Series of Unfortunate Events One-shots, What-ifs, and Drabbles

A Quagmire

Premise: Let's see how What If #5 plays out. The Baudelaires and Quagmires leave Prufrock Prep and go... where? By the way, this will be working with Quigley's backstory but it's canon-divergent.

The five orphans stood outside the entrance of Prufrock Prep.

"We need to hurry. When Olaf realizes that we're not at SORE, he will come for us, and then maybe you," Klaus said.

"Agreed," Violet and Isadora said together. Violet took a sleeping Sunny from Klaus and they began to walk briskly down the road.

A young boy sits in the empty glass room of the house that for some unknown reason was connected to his. He clutches a newspaper that declares him deceased. He knows where he is going to go because he has found an atlas.

After a while, Duncan asked, "Do we know where we're headed?"

"I think we need new clothes. Otherwise, any adult we find will just send us back there." Violet jerked her head towards the school.

Isadora sighed. Softly, she said, "Quigley would know where we are. Quigley would know where to go." Duncan offered her his hand and she took it.

The young boy prepares to leave the house that he has found, armed with some supplies and a map he has drawn. A well-read man gives him directions and information. He no longer knows where he should go.

The five friends walked in silence. Finally, Klaus said, "I don't know how we'd manage if we'd lost a sibling. In the past few months, Count Olaf has put us through things that we needed Violet's ingenuity and Sunny's teeth and my knowledge to solve. I just..." Klaus couldn't continue.

"Can't imagine how it would feel to lose a sibling," Violet finished for him, putting a hand on his back.

Isadora reached out and took Violet's hand. The five walked like this, hand in hand, for a long time.

The young boy decides to wait. His efforts to find his family have come to nothing. He decides to start to do some research but is stopped by fire, again.

"What was he like?" Violet asked. "Quigley."

"He always had this thirst to explore," Duncan said. "He wanted to know things, go places. He studied our parent's maps. He loved to do that. He and Dora and I would sit in the library and Dora would write and I would study old newspapers and Quigley would sit and make himself this stack of atlases... Remember, Dora?" Duncan laughed softly, obviously remembering his brother.

"Yes. He would page through the atlases that our parents owned. He knew all the capitals of every country in the world." Isadora smiled.

"He took a test for me once. We had different history classes, and my teacher was testing geography, and I wasn't doing well in geography, and he took the test for me. We're identical, you know, me and him and Dora."

The young boy gathers clues quietly from scenes of great trauma. He hopes his siblings haven't endured worse. He wonders if they've made friends.

The orphans walked along for another stretch in silence. "I'm glad you came with us, Duncan and Isadora," Klaus said. "Journalism and poetry are skills that will probably come in handy."

"I wish we had an amateur cartographer," Duncan said quietly.

The young boy studies his surroundings and thinks that there are many inspirations for poet, and many interesting things for a journalist to comment upon. He makes a mark on his map.

"I remember the fire. Duncan and I had escaped and we couldn't find him. The fire... you don't expect it to be so quick, you know? Or so... so hot."

"We'd have fires in the fireplace when we were younger. When it was cold outside, we'd cozy up to the fire and Dora would read her poetry and Mother and Father would tell these wild stories that... that..." Duncan sighed. "That we never thought could be true but they were, they always were, weren't they, Dora?"

"We didn't know them at all," Isadora said, finally.

The young boy walks briskly, pushing away his fear. He is a volunteer. He has friends who can help him find his siblings.

The children found a place to sleep for the night, sheltered from the road. They find their names in the paper the next day. The headline reads 'Wealthy Orphans Disappear From Prep School.'

Duncan read the first sentence of the article out loud. "Orphans Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire and twins Duncan and Isadora Quagmire have disappeared from Prufrock Preparatory School." He paused for a moment, then said, quietly but fiercely all the same, "We're triplets!" He handed the article to Klaus, who scanned and pocketed it.

The young boy scribbles something in his purple commonplace book and makes a mark on his map. He knows where he is going again. He looks down at a recent newspaper clipping he now holds dear and sighs. "We're triplets," he tells himself.

"Well, I'm glad that stayed quiet," Klaus said dryly.

"Enserio," Sunny said. She meant something along the lines of, "No kidding."

"Count Olaf will be looking for us. Mr. Poe will be too," Violet said soberly.

"We just have to stay ahead of them. We can take care of ourselves." Isadora strode forward, suddenly full of purpose.

The young boy sits in a taxi. He will ride up and down the roads leading away from the school until he finds his siblings.

"We're being tailed," Violet warned. "It's a taxi."

"Well, it's not Count Olaf, then," Klaus said. "He drives a long, black automobile."

The word 'quagmire' means several things. It can refer to an area of miry or boggy ground whose surface yields under the wandering footsteps. For instance, if the Baudelaires and Quagmires had wandered into a swamp and the ground was very soft underfoot, and Sunny became stuck in the mud, they would be walking through a quagmire. Sunny then would be in a quagmire in another way, because she has gotten herself into a situation from which extrication is very difficult, because it is difficult for small children to unstick themselves from mud.

But when the word 'quagmire' is used here, it refers to a young boy of about thirteen, who is clutching a purple commonplace book and a hand-drawn map.

Duncan saw him first. "Quigley?"

His cry made Isadora turn to look. "Quigley!"

The two triplets ran to be reunited with their brother.

"Isadora! Duncan! I found you! We found you!" Quigley hugged his siblings tightly. When they surfaced, Quigley turned to the driver of the taxi. "Thank you, Jacques. Isadora, Duncan, this is Jacques Snicket. He says he knew our parents." Quigley turned to face Violet, Klaus, and Sunny. "And yours too, Baudelaires."

"Children," said Jacques Snicket. "I know what you've been through and I know what you are running from. Why don't you come with me? I have many friends that can keep you safe and hidden until you come of age."

Isadora and Duncan looked to Quigley, who nodded, and they scrambled into the back of the taxi. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny looked at each other. "Well, what have we got to lose?" Violet asked Klaus quietly.

"Oh, children." Jacques smiled at them. It was a friendly smile. "It is not what you have to lose, but all the things you now have to gain."

Violet and Klaus squeezed in next to their friends. "So, Mr. Snicket, where are you taking us?" Klaus asked.

"On."

The simple word seemed to calm the Baudelaires. Quigley turned in his seat to smile at his siblings. His smile was radiant as he said, "You'll see."