Secrets

Chapter 9

There is a phrase that I found odd when searching through the various newspaper articles, blueprints, menus, carved tablets, Morse codes, paintings, and singed manuscripts of the Baudelaire case and that is the phrase: "A picture is worth a thousand words." It is known as an idiom; a definition that an English professor at your local scholarly college or a very studious person who spends much of their time researching such subjects while hiding from the law could give to you easily and without confusion. It is a phrase that can be seen to have a figurative or a literal meaning to it, and one you might often hear when researching arson-related cases or a person states such things to sound intelligent. However, the most puzzling thing about this idiom phrase is that a picture or a photograph can say a thousand words when quite often any picture that I see brings only one word to my mind; sorrow. The photographs that I treasure can be explained in a few words, or significantly less than a thousand as this idiom claims. Of the few photographs I still treasure, one is a photo of my grandfather, a great and noble man who is a reminder of the once great work he did to help other people. The words this picture says to me include "intimidation," "nobility," and "greatness," qualities to which I do not bear from my ancestor. Another photograph I carry on my person always is one of myself and my siblings the day before we were taken from our home. When I view this image in all its unfortunate glory, the words "innocence" and "mystery" pop into my mind as it was a happy moment captured on film before our lives changed forever. And finally, a single blurry photo of a woman whom I loved so very dearly and only one word will ever escape my lips about this image; despair. I am sure that there are other words that could describe this single image of a beautiful woman, but it is a single word that haunts my every waking moment of existence.

Conversely, I cannot find this idiom phrase particularly truthful due to my own experiences, however, in the case of the Baudelaires, Quagmires, and Holly S., they seemed to have the complete opposite of this fanciful phrase; no picture but worth only a few words. The Baudelaires were particularly haunted by the phrase due to the name of the most dreadful villain whose shiny eyes and the tattoo on his ankle had haunted every single one of their nightmares since they had first met him. And now here his name was, inscribed in flowery handwriting, courtesy of Holly's mother, meant to be pictured with someone named L in a drama club in a family photo album. The last thing any of the orphaned siblings would have expected someone to intentionally have a photograph of the terrible villain in a book that was meant for fond and happy family memories; none of those words were thought of when viewing an image of the grotesque and disgusting man. A picture of the villain could project a thousand words to a viewer like myself, and the Baudelaires would have expected the only time a person would keep a photograph of Count Olaf was to put it on a Wanted poster and hang it up around the city.

Additionally, the caption next to the empty space was worth a thousand questions to which all the children wanted to be answered in a flurry of words.

"Who is L?" Violet asked.

"Why would Count Olaf be in your family photo album?" Klaus questioned.

"Splantee!" Sunny uttered in an inquisitive tone, which probably meant, "Why is this photograph missing?"

"Baudelaires!" Duncan said firmly. "Please calm down, we all have questions, but Holly can only answer so many so quickly."

The newest member of the group looked up at the Quagmire who had spoken and smiled widely at him in appreciation as she felt as lost as the rest of the orphans did. She did not look at these photo albums very often, and when she did it was done with her father to remember her mother on her birthday or her parent's anniversary. She could not answer the Baudelaire's questions even if she wanted to as she had never seen the photograph in question that could speak a thousand words to them.