Family Comes First- ASOUE

Chapter 8: Researching

*Isadora's POV*

"Children!!" Justice Strauss threw her arms around us as she opened the door. "Hello, hello!! I'm so happy to see you! Have you come to continue your research?"

"As a matter of fact," Duncan said, "We were hoping to read up on some different topics."

"Ah I see! Well come in! I'm working in the garden right now, but I trust you'll find things well."

Justice Strauss led us to her library and we thanked her and told her we could look for the section we wanted on our own. "Well, alright!" She said. "Sunny, would you like to come help me in the garden while your siblings and the Quagmires read?" She asked, pulling Sunny out of Klaus' arms. Sunny nodded, and Justice Strauss looked at her with a smile. "Klaus, what happened to your face?" She asked once she noticed.

Klaus looked at Violet, Duncan, and me with a questioning look. We gave him looks that had a stern "No." written all over them. "It's actually so embarrassing." He lied with a small chuckle. "I misstepped on the stairs and hit my face on the railing. I'm fine though."

Justice Strauss frowned. "Well next time I hope you're more careful." She patted his shoulder comfortingly and left.

I turned my attention to the table where Duncan had already found a few books to research from. I didn't know much about law or books on the subject, other than they're very long and very dull. My eyes and head hurt from trying to understand them, even with the aid of the dictionary Violet grabbed about two minutes into attempting to read them. How do lawyers do this?? Sure, they get an incentive of heaps of money, whatever. Our incentive was to not get something horrible done to us and still, even with that, it was a difficult task.

"I don't think we're getting anywhere..." Duncan stated after hours of reading, with a lunch in the middle somewhere.

"I haven't found anything helpful," I admitted. "The only thing I even comprehended is that someone from Arizona in the nineteen-twenties let his donkey sleep in a bathtub and there was a flood which washed away the donkey into a basin and it cost a lot of money to rescue it. It's obviously of no help but I can barely comprehend half of it with how difficult these are!"

"I haven't found a thing." Duncan said as well. "What about you, Violet?"

"Ziltch," she answered, glancing down at her notes. "Fifty years ago there was a woman who left an enormous sum of money to her pet weasel, and none of her three sons. The three sons tried to prove that their mother was insane so the money would go to them."

"What happened?"

"I think the weasel died...?" She said unsurely. "I haven't looked up some of the words yet."

"I don't think that'll help us." Klaus sighed, shaking his head. "Even if Count Olaf was trying to prove we're insane to get our fortune, I don't know how putting us in The Marvelous Marraige would prove that. Around the time of your weasel lady, a group of actors put on a production of Shakespeare's Macbeth, but none of them wore any clothing."

Violet clamped her hand onto her mouth. "So they were naked on stage?!" She exclaimed.

"Not for long. The cops came and shut it down." He explained. "But there's, ahem, no way we're doing that." He adjusted his glasses as his cheeks turned a bright shade of pink.

Violet stood up from her chair. "I give up. These books clearly aren't helping and my eyes hurt from reading them."

Duncan stood up too. "I have to side with Violet on this one. There's no way he can get the fortune just by putting us in a play. My back is starting to hurt from being so hunched over too. We're gonna go assist Justice Strauss and Sunny in the garden."