A Series of Unfortunate Events Book 1 | Page 4

scarcely get out of bed. Klaus found he had little interest
in books. The gears in Violet's inventive brain seemed to stop. And
even Sunny, who of course was too young to really understand what
was going on, bit things with less enthusiasm. 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 Baudelaire orphans had been reduced to
charred rubble. Mr. Poe had taken them to the remains of the Baudelaire
mansion to see if anything had been unharmed, and it was terrible:
Violet's microscope had fused together in the heat of the fire, Klaus's
favorite pen had turned to ash, and all of Sunny's teething rings
had melted. Here and there, the children could see traces of the enormous
home they had loved: fragments of their grand piano, an elegant
bottle in which Mr. Baudelaire kept brandy, the scorched cushion
of the windowseat where their mother liked to sit and read. Their
home destroyed, the Baudelaires had to recuperate from their terrible
loss in the Poe household, which was not at all agreeable. Mr. Poe
was scarcely at home, because he was very busy attending to the Baudelaire
affairs, and when he was home he was often coughing so much
he could barely have a conversation. Mrs. Poe purchased clothing for
the orphans that was in grotesque colors, and itched. And the two Poe
children-Edgar and Albert-were loud and obnoxious boys with whom
the Baudelaires had to share a tiny room that smelled of some sort
of ghastly flower. But
even given the surroundings, the children had mixed feelings

when,
over a dull dinner of boiled chicken, boiled potatoes and blanched-the
word “blanched” here means “boiled”-string beans, Mr. Poe
announced that they were to leave his household the next morning.
“Good,”
said Albert, who had a piece of potato stuck between his teeth. “Now
we can get our room back. I'm tired of sharing it. Violet and Klaus
are always moping around, and are never any fun.” “And
the baby bites,” Edgar said, tossing a chicken bone to the floor as if
he were an animal in a zoo and not the son of a well-respected member
of the banking community. “Where
will we go?” Violet asked nervously. Mr.
Poe opened his mouth to say something, but erupted into a brief fit of
coughing. “I have made arrangements,” he said finally, “for you to be
raised by a distant relative of yours who lives on the other side of town.
His name is Count Olaf.” Violet,
Klaus, and Sunny looked at one another, unsure of what to think.
On one hand, they didn't want to live with the Poes any longer. On
the other hand, they had never heard of Count Olaf and didn't know what
he would be like. “Your
parents' will,” Mr. Poe said, “instructs that you be raised in the most
convenient way possible. Here in the city, you'll be used to your surroundings,
and this Count Olaf is the only relative who lives within the