Post by Dante on Sept 30, 2009 8:17:30 GMT -5
~Introduction~
Time was, a couple of years ago, I wrote a fair amount of aSoUE fanfiction, but for various reasons, particularly my instinctive reticence, I chose not to post most. Now, however, sufficient time having passed and interest having been expressed, I figured there was no better place for those stories to serve than here. Bear in mind that these were written when I was a little younger; I know of a few changes I would make now, and I've spotted a couple of typos, and some of these I didn't think much of even at the time, but to change them would be to undermine the authenticity of the reproduction; consequently, these appear as written. For reasons reasons, some tales have been excluded; I have, nonetheless, included summaries and details of these.
~Index~
The stories are presented in the order of writing (as far as I can tell), and here is an index of them:
1. Realtors in the Cave
2. Family Sabotage
3. Christmas on the Carmelita
4. Quagmire Story
5. A Series of Uncertain Events
6. Lotsaluck Story
7. Chapter Zero
8. Bitter Failures
9. Into the Great Unknown
10. Memories of a Castaway
11. Looking the Part
12. It's Never That Simple
13. Routine Operations
14. A Series of Unrealistic Events
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1. Realtors in the Cave
Posted here:
asoue.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=story&action=display&thread=17029&page=1
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2. Family Sabotage
Posted here:
asoue.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=story&action=display&thread=17191
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3. Christmas on the Carmelita
Summary: Story not included due to extreme awfulness. I don't even want to reread it. It concerned, however, life aboard the Carmelita after Fernald and Fiona had stolen it from Count Olaf, and in the run-up to The End. In case you're wondering, it wasn't actually very Christmassy.
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4. Quagmire Story (fragment)
Of course, it didn’t make things any easier that they had lost their home as well, and all their possessions. As I’m sure you know, to be in one’s own room, in one’s own bed, can often make a bleak situation a little better, but the beds of the Quagmire orphans had been reduced to charred rubble. Esmé Squalor had taken them to the remains of the Quagmire mansion to see if anything had been unharmed, and it was terrible: Duncan’s typewriter had fused together in the heat of the fire, Isadora’s favourite pen had turned to ash, and even if Quigley had been alive to visit the ruins, all of his atlases had been burnt to a crisp. Here and there, the children could see traces of the enormous home they had loved: fragments of their harpsichord, an elegant bottle in which Mr. Quagmire kept wine, the scorched armchair where their mother liked to sit and read.
Their home destroyed, the Quagmires had to recuperate from their terrible loss in the Squalor household, which was not at all agreeable. Esmé Squalor was scarcely at home, because she was very busy attending to the Quagmire affairs and advising millionaires on how best to increase their fortunes, and when she was home she was often talking so much about what was in and what was out that she could barely have a conversation. Jerome Squalor, her husband, purchased clothing for the orphans that was apparently very in, but was very ugly and didn’t fit. And the apartment in which they lived was so big and empty that it was often difficult to find each other, let alone find anything to do to take their minds off their grief.
But even given the surroundings, the children had mixed feelings when, over a fashionable dinner of fried toast, fried chicken, and sautéed – the word “sautéed” here means “fried” – potatoes, Esmé Squalor announced that they were to leave her household the next morning.
“That’s good,” said Jerome, who was eating his fried food with a reluctant expression. “It can’t be very enjoyable for you two to spend all day alone in this apartment while we’re at work. Perhaps they’ll find you some better-fitting clothes, too. The ones I got for you may be in, but they aren’t the right size.”
“I’ve told you before not to argue about those clothes, Jerome,” Esmé said haughtily, eating her fried food with relish – a word which here means “eagerness” rather than “a delicious sauce, which was out at the time.” “Having things the right size is out, just like non-fried food.”
“Where will we go?” Isadora asked nervously.
Esmé Squalor opened her mouth to speak to them, but then ate the piece of fried toast she was holding instead. “I have made arrangements,” she said after finishing, “for you to attend a boarding school outside of town. Its name is Prufrock Preparatory School.”
Duncan and Isadora looked at one another, unsure of what to think. On one hand, they didn’t want to live with the Squalors any longer. On the other hand, they had never heard of Prufrock Preparatory School, and didn’t know whether they’d feel comfortable around other people their own age so soon after the fire that killed their parents and brother.
“Your parents’ will,” Esmé Squalor said, “instructs that you be raised in the most convenient way possible. I couldn’t find any relatives who wanted to care for you right now, so the most convenient place for me to put you is at a boarding school until something else comes up. Besides, schools are a bit like evening classes, which are in right now. I’ve been taking evening classes in acting for years now.”
Duncan thought this over for a minute as he choked down a dry piece of toast. “But our parents never mentioned Prufrock Preparatory School to us. What is it like, exactly?”
Esmé sighed and looked at Jerome, who had fingering his food distastefully. When he realised she was looking, he picked up another piece of toast and started chewing it without a word. “Well, I heard you children liked poetry and journalism. Unfortunately for you, journalism isn’t a job for children, and poetry’s been out for years. You’ll be learning note-taking, the metric system, and jogging, which are all very in for young children. A man named Nero also works there, and he is a renowned musician as well, so you’ll get to attend lots of his concerts – which are possibly even more in.”
“If this Nero is a renowned musician, and this school is so in,” Isadora said, “why didn’t our parents ever mention them?” She didn’t add, of course, that her parents had never bothered particularly with anything as silly as what was in and out, but she felt that her nervousness should be voiced in terms that Esmé Squalor would understand.
“Possibly because they were philistines,” Esmé sniffed. “Or they hadn’t heard of the school and Vice Principal Nero.”
“I thought he was a renowned musician,” Duncan said.
“He is both a renowned musician and the Vice Principal,” Esmé said. “Now, children, eating together as a family is out right now, and we aren’t a family anyway, so I’m cutting short our dinner. You children have to pack up your things, and I have to go out to my evening class. Like your new legal guardian, I enjoy the company of teachers myself.”
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5. A Series of Uncertain Events
Summary: Inspired by TPP Chapter Ten's line "…I have no way of knowing… if it would have been better for you to step into that taxicab you saw not long ago and embark on your own series of events, rather than continuing with the life you have for yourself", this story paralleled numerous events in aSoUE, but was set in more modern times and with more (but not many) autobiographical characters. Not included because it is not strictly speaking aSoUE fanfiction.
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6. Lotsaluck Story (fragment)
One beatiful summer's day, Larry Lotsaluck wanted to play with his new favourite pony, Sparkabell. Sparkabell was a darling brown pony with adorable yellowy spots right on his sweet little nose! Larry had been given Sparkabell especially for his birthday that day, and he thought Sparkabell was the most wonderful pony in the world.
One day, Larry left his sisters, who were playing at dressing up in their mother's fancy frocks, to go and ride Sparkabell all over the candy-green fields and through the sunny forests that covered the Lotsaluck estate, that their father had bought with all the money he earned from his job in the toy industry. He walked over to the special pink stable where Sparkabell was waiting, and led Sparkabell outside to a nearby field.
"Come on, Sparkabell!" cried Larry excitedly. "We're going exploring!"
But Sparkabell did not want to explore today. Sparkabell wanted to say in the stable and eat lots of delicious sugar cubes and other food appropriate for horses. So I'm sorry to say that Sparkabell tugged and tugged on the rope Larry was leading him by, and would not let go!
"I say, Sparkabell!" cried Larry in distress. "Don't pull so hard, you might cause an accident!"
As it happened, causing an accident was exactly what Sparkabell wanted. Sparkabell pulled and pulled on his rope until Larry fell over, and the ground on which Larry fell had been stomped all over by Sparkabell until it was very muddy, and so Larry got horrible muck all over his special birthday outfit.
"Golly, Sparkabell, look what you've done!" cried Larry in despair. "My new outfit is ruined! Mother and Father will be very cross!"
But the Lotsaluck parents were the least of Sparkabell's concerns. Not looking where he was going, Sparkabell clip-clopped back to his stable, trampling all over poor Larry! Larry cried out to Sparkabell, but he wouldn't listen, and Larry ended up with large hoof-shaped bruises all over his back, which ached dreadfully.
Eventually, Larry was able to get up, and he walked sadly and painfully back to the sparkling Lotsaluck mansion. Golly, what would his father say?
But as Larry stepped onto the gravel drive to the Lotsaluck mansion, his foot slipped on a charming sun-yellow daffodil, and slipped over onto his face! Poor Larry was scratched and scraped all over his hands and face by the gravel. This might have been just tolerable on its own, but unfortunately the drive sloped steeply, and Larry found himself rolling down it, scraping his arms and knees.
"Help!" cried Larry. "I'm rolling down the drive!" But his sisters were still playing dress-up, and his mother and father were gathered around the piano singing delightful nursery rhymes, so there was nobody to help Larry. He continued to roll and roll down the drive, and when the drive curved, down the hill, and through his bruised and rolling eyes Larry could only gaze in horror at what lay at the bottom of the hill.
"Oh no!" cried Larry. "A weir!"
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7. Chapter Zero, or, Olaf on Briny Beach
It was late at night when Olaf stood on Briny Beach, listening to the waves lapping at the pebbly shore in the darkness. His parents were performing in an opera that night, and they had encouraged him to spend the evening out rather than going to watch them perform on that particular occasion, as he’d seen this particular opera, La Forza del Destino, many times. Olaf also suspected that their performance that evening was not solely for the sake of art, but would also involve some anti-V.F.D. work, and they’d wanted him out of the way more than anything else, but he didn’t particularly mind. He’d had a delicious meal at the Raskolnikov Roast steak restaurant, which he’d avoided paying for by disguising himself as one of the waiter’s associates, and now he was spending the time until he felt tired at his favourite spot on Briny Beach. Olaf liked visiting Briny Beach late at night, when it was quiet; he felt relaxed hearing only the splash of the waves and his own shoes clicking against the beach’s pebbles. Occasionally he would pick up a stone and hurl it out to sea, not trying to skip it along the waves – something he’d never been very good at – but just to hear the distant gulping noise as the dark ocean swallowed the stone up into its unfathomable fathoms. At those sorts of times, Briny Beach was one of the few places Olaf felt truly content, and at peace. He didn’t tell people where he was going, though; he doubted anyone else could understand his feelings.
Unexpectedly, Olaf heard the clicking of pebbles beneath more shoes, coming towards him – a pair of people walking through the night towards him, who in the night he could only make out the shape of. Olaf’s first thought was that the only other people who could be out at Briny Beach at this time would be people looking for him – his enemies, coming to attack him, perhaps. He tightened his grip on a stone he’d picked up, and readied himself to hurl it at these approaching figures as they got nearer.
Then Olaf let out the breath that he’d been holding as he recognised the pair; it was the man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard. They were not enemies of his, although they weren’t exactly friends; the pair rather intimidated him, as he knew they intimidated others, and there was something about them that made people feel unsettled and cold just by being near them. Still, Olaf preferred to meet them unexpectedly at the beach at night rather than a volunteer.
“Hello, Olaf,” called out the woman with hair but no beard in her deep, deep voice as she approached. She and her companion were wearing dark glasses over their eyes, something which they always seemed to do, and it occurred to Olaf that he could not remember what colour their eyes actually were; he also suspected, though, that their eyes would be as cold and cruel as the sinister pair themselves were, and was slightly glad that they covered those eyes. It was probably for just that reason, to avoid frightening people unduly, that they wore such black glasses no matter what the weather – and strangely, even in the increasing darkness of night, it didn’t seem to impair their vision at all.
“Good evening,” said Olaf, as the hairless man and the beardless woman stopped near him.
“I suppose it’s good for some,” rasped the man with a beard but no hair. “What are you holding that stone for, Olaf? I hope you weren’t thinking of throwing it at one of us.”
“This?” Olaf said nervously, looking at the stone in his hand, and dropping it as though it were red-hot. “No, of course not. Although I thought you might be volunteers.”
“That’s usually the last mistake people ever make,” the woman with hair but no beard said, with a smile. Olaf chuckled slightly, but the pair were silent, so he stopped. “I’m afraid we have some very bad news for you, Olaf,” she continued.
“Your parents were murdered during their opera performance,” the man with a beard but no hair croaked.
Olaf didn’t say anything.
“They were murdered,” the woman said, “by a pair of volunteers with some darts painted with Mamba du Mal venom. We’re very sorry to tell you this, Olaf.”
The woman was trying to sound sorry, but like her male counterpart, there was always a slight smile in her voice, as though she was trying very hard not to laugh wickedly, and it was impossible to tell through their glasses whether the wicked pair’s eyes were sympathetic or alight with humour.
“‘Murdered,’” the man said, “means ‘killed.’”
“I know what that word means,” Olaf said, crossly. He did know what “murdered” meant, and had been responsible for several murders himself, but he wasn’t sure how to react to what the sinister pair had told him. The entire situation seemed to him somewhat unreal.
“Esmé tried to stop the volunteers, but was unable to catch them in time,” the man continued. “Fortunately, however, photography is in at the moment, and she managed to take a photograph of the poison darts being handed over to the killers.”
The man with a beard but no hair reached into a pocket of his clothes and drew out a small, dark photograph, which he showed to Olaf. It showed, near a crowded snack bar, a woman handing a small box to a moustached man holding a rolled-up poster and a woman wearing a red shawl with long feathers along the edges. The man and woman taking the box Olaf recognised as Bertrand and Beatrice Baudelaire, two persistent enemies of his who he’d gladly not seen much of since he’d forced them out of the theatre business several years earlier. The woman handing them the box was slightly obscured by the crowd, but Olaf managed to pick out a few features – an elegant black coat, a flower tucked into the lapel, hair done up in a bun and with two pencils stuck into it, just like –
Olaf froze. It couldn’t be. The one handing those poison darts to the Baudelaires – just like Kit Snicket, Kit Snicket who he’d loved, who’d loved him, who’d explored caves with him, who’d read poetry with him, who’d left him, who was going around with one of those wretched Denouement twins, who’d handed some poison darts to the Baudelaires, who’d murdered his parents, who’d –
The man with a beard but no hair put one arm around Olaf’s shoulder and the woman with hair but no beard put one arm around his other shoulder, in a gesture which was probably meant to be comforting but which instead held him very tight and very still, and allowed the sinister duo to lean in close to him. “We came to retrieve you here, Olaf, and take you to your home,” the woman with a beard but no hair said quietly, still in her half-sad, half-smiling voice. “Your parents made us the executors of their estate due to our legal knowledge. We’ll be handling their enormous fortune and setting things in order for you to take over – the fortune, the mansion, it’s all yours now, Olaf.”
The sinister pair felt more like executioners to Olaf; with their arms holding him so tightly and their heads leaning in towards his, Olaf felt like he was in an enormous vice, crushing him, like the pain crushing his heart at that very moment.
“And another thing we’ll be discussing with you that I’m sure you’ll find very interesting,” the man with a beard but no hair whispered, his hoarse voice difficult to hear as he spoke so low, “is how to get your revenge.”
That last word lit a fire in Olaf’s chest, a fire which drew from his pain and his loss and made him feel already just slightly better. A grim smile spread over his face as he stared at the photograph crumpling in his hand, and the sinister pair watching over him gave each other terrible smiles over his head. Holding him close and whispering evil ideas into his ear, the man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard led Olaf – Count Olaf, now – away from the beach and into the pitch-black night.
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8. Bitter Failures
Summary: A still-unwritten story from Ishmael's past. Notes and an opening exist.
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Chapter 1: Unhappy Donna, Elwyn, and Falco Snicket in a school class (in parallel Prufrock) being taught by Ishmael Morrow. Note these students specifically, although they also have friends like Aeneas Anwhistle. After class, Donna stays behind to ask Ishmael for help – she thinks she’s being poisoned.
Chapter 2: An examination of the Snicket history – how their parents supposedly died (drowned in a pond in a local park), how they were moved to lodge with the drunkard in question, Miss Smithjones. Other residents. Tea, faux-kindness. Ishmael advises Donna to smuggle him a sample of the tea but make sure she doesn’t really drink the rest. She does so.
Chapter 3: Ishmael leaves the tea sample with a scientist friend of his, Ella Lorenz, who informs him it is rare Miasmic Melon. Doing some research on newspaper entries involving Miasmic Melon, he discovers that Miss Smithjones is really Miss Ella Orwell, and does some research on her – visits Lucky Smells Melon Farm to find out how she secured the melon (used to work there but stole illegal samples) and then Fountain Fan Place (a village) to see if she was involved in the death of one of the brothers, but the trail goes cold. He returns to the city.
Chapter 4: Donna has been dumping the tea in a houseplant, but the houseplant is absorbing the poison, as noticed by the plant’s owner, Mr. Bellamy, who realises Donna’s trouble and tries to help her cover up. However, one day he is forced to speedily leave on the Pericles, having learnt that he’s in danger. Miss Smithjones tries to sell the plant to the Royal Gardens, and it ends up in the Poisonous Pavilion, making her suspicious of Donna.
Chapter 5: After class again, Ishmael talks to the three Snicket siblings. Miss Smithjones drinks the same tea, but adds both milk and sugar, whereas for Donna she pours it solely with milk and won’t give her sugar (the other two siblings are deemed by Smithjones to be too young for tea, and must settle with water from a jug). Ishmael believes that there is an antidote in the sugar. Ishmael himself decides to always take his tea without additions from then on.
Chapter 6: Donna tries to take sugar for her tea, which drives Smithjones into a rage. When confronted with Donna’s knowledge of the poison, Smithjones locks all three in her cellar room, and tells the school they are ill. Ishmael is suspicious, as is Aeneas Anwhistle. They break into the Smithjones residence and are able to find a secret passageway down to the cellar, where aren’t going to hesitate to rescue the Snickets until Donna tells them to take their information on Smithjones to the police, and let the Snickets stay in their cage as evidence for when the police arrive.
Chapter 7: Ishmael is able to convince the police that Smithjones is up to no good by revealing that she is Ella Orwell, the long-hunted criminal. Aeneas Anwhistle is able to persuade his parents (off-screen) that they could adopt the Snickets. They all arrive on the scene and break into the Smithjones residence. Smithjones is arrested, but escapes, kidnapping Donna and Aeneas and using them to threaten the police. She escapes in a motorboat with them, they overpower her, the motorboat crashes, and they are left at the mercy of the waves.
Epilogue: Ishmael (reading A Series of Unfortunate Events at an unspecified point) reflects on how the Snickets were adopted by the Anwhistles while they waited to find out what happened to their own son and to Donna. He can’t be sure what happened to them, but some entries in what appears to be Donna’s handwriting, signed D., are in the book, and make several mentions of A. It seems they eventually left the island, but by that time Ishmael himself had been forced to leave the city when his school was closed down for fraudulent exam results, and he never returned, although he knows the other children eventually grew up and had children of their own. On his own copy of the family tree, he writes a question mark next to D., and closes the book.
Bitter Failures
Chapter One
“There were always a few children in my chemistry classes who had the same gleam in their eyes that you Baudelaires have. Those students always turned in the most interesting assignments… They also always gave me the most trouble. I remember one child in particular, who had scraggly dark hair and just one eyebrow…”
-Ishmael, The End
This story begins in the Balfour Instruction School – if it can be said to begin anywhere. It could also be said to begin in Dahl Park quite some time earlier, or in the Village of Fowl Devotees quite a few years before, or in a room with a creaky floor that concealed a cave beneath it somewhere before that, or even many years ago in a beautiful garden that became an island when the sea levels rose, on which this story could also ends, although it could also be said to end in the ocean, or on a deathbed, or, in one case, a hijacked train. Of course, this story is merely a chapter of a story so long and so complicated that to follow it would be impossible, or nearly impossible, or only possible if you left out some parts of it which didn’t seem important but could yet turn out to be of the greatest importance. As such, this is not the most accurate place this story could begin, but is the place that we know a certain part of it begins, and that will have to suffice, because all other information has been lost to time, or to libraries without a catalogue, or to the memories of the dead.
This story begins in the Balfour Instruction School, in a chemistry class located in a fireproof room on the top floor, because while a fire can be started anywhere, chemistry classes make it routine, to our loss. As is common, the class was made up of children with an adult teaching them
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9. Into The Great Unknown
Where are we?
We’re in a cave.
No, we’re in a submarine.
No! We’re in the belly of the beast! Aye!
What a horrible thought. But true, it is so dark and damp.
But we’re alive, though. And I do so enjoy a new experience.
What happened to us?
You all saw what happened. That shape, in the water, pursuing us –
Like evil itself! Aye!
But it saved us.
Or ate us.
Who did it save, anyway? Who’s here?
I heard one of the Quagmires call out for Violet Baudelaire.
That was me. Isadora, are you there, too?
Yes, I’m here, although I’m rather shaken and rather damp.
I’m here, too.
Good. I’d hate to see another family split up.
At least we’re together again at last, Fernald.
Aye! And me too! It breaks my heart like you wouldn’t believe! Aye!
And mine too. This is so heartwarming.
I could do with some more warmth.
It’s colder in here than an Arctic waste
Freezing our toes and freezing our face.
You’re still as good at poetry as I remember you being, Isadora.
She kept us all very entertained on the self-sustaining hot-air mobile home. Oh, what an awful sight it was, to be in my creation as it fell…
Look on the bright side – at least you got to go down with your ship. Not many people can boast that.
We shouldn’t be boasting of such things, cookie! Aye! Oh, if my wife ever found out, she’d be devastated! Aye! That the Submarine Q was sunk!
But you always said my mother was dead, stepfather.
Oh, Fiona, we both know that he wasn’t telling the whole truth.
Wait a minute, I remember that voice. You’re not a volunteer, you’re one of Count Olaf’s associates – that dreadful man with hooks instead of hands.
My brother’s a reformed character! Leave him alone!
I don’t know about “reformed.” I’m still sick of V.F.D. and its foolishness. From now on, it’s family I stand for, and nothing else.
Including your father, Fernald?
My real family. He’s not one of us anymore. If I ever got my hooks on him – speaking of which, everyone should be careful, if they think they’re near me. I can’t see anyone and you can’t see me, and I wouldn’t want to accidentally hook anyone.
I think I read about a Fernald, once. In the newspaper.
You shouldn’t believe everything you read. Olaf said you wanted to be a journalist, or something foolish like that – they’re all liars, without exception. You should take up a more noble ambition.
There have been noble journalists in the past, Fernald. Why, Kit will tell you, won’t you, Kit? Kit?
Kit Snicket?
I don’t think she’s here.
But she was on the submarine with us, the submarine she helped build! Aye! I’m sure she wouldn’t jump ship!
I’m afraid she did. I saw her, building herself a raft as the creature approached.
The submarine. I’m sure it’s a submarine.
Whatever it is, we’re in it.
And Kit isn’t.
She begged me to join her, and I tried to swim over, but it was too far away. I think Inky managed to reach her, though.
I didn’t know snakes could swim. What remarkable creatures.
I wonder if she’ll ever find Klaus, to tell him what I said.
Or Violet, to tell her what I said.
And what were you saying about Klaus, Fiona? You were always flirting with that Baudelaire boy! Aye! You remind me of poor Olivia Caliban and Count Olaf! Aye! And we all know what happened to them.
What did happen to them?
I’m not sure about Count Olaf, but he’s bound to be up to some wickedness! Aye! Nothing’ll ever stop that man!
I’m not so sure. When I was young, Kit Snicket and –
I’m sorry to interrupt, but I think we should make sure we’re all here. Or rather, make sure we know who’s here. Because I’m not sure I know who some of you are.
Always learn a person’s name,
Or else at parties you’ll look ashamed.
This wasn’t much of a party, last time I looked.
You can look?
I’ve just had a marvellous idea. We could play party games to pass the time.
After hearing everyone’s names, I think.
I’ll go first! Aye! My name’s Captain Widdershins of the Queequeg, now sadly sunk after many proud years at sea! Aye! And me captain all those years! Aye! And these are my stepchildren, Fernald and Fiona! Aye!
Although you might know me better by one of the many pseudonyms I’ve used.
No time for false names now, Fernald! Aye! We can’t even learn each other’s faces in the dark, so let’s not muddy the waters! Aye!
I’m Isadora Quagmire, budding poet.
I’m her brother, Duncan, boy reporter.
And I’m their sibling, Quigley the cartographer. We’re triplets.
My name is Hector. I used to work with the V.F.D. crows, until it grew too dangerous to remain.
I’m Phil, and I’ve held a variety of positions, including lumbermill worker and submarine cook. I’m currently unemployed, but I’m sure something’s right around the corner.
And I am your guide.
Eh? Who’s that?
I do not believe you know me, but I have come to show you out.
Show us out? Of where? I’ll start a map.
Not so fast. Perhaps you’d care to tell us your name before we go anywhere.
What else can the eight of you do? Please, sirs and madams, just follow me. I assure you that all of your questions will be answered if you do.
Do you think we should go?
We took our chances with the Great Unknown. I think we have to do the same now.
You never know what new adventure could be waiting. I’ll go first.
Hold on there! Captain Widdershins is the bravest here, along with his courageous stepchildren! Aye! Come on, the two of you! We’re going too!
And of course we’re going. Don’t anyone be left behind.
Wouldn’t it be grand
If we held each others’ hand?
You can’t hold mine, it’s too sharp, but I’m linking arms.
Let’s do that, then. There, is that all of us?
I think so.
Well then, let’s go.
No more? That’s all, then. Time to leave.
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10. Memories of a Castaway
“My associate with the weekday for a name told me that you were still hiding out on this island, and –”
“Thursday,” Mrs. Caliban said.
“I don’t know if it was Kit Snicket’s idea originally,” Thursday said to Miranda, one night when they were staying up far too late in their simple white tent. Miranda was very pregnant, and was becoming very distraught, as a simple discussion on what to name their baby had turned to a very worrying discussion on a shadowy event from Thursday’s past.
“Be quiet!” hissed Miranda. “Somebody in the other tents – or worse, Ishmael – might overhear. Now, who else’s idea could it have been, Thursday? Kit Snicket’s brother was the newspaper’s dramatic critic at the time. It was probably him talking about that upcoming opera that gave her the idea!”
“It could have been Jacques’s idea, too,” said Thursday. “Or somebody working at the theatre. Or one of the higher volunteers told her to find some way of doing it – threatened her, maybe, like they threatened Gregor. But that’s not important; I’ll probably never know. What’s important is that Kit Snicket asked me to visit a famous herpetologist and ask for the venom of his deadliest snakes.”
“Dr. Montgomery?” asked Miranda.
“No,” Thursday said. “Her son. I arrived one late night. It was raining, but I could tell there was somebody home – there was a light on in an enormous glass room at the side of the house.”
“The famous Montgomery greenhouse,” muttered Miranda. “Of course, that was before the couple decided to give up their gardening business and take up a safer hobby.”
“I don’t know anything about that room, but the door was answered by a man who looked like a famous film director I’d once seen photographed in the newspaper,” Thursday continued. “He called Dr. Montgomery to the door, and I told him what I needed. He asked what it was for, but I didn’t know; it was V.F.D. business, though, so we didn’t question it. He brought me a small vial of venom from a snake whose name I can’t remember, although it began with the same letter as his initial.”
“And what happened afterwards?” Miranda asked, frowning harshly at him.
“There’s nothing more to tell,” Thursday said, sadly. “I gave the poison to Kit Snicket. All the times I’d seen her, she’d always seemed fairly confident, but that day she was in a dark mood, like she’d rather have been doing anything else but taking some secretly-acquired snake venom from me. And then I didn’t know anything more until Count Olaf telephoned me spitting with rage and threatening to burn down my home.”
“And that’s the day you joined him,” Miranda muttered, partly to herself, as she glared at her husband. “You betrayed V.F.D. and joined up with one of our most famous enemies.”
“What else could I do?” asked Thursday, miserably. “I don’t know how Count Olaf found out that I’d secured the poison, any more than I know how he found out about Kit’s involvement. But if I didn’t join him and do everything he said, he said he’d destroy me and everyone I held dear. I wanted to protect you too, Miranda. That’s how we came to be here – I surprised you with cruise tickets that cost me all of my money, bought an hour after he’d asked me to kill you. I sabotaged the ship’s engines so we’d be shipwrecked here. Everything, I did it all for you.”
“Do you know how many people have died because of the things you told Olaf?” Miranda growled, seizing him by the collar of his robe and leaning in close to him. “Grace Verhoogen? Yorick Firstein? Did their lives mean nothing to you?”
“I just – I –” Thursday floundered helplessly. “I’m – I’m sorry, Miranda. I failed you. Maybe, if I had been braver, not so afraid…” he sighed, and looked up at her, with tears in his eyes. “You don’t want to be with me anymore, do you, Miranda?”
“No,” she said. “No. I can’t believe it. I thought here we’d all be safe from deception, and now I find it in my own tent. You lied for so many years…” She turned away from him, to hide the tears in her own eyes. “It’s Decision Day tomorrow. I think it would be best if you left this island.”
“I – I understand,” Thursday said, to her back. “I understand why you can’t live with me anymore. But won’t you give the baby something to remember me by? Will you tell our baby about me, or will you –”
“I’ll tell my baby that you died in the storm that brought us here,” Miranda said, looking at her swollen belly. “I’ll do that much, Thursday. She’ll never know what a dreadful person you are. And –” Miranda paused for a moment, before reaching her decision “ – I’ll give the child a weekday for a name. For them to remember you by, and for me to remember you by.”
And outside the tent, Ishmael, stooping to hear all that was said within, sighed at all the dreadful secrets he was hearing…
Olaf frowned, and blinked at the freckled woman. “No,” he said. “Monday. She was trying to blackmail an old man who was involved in a political scandal.”
“How much of his fortune should I ask him for, Olaf?” Monday asked, grinning wickedly at Olaf as she leaned over a desk, a quill pen in her hand ready to stab the letter before her. “All of it? Or should I be generous, and leave him something to get by on?”
“In my experience of blackmail, it’s best to ask for larger and larger increments as one goes along,” Olaf said, smiling at the memories of past fortunes seized. “Of course, if you take all his fortune at once, you might be able to make him dependent on you. You could turn him into an associate of yours that way.”
“I’m not sure about that,” said Monday, contemplatively. “I’d hate to have him always eating at my meals and cluttering up the house. I’ll just ask him for half, to start off with. Although…” she paused in thought again. “I don’t know exactly how large his fortune is.”
“I know it,” Olaf said, before frowning and looking nervously at his feet. “It was – it was mentioned in the newspapers when an earlier fraud allegation arose, while you were lost at sea.”
“Ah, I see I’ve missed important things, in my long absence,” Monday sighed, setting down her pen. “Did I ever tell you, Olaf, about my time at sea?”
“I don’t think so,” Olaf frowned. “Usually we’ve been too busy committing crimes to reminisce.”
“When the helicopter I’d hijacked came down in a storm, I thought it was the end of my story,” Monday said, her eyes glazing over and looking into the past. “But instead, I washed up on the shores of a tropical island full of a bunch of peaceful fools in ugly white robes. Their society was run by someone named…” She sat up suddenly, remembering something. “I remember now his name, Olaf. I believe it was somebody you once mentioned to me.”
“Who?” Olaf asked, curiously.
“Ishmael,” Monday replied, and watched Olaf’s eyes widen.
“Gonzalo,” Alonso said.
“Why are you locking the door, Gonzalo?” Alonso asked, as his old adviser slid a bolt across the door out of Alonso’s office.
“To make sure we’re not heard,” Gonzalo said fearfully, turning to Alonso. He shuffled over to Alonso’s desk, and threw an envelope down on it.
“What’s this?” Alonso asked, drawing out the contents of the already-opened envelope. “Not more accusations, surely?”
“Worse,” whispered Gonzalo. “I’m being blackmailed, Alonso. Somebody found out I ordered the attack on the Prospero.”
“What?” gasped Alonso, his eyes flickering down the letter. “Somebody must have talked! Or somehow tracked down the submarine we hired!”
“They’re asking for so much, Alonso,” whispered Gonzalo, terrified. “I can’t pay. You know why; all the public know about the money I lost on gambling by now.”
“But I managed to seize that money back for you!” Alonso replied, sharply. “Okay, that blasted Shallow Tongue told the reporters about it, but the lawsuit to take it away again isn’t for months, thanks to me!”
“I, um…” Gonzalo mumbled.
“You didn’t go back there!” gasped Alonso.
“I thought I could make the money up!” Gonzalo cried. “Repay you! It all looked so easy!”
“This makes it so much worse!” cried Alonso, putting his head in his hands. “Oh, we could afford to stay on in office for a while with everything else, but if this gets out we’ll be put in prison for sure.”
“And we can’t get me any more money on time without being found out, can we?” asked Gonzalo.
“No,” Alonso said. “No. No. It’s all gone wrong. This is it. We’re all doomed. It’s prison one way and prison the other.”
“Unless we escape now,” Gonzalo said. “Flee the country. I’ve seen it done, I’ve had friends in these situations before – you remember Gina-Sue – we can get out, we just need to get a plane or a boat.”
“And how are we going to get one of those at short notice?” Alonso cried.
“Steal one,” Gonzalo suggested.
Olaf frowned again. “No,” he said. “We’d gone bird-watching, this old man and I, when we decided to rob a sealing schooner owned by—”
“This is a hold-up!” shouted Olaf, brandishing a sword at the schooner’s captain. “We’re taking all the valuables on board!”
“We don’t have any valuables!” the captain stuttered. “Just seal meat!”
“We’ll take that, then,” muttered Olaf. “It’s bound to be useful for something.”
“I believe there’s a type of bird that enjoys seal meat very much,” suggested Olaf’s associate, an old man with long grey hair. “A snapshot of that would win The Daily Punctilio’s photography prize in the ornithology category.”
“And if you win, we’ll see your names in the paper,” snapped the captain. “The first thing we’ll do is report you to the authorities! So leave us alone! Aye!”
“Ignore him,” Olaf said to his old associate. “You can enter under a false name; I’m very good at devising those.”
“And don’t I know it,” the captain said. “I recognise you now. You’re the one who stole my submarine all those years ago, and freed the traitors I’d locked up.”
“Oh yes, that was you, wasn’t it?” sneered Olaf, leaning in to look at the captain. “Oh, I’d come for the traitors, but then the Cthulhu was such a fine vessel I had to take it for myself.”
“Thieves never prosper,” the captain said. “Someday that submarine will be stolen back from you, Toucan Fol – if that is your real name – just like this seal meat will be figuratively stolen from you by buyers who never offer enough money. Someday everything will be stolen from you, Olaf.”
As his elderly associate dragged sacks of seal meat away, Olaf scowled at the captain. “Nobody ever steals from a man like me,” he said. “Haven’t you learnt that by now, you fool?” He frowned. “And what’s your name, anyway? I remember you’re a Widdershins, but what is your first name?”
The captain looked surprised, but opened his mouth. “It’s –”
“Humphrey,” Weyden said.
“Never take up sealing, young Weyden,” Humphrey said to his red-haired granddaughter from the comfort of his armchair.
“I didn’t intend to, grandfather,” Weyden said. “It’s barbaric, and besides, I can’t stand the ocean.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Humphrey said. “But I mentioned it because it has some connection to your own situation. You see, I once owned a sealing schooner that was robbed, much like your truckload of plush seals was stolen.”
Weyden frowned. “You never told me about this, grandfather,” she said.
“There’s many things I think you’re better off not knowing,” Humphrey sighed. “Oh, I still remember it so well… It was dreadful. We were sailing through stormy waters, trying to get back to the city as soon as possible, but my first mate, old Mr. Kornbluth, betrayed me to his pirate girlfriend. I still remember that terrible ship cutting through the waves towards us, the mysterious symbol carved into its side, the creature with the enormous belly and an uncertain gender boarding the schooner and carrying off all our precious spoils. It was terrible.”
“My thieves weren’t old men and big-bellied androgynes,” Weyden sighed. “They were three very short young men, who wanted to pirate the plushies for themselves.”
“It’ll come to nothing good, my girl, nothing good,” sighed Humphrey. “No… But, speaking of things not coming to any good, how is your older brother’s treatment going?”
“Not any good,” Weyden said, shaking her head. “The warts on his face are only getting worse. It’s really rather hurt his pride, especially with his company going bankrupt a few weeks ago, but what else can we do?”
“No,” Olaf said with yet another frown. “There was some argument about his name, actually, as a baby adopted by his orphaned children also bore the same name.”
“ – not entirely accurate to say that I’m a Widdershins,” the captain said. “My guardians were members of that family, but they found me drifting downriver in a basket.”
“So what did they call you, then?” sneered Olaf. “Moses?”
“Avery, actually,” the man said, “and for a very interesting reason. My guardians wanted some way to commemorate their late father, you see, so they gave me the same name.”
“That’s not interesting at all,” Olaf’s old associate commented, as he dragged another sack by.
“Oh, but the consequences are,” Captain Avery Widdershins said. “Because, there was some argument later about whether their father was dead at all. He was supposed to have died when a manatee attacked his dinghy, but nobody was around to see it, and an important report that turned up later stated that there had been a survivor to the incident. For a long time, people mistook me for my adopted grandfather. I would write a letter to a volunteer and receive one back thanking the heavens that I was alive after all, and telling me all kinds of unwise secrets. At schools and restaurants, I’ve been accused of being an impostor. It was all cleared up later, though, when the survivor of the incident turned out to be –”
“The manatee?” suggested Olaf.
“No,” Captain Avery said. “The boat. The boat had been given a name by my grandfather, you see, but the writers of the report misread some statements they’d received and believed the boat to be a separate person. The boat, which was named the Bela Bass, was later sunk, though, and that threw things into confusion once again.”
“What happened to the manatee, though?” asked Olaf. “If it didn’t survive?”
“That’s the interesting part,” Captain Avery said. “The manatee was at first thought to have died of wounds it sustained, but it later turned out that it wasn’t a manatee at all, but a very grouchy trout that happened to live in the river my adopted grandfather was sailing in. The trout, incidentally, was usually known just by a single letter, but it turned out that –”
“I’ve had enough of these boring stories,” Olaf said. “Your story is over, Avery.”
“Bertrand,” Omeros said.
“When I said I brought you down here to rehearse the next scene,” Omeros said to Geniveve and Ben, his siblings, as they trudged through the snow, “that wasn’t entirely true.”
“But don’t you want to practice more to impress your director?” Ben asked. “I thought you were very keen to work with Dr. Sebald some more.”
“I’ve got my suspicions about Dr. Sebald,” Geniveve said. “Maybe it’s just being so far away and so cold here, but Dr. Sebald is behaving very strangely, not at all how he was back in the city.”
“Why did we have to film your latest movie so far away from civilisation?” asked Ben. “I had to leave some close friends of mine alone at a very trying time in their lives back in the city, and I’d rather I’d stayed with them.”
“The work of an actress often takes one far away from where one needs to be,” sighed Geniveve.
“I have a theory about Dr. Sebald, actually,” Omeros said, “but that’s not important now. What’s important is this.”
Omeros stopped by a very thick fir tree, and reached up into its branches. When he brought his arms down, he was very carefully holding a sleeping baby, wrapped up in several layers of thick cloth to keep out the cold.
“A baby?” gasped Geniveve. “What’s going on here, Omeros?”
“A baby shouldn’t be left alone in the cold,” Ben said, looking at the baby with concern.
“I made sure he was wrapped up very snug before I came to find you,” Omeros said, rocking the baby gently. “It’s better than he was when I first found her – just resting in the snow in a clearing quite a way away. Somebody must have left him there.”
“How cruel!” Geniveve exclaimed. “Who would do such a thing?”
“Why didn’t you bring it straight to the set, Omeros?” asked Ben.
“Because of Dr. Sebald,” Omeros said. “If my suspicions about him are correct, it might not be safe for us to be on the set, let alone a lone baby that could have come from anywhere.”
“We’ll have to care for this baby ourselves, in secret,” Geniveve said. “You’re right, Omeros. We need to be careful around Dr. Sebald. Not let him think we know too much about what he’s really up to.”
“What is he up to?” asked Ben.
“I’m not sure if he’s the real Dr. Sebald,” Geniveve said. “And if he’s an impostor, then there must be something sinister afoot. But that’s not important now. What’s important is to get to know this baby. Omeros, does it have a name?”
“I don’t think so,” Omeros said. “Well, I wouldn’t know it. But I haven’t seen any nametags.”
“Then we should name it ourselves,” Ben said. “A name is the most important thing about a person. A baby shouldn’t be without one.”
“Then what shall we call it?” Geniveve asked. “What would our own parents have called another child, if they’d lived to have one?”
The three children were silent for a little while, remembering the happy times before their parents had accidentally – or so it had been thought, at the time – drowned in a local pond.
“That horrible girl at school always bullied me for my unusual name,” Omeros said. “And I know people have told you before you’ve got a silly name, Geniveve, although I think it’s a perfect name for you.”
“And I’ve got an ordinary name,” Ben said. “I once overheard Father saying to Mother that if they had any more children, they’d try to give them common names – names that wouldn’t cause any trouble.”
“Then let’s give this baby a name that we know at least two people share, and honour our father,” Geniveve said. “Bertrand.”
“It’s a noble name,” Omeros said, looking down at baby Bertrand. “I only hope this baby will someday grow up to be a noble person.”
“And I’ll make sure that nothing of the kind is ever true,” said a sharp voice from behind them, and the three orphans looked hurriedly, frightened, behind them, to see the man who claimed to be Dr. Sebald standing near, a wicked smile on his face and a long, rusty knife in his hand.
“No,” Olaf said, and frowned yet another time. “The adoption papers were hidden in the hat of a banker who had been promoted to Vice President in Charge of Orphan Affairs.”
“You should have known I’d get that Widdershins fortune some day,” Olaf said, grinning at the bound and gagged banker stuffed into a corner of the office Olaf was locking at that very moment. “I just need to find the right papers, and the money will be mine.”
“Mmphf phm fmm!” squealed the banker, muffled by his gag.
“There’s nothing that can stop me now,” Olaf said, kicking open a filing cabinet. “Nothing.”
A phone rang on the desk. Olaf and the banker stared at it for a short moment.
“Mf mmphmphy mmphmph, mml mm mmfim frm mm,” the banker said.
Olaf stepped carefully over to the desk, delicately lifted the receiver, and put it to his ear. He listened for a moment, and then answered the caller in a very deep false voice.
“No, he’s not in right now,” Olaf boomed. “What’s that? Oh, I’m his very old friend, the Baron van de Wetering.” Olaf listened. “Never mentioned me? Not once? Why, the old dog! Must think I’m bad company, ho ho.” He listened again. “Oh yes, absolutely, bwa har har. Always down the club, having a good old smoke and a gamble, is my friend here. Har har.”
“Mmphf!” shouted the banker, muffled as always. “Mmphf mm mmoo! Mmooll mmmn mm!”
“Yes, he really is quite a rascal,” Olaf carried on, cheerfully, in his deep voice. “But, I say, don’t tell anyone I said so, will you? It would be a black day if his reputation were darkened, or that of the Baron van de Wetering, eh? Oh ho ho! Yes? Very well, I’ll tell him you rang. Good day!” Olaf slammed the phone down. Then he looked at the banker, and laughed wheezily.
“Mmphf mmf mm?” asked the banker, timidly.
“A Ms. Julienne,” Olaf replied.
The banker groaned, and hung his head. His tall top hat toppled off, and upon realising this, the banker twisted wildly to try and get it back on his head, with much difficulty due to the fact that he was tied up.
Olaf laughed merrily at this, and then noticed that, as the top hat was knocked over, something spilled out of it – a sheaf of papers. “What have you been hiding here, under your hat?” Olaf asked, striding over and scooping up both hat and papers. “Well, well, well. Just like magic, the information I needs comes out from under your hat. Very appropriate. These certainly look like the right adoption papers.”
“Mmf,” started the banker, looking pleadingly up at Olaf.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Olaf said, scornfully, as he pocketed the papers and tossed the hat back onto the banker’s head. “These are mine to keep, and they shall be very useful indeed. I can’t thank you enough, really – but I think tying you up and ruining your reputation will be interesting. I expect you’ll be sacked, but at least you’ve your other job to fall back on.” With that, Olaf unlocked the office door, and slipped out.
“Mr. Poe?” asked Sadie.
“I’m the Vice President in Charge of Orphan Affairs,” said the man sitting on the opposite side of the desk to Jonah and Sadie. He looked about to speak again, but then he took out his handkerchief, and coughed violently into it. “So that,” he said, after he had finished coughing, “is why I am now in charge of your situation, not Monsieur Elwyn.”
“But we liked Monsieur Elwyn,” said Sadie.
“Nevertheless, he was found wanting, for reasons I’m not at liberty to discuss,” Mr. Poe said, before coughing once again. “Now, I know that the two of you are nearly of age, but you are not quite of age, and cannot decide your own fortunes nor accept your own fortune yet.”
Jonah and Sadie sighed, but they knew Mr. Poe was right. It was unfair, but their whole lives had been unfair – shuffled from uncaring guardian to careless guardian, some of them greedy for their fortune and others who were failures in some other way. They’d been stuck in the system for years, and were not relishing having to go to yet another guardian, even if it was only a few weeks before they’d be free to collect their fortune and live out a proper, happy life at last.
“Now,” Mr. Poe said, and then turned away to cough into his handkerchief, monogrammed with the initials A.P. “Now,” he said, a few moments later, “your latest guardian is to be, um, now what was his name…”
To the puzzlement of the two siblings, Mr. Poe pulled off his hat and reached into its depths. From within, he produced several pages covered in lines of type, which he put on the desk while placing his hat on again.
“Captain Lachrymose?” read out Jonah, reading the paper upside-down. “That sounds an unusual name.”
“What is he the captain of?” Sadie asked.
“Please, children, do not look at my papers,” Mr. Poe said, snatching the papers away. “It’s impolite, and these are quite private. Anyway, Captain Lachrymose is the captain of a cross-channel ferry that operates in a region a few miles away. I am assured that his ferry is very big and comfortably furnished, so you should be able to stay there quite happily.”
“But we sometimes get seasick…” Jonah said nervously.
“I’m not sure if we’d be comfortable so close to the sea,” Sadie said, more honestly.
“Now, children,” Mr. Poe said calmly, after coughing a little. “I know that you’ve been worried about the sea since your parents vanished during a routine submarine trip. But the ferry Captain Lachrymose runs is famous for its safety, and I wouldn’t dream of placing you in an unsafe home. Besides, it might be the perfect thing to help you get over your feelings. You can’t be afraid of the sea forever, you know.”
“We could be,” Jonah said, stubbornly. “We have plans. We can buy an enormous mansion far away from any coast. We don’t ever need to go near the sea again.”
“Plans? Oh, children, you’re only young,” Mr. Poe said, with a sigh. “I know you’ll soon be of age, but please, do not get yourself mixed up in adult matters. It once happened to some other charges of mine, and, well…” Mr. Poe sighed, and stowed the adoption papers in his hat again. “But I’m sure you’re more sensible than them. Look at it from my point of view, both of you. You’ll be free adult agents in a few weeks. The ferry is famously safe, and only makes a short crossing, so you’ll never be far from land. What could possibly go wrong?”
“Yes,” Olaf said with a scowl, “although at the time he was better known under his stage name.”
“So, you have all come to see amazing show of famous Senor Blattberg, please?” cried the figure on the stage, dressed in a glimmering robe and a large, jewel-fronted turban. “Well, stay a while, and I will show you magics beyond your believings!”
The audience cheered as Senor Blattberg swept his arms through the air dramatically, causing magical lightning to shine across the stage. Olaf sat back in his seat, impressed. The man was good, even if Olaf knew he wasn’t genuine; he’d only ever seen Madame Lulu pull tricks to rival this.
“Any volunteers for trick of vanishing watch, please?” Senor Blattberg asked, gesturing at a mystical-looking table. “Please, any volunteers in audience?”
Olaf was tempted to put up his arm, to go up to the stage and get a better look at things, but it had been a long time since he’d been a volunteer – although he was himself very good at making people’s watches and other valuables vanish. Instead, he just watched as Senor Blattberg called out to a shadowy figure wearing a face-concealing hat, who shook his head and hurriedly departed – but Senor Blattberg soon made up for this by calling up a giddy-looking woman wearing a tracksuit and running shoes. Olaf gasped along with the rest of the audience as the woman’s stopwatch was made to disappear into thin air, then laughed as Senor Blattberg looked in all kinds of unlikely places for it – beneath a table leg, in his pockets, even in one of the woman’s shoes, although he always refused to lift his turban to check there. Finally, Senor Blattberg laughed and help up a hand.
“No more joking, please,” he said. “I am retrieving location of watch for real now, please. Watch for watch.”
Senor Blattberg stepped down from the stage and into the audience. He wound through the aisles, making charmingly ungrammatical comments to everyone he passed, until eventually, suddenly –
“Stand up, please, sir,” Senor Blattberg said to Olaf. Olaf, surprised but not wanting to interrupt one of the few shows he’d enjoyed in years, leapt up from his seat. Senor Blattberg smiled cheerfully, reached beneath Olaf’s seat –
“The watch, please!” he cried, holding the stopwatch aloft, and the audience burst into cheers once more. Senor Blattberg laughed and waved – but as Olaf sat down, he leaned down to Olaf’s ear and whispered into it, “Magic made this watch disappear, Olaf; someday you’ll disappear too, just like magic, never to be seen again. Just wait…”
Senor Blattberg pulled away and strode back to the stage, smiling at the applauding audience, while Olaf sat back down, angry and frightened.
“But I’m not here to discuss the past. I’m here to discuss the future.”
---
Time was, a couple of years ago, I wrote a fair amount of aSoUE fanfiction, but for various reasons, particularly my instinctive reticence, I chose not to post most. Now, however, sufficient time having passed and interest having been expressed, I figured there was no better place for those stories to serve than here. Bear in mind that these were written when I was a little younger; I know of a few changes I would make now, and I've spotted a couple of typos, and some of these I didn't think much of even at the time, but to change them would be to undermine the authenticity of the reproduction; consequently, these appear as written. For reasons reasons, some tales have been excluded; I have, nonetheless, included summaries and details of these.
~Index~
The stories are presented in the order of writing (as far as I can tell), and here is an index of them:
1. Realtors in the Cave
2. Family Sabotage
3. Christmas on the Carmelita
4. Quagmire Story
5. A Series of Uncertain Events
6. Lotsaluck Story
7. Chapter Zero
8. Bitter Failures
9. Into the Great Unknown
10. Memories of a Castaway
11. Looking the Part
12. It's Never That Simple
13. Routine Operations
14. A Series of Unrealistic Events
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1. Realtors in the Cave
Posted here:
asoue.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=story&action=display&thread=17029&page=1
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2. Family Sabotage
Posted here:
asoue.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=story&action=display&thread=17191
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3. Christmas on the Carmelita
Summary: Story not included due to extreme awfulness. I don't even want to reread it. It concerned, however, life aboard the Carmelita after Fernald and Fiona had stolen it from Count Olaf, and in the run-up to The End. In case you're wondering, it wasn't actually very Christmassy.
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4. Quagmire Story (fragment)
Of course, it didn’t make things any easier that they had lost their home as well, and all their possessions. As I’m sure you know, to be in one’s own room, in one’s own bed, can often make a bleak situation a little better, but the beds of the Quagmire orphans had been reduced to charred rubble. Esmé Squalor had taken them to the remains of the Quagmire mansion to see if anything had been unharmed, and it was terrible: Duncan’s typewriter had fused together in the heat of the fire, Isadora’s favourite pen had turned to ash, and even if Quigley had been alive to visit the ruins, all of his atlases had been burnt to a crisp. Here and there, the children could see traces of the enormous home they had loved: fragments of their harpsichord, an elegant bottle in which Mr. Quagmire kept wine, the scorched armchair where their mother liked to sit and read.
Their home destroyed, the Quagmires had to recuperate from their terrible loss in the Squalor household, which was not at all agreeable. Esmé Squalor was scarcely at home, because she was very busy attending to the Quagmire affairs and advising millionaires on how best to increase their fortunes, and when she was home she was often talking so much about what was in and what was out that she could barely have a conversation. Jerome Squalor, her husband, purchased clothing for the orphans that was apparently very in, but was very ugly and didn’t fit. And the apartment in which they lived was so big and empty that it was often difficult to find each other, let alone find anything to do to take their minds off their grief.
But even given the surroundings, the children had mixed feelings when, over a fashionable dinner of fried toast, fried chicken, and sautéed – the word “sautéed” here means “fried” – potatoes, Esmé Squalor announced that they were to leave her household the next morning.
“That’s good,” said Jerome, who was eating his fried food with a reluctant expression. “It can’t be very enjoyable for you two to spend all day alone in this apartment while we’re at work. Perhaps they’ll find you some better-fitting clothes, too. The ones I got for you may be in, but they aren’t the right size.”
“I’ve told you before not to argue about those clothes, Jerome,” Esmé said haughtily, eating her fried food with relish – a word which here means “eagerness” rather than “a delicious sauce, which was out at the time.” “Having things the right size is out, just like non-fried food.”
“Where will we go?” Isadora asked nervously.
Esmé Squalor opened her mouth to speak to them, but then ate the piece of fried toast she was holding instead. “I have made arrangements,” she said after finishing, “for you to attend a boarding school outside of town. Its name is Prufrock Preparatory School.”
Duncan and Isadora looked at one another, unsure of what to think. On one hand, they didn’t want to live with the Squalors any longer. On the other hand, they had never heard of Prufrock Preparatory School, and didn’t know whether they’d feel comfortable around other people their own age so soon after the fire that killed their parents and brother.
“Your parents’ will,” Esmé Squalor said, “instructs that you be raised in the most convenient way possible. I couldn’t find any relatives who wanted to care for you right now, so the most convenient place for me to put you is at a boarding school until something else comes up. Besides, schools are a bit like evening classes, which are in right now. I’ve been taking evening classes in acting for years now.”
Duncan thought this over for a minute as he choked down a dry piece of toast. “But our parents never mentioned Prufrock Preparatory School to us. What is it like, exactly?”
Esmé sighed and looked at Jerome, who had fingering his food distastefully. When he realised she was looking, he picked up another piece of toast and started chewing it without a word. “Well, I heard you children liked poetry and journalism. Unfortunately for you, journalism isn’t a job for children, and poetry’s been out for years. You’ll be learning note-taking, the metric system, and jogging, which are all very in for young children. A man named Nero also works there, and he is a renowned musician as well, so you’ll get to attend lots of his concerts – which are possibly even more in.”
“If this Nero is a renowned musician, and this school is so in,” Isadora said, “why didn’t our parents ever mention them?” She didn’t add, of course, that her parents had never bothered particularly with anything as silly as what was in and out, but she felt that her nervousness should be voiced in terms that Esmé Squalor would understand.
“Possibly because they were philistines,” Esmé sniffed. “Or they hadn’t heard of the school and Vice Principal Nero.”
“I thought he was a renowned musician,” Duncan said.
“He is both a renowned musician and the Vice Principal,” Esmé said. “Now, children, eating together as a family is out right now, and we aren’t a family anyway, so I’m cutting short our dinner. You children have to pack up your things, and I have to go out to my evening class. Like your new legal guardian, I enjoy the company of teachers myself.”
---
5. A Series of Uncertain Events
Summary: Inspired by TPP Chapter Ten's line "…I have no way of knowing… if it would have been better for you to step into that taxicab you saw not long ago and embark on your own series of events, rather than continuing with the life you have for yourself", this story paralleled numerous events in aSoUE, but was set in more modern times and with more (but not many) autobiographical characters. Not included because it is not strictly speaking aSoUE fanfiction.
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6. Lotsaluck Story (fragment)
One beatiful summer's day, Larry Lotsaluck wanted to play with his new favourite pony, Sparkabell. Sparkabell was a darling brown pony with adorable yellowy spots right on his sweet little nose! Larry had been given Sparkabell especially for his birthday that day, and he thought Sparkabell was the most wonderful pony in the world.
One day, Larry left his sisters, who were playing at dressing up in their mother's fancy frocks, to go and ride Sparkabell all over the candy-green fields and through the sunny forests that covered the Lotsaluck estate, that their father had bought with all the money he earned from his job in the toy industry. He walked over to the special pink stable where Sparkabell was waiting, and led Sparkabell outside to a nearby field.
"Come on, Sparkabell!" cried Larry excitedly. "We're going exploring!"
But Sparkabell did not want to explore today. Sparkabell wanted to say in the stable and eat lots of delicious sugar cubes and other food appropriate for horses. So I'm sorry to say that Sparkabell tugged and tugged on the rope Larry was leading him by, and would not let go!
"I say, Sparkabell!" cried Larry in distress. "Don't pull so hard, you might cause an accident!"
As it happened, causing an accident was exactly what Sparkabell wanted. Sparkabell pulled and pulled on his rope until Larry fell over, and the ground on which Larry fell had been stomped all over by Sparkabell until it was very muddy, and so Larry got horrible muck all over his special birthday outfit.
"Golly, Sparkabell, look what you've done!" cried Larry in despair. "My new outfit is ruined! Mother and Father will be very cross!"
But the Lotsaluck parents were the least of Sparkabell's concerns. Not looking where he was going, Sparkabell clip-clopped back to his stable, trampling all over poor Larry! Larry cried out to Sparkabell, but he wouldn't listen, and Larry ended up with large hoof-shaped bruises all over his back, which ached dreadfully.
Eventually, Larry was able to get up, and he walked sadly and painfully back to the sparkling Lotsaluck mansion. Golly, what would his father say?
But as Larry stepped onto the gravel drive to the Lotsaluck mansion, his foot slipped on a charming sun-yellow daffodil, and slipped over onto his face! Poor Larry was scratched and scraped all over his hands and face by the gravel. This might have been just tolerable on its own, but unfortunately the drive sloped steeply, and Larry found himself rolling down it, scraping his arms and knees.
"Help!" cried Larry. "I'm rolling down the drive!" But his sisters were still playing dress-up, and his mother and father were gathered around the piano singing delightful nursery rhymes, so there was nobody to help Larry. He continued to roll and roll down the drive, and when the drive curved, down the hill, and through his bruised and rolling eyes Larry could only gaze in horror at what lay at the bottom of the hill.
"Oh no!" cried Larry. "A weir!"
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7. Chapter Zero, or, Olaf on Briny Beach
It was late at night when Olaf stood on Briny Beach, listening to the waves lapping at the pebbly shore in the darkness. His parents were performing in an opera that night, and they had encouraged him to spend the evening out rather than going to watch them perform on that particular occasion, as he’d seen this particular opera, La Forza del Destino, many times. Olaf also suspected that their performance that evening was not solely for the sake of art, but would also involve some anti-V.F.D. work, and they’d wanted him out of the way more than anything else, but he didn’t particularly mind. He’d had a delicious meal at the Raskolnikov Roast steak restaurant, which he’d avoided paying for by disguising himself as one of the waiter’s associates, and now he was spending the time until he felt tired at his favourite spot on Briny Beach. Olaf liked visiting Briny Beach late at night, when it was quiet; he felt relaxed hearing only the splash of the waves and his own shoes clicking against the beach’s pebbles. Occasionally he would pick up a stone and hurl it out to sea, not trying to skip it along the waves – something he’d never been very good at – but just to hear the distant gulping noise as the dark ocean swallowed the stone up into its unfathomable fathoms. At those sorts of times, Briny Beach was one of the few places Olaf felt truly content, and at peace. He didn’t tell people where he was going, though; he doubted anyone else could understand his feelings.
Unexpectedly, Olaf heard the clicking of pebbles beneath more shoes, coming towards him – a pair of people walking through the night towards him, who in the night he could only make out the shape of. Olaf’s first thought was that the only other people who could be out at Briny Beach at this time would be people looking for him – his enemies, coming to attack him, perhaps. He tightened his grip on a stone he’d picked up, and readied himself to hurl it at these approaching figures as they got nearer.
Then Olaf let out the breath that he’d been holding as he recognised the pair; it was the man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard. They were not enemies of his, although they weren’t exactly friends; the pair rather intimidated him, as he knew they intimidated others, and there was something about them that made people feel unsettled and cold just by being near them. Still, Olaf preferred to meet them unexpectedly at the beach at night rather than a volunteer.
“Hello, Olaf,” called out the woman with hair but no beard in her deep, deep voice as she approached. She and her companion were wearing dark glasses over their eyes, something which they always seemed to do, and it occurred to Olaf that he could not remember what colour their eyes actually were; he also suspected, though, that their eyes would be as cold and cruel as the sinister pair themselves were, and was slightly glad that they covered those eyes. It was probably for just that reason, to avoid frightening people unduly, that they wore such black glasses no matter what the weather – and strangely, even in the increasing darkness of night, it didn’t seem to impair their vision at all.
“Good evening,” said Olaf, as the hairless man and the beardless woman stopped near him.
“I suppose it’s good for some,” rasped the man with a beard but no hair. “What are you holding that stone for, Olaf? I hope you weren’t thinking of throwing it at one of us.”
“This?” Olaf said nervously, looking at the stone in his hand, and dropping it as though it were red-hot. “No, of course not. Although I thought you might be volunteers.”
“That’s usually the last mistake people ever make,” the woman with hair but no beard said, with a smile. Olaf chuckled slightly, but the pair were silent, so he stopped. “I’m afraid we have some very bad news for you, Olaf,” she continued.
“Your parents were murdered during their opera performance,” the man with a beard but no hair croaked.
Olaf didn’t say anything.
“They were murdered,” the woman said, “by a pair of volunteers with some darts painted with Mamba du Mal venom. We’re very sorry to tell you this, Olaf.”
The woman was trying to sound sorry, but like her male counterpart, there was always a slight smile in her voice, as though she was trying very hard not to laugh wickedly, and it was impossible to tell through their glasses whether the wicked pair’s eyes were sympathetic or alight with humour.
“‘Murdered,’” the man said, “means ‘killed.’”
“I know what that word means,” Olaf said, crossly. He did know what “murdered” meant, and had been responsible for several murders himself, but he wasn’t sure how to react to what the sinister pair had told him. The entire situation seemed to him somewhat unreal.
“Esmé tried to stop the volunteers, but was unable to catch them in time,” the man continued. “Fortunately, however, photography is in at the moment, and she managed to take a photograph of the poison darts being handed over to the killers.”
The man with a beard but no hair reached into a pocket of his clothes and drew out a small, dark photograph, which he showed to Olaf. It showed, near a crowded snack bar, a woman handing a small box to a moustached man holding a rolled-up poster and a woman wearing a red shawl with long feathers along the edges. The man and woman taking the box Olaf recognised as Bertrand and Beatrice Baudelaire, two persistent enemies of his who he’d gladly not seen much of since he’d forced them out of the theatre business several years earlier. The woman handing them the box was slightly obscured by the crowd, but Olaf managed to pick out a few features – an elegant black coat, a flower tucked into the lapel, hair done up in a bun and with two pencils stuck into it, just like –
Olaf froze. It couldn’t be. The one handing those poison darts to the Baudelaires – just like Kit Snicket, Kit Snicket who he’d loved, who’d loved him, who’d explored caves with him, who’d read poetry with him, who’d left him, who was going around with one of those wretched Denouement twins, who’d handed some poison darts to the Baudelaires, who’d murdered his parents, who’d –
The man with a beard but no hair put one arm around Olaf’s shoulder and the woman with hair but no beard put one arm around his other shoulder, in a gesture which was probably meant to be comforting but which instead held him very tight and very still, and allowed the sinister duo to lean in close to him. “We came to retrieve you here, Olaf, and take you to your home,” the woman with a beard but no hair said quietly, still in her half-sad, half-smiling voice. “Your parents made us the executors of their estate due to our legal knowledge. We’ll be handling their enormous fortune and setting things in order for you to take over – the fortune, the mansion, it’s all yours now, Olaf.”
The sinister pair felt more like executioners to Olaf; with their arms holding him so tightly and their heads leaning in towards his, Olaf felt like he was in an enormous vice, crushing him, like the pain crushing his heart at that very moment.
“And another thing we’ll be discussing with you that I’m sure you’ll find very interesting,” the man with a beard but no hair whispered, his hoarse voice difficult to hear as he spoke so low, “is how to get your revenge.”
That last word lit a fire in Olaf’s chest, a fire which drew from his pain and his loss and made him feel already just slightly better. A grim smile spread over his face as he stared at the photograph crumpling in his hand, and the sinister pair watching over him gave each other terrible smiles over his head. Holding him close and whispering evil ideas into his ear, the man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard led Olaf – Count Olaf, now – away from the beach and into the pitch-black night.
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8. Bitter Failures
Summary: A still-unwritten story from Ishmael's past. Notes and an opening exist.
~~~
Chapter 1: Unhappy Donna, Elwyn, and Falco Snicket in a school class (in parallel Prufrock) being taught by Ishmael Morrow. Note these students specifically, although they also have friends like Aeneas Anwhistle. After class, Donna stays behind to ask Ishmael for help – she thinks she’s being poisoned.
Chapter 2: An examination of the Snicket history – how their parents supposedly died (drowned in a pond in a local park), how they were moved to lodge with the drunkard in question, Miss Smithjones. Other residents. Tea, faux-kindness. Ishmael advises Donna to smuggle him a sample of the tea but make sure she doesn’t really drink the rest. She does so.
Chapter 3: Ishmael leaves the tea sample with a scientist friend of his, Ella Lorenz, who informs him it is rare Miasmic Melon. Doing some research on newspaper entries involving Miasmic Melon, he discovers that Miss Smithjones is really Miss Ella Orwell, and does some research on her – visits Lucky Smells Melon Farm to find out how she secured the melon (used to work there but stole illegal samples) and then Fountain Fan Place (a village) to see if she was involved in the death of one of the brothers, but the trail goes cold. He returns to the city.
Chapter 4: Donna has been dumping the tea in a houseplant, but the houseplant is absorbing the poison, as noticed by the plant’s owner, Mr. Bellamy, who realises Donna’s trouble and tries to help her cover up. However, one day he is forced to speedily leave on the Pericles, having learnt that he’s in danger. Miss Smithjones tries to sell the plant to the Royal Gardens, and it ends up in the Poisonous Pavilion, making her suspicious of Donna.
Chapter 5: After class again, Ishmael talks to the three Snicket siblings. Miss Smithjones drinks the same tea, but adds both milk and sugar, whereas for Donna she pours it solely with milk and won’t give her sugar (the other two siblings are deemed by Smithjones to be too young for tea, and must settle with water from a jug). Ishmael believes that there is an antidote in the sugar. Ishmael himself decides to always take his tea without additions from then on.
Chapter 6: Donna tries to take sugar for her tea, which drives Smithjones into a rage. When confronted with Donna’s knowledge of the poison, Smithjones locks all three in her cellar room, and tells the school they are ill. Ishmael is suspicious, as is Aeneas Anwhistle. They break into the Smithjones residence and are able to find a secret passageway down to the cellar, where aren’t going to hesitate to rescue the Snickets until Donna tells them to take their information on Smithjones to the police, and let the Snickets stay in their cage as evidence for when the police arrive.
Chapter 7: Ishmael is able to convince the police that Smithjones is up to no good by revealing that she is Ella Orwell, the long-hunted criminal. Aeneas Anwhistle is able to persuade his parents (off-screen) that they could adopt the Snickets. They all arrive on the scene and break into the Smithjones residence. Smithjones is arrested, but escapes, kidnapping Donna and Aeneas and using them to threaten the police. She escapes in a motorboat with them, they overpower her, the motorboat crashes, and they are left at the mercy of the waves.
Epilogue: Ishmael (reading A Series of Unfortunate Events at an unspecified point) reflects on how the Snickets were adopted by the Anwhistles while they waited to find out what happened to their own son and to Donna. He can’t be sure what happened to them, but some entries in what appears to be Donna’s handwriting, signed D., are in the book, and make several mentions of A. It seems they eventually left the island, but by that time Ishmael himself had been forced to leave the city when his school was closed down for fraudulent exam results, and he never returned, although he knows the other children eventually grew up and had children of their own. On his own copy of the family tree, he writes a question mark next to D., and closes the book.
Bitter Failures
Chapter One
“There were always a few children in my chemistry classes who had the same gleam in their eyes that you Baudelaires have. Those students always turned in the most interesting assignments… They also always gave me the most trouble. I remember one child in particular, who had scraggly dark hair and just one eyebrow…”
-Ishmael, The End
This story begins in the Balfour Instruction School – if it can be said to begin anywhere. It could also be said to begin in Dahl Park quite some time earlier, or in the Village of Fowl Devotees quite a few years before, or in a room with a creaky floor that concealed a cave beneath it somewhere before that, or even many years ago in a beautiful garden that became an island when the sea levels rose, on which this story could also ends, although it could also be said to end in the ocean, or on a deathbed, or, in one case, a hijacked train. Of course, this story is merely a chapter of a story so long and so complicated that to follow it would be impossible, or nearly impossible, or only possible if you left out some parts of it which didn’t seem important but could yet turn out to be of the greatest importance. As such, this is not the most accurate place this story could begin, but is the place that we know a certain part of it begins, and that will have to suffice, because all other information has been lost to time, or to libraries without a catalogue, or to the memories of the dead.
This story begins in the Balfour Instruction School, in a chemistry class located in a fireproof room on the top floor, because while a fire can be started anywhere, chemistry classes make it routine, to our loss. As is common, the class was made up of children with an adult teaching them
~~~
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9. Into The Great Unknown
Where are we?
We’re in a cave.
No, we’re in a submarine.
No! We’re in the belly of the beast! Aye!
What a horrible thought. But true, it is so dark and damp.
But we’re alive, though. And I do so enjoy a new experience.
What happened to us?
You all saw what happened. That shape, in the water, pursuing us –
Like evil itself! Aye!
But it saved us.
Or ate us.
Who did it save, anyway? Who’s here?
I heard one of the Quagmires call out for Violet Baudelaire.
That was me. Isadora, are you there, too?
Yes, I’m here, although I’m rather shaken and rather damp.
I’m here, too.
Good. I’d hate to see another family split up.
At least we’re together again at last, Fernald.
Aye! And me too! It breaks my heart like you wouldn’t believe! Aye!
And mine too. This is so heartwarming.
I could do with some more warmth.
It’s colder in here than an Arctic waste
Freezing our toes and freezing our face.
You’re still as good at poetry as I remember you being, Isadora.
She kept us all very entertained on the self-sustaining hot-air mobile home. Oh, what an awful sight it was, to be in my creation as it fell…
Look on the bright side – at least you got to go down with your ship. Not many people can boast that.
We shouldn’t be boasting of such things, cookie! Aye! Oh, if my wife ever found out, she’d be devastated! Aye! That the Submarine Q was sunk!
But you always said my mother was dead, stepfather.
Oh, Fiona, we both know that he wasn’t telling the whole truth.
Wait a minute, I remember that voice. You’re not a volunteer, you’re one of Count Olaf’s associates – that dreadful man with hooks instead of hands.
My brother’s a reformed character! Leave him alone!
I don’t know about “reformed.” I’m still sick of V.F.D. and its foolishness. From now on, it’s family I stand for, and nothing else.
Including your father, Fernald?
My real family. He’s not one of us anymore. If I ever got my hooks on him – speaking of which, everyone should be careful, if they think they’re near me. I can’t see anyone and you can’t see me, and I wouldn’t want to accidentally hook anyone.
I think I read about a Fernald, once. In the newspaper.
You shouldn’t believe everything you read. Olaf said you wanted to be a journalist, or something foolish like that – they’re all liars, without exception. You should take up a more noble ambition.
There have been noble journalists in the past, Fernald. Why, Kit will tell you, won’t you, Kit? Kit?
Kit Snicket?
I don’t think she’s here.
But she was on the submarine with us, the submarine she helped build! Aye! I’m sure she wouldn’t jump ship!
I’m afraid she did. I saw her, building herself a raft as the creature approached.
The submarine. I’m sure it’s a submarine.
Whatever it is, we’re in it.
And Kit isn’t.
She begged me to join her, and I tried to swim over, but it was too far away. I think Inky managed to reach her, though.
I didn’t know snakes could swim. What remarkable creatures.
I wonder if she’ll ever find Klaus, to tell him what I said.
Or Violet, to tell her what I said.
And what were you saying about Klaus, Fiona? You were always flirting with that Baudelaire boy! Aye! You remind me of poor Olivia Caliban and Count Olaf! Aye! And we all know what happened to them.
What did happen to them?
I’m not sure about Count Olaf, but he’s bound to be up to some wickedness! Aye! Nothing’ll ever stop that man!
I’m not so sure. When I was young, Kit Snicket and –
I’m sorry to interrupt, but I think we should make sure we’re all here. Or rather, make sure we know who’s here. Because I’m not sure I know who some of you are.
Always learn a person’s name,
Or else at parties you’ll look ashamed.
This wasn’t much of a party, last time I looked.
You can look?
I’ve just had a marvellous idea. We could play party games to pass the time.
After hearing everyone’s names, I think.
I’ll go first! Aye! My name’s Captain Widdershins of the Queequeg, now sadly sunk after many proud years at sea! Aye! And me captain all those years! Aye! And these are my stepchildren, Fernald and Fiona! Aye!
Although you might know me better by one of the many pseudonyms I’ve used.
No time for false names now, Fernald! Aye! We can’t even learn each other’s faces in the dark, so let’s not muddy the waters! Aye!
I’m Isadora Quagmire, budding poet.
I’m her brother, Duncan, boy reporter.
And I’m their sibling, Quigley the cartographer. We’re triplets.
My name is Hector. I used to work with the V.F.D. crows, until it grew too dangerous to remain.
I’m Phil, and I’ve held a variety of positions, including lumbermill worker and submarine cook. I’m currently unemployed, but I’m sure something’s right around the corner.
And I am your guide.
Eh? Who’s that?
I do not believe you know me, but I have come to show you out.
Show us out? Of where? I’ll start a map.
Not so fast. Perhaps you’d care to tell us your name before we go anywhere.
What else can the eight of you do? Please, sirs and madams, just follow me. I assure you that all of your questions will be answered if you do.
Do you think we should go?
We took our chances with the Great Unknown. I think we have to do the same now.
You never know what new adventure could be waiting. I’ll go first.
Hold on there! Captain Widdershins is the bravest here, along with his courageous stepchildren! Aye! Come on, the two of you! We’re going too!
And of course we’re going. Don’t anyone be left behind.
Wouldn’t it be grand
If we held each others’ hand?
You can’t hold mine, it’s too sharp, but I’m linking arms.
Let’s do that, then. There, is that all of us?
I think so.
Well then, let’s go.
No more? That’s all, then. Time to leave.
---
10. Memories of a Castaway
“My associate with the weekday for a name told me that you were still hiding out on this island, and –”
“Thursday,” Mrs. Caliban said.
“I don’t know if it was Kit Snicket’s idea originally,” Thursday said to Miranda, one night when they were staying up far too late in their simple white tent. Miranda was very pregnant, and was becoming very distraught, as a simple discussion on what to name their baby had turned to a very worrying discussion on a shadowy event from Thursday’s past.
“Be quiet!” hissed Miranda. “Somebody in the other tents – or worse, Ishmael – might overhear. Now, who else’s idea could it have been, Thursday? Kit Snicket’s brother was the newspaper’s dramatic critic at the time. It was probably him talking about that upcoming opera that gave her the idea!”
“It could have been Jacques’s idea, too,” said Thursday. “Or somebody working at the theatre. Or one of the higher volunteers told her to find some way of doing it – threatened her, maybe, like they threatened Gregor. But that’s not important; I’ll probably never know. What’s important is that Kit Snicket asked me to visit a famous herpetologist and ask for the venom of his deadliest snakes.”
“Dr. Montgomery?” asked Miranda.
“No,” Thursday said. “Her son. I arrived one late night. It was raining, but I could tell there was somebody home – there was a light on in an enormous glass room at the side of the house.”
“The famous Montgomery greenhouse,” muttered Miranda. “Of course, that was before the couple decided to give up their gardening business and take up a safer hobby.”
“I don’t know anything about that room, but the door was answered by a man who looked like a famous film director I’d once seen photographed in the newspaper,” Thursday continued. “He called Dr. Montgomery to the door, and I told him what I needed. He asked what it was for, but I didn’t know; it was V.F.D. business, though, so we didn’t question it. He brought me a small vial of venom from a snake whose name I can’t remember, although it began with the same letter as his initial.”
“And what happened afterwards?” Miranda asked, frowning harshly at him.
“There’s nothing more to tell,” Thursday said, sadly. “I gave the poison to Kit Snicket. All the times I’d seen her, she’d always seemed fairly confident, but that day she was in a dark mood, like she’d rather have been doing anything else but taking some secretly-acquired snake venom from me. And then I didn’t know anything more until Count Olaf telephoned me spitting with rage and threatening to burn down my home.”
“And that’s the day you joined him,” Miranda muttered, partly to herself, as she glared at her husband. “You betrayed V.F.D. and joined up with one of our most famous enemies.”
“What else could I do?” asked Thursday, miserably. “I don’t know how Count Olaf found out that I’d secured the poison, any more than I know how he found out about Kit’s involvement. But if I didn’t join him and do everything he said, he said he’d destroy me and everyone I held dear. I wanted to protect you too, Miranda. That’s how we came to be here – I surprised you with cruise tickets that cost me all of my money, bought an hour after he’d asked me to kill you. I sabotaged the ship’s engines so we’d be shipwrecked here. Everything, I did it all for you.”
“Do you know how many people have died because of the things you told Olaf?” Miranda growled, seizing him by the collar of his robe and leaning in close to him. “Grace Verhoogen? Yorick Firstein? Did their lives mean nothing to you?”
“I just – I –” Thursday floundered helplessly. “I’m – I’m sorry, Miranda. I failed you. Maybe, if I had been braver, not so afraid…” he sighed, and looked up at her, with tears in his eyes. “You don’t want to be with me anymore, do you, Miranda?”
“No,” she said. “No. I can’t believe it. I thought here we’d all be safe from deception, and now I find it in my own tent. You lied for so many years…” She turned away from him, to hide the tears in her own eyes. “It’s Decision Day tomorrow. I think it would be best if you left this island.”
“I – I understand,” Thursday said, to her back. “I understand why you can’t live with me anymore. But won’t you give the baby something to remember me by? Will you tell our baby about me, or will you –”
“I’ll tell my baby that you died in the storm that brought us here,” Miranda said, looking at her swollen belly. “I’ll do that much, Thursday. She’ll never know what a dreadful person you are. And –” Miranda paused for a moment, before reaching her decision “ – I’ll give the child a weekday for a name. For them to remember you by, and for me to remember you by.”
And outside the tent, Ishmael, stooping to hear all that was said within, sighed at all the dreadful secrets he was hearing…
Olaf frowned, and blinked at the freckled woman. “No,” he said. “Monday. She was trying to blackmail an old man who was involved in a political scandal.”
“How much of his fortune should I ask him for, Olaf?” Monday asked, grinning wickedly at Olaf as she leaned over a desk, a quill pen in her hand ready to stab the letter before her. “All of it? Or should I be generous, and leave him something to get by on?”
“In my experience of blackmail, it’s best to ask for larger and larger increments as one goes along,” Olaf said, smiling at the memories of past fortunes seized. “Of course, if you take all his fortune at once, you might be able to make him dependent on you. You could turn him into an associate of yours that way.”
“I’m not sure about that,” said Monday, contemplatively. “I’d hate to have him always eating at my meals and cluttering up the house. I’ll just ask him for half, to start off with. Although…” she paused in thought again. “I don’t know exactly how large his fortune is.”
“I know it,” Olaf said, before frowning and looking nervously at his feet. “It was – it was mentioned in the newspapers when an earlier fraud allegation arose, while you were lost at sea.”
“Ah, I see I’ve missed important things, in my long absence,” Monday sighed, setting down her pen. “Did I ever tell you, Olaf, about my time at sea?”
“I don’t think so,” Olaf frowned. “Usually we’ve been too busy committing crimes to reminisce.”
“When the helicopter I’d hijacked came down in a storm, I thought it was the end of my story,” Monday said, her eyes glazing over and looking into the past. “But instead, I washed up on the shores of a tropical island full of a bunch of peaceful fools in ugly white robes. Their society was run by someone named…” She sat up suddenly, remembering something. “I remember now his name, Olaf. I believe it was somebody you once mentioned to me.”
“Who?” Olaf asked, curiously.
“Ishmael,” Monday replied, and watched Olaf’s eyes widen.
“Gonzalo,” Alonso said.
“Why are you locking the door, Gonzalo?” Alonso asked, as his old adviser slid a bolt across the door out of Alonso’s office.
“To make sure we’re not heard,” Gonzalo said fearfully, turning to Alonso. He shuffled over to Alonso’s desk, and threw an envelope down on it.
“What’s this?” Alonso asked, drawing out the contents of the already-opened envelope. “Not more accusations, surely?”
“Worse,” whispered Gonzalo. “I’m being blackmailed, Alonso. Somebody found out I ordered the attack on the Prospero.”
“What?” gasped Alonso, his eyes flickering down the letter. “Somebody must have talked! Or somehow tracked down the submarine we hired!”
“They’re asking for so much, Alonso,” whispered Gonzalo, terrified. “I can’t pay. You know why; all the public know about the money I lost on gambling by now.”
“But I managed to seize that money back for you!” Alonso replied, sharply. “Okay, that blasted Shallow Tongue told the reporters about it, but the lawsuit to take it away again isn’t for months, thanks to me!”
“I, um…” Gonzalo mumbled.
“You didn’t go back there!” gasped Alonso.
“I thought I could make the money up!” Gonzalo cried. “Repay you! It all looked so easy!”
“This makes it so much worse!” cried Alonso, putting his head in his hands. “Oh, we could afford to stay on in office for a while with everything else, but if this gets out we’ll be put in prison for sure.”
“And we can’t get me any more money on time without being found out, can we?” asked Gonzalo.
“No,” Alonso said. “No. No. It’s all gone wrong. This is it. We’re all doomed. It’s prison one way and prison the other.”
“Unless we escape now,” Gonzalo said. “Flee the country. I’ve seen it done, I’ve had friends in these situations before – you remember Gina-Sue – we can get out, we just need to get a plane or a boat.”
“And how are we going to get one of those at short notice?” Alonso cried.
“Steal one,” Gonzalo suggested.
Olaf frowned again. “No,” he said. “We’d gone bird-watching, this old man and I, when we decided to rob a sealing schooner owned by—”
“This is a hold-up!” shouted Olaf, brandishing a sword at the schooner’s captain. “We’re taking all the valuables on board!”
“We don’t have any valuables!” the captain stuttered. “Just seal meat!”
“We’ll take that, then,” muttered Olaf. “It’s bound to be useful for something.”
“I believe there’s a type of bird that enjoys seal meat very much,” suggested Olaf’s associate, an old man with long grey hair. “A snapshot of that would win The Daily Punctilio’s photography prize in the ornithology category.”
“And if you win, we’ll see your names in the paper,” snapped the captain. “The first thing we’ll do is report you to the authorities! So leave us alone! Aye!”
“Ignore him,” Olaf said to his old associate. “You can enter under a false name; I’m very good at devising those.”
“And don’t I know it,” the captain said. “I recognise you now. You’re the one who stole my submarine all those years ago, and freed the traitors I’d locked up.”
“Oh yes, that was you, wasn’t it?” sneered Olaf, leaning in to look at the captain. “Oh, I’d come for the traitors, but then the Cthulhu was such a fine vessel I had to take it for myself.”
“Thieves never prosper,” the captain said. “Someday that submarine will be stolen back from you, Toucan Fol – if that is your real name – just like this seal meat will be figuratively stolen from you by buyers who never offer enough money. Someday everything will be stolen from you, Olaf.”
As his elderly associate dragged sacks of seal meat away, Olaf scowled at the captain. “Nobody ever steals from a man like me,” he said. “Haven’t you learnt that by now, you fool?” He frowned. “And what’s your name, anyway? I remember you’re a Widdershins, but what is your first name?”
The captain looked surprised, but opened his mouth. “It’s –”
“Humphrey,” Weyden said.
“Never take up sealing, young Weyden,” Humphrey said to his red-haired granddaughter from the comfort of his armchair.
“I didn’t intend to, grandfather,” Weyden said. “It’s barbaric, and besides, I can’t stand the ocean.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Humphrey said. “But I mentioned it because it has some connection to your own situation. You see, I once owned a sealing schooner that was robbed, much like your truckload of plush seals was stolen.”
Weyden frowned. “You never told me about this, grandfather,” she said.
“There’s many things I think you’re better off not knowing,” Humphrey sighed. “Oh, I still remember it so well… It was dreadful. We were sailing through stormy waters, trying to get back to the city as soon as possible, but my first mate, old Mr. Kornbluth, betrayed me to his pirate girlfriend. I still remember that terrible ship cutting through the waves towards us, the mysterious symbol carved into its side, the creature with the enormous belly and an uncertain gender boarding the schooner and carrying off all our precious spoils. It was terrible.”
“My thieves weren’t old men and big-bellied androgynes,” Weyden sighed. “They were three very short young men, who wanted to pirate the plushies for themselves.”
“It’ll come to nothing good, my girl, nothing good,” sighed Humphrey. “No… But, speaking of things not coming to any good, how is your older brother’s treatment going?”
“Not any good,” Weyden said, shaking her head. “The warts on his face are only getting worse. It’s really rather hurt his pride, especially with his company going bankrupt a few weeks ago, but what else can we do?”
“No,” Olaf said with yet another frown. “There was some argument about his name, actually, as a baby adopted by his orphaned children also bore the same name.”
“ – not entirely accurate to say that I’m a Widdershins,” the captain said. “My guardians were members of that family, but they found me drifting downriver in a basket.”
“So what did they call you, then?” sneered Olaf. “Moses?”
“Avery, actually,” the man said, “and for a very interesting reason. My guardians wanted some way to commemorate their late father, you see, so they gave me the same name.”
“That’s not interesting at all,” Olaf’s old associate commented, as he dragged another sack by.
“Oh, but the consequences are,” Captain Avery Widdershins said. “Because, there was some argument later about whether their father was dead at all. He was supposed to have died when a manatee attacked his dinghy, but nobody was around to see it, and an important report that turned up later stated that there had been a survivor to the incident. For a long time, people mistook me for my adopted grandfather. I would write a letter to a volunteer and receive one back thanking the heavens that I was alive after all, and telling me all kinds of unwise secrets. At schools and restaurants, I’ve been accused of being an impostor. It was all cleared up later, though, when the survivor of the incident turned out to be –”
“The manatee?” suggested Olaf.
“No,” Captain Avery said. “The boat. The boat had been given a name by my grandfather, you see, but the writers of the report misread some statements they’d received and believed the boat to be a separate person. The boat, which was named the Bela Bass, was later sunk, though, and that threw things into confusion once again.”
“What happened to the manatee, though?” asked Olaf. “If it didn’t survive?”
“That’s the interesting part,” Captain Avery said. “The manatee was at first thought to have died of wounds it sustained, but it later turned out that it wasn’t a manatee at all, but a very grouchy trout that happened to live in the river my adopted grandfather was sailing in. The trout, incidentally, was usually known just by a single letter, but it turned out that –”
“I’ve had enough of these boring stories,” Olaf said. “Your story is over, Avery.”
“Bertrand,” Omeros said.
“When I said I brought you down here to rehearse the next scene,” Omeros said to Geniveve and Ben, his siblings, as they trudged through the snow, “that wasn’t entirely true.”
“But don’t you want to practice more to impress your director?” Ben asked. “I thought you were very keen to work with Dr. Sebald some more.”
“I’ve got my suspicions about Dr. Sebald,” Geniveve said. “Maybe it’s just being so far away and so cold here, but Dr. Sebald is behaving very strangely, not at all how he was back in the city.”
“Why did we have to film your latest movie so far away from civilisation?” asked Ben. “I had to leave some close friends of mine alone at a very trying time in their lives back in the city, and I’d rather I’d stayed with them.”
“The work of an actress often takes one far away from where one needs to be,” sighed Geniveve.
“I have a theory about Dr. Sebald, actually,” Omeros said, “but that’s not important now. What’s important is this.”
Omeros stopped by a very thick fir tree, and reached up into its branches. When he brought his arms down, he was very carefully holding a sleeping baby, wrapped up in several layers of thick cloth to keep out the cold.
“A baby?” gasped Geniveve. “What’s going on here, Omeros?”
“A baby shouldn’t be left alone in the cold,” Ben said, looking at the baby with concern.
“I made sure he was wrapped up very snug before I came to find you,” Omeros said, rocking the baby gently. “It’s better than he was when I first found her – just resting in the snow in a clearing quite a way away. Somebody must have left him there.”
“How cruel!” Geniveve exclaimed. “Who would do such a thing?”
“Why didn’t you bring it straight to the set, Omeros?” asked Ben.
“Because of Dr. Sebald,” Omeros said. “If my suspicions about him are correct, it might not be safe for us to be on the set, let alone a lone baby that could have come from anywhere.”
“We’ll have to care for this baby ourselves, in secret,” Geniveve said. “You’re right, Omeros. We need to be careful around Dr. Sebald. Not let him think we know too much about what he’s really up to.”
“What is he up to?” asked Ben.
“I’m not sure if he’s the real Dr. Sebald,” Geniveve said. “And if he’s an impostor, then there must be something sinister afoot. But that’s not important now. What’s important is to get to know this baby. Omeros, does it have a name?”
“I don’t think so,” Omeros said. “Well, I wouldn’t know it. But I haven’t seen any nametags.”
“Then we should name it ourselves,” Ben said. “A name is the most important thing about a person. A baby shouldn’t be without one.”
“Then what shall we call it?” Geniveve asked. “What would our own parents have called another child, if they’d lived to have one?”
The three children were silent for a little while, remembering the happy times before their parents had accidentally – or so it had been thought, at the time – drowned in a local pond.
“That horrible girl at school always bullied me for my unusual name,” Omeros said. “And I know people have told you before you’ve got a silly name, Geniveve, although I think it’s a perfect name for you.”
“And I’ve got an ordinary name,” Ben said. “I once overheard Father saying to Mother that if they had any more children, they’d try to give them common names – names that wouldn’t cause any trouble.”
“Then let’s give this baby a name that we know at least two people share, and honour our father,” Geniveve said. “Bertrand.”
“It’s a noble name,” Omeros said, looking down at baby Bertrand. “I only hope this baby will someday grow up to be a noble person.”
“And I’ll make sure that nothing of the kind is ever true,” said a sharp voice from behind them, and the three orphans looked hurriedly, frightened, behind them, to see the man who claimed to be Dr. Sebald standing near, a wicked smile on his face and a long, rusty knife in his hand.
“No,” Olaf said, and frowned yet another time. “The adoption papers were hidden in the hat of a banker who had been promoted to Vice President in Charge of Orphan Affairs.”
“You should have known I’d get that Widdershins fortune some day,” Olaf said, grinning at the bound and gagged banker stuffed into a corner of the office Olaf was locking at that very moment. “I just need to find the right papers, and the money will be mine.”
“Mmphf phm fmm!” squealed the banker, muffled by his gag.
“There’s nothing that can stop me now,” Olaf said, kicking open a filing cabinet. “Nothing.”
A phone rang on the desk. Olaf and the banker stared at it for a short moment.
“Mf mmphmphy mmphmph, mml mm mmfim frm mm,” the banker said.
Olaf stepped carefully over to the desk, delicately lifted the receiver, and put it to his ear. He listened for a moment, and then answered the caller in a very deep false voice.
“No, he’s not in right now,” Olaf boomed. “What’s that? Oh, I’m his very old friend, the Baron van de Wetering.” Olaf listened. “Never mentioned me? Not once? Why, the old dog! Must think I’m bad company, ho ho.” He listened again. “Oh yes, absolutely, bwa har har. Always down the club, having a good old smoke and a gamble, is my friend here. Har har.”
“Mmphf!” shouted the banker, muffled as always. “Mmphf mm mmoo! Mmooll mmmn mm!”
“Yes, he really is quite a rascal,” Olaf carried on, cheerfully, in his deep voice. “But, I say, don’t tell anyone I said so, will you? It would be a black day if his reputation were darkened, or that of the Baron van de Wetering, eh? Oh ho ho! Yes? Very well, I’ll tell him you rang. Good day!” Olaf slammed the phone down. Then he looked at the banker, and laughed wheezily.
“Mmphf mmf mm?” asked the banker, timidly.
“A Ms. Julienne,” Olaf replied.
The banker groaned, and hung his head. His tall top hat toppled off, and upon realising this, the banker twisted wildly to try and get it back on his head, with much difficulty due to the fact that he was tied up.
Olaf laughed merrily at this, and then noticed that, as the top hat was knocked over, something spilled out of it – a sheaf of papers. “What have you been hiding here, under your hat?” Olaf asked, striding over and scooping up both hat and papers. “Well, well, well. Just like magic, the information I needs comes out from under your hat. Very appropriate. These certainly look like the right adoption papers.”
“Mmf,” started the banker, looking pleadingly up at Olaf.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Olaf said, scornfully, as he pocketed the papers and tossed the hat back onto the banker’s head. “These are mine to keep, and they shall be very useful indeed. I can’t thank you enough, really – but I think tying you up and ruining your reputation will be interesting. I expect you’ll be sacked, but at least you’ve your other job to fall back on.” With that, Olaf unlocked the office door, and slipped out.
“Mr. Poe?” asked Sadie.
“I’m the Vice President in Charge of Orphan Affairs,” said the man sitting on the opposite side of the desk to Jonah and Sadie. He looked about to speak again, but then he took out his handkerchief, and coughed violently into it. “So that,” he said, after he had finished coughing, “is why I am now in charge of your situation, not Monsieur Elwyn.”
“But we liked Monsieur Elwyn,” said Sadie.
“Nevertheless, he was found wanting, for reasons I’m not at liberty to discuss,” Mr. Poe said, before coughing once again. “Now, I know that the two of you are nearly of age, but you are not quite of age, and cannot decide your own fortunes nor accept your own fortune yet.”
Jonah and Sadie sighed, but they knew Mr. Poe was right. It was unfair, but their whole lives had been unfair – shuffled from uncaring guardian to careless guardian, some of them greedy for their fortune and others who were failures in some other way. They’d been stuck in the system for years, and were not relishing having to go to yet another guardian, even if it was only a few weeks before they’d be free to collect their fortune and live out a proper, happy life at last.
“Now,” Mr. Poe said, and then turned away to cough into his handkerchief, monogrammed with the initials A.P. “Now,” he said, a few moments later, “your latest guardian is to be, um, now what was his name…”
To the puzzlement of the two siblings, Mr. Poe pulled off his hat and reached into its depths. From within, he produced several pages covered in lines of type, which he put on the desk while placing his hat on again.
“Captain Lachrymose?” read out Jonah, reading the paper upside-down. “That sounds an unusual name.”
“What is he the captain of?” Sadie asked.
“Please, children, do not look at my papers,” Mr. Poe said, snatching the papers away. “It’s impolite, and these are quite private. Anyway, Captain Lachrymose is the captain of a cross-channel ferry that operates in a region a few miles away. I am assured that his ferry is very big and comfortably furnished, so you should be able to stay there quite happily.”
“But we sometimes get seasick…” Jonah said nervously.
“I’m not sure if we’d be comfortable so close to the sea,” Sadie said, more honestly.
“Now, children,” Mr. Poe said calmly, after coughing a little. “I know that you’ve been worried about the sea since your parents vanished during a routine submarine trip. But the ferry Captain Lachrymose runs is famous for its safety, and I wouldn’t dream of placing you in an unsafe home. Besides, it might be the perfect thing to help you get over your feelings. You can’t be afraid of the sea forever, you know.”
“We could be,” Jonah said, stubbornly. “We have plans. We can buy an enormous mansion far away from any coast. We don’t ever need to go near the sea again.”
“Plans? Oh, children, you’re only young,” Mr. Poe said, with a sigh. “I know you’ll soon be of age, but please, do not get yourself mixed up in adult matters. It once happened to some other charges of mine, and, well…” Mr. Poe sighed, and stowed the adoption papers in his hat again. “But I’m sure you’re more sensible than them. Look at it from my point of view, both of you. You’ll be free adult agents in a few weeks. The ferry is famously safe, and only makes a short crossing, so you’ll never be far from land. What could possibly go wrong?”
“Yes,” Olaf said with a scowl, “although at the time he was better known under his stage name.”
“So, you have all come to see amazing show of famous Senor Blattberg, please?” cried the figure on the stage, dressed in a glimmering robe and a large, jewel-fronted turban. “Well, stay a while, and I will show you magics beyond your believings!”
The audience cheered as Senor Blattberg swept his arms through the air dramatically, causing magical lightning to shine across the stage. Olaf sat back in his seat, impressed. The man was good, even if Olaf knew he wasn’t genuine; he’d only ever seen Madame Lulu pull tricks to rival this.
“Any volunteers for trick of vanishing watch, please?” Senor Blattberg asked, gesturing at a mystical-looking table. “Please, any volunteers in audience?”
Olaf was tempted to put up his arm, to go up to the stage and get a better look at things, but it had been a long time since he’d been a volunteer – although he was himself very good at making people’s watches and other valuables vanish. Instead, he just watched as Senor Blattberg called out to a shadowy figure wearing a face-concealing hat, who shook his head and hurriedly departed – but Senor Blattberg soon made up for this by calling up a giddy-looking woman wearing a tracksuit and running shoes. Olaf gasped along with the rest of the audience as the woman’s stopwatch was made to disappear into thin air, then laughed as Senor Blattberg looked in all kinds of unlikely places for it – beneath a table leg, in his pockets, even in one of the woman’s shoes, although he always refused to lift his turban to check there. Finally, Senor Blattberg laughed and help up a hand.
“No more joking, please,” he said. “I am retrieving location of watch for real now, please. Watch for watch.”
Senor Blattberg stepped down from the stage and into the audience. He wound through the aisles, making charmingly ungrammatical comments to everyone he passed, until eventually, suddenly –
“Stand up, please, sir,” Senor Blattberg said to Olaf. Olaf, surprised but not wanting to interrupt one of the few shows he’d enjoyed in years, leapt up from his seat. Senor Blattberg smiled cheerfully, reached beneath Olaf’s seat –
“The watch, please!” he cried, holding the stopwatch aloft, and the audience burst into cheers once more. Senor Blattberg laughed and waved – but as Olaf sat down, he leaned down to Olaf’s ear and whispered into it, “Magic made this watch disappear, Olaf; someday you’ll disappear too, just like magic, never to be seen again. Just wait…”
Senor Blattberg pulled away and strode back to the stage, smiling at the applauding audience, while Olaf sat back down, angry and frightened.
“But I’m not here to discuss the past. I’m here to discuss the future.”
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