After The End

Chapter the First: Shipwrecked

Word Count: 2284

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If you enjoy stories about twittering birds and giggling elves, then I request that you close up this book immediately. If you choose to read on, you will not find any twittering birds and will most certainly not find any giggling elves. This story is about the three Baudelaire children and their adopted sister who was named after their own mother. Their journey was last spoken of in an account of their unfortunate lives that was written by my associate, Lemony Snicket. I am now here to add on to his research. I will pick up where he left off, after the Baudelaires left the island and just before their third trip to Briny Beach. And so, we begin the new story.

Violet Baudelaire was the eldest Baudelaire child. She had recently turned 16, just a couple days before they left. Anyone who knew Violet well knew that when she tied her hair up in a ribbon, to keep the hair out of her face, she was thinking. Here, at the beginning of our story, Violet was on the boat called Beatrice, along with her siblings, and her hair was tied up with her ribbon as she was steering the boat, sitting next to her brother.

Klaus Baudelaire was the middle Baudelaire, and now one of the middle Baudelaires. He was 14 and wore glasses, which made him look all intelligent, and he was. Klaus loved to read and research things through books. He knew a great many of things. Now he sat on the boat, trying hard to study tidal charts to help their sail, and he adjusted his glasses which had been falling down the bridge of his nose.

"Shiver me timbers!" Sunny, the other middle Baudelaire exclaimed. Sunny enjoyed to bite things, and her four front teeth were big and sharp. Sunny also liked to cook. Most people thought that being 3 years old was too young to be cooking, but Sunny was a better chef than most adults. She had started her cooking when she was 2. She and her siblings were at Caligari Carnival disguised as freaks when Sunny had helped an ambidextrous "freak" named Kevin with making dinner.

Violet and Klaus both looked up at their younger sister with confusion filling their expressions. As you may know, if you've read about or seen my associates account on the Baudelaire children, 'Shiver me timbers' is an expression used by pirates and is used to show extreme amazement toward something, and it can also be used to show shock, annoyance, or surprise. This fit the situation, because they saw their baby adopted sister, Beatrice, who was pointing past the boat out to the sea. Beatrice was Kit Snicket's daughter who had passed away on the island just after giving birth.

The two eldest Baudelaires looked up to where young Beatrice was pointing and they saw a big ship. The two looked at each other, then they looked back at the boat, surprised at how they had missed such a big ship before.

"I'm sure we'll be fine, we're a small ship... They probably don't even see us," Violet said, but she was wrong of course. The ship actually had a captain who was watching them through a telescope, and ordering the crew to turn toward the Baudelaire's small sailboat.

The Baudelaires tried to stay calm and return to what they were doing. They just kept sailing their boat, trying to avoid the ship at all costs. However, once they got close to it, they realized they had been wrong and the boat was indeed after them.

"Umm, Violet?" Klaus asked for his sisters attention as he saw some female pirates climbing down a ladder on the side of the boat.

"Yeah?"

"You see them too, right?"

"Yeah."

"What do we do?"

"Good question... let's see if they're friends or foes first," Violet told her brother as he placed his charts down.

Then, the pirates hopped onto the Baudelaires small ship. The Baudelaires stood up, Violet took Sunny's hand and Klaus picked up Beatrice.