When we last left the Baudelaires, Evil Count Olaf was forcing them to make dinner, and they had decided on puttanesca sauce. They buy ingredients and address the Tomato: Fruit of Vegetable? controversy.
They leave Justice Strauss, intending to go back tomorrow and borrow some books, and return home to make their sauce. Since this is a series of UNfortunate events, it is safe to assume that they probably won't be returning to her house tomorrow because there will undoubtedly be some kind of problem with the spaghetti. I no longer remember the plot of these books so I'm just as anxious as you.
Things appear to be looking up for the kids as they reminisce about their dead parents and cook sauce for their abusive guardian, but such a happy scene can't last long in this series.
Olaf comes home and calls for them. "Orphans!!" he call, because that's how he address's them. It's unclear at this point whether he still calls them Orphan when addressing them individually, perhaps also including numbers so a to distinguish who's who. It can get confusing when everyone has the same name, as Kirk from Gilmore Girls can tell you. There was a fair bit of confusion after he named his cat after himself.
Anyway, Olaf comes home and starts complaining because he wanted them to cook roast beef. The kids complain right back because he didn't ask them to cook roast beef. Olaf yells at them because dammit, he took in these children and they should be grateful enough to read his mind. He picks up Sunny and for some reason holds her really high in the air, and then his theatre troop come in to begin making a ruckus. In the troop, there is:
- A bald man
- two women with lots of white makeup
- A man with two hooks instead of hands
- A fat person of indistinguishable gender
And then more behind that we don't meet because they aren't important. Everyone says that the kids are stupid and Olaf should discipline them.
Revulsion: an unpleasent mixture of horror and disgust
is what Violet feels towards Olaf. They serve the food and Violet wishes she could poison Olaf.
The troop gets drunk and starts leaving. Klaus complains to Olaf about only having one bed and Olaf smacks Klaus to the floor for being a brat.
the troop all laugh and leave, and the kids begin crying. On that lovely note, the chapter ends.
Chapter 5
Violet and Klaus chop wood and discuss the benefits of living on the streets. They could go to Doldrum street, I'm sure someone would take them in there. They could learn to be bikers or horse trainers and everything would be happy. But instead, they decide to go and see Mr. Poe.
They tell Poe all about their situation, but since these are not our times, what with all this domestic abuse awareness, Poe decides that they just need to adjust to living with Olaf, and that beating is just a little bit of discipline that Olaf is justified in making. Good ol' Poe.
Th kdis borrow some books from justice and that's really all that happens in this chapter.
Chapter 6
In the morning, Olaf is home and made raspberry oatmeal, so we know something is up because raspberries are gross. Something IS up, and it's that Olaf knows they went to see Poe.
They though their visit was in confidence: kept in secret between Poe and themselves and not blabbed to Count Olaf, but alas, they should know that everything they do will come back to haunt them.
Olaf says he wants to better welcome the children into his family, so he wants them to be in his next play, to make up for being standoffish: Which means "someone who is reluctant to associate with others", NOT "someone who provides one bead for three people to sleep in, makes them to horrible chores and strikes them across the face".
He wants them to join him in performing the marvelous marriage, with Violet as the main female lead, acting opposite Olaf himself in the main role, and Klaus and Sunny will be playing midgets attending the wedding in which Violet marries Olaf. Justice Strauss will be playing the judge who marries them in an act of neighbourly affection. Violet doesn't want to do it, but Olaf insists and she has no choice because she has to go along with his form of parenting.
The kids are sure Olaf is up to something, but they haven't read ahead so they don't know what, just that it probably has something to with getting their money. Instead, they settle for going to Justice Strauss' library to read about inheritance law, and I settle for not reading the next chapter because I can't be bothered.
And so, another chapter ends.
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