Well! My very firstest A Series of Unfortunate Events fic! I hope you like
it!
Better leave now if you don't like Isadora/Klaus. There weren't enough
(Correction: weren't any) fics about them, so I wrote my own.
There are many events in our life that are worth remembering. For example, you might not remember tying your shoe at 3:30 PM last Thursday, but you may vividly remember meeting somebody very important in your life two years ago. Some things people never forget are their first days of school.
I can still remember my first day of school at Prufrock Preparatory School. My brother and I were sent to the vice principal. We had pushed open the door and were standing, huddled together, when the vice principal said in a screechy voice, "You two twins will have to share the little cabin out back, since no guardian could sign your form." He giggled.
"We're not twins!" Duncan said automatically.
"We're not twins!" mimicked the vice principal in his wheezy voice. "Yes, you are. Stupid orphan. There's two of you!"
'What about Quigley?' I thought for the millionth time since the fire had destroyed our house. And, for the millionth time, it hit me again. 'Quigley's not coming back.' I glared at the vice principal, who said his name was Nero. We WEREN'T twins. I would know, having to share thirteen birthday parties with two boys.
The idea of living in a 'little cabin' with no strange children seemed appealing, however. I didn't want to be near anybody who knew me as 'Duncan Quagmire's twin.' I wanted to stay a triplet, and if the only way to do that was to live in a 'little cabin,' than that was what I'd do.
It turned out to be not a 'little cabin' at all. It was, to put it nicely, a shack. A very cramped shack. With crabs. We had to sleep on hay bales, and the crabs would bite out toes, while fungus would drip on us. It was not pleasant.
Than, a bratty girl called Carmelita Spats started calling the uncomfortable hut the 'orphan's shack.' Worse, all the other children sided with her. We knew that's how it is with bullies. Everybody always stays on their side, in their clique, as their friend, to save themselves. It didn't really make Duncan or I feel any better, though even knowing that.
Until, after two dreadful semesters of dripping fungus, prickly hay bales, rude vice principals, bratty little girls and being in a different class than my own triplet brother, something finally happened.
It started when our gym teacher didn't come for class one day. Than, Nero pulled Duncan and I out of class just before lunch. "There will be some new little brats coming to share the shack with you, twins," he wheezed. The word 'twins' still felt like he was smacking us across the face with a red-hot iron, but Duncan and I just nodded glumly. Nero waited a few moments for one of us to say something he could repeat, but when we didn't, he continued. "There will be three of them. You better not make some kind of gang against the other students, though or anything." We just stared ahead. It was totally stupid to think we'd want to make friends with any other students who came to Prufrock Prep. They'd just flock to Carmelita Spats and taunt us, too.
The next day, by lunchtime, the new kids still hadn't come. We were walking towards our lunch table where we usually sat alone, when heard chanting. It was, of course, our good friend Carmelita.
"Cakesniffing orphans in the orphans shack!" I covered my ears and started to head for our table when Duncan pointed out three quivering figures in the standing a few steps away from Carmelita's table.
"Maybe they're the new kids," I suggested. "They'll be in her clique by dinner, I bet."
"You're always so gloomy," he replied. "I'm gonna go see if they're nice."
I shrugged, watching him head for the three strangers. One of them looked particularly hurt by the teasing, so hurt that she or he had curled into a little ball on the floor. As the people approached, I realized that the tiny person was an infant.
"I'm Violet Baudelaire," said the tallest one, a girl with dark hair with a purple ribbon in it, "and this is my brother, Klaus," she pointed to a boy with dark hair and glasses who was kind of cute (A/N: I'm a big supporter of Isadora/Klaus!) "and our baby sister, Sunny." She pointed to the baby.
"It's nice to meet you," said Duncan. "My name is Duncan Quagmire, and this is my sister, Isadora. And the girl who as yelling at you, I'm sorry to say, was Carmelita Spats."
"She didn't seem very nice," said the boy, who I decided WAS cute.
I took a deep breath. "That is the understatement of the century. Carmelita Spats is rude, filthy, and violent, and the less time you spend with her, the happier you will be." Oh my GOD , I yelled at myself. You sound like a total nerd! "Understatement of the century?!" No way he'll ever like you NOW!
"Read the Baudelaires the poem you wrote about her," said Duncan. Was he trying to make me sound like a TOTAL idiot?! My poetry, which had been fine that morning, now in front of a Boy I Didn't Know now sounded like Dr. Seuss talking in his sleep. "You write poetry?" asked Klaus. Yeah, that was his name. I tried not to blush and I looked up at him. He actually looked interested!
"Just a little bit," I said, dying inside he looked AT ME! "I write poems down in this notebook," I took the notebook Mum and Dad had given me out of my pocket. "It's an interest of mine." Oh, my god. 'An interest of mine?' Nerdy, nerdy, nerdy, and NERDY!
"Sappho," said the baby.
"She means she'd like to hear it," said Klaus. His eyes were really interesting. I smiled dreamily.
"It's a very short poem," I said when Duncan caught my eye and raised his eyebrows. "Only two rhyming lines."
"That's called a couplet," Klaus said. "I learned that from a book of literary criticism." Oh, he read BOOKS? How cute!
"Yes, I know," I murmured, felling excited and fluttery as he kept looking AT ME! I leaned closer so Carmelita wouldn't hear. I could smell his breath. It was warm, like the breeze on a tropical island. A nice, sunny, island...
Duncan raised his eyebrows again.
"Ahem. Oh, yeah." I flipped through the pages of my notebook. "Yeah, here it is.
' I would rather eat a bowl of vampire bats,
Than spend an hour with Carmelita Spats .' "
They giggled and covered their mouths so nobody would see them. Even the baby did. She was cute, but not as cute as her brother. Duncan looked at me to say, 'See? Told you so!'
"That was great," Klaus said. Great...mmnnn. Wait? Was he talking about ME?! "I liked the part about the bowl of bats." Oh, wow ! I felt all fluttery again.
"Thanks," I said, with my last shred of brains left. "I would be interested in reading that book of literary criticism you told me about. Would you let me borrow it?" The book did sound kind of interesting, yeah. But really I just wanted to touch pages that he had touched. Oh, wow.
Klaus looked down. "I can't," he said. "That book belonged to my father, and it was destroyed in a fire."
I looked at Duncan and felt my stomach flip over. I could feel the fluttery feeling in my stomach grow hard and burn it's way up into the back of my throat. Fire . Why did HE have to say fire? I opened my eyes wider so I wouldn't start crying. bFireb. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my...
"I'm very sorry to hear that," Duncan said. "My sister and I have been through a terrible fire, so we know what it's like. Did your father die in the fire?"
OH MY GOD! Duncan was SO TACTLESS! How could he even SAY that to them! How could he say 'fire' twice in one sentence? I wanted to slap him.
"Yes he did," Klaus said. "And my mother too." He looked sad. He was cute when he was sad, but it was still sad. My hand started shaking and I put down my fork. I gathered up all my courage and gingerly reached across the table and patted his hand.
"I'm sorry to hear that," I said. "Our parents died in a fire as well." At least now they wouldn't think Duncan was nosy. "It's awful to miss your parents so much, isn't it?"
"Bloni," nodded Sunny.
"For a long time," Duncan said to patch up the awkward silence, "I was afraid to of any kind of fire. I didn't even like to look at stoves."
What did he mean, ' didn't ?' What was with the past tense? I still had to go get his lunch tray for him! But he still had to make toast for me. I hated toasters. The toast just went in, unknowing of it's fate, and than came out scorched and burned, something totally different. Kind of like our lives before and after the fire. That sounded like a poem. What rhymed with toast? Most, boast, roast, host...
"We stayed with a woman for a while, our Aunt Josephine, who was afraid of stoves. She thought they might explode," Violet said, giving a tiny smile.
"Explode!" said Duncan, "even I wasn't as afraid as that. Why aren't you staying with your Aunt Josephine now?"
Violet looked down and Duncan actually STOLE MY FLIRTING TACTIC and patted her hand. "She died too," said Violet. "To tell you the truth, Duncan, our lives have been topsy-turvy for quite some time."
Oh, my god. I could have DIED! I looked at Duncan, trying to say with my body language, 'see what happens when you ask nosy questions?' He was still looking at Violet, who was now looking at him.
"I'm very sorry to hear it," Duncan said, "and I wish I could tell you that things will get better here. But between Vice Principal Nero playing the violin, Carmelita Spats teasing us, and the dreadful Orphan's Shack, Prufrock Prep is a pretty miserable place."
Ha. Miserable was an understatement. This place was H-E-double hockey stick! (A/N: Hell)
"I think it's awful to call it the Orphan's Shack," said Klaus. He had a wonderful chin. "It's a bad enough place without giving it an insulting nickname."
"The nickname is more of Carmelita's handiwork, I'm sorry to say," I said, inwardly sighing at the perfect curve of his nose. "Duncan and I had to live there for three semesters because we needed a parent or guardian to sign the slip and we didn't have one."
"That's the same thing that happened to us!" cried Violet. "And when we asked Nero to make an exception-"
"He said he was too busy practicing the violin," I nodded, finishing her sentence. I hoped she didn't mind. I always finished Quigley and Duncan's-I mean, Duncan's-sentences when we talked. They'd tease me about it and shake their heads. Violet nodded. It was really nice to talk to a girl my age again! Siblings, especially boy siblings, when they're all to talk to, can drive you a bit mad. "He always says that," I added. "Anyway, Carmelita called it the Orphan's Shack when we were living there and it looks like she's going to keep on doing it."
"Well," said Violet with a little sigh, "Carmelita's nasty names are the least of our problems in the shack. How did you deal with the crabs when you lived there?" The crabs? How'd she-
OH MY GOD! They had been in the shack! I hoped all my personal things were in my suitcase, where Klaus couldn't...
Duncan reluctantly let go of her hand and took his dark green notebook. "I use my notebook to take notes on things," he explained to Violet, who was listening intently while Klaus helped Sunny eat her lasagna. "I plan to be a newspaper reporter when I get a little older, so I figure it's good to start practicing. Here it is: notes on the crabs. They're afraid of loud noises, you see, so I have a list of things we did to scare them away from us."
"Afraid of loud noises," Violet repeated, and she tied her hair up with her purple ribbon.
"When she ties her hair up like that," said Klaus, thoughtfully explaining to Duncan and I, "it means she's thinking of an invention. My sister is quite an inventor." Aww. He said 'quite' so cutely, just all quick. The way his mouth moved when he said the ' kw ' sound...like he was kissing the word...
"How about noisy shoes?" Violet said suddenly. "If we took small pieces of metal and glued them to our shoes? Then wherever we walked would make a loud noise, and I bet we'd hardly ever see those crabs."
"Noisy shoes!" exclaimed Duncan. "Isadora and I lived in the Orphan's Shack all that time and we never though of noisy shoes!" He took a pencil out of his pocket. Hey! That was MY pencil! He was always taking my stuff. It drove me crazy. He wrote ' noisy shoes ' in his spiky print. He turned the page. "I do have a list of fungus books in the school library, (A/N: Hmm...does Duncan happen to have any spare time at Prufrock, I wonder?...) if you need help with that tan stuff on the ceiling."
"Zatwal!" said Sunny. Cute little baby. I wonder if Klaus and I would grow up and have get married and have cute little babies. Isadora Baudelaire. Has a nice ring to it, it would look good on the cover of a poetry book. 'A collection of poems by Isadora Baudelaire.'
"We'd love to see the library," Violet said. I guess that was what Sunny meant or something. "It sure is lucky we ran into you two-" oh my god, I thought. Don't say it, Violet! Please, please, please don't say it!
"btwinsb."
I felt my stomach flip over again. It (my stomach) was getting quite tired, Klaus was making it turn somersaults all day. I wanted to yell at her and make her say ' triplets ' over and over again.
"What's wrong?" said Klaus, sounding sweet, concerned, and utterly adorable. "Did we say something that upset you?"
"Twins," said Duncan really quietly. I touched his hand under the table and we held onto each other, because we were falling and I couldn't hear Klaus any more, just a sort of buzzing noise.
"You are twins, aren't you?" asked Violet. Her voice snapped us back into reality and for the millionth time, I said it.
"We're triplets." Okay, now she's gonna ask, I thought. I was right. They always did.
"I'm confused," said Violet. "Aren't triplets three people born at the same time?"
"We were"- I caught myself from saying 'are'-"three people born at the same time." I swallowed. "But our brother-Quigley-died in the fire that killed our parents." I choked on his name and Duncan looked at me, surprised. I hadn't said his name since the fire, since I had said it to Quigley himself. But now I had just said it and I was going to be sick. I had to get to the bathroom, or I'd vomit all over Klaus and Violet and Sunny, three siblings. A complete, perfect family.
"I'm very sorry to hear that," said Klaus, his perfect mouth moving and saying words that didn't register until a few moments later. "Please forgive us calling you twins. We meant no disrespect to Quigley's memory." He was so nice. I didn't need to throw up now, just to cry. I sniffed a little, and tried not to blink while Duncan talked.
"Of course you didn't," Duncan gave them our smile. "There's no way you could have known." He was right. I wiped my eyes with the back of my wrist and nodded solemnly. "Come on, if you're done with your lasagna we'll show you the library."
"And maybe," I gulped, than continued. "Maybe we can find some pieces of metal? For noisy shoes?" My voice was all quivery. Now Klaus would think I was just wanting attention or something.
The three of them smiled and all five of us walked out of the smelly cafeteria. It was wonderful to be in the library, one of my favorite places, with Klaus Baudelaire.
Three times I forgot about Quigley, and four times our hands bumped each other. The first time we both kind of went 'oh!' and drew back, but than we started doing it on purpose. We showed them all our favorite books and he seemed interested in my favorite book of poems.
We whispered to them about how the library was organized, and how the books were kept and where the best ones were. Standing there, with Duncan and Violet, and Klaus, and cute little Sunny, I felt really happy again, happier than in a long time...
PLEASE review! Thanx so much!
PS Please, please, please IM me! I'm on IM all the time and everybody else is doing interesting things. Like, say, reviewing the fic.
There are many events in our life that are worth remembering. For example, you might not remember tying your shoe at 3:30 PM last Thursday, but you may vividly remember meeting somebody very important in your life two years ago. Some things people never forget are their first days of school.
I can still remember my first day of school at Prufrock Preparatory School. My brother and I were sent to the vice principal. We had pushed open the door and were standing, huddled together, when the vice principal said in a screechy voice, "You two twins will have to share the little cabin out back, since no guardian could sign your form." He giggled.
"We're not twins!" Duncan said automatically.
"We're not twins!" mimicked the vice principal in his wheezy voice. "Yes, you are. Stupid orphan. There's two of you!"
'What about Quigley?' I thought for the millionth time since the fire had destroyed our house. And, for the millionth time, it hit me again. 'Quigley's not coming back.' I glared at the vice principal, who said his name was Nero. We WEREN'T twins. I would know, having to share thirteen birthday parties with two boys.
The idea of living in a 'little cabin' with no strange children seemed appealing, however. I didn't want to be near anybody who knew me as 'Duncan Quagmire's twin.' I wanted to stay a triplet, and if the only way to do that was to live in a 'little cabin,' than that was what I'd do.
It turned out to be not a 'little cabin' at all. It was, to put it nicely, a shack. A very cramped shack. With crabs. We had to sleep on hay bales, and the crabs would bite out toes, while fungus would drip on us. It was not pleasant.
Than, a bratty girl called Carmelita Spats started calling the uncomfortable hut the 'orphan's shack.' Worse, all the other children sided with her. We knew that's how it is with bullies. Everybody always stays on their side, in their clique, as their friend, to save themselves. It didn't really make Duncan or I feel any better, though even knowing that.
Until, after two dreadful semesters of dripping fungus, prickly hay bales, rude vice principals, bratty little girls and being in a different class than my own triplet brother, something finally happened.
It started when our gym teacher didn't come for class one day. Than, Nero pulled Duncan and I out of class just before lunch. "There will be some new little brats coming to share the shack with you, twins," he wheezed. The word 'twins' still felt like he was smacking us across the face with a red-hot iron, but Duncan and I just nodded glumly. Nero waited a few moments for one of us to say something he could repeat, but when we didn't, he continued. "There will be three of them. You better not make some kind of gang against the other students, though or anything." We just stared ahead. It was totally stupid to think we'd want to make friends with any other students who came to Prufrock Prep. They'd just flock to Carmelita Spats and taunt us, too.
The next day, by lunchtime, the new kids still hadn't come. We were walking towards our lunch table where we usually sat alone, when heard chanting. It was, of course, our good friend Carmelita.
"Cakesniffing orphans in the orphans shack!" I covered my ears and started to head for our table when Duncan pointed out three quivering figures in the standing a few steps away from Carmelita's table.
"Maybe they're the new kids," I suggested. "They'll be in her clique by dinner, I bet."
"You're always so gloomy," he replied. "I'm gonna go see if they're nice."
I shrugged, watching him head for the three strangers. One of them looked particularly hurt by the teasing, so hurt that she or he had curled into a little ball on the floor. As the people approached, I realized that the tiny person was an infant.
"I'm Violet Baudelaire," said the tallest one, a girl with dark hair with a purple ribbon in it, "and this is my brother, Klaus," she pointed to a boy with dark hair and glasses who was kind of cute (A/N: I'm a big supporter of Isadora/Klaus!) "and our baby sister, Sunny." She pointed to the baby.
"It's nice to meet you," said Duncan. "My name is Duncan Quagmire, and this is my sister, Isadora. And the girl who as yelling at you, I'm sorry to say, was Carmelita Spats."
"She didn't seem very nice," said the boy, who I decided WAS cute.
I took a deep breath. "That is the understatement of the century. Carmelita Spats is rude, filthy, and violent, and the less time you spend with her, the happier you will be." Oh my GOD , I yelled at myself. You sound like a total nerd! "Understatement of the century?!" No way he'll ever like you NOW!
"Read the Baudelaires the poem you wrote about her," said Duncan. Was he trying to make me sound like a TOTAL idiot?! My poetry, which had been fine that morning, now in front of a Boy I Didn't Know now sounded like Dr. Seuss talking in his sleep. "You write poetry?" asked Klaus. Yeah, that was his name. I tried not to blush and I looked up at him. He actually looked interested!
"Just a little bit," I said, dying inside he looked AT ME! "I write poems down in this notebook," I took the notebook Mum and Dad had given me out of my pocket. "It's an interest of mine." Oh, my god. 'An interest of mine?' Nerdy, nerdy, nerdy, and NERDY!
"Sappho," said the baby.
"She means she'd like to hear it," said Klaus. His eyes were really interesting. I smiled dreamily.
"It's a very short poem," I said when Duncan caught my eye and raised his eyebrows. "Only two rhyming lines."
"That's called a couplet," Klaus said. "I learned that from a book of literary criticism." Oh, he read BOOKS? How cute!
"Yes, I know," I murmured, felling excited and fluttery as he kept looking AT ME! I leaned closer so Carmelita wouldn't hear. I could smell his breath. It was warm, like the breeze on a tropical island. A nice, sunny, island...
Duncan raised his eyebrows again.
"Ahem. Oh, yeah." I flipped through the pages of my notebook. "Yeah, here it is.
' I would rather eat a bowl of vampire bats,
Than spend an hour with Carmelita Spats .' "
They giggled and covered their mouths so nobody would see them. Even the baby did. She was cute, but not as cute as her brother. Duncan looked at me to say, 'See? Told you so!'
"That was great," Klaus said. Great...mmnnn. Wait? Was he talking about ME?! "I liked the part about the bowl of bats." Oh, wow ! I felt all fluttery again.
"Thanks," I said, with my last shred of brains left. "I would be interested in reading that book of literary criticism you told me about. Would you let me borrow it?" The book did sound kind of interesting, yeah. But really I just wanted to touch pages that he had touched. Oh, wow.
Klaus looked down. "I can't," he said. "That book belonged to my father, and it was destroyed in a fire."
I looked at Duncan and felt my stomach flip over. I could feel the fluttery feeling in my stomach grow hard and burn it's way up into the back of my throat. Fire . Why did HE have to say fire? I opened my eyes wider so I wouldn't start crying. bFireb. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my...
"I'm very sorry to hear that," Duncan said. "My sister and I have been through a terrible fire, so we know what it's like. Did your father die in the fire?"
OH MY GOD! Duncan was SO TACTLESS! How could he even SAY that to them! How could he say 'fire' twice in one sentence? I wanted to slap him.
"Yes he did," Klaus said. "And my mother too." He looked sad. He was cute when he was sad, but it was still sad. My hand started shaking and I put down my fork. I gathered up all my courage and gingerly reached across the table and patted his hand.
"I'm sorry to hear that," I said. "Our parents died in a fire as well." At least now they wouldn't think Duncan was nosy. "It's awful to miss your parents so much, isn't it?"
"Bloni," nodded Sunny.
"For a long time," Duncan said to patch up the awkward silence, "I was afraid to of any kind of fire. I didn't even like to look at stoves."
What did he mean, ' didn't ?' What was with the past tense? I still had to go get his lunch tray for him! But he still had to make toast for me. I hated toasters. The toast just went in, unknowing of it's fate, and than came out scorched and burned, something totally different. Kind of like our lives before and after the fire. That sounded like a poem. What rhymed with toast? Most, boast, roast, host...
"We stayed with a woman for a while, our Aunt Josephine, who was afraid of stoves. She thought they might explode," Violet said, giving a tiny smile.
"Explode!" said Duncan, "even I wasn't as afraid as that. Why aren't you staying with your Aunt Josephine now?"
Violet looked down and Duncan actually STOLE MY FLIRTING TACTIC and patted her hand. "She died too," said Violet. "To tell you the truth, Duncan, our lives have been topsy-turvy for quite some time."
Oh, my god. I could have DIED! I looked at Duncan, trying to say with my body language, 'see what happens when you ask nosy questions?' He was still looking at Violet, who was now looking at him.
"I'm very sorry to hear it," Duncan said, "and I wish I could tell you that things will get better here. But between Vice Principal Nero playing the violin, Carmelita Spats teasing us, and the dreadful Orphan's Shack, Prufrock Prep is a pretty miserable place."
Ha. Miserable was an understatement. This place was H-E-double hockey stick! (A/N: Hell)
"I think it's awful to call it the Orphan's Shack," said Klaus. He had a wonderful chin. "It's a bad enough place without giving it an insulting nickname."
"The nickname is more of Carmelita's handiwork, I'm sorry to say," I said, inwardly sighing at the perfect curve of his nose. "Duncan and I had to live there for three semesters because we needed a parent or guardian to sign the slip and we didn't have one."
"That's the same thing that happened to us!" cried Violet. "And when we asked Nero to make an exception-"
"He said he was too busy practicing the violin," I nodded, finishing her sentence. I hoped she didn't mind. I always finished Quigley and Duncan's-I mean, Duncan's-sentences when we talked. They'd tease me about it and shake their heads. Violet nodded. It was really nice to talk to a girl my age again! Siblings, especially boy siblings, when they're all to talk to, can drive you a bit mad. "He always says that," I added. "Anyway, Carmelita called it the Orphan's Shack when we were living there and it looks like she's going to keep on doing it."
"Well," said Violet with a little sigh, "Carmelita's nasty names are the least of our problems in the shack. How did you deal with the crabs when you lived there?" The crabs? How'd she-
OH MY GOD! They had been in the shack! I hoped all my personal things were in my suitcase, where Klaus couldn't...
Duncan reluctantly let go of her hand and took his dark green notebook. "I use my notebook to take notes on things," he explained to Violet, who was listening intently while Klaus helped Sunny eat her lasagna. "I plan to be a newspaper reporter when I get a little older, so I figure it's good to start practicing. Here it is: notes on the crabs. They're afraid of loud noises, you see, so I have a list of things we did to scare them away from us."
"Afraid of loud noises," Violet repeated, and she tied her hair up with her purple ribbon.
"When she ties her hair up like that," said Klaus, thoughtfully explaining to Duncan and I, "it means she's thinking of an invention. My sister is quite an inventor." Aww. He said 'quite' so cutely, just all quick. The way his mouth moved when he said the ' kw ' sound...like he was kissing the word...
"How about noisy shoes?" Violet said suddenly. "If we took small pieces of metal and glued them to our shoes? Then wherever we walked would make a loud noise, and I bet we'd hardly ever see those crabs."
"Noisy shoes!" exclaimed Duncan. "Isadora and I lived in the Orphan's Shack all that time and we never though of noisy shoes!" He took a pencil out of his pocket. Hey! That was MY pencil! He was always taking my stuff. It drove me crazy. He wrote ' noisy shoes ' in his spiky print. He turned the page. "I do have a list of fungus books in the school library, (A/N: Hmm...does Duncan happen to have any spare time at Prufrock, I wonder?...) if you need help with that tan stuff on the ceiling."
"Zatwal!" said Sunny. Cute little baby. I wonder if Klaus and I would grow up and have get married and have cute little babies. Isadora Baudelaire. Has a nice ring to it, it would look good on the cover of a poetry book. 'A collection of poems by Isadora Baudelaire.'
"We'd love to see the library," Violet said. I guess that was what Sunny meant or something. "It sure is lucky we ran into you two-" oh my god, I thought. Don't say it, Violet! Please, please, please don't say it!
"btwinsb."
I felt my stomach flip over again. It (my stomach) was getting quite tired, Klaus was making it turn somersaults all day. I wanted to yell at her and make her say ' triplets ' over and over again.
"What's wrong?" said Klaus, sounding sweet, concerned, and utterly adorable. "Did we say something that upset you?"
"Twins," said Duncan really quietly. I touched his hand under the table and we held onto each other, because we were falling and I couldn't hear Klaus any more, just a sort of buzzing noise.
"You are twins, aren't you?" asked Violet. Her voice snapped us back into reality and for the millionth time, I said it.
"We're triplets." Okay, now she's gonna ask, I thought. I was right. They always did.
"I'm confused," said Violet. "Aren't triplets three people born at the same time?"
"We were"- I caught myself from saying 'are'-"three people born at the same time." I swallowed. "But our brother-Quigley-died in the fire that killed our parents." I choked on his name and Duncan looked at me, surprised. I hadn't said his name since the fire, since I had said it to Quigley himself. But now I had just said it and I was going to be sick. I had to get to the bathroom, or I'd vomit all over Klaus and Violet and Sunny, three siblings. A complete, perfect family.
"I'm very sorry to hear that," said Klaus, his perfect mouth moving and saying words that didn't register until a few moments later. "Please forgive us calling you twins. We meant no disrespect to Quigley's memory." He was so nice. I didn't need to throw up now, just to cry. I sniffed a little, and tried not to blink while Duncan talked.
"Of course you didn't," Duncan gave them our smile. "There's no way you could have known." He was right. I wiped my eyes with the back of my wrist and nodded solemnly. "Come on, if you're done with your lasagna we'll show you the library."
"And maybe," I gulped, than continued. "Maybe we can find some pieces of metal? For noisy shoes?" My voice was all quivery. Now Klaus would think I was just wanting attention or something.
The three of them smiled and all five of us walked out of the smelly cafeteria. It was wonderful to be in the library, one of my favorite places, with Klaus Baudelaire.
Three times I forgot about Quigley, and four times our hands bumped each other. The first time we both kind of went 'oh!' and drew back, but than we started doing it on purpose. We showed them all our favorite books and he seemed interested in my favorite book of poems.
We whispered to them about how the library was organized, and how the books were kept and where the best ones were. Standing there, with Duncan and Violet, and Klaus, and cute little Sunny, I felt really happy again, happier than in a long time...
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