Disclaimer: The Quagmires belong to Lemony Snicket, fanfiction.net and FictionPress.com belong to Xing Li, Diego Montoya, Yosemite Sam, and Tara O'Shea (I guess, not sure about that really), and the laptop belongs to Hector.
A/N: Here it is! I got really good responses on this, thanks to everyone who reviewed!
edgy wedgy: Wow. Thanks. Unfortunately I'm thinking my chances of "writing for real" are very small, unless some talent agent or something discovers me on FictionPress.com. No, wait…I haven't posted anything there yet…never mind.
katie janeway: Yep, I love twists to clichéd plots. And Duncan and Isadora are really the best characters.
A: I know. The Quagmires are the best. And you'd better review before Monday.
littlesheryl223: Thanks! Um…bump? Shall I take that as a threat?
wiggles1: Here it is! I've updated, and only eight months later!
blissfully ignorant: Thank you. I laughed my bum off writing it. :) Glad you enjoyed it.
Ally Quagmire: Yes, the Quagmires are the best. Though their picture at the end of the fifth book didn't look the way I thought they would…Oh well. Thanks!
Nightshade the Hedgehog: Thanks! Aaagh…guilt…I didn't review your story yet…but I will in the next five seconds after I post this chapter, I promise!
Caspian Raider: I like your name. Is it from the Chronicles of Narnia or something I have no clue about? Here is indeed more of Isadora's new friend…or her precioussssss, as I like to call it…
;P : I like it too. Gives me something to do when I want to make my favorite characters look stupid. :)
Chris Gazeent: Thanks. I like your site, very cool.
MUSHROOMS: Thanks! I signed up, looks like a lot of fun!
An Adventure
The next day, Isadora and Duncan could hardly wait for Hector to fall asleep after lunch. To their dismay, he showed no signs of being in the least tired, but sat and read for the next hour and a half. The triplets occasionally cast longing glances at the coveted laptop, but dared do nothing more while Hector remained awake.
After Hector had caught them glancing over at him for the ninth time, he asked gently, "Is anything wrong?" Isadora smiled and shook her head firmly, stepping on Duncan's foot just in case he'd forgotten to act normal. He hadn't, and he resented her assumption that he wasn't smart enough to remember things on his own, but he smiled nonetheless. Now was not the time to discuss it.
"All right," Hector said, not sounding entirely convinced that they were okay. The two smiled at him once more, and to their great relief he put down his book. "Y'know, I'm getting tired," he yawned. "Think I'd better tuck in. Now you two don't get into any trouble." This was a sort of inside joke for him—after all, he knew that doing something without his permission was the last thing the Quagmires would do. Such nice, responsible, mature children...
The nice, responsible, mature Quagmires watched him like a pair of hawks. After twenty minutes, Duncan whispered to Isadora, "You think it's safe?"
"Not yet," his sister replied, her gaze darting from the apparently unconscious Hector to their ticket to freedom, which sat innocently in the corner of the basket. "Wait a little longer."
So they waited. Hector began to snore, but Isadora remained unconvinced by even this piece of evidence in favor of him being asleep. "It could be a trick," she murmured to Duncan, who rolled his eyes slightly. "You never know with Hector."
Personally, Duncan doubted that Hector would ever come out of his little dream world long enough to realize what they were up to, but he didn't voice his thought. He had learned over the years that there were many things one did not do in Isadora's presence, and contradicting her was one of them. It usually led to consequences such as his precious notebook being shredded into little tiny bits and used as notes for Isadora's poem ideas.
"Um," he said noncommittally, looking down over the side of the basket. He immediately wished he hadn't—he had never known until this trip how much he hated heights. Something about the way the landscape all looked the same, like little squares on a chessboard. And he had been seeing eyes all over everything lately—the other day he could have sworn he saw one looking up at him from a large field. Isadora had, of course, insisted that it was only a crop circle of some sort and nothing to worry about, which somehow did not reassure Duncan in the least.
"All right," Isadora murmured excitedly. "I think he's asleep now." Duncan restrained his urge to make a sarcastic comment and tried to smile. After all, surely he could stand a little more of his sister's insufferable bossiness if he got to have his turn on the laptop! Although, at the moment, he wondered whether he would ever get a chance at the thing—Isadora seemed likely to take control, given her present mood.
Scrambling over to the laptop, Isadora looked back at Duncan impatiently. "Well? Aren't you coming?" she demanded.
"Maybe I should stay and keep watch," Duncan said sardonically. "Just in case Hector's tricking us. Because we all know how likely that is."
Isadora favored him with a dark look. "Come on, Duncan. This is no time for fooling around." Biting back a potentially fatal insult, Duncan followed meekly and got ready to make a grab for the computer.
It didn't work. "Now Duncan," Isadora said reprovingly, holding the laptop out of reach, "I think I know a little bit more about this than you do. Suppose I operate the computer and you sit and watch. How's that sound?"
Naturally, it sounded wonderful and Duncan said so in his most cheerful tones. Isadora beamed and turned her back on him, hunching over the computer screen so as to block his view better. Duncan craned his neck as best he could, but to no avail. He would simply have to wait until Isadora felt like letting him see what she was doing.
"There," she said with satisfaction, leaning back slightly with an enigmatic smile. Finally able to see the screen, Duncan stared hungrily at it. As he had suspected, Isadora had gone straight to the site they had barely glimpsed the day before.
"Let us find out more about this 'fanfiction.net'," Isadora murmured, practically cackling with glee. She scanned the home page for a moment, then clicked on the "Register" link near the top of the page. Frightened as he was by his sister's behavior, Duncan suppressed his slight panic and leaned closer to witness the wonders of the registration process.
The first thing to appear was the Terms of Service, a phrase which here means "a long and boring-looking list of things that users of fanfiction.net were absolutely, positively not allowed to do under any circumstances". Duncan gave it a glance and turned away, bored. He hoped Isadora would get on with it and not insist on reading all the fine print first.
She did. "Name." He found himself mildly annoyed that Isadora was reading aloud from the screen as if he couldn't read it for himself. "Duncan, what's my name?" she asked.
He simply stared at her for a minute. Was her mind going? "Er…" he managed, wondering whether he had better run or scream for help from Hector. "Isadora, are you all right?"
"Of course I am, Duncan," she said impatiently. "But you don't think I'm stupid enough to give them my real name, do you? I mean, Count Olaf and his nefarious assistants are still trying to track us down. So what should I tell them my name is?"
"Oh." Duncan felt a little foolish—after all, he should have known Isadora wasn't that far gone…yet.
"Besides," she added, reading more carefully, "it's not even asking for my real name, just my pen name. Like a pseudonym," she continued. "A pseudonym is a false name assumed when you don't want people to know who you really are."
"I know what the word 'pseudonym' means," Duncan muttered irritably.
As I am sure you know, pseudonyms can be used in many different situations and for many different reasons. For example, a woman in the early nineteenth century might have used a pseudonym to gain more respect for her professional work. An author with a boring name like Daniel Handler might use a pseudonym to spice up his writing and make it more mysterious and whimsical. And a very beautiful woman who is now dead once used a pseudonym to escape from a pack of Voracious, Fearsome Dingoes with incredibly sharp teeth.
In this case, Isadora and Duncan were planning to use pseudonyms to retain their anonymity—a phrase which here means "stay safely aloft in a hot-air balloon and avoid giving out personal information on the Internet"—and enjoy the opportunity to use their talents for something other than leaving clues for others to save themselves from being killed, auctioned off in large fish, or otherwise mistreated by Count Olaf. It was a very pleasant and satisfying feeling.
"This is a very pleasant and satisfying feeling," Duncan said meditatively.
Isadora gave him an odd look, but he didn't notice. He was too busy gazing dreamily at the laptop, thinking of happy days when he and Quigley would change Isadora's password on their family computer and watch her try to fix it for hours on end.
His sister was also thinking of these long-gone days, but her description of them leaned more toward "exasperating", a word which here means "involving Duncan and Quigley". Clearly this particular thought would have to be nipped in the bud lest it lead to a coup.
"Focus, Duncan," she ordered, hitting him in the shoulder. Duncan winced, but she was already thinking about the issue at hand again. "What do you think my pen name should be?"
"Um…" Duncan said noncommittally. "How about…how about 'Isabella Quigmire'?" He shot her a sideways glance, hoping his display of stupidity would excuse him from pseudonym-coining duties forever. "And mine could be 'Dunstan Quigmire'…"
He had laid it on too thick. "Come on." Isadora was scowling at him. "Even you aren't that stupid, Duncan." He considered saying something equally rude and considerably more creative, but she was no longer listening.
"If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself," she grumbled. Leaning forward, she typed "poetic~egomaniac" and hit the "Next" button. Noting Duncan's skeptical look, she explained, "It's camouflage. They'll never recognize me with a name like that."
"Right," Duncan snorted. Isadora whirled to glare at him and he began whistling innocently.
"Cut that out!" she hissed. "Do you want Hector to wake up?"
No, that he did not want. Not until Isadora the tyrant had given him some time on the computer. After all, it didn't belong to either of them, so technically he owned it just as much as she did. He said so.
"Don't be silly, Duncan," his sister told him. "I'm eleven minutes older than you so I get first dibs on anything worth having. Including the laptop," she said smugly. Duncan stuck out his tongue at her and she returned the favor.
Turning back to her registration, Isadora typed out her email address: black_notebook@yahoo.com. Then she typed in a password—Duncan tried to see what she was typing, but she bared her teeth and he retreated to a safe distance—and clicked on a box to verify that she was indeed 13 or older. Duncan watched the process enviously, his fingers itching already at the thought of getting his own account.
It reminded him of something…what was it? Oh, yes, the email address. "Isadora?" he said a little timidly. "Can I have the laptop for a minute?"
"Why?" she asked, hugging it closer to her. "What do you want with my precious?"
"I want to check my email," Duncan explained, reaching for the computer.
Isadora drew back a little. "Email? Who'd want to email you?" Duncan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. She would never let him live this down.
"Violet Baudelaire," he blurted, getting the terrible moment over with. Avoiding eye contact and aware that he was turning a brilliant red, he waited to see what Isadora would say.
"Violet?" Isadora repeated, frowning at him. "But Violet doesn't know your email address."
Duncan grimaced. "Actually, she does. Remember those important papers from our notebooks that we managed to give them?" She nodded. "Well, one of them was actually my email address. It was mixed in with the notes about V.F.D."
"Soooooo." The word was a coo of malicious glee. "So Dun-Dun's got a girlfriend." Isadora grinned, still holding the laptop just out of his reach.
"Don't call me Dun-Dun!" he howled, forgetting the need for silence. Immediately he realized his mistake, and both of the siblings held absolutely still, staring at Hector and hoping against hope that he wouldn't catch them red-handed.
Hector rolled over and muttered, "Water, buckets, quick! Fire…mumblemumble…Esmé…murmble…come back zzzzzzz…" He curled up, his thumb going into his mouth. Isadora and Duncan began breathing again.
"That was close," Isadora hissed at him. "Too close." Duncan was forced to agree. Who knew what horrors might have unfolded had Hector woken up and seen them both hunched over his own laptop?
Quickly, Isadora clicked on the Register button to create her account. "There," she whispered in relief. "That's done."
"Okay," Duncan said. "Good. Now, about my account—" He trailed off under Isadora's glare.
She closed the Internet window. "And my email—" he tried again, but his sister gave him her famous Look of Death. He opened his mouth and closed it again, thinking better of further protests. "Never mind."
"Very good," Isadora said patronizingly, patting him on the head. Duncan bristled. Shutting down the laptop, Isadora returned it to its case and practically leaped into the next basket, not even waiting to see if Duncan was following.
Duncan didn't really see the point in all this, since Hector showed no signs of waking up anytime in the next few days, but he followed with a sigh and a shake of his head. He wondered if Hector had any good books hidden away somewhere. Surely there must be something worth doing around here…
Leaning on the edge of the basket, he watched the clouds go by on their slow way to nowhere. They reminded him of pillows…and pillows reminded him of afternoon naps…and the thought of afternoon naps reminded him that he was very tired. Attempting to defy Isadora was always a draining experience.
He yawned and sat down against the wall of the basket, still looking up at the sky as he fought to keep his eyes open. In the last few seconds before he fell asleep, he noticed something odd nearby.
"Isadora," he said sleepily, "does that flock of birds look like an eye to you?" Then his own eyes closed and he began to snore.
A/N: I promise, next time I'll write faster! I promise! Really! I only have a month until school is over and then—no, never mind. Then I'm going to visit family so for a month I might not have access to computers much. But I will have about a week before we leave…Anyway. I've decided to make Isadora sort of evil. And Duncan is…a henpecked brother, I guess. Poor Duncan. Seeing eyes everywhere and denied an opportunity to communicate with Violet. Maybe I'll treat him better in the next chapter, which will be up as soon as possible. Sooner, if you review…