Family Comes First- ASOUE

Chapter 18: Working Together

*No POV*

The Quagmires and the Baudelaires had a regular routine by a week into living at their Uncle Monty's: Get up, get ready for the day, have breakfast, then off to the Reptile Room! Violet was testing the last traps she had for the expedition, Sunny was keeping her piles of sliced rope nice and tidy, Duncan was snooping through files of sorts, and Klaus was reading a copy of The Big Peruvian Book of Small Peruvian Snakes, although he couldn't seem to focus much...

The cause of his inattention was none other than his friend Isadora Quagmire. She had finished her tasks for preparing for Peru the day before and was once again playing with the prancing gecko. She was letting the small creature crawl up and down her arms and couldn't help but giggle from the tickling of its little feet scampering about, whispering little lines of poetry to Demetrius every now and then. It wasn't just her angelic laughter causing him to lose focus, but also his notice of how incredible she looked in the color pink, which was the color of her skirt and the strawberries embroidered onto the collar of her polo shirt. He had rarely thought a book could be uninteresting, but with Isadora Quagmire so adorably giggly so close by, the book could have held the answers to the mysteries of the world and he'd still be distracted.

He glanced over at his sisters and Duncan, and they seemed pretty preoccupied, so surely they wouldn't notice if he bookmarked his page and sat to talk with her, right? His heart rate seemed to speed up thinking about talking to her. She was so smart and sweet and sarcastic and so pretty. And she gave great hugs. He chuckled slightly, adding it to his mental list of the things he liked about her. He nervously marked his page and smoothed out his blue sweater-vest before he sat next to her on the floor.

"I don't remember where I heard this," He said to her, "But some people say that there's no better judge of character than an animal..."

Isadora grinned at her friend. "Oh really? And what is he saying about my character?"

Klaus shyly avoided eye contact. "That you're a very caring and sweet person... And you deserve every moment of happiness life brings you..."

Isadora quickly looked down bashfully, trying to hide the blush warming her cheeks. "Thanks..." She said quietly, barely loud enough for him to hear her. After a few moments, Klaus cleared his throat.

"Are you ticklish or something?" He asked, changing the subject. "The Prancing Gecko is making you laugh a lot."

"He has a name, Klaus!" She replied. "And... Only a little ticklish..."

"Hey, guys," Duncan said from a table across the room, "I hate to be a cliche, but you gotta come take a look at this..." Violet picked up Sunny and Klaus and Isadora stood up, carefully in her case considering she had a small animal on her arm. The children crowded around the table Duncan was standing at as he showed them what he found. "This is the original blueprint for Uncle Monty's landscaping, and those hedges outside make up a labyrinth. If you have an aerial view of the labyrinth..."

"That looks like the tattoo on Count Olaf's ankle..." Violet pointed out.

"Monty can't be in cahoots with Count Olaf!" Isadora said. "He seems too nice."

"Things aren't always as they seem..." Duncan said sadly. "Something strange is going on here."

Klaus furrowed his brow in thought. "Our mother and father told us all sorts of stories that happened before we were born, so why does the name Montgomery Montgomery not ring a bell?" He asked.

"Bambini?" We heard from inside the house. "Children?" Monty appeared in the doorway of the reptile room. "Ah there you are! How are your mornings going?"