Chapter 7
One of the only things better at distracting people from their worries than parties is suprising and good news. The sudden engagement of Daniel Quagmire to Samantha Wallace and Dorian Baudelaire to Sarah Frank was not entirely unexpected, since they had been going out for about four of the five years of their training. In fact, throughout their years of reading the books in the V.F.D. library, both Beatrice and Lemony knew that weddings between members of V.F.D. were not at all uncommon. The thing about it that surprised the two friends was the timing. Amid the congratulations and excited chatter, Lemony and Beatrice were not able to be alone together before he left for his assignment.
His assignment was to investigate several fires. He was sent to work with another of the new members. Olaf, the new arson specialist, was coming along to determine the causes of all the fires. Lemony, to his dismay, was only able to catch a glimpse and give a short wave goodbye to Beatrice before leaving on his mission for several weeks.
He sat across the small plane from Olaf, who was looking at a small packet of papers. Lemony glumly looked through his own papers and played a few games of tic-tac-toe with himself before seeing something fall out of his little green notebook. He picked it up and saw what was written on the back. He then turned it over and what was on the front brought tears to his eyes. The message was "I miss you already." On the front was a picture of Beatrice.
The long plane ride was very long and very boring. However, after a while, Lemony looked out the window and saw that on the coast below them was the charred remains of a building, which was still smoking. Before long, the plane had landed.
Olaf put his papers back in his bag with his long bony fingers, turned to Lemony and said, "Well, let's see what happened to this mess!"
For the next few days, Olaf investigated the fire while Lemony recorded his findings. During the night, they camped out. They didn't talk about many things besides their duties, for each was lost in their own worlds of thought. Lemony was preoccupied with thoughts of Beatrice and the masked ball, and Olaf was apparently also lost in thoughts unknown to Lemony. Every night, Lemony found Olaf squatting on a stump, staring into an unlit match that he held in his hand. He would stay there without moving for hours on end, lost in thought.
For several weeks, they traveled from fire to fire. At the end of that time, they returned to the headquarters to send their reports and to witness the grand double wedding.