Family Comes First- ASOUE

Chapter 33: Fights and Forgeries

*Klaus' POV*

"'Baudelaires and Quagmires - By the time you read this note, my life will be at it's end. My heart is as cold as ike and I find life inbearable. I know your children may not understand the sad life of a dowadger, or what would have leaded me to this desperate akt, but please know that I am much happier this way. As my last will and testament, I leave you three in the care of Captain Sham, a kind and honorable men. Please think of me kindly even though I'd done this terrible thing. -Your Aunt Josephine.'"

"Klaus...?" Isadora said softly, putting her hand on my shoulder. "Could you please not read that again? It's very upsetting..."

"I'm sorry, Izzie," I apologized. "It's just there's something... Funny, about this note..."

"Aunt Josephine just killed herself, and you think it's funny?!" Violet spat from across the table.

"I- No! Of course not!!" I answered quickly. "No, there's nothing humorous about this."

"You said her suicide letter is funny."

"Not funny like a clown onstage; funny like a clown hanging around the entrance to a bank! It's suspicious."

"Then just say 'suspicious'..." She muttered. I internally forgave her for getting upset with me. We were sitting around the kitchen table and I wouldn't stop looking over the note. It had to be nearly two in the morning, and after the extremely recent tragedy, I understood that my sister would be cranky, easily upset, and jumping to conclusions. We had already called Mr. Poe about the note and what happened, and he promised that he'd come first thing in the morning if we let him go back to sleep. I tried to explain why I found it the suspicious type of funny.

"In the very first sentence she says 'my life will be at it's end.'" I pointed out.

"And now it is," Isadora said, shuddering.

"That's not what I mean," I said. "She uses it's, I-T apostrophe-S, which always means 'it is.' But you wouldn't say 'my life will be at it is end.' She means I-T-S, 'belonging to it.' Remember when she saw Captain Sham's card? 'Every boat has it's own sail.' She said it was a serious grammatical error."

"Who cares about grammatical errors," Duncan asked, "when Aunt Josephine has jumped out the window?"

"But Aunt Josephine would have cared," I replied. "That's what she cared about most: grammar. Remember, she said it was the greatest joy in life."

"Well, it wasn't enough," Violet said sadly. "No matter how much she liked grammar, it says she found her life unbearable."

"But that's another error in the note," Klaus said. "It doesn't say unbearable, with a U. It says inbearable, with an I."

"You're being unbearable, with a U!!!" Violet cried.

"And you are being stupid, with an S!!!" I snapped.

"Aget!!" Sunny shrieked.

"Sunny's right, you two," Duncan said. "Fighting isn't helping."

"We're all miserable, so we shouldn't try to make eachother more miserable," Isadora pointed out. "Won't you two sit down? We can talk about this without getting angry with eachother."

Violet and I meekly sat back down. "I'm sorry, Klaus..." She said. "You're not unbearable; our situation is unbearable..."

"And you're not stupid... You're very clever, in fact."

"We're all clever," Violet replied. "Which is helpful because we are certainly in need of some cleverness to get us out of this situation."

"Yes," Duncan agreed. "Josephine is... gone, and she's left us in the care of Captain Sham... What do we do?"

"I wish we didn't read Mr. Poe the note over the phone," Isadora said sadly. "We could have torn it up and forged a new one in her handwriting."

I thought for a moment and smiled. "Isadora you're brilliant!" I beamed.

Isadora looked at me curiously. "How?" She asked. "I'm saying we can't do that: Mr. Poe knows what it says already."

"Yes, I know, but what if this note here is a forgery? Captain Sham could have written it and tossed Josephine out of the window."

"That would explain whatever grammatical errors are in it!" Violet added.

"Exactly!"

I yawned, suddenly tired from all the excitement. "It's late... Or early. I don't know. We should go get some sleep and we can tell Mr. Poe our theory tomorrow."

"I think that's a good idea..."

We went back upstairs after sticking the note to the fridge with a magnet in the shape of a bunch of grapes. It took some difficulty to get comfortable again, but soon I was asleep surprisingly. I had only hoped our forgery theory was accurate because if it wasn't, we wouldn't know what to do...