Secrets

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Friendship is a word that is used to describe the relationship between multiple people in which one can often feel a sense of comfort and ease when in their comrades' presence. A friendship can last as long as one or both parties desire them to; they can last from the early years of childhood, all the way to old age, or can last as long as it takes for these friends to use your talents for their desired worth and then lock their doors, switch their telephone numbers, and completely change their identity in order to avoid your presence again. If you are so inclined to one day find yourself in the comfort of good friends, you must also be wary of the kinds of companions in which you have asked to accompany you during your times of sharing a hot beverage or taking in the newest picture at your nearest nickelodeon. The best types of friendships are ones that are built on trust and the sharing of common interests, for example; I myself would prefer to create a bond with people who enjoy the writings of famous Spanish Poet, Federico Garcia Lorca and prefer to spend their spare hours of the day running from the authorities and crying themselves to sleep due to the dismal circumstances that have led them to seek out my companionship. The best type of friend will also try to strategize and solve the problem to help you evade the authorities or lend a comforting shoulder to help you through the continuous weeping. The unfavourable types of comraderies are ones in which a person you consider a friend is draining the energy and happiness, remain negative and toxic even in your presence, required certain deeds in order to remain friends, vanish in the times of great need, or merely creating a façade in order to use your talents to help them avoid capture and have you take the fall for their various arson and other unspeakable crimes.

The Baudelaire children and the Quagmire triplets were beginning to understand the types of friendships they were faced with when they encountered Holly S for the first time. Prufrock Preparatory School was often known to have the more unpleasant and undesirable friendships due to the horrible and depressing environment in which the students were confined to small places and scarcely encouraged to even discuss Spanish poets or how to elude the authorities. This was especially true with the girl known as Carmelita Spats, whom would be a combination of all the unfavourable friendships and would add her own cruel desire to wear tap shoes and put on horrible performances with herself as the starring role. Neither sets of siblings ever wanted to consider this filthy, rude, and violent girl a friend but were unfortunate enough to consider her an acquaintance, a phrase which here means a person whom you might meet in passing and perhaps know their name but nothing else. However, the Baudelaires and Quagmires had taken an immediate liking to their new acquaintance, a person whom they yet to learn anything about this girl beside her first name, and last initial, as well as her well-developed talent for playing orchestral string instruments. She was not considered a close, favourable friend... yet. Despite the strange situation in which the orphans and this girl had met, both sides of this acquaintency were determined to make themselves friends, not merely just any other student they might pass in the hallways.

"So where are you from Holly?" Isadora asked as the group of children walked, or in Sunny's case crawled, down the grimy halls of Prufrock Preparatory School.

"A small-town far outside the city, down by the seashore," the young girl answered.

"Is it close to Lake Lachrymose by any chance?" Klaus asked, adjusting his glasses so they would not slide off the front of his nose. The middle Baudelaire child asked this question hopes that he and his sisters would share common interests in terms of living in the same place; despite the fact that the Baudelaires had lost their Aunt Josephine and had nearly been killed in a hurricane while living there.

"Lake what? No, I'm sorry, I've never heard of Lake Lachrymose before. I'm from the Fidelis Fjords. It's up closer towards the Mortmain Mountains."