Lemony sat at the bathroom door of Jacques fancy apartment. Kit, his older sister, had insisted on coming with them on Jacques volunteer mission. Kit, being Jacques's twin sister, shared many things with him. She shared a birthday. They shared their apartment. They shared their mother's womb before they were born. They even, when they were much, much younger shared a bath, to economise on water. Something else they shared, much to Kit's annoyance, was ocular facial hair. Kit always found that a woman having a monobrow was not ladylike. Anyone that dared to point out that Kit herself was not very ladylike would get a sudden glare. And no one can glare like a woman with a monobrow.
Lemony looked around at the rooms of Jacques apartment while Jacques banged on the bathroom door.
"I see you never threw away that old dollhouse!" Lemony laughed when he found it behind a chair,
"Hah!" Jacques laughed, abandoning his fruitless quest for the toilet, "I didn't have the heart!" He knelt down next to his brother and began to shake the little figures, 'Ah! No a fire! Somebody help!' 'Never fear! It's SuperJacques to the rescue!' 'Da dadada!' his childish playing was interrupted by a cry from the bathroom.
"Kit?" Lemony called, "What is it?"
"Promise you won't laugh?"
"No."
"Well, I'm coming out anyway!"
Kit, as I mentioned before, only had one eyebrow, and while you could honestly say that she still only had one eyebrow, there was still a rather large difference.
"What…" Jacques said, after his sides stopped splitting, "happened to you?"
"I was plucking out the middle bit," Kit began,
"And got a bit carried away?"
"And slipped and yanked out my left eyebr- left side of my eyebrow," she corrected, "but what am I going to do?"
"I've got an idea," Lemony said, walking out the door, "try wearing a mask!"
As the Snickets finally began to investigate the Royal garden fire, Kit hiding behind a small black masquerade mask, they realised they were not alone. They could just see a tall man stood at the far end of the gardens, looking down at the floor, and then writing something in his little book.
"Who's he?" Lemony asked as they walked closer,
"Not a clue!" Jacques replied, "Never seen him before!"
"Kind of cute though!" Kit commented, clinging to her mask,
As they got closer still he heard then coming up towards him and gave them a little smile,
"Hello!" he grinned "Don't mind me!"
Now they were stood almost next to him, and could see he was quite tall. His arms and legs stuck out at odd positions, as if he were made of drinking straws instead of flesh and bone.
"Hi," Jacques said, pulling out his police badge, "May I ask what you are doing here?"
"I'm under a private employer," he explained, "The owner of the land this was built on was a dear friend of my currant employer, and thought this was too sensitive a matter to come down personally. Is that a problem?"
The four of them stood there for a moment, until Jacques broke the silence by giggling.
"V.F.D, right?"
"Uh, yeah! I saw you coming and didn't recognise you. I thought I better talk in code. Sorry for thinking you were an impostor!"
"No need!" Jacques laughed, putting his badge away, "You can never have too much security! Jacques Snicket by the way, this is my brother Lemony, and the one with the mask is my sister Kit!"
"I'm Frank," Frank Denouement said, shaking hands with the two brothers. But as he reached out to shake hands with Kit, she did something she would never forget, at least for a few weeks. She took his hand in the same hand she was holding her disguise in. So as she brought down her hand, the Snickets new friend could see her previous mistake in the bathroom. This was not helped by Frank's next comment,
"Uh, your… your eyebrow?"