Reviewers:

Lady Emily: Ah, so many questions... You'll just have to read on to find the answers... ;)

Arden C. Evans: Hey! Nice to see ya! Thank you very much for the review. A while ago I was tuned into an oldies radio station and when I heard the line, "...for a poet and a one-man band," I don't know why, I just thought of Isadora and Klaus, because she's a poet and he's sort of alone (in this story), a one-man band. But I dunno. I like the song too!

Samela: Howdy Sam! Thank you for reviewing. I appreciate the compliment!

Phoenix72389: Thanks a bunch! The story is going to get much better very soon, in my opinion. :)

-AND- Alright, I know it's kind of quick, but I really wanted to write the next chapter, so I took a quick look at what a couple of reviewers said and decided.

So...

The votes are in and more people preferred the normal style to Snicket's. I have to admit, it's easier to write this way because you don't have to stop and put in "...which here means..." and the different sorts of examples he uses from his own experiences. It's a very tedious process actually. Besides, this is supposed to be written by Klaus, like it says in the title. He could very well have a different writing style than Lemony's...

Thank you all for your participation and your support!

With all due respect,

L.V.B.

Chapter 6: S u n n y D a y

Dear Dairy,

We took Sunny to the mansion, like she asked. I showed her where the library, her room, the kitchen, and the dining hall used to be. She seemed very interested in what I explained to her, and now I'm worried that I've said too much. She's probably wondering why the "family friend" knew almost everything about her house.

I told her how "Klyde" (I almost slipped and said "I") used to spend hours in the library, reading books, and she asked me if he (or I) had been really smart. I said, for his age, yes. It made me remember how the guests at our dinner parties used to marvel at my extensive vocabulary and ask me if I was really 12 years old.

The rain had hardened most of the snow and turned everything to ice, so we enjoyed a short ice-skating competition on the frozen dining room floor. I remembered how Violet and I would tie sponges to our shoes when Mother asked us to clean the floor and we would skate around, much like we did today. Before, Sunny would sit on the table and chew on a spoon. Today, Sunny whizzed past me on the ice and knocked me over.

Isadora was as graceful as a swan on our makeshift rink, however. Her nose and cheeks had turned pink from the cold and her black hair stood out against the white snow. She's actually very pretty if you look her for a while. Not that I was...

After everyone was sore from falling over and our toes were practically frostbitten, we went back to the Diner and had some more hot chocolate. Since business was slow and Tony had let Isadora "hold down the fort" while he was out of town, we decided to close the Diner for the afternoon, proclaiming today "Sunny Day."

We asked Sunny what she wanted to do next. She thought for a while, and then told us she had read something in a book that if you take hot syrup and put it in the snow, it should turn into hard candy. While I proudly discovered that she was also quite an avid reader, Isadora went into the kitchen and heated up some maple syrup on the stove.

After I found out that Sunny's favorite book was "Oliver Twist," we went outside and found an untouched patch of snow. Isadora poured the hot syrup onto the snow from a coffee pot. We waited a few moments for it to crystallize, and then had a snack of the pleasantly hard yet sweet candy. I told Isadora that it tasted kind of like coffee, but Sunny didn't seem to mind. She said she liked hard candy. It was the candy you could really bite. Stretchy, chewy, soft candy never really appealed to her, she said to me. I nodded, knowingly.

After finishing the maple snow, Isadora and Sunny went shopping, just them. They went to the Victorian Fancy Dress, so Sunny was allowed to show her face; ex-Volunteers ran the store.

See, there's this thing about Isadora. She knew how to take care of herself. When she and her brothers turned 18, they inherited the Quagmire fortune. In truth, Isadora was actually incredibly rich. She had come up with the plan to become a waitress, figuring that nobody would rob a girl who only got a waiter's salary. Meanwhile, she's got tons of money to spend, and she can be totally inconspicuous about it.

So when the girls came back, their arms were full with bulging shopping bags, and they were both wearing new, rather "in" outfits. Sunny presented herself with an air of dignity, and I could tell she had enjoyed the trip. A shadow of a smile could be seen on her face.

I asked Sunny if there was anything else she wanted to do. She fidgeted with a new bracelet and shrugged. It was getting late anyway and she looked a bit tired, so I suggested that maybe she might want to just read a book. Sunny's face brightened up, and she nodded. I ran back to my apartment to fetch my copy of "Oliver Twist," and the girls chatted and looked at their new clothes in the mirror.

When I came back, we settled down at one of the tables and I handed Sunny the book. She stared at it for a long time. For a moment I thought I had done something wrong, like maybe I hadn't gotten the right book. But then she opened it thoughtfully and told us how Violet had read the book to her the first time she'd seen it. I could tell she really missed Violet.

We all did.

Sunny was silent for a little while. Then she looked up at me with her sad, innocent eyes. She asked me if I would read it. I smiled and said I would.

Isadora and Sunny listened intently as I read "Oliver Twist." In my mind, I recalled my old school, the school I went to before the fire. My English teacher had us all write stories about anything we wanted. When they were finished, we all had to go up to the front of the classroom and read them out loud. I remember standing there, reading my story, and then I realized I wanted to become a writer.

Books were my passion, but if you were the author, you could choose the path of the storyline. You were in control of the ending, whether it was happy or tragic.

As I read "Oliver Twist," it felt a bit like I was reading about my own life. It was about a lonely orphan who gets caught up in an adventure, finds new friends, loses old friends, and in the end, he finds his home.

Then I thought a little more about it. Almost the same, I guess. My journey did not have a happy ending. Or a happy beginning. And only a few happy things happened in the middle, like Mr. Snicket used to say.

There are two different kinds of writers. Ones like Mr. Snicket, a considerable inspiration in my writing career, who writes about things that have really happened and can't help it if the story ends unhappily. And there are writers like Charles Dickens, who write about things they've made up, like the tale of Oliver Twist and the happy ending he was rewarded with.

I'm caught between the two. The story I wrote in school was much different from the other children's, who created stories about happy little elves who go on adventures, or recounted family vacations they had just gotten back from. I had just finished reading a compilation of William Shakespeare's works, and I was still under the strong influence of the tragic, miserable themes he used to overshadow his plays. I wrote a short story about a boy who ran away from home to find his little sister, who had wandered away and hadn't been seen for years. He finally found her, but when they came back home they discovered that their parents had become sick and perished while the children were gone.

The other kids were very suspicious of me after that, pondering what was really going on inside my head. My English teacher, however, gave me an A on that story, and said "I was very mature and sophisticated for my age" and should keep writing.

As I read "Oliver Twist," I smiled and remembered that my teacher was Ms. K, a Volunteer watching for the qualities needed for V.F.D.

By writing this story down on paper, maybe I'll become the writer Mr. Snicket once was. I'm recording a story that needs a happy ending, but not expecting one.

Although, for now, I don't need a happy ending. I just need this pleasant moment, with Isadora flipping quietly through "Oliver Twist," Sunny sleeping soundly as she leans against my shoulder, and I'm doing the thing I love most: Writing.

But something's missing.

Klaus looked up from his notepad. He almost didn't know he had written that last sentence; it just came out. He felt it so strongly.

Something was gone. There was a gap in the moment he was attempting to enjoy. It was like part of time had been torn out of his life, and he couldn't rest until he put the last piece back into the puzzle.

He let his gaze fall to the empty chair sitting at the end of the table. A lump swelled in his throat as he realized what it was.

No, his journey definitely wasn't over yet. There was still one last element needed. The last part of his story. But it seemed to him that it would be impossible to find. Klaus swallowed hard and he looked back down at his work.

It's Violet.