Open: Well young lady, have you been good to your mother?

[biteybaby]

Sunny Baudelaire has been having quite an exciting time lately. For once, "exciting" means "filled with fun" and not "filled with terror, pain, panic, and an inordinate amount of running and hiding". Without the threat of Count Olaf and his associates finding her in an attempt to steal the Baudelaire fortune, Sunny has had more time for her studies. "Her studies" is a phrase which here means, "catching up on learning how to do things most people take for granted".

She has finally learned how to walk. She thinks the amount of words she is now able to say has increased. Magnu has even taught her a few things in sign language, which she finds is a little easier than speaking. The biggest news is that she now has five very sharp teeth, as opposed to the four she started with when she arrived.

Shortly before she arrived, Mr Poe had told the Baudelaires about an aphorism: It takes a village to raise a child. She wonders if that is why she has had so much time to grow. Her days are spent rotating around between several different guardians, babysitters, and friends, and it has been lovely. She hopes her siblings are having just as good of a time in the village of V.F.D.

Unfortunately I must report that her siblings are not having just as good of a time in the village of V.F.D., nor are they even still in the village of V.F.D. Sunny does not know this. It would probably be for the best if nobody tells her.

Comments

[onthewillowsthere]

"Do the orchids gossip?" This is vital Claudius intelligence.

[biteybaby]

"Uh huh," she says to answer Galahad's question, and then, "Some," she says to answer Magnu's question.

[summerdude]

"Can you tell us the gossip?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods seriously.

[biteybaby]

“Nigale daihare,” she says, which here means, “A bird dyed his hair, but I don’t know what bird. I also didn’t think birds had hair.” It is entirely possible this has gone through several levels of the telephone game before this moment.

[summerdude]

"A bird dyed his own hair?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Crowley dyed Claudius' hair."

[biteybaby]

Sunny shrugs. "Dunno," she says. She is, after all, just going on what the flowers said.

[summerdude]

Magnus's head swivels to look at Galahad. "He did?" (He's definitely picturing a box dye moment.)

[onthewillowsthere]

"Indigo. During Dark."

[biteybaby]

Sunny wonders if everyone is dying their hair these days. She was mostly asleep, but when she and Auntie Sissy met that Thursday person, she's pretty sure Sissy said something about Thursday's hair being dyed too. Sunny reaches up and touches her hair and says, "Die?" which means, "If I were going to dye my hair, what color should I pick?"

[summerdude]

"Red, like Crowley?" Magnus suggests, after translating the question for Galahad.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad considers the question seriously, and then is struck by the image of Sunny like the mandrakes he's seen in some of Claudius' alchemical books, a little body beneath a great leafy protrusion. He looks at her tiny sprout of hair, right on the top of her head.

"Green," he says decisively.

[biteybaby]

"Flower!" Sunny says, also thinking about leaves when Galahad suggests green. She turns to Magnu and puts her hands on her hips and says, "Grow!" then giggles, because she's just being silly.

[summerdude]

Magnus clasps his hands to his heart and does a dramatic flop backwards into the grass. "I would if I could, Sunny, you know that."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Perhaps you aren't trying hard enough," Galahad says, in the very grave tone he uses when he's teasing Magnus.

[biteybaby]

Sunny gasps, then grins, elated. "Elated" is a word which here means, "happy to have found someone on her side of the argument". "No try!" she explains, because Magnu didn't even try at all.

[summerdude]

"Yeah, because what if I grew you wrong," Magnus says, sitting up, eyes wide for effect. "Like... what if you didn't grow... but a tail did!!"

[onthewillowsthere]

"We could cut a hole for a tail in her clothes. Would you like a tail?" to Sunny.

[biteybaby]

Sunny thinks this over, then nods. Szari has a tail and seems to enjoy it. Evil Twin Sagramore had a tail some of the time. She wiggles her butt side to side, like she's wagging a tail.

[summerdude]

Well, that backfired. "Or it could be worse than a tail," Magnus says, apologetically.

[onthewillowsthere]

A brief contemplation of what could be worse than a tail. "An ovipositor."

[biteybaby]

"Huh?"

[summerdude]

"I also don't know what that is."

[onthewillowsthere]

"It is a tube-like organ used for laying eggs. For many species it is simply used to attach eggs to a surface, but in parasitic species, primarily wasps, it is also a piercing organ used to deposit eggs within a host."