Duncan Quagmire and Violet Baudelaire: A Reunion

Chapter 8 - Violet Baudelaire

Violet rapidly bolted the door behind them. The moment Mrs. Hadley let the seven children go back to their rooms, Violet took Klaus's arm, held Sunny in her other arm and dragged them both upstairs, three floors, down two corridors until they were back in their room. She took a chair from the desk and put it under the door knob so it couldn't be opened. She put Sunny down on the bed and looked under the door to check if there are any feet shadows on the other side.
"Harold is Count Olaf!" Violet whispered. Klaus's eyes widened.
"What!?"
"I think Olaf has already caught up with us already!"
"But how did he know where we are?"
"It must be from the Daily Punctulio, they wrote where we were headed and Count Olaf must have got here a day early and charmed Mrs. Hadley, she does seem like a woman who would have many boyfriends!" Violet concluded while her brother stared at her in disbelief.
"What should we do then? Tell Mrs. Hadley?" Klaus asked, worry was emerging in his eyes.
"Yes, that would be the best option although I doubt she's going to believe us. I think we need to talk to someone outside of this house, like Mr. Poe! He knows that Count Olaf has been trying to take our inheritance for a long time now, he will definitely believe us!"
"But it's worth a shot telling Mrs. Hadley, she knows about our troubles, but we can't tell her with Count Olaf knowing."
"Why not?" Violet asked her brother.
"Because, I'm pretty sure that he knows that we haven't recognised him yet and if we tell Mrs. Hadley in private and he knows, then he would be suspicious. We need to be careful for the next few days or until we call authorities." Violet nodded and added, "We are going to keep the door locked at night though, it's too risky, he can just slip into our room and take us so we need to be careful."
"Also we need to make an escape route or plan, it's too risky being caught again from him so we need to make sure that we can get out of here if we have to."
Their plans for their escape route was talked over for another hour and a half the most. They drew an overall sketch of the house on a spare piece of paper they found in their desk. Sunny helpfully found a map of the blueprint of the house which they used in aid. About a couple of plans were made if they were stuck in different situations. For example, if they were stuck in the room and the door was going to be forced open any second from the other side, they would open the window and climb through it.
Although their room was on the third floor, there was a ledge next to the window that led to the roof of the second floor. From that, they had to cascade down the roof and climb onto a branch of a tall oak that stood next to it. Next, if they just climbed down the tree, run across the garden to a wall of ivy, they would climb the ivy to get over the garden boundaries and be in another's garden, from there they would be away from the Hadley's mansion with Count Olaf having no clue where they have gone.
Finally, a knock on the door sounded in the room. Violet looked at Klaus and he looked underneath the door. "Not him" he whispered and Violet let out a sigh of relief. She stood up, straightened her skirt, carried the chair from underneath the door knob and opened the door. The twins, Sarah and Hannah were standing there and they did not look happy.
"Anything I can help with?" Violet asked kindly to the two disgruntled sisters and Violet momentarily forgot that they were her sisters as well.
"Mother asked us to tell you guys that it's dinner," Sarah said.
"Oh great!" Klaus exclaimed and he pickef up Sunny from the bed and put her down on the floor. She started toddler-walking, holding her brother's hand.
With the guidance of the twins, they got to the dining room which was actually on the second floor. "Good! You are all here!" Mrs. Hadley called out when she saw her five other children walking into the magnificent dining room. The table was a long one, polished, dark wooden with the chandelier that Violet recalled they earlier were in for the house tour.
Seven empty chairs were spaced out in the dining table. All of the Baudelaire's sat next to eachother, the twins were seated next to eachother but there were two extra chairs next to Mrs. Hadley. Violet guessed that one of them was for Harold, or Count Olaf but she couldn't quite guess who the other chair was reserved for.
Thankfully her question was answered when two figures walked into the room. One was Harold who wore the same outfit as earlier before minus the sunglasses and trousers in exchange for cargo shorts. Next to him though was a tall woman, blonde, actually quite similar features to Mrs. Hadley. The woman wore business clothes, a navy blazer, navy pants and a white shirt. She tied her hair in a bun and wore office glasses but Violet could see through the costumes.
Their plan and their life was about to get a lot more complicated with Esmé around.