Memento Mori {A Series of Unfortunate Events}

•THREE• In Which We Meet Carmelita

WORD COUNT: 975

"Hello, Cakesniffer!" A high, snooty voice calls. You turn around and see a girl in a frilly pink dress. Her hair is auburn and curled in annoying little ringlets. You sigh and stand up from the bench. "You must be Carmelita?" she sniffs. "Of course. I'm here to give you a tour, Cakesniffer. Follow me." She spins on her toes and steps briskly down the hall, her shoes tapping obnoxiously. "Nice shoes." You say, keeping the sarcasm to a minimum. "Hurry up, girl." She says. At least she didn't call me cakesniffer?

Carmelita leads you around the school, pointing at random doors and saying "I don't know what that is so it's not important." or "That place smells like a dirty sock, never go in there." You just put up with it, telling yourself you'll go around the school later and find out where everything is. "I don't know what that building is, and I NEVER go in there." She states, pointing at the door to the library. "That's the library," I tell her. "Only cakesniffers care about libraries." The door opens and a woman comes out, holding a large stack of books. "Oh, hello there!" She says, moving her head to the left side of the books so I could see her. "You must be the new student, Ariadne. I remember that because that is the name of the girl in Perseus's Greek myth." You smiled. "I prefer Ari, but yes." She smiled, lifting the stack of books onto her head and stepping carefully through the doorway into the library. "Come by soon!" She says, shutting the door. "Come on cakesniffer!"

You followed her down the hall, back towards the bench. Carmelita walked up to the Vice Principal's office door. She turned around to face you. "Here's Vice Principal Nero's office where you were supposed to be twenty minutes ago, and now you're late. That's what you get for thinking you're more adorable than me!" She turned around and knocked on the door, leaving before Vice Principal Nero came out. "Who are you! How dare you interrupt a genius when he is rehearsing!" You talk slowly, as . if to a child. "I am a new student here. My name is Ari Austen. I am sorry for interrupting your violin practice but I need information about this school." He frowns. "Oh, okay then. Come in."

You step inside his office. It's a mess. There are papers everywhere, at least three broken typewriters half-buried in paperwork, and a tiny desk in the corner covered in so many pieces of seemingly broken technology that you can hardly see it. The walls are plastered with posters, layer after layer of "NERO, Violin Hero" and "Come see Nero the Great, Friday night, mandatory viewing." and tons of pictures of him and his broken violin. It's enough to make you feel claustrophobic.

"Hello, new orphan." He says, stroking his violin. You see that most of the bow hairs are snapped. "I can fix that," you say. "What?" He snaps. "I can fix your bow." His eyes go wide. "Oh, you can, can you? WELL, fix it or you get detention." You sighed. "I just offered to fix it, you don' have to threaten me with detention." "You don't have to threaten me with detention" he mocked under his breath.

You got to work, grabbing a pair of broken scissors and a broken screwdriver. You found a roll of tape under a pile of paperwork and repaired the screwdriver. Then, you used the screwdriver to tighten the bolt in the scissors. You took the scissors and snipped the broken bow strings off at both ends. Then, you found another broken violin bow underneath a stack of paper. The wood part of the bow was snapped in half, but the hair was completely intact. You used the screwdriver to loosen the clamp on the hair and remove the swath of hair from the old bow and clamp it back in on the new one.

(A/N: I have no clue how a bow is actually put together, so this is just a speculation. Sorry, violinists!)

You tightened the strings and handed the bow back to V.P Nero. He gasped. "Thank you, orphan. Now, I will tell you all about Prufrock Prep!" he showed you a pamphlet of the dorms, and it looked so amazing. There were queen beds and chandeliers and so many fancy things!

"You will, of course, not be living there. That's only for people with two living parents. Though you did fix my violin, so I suppose an upgrade from the regular orphan accommodations." He snickered, and your heart sank. "Usually, new orphans live in the shack." He handed you another pamphlet, this one of a tin shack with hay bales for beds. Not fun. "Buuuuuuut, we already have three orphans living in there, and we only have three hay bales. I would upgrade them to the broom closet in order for you to have the shack, but the broom closet is already inhabited by the Quagmires, and I have nowhere to send them." He spoke, thinking hard. "Since there are three orphans living in the shack, only two in the broom closet, and you fixed my violin, I will give you the honour of living in the broom closet with the Quagmire twins. You're in Mr Remora's class. he's in room 2. If you have trouble remembering that, I can write it on your hand in permanent marker." he whipped out a marker, and you yanked your hand away, stuttering "No thanks." Nero frowned, putting away his marker. "Have fun at lunch."

He sent you out the door, and slightly less horrifying violin screeching immediately filled the corridor. Great, now I need to find the cafeteria... you thought, wandering towards the scent of burning lasagna.