As promised, here is Chapter 1. Please review if you see anything wrong with it.


On the far sides of a small coastal town in Southern California stood Mansions, one on Prospero Lane, and one on Quills Circle. In the mansion on Prospero Lane lived the Baudelaires, a family of five consisting of Bertrand and Beatrice, and their three children Violet, Klaus, and Sunny. The mansion on Quills Circle was home to the Quagmire family. They were a family of five as well, Quentin and Karen, who are currently missing, and their triplets Isadora, Quigley, and Duncan.

The parents of both families had gone to Prufrock Preparatory School in Utah, along with Anne Foster and Tom Harper. Quentin and Karen got engaged a few weeks after graduating, and by the time they were married, Bertrand and Beatrice were engaged as well. A few years later, Tom and Anne got engaged and married. Shortly after, Bertrand and Beatrice had their first child, a girl named Violet. Not even a full year later Tom and Anne had quadruplets namely, Dawn. Richard, Dominic and Nicholas, or Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn. Three months later, the Quagmire triplets Isadora, Quigley, and Duncan were born. A year and a half later, Bertrand and Beatrice's second child, Klaus, was born. Ten years later, Sunny, the third Baudelaire child, was born.

Bertrand, Beatrice, Quentin and Karen lost touch with Tom and Anne when they moved to Colorado together less than a year after graduating. Shortly after Violet was born, Quentin and Karen went on an expedition looking for an ancient sapphire cave, and lost touch with Bertrand and Beatrice.

On the night before the triplet's thirteenth birthday, Quentin and Karen went missing and have not been seen since. When Quentin and Karen went missing, Isadora, Quigley, and Duncan were forced to move in with the Baudelaires, who they had never met. Some investigators found a lead that they were captured, but escaped and were now returning home from Peru. It was so long for them to return that the investigators had assumed that they got lost on the way back. Unknown to everyone, on the way back to California they took a detour when they got a lead on a Aztec sapphire cave and couldn't help but try to find it.

Each child had their area of expertise. I will list them below in birth order.

Violet is an inventor. Whenever she is thinking she uses a small piece of burgundy ribbon to hold her hair back.

Dawn is athletic, she plays soccer extremely well and prefers to play goalie. She is also a part of the school Glee Club and sings quite well. In her eyes, she is the leader of the quads, but Ricky disagrees.

Ricky is the smartest of the quads as well as the most serious. He has the best grades in school and has never missed a day of school. Even though he isn't the oldest, he believes that he is the leader because he is the smartest and most serious quad.

Dicky is the 'cool' one. He doesn't take anything seriously, except his hair, of which he loves nothing more. He does poorly in school, but has the most fun in life.

Nicky is the chef of the quads and takes cooking very seriously. He has a lot of pride in his food, but is insecure about everything else. He tries to stay out of trouble but always ends up getting caught up in the other quads's messes.

Isadora is a poet, and is great at all types of poetry but prefers to write couplets. Her favorite poets are Lord Byron and Ogden Nash.

Quigley is a cartographer, and makes maps of everywhere he goes. He is also forward thinking and always has a plan. He is adventurous at heart but ever since his parents went missing, he is afraid of the unknown and getting lost.

Duncan is the youngest journalist in Southern California and is quite proficient in Journalism. He is a perfectionist and the most formal of the triplets. Despite this, he is very sensitive and has been depressed ever since his parents went missing.

Klaus is the researcher. He has read more books than the rest of the children combined and has a photographic memory, so he never forgets anything he reads. He is socially awkward and believes no one can be trusted until they prove themselves worthy of his trust.

Last but not least, there's Sunny. She has abnormally sharp teeth and a sharp to go with them. She's a better chef than most adults, despite being three and not even being able to properly speak English.


While Quigley sat glumly in the large library in the Baudelaire mansion studying the maps of South America he found in the library for the 30th time trying to figure out where his parents were, Duncan sat in his room quietly crying in his bed. Quentin and Karen had been missing for almost a year now and even the triplets were losing hope. The investigators said that they were on their way home, but that was back in June. It has been 6 month since then and even Quigley could not figure out how it could possibly take six months to get from Peru to California. He calculated that Peru was about 5000 miles away, depending on the route, and thanks to Klaus's he knew the average person walks and 4 miles per hour, so it should take them about 1,250 hours to get back, or 105 days if they walked for 12 hours a day. It had been 226 days since they went missing — more than double the time it should have taken them to get home.

Isadora was sitting out in the grand garden trying to take her mind off her missing parent by writing couplets, but it wasn't helping. The only thing she could think of writing about were her parents which only made her more sad. She wrote everything that came to mind in her commonplace notebook. On the the most recent page she had:

No matter how near or far apart,

you will always be right here in my heart.

We've got nothing more to lose,

we're sadness, tears, and blues.

Now all the roads have been crossed,

I guess now you are gone and lost.

In the eve you are taken away,

leaving us triplets in disarray.

For the first time ever, poetry wasn't making her happy, instead, it was making her miss her parents more and that was the last thing she needed right now. She put her notebook away and started crying.

A few moments later, she heard Beatrice calling from the kitchen "Children, Children, Bertrand and I have a surprise for you. Come to the kitchen, I think you'll really enjoy it."

A second later, Klaus yelled down from the library balcony "Let me finish this chapter real quick."

Getting impatient Beatrice responded "Just come to the kitchen now, I promise it will only take a minute."

Once all of the children had come into the kitchen Beatrice started with "Bertrand and I have been noticing that latey all of you except Sunny have been looking down lately, so we decided— "

She was cut off by Bertrand, who was normally well mannered but now seemed so excited about whatever was to come he couldn't help himself. "We're going on a ROAD TRIP! Beatrice and I

rented a RV for the month and thought a road trip would cheer all of you up."

With this Duncan stopped crying, Isadora was jumping for joy, Klaus couldn't care less about what happened next in his book, Quigley was trying to think about some landmarks he wanted to see, and Violet was thinking about all of the tools she should bring in case RV broke down.

Sunny shouted "Machina!"

"She means Deus ex Machina, a phrase which here means an abrupt, unexpected, and unlikely solution to a seemingly unsolvable problem." Klaus remarked.

"When do we leave?" Isadora politely asked.

"Saturday morning at sunrise, so you''l have just under a day and a half to pack and prepare before we leave—"

This time Beatrice was cut off by all of the kids shouting "Can we go pack now?!" in unison.

"Sure," Beatrice said, "Just don't forget Sunny's making meatloaf for dinner tonight and is serving it at 6 o'clock sharp and waits for no one."

Again all the kids asked in unison "Can we go pack now?" getting impatient.

"You may." Beatrice responded, trying not to get mad about the children's lack of manners.

While the children ran up stairs to their respective bedrooms to start packing for the road trip, Sunny stayed behind in the kitchen to put the meatloaf in the oven.

No surprise, the meatloaf was wonderful. Sunny had made her famlus 'Bacon-Crusted Meatloaf', with a side of mashed potatoes and broccoli. She had also made an apple pie for desert, it too was wonderful.

After dinner, Mr. Baudelaire, Quigley, Klaus and Isadora went into the library, while Duncan and Violet went upstairs. In the library, Quigley and Bertrand were making a map for the trip, and Klaus and Isadora were looking for a book about the history of the Golden Gate Bridge. Mr. B had told everyone the first stop on the trip, and Klaus always want to know everything there was to know about some thing he was doing. Isadora on the other hand, seemed to be following Klaus around because she had nothing better to do.

Isadora quietly excused herself from the library at about 8:30 to go to bed. A few hours later, at about 11, Beatrice had incised everyone went to bed. After a short disagreement, everyone went to their bedrooms. Klaus snuck his book upstairs with him to continue reading in bed, Quigley took his notebook and a small reading light with him to draw in bed, and Duncan did the same except not to draw, but rather to write a full, play-by-play run down of the day, just like he did every night. There was an mutual agreement in the boy's room that it was okay to stay up into all hours of the night, as long as no one told on the others. However, the same could not be said about the girls room. Every night, Isadora was out cold before Violet and her siblings even went to bed, and Sunny being only 3, went to bed with Isadora every night. Every night Violet laid awake thinking about her inventions.

The next day was the most boring Friday the children had ever experienced. They had. done all the prep for the trip the previous night so now they had nothing to do but wait for Saturday morning. With the help of Isadora, Sunny baked some muffins for the road, Violet checked her tool bag, Klaus grabbed every book he might possibly need to read on the trip, Quigley inked his map and Duncan charged his camera batteries.


There it was. I was probably terrible. Chapter 2 on Thursday.