Short Story 736p67

Based on A Series of Unfortunate Events: The End, by Lemony Snicket! Hannah Kavanagh!

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! There has often been speculation surrounding the tale of the Baudelaire siblings. The day they ventured out from the island, they were well-prepared: toting life jackets, quite a bit of non-perishable food, and other amenities - amenities here meaning, “Klaus’ P.G. Wodehouse books”. Some say they died at sea. Others say they ed what remains of V.F.D, embarking on a series of heroic volunteering deeds. Unfortunately, Lemony Snicket has failed to complete his research on the series of unfortunate events the orphans would encounter. This particular unfortunate event, is perhaps mainly due to myself, Beatrice Snicket. Although my uncle has turned away from his research, I am here to continue the story. ! ! It has been 15 years since the day we left the island, and I myself do not much of it, simply because I was an infant, and one as an infant would not typically have such a memory. The island, as the Baudelaires have described it to me, was essentially a communist cesspool, wherein there are many tales of adventure, short-lived success, and ultimately, death, including the death of my mother, Kit. I myself only snippets - the size of the island, the breeze, the broken-down vessels that so many of the volunteer department, V.F.D., had used to travel to this safe haven so many years ago. The day the Baudelaires left the island was, indeed, the last day any member would set foot on this island, aside from the occasional castaway, who would perish from starvation, most likely. No one was ever quite as resourceful as my Baudelaires, aside from maybe my uncle. ! ! And so the Baudelaires ventured out into capricious seas, a word which here means “very likely to change at any given moment”. What with Violet’s savvy inventing mind, Klaus’ knack for analytical research, and Sunny’s ability to cook and ration food, it did not take long for us to find our way back to mainland, wherein we learned that much had changed in the 2 years we had lived on the island. I myself was a child at the time, but my current research shows that as the Baudelaires approached the shore of what appeared to be a very desolate beach, their unfortunate event begins to unfold. ! ! “Aleppo”, I said, which Sunny took to mean, “I feel very stranded”. The Baudelaires orphans had finally made it to land, and they were very much relieved. ! ! “I’m very much relieved!” Klaus exclaimed. “Violet, this boat was in top notch. Your inventing skills have really improved, and I felt so safe on this vessel”. ! ! “Well, Klaus, it was thanks to your navigational skills that our journey was so short”. Violet pulled hair hair down from her ribbon, which she historically uses when thinking up a grand invention. Violet, of course, was under the impression that the hard part was over, and that she could therefore let her hair down, so to speak. Unfortunately, the unfortunate event was just starting. As their boat hit the shore of the beach, and they disembarked, with Violet carrying myself in her arms, the Baudelaires felt accomplished. ! ! “Guys, look. This is Briny Beach”. Sunny was staring at the large, dirty sign directly ahead of them. The Baudelaires look at one another in silent sadness. Briny Beach, for those readers who cannot , was a rather dismal beach during off-season, and it was where the Baudelaires had been when their lives changed forever. In fact, it was only a few metres away, years and years ago, that the siblings received the news from their banker, Mr. Poe, that their parents had just perished in a terrible fire. Perished, in this way, means “died”. From there, the Baudelaires encountered treachery after treachery, all thanks to a greedy and vile man by the name of Count Olaf. This man, the antagonist of the first chapters of the Baudelaire events, died the night I was born. With that, the villainy in the Baudelaire lives disappeared, and it was now safe for Violet, who turned 18 on the island, to go and collect the enormous fortune her parents had left behind in their will. And so it was with that that the Baudelaires travelled, rather

disheveled-looking, directly to Mulctuary Money Management via the Rickety Trolley. Violet was able to connect with Mr. Poe, who had, in a wonderful and uncharacteristic display of responsibility, confirmed her identity and awarded her with the fortune Count Olaf had so desperately connived for. ! ! It is now that my uncle would plead you, dear reader, to turn away and pretend that the ! Baudelaires lived beautiful lives after this. It would be wise to imagine that the Baudelaires went back to school, became d with of the V.F.D, and were reunited once more with the Quagmire triplets. Violet and Quigley Quagmire soon fell deeper in love than they already were and, reunited in a large mansion they had built for themselves, the Baudelaires, Quagmires, and one Snicket lived harmoniously and happily. And for a while, this is indeed what happened. Violet became an engineer for the town and was renowned around the world for her work. Klaus became a published novelist. Sunny started her own restaurant by the time she was 16 years old, and served the masses. Unfortunately, there is always a hitch, and this hitch takes place in a very familiar setting for the Baudelaires: a hospital. ! ! It was dismal weather when the Baudelaires parted ways with the Quagmires for the day, off to Briny Beach in order to pay respects to their family. I myself stayed at home, hoping for the chance to work on some of my art, as I had found around age 8 that I had a particular knack for painting, and therefore used my creations as a method of expressing myself to the world around me. When the Baudelaires told me the story of my birth, and that my mother, Kit Snicket, died on the island, art became a method of coping. But that’s enough about me. The Baudelaires, of course, were more focused on their own history, and that is what I’m here to tell you. ! ! On this particular day, when the Baudelaires left their home and walked on to the trolley that would take them to Briny Beach, they felt safe. Their lives were now unencumbered by Count Olaf, and although villainy still existed in the world, it felt as though their own particular experience had come to an end. It was on this beautiful day that the Baudelaires, staring over the sea, came to realize that for the first time since their parents had died, they were content. ! It was then that a mysterious figure appeared in the distance. ! ! “There’s a mysterious figure, off there in the distance,” Sunny said. ! ! “Must be another tourist, I suppose. Funny, that reminds me of all those years ago, when Mr. Poe arrived to Briny Beach to inform us of our parents’ deaths.” Klaus speculated.! In fact, dear readers, this mysterious figure was Mr. Poe, and he was once more the bearer of bad news, a term which here means “someone who has come to tell you about something horrible”. Mr. Poe, who had finally been diagnosed with asthma, no longer spoke between ! racking coughs, but rather puffs of an inhaler. It was much better for his health.! ! “Baudelaires!” Mr. Poe, emerging from the distance, took a wheezing puff of his portable inhaler. “I’m afraid I have to be the bearer of bad news. The little girl under your charge, Beatrice Snicket, called an ambulance for herself about an hour ago. She’s been placed in the hospital due to some sort of sudden illness. Baudelaires,” He takes another puff. “I’m afraid you may have to visit her, and say your goodbyes.” And Mr. Poe, with that same dull look in his eyes, watched the Baudelaires run off into town, in order to catch the nearest cab, with the full intent of saying goodbye to me. ! ! My memories of this are very vague, as I was not very old yet, but my research tells me that when the Baudelaires entered the shiny white doors of the oddly shaped hospital, they were immediately stunned into silence. This hospital, unbeknownst to them, had actually been constructed very recently. At the front desk, nurses in crisp uniforms strutted about, chattering about paperwork and unions. In and out rushed doctors, who looked tired and altogether unfit for standing, let alone operating on patients. The whole waiting area was warm, as though dimly lit; and it smelled vaguely of mint. But it wasn’t the gendernormative behaviour

of the nurses, the weariness of doctors, or even the distinct smell of their least favourite essential oil that stunned them. It was the large, glass figurine sitting in the middle of the entrance, a figurine that doctors skirted around and nurses came to ire their reflections in. It was in the shape of the same eye tattoo that V.F.D. patented, and it was the tattoo that had haunted the Baudelaires for years.! ! “Just when I thought I knew all of V.F.D. and its secrets, they make a hospital without us realizing it. If it’s a volunteer department, why were we not informed?” Violet looked around at the wallpaper, which she now realized also featured pictures of eyes. “I’m quite averse to ! working with needles, but I would love to operate the machinery.”! ! “Yes, but I think we’ve had enough trouble with hospitals in the past, Violet.” Klaus, of course, was referring to several years ago, when Violet had had a near miss with decapitation in a hospital, thanks to Count Olaf. ! ! “Well it doesn’t matter who or what this place belongs to. We need to find Beatrice!” Sunny walked up to the front desk, but before she could reach it, a woman in purple doctor’s scrubs approached the three siblings. ! ! “Well hello there! Can I help you?” The woman was young looking, but her stark white hair suggested that she was either older than she looked, or had been placed under an enormous amount of stress at some point in her life. When she smiled at the Baudelaires, they noticed that her teeth were white, straight, and perfect aside from the smudge of red lipstick that would not budge from her upper tooth. The nametag she wore attached to her pocket, read “Dr. Olave”. ! “Yes, we’re looking for our charge, Beatrice Snicket. We’ve been told she got very sick?” Violet could not help but cringe at Dr. Olave’s voice, as it was sickly sweet, a voice one would use when speaking to a very small child. ! ! “Ah, yes, Beatrice! I worked on her case myself. She’s down in our Voracious Fungus Department,” Dr. Olave, voice dripping with patronizing sweetness, said. ! The Baudelaires glanced at one another. V.F.D. Could this mean something?! Dr. Olave ushered the Baudelaires through the sterile building, across shaggy carpets and through glass doors. They were taken to what a large sign told them was the ICU, and inside was a spacious and relatively empty place. ! “Now, the room is a little cramped, because this is a developing department, but it’s quite cozy,” assured Dr. Olave, gesturing to a small glass window to the side, labelled V.F.D. Quarantine. “I’m afraid you can’t actually go in to visit her, as Beatrice has been diagnosed with a strand of Mycelium mushroom poisoning, and I’m afraid her treatment is very severe on her white blood ! cells.”! ! “What?!” exclaimed Sunny. ! ! “Are you using a form of horseradish in her treatment? We’ve had a history with Mycelium mushrooms, and found the spicy condiment to be quite an effective and rather harmless treatment,” Klaus said, adjusting his glasses. The Baudelaires had indeed come into with Mycelium quite a few times, and their hearts dropped when they heard the diagnosis. My mother, Kit Snicket, had died from the very same poisoning during childbirth. Dr. Olave shrugged. ! ! “We’ve found that treatment to be outdated, Baudelaires. We’ve been setting her up with IV fluids and antibiotics, but she’s making minimal recovery. She’s been in a coma since we itted her.” Dr. Olave gazed into the room, and the orphans followed suit. The room, encased by glass windows was a very small room. It was well lit, but obviously not up to the design standards of the rest of the building - it was as though the builders had forgotten about this room, and simply slapped some tiled flooring inside, and painted the walls a lewd shade of mint

green, and that was that. Inside were three cots, vacated except for the far right corner, in which my sickly body lay. ! ! Although blankets covered most of my body, you could see my face. It was a faint purple, as though deoxygenated, and my arm hung limp from the covers, while some sort of clear liquid pumped through the tubes of the IV and into my veins, which protruded from my forehead and arms in a bluish-green highway. ! ! The Baudelaires were shocked when they saw me, but not because of the appearance of my body, or even the diagnosis of Dr. Olave. They were shocked because they knew the symptoms of Mycelium poisoning, and turning purple was not one of them. They knew that if I had actually been affected by Mycelium mushrooms, I would not be in a coma, I would be awake, and coughing, and feeling my throat clog up as the mushrooms slowly permeated my entire body. Mycelium was fast acting, and grew in confined spaces, and there was, feasibly, no way that I could be naturally sick from those mushrooms as of this moment.! ! “There is no feasible way that Beatrice could be sick from Mycelium mushroom poisoning, Dr. Olave,” Klaus, turning toward Dr. Olave slowly, was the first to recognize my situation and continued, “I’m very sorry to be questioning your expertise, but we’ve had quite the run in with this sort of thing, and Beatrice is not displaying the right symptoms.” Sunny and Violet nodded in agreement. ! ! “I’m sorry you feel that way, Klaus,” Dr. Olave’s voice had dropped into a menacing whisper, “but it is in fact my treatment plan, and I have cleared Beatrice for my new, experimental therapy for cases such as these, and it involved radiation therapy. If you value your livelihood, I would suggest you let me be the professional, and you will survive this with minimal losses.”! ! The Baudelaire orphans looked at one another. For years, they dreaded the day that they would come across another villain interested in their fortune. What with the changing economy, they figured the only people who would now try to steal their money would be the government. However, as they looked at Dr. Olave’s perfect baby face, at the smile that still had caked lipstick on her teeth, they realized that olden day villains still existed in the world. ! Dear readers, I have done an extensive amount of research, and I can still not tell you who this Dr. Olave person is. I have deduced, of course, that she is not actually a doctor, and, of course, that she must have been a member of V.F.D. before the schism. It would appear to me that she was close to Count Olaf in some form, and was therefore very much interested in the fruitful lives and fortune of the Baudelaire orphans. The Baudelaires were, however, much older now, and wiser, and therefore knew that whoever this Dr. Olave was, her identity could be found in their extensive library of secrets. They were prepared. My research on the subsequent actions of the Baudelaires goes as follows:! ! “Oh, fuck you,” said Sunny, simply, and she lunged for Dr. Olave, who simply laughed a screechy, pitched laugh uncharacteristic of her usual sickly voice. ! ! “Oh, Baudelaires. It’s already too late. You want to take her, take her! She’s free to go now.” Dr. Olave pressed a button to her side, and the glass doors slid open. Violet rushed in and grabbed my limp body.! ! “What did you do to her?!” Violet screamed, rubbing at my face, my hands, as though trying to massage the life back into me. As she rubbed, though, she noticed that the purple in my face started to disappear. I was coming back to life. In fact, I was never actually ailing.! ! “Purple paint and a tranquilizer,” Dr. Olave cackled. “Now, Baudelaires, don’t get me wrong, I would kill the brat any day given the chance because of her stupid mother. But today isn’t that day. Just know that so long as you protect her, you endanger yourselves!” And with that, Dr Olave ran through the glass doors, out to the entrance room. Klaus ran into the quarantined room to pick up my limp body and ripped the IV out of my arm. The orphans ran

after Dr. Olave, but she was simply too nimble, and knew the hospital too well. And in an instant, as the Baudelaires made it to the entrance doors, she had disappeared. ! ! “You three! What the hell do you think you’re doing?! She’s bleeding!” A rather portly security guard had noticed the three Baudelaires and started after them. The Baudelaires began to run, once more from a hospital that really was not safe at all. ! ! The Baudelaires have since heeded Dr. Olave’s warning, which is why I am writing this story. As they arrived back at their mansion, to care for me and inform the Quigley’s, they found not their house, but a ball of flames. And once more, a fire had torn the Baudelaire family, supposedly as a warning. It is my best belief that the Quigley’s were safe, and they have reunited with the Baudelaires once more, but I am no longer with them. Dr. Olave had used a fake illness as a distraction. The orphans do not resent me, I think; they are merely trying to avoid another chapter of misery. I, a Snicket child, am now left to start my own chapter, to find my own secrets, and hopefully, to one day escape the treachery of Dr. Olave. !