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The Baudelaires knew many things in life, as so many of us do. However, the expression “to know one thing in life” is often used to exaggerate the importance of that one thing. It is to suggest that this one thing is either an absolute truth or to stress that life is full of uncertainty save this one thing, or perhaps it is an expression meant to highlight the ignorance of three orphaned youngsters.
These three particular orphaned youngsters knew a great deal of things. The eldest, Violet, was very skilled with tools, and could invent a wide variety of things from a small pool of materials. Klaus, the middle child and only boy, often joked that he could recite the entirety of the contents of the Miriam-Webster dictionary by heart. He most likely could if he tried. And even though Sunny was still an infant, and usually spoke in a series of unintelligible shrieks typical to those her age, she still knew a great deal of things as well.
However, if the Baudelaires knew one thing in life, it was that life was oftentimes unfortunate and usually cruel. Many bad things had happened to them over the course of their short lives, involving fires, snakes, a miserable mill, and, more distantly in the past than the snakes but more recently than the fire, a high-stakes crash course in nuptial law. They did not make a habit of bemoaning their fate - a phrase which here means “laying awake at night all huddled together and wondering why, out of all people, these unfortunate things had to happen to them” - but tonight they made an exception, as most people tend to do with a bad habit or guilty pleasure.
“Violet?” Klaus asked, staring straight up at the substantially fungus-covered, but less so than before, ceiling of the Orphan Shack.
“Yes, Klaus?” Violet answered, laying next to him on her side, staring down at the crabs scuttling across the floor of the Orphan Shack.
“Igda,” Sunny interjected, which most likely meant “I would like to be included in whatever discussion we’re about to partake in.” She was closest to the wall and bundled up under the covers facing it, which meant she could see neither the ceiling nor the floor of the Orphan Shack, but she was just as dissatisfied with the moldy state of the blankets of their bed.
Klaus sighed and reached for his older sister’s hand. She rolled over and held it tightly, stroking across his thumb with hers. “Why is it always us?” he whispered. “Why can’t something good happen to us?”
Violet wet her lips before saying back, “Good things have happened to us. It was a good thing we managed to escape Count Olaf’s clutches and I wasn’t forced to marry him. It was a good thing we were placed under Uncle Monty’s care, even if it didn’t last very long, and it was a good thing we escaped Count Olaf again. We escaped him every time, didn’t we? And the three of us are still together. That’s a good thing.”
“The only good things in our lives are that we escaped from every bad thing. That’s not good enough.” Klaus pressed his lips together as a tremor shook through him and swallowed hard. His eyes were starting to hurt, which was a sure sign he was close to tears. “I want something good to happen without anything bad.”
Violet sighed and squeezed his hand. She very much liked to think she was emotionally resilient enough to not do what she wanted to in this moment, which was to cry like a small child and hold her brother as tightly as she could, but with every second that passed by and every faint snap of a crab’s claws, she was less sure.
She didn’t have to make that decision, though; a moment after one crab’s claws snapped, and just as the short silence in between began to ring through the room, she felt arms wrap around her and Klaus’ head buried in her shoulder. He hugged her firmly, and she returned the contact with similar force. There was a small pressure on her side as Sunny climbed over from her spot to join in the hug; they pulled apart to allow her room to slip between them.
“Klaus?” Violet ventured, looking at him. He looked very small, and Violet was reminded of the time when they were both actually very small and he was plagued with constant nightmares. Sometimes, when reading could not comfort him, he would climb into her bed with her and she would make silly faces at him, or invent a monster-repelling device for him to use, or simply say nothing at all and comfort him with the warmth of her body near his.
“Hmm?” he responded, looking back at her. He thought she looked very small as well, but in a different way than he supposed he did. She didn’t look like a child, he thought. She looked old, actually, matured beyond her years because of the terrible things that had happened to them. She looked tired, and her frame seemed smaller, her face gaunt and pinched. The bags under her eyes were probably just as big as the eyes themselves. Her clothes hung off her in a way Klaus had never seen them before.
“You read a collection of Anne Bradstreet’s works once. What did she say about people facing hardship?”
Klaus thought for a second before replying quietly, “If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant.” He thought for another second and scrunched up his face. “But it’s all winter. There’s no spring if all we’re handed is trouble… we’ve had enough winter. It’s time for spring.”
Violet patted his hand with hers. “It always gets really cold in the winter before it starts getting warmer, right? Things will be alright soon,” she reassured him. “We just have to keep going. That’s all we can do, really.”
Sunny made a small noise of agreement, breaking her solemn silence. She had rarely seen either of her siblings this upset. But now she, like Klaus, noticed Violet’s apparent poor health, and, like Violet, noticed Klaus’ childlike distress. She wished there was something she could do to help, but she was generally very bad at intelligent conversation, which seemed to be something they needed. The thing she knew she was best at was cooking, and she didn’t have access to a kitchen, and had not for quite some time. Perhaps when she could get to an oven and mix the batter by herself, she could make them both coconut cream cake.
The Baudelaires stayed quiet for a long time after that, holding each other as they listened to the faint snapping of crabs’ claws. They each had one thought in their minds: Please let things get better soon. Please let us stay safe, please let Count Olaf not find us, please let us be happy.
As you and I both know, these wishes were not to come true. But, as the night dragged on and the Baudelaire orphans huddled together under their moldy, ragged blanket, they figured that perhaps they could find their own small semblance of happiness together, wherever they were, and however cold the winter raged around them.