Prufrock Prepatory School ✓

day 4 at vfd village

(I know it's technically not Klaus's birthday yet, but we're going to pretend it is)

The next day, Pheonix awoke with a start. He made a deal with Count Olaf yesterday. His friends would get hurt, but his family would be safe. Was it just a dream? Unfortunately, it was not. Violet and the others were talking about the escape plan, so Pheonix's encounter was not a figment of his imagination.

Violet, Sunny, Duncan, Wyatt, Pheonix, and Jenny waited outside of the jail that morning, waiting for the others to escape. It was the afternoon, so town was a little busy. But not busy enough for them to notice three kids escape jail. Hopefully.

Pheonix heart rate sped up. He knew what was going to happen after his friends escaped. He wanted to shout "No! Don't escape! I made a deal with Count Olaf! Something terrible is going to happen!", but he didn't. For his family's safety, he stayed quiet.

Jenny noticed Pheonix acting strange. "What's going on?" she asked him. "You seem..." she paused searching her brain for the right words. "...on edge."

"I'm not." Pheonix told her. "Our friends are about to escape from jail. I'm not on edge at all."

Jenny laughed. Pheonix hadn't even been trying to be funny, but he was. He noticed her playing with a Polaroid camera.

"Hector gave it to me." Jenny told her friend, noticing him staring at the camera. "I figured we could take pictures as we went along the journey."

"I can see the captions now; Klaus, Francine, and Isadora escapes from jail. Good times!"

Now Pheonix was more relaxed. That relaxation went away as a giant cloud of smoke erupted from the jail. Once it cleared, the group saw Francine, Isadora, and Klaus emerge from it. They were successful. They had escaped! They were not the only ones who would be successful.

After a quick group hug, Jenny took out the camera.

"Let's take a quick picture!"

The young kids gathered around and Jenny took the picture. They all waited for the picture to develop. Once developed, they smiled at the picture. However, they couldn't waste any more time, so the gang raced back to the road that led to Hector's house. As soon as they stepped foot on the road, they were stopped by a tall man with one eyebrow and a tattoo of an eye on his ankle.

"Olaf." Violet said, her voice in a whisper.

"How did you find us?" Duncan asked, stepping in front of Violet a bit.

"Your friend didn't tell you?" Olaf asked the brown haired boy.

The kids registered what Olaf meant: one of them had betrayed the group. The kids began to look at each other, trying to figure out who it was. Pheonix stepped towards Olaf. The kids gasped.

"Sorry, guys." Pheonix apologized, blinking back tears. "He said he'd hurt my family."

The others didn't even say a word. They were too angry at him.

"That's not an excuse!" Wyatt yelled at Pheonix.

"He's going to take our fortunes now!" Klaus added. "And maybe some things even worse."

"Like murder." Violet said gravely.

"And arson." Sunny frowned.

"But..." Pheonix stopped mid-sentence. He knew his friends didn't want to hear an excuse. If they were even still his friends.

An angry surge rose up in Pheonix. He turned to Olaf. Why did he make a deal with this loser to begin with? He was money-hungry, and did many bad things to the Baudelaires. Sure, he threatened to hurt Pheonix's family, but was he really going to keep his word? For all Pheonix knew, his family was already six feet under the ground. It was because of Olaf his friends were mad at him. This was all his fault.

"No. I changed my mind." Pheonix said, standing straighter and puffing out his chest.

"What?" Olaf looked to him, confused.

"I said I changed my mind." Pheonix said firmly. not an ounce of fear was heard in his tone.

"Do you now?" Olaf asked mockingly.

"Yes. I don't know why I made the deal with you in the first place. The Baudelaires didn't do anything, and it's pretty creepy how you keep following them. Leave them alone, and leave us alone. Get a life, old man."

Pheonix turned back to his friends. Wyatt was clearly still angry at him. But he managed a smile. The others smiled at Pheonix, proud of him for standing up to Olaf. Those smiling faces were the last things he saw before he fell to the ground.

The kids looked from Pheonix's unconcious body on the ground to the bald man standing near him, a frying pan in his hands. He knocked Pheonix out.

"No!" Jenny cried, worrying about her best friend.

"Finish the job." Olaf told the bald man.

"Finish the job?" Isadora wondered alound.

Wyatt gasped. He realized what Olaf meant. "He's going to kill Pheonix."

Jenny fell apart. She screamed very loudly, causing the townsfolk of VFD village to walk over to see what was going on. Francine held her close, hoping she would be calm. Jenny twisted.

"Help him!" Jenny pleaded to the others.

"What can we do?" Wyatt asked her, glancing to the approaching towns folk. "We're just kids. Nobody will help us."

Violet turned to Wyatt. "If my siblings and I thought that way, we would still be in Count Olaf's care." She turned back to Olaf. "We have to help."

Just as they were about to make a plan, the townspeople rushed past them. They stood still for a while, because they thought they were going to arrest them. When they were about to ask someone where they were going, they saw a blaze in the distance. A fire.

Hector's house was on fire.

"You monster!" Jenny screamed at Olaf.

Olaf just smirked. The bald man picked up Pheonix and ran. Olaf ran after him, seeing the Council of Elders approaching. The kids saw them approaching as well. Not wanting to be thrown in jail, they ran in the opposite direction. Even Jenny put her breakdown on hold to run away with the others.

"Where are we going to go now?" Francine asked everyone as they crouched behind the fence. "If the Council of Elders catch us, we'll all go to jail and we'll be burned at the stake."

"We can't go back to Hector's. He's..." Duncan couldn't even finish the sentence. "We won't be able to use the hot air mobile home to escape."

"Well then what can we do?" Isadora asked her brother.

Sunny tugged on Klaus's shirt and pointed behind her. The kids turned to see a fire truck. They smiled at each other and climbed aboard. Wyatt made sure he grabbed extra tanks of gas. The Baudelaires and Quagmires sat in the front while Francine and Wyatt consoled a crying Jenny in the back.

Even though Pheonix did one bad thing, Jenny was convinced he was still a good person. She cried even more knowing the word "still" shouldn't be used in the sentence. The kids drove away from VFD. Sunny drove first. When night came, she fell asleep and Violet took the wheel. The kids continued to drive until they made a pit stop in the morning at Last Chance General Store for more gas.