well, that isn't really much of a surprise because you know that he's Count Olaf too, but…:)Thanks SO much for all those reviews! 50 reviews, 10 chapters…awesome! Anyways, I KNOW that it took a ridiculously long amount of time to get this up. I actually started writing it two days ago, so here it is, so thank goodness for long weekends! I'm looking forward to all the free time coming up in lovely summer, but before that comes not-so-lovely exams and end of term assignments. So wish me luck and hope to see you soon!