The Fourth Baudelaire

THE AUSTERE ACADEMY: part 2

After the discovery of two pieces that perfectly fit together, the Baudelaires and the Quagmires had found themselves in the Orphan Shack, trying to fix the problem of having crabs thanks to one of Violet's newest inventions and discussing the coincidence of having two parts of what seemed to be a spyglass.

"We found it in the ashes. We'd never seen it before." Duncan said.

"It can't be a coincidence. Two fires, two halves of a spyglass." Camille stated.

"I think it's more than a spyglass." Klaus began. "See there are dials, similar to the ones I've read about cracking codes." He explained.

"Why would our parent have a device for cracking codes?" Isadora asked.

"The real question is, why would they have the same device?" Camille corrected pointing her finger dramatically at Isadora.

"Our parents obviously knew each other." Klaus said.

"I think so, why else would they have the same spyglass?" Isadora asked no one in particular.

"If they knew each other then why don't we know each other?" Duncan questioned, a slight frown on his face. "Why do you think our parents didn't tell us about any of this?"

"Maybe because they were hiding it for a reason?" Camille wondered out loud. She had a point and the others nodded along.

"Because it's dangerous?" Isadora guessed, looking at Klaus.

"Maybe they were going to tell us but they never got the chance." Violet joined, as she finished up her invention.

"Yibo fini." Sunny said. Which probably meant something along the lines of "We'll never know because we can't ask them."

"Sunny's right." Camille agreed. "We'll never know for sure." She stood from the hay that served as beds in the shack and went over to look at the picture of their parents that Violet had attached to the wall.

Duncan followed after her.

"Isadora look! It's a picture of our parents." Duncan told his sister, when he'd noticed the figure of the Quagmire parents standing together in the wrinkled picture.

"It's a picture of our parents too, and there are two of our previous guardians." Klaus shared,  joining them and placing himself between Isadora and Camille.
"So they certainly knew each other." Violet said while they all shared looks for quite some time.

Violet's invention as usual, worked out perfectly and not only helped them with the crabs but it also gave the place a little bit of class, not that it changed the fact that it had dripping fungus but at least one problem was solved.

Violet was proud of what she had made and as so, she asked, "What do you think?"

"That's a little better. It's scaring the crabs and it gives the place a little bit of style if that's even possible." Camille said smiling, trying to be positive.

"That's a lot better." Duncan said looking directly at Violet. She smiled at him while taking the ribbon off her hair.

"I saw a book at our aunt Josephine house that might contain some answers." Klaus started, continuing their previous discussion. "We lost it in a hurricane before we could read it."

"Did it look like this book?" Isadora asked Klaus showing him a very good rendition on her commonplace book.

"Yeah, actually it's the same book." He responded.

"We saw the same book at the house of one of our previous guardians. She locked it in a safe after her wife died." Duncan pointed out.

"If we saw the same book, there has to be more copies." Violet told them.