#0557

From the way they speak about Prufrock, Violet and Klaus definitely went to school at one point.

“Maybe I don’t knowwhat ‘cakesniffer’ means,” Klaus said, “but I think I can translateour new school’s motto.”

[The Austere Academy, Chapter One]

Klaus gave his baby sister a little kiss on the top ofher head. “At least we get to go to school,” he pointed out.“I’ve missed being in a real classroom.”“Me too,” Violet agreed. “And at leastwe’ll meet some people our own age. We’ve only had the company of adults forquite some time.”“Wonic,” Sunny said, which probably meant“And learning secretarial skills is an exciting opportunity for me,although I should really be in nursery school instead.”

[The Austere Academy, Chapter Three]

So I don’t know whether they were homeschooled at one point, but Prufrock definitely wasn’t the first school they attended. Sunny, however, is a more complicated case. She’s very young, so it’s ambiguous whether she attended nursery school before “The Bad Beginning” or not. Probably not.

As to the other people in the Baudelaire orphans’ lives, this is handwaved in the first book:

In the time since the Baudelaire parents’ death, mostof the Baudelaire orphans’ friends had fallen by the wayside, an expressionwhich here means “they stopped calling, writing, and stopping by to seeany of the Baudelaires, making them very lonely.” You and I, of course, wouldnever do this to any of our grieving acquaintances, but it is a sad truth inlife that when someone has lost a loved one, friends sometimes avoid theperson, just when the presence of friends is most needed.

[The Bad Beginning, Chapter Three]

Depressingly realistic: people hate misery. The people who were not part of V.F.D. just dropped them out of sheer indifference, and the people part of V.F.D., well… had everything to do with the Baudelaire orphans being put in Olaf’s care:

“Once there were safe places scattered across the globe, and so orphans like yourselves did not have to wander from place to place, trying to find noble people who could be of assistance. With each generation, the schism gets worse. If justice does not prevail, soon there will be no safe places left, and nobody left to remember how theworld ought to be.”“I don’t understand,” Violet said. “Why weren’t we taken, like you?”“You were,” Dewey said. “You were taken into the custody of Count Olaf.

This is Soft-Serve!! Despite the name, he’s rock solid with an Adamant nature and “mischievous” personality. Given those traits, he might try and trick you into taking a munch outta his hard shell. . . which it looks like poor Walker just found out the hard way. Be wary!!