the forgotten story of lily angof ➳ klaus baudelaire ( asoue )

two ➳ spyglasses and strawberry shampoo

I DIDN'T REALIZE I HAD FALLEN asleep until Klaus woke me up. I didn't mean to, but his shoulder was very comfortable.

"Sorry," I whispered, blushing.

"It's okay," Klaus answered.

I looked up to see it: The Baudelaire Mansion, or what was left of it.

We got out of the car and I heard Klaus gasp. The place where I had spent most of my childhood, was in ashes. I realized that it must have been worse for the Baudelaires, whose home this was.

I caught up to Klaus, and reached for his hand, trying to comfort him. He looked around, eyes filled with tears and mouth in a frown, in a place that once held lively people.

Memories of the Baudelaire children and I in this house flashed through my mind. Then I remembered my parents, and I started crying. Klaus squeezed my hand.

Then he spotted something on the ground. He picked it up. It was gold with weird markings on it.

"What is-," I started, but was cut off by Mr. Poe telling us to get back in the car. Klaus stuffed the thing in his coat pocket, as we drove on. We were lead into Mr. Poe's home, where we met his wife and two sons.

•••

At dinner that night, the four of us sat and listened as the Poe family argued over the stupidest of things.

"A tomato is the most wonderful vegetable in the world," exclaimed Mrs. Poe, staring proudly at plate full of them.

"No it's not," responded Edgar. "A tomato is meat. Not a vegetable."

"Edgar are you insane? A tomato isn't meat! Plus, it isn't even good. It's disgusting!" Allen made a disgusted sound after adding his thoughts to the discussion.

"Calm down boys," Mr. Poe stated, uninterested.

"Thank you," replied his wife, "Because clearly, a tomato is a delicious vegetable."

Almost instantaneously, they broke out into yelling over what kind of food it was and whether it was good or not.

The two eldest Baudelaires and I traded confused stares, while Sunny covered her ears.

"Actually," piped up Klaus, "a tomato is a fruit, and if you ask me, tomatoes are quite delicious."

Almost comically, all of the Poes turned their heads to Klaus at the exact same time with the exact same disgusted look.

"I'm sorry, but did we ask you? " Mrs. Poe leaned more into the table, growing more menacing by the second.

Klaus seemed to shrink beside me. "No ma'am. You did not."

After that display, none of us spoke during the meal except when Mrs. Poe began to speak of our parents.

"Oh, look at this!" She said, "My article made the front page! 'Baudelaire Mansion Burned Down: Angof and Baudelaire Children Left Orphans'. Isn't it wonderful!"

"Yes, Dear. It is."

Then she looked to us, "Don't you think it's wonderful as well?"

A tear slipped down my cheek as I was once again reminded of the terrible events.

A quick glance to the side proved to me that the words had hurt my friends in a similar way.

Violet gathered up her strength before saying, "May we go up to our rooms?"

"Rooms?"

•••

Upstairs, our sights fell upon two cots sitting on the floor of Edgar and Allen's room.

"Not to be rude, but there are two beds and four of us," I said.

This earned me a disapproving look from Mr. and Mrs. Poe.

"Don't be so ungrateful," she began, " You're lucky we're giving you anything."

They walked away, leaving us to our room.

"So, who's going to sleep with who?" I asked.

Violet answered quickly, "Well, it makes the most sense for me to sleep with you and Sunny with Klaus, so-"

"Dreyb Lawrt," interrupted Sunny.

My face paled as I realized what she said: "I want to sleep with Violet."

That would leave me with Klaus.

"Are you sure, Sunny?" Violet had clearly caught on to what I was thinking.

"Yowergh"

Yes.

"Well, okay."

The four of us clambered into our two beds and began to settle in before we heard a voice from across the room.

"How'd you do it?" It was so dark in the room that it took me a moment to realize there were others sharing the room with us, and the voice came from one of the Poe siblings.

"How'd we do what?" Whispered Violet, sitting up.

"Burn down the house?"

Trying our best to ignore them, we turned on our sides and tried our best to sleep.

Of course, I was painfully aware of how close Klaus was to me, which made it nearly impossible to fall asleep. But, I was relieved when my tiredness overcame me, and I fell into a deep sleep.

•••

The sound of gasping woke me up from a state of dreamless sleep.

I sat up quickly to see Klaus beside me, crying.

"Klaus? Klaus? Are you ok? What happened?" I began to panic. What could have put him in this state?

"I had- I had a nightmare." He was barely able to get the words out. "It was like we were there. Oh, Lily- it was terrible! I watched the house burn down. I watched them die."

My eyes went wide from the sheer horror of it.

"Shhh. Shhh. It's ok. I'm here. It wasn't real."

I pulled him into a hug, and he cried more into my shoulder. It was a while before his sobs died down and he was ready to go back to sleep.

Months later, he would tell me that it was the smell of  strawberry shampoo in my hair that calmed him down.