I looked over my story, and it turns out the chapters were a lot shorter than I thought they were. I will do my best to make the chapters longer from now on. Enjoy this (hopefully longer) chapter!
Chapter Six
"There's no Duncan Quagmire or Violet Baudelaire anywhere on this list," Klaus said after looking over the list several times. He and Isadora were back in the breakroom, trying to find Violet and Duncan.
"Of course there isn't," Isadora said. She took out Duncan's notebook and flipped through the pages. She stopped on a page with a single phrase inscribed upon it. Al Funcoot = Anagram. "Count Olaf likes to use anagrams to hide things. An anagram is-"
"A word that can be rearranged to make another word. I know."
"Right. And the playwright Al Funcoot is-"
"An anagram of Count Olaf."
"Yes. Olaf must have scrambled our siblings names and hidden them somewhere in the patient list. Let me see..." Isadora studied the list carefully. She rested her finger on a particular name. "Look at this:"
"Laura V. Bleediote," Klaus read. "If you rearrange the letters, it spells-"
"Violet Baudelaire."
"She's in room 922 with Quinn G. Ducamare."
Isadora smiled. "That's Duncan."
"Let's go."
Klaus, Isadora, and Sunny (now being carried by Klaus) rushed through the hospital to room 922. They burst through the door and found the bed-
"Empty. It's empty," Isadora said, sounding defeated. "Where are they?"
"Where are who?" Esmé Squalor appeared in the doorway, holding a very sharp and scary looking knife.
"What happened to the patients in this room?" Klaus asked in his disguised voice.
"The adorable couple? They're being prepped for surgery. Or at least, the girl is. I don't know what they've done with the boy." Isadora gasped. "Do you know them or something?"
The intercom on the wall crackled to life. "Paging Dr. Tushman, paging Dr. Tushman. This is Dr. Matthias Medicalschool, head of Human Resources. I have nothing to do with party planning. Would Dr. Tushman please report to the Human Resources office? Dr. Faustus, you are needed in the operating theatre to perform the first Crainoectemy ever on a teenage girl.
"Tickets are being sold in exchange for any valuables of any kind. That will be all." The announcement ended.
Klaus and Isadora stared at one another in shock. Esmé had conveniently vanished.
"They-they want me to cut off Violet's head," Klaus could barely speak.
"Well, that doesn't mean you have to, does it?" Isadora's words did not comfort Klaus in any way. "Go to the operating theatre and stall the operation. I'll get Duncan from the Human Resources office and meet you there."
"What if it's a trap? I don't want you to go alone. I can't risk losing you." Klaus blushed. "I mean, I can't risk you getting kidnapped again."
Isadora gave Klaus a quick kiss on the cheek, just the way she had back at Prufrock Prep, before she and Duncan had gotten kidnapped. "I'll be fine."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes." Isadora retied Sunny into the sling they had made to enhance the doctor disguise. "Now go."
Klaus dashed off to the operating theatre.
...
Isadora arrived at the Human Resources office and knocked on the door.
Count Olaf spoke from inside. "Ah, Dr. Tushman. We've been expecting you. Come in."
A quick glance around the small room showed Isadora that there was no place Olaf could be hiding Duncan. Klaus had been right. This was most certainly a trap.
"What do you want?" Isadora asked, taking in the image of Count Olaf at a desk, with Babs tied to a chair behind him.
"Well, I thought it best if you didn't witness the operation. After all, stress can cause birth defects." Olaf gestured to the concealed Sunny under the medical coat.
Isadora glared at the Count. "You and I both know I'm not pregnant. What have you done with my brother?"
"He and his girlfriend are in the operating theatre, about to have their heads cut off."
"No."
"Yes. But it's you I want to talk to. I know what you carry around in your pocket."
"I don't have the Snicket File. Klaus does."
"Snicket File? What-Oh never mind. I'll deal with that later.
"No, I'm talking about those obnoxious little notebooks you and your brother carry around, writing down my secrets and schemes whenever you have the chance. I want them."
"And what makes you think I would hand them over to you?"
"Is it not clear, Isabelle?"
"Isadora."
"That's what I said. If you were to give me the notebooks, I would spare your brother's life. It's terribly cruel to murder a child, especially a twin one. But of course, if you refuse, then it's off with his head." Count Olaf grinned sickeningly at the literary reference.
Isadora considered the offer. "If I gave you the notebooks, would you promise to leave us alone? Stop chasing after our fortune?"
Olaf paused, then said with an even wider grin: "Certainly. But know that this offer does not extend to your boyfriend or his sister."
"Fine."
"Do we have a deal?" Olaf stuck out his hand. Isadora deposited the notebooks in his palm rather than deciding to shake the hand of a villainous man who had kidnapped her.
"Deal."
"Now tell me about this Snicket File."
Once again, if you have read any of Mr. Snicket's work, you will know about Klaus' stalling of his sister's Crainioectemy, Count Olaf's burning of Heimlich Hospital, and the Baudelaire children's escape from another angry mob using one of Violet's inventions. If you simply insert the Quagmire triplets into these situations, you will get an idea of what happened next; saving me the paper and the trouble of writing down something you already know.
So I will once again skip ahead in our story, to the part where Violet's invention worked perfectly.
Violet's invention worked perfectly. The Baudelaires and Quagmires untied themselves from the rubbery cord, and snuck past the crowd of people trying to convict them as murderers and murderer accomplices for the second time that week.
"How do we get out of here?" Klaus asked.
"That's our way out," Violet said, pointing to the half-open trunk of Count Olaf's car.
Duncan stated at Violet, wide-eyed. "You have got to be kidding me."
A few moments later, the two Quagmires and the three Baudelaires were huddled together in the trunk of the dreaded black automobile. Within seconds of the children climbing aboard, Count Olaf drove away from the burning hospital and into the dark, dark night.
"You weren't kidding," Duncan said.
Did I do a good job of writing a longer chapter? Please review and tell me what you thought.
If you didn't catch it, Isadora's doctor alias is a reference to the book Wonder by R.J. Palacio. In the book, the main character's father remarks on how funny it would be to hear the principal's name over the loudspeaker. "Paging Mr. Tushman." I couldn't resist.
Up next will be a short stay at a certain carnival, followed by a meeting with a suspicious survior, and a journey with a special submarine captain. See you in the next chapter!