Chapter 5: Mourning Morning

It is an incredibly hard feat to get up in the morning after a long and sleepless night and the earlier one has to wake up the harder it is. Additionally, waking up in the morning before you should be waking up in the morning tends to make people feel groggy and, at the very least, less then hospitable.

While in this state of grogginess — a word here which means "Zombie-like despair" — there is only one thing that can possibly make the morning worse for the unwary previous-sleeper: a morning person. I am sorry to break this to you, but Aunt Blaine was one of those horrible people.

"Wake up, children!" Aunt Blaine chimed as she nudged the two elder Baudelaires awake. "We've got a lot to do today."

Klaus groaned. Violet groaned. Sunny, who was not nudged by Aunt Blaine and awoke when her two siblings groaned, groaned.

"Come on guys, rouse yourselves!" Violet was far to tired to point out that two out of the three of them were not, in fact, guys. "I'm almost finished cooking breakfast. And right after breakfast we have to go down to the marshes and catch some frogs. It'll be fun!" she claimed, and with that said she cheerily left the room and hummed happily on her way to the kitchen; it was a sound the Baudelaire orphans found immensely unpleasant.

"Nopp," Sunny said which probably meant, "Fun doesn't exist in the morning."

The two eldest Baudelaire children quickly grunted their agreement.

"What time is it?" Violet asked while trying to open up her eyes which were disregarding her efforts.

Klaus, who was the closest to the window, squinted outside through half-sealed eyes, "It's not even light out."

"It will be soon!" Aunt Blaine called from the kitchen where she was busily cooking. "You know if we wait until afternoon the frogs will be hiding in the mud and we wouldn't be able to find any."

The Baudelaires were confused, tired, groggy, and dealing with a mad women talking about frogs for no reason whatsoever who seemed to think they knew things they did not. The Baudelaires collected this data and were forced to believe their day was not going to be one of their best — which weren't all that pleasant lately anyway. With this knowledge I suggest the faint of heart take this opportunity to stop reading this story and leave believing that the worst thing that happened to the unfortunate Baudelaires this day was that they woke up way too early in the morning – which was bad enough in itself – because, I'm afraid to say, it gets much worse.

With effort the Baudelaire orphans got themselves out of their comfortable, fluffy beds — at least the beds felt that way now that they were all but sleep-walking — into their daily attire, and all the way into their kitchen chairs where Aunt Blaine served them dinner with a giant smile on her face as if the only thing she ever dreamed of doing was waking up three unsuspecting orphans in the middle of a night to make them go on a hike with her into the unknown blackness which calls itself "the wilderness". This, of course, was an exaggeration. I have met Miss Allgood, and I assure you, she enjoys coffee slightly more then watching zombie-like orphans find their way to the breakfast table; but only slightly.

As they sat there eating their breakfast with as much enthusiasm as they could muster — they didn't want to seem ungrateful — the children were silent — a word here which means "staring at their plates awkwardly while waiting for someone to start a conversation". Aunt Blaine did the honors, "Why so glum children?" It was not a particularly good conversation starter, but it was a nice attempt.

The children had many things to be glum about but there was really only one thing they could think of at the moment, so they all answered at once, "Tired." Well, technically Sunny said "Drowwz," but that was because she liked that way of saying "I'm to tired to be anything but glum."

"Aw, I'm sorry children," Aunt Blaine claimed; she clearly wasn't at all sorry. In fact, she even had the audacity to look downright pleased. "If I had known you were late sleepers I would have told you last night."

The children had their doubts, they didn't think of themselves as "late sleepers" — a word here which means (according to Aunt Blaine), "someone who sleeps until the sun dawns". But the Baudelaires managed not to express these doubts without any trouble; they were far too tired to speak.

When Violet finally gathered her slowly moving thoughts and spoke, it was with a supreme effort of will, "What do you do for a living and where are we going so early?" The two other Baudelaires looked at her as if to say "How did you speak more then one syllable?" She just shrugged at them, which they interpreted as, "If I didn't say something she would've asked us another question like "Why are you so tired?" or something pointless like that."

"Oh," Aunt Blaine said, "I'm a forest ranger, as you can clearly tell. Also, I'm a environmental scientist."

"Is that why you have all those biology books?" Klaus asked, growing interested. A sure sign he was waking up.

"And the chemistry set?" Violet added in after him.

Sunny was about to say, "Gorriill?" but realized that it really didn't explain why she had a monkey. Crazy environmentalists.

"Yes, yes. That's why I have those things. And it's also the reason we are going to go frog hunting today," she said.

"What's so special about these frogs, Aunt Blaine?" Sunny asked, not wanting to seem quiet. Naturally, she actually said, "Ristik?" but Klaus translated for her so Aunt Blaine would understand the question.

"Well, when these frogs sweat — and they only do so when they are scared — they produce a powerful liquid which can kill you in large doses, but if you only have a little bit, it can relax your muscles and relieve your pain. What we do with the liquid is trap it in vials and send it to the hospital to use it with their patients. Of course, they use a diluted version of the liquid, just in case."

The Baudelaires, now thoroughly awake, smiled at their new caretaker. "What a nice thing to do for the local hospitals," all the Baudelaires most likely thought then, or "What a wonderful person" was also a possibility, and so was "I hope we get to know her better." Unfortunately for the Baudelaires, the last one was not meant to be.

So they all got up from the kitchen table and left the house to go into the depths of the Flannigan Forest carrying a shoe-box with air-holes punched into the top, flashlight-helmets, and a couple bottles of water. "Whoops," Aunt Blaine said as they were about to head on their way, "almost forgot something." So she went back inside and when she came back to the three children they saw she was wearing a long sword with a shiny blade, "Just in case," she said with a smile. The Baudelaires didn't ask why she might need this sword because there were some situations even their imaginations did not wish to imagine.

Author Notes: read and review as always, please. Seriously, please. More reviews means quicker writing. To a degree anyway, I do have to study for my classes.

Next chapter I actually bring in a plot line! GASP – technically it's the same plot line as the first 4 books which basically is getting away from Count Olaf, but yeah. The next chapter is also incredibly short compared to this one, it's kind of like give and take.

Amican: rofl, you know me well enough "crazy environmentalists" was my own humor. And yes I have read Eats Shoots Leaves. Remember? I stole your copy which is currently far far away from me right now – me being in college and all. I think it's simply taking a while to sink into my head. Corrections you told me about are now made.

Hobbiteyes and other readers who feel the same way: if you're going to complain about my punctuation (and i don't blame you) please give me specific examples so I know what I'm doing wrong or so I can fix it for other readers. As for the descriptive writing part, I simply cannot allow myself to do that. The way I write tends to ignore descriptions unless they are actually relevant to the story line. For example, I COULD have described how the Baudelaires ate their breakfast: They were eating pancakes, Sunny ate all the edges first while Violet cut hers up into little parts before eating and Klaus simply swallowed his whole. I do not see how that helps the actual story. I also do not see how describing the utensils they ate with or the pots and pans which decorated the messy kitchen help the theme move along at all either. Sorry, but this is why I'm a Satirist and not a Novelist. Most things I say are geared toward humor or the actual story line. I do SOME descriptive writing though, I just limit it a great deal. I don't know about you but I am not a big fan of Balzac's Pere Geriot if only because the first 9 pages described the state of the apartment building they were living in.

Here's your chance to stop reading before
there's a real reason to mourn.
Next, woe arrives in the form
of a malignant monster they scorn.