January 15th

I woke up this morning and realized that I was lying on top of Klaus. I forgot how I had gotten there, or what had happened the night before.

"Klaus! I'm so sorry! I -"

"It's okay," he said. "I'm happy you came; I feel much better now."

Then it came back to me.

Poor Klaus has been sick for the past few days. True, he looked convalescent now, but last night, it was awful. I could hear him sneezing and coughing and shivering and shaking.

I couldn't take it so I went to his room.

"Klaus?" I asked gently.

I looked at him. He seemed pale in the moonlight, the only light in the room; there were large circles under his eyes; he looked exhausted but was deprived of sleep.

"Would you like anything?"

"No, thank you," said Klaus weakly.

"A book, maybe?"

He smiled slightly as I walked to the shelf. It was hard to find my way around, and I yelped when I hit my toe on his shelf.

I could hear him getting up.

"No, Klaus," I whispered, "it's fine. I'm fine."

He got into his bed and I sat on the very end of it and read to him quietly from his book. It, like almost all of the other books he had, was very unusual and interesting. It was a tale of a man who was enticed by the idea of traveling through the Sahara Desert. I read book after book to him for a while, about an hour, maybe.

"You can stop," he said. "I know you're tired."

I closed my eyes for a moment and then all was black and peaceful.

January 19th

Klaus is much better now, thankfully, but is still resting in bed.

It has been raining non-stop for days.

This afternoon, Sunny asked, "Ark?" Which means, "Do you think this storm will never end, and we will have to build a boat?"

I told her, "No, but if we do, I will be able to build a boat. And you will be my assistant."

"Prep?" Sunny said, which meant, "Why don't we build one now, since we're bored?"

I thought that that was a fairly decent idea. I went up to my room and got my tools and some wood. I drilled, mapped, sketched, and constructed; Sunny bit the wood into smaller pieces. When Klaus came down from his room, he was very pleased to see our miniature ark.

"I've read books on Noah's Ark," he said. "This reminds me of it."

January 24th

School has been very uneventful. Even though it is only January, I am looking forward to June. I enjoy studying, and my friends are wonderful, but my teacher is just against me. Yesterday she yelled at me for writing with my left hand, since she knows I'm right-handed.

I told her I was aiming to become ambidextrous.

She told me that was the stupidest abstraction I had ever had - excluding the support system for her automobile since it seemed to be sagging as it bumbled up the school driveway. (She didn't understand that it was sagging because of her weight…)

I told her that my brother was trying it, too.

She told me that my brother was a brainless bookworm.

I asked her if she knew how to get your head out of an inflated airbag.

She said no.

I told her I didn't think she did.

Then I added that my brother knew exactly how, he had to do it once. (I'll tell that story later, I don't have enough time right now.)

January 29th

My parents are simple furious with me. They don't understand why I am being so cruel to my teacher, and I told them that I simply couldn't help it. They asked if it was schoolwork itself, but I said no, that it was just the teacher. If they had to stare at Mrs. McLeion's face for thirty hours per week, I bet they'd agree with me completely. I guess I'll try to be nicer…

When I was headed for my room, I mentioned that she said Klaus was a brainless bookworm.

P.S. Klaus is fully well again.

February 4th

I was doing well until today.

Mrs. McLeion gave me my science test. 100. I knew it.

She asked if I had studied.

I said no, I just looked at the test questions and visualized experiments and inventions I'd done.

She told me not to show off my inventing skills so often.

I said nothing.

Everyone else groaned when they got their tests back.

Then Mrs. McLeion had the nerve to say, "Everyone did terribly."

I stood up.

"Oh," she said with a smirk, "except for Miss Baudelaire, who expects a standing ovation."

"That's really rude of you, no one wants to be humiliated," I said contentiously.

She is so belligerent!

As you can see, I've been taken pages from Klaus's books, with my vocabulary. Ha, ha. Get it? Taking pages from his books? Well, I did read that book, See Those Teachers Tremble! It gave a few vocabulary words that would be handy. Even though I haven't used them on my teacher, it's nice to know them.

February 8th

I literally took a page from Klaus's book now.

Sunny accidentally bit off some of my new automatic wall scrubber. She apologized sincerely and I told her it was all right, since she didn't know any better.

Then I noticed there was a piece of paper scrunched up right next to it. Something was written in Klaus's handwriting; I never read it; I was too angry because I knew he had been in my room.

"KLAUS BAUDELAIRE!" I shouted through all the halls of the house.

All hell broke lose.

Sunny started to cry, because she was convinced she had done something wrong. Klaus was all upset that I was angry, he didn't know what he had done.

"You went into my room!" I said. "I've told you a thousand times not to-"

"But I had to-"

"Why?"

"Because I just had to see that thing you've been working on for days. It's pretty dull, if you ask me. I couldn't even tell what it was, just looked like a bunch of feathers smashed together."

I ran to his bed and picked up the book on it and wrenched a page out.

"NO!" he yelled, grabbing me so tightly that I screamed.

Mother and Father ran upstairs. They were shocked. I'm sure you would've been too if you saw a crying baby and two children who looked as though they could massacre a whole village.

Klaus was told not to do it again; I, however, was unfairly punished!

"There was absolutely no need for you to do that, Violet!" my mother scolded. "Ripping his book - on purpose - was completely unnecessary."

"But Mother - he was in my room, meddling around with my invention!"

"I never said he was right. It was wrong of him, but you did not have to vandalize-"

"I did not VANDALIZE that book," I shouted angrily. "It wasn't POINTLESS of me to rip a page out, I had a very good reason to. He insulted my invention and went into my room! And then he grabbed me!"

"Not a good enough reason for you to be yelling around the house, either. All your tools are being locked away for two weeks, and your brother will not be allowed in the library for the same amount of time."

Sometimes I wish my parents would just disappear for a while.