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Post by Jenny on Jan 1, 2008 13:18:55 GMT -5
'There might be a tiny bit of trouble with that, Mr McGuire,' Jerome said quickly, and Esmé smiled to herself, relieved that he'd seen the look on her face when she'd heard that last sentence. 'Well, the thing is--'
'It really is quite necessary, Mr Squalor,' Mr McGuire said calmly. 'Unless there is a hugely important reason for her being unable to testify, really she needs to be there regardless.'
Jerome was about to persist, but Esmé silently shook her head. Carmelita hadn't done anything illegal in the past, and she was grown up enough to be able to handle testifying
Seeing Esmé change her mind about the situation, Mr McGuire nodded.
'I think it's also important to mention that I'm the only person in the room who hasn't either been associated or encountered Mr Widdershins before,' Jerome said quickly. 'Violet and Klaus--' he realized too late this proabably wasn't the best way to refer to them. '--have also dealt with Fernald in the past.' he stumbled over his words, unable to explain what the Baudelaire's felt for Fernald. 'Um, due to his--violence, the, um--'
'Excuse me, Mr Squalor,' said Mr McGuire from behind the desk, and then smiled. 'I don't mean to sound rude, but I think it's really about time somebody tells me in the simplest terms possible what excatly I'm dealing with.'
Jerome was too taken aback to attempt to try to comply with this request, and the Baudelaire's exchanged worried glances. Esmé herself frowned, and she looked up at the lawyer, and figured there was no harm.
'Fernald and I both assisted in the kidnapping of Violet and Klaus,' she said after a moment's pause. 'Among other things.'
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Jan 1, 2008 14:36:19 GMT -5
Jerome felt his heart leap into his throat at Esmé’s words, and the Baudelaires turned to their former guardian in surprise. What was she doing?
Although his eyes widened with interest, Mr. McGuire remained calm, and spoke in a tone that was equal to it. “I am… intrigued,” he said. “Please go on, Mrs. Squalor.”
Jerome and the Baudelaires were still staring at Esmé in proclaimed shock as she continued. “It was twelve years ago,” she said, “when Violet, Klaus, and their younger sister, Sunny came to live with my husband and myself.” She then gave an account of the events taking place over the time the Baudelaires had been living with the Squalors. This included everything, such as what had gone on behind the closed doors of the penthouse after Jerome had taken the children to Café Salmonella (leaving out the more intimate details, of course), to pushing the Baudelaires down the elevator shaft and the events that had taken place afterward at Veblen Hall.
Esmé went on to explain from her point of view the events that had followed those at the penthouse apartment and Veblen Hall, leaving out only the parts that could incriminate her. Now that she was telling her story for the second time, she found it much easier to control her emotions— though when she came to the part about the Hotel Denouement, she couldn’t help but shed tears. It wasn’t the part about breaking up with Olaf that caused her to weep, but the part about seeing Dewey Denouement die before her eyes, not to mention how traumatized Carmelita had become because of it.
All this time, Violet and Klaus had sat by watching in amazement as the woman who had never shown them an ounce of affection until just recently, shed real, honest tears, and they could hardly believe it. At one point, Klaus even had to remove his glasses and wipe them with his handkerchief just to assure himself that what he was seeing was real.
Perhaps he had been wrong in not giving Esmé a second chance after all.
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Post by Jenny on Jan 1, 2008 15:33:23 GMT -5
While Klaus Baudelaire kept his eyes on Esmé longer than the rest of the room, checking to see if she smiled to herself or something else to indicate she was acting, still, the other occupants of the room silently considered the weight of the situation. When all she did was quickly use her sleeve--isn't she worried about the fabric? Klaus subconsciously asked himself--to wipe away the tears before looking back at Mr McGuire.
Collin McGuire twiddled his pencil between his fingers, and studied the woman in front of him. It simply wasn't in his interest to find out anything else--he wasn't defending her, he had to remind hismelf of that--but he had to admit, he was interested. At first glance he'd pegged all four of the people in front of him as the mostly boring types, who'd ended up preyed on by some criminal.
He'd never expected them to be so completely, utterly complicated.
'So,' he said, cutting through the silence. 'Now I'm fully aware of the background to the situation.' he smiled. 'And I'm absolutely certain I understand exactly what your problems are.'
Esmé dared not mention Emma--she was the end to an elaborate story--but she couldn't see how Emma was relevant to Fernald. After all, they had only met once, and for only a few moments. And surely Fernald wouldn't ever plan to use Emma or anything about her to incriminate her.
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Jan 1, 2008 17:34:59 GMT -5
[This seems like a good spot to leave this scene for now, so I’m just going to do something with Sunny, Beatrice, and Emma. I hope that’s okay.]
The doors of the school bus opened and the students all piled out, making their way onto the grounds of Prufrock Preparatory School.
Emma had spent the entire ride to school in silence, sitting beside Beatrice and staring out the window while Sunny sat in the seat across from theirs, proofreading Emma’s essay. She felt rather guilty for keeping the truth of her parents and their past from her friends, but she had promised her mother and Jerome that she wouldn’t speak of it.
“Your essay is very good, Emma,” Sunny said as she handed it back to her. “If I was your teacher, I’d give you an ‘A’.”
Emma smiled as she slipped the essay into her backpack. “Thanks,” she said. “Hey, since there’s some time before classes start, I’m just going to stop by the administrative building. There’s something I need to ask Vice Principal Nero.”
“What is it?” Beatrice asked. “Sunny and I will go with you if you like.”
“But if we go into the administrative building,” Sunny reminded her sister, “we’ll have to buy Nero a bag of candy each.”
“He and Carmelita had an argument the night you came to stay with us,” Emma explained. “I just want to see if they’ve worked things out yet. And you won’t get into trouble if it’s for my benefit. When I first began attending Prufrock Prep, I was given special privileges because Nero’s fiancée also happens to be my sister.”
“Well, if that’s the case,” Sunny said, “then we’d be happy to accompany you to the administrative building.”
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Post by Jenny on Jan 1, 2008 18:04:40 GMT -5
They headed straighto to the administative building, across the school grounds and in front of Nero's office. Emma knocked softly on the door. She could practically feel Nero getting ready to demand a bag of candy and take away the student's silverware, but when the door opened, his face, reddened from anger, paled again. He couldn't be angry with Emma (in case Carmy found out!)
'Good morning,' he said, to her and the other two girls he couldn't remember the names of. 'Is everything alright?'
'Are you and Carmy OK?' Emma quickly demanded, wasting no time. She didn't have all day to waste at the administative building, after all.
He looked taken aback, and then he smiled a little. 'Yes, Emma,' he replied. 'Carmy and me are just fine, now. We still need to do a little more talking, though.'
Emma nodded.
'You better be telling the truth.' she said, raising an eyebrow. 'Because I will check with Carmy that you are.'
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Jan 1, 2008 18:46:26 GMT -5
Nero smiled down at the young girl who was to be his sister-in-law. He almost laughed, for Emma already seemed to have the part down judging by her fierce attitude. But then again, she’d always had that. “I wouldn’t expect anything less of you,” he replied.
Emma smiled, contented with that answer. “Well, as long as everything is all right between you two,” she said, “I guess Sunny, Beatrice, and I will be getting to class now.”
The name “Sunny” echoed in Nero’s head, as if he’d heard it somewhere before. But when, and to whom did the name belong to? “Sunny?” he repeated.
“Yes?” Sunny asked, looking up at her vice principal curiously.
“What might your last name be?” Nero asked.
“Baudelaire. And this”— she indicated with a nod of the head to her sister, who was standing on Emma’s right —“is my sister, Beatrice.”
But Nero barely noticed the younger Baudelaire, and instead kept his focus on Sunny. He racked his brain in order to pinpoint when and where he knew her from, until at last it occurred to him. She was the baby he had hired as his secretary nearly twelve years ago! It was an odd, awkward situation that had arisen, and Nero didn’t have the slightest idea how to explain the reason why he couldn’t take his eyes off Sunny.
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Post by Jenny on Jan 2, 2008 10:45:18 GMT -5
There was a long moment of silence, and Emma then coughed just to fraw Nero's attention to her. She raised one side of her long eyebrow, and indicated with her hand that she wanted an explanation as soon as possible. He shook his head, and glanced once more at Sunny.
The older girl had lowered her eyes to the floor and started to fiddle nervously with her jumper. Why was Nero staring at her? She couln't understand it. She knew she hadn't done anything that he might have been told about from the otehr teachers--she was a very good student, and he had no reason to know of her.
'Baudelaire,' Nero repeated softly, and then he himself looked down at the floor. 'Well, I'll be.' with that, he nodded once more to the three of them before transforming back into their formidable Vice Principal, instead of simply Nero, Emma's future brother in law.
'Get going, girls,' he said, retrieving his violin and beginning to play it. 'Before I take away your silverware.'
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Jan 2, 2008 13:47:07 GMT -5
“Yes, sir,” Emma said with a slight chuckle, and then hurried back towards the elevators with her friends.
“Well, that was certainly unexpected,” Sunny couldn’t help saying on the way back down to the first floor.
“You mean the way Nero wouldn’t stop looking at you?” Emma asked.
Beatrice couldn’t help smiling to herself as the thought of what she said next occurred to her. “He probably thought you were pretty,” she quipped.
The very thought of her forty-something-year-old vice principal finding her even remotely attractive was enough to make Sunny’s stomach churn with disgust. She was just about to say something to contradict her sister when Emma cut in.
“No!” she practically shouted. “Nero could never love anyone but Carmy!” Emma had always been fiercely protective of the relationship between her sister and vice principal, despite having only a vague recollection of what things had been like when they had first started dating. Emma was only three when Esmé and Jerome had first been made aware of Carmelita and Nero’s relationship, and from what Emma had been told, none of it had been particularly pretty. She was glad she had been too young to remember any of it.
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Post by Jenny on Jan 2, 2008 14:23:46 GMT -5
Sunny and Beatrice's eyes both widened simultaneously, and Emma suddenly realized just how ultimately different they were, for sisters. Even their expressions were dissimilar. In her haze of anger, though, Emma didn't dwell too long on it.
Beatrice was the first to speak up. 'We know that,' she said, and Emma almost thought she saw a hint of her own annoyance reflected right back at her from her best friend. 'I was just joking, Emma. Don't take it so seriously.'
There was a moment of tension, until there was a soft 'ping!' from the elevator, and the doors slid open. Sunny's so gentle temperament didn't match her younger sister's or Emma's, and she was the first to quickly scurry out of the lift, followed by Beatrice, with Emma walking behind.
'I'll catch up with you later,' Sunny said quietly. 'I have to get to my first class.'
Beatrice didn't have any such excuse, but she smiled all the same. 'I'm going to go to the library,' she said. 'So I guess I'll see you in math.'
Emma nodded, and bit the inside of her cheek when she turned the corner away from the sisters, heading up the staircase to get to her math lesson early (she despised it, but she had nowhere else to be). She wished she'd said absolutely nothing about it in the first place now, but she and Beatrice sat together in math, so she had the whole period to make it up to her.
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Jan 2, 2008 15:07:24 GMT -5
“What I’m saying is that I’m confident that we have every chance of winning this case,” Mr. McGuire said. “It is obvious, Mrs. Squalor, that you had no idea of Fernald Widdershins’ true motives, and with that in mind, the judge will have no choice but to send him to a penitentiary complete with lockdown security where he will never be able to set fires or harm anyone ever again.”
Esmé turned to Jerome for reassurance. She hadn’t been trustful of the law since the night she had became an arsonist, and because her husband had already written a book on the subject of justice, she figured he would know exactly what to say.
Putting his hand on his wife’s knee, Jerome leaned towards Mr. McGuire and asked, “You’re sure about that?”
“Mr. Squalor,” Mr. McGuire said, “do you honestly think I would have won more than three-hundred cases during the twenty-three years I’ve been practicing law?”
Jerome couldn’t help but be satisfied with this answer, and he sat back in his chair, nodding. “I’m sorry,” he said, not wanting to argue with the man who held Esmé’s fate in his hands. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
Collin McGuire shook his head. “You didn’t,” he said.
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Post by Jenny on Jan 2, 2008 15:25:10 GMT -5
[It's fine. Sorry about my last angsty post. We're always going back to Jerome's book, it seems....] 'The trial, as I'm sure you're aware, is only three days from now. Basically, though, unless Mr Widdershins does accuse you of something, Mrs Squalor, it's a farily simple case of simply prosecuting someone who is blatantly guilty.' 'What will he plead?' asked Violet quietly. She had barely spoken the whole time. 'Just that, I suspect--guilty. I can't see how he could plead anything else, really, unless he takes the rather obvious and blatantly ridiculous route of trying to pretend Mrs Squalor was the one responsible, and has decided to 'frame him'. If he's any dignity, Miss Baudelaire, I suspect he'll take the easy way out, and let the trial end. It will also, most likely lead to a shorter sentence than he would recieve otherwise.' 'Unfortunately, Mr McGuire,' Esmé said, placing a hand on top of her husbands, which was still resting on her knee. 'I fear dignity is one of the many qualities Mr Widdershins utterly lacks.' Mr McGuire smiled to hismelf. 'I assure you,' he said. 'Whatever he chooses to do with this trial, I'm perfectly capable of making sure you never become the person on trial.' They couldn't be unhappy with his confidence, his surety. The Squalors and the Baudelaire's both felt happier climbing back into Jerome's expensive car, and the conversations were a little easier going than they had been on the way there.
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Jan 2, 2008 16:26:46 GMT -5
Jerome cleared his throat on the way out of the parking lot. “I was thinking that we could all stop for lunch over at the Veritable French Diner,” he said. “If I’m not mistaken”— he glanced at Violet and Klaus sitting in the backseat —“you two have never been there, have you?”
Violet and Klaus looked at each other. The only restaurant they had ever been to with the Squalors (or Jerome, rather), was Café Salmonella, which had not been a very memorable experience for anyone involved. After all, spending an evening eating salmon salad and looking down into a water glass filled with chunks of frozen salmon instead of ice cubes wasn’t something that fell into the category of ‘fond memories’.
“That’s right, Jerome,” Violet agreed.
From her place in the front seat, Esmé looked uncomfortably down at her hands, which were resting in her lap. She had noticed back in Mr. McGuire’s office that Klaus had been giving her an odd look, which she had not been able to interpret the reason of. As far as Esmé could tell, Klaus either didn’t believe she had a right to cry after all she had done to him and his sisters, or had been surprised by the fact that someone like herself actually had the ability to cry. Esmé sincerely hoped this would be the end of Klaus’s grudge against her.
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Post by Jenny on Jan 2, 2008 16:44:34 GMT -5
'It's my favourite restaurant,' Jerome continued. 'Well, only just. Café Salmonella--you might remember it--is also much improved.'
'I thought you hated salmon,' Violet said, and Jerome grinned. He was amazed she remembered that. Did they remember all of what had happened at the penthouse. He hoped not, for Esmé's sake.
'Well, I do. But they serve a little more than just salmon now.' he proudly looked back at the Baudelaire's. 'Now that Carmelita's the head chef there, at least.'
Violet and Klaus exchanged looks, and then returned to conversation.
'I must say I wouldn't go to Café Salmonella anymore, if Carmy didn't work there,' Esmé commented, and Jerome noticed Klaus pay particular attention. 'As silly as it sounds, salmon was never really my favourite food, and the memories--' she paused, and said nothing for quite a few moments. 'Well. I suppose you remember.'
Violet nodded, and Klaus leaned back in his seat thoughtfully as Jerome started up the car and drove through the city. Nobody mentioned the trial, or the memories, or Fernald Widdershins.
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Jan 2, 2008 17:46:45 GMT -5
They soon arrived at the Veritable French Diner, and got out of the car. As they approached the purple building, Esmé allowed Jerome to take her arm, smiling over at him as he laced his arm through hers.
Violet and Klaus exchanged looks of surprise, for they weren’t used to seeing their former guardians behave in such a manner. Even during the brief period when the Baudelaires had been living at the penthouse as children, there hadn’t been a time they could recall when Esmé had ever shown Jerome any sign of affection whatsoever. She had saved all that for Olaf.
They stopped before the two double doors leading into the restaurant, and Jerome and Klaus each held open a door so that Esmé and Violet could enter first. Klaus was a little surprised when Esmé nodded her thanks to him, smiling in the process. He smiled back, but not without feeling a bit awkward.
They didn’t have to wait long to be seated at all, and were given a table across from the bar. After the waiter left to retrieve their drinks, Violet— who was seated beside her brother and across from Esmé —said, “It was very nice of you to take us out to lunch.”
Esmé smiled modestly as she unfolded her napkin and placed it in her lap. “Please,” she said, her eyes lowered in her lap, “there’s no need to thank me. You should be thanking Jerome. After all, it was all his idea.”
Now it was Jerome’s turn to appear modest. “Yes, well,” he said, and rested his eyes on Violet, “I thought it would give us a chance to get reacquainted.”
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Post by Jenny on Jan 3, 2008 16:26:46 GMT -5
The waiter returned with their drinks before anyone could reply to that. As soon as he walked away, though, Violet took her chance to reply.
'I hope we really can be--' she paused, lack of a good word. 'Well, friends, I suppose, after all that has happened.' she smiled. 'Especially since Emma and Beatrice are such good friends now.'
'That would be lovely,' Esmé replied, and then glanced at Klaus. 'As long as...there are no more hard feelings now, of course...'
Klaus himself could only meet her eyes for a few moments, but he did so anyway, and that made all the difference. 'No,' he clarified, and Jerome felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off him at that. 'Not anymore.'
They picked up their menu's, all smiling a little. Finally, it seemed, they would all be able to get along.
Nobody expected to see Nero at the door.
Reason for Editing: Fixed it!
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