Family Comes First- ASOUE

Chapter 77: Easy Infiltration

*Violet's POV*

Olaf was back in our lives once more, and the people in our new home were cheering for him. We felt more outcasted by them than before. After the cheering lasted a while, Nero began to laugh and quiet down the crowd.

"Alright, everybody, settle... Settle down..." He said with a grin.

'Coach Genghis' faked a gasp. "'Settle down'? Did you all hear what Vice Principal Shapiro just said?"

"Nero..." The vice principal corrected.

"How rarely I hear those words come out of people's ears and into my mouth," Genghis said. "'Settle', a word which here means 'settling for less', and 'down', my personal least favorite direction. Let me tell you a story. Some years ago, a woman came to me. She needed my help. 'Coach Genghis', she said to me, 'I'm a failure. I cannot get a job. My love life is in the pits. Hell, I cut bangs!' I bet that describes every one of you, isn't that right?"

"Um, they're schoolchildren..."

"I know what I said. And did you know what I said to her? Do you think I told her to settle down? ... Answer me, Pippity Squeaks! Do. You. Think. I. Told. Her. To. Settle down?

"Probably not!!!" Carmelita and the two white-faced ladies shouted.

"Probably not!!" The crowd, except for us, repeated.

"Probably not, indeed." He said, and started to walk into the crowd. "I told her to stand up. I told her to actualize and incentivize. I told her to keep her eyes in the clouds and her feet on the stars. Do you know what happened?" He asked, and stopped next to where our family was sitting. "She died in a mysterious fire."

If looks could kill, we would have murdered him six times over.

"Wait, what??" Nero asked.

"Settling down is what losers do."

"But the woman you were just talking about-"

"Settling down is what started World War I."

"Okay, but the story you were telling-"

"Settling down is what happens when you bite your lip, and your lip gets swollen, and you bite your lip again, and you keep biting your lip over and over. I don't want that for you, Prufrock Prep. What I do want is for you to listen to some great music!! Bring in the violin!!!"

"The whole school is falling for the treachery of an unhinged villain," I said as Nero played a shrieky piece on the violin.

"That always happens at pep rallies..." Quigley commented.

"This might be our only chance to stop him," Duncan said.

"Quigley, keep an eye on Sunny," Izzie said, and the four of us stood up and made our way towards the stage.

"Stop the music!!!" I exclaimed.

Nero gasped and stopped playing. "How dare you interrupt a genius!!!"

"Everyone, listen, please!"

"This man is not a coach!"

"He's the notorious villain Count Olaf!"

"As long as he's here, none of us are safe!!!"

"That's not true! You're just dramatic!" Carmelita defended. "Vice Princey, keep playing and I'll start my dance over again with extra twirls!"

"Well said, adorable cheerleader!" Genghis added.

"This is Count Olaf, and we can prove it!" Klaus said.

"The Baudelaires and the Quagmires are honest and decent people," Olivia defended us from the crowd. "We should listen to what they have to say."

"Count Olaf is wanted by the authorities for suspicion of fraud, theft, murder, and child endangerment. Even if nobody here cares about how much trauma he's caused us, child endangerment alone should be plenty to get this demon off this campus!"

"Count Olaf has one eyebrow instead of two," I added. "If 'Coach Genghis' were to take off his turban-"

I reached up to remove it, but he grabbed my wrist before I could.

"Isn't she marvelous, everybody? I'm afraid my two glorious eyebrows will remain hidden underneath this turban, which I wear for religious reasons."

"And what religion might that be?" Klaus asked snarkily.

Genghis let go of me, and I stepped backwards closer to Duncan as he tried to think. The coach pulled down his sleeve slightly and read something written there. "Reconst... Drudini... Ism...?" He tried to read, and smirked. "That religion. I bet you never heard of it."

"We're familiar enough with Reconstructionist Judaism to know how to pronounce it." Isadora said, rolling her eyes.

"So you know that it'd be against my religion to remove this turban, huh?"

"I would never ask you to remove your turban!" Nero exclaimed. "I'm against religious persecution!"

"Count Olaf can also be identified by the tattoo of an eye on his left ankle!" Klaus added.

Genghis gasped. "I would never do something so heathenestic! Tattoos are for delinquents and really stupid organizations that don't realize tattoos are an unnecessary way to mark your allies!!! Hypothetically..."

"So why don't you take off your shoes and prove you don't have a tattoo?"

"Absolutely not!"

"Is that for religious reasons too?"

"No! It's because... Taking your shoes and socks off is gross!"

"We can compare Genghis to the photograph of Olaf in the newspaper!" Isadora suggested.

"The articles are inaccurate, but there's a picture of Olaf's mugshot in it!"

"You two sound like boring librarians!" Nero exclaimed. "Plus, we don't need newspapers now that we have our advanced computer system!"

Some students lugged the machine onstage and attached a few things together and the machine whirred to life, showing its sick-looking, green screen.

"Oh... Uh, you mean... That computer..." Genghis said, laughing uncomfortably.

"Did you hear that?? He's nervous!"

"No..! That's my natural laugh!" He said, and tried to recreate it to the best of his ability, going towards the center of the stage. Duncan and Klaus pushed the machine towards him so it could scan his face.

There was a brief moment where the only sound that could be heard was the camera scanning his face and the computer working to match it to the description. I've had plenty of interactions with the machine. I had to stop and let it check me every morning. The same robotic voice would reply "This is not Count Olaf." I always thought that I would dread the day I heard it say otherwise.

"This is not Count Olaf."

Despite hearing that phrase every morning for eleven days, and dreading not hearing it...

I would have given anything to hear the computer say it finally found Count Olaf.