pusillanimous- Violet Baudelaire x fem! reader

Chapter Nine

"Fire alarms," Violet spoke.

I gave her a confused look as Josephine told her not to mention any more scary things.

"Fire alarms are an excellent way to signal that we need help.
We need noise, we need light," she continued.

Another leech burst through the side of the boat and Josephine started screaming as Klaus responded to Violet.

"Won't that put us in more danger?" he asked.

"It'll attract attention."

"But how are we going to start a fire when everything's wet from the storm?" I questioned.

"Not everything," Violet replied. I watched her walk across the boat, stating, "Aunt Josephine, I need your scarf."

Josephine looked at her in shock before saying, "No! I need it more! I need to protect my neck!"

"I don't have time to argue with you! I'm trying to save all of our lives!"

"You mean each of our-"

Violet ripped the scarf from her neck and told her to sit down. She tossed me the scarf and I wrapped it around a piece of wood that had broken off of the boat.

"How are we going to light it?" I spoke.

"The scientific principle of the divergence and refraction of light," replied Klaus.

"The scientific principle of the divergence and refraction of light?" Violet asked as she sat down.

"The scientific principle of the divergence and refraction of light," I spoke, picking up a pair of binoculars that was by my feet.  "You know when horrible people use a magnifying glass to burn ants?"

"Olaf used to do that!" Josephine yelled.

"If we can catch enough light from the Lavender Lighthouse... it seems unlikely," Klaus finished the explanation as he took the binoculars apart and used one of the lenses to reflect the light onto the scarf. "It won't work, the angle's wrong."

"We just need something else to reflect the light into the lens," I said before beginning to look around the boat for something else to use.

I stopped when I saw the scarf light on fire. I smiled and looked up to see a small plane and one of the two people in it was using binoculars that had reflected the light just right to hit the other lens and light it on fire.

"A plane!" I yelled to the others.

They looked up and we all started trying to alert the plane. However, we didn't need the attention of the plane because a large boat pulled up next to us. Josephine yelled in relief and all five of us climbed the steps onto the boat. We watched the boat sink into the water, glad to be safe. Or so we thought.

The captain turned around and revealed that he was in fact Count Olaf. I watched as he and the Baudelaires talked about what would happen next. I became especially nervous when Olaf started walking towards Josephine.

"Is this true?" he said.

All Josephine could do was mutter a small "mhm."

"You were going to betray me? After all those years we spent together? After all those picnics by the shore? After all of those shredded beef tamales I served to your husband? After all the secrets we had shared?"

Josephine suddenly began glaring at him and straightened up as she spoke. "Yes, I was going to betray you, and these four children gave me the courage to do so. Ever since their parents were killed, they have been so fierce and formidable, again and again, escaping from your clutches, and what have I done all these years? Nothing but hide in my house. Enough of that! My house can topple off a cliff for all I care!"

The Baudelaires and I looked at each other awkwardly.

"Later," Klaus whispered.

"I am ready to be fierce and formidable again myself, and to face you, Count Olaf!" Olaf's troupe gasped. "I've had enough of your schemes and plots! I have had enough of your greed and your betrayal. Listen to me, Olaf, you villain! You wretch! You vastly untalented actor! I'm going to tell you something I should've told you a long time ago."

"And what might that be?" Olaf asked her.

"It's have!"

Olaf paused for a moment. "What?"

"You said 'After all the secrets we had shared' when you should've said 'After all the secrets we have shared.' You made a serious grammatical error!"

Olaf stepped forward, lighting his pipe. "Let me make sure I understand. You would not say 'Josephine Annwhistle had been thrown overboard to the leeches' because that would be incorrect. But, if you said 'Josephine Annwhistle has been thrown overboard to the leeches,' you would be alright with that."

"Yes. I mean, no! I mean-"

"I think I finally understand the lesson," Olaf interrupted.

My eyes widened as he put a hand to her chest and pushed her off the boat. She screamed as Violet and Klaus yelled for her. All I could do was watch and think about how she was the closest thing to family I had left. Not anymore, though.
...

The boat pulled up to Damocles Dock, where Mr. Poe was waiting. Klaus was staring off into the distance. Violet tried to get his attention so that we could get off of the boat.

"Look," he said.

We turned to look where he was and saw two large chimneys spewing out smoke. They had "Lucky" and "Smells" painted on them. He showed us the picture we had found in Josephine's safe.

"Lucky Smells lumber mill," Violet smiled.

"Miss Josephine said it wasn't far," I responded.

The hook-handed man came up and grabbed us. "Hurry up, we don't have all day!"

We all got off the boat and faced Mr. Poe. He started lecturing the Baudelaires and me before letting Count Olaf say his piece. Us children started trying to convince Poe that he was Olaf but the banker refused to believe it.

"I can not take the word of a single child," he told us.

"You don't have to take the word of a single child," Violet retaliated.

"You can take the word of all four of us," Klaus finished.

"Actually, it's more like three, the baby doesn't really cou- AHH!" Olaf was cut off by his own fake screams as Sunny jumped out of Violet's arms and started biting his fake leg off.

His real leg burst through as Sunny began laughing. He and Mr. Poe started bickering as Poe took notice of the tattoo on his ankle. The Baudelaires and I saw a truck with the Lucky Smells logo on the back. We decided to run away and jump into it while Mr. Poe wasn't watching us.
...

We were in the bed of the truck, cruising through the woods. I was next to Violet, who was next to Sunny, who was next to Klaus on the other side of the truck.

"What's that thing Haruki Murakami said?" Violet questioned.

"When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in." Klaus answered.

"Before that part."

"You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over." He paused. "Do you think we made the right choice?"

"It doesn't matter if we made the right choice."

"What matters is what happens," I finished.

We heard geese honking and looked up to the sky. I thought about the newspaper articles I had read about the Baudelaires. I would be included in the next one. Maybe the one after that. Maybe all of the future articles. It didn't matter now. For the moment, we were safe.

A/N: happy pride month everybody! I wanted to ask whether everyone wants me to continue the series in this book, or do a different book for each of the books that were originally written (so The Miserable Mill would have its own book, The Austere Academy would have its own book, etc...) I hope you all enjoyed the chapter!