Secrets

Chapter 15

"Holly...?" Duncan said.

The group of friends sit in the cafeteria during breakfast the next morning, staring down at the food on their trays and hardly speaking to one another. While none of them were particularly interested in the soggy pieces of toast presented on their plates, this was not the reason that any of them really had an appetite. For the Baudelaire siblings, they could hardly eat because of how tired and sore they were. Count Olaf disguised as Coach Genghis had forced the siblings to paint a luminous circle on the sports field and then run in circles all night for some strange and unknown reason. It was a strange and puzzling thing if the villain was after their fortune and always actively trying to kill them. To merely watch them run in circles repeatedly seemed very out of character for him, but all the children were sure that it was for some sinister reason. As for the Quagmire siblings, their loss of appetite was due to frustration as they examined their commonplace notebooks over and over, looking for answers for their friends. While they had been forced to spend the evening listening to Vice-Principal Nero's six-hour recital, they spent this time comparing notes on Count Olaf and his henchpeople, trying to decipher, a phrase which here means to make sense, of what the villainous man could be planning and how he knew their parents too.

Holly was neither tired nor frustrated over these things' particular things, even though she was feeling both emotions, along with being too sad and bewildered to think about eating anything, especially toast. She was tired because she had stayed up all night thinking about the encounter she'd had the evening before; her mind was filled with so many questions that there was no possible way she could ever fall asleep. She was feeling frustrated because so many things had prevented her from seeing her father, including the dreadful Carmelita Spats, who would likely not forgive Holly for making her feel as though she was not the vice-principal's favourite student anymore. The feelings of frustration were also linked to her bewilderment because she had many questions in her mind that had not been answered and likely would not be answered for quite some time. And finally, she was sad because she had spent most of the night crying in despair that her father had been at the school, but not to take her home. She did not get to see him or wrap her arms around him or tell him that she loved him. She cried out several times for her father in the darkness of her room during the night, wanting answers and to see the parent she loved so much again. By the time Holly S. came down to breakfast in the morning, she felt like a whirlwind of feelings that could not be stopped or calmed.

"I'm sorry Duncan, my mind was somewhere else, what did you say?"

"What I said is I don't understand why Coach Genghis would just make you run laps all night and then let you go to sleep for a few hours."

"It's the strangest thing," Isadora agreed, looking over her notes carefully once again. "Why would he do this if he's after your fortune?"

"That is the question of the morning," Violet muttered, trying to keep her eyes open, while also doing her best not to wince in pain for how sore her muscles felt.

"It could be that he doesn't have an actual plan..." Holly suggested, trying to put her own problems aside to help her friends.

However, this was much more difficult than she anticipated. It felt as though her world and the world of her friends had lost its equilibrium. Equilibrium is a rather long and complicated word that actually means something rather simple and easy to understand. The word equilibrium means that something is in a state of balance, that everything in this state makes sense. It can also mean a calming state of mind or that two opposing forces are equal and, therefore, safe and stable. A good example of this could be the Baudelaires, the Quagmires, and Holly S's situation at Prufrock Preparatory School before Count Olaf had reappeared. The two opposing forces could be seen as the goodness and happiness they felt having become friends with one another and enjoying the company they all provided, against the miserable and dreary experience of strict rules, terrible violin recitals, unpleasant and violent little girls, and of course not knowing the answers to their questions. The two forces were equal to one another, so this experience could be seen as a state of equilibrium. However, now with the reappearance of the terrible villain, the sense of stability and safety had been lost. Everything now was at a disequilibrium, which will often leave a person tired, frustrated, sad, and confused, like all of them were feeling at this very moment.