Hello to all my dear readers! I could only reach Spyzeh by review, since I'd either already reviewed all your stories or you haven't written any, but if you haven't heard, this is it:
THE TITLE FOR BOOK THE TWELFTH HAS LEAKED!
I won't say what it is because I respect those patient enough to wait until October 18 (I myself am not), but for anyone else, it's at "the quiet world" website. I'm sorry the URL got cut off before, it's not actually at: YIPPEEE!
Anyway, to my dear reviewers:
Spyzeh: I love Sunny too. She's my baby! (takes Sunny) oh wait, she's a major plot point. (puts Sunny back) And yes, all S/IDV shippers REJOICE!
Proud shipper: Thank you! I was afraid you might be disappointed because I was originally going to write it in Sunny's 'baby-speak', and then translate it, but it was just too time-consuming. And wait no longer, this is the next one! (obviously!)
Fiona/Klaus: Interesting idea, but I'm sorry to say that I used, I repeat, USED to be a Fiona/Klaus shipper. I'm also sorry to say that I will always be an avid Violet/Quigley shipper.
Zavi: Yippee! I'm glad to hear that I made Sunny more interesting, and yours and others reviews continue to make me so proud of my work.
SUPERBRAIN: I was actually not bored at all! And yes, I own all the books and am planning to buy Book the Twelfth the morning of October 18. And then, after homework, nothing will be able to detract me from it!
Klaus-Izzy Girl: Glad you liked it! And yes, WOOT for Izzy! She's so cool…
Worthy: Here it is!
And finally, the disclaimer: Last time I checked, I was not a man, and not married with a young child, and had not written one of the best series of all time. In other words, I don't own it.
And now, by popular demand:
Chapter 4: I s a d o r a Q u a g m i r e
I spent my childhood listening closely to words, trying to understand them. You see, a word has many facets, and are, in and of themselves, like books, taken to be interpreted in a thousand different ways. Their meaning can be changed by the tone they are used in, but they themselves stay the same. It may take one years to understand the beauty of words, as it did me. When I did, a whole new world was open, full of ways to express my newfound love. I would work for hours at my desk, working in a trance of feverish dedication, feeling as if poetry as I wrote it had never been even thought of before.
I would go back down to my parents' library the next day, though, and find that my work were the mere attempts of a child, and nothing compared to the great poets of times before me.
And yet, I would still fall into whatever it was I felt when I wrote poetry. Duncan called it weird, Quigley found it even a little cute. But I didn't care. Those times were the times I felt, or at least sensed, happiness. I even wrote about those times:
When I write poetry,
I'm happy as can be.
You can see, from that, how really undeveloped my poetry was. But for brief intervals of time, I thought it amazing, even groundbreaking.
And this is where my melancholy story begins.
The day of the fire was just an ordinary, Saturday morning. Duncan was reading the newspaper, and Quigley was etching away at the world map he had been working on for six years. It covered his bedroom walls now. And Mother and Father were in the library. They never told me what they did there, they said they were just "researching." I would pass by once in a while to pick a poetry book, and they were, indeed, researching. I never knew about what, though. And I might never know.
It was then I smelled smoke. I just thought Mom was burning her casserole. But then I heard Mother scream. I have yet to hear a worse sound.
After Mother screamed, it was a haze of hurry. I remember trying to collect all my poetry together, being pushed into the library with Duncan. I could hear Quigley's shouts in the background. Duncan and I wanted to wait for him, but Mother wouldn't let us. The next thing I know, we were forced into an underground passage through a trapdoor under the carpet, and Mother saying she'd come back for us.
But she didn't.
We waited for hours. We then heard boots, firemen's boots, pounding over us. Duncan managed to push the door open. The worst sight of our lives met our eyes. Everything was gone, reduced to smolder and ashes. Including our parents. And Quigley.
We searched everywhere for them, calling their names, but to no avail. I remember going to Quigley's room, and seeing his map, the map he had worked on for half his life, nothing now but a heap of sizzling rubbish. And all of Duncan's newspaper collection, that he had almost finished reading, had the same fate.
I didn't want to look in my room, but I forced myself to. All of it, or nearly all of it, was the same. But, miraculously, one paper survived. One blank piece of paper had not been burned, had been saved by the firemen. Through my grief, the urge to write persevered. Dipping my quill in ashes and water since all my ink was burned, I wrote:
There always seems to be a fire
When your need for none is dire.
I kept this poem in my pocket for a long time. It was my only remain, my only reminder of the fire, and I would never give it to anyone unless they meant as much to me as my family did. But now I'm getting ahead of myself.
Duncan and I didn't want to leave. If we left, we felt that the life we knew would be gone forever. It already was, but we felt safe in our parents' house, even if it was now dust and ashes. The firemen wouldn't let us stay, though.
Our parents' will specified that we be sent to a nearby boarding school called Prufrock Preparatory School. And this is where my new life begins.
Prufrock Prep had everything a half-decent prep school usually has: bullies, an unfair principal (to say the least), and greasy food with as much taste as my wool sweater's sleeve. For three semesters we lived in the Orphans' Shack. But then we were given our own room. We were just told that a guardian had signed for us, and that new orphans would need it anyway. After that, I didn't think much of it.
That is, until I met those new orphans.
There is the saying that first impressions were always wrong. I, however, could argue that statement, as everyone I have met after my parents died were exactly what my first impression expected. And it was the same for the Baudelaires, as they were as kind, intelligent and understanding as their first impressions implied. Especially Klaus Baudelaire.
There were three things in life that would give me a thousand inspirations for poems at a glance, that would make me forget all else and focus on them. The first was nature. The second was my family. The third was Klaus.
Klaus understood my desire to write as no one else did. He understood the beauty of words, and was poetic himself. I will not plague you with every couplet I ever wrote about him, every thing I ever thought about him, as they are too numerous to count. As scholars say artists went through periods of art subjects, I'd say I am in my Klaus Period, and I think I always will be.
That poem I mentioned earlier? I said that I would never give it to anyone unless I cared about them as I did my family? I gave it to Klaus. He understood the poem as no one else, not even I, did, and I felt I could trust him with it. That is how love is, when you find that one person that knows you better than you do, even though they may barely know you.
But fate is cruel, and ripped my beloved from me. When I was trapped in Count Olaf's car, watching Klaus call my name, tears streaming down his face, I knew then that he was my one and only. But I couldn't have him. Olaf made sure of that.
And so, my happiness ended, Olaf replaced it with what he prided himself on: fear. Fear and terror. I was half-in, half-out of the world then, I felt. When I was awake, Count Olaf's threats, interlaced with colorful language, echoed in my ears. When I slept, however, I dreamt of Klaus, who filled my mind with so many poems that I so longed to write, and yet I could not, as the will to left me at my every waking moment. I knew I couldn't be happy again until I saw his face.
What kept me alive now? Duncan. Duncan is the strongest person I know, and he had the tenacity the most gifted journalists had that I, a mere poet, could not muster. Poetry could not help us now. But Duncan insisted that I not give up. He made me continue writing. And so I wrote the one thing that was on my mind:
I could soar on the wings of a dove
when I think of Klaus, my one true love.
Duncan was my one inspiration to keep going now. As long as we were together, we would survive. I had to reassure myself of that every night before I could go to sleep, hoping that tomorrow might be my one salvation.
And my dream was fulfilled, when I was shaken awake by Duncan, who claimed that he could hear the Baudelaires coming for us down an elevator shaft. I couldn't believe Duncan would lie to me like this. I would have slapped him had our confinement been just a little bit larger. But when I saw who was coming down the elevator shaft, I could have hugged Duncan to death.
Violet's voice was just as gentle and maternal as I remembered it, and Sunny was just as sweet. And Klaus's hand was even warmer than I remembered. I would have done anything to tell him about V.F.D., tell him how I felt about him. But:
There is never enough time
To tell someone: "You are mine"…
And so, my one source of true happiness was taken from me again. We were shipped off on a plane to the Village of Foul Devotees and stuffed in a fountain shaped like a crow. Duncan and I, in spite of ourselves, actually found this funny, it was so ridiculous. And laughing made me feel warm and sunny, even though in reality I was cold and drenched.
When we found out the Baudelaires were also in town, and shouting to them and banging on the walls of the steel fountain proved fruitless, Duncan and I put our heads together for a plan (which we had to do literally, as our confinement was so small). I wrote the poetry, but Duncan came up with the acrostic idea. And my reward for my hard work? I think finally being able to throw myself into Klaus's welcoming arms was enough for me.
But I lost him again, just minutes later, and have yet to see him again. I thought I would be stuck forever in that hot air balloon. I was wrong, though…
I have no time to write the rest of my woeful tale, nor would I if I did. What I always have time for, however, is poetry. I know no other way to end this story of my life, but with poetry, the first of the two loves of my life. And so I will end it with the first and fourth stanzas of "Rise", from Charles Baudelaire's one work, Les Fleurs Du Mal:
Above the ponds, the valleys,
Mountains, woods, clouds, seas,
Beyond the sun, ethers,
Beyond the borders of the spangled spheres…
Behind the troubles and vast sorrows,
Who charge of their weight their misty existence,
Happy that which of a vigorous wing
To spring towards the luminous and serene fields…
So there it is! I know this chapter has been long-awaited, and I hope that I satisfied your curiosity! Please tell me in a review who you'd like me to write first, Duncan or Quigley? Thanks, and I'll be eagerly waiting for your opinions!