Some writers would switch to first person at this point, a phrase which here means "using the pronoun 'I' everywhere my character speaks or acts." But I didn't use "I" for Olaf, so I will reserve "I" for my narrator voice. "I" will mean "I who am writing these words while balanced on a flagpole outside my thirteenth-story office window" and "Lemony" will mean "myself as I was then, dripping from seaweed on No Man's Island."
"When I was very young," Lemony said, "I was in love with a young drama student named Beatrice. I wanted to show her that I, a bookish rhetorical student, could be bold enough to be worthy of her. Together we visited No Man's Island and stole a piece of Forbidden Fruit. I ate it -- Beatrice decided not to. Everyone has a repressed dark side; the fruit brings it out. In my case it was the dramatic but vile Count Olaf."
"The effect of one fruit lasted for years?" asked Klaus, worried about Violet.
"The effect came and went," Lemony said. "Olaf wasn't too bad at first. Beatrice liked my new 'bad boy' side. 'O' was a private joke between us."
"Why Violet bad so fast?" asked Sunny.
"I think your sister was primed by all the terrible things that have happened to you. But Olaf gradually got worse. One thing I desperately regret happened at a tea party at which Beatrice met Esmé for the first time and took an instant dislike to her. Olaf persuaded Beatrice to steal Esmé's sugar bowl. What Beatrice didn't know was that Olaf had become smitten with Esmé. Olaf betrayed her theft to Esmé to win favor, which lead Esmé to a terrible revenge." Lemony paused to weep.
"Is that the same sugar bowl that everyone was looking for?" Klaus asked.
"What in it?" Sunny asked.
Lemony told them, and they were amazed. However, I (the narrator) cannot reveal it to the general public in a book.
"As Lemony, I did many good and heroic things. But my evil side kept breaking loose. I was supposed to review plays, a way to send secret messages for the V.F.D. As Olaf, I sneaked backstage and took them over (along with a troupe of henchmen) turning them into occasions for boasting and robbery."
"Didn't the V.F.D. try to stop you?" Klaus asked.
"The V.F.D. was not amused -- my brother Jacques arranged for me to be sent out of the country. Beatrice sent me a long letter by carrier pigeon, breaking our engagement. It broke my heart." Lemony paused to sob again.
"I'm sorry, but it's understandable why she did," said Klaus.
"I was forbidden to associate with Beatrice, but I came back to this country and carried out many crimes with my troupe. Beatrice married another man and became your mother."
"Poison darts happened?" Sunny asked.
"Yes -- the V.F.D. learned that my parents were going over to the other side. They approved an assassination. Kit helped; she can be quit fanatical for the cause. Your parents got their fortune as a reward for their service to the V.F.D."
"So you took revenge?" Klaus asked.
"It happened this way. I still loved Beatrice in spite of it all. I attended the masked ball of Duchess R. last year to get a glimpse of her. But suddenly, Lemony disappeared and there was only Olaf. Because I was a different person, I gave her the message of vengeance my dark side had longed to deliver for fifteen years: 'Watch out, Beatrice. Count Olaf is..'"
Lemony couldn't go on for a quite a while. When he did, it was in an imitation of Olaf's voice at his most frightening: "Watch out, Beatrice. Count Olaf is in control, and I'm going to kill you!"
The children shuddered.
"Beatrice didn't take the threat seriously enough. She invited me to her home, sending you children out of the way first, hoping to talk me back to sanity. It didn't work, and the result was the fire."
"So both our parents died in the fire that morning," said Klaus. "We had hoped one survived."
"Beatrice did survive the fire. She escaped down a secret passage," said Lemony.
"Mother's alive?" Sunny asked hopefully.
"Alas, Esmé was waiting at the other end of the tunnel, at 667 Dark Avenue" said Lemony. "She had married Jerome Squalor in order to have access to it. She caught Beatrice and held her prisoner for several hours in the secret compartment inside the Fountain of Victorious Finance."
"Like the fountain we rescued Duncan and Isadora from in the Village of Fowl Devotees?" asked Klaus.
"Yes. In the afternoon Esmé took Beatrice out to sea and sunk her in a leaky boat also named Beatrice that she had bought for that purpose. Beatrice was drowned..." Lemony broke down again.
"We saw board," said Sunny sadly.
"What about the will?" Klaus asked. "Did our parents really mean to leave us in your care?"
"As I said, Beatrice didn't realize how terrible I was until it was too late," said Lemony. "If she had, she would have changed the will to exclude me as a possible guardian. She must have thought my love for her would keep me from mistreating you. It should have. But from that masked ball until yesterday morning Lemony was gone. I think the trauma of the wreck and being stabbed brought me back."
"For how long?" asked Klaus.
"I hope for good," Lemony said. "If I can keep my mind focused. I have a plan to write books about all the terrible things that happened during this time. I'll research every detail I can't remember."
"Off island?" Sunny asked.
"Yes -- the boat just needs a little more repair to be seaworthy and we'll be out of here," Lemony said.
And I (the narrator, as you remember) am happy to report that we returned safely to civilization (as you might have guessed, since there are no multi-story buildings with flagpoles on the island).