Chapter 9
It was lunchtime at Prufrock Preparatory School, and Carmelita Spats sat all alone at an empty table located near the doors of the cafeteria, dipping her French fry over and over into the ketchup on her tray.
She had both attempted
and failed to salvage the friendships she’d had with some of the students before leaving on a trip up to Mount Fraught with her fellow Snow Scouts in order to celebrate False Spring— a trip from which she hadn’t returned for quite some time. During that time, her friends had come to the realization that they were better off without the rude, violent, filthy little girl to boss them around, and had gone on to form other relationships with polite, friendly, sanitary children.
For the first time Carmelita found herself wondering if this was how the Baudelaires and the Quagmires had been made to feel all those times she had called them “cakesniffers” and, on one occasion, “saladsniffers”.
Pushing her tray forward, she folded her arms together across the table and rested her head in them. Lunch period would be over soon, and then all that remained was to get through the rest of the afternoon listening to Mr. Remora tell his boring stories.
Just then, somebody at a nearby table pulled back their fork and sent a French fry covered in ketchup soaring through the air where it bounced off the top of Carmelita’s head. That did it. She was on her feet in an instant and was strolling over to the person responsible, who actually turned out to be one of her former friends, a boy named Warren Mitchell. Glaring him straight in the eye, Carmelita picked up Warren’s tray from the table and, holding it directly above his head, flipped over the tray and dumped what was left of his cheeseburger and French fries all over his head.
“That’s what you get for messing with me, you traitorous cakesniffer,” Carmelita said.
Warren glared back at her from beneath his ketchup-covered bangs, grinning. “Don’t you get it, Carmelita?” he asked. “Nobody in this school is afraid of you anymore. How could they be afraid of someone who’s still stuck in the sixth grade?”
That got a great round of laughter from the other children, and Carmelita felt her face grow hot with embarrassment. “Sh— shut up,” she stammered.
“You’re the cakesniffer, Carmelita,” someone else said.
“Yeah,” agreed another. “Only cakesniffers are so dumb they have to repeat the sixth grade.”
Carmelita looked around, noticing that two more of her friends had stepped forward and betrayed her. Was this how Esmé had felt when she realized that Olaf had left them to burn along with the Hotel Denouement?
“You’re nothing but a cakesniffing baby,” Warren said as he flicked a French fry off of his left shoulder where it grazed passed Carmelita before landing on the floor. “A cakesniffing sixth-grade baby.”
“Shut up!” shouted Carmelita, and stamped her foot.
“Cakesniffing sixth-grade baby! Why don’t you make it official and go live in the orphan’s shack?”
This only made Carmelita grow more furious.
“I AM NOT AN ORPHAN!!!” she screeched. Picking up Warren’s carton of milk, she hurled it in his direction where it splattered all over his face.
Milk dripping off his nose and chin, he went right on grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
And that’s when Carmelita lost what little control she had left, and punched him right in the eye.
Warren howled, throwing his hands over the left side of his face where Carmelita had punched him. She barely had enough time to step back and admire what she had done before she felt a pair of hands close down around her shoulders. When she looked up, there was Vice Principal Nero, who appeared none too pleased.
“The two of you, my office, now,” he said.
Sighing, Carmelita followed Nero out of the cafeteria, while a dripping, injured Warren was forced to put forth his best efforts and trudge slowly behind.
“I’m just going to come right out and say it,” Nero said once the three of them were sitting behind the closed door of his office. “I am very disappointed in
both of you.”
Carmelita and Warren eyed one another angrily.
“Usually physical violence requires a five-day suspension period,” Nero went on. “But I might be willing to lesson your punishment under the condition that you are not only completely honest with me, but that you
also promise to never do anything like this ever again.”
Carmelita was the first to speak. “It was all
his fault,” she said, pointing accusingly at Warren. “I was sitting at the lunch table, minding my own business, when out of nowhere he pelts me with a French fry. I saw him do it.”
“I see,” Nero said, and turned to Warren. “Is that true, Mr. Mitchell?”
Warren hung his head. “Yes,” he admitted. “But I was only teasing. And
she was the one to dump my lunch tray over my head, splatter me with milk,
and punch me in the eye!”
“Only after you started making fun of me,” Carmelita reminded him.
“You know the rules about throwing food in the cafeteria, Warren,” Nero explained. “What you did was not only inexcusable, but completely juvenile. Tell me: Do you
want Prufrock Preparatory School to have a bad reputation?”
Warren gaped. “But what about Carmelita?” he demanded, throwing his palms against his ketchup-covered chest. “Do you really think I would do this to myself?”
“That’s different,” Nero replied. “Carmelita did not
throw the food
on you. She simply turned the tray upside down and dumped the contents onto your head.”
Warren simply sat there in his chair, fuming so hard that Carmelita almost expected to hear the French fries that were still stuck in his hair begin to sizzle.
“Warren,” Nero said, “your punishment will be to buy me a large bag of candy and watch me eat it. Now, you may return to the dormitory and wash up before your next class… maybe stop by the nurse on the way and get some ice for that shiner around your left eye. And,” he added right before Warren turned to go out the door, “I don’t want to hear anymore about you attacking other students with food, understand?”
Warren nodded sheepishly and then left the office.
After the door had closed, Carmelita turned to the vice principal and asked quietly, “What’s my punishment going to be?”
Sighing, Nero leaned back in his chair, folded his hands together and looked at her. “Nothing. I only punish students when they do something wrong, and from what you’ve told me, I don’t believe you did anything wrong.”
“I punched Warren in the eye,” Carmelita pointed out. “That isn’t wrong?”
“It is if you didn’t have a good reason,” Nero said. “But you did. You acted completely in self-defense, and the student handbook doesn’t have any objections to acting in self-defense. So no, I’m not going to punish you. You may return to the cafeteria and finish your lunch.”
“Yes, sir,” Carmelita replied, and got up to leave.
The rest of Carmelita’s day seemed to drone on in a blur. She spent the remainder of the afternoon sitting in the back row of Mr. Remora’s class, listening to him tell three particularly dull stories which involved a train, a plane, and an automobile. She took down notes and received one-hundreds on all three tests. A few of the students who were in class with Carmelita had witnessed her rather violent outburst at lunch, and therefore made an effort not to speak to her. She didn’t mind this one bit, figuring the loneliness was worth it if it meant not being teased.
After class, Mr. Remora took her aside and congratulated her on her efforts. It was the first time she had actually gotten anything higher than a sixty-five on
any of his tests, and he was thoroughly impressed.
Dinnertime soon arrived, and with it so did Carmelita’s return to the cafeteria. She was a little anxious that Warren or some of his friends would bother her, but they didn’t. She was able to eat her meatloaf and mashed potatoes in peace and quiet, save for all the numerous conversation going on around her.
While she ate, she thought about everything that had happened over the past year, the people she had met, and all of the changes she had gone through. She thought about the Baudelaires and the Quagmires, and speculated where they might be and what they were up to. She felt badly after having treated them so cruelly, especially since she had experienced a dose that afternoon of what she’d put them through.
Carmelita sighed, glancing up at the clock. It was seven-thirty, which meant that there was only another half an hour to go before dinner was over. She couldn’t wait to go back to her dorm room so that she could wait for Jerome’s call. She hoped to be able to talk to Esmé a little as well, considering she was feeling better.
Carmelita couldn’t help but feel there was something important that her adoptive parents weren’t telling her.
Carmelita had just finished unpacking and was about to step out of the dorm to go and brush her teeth when the telephone rang. She leaped across the bed and snatched up the telephone from its place on the nightstand, pressing it against her ear.
“Hello?” she said.
“Carmelita!” Jerome’s cheerful voice resonated from the other end. “Can you guess who this is?”
His optimism caused a wide smile to appear on her face, despite the fact that she was still feeling relatively down. “Hi, Jerome,” Carmelita replied.
“How was your first day back at school? Did you manage to meet up with any of your old friends?”
She frowned slightly at this. “Yes.”
“That’s good,” Jerome said. “I’ll bet they were overcome with joy to see you again.”
If by that you mean so they could pelt me with French fries and taunt me, Carmelita thought. However, she was careful to keep this matter to herself.
“How’s Esmé feeling?” Carmelita asked.
“Better. She’s right here if you’d like to speak with her.”
“Yes, please.”
Carmelita listened to Jerome handing the phone over, and a moment later Esmé’s voice appeared on the other line: “Hello, darling,” she said. “How is everything?”
“Fine,” Carmelita replied, not adding how much she hated being so far away from basically the only mother she had ever known, or how much she hated the place she was in.
“I miss you so much. But I’ll see you this weekend.”
“Will you be coming with Jerome to get me?” Carmelita’s voice was hopeful.
“I will if I can. I’ll do my best,” Esmé promised.
Carmelita knew that was just another way of saying, “If I’m not violently ill like I have been for the past six weeks”.
“Esmé?”
“Yes?”
“Why do you keep getting sick?” Carmelita asked.
There was a long, awkward pause on the other line before Jerome finally took the phone from Esmé.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hi.”
“When you come home this weekend,” Jerome said, “the three of us need to discuss something. It’s nothing you should concern yourself with, but the sooner we talk about it, the better all our lives will be.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t tell you now— it’s not something to be discussed over the phone —but I promise Esmé and I will reveal everything to you the next time we see each other. But for now, get some sleep, and keep your focus on your schoolwork. There’s no reason for you to worry about anything else.”
“Okay,” Carmelita agreed.
“Goodnight, Carmelita,” Jerome said. “And don’t worry. Everything will work out for the best. I promise. Esmé and I love you very much, and I’m going to do all I can to help the both of you get through this troubled and difficult time.”
By “troubled and difficult time”, Carmelita knew Jerome was referring to the time she and Esmé had spent with Olaf and the problems, and the anguishes it had caused the two women in the long-run.
That night as Carmelita slid beneath the covers of her four-poster bed and laid her head down on the fluffy pillow, she closed her eyes and thought about how much she loved Esmé, how much she was beginning to love Jerome, and what the secret was that the two of them would soon be revealing to her.
Reason for Editing: Had to add a missing word