"I can't believe you invited a stranger."

I resisted the urge to bang my head against the table in front of me. Klaus and I were currently sat in Dilton's Diner, going over the details for tomorrow. Usually when we were scheming we would opt for one of our houses but, considering our two targets lived with us, neither option seemed like a good idea. So instead we were at Dilton's, eating burgers and chips and covering everything for tomorrow so it would go as smoothly as possible.

"Klaus, you were perfectly happy to invite Shauna-"

"I was not perfectly happy, actually."

"-but now as soon as I invite a guy, you have a problem with it. Why is that? Liam's a perfectly good guy, and he's more than happy to come along tomorrow."

"I'm sure he is," Klaus grumbled. "He thinks you guys are going on a date, you do realise that right?"

Obviously I realised that. However, I was banking on the fact that he hadn't actually said the words. He hadn't technically asked me on a date because he hadn't said "date", so how was I meant to know what he meant? I would only know that if I read between the lines, and I absolutely wasn't going to do that.

"He's fixed our problem, that's all that matters," I said, stuffing my face so I wouldn't have to say anything else. I couldn't believe that a matter of hours could change Klaus and I's tunes; we were so excited to finally get our siblings together and now we were bickering, and I for one wasn't feeling nearly as enthusiastic about tomorrow as I was before.

"Anyway," Klaus said, taking a deep breath, "how're we getting everyone paired with the right person?"

"Don't worry, I've already thought about that. We just picks names out of a hat, but all the paper is blank, so we just say the names in the right order," I explained.

"And if they want to pick?"

I shook my head. "We don't let them. We'll just take charge since we organised everything."

Klaus swirled his paper straw around in his glass, making the ice cubes clink together. "So Quigley and Violet, me and..."

"Duncan," I finished for him before giving him an apologetic look, "unless you'd rather take Liam."

"No thanks," he said immediately, "I'll leave the beefcake to you."

"Thanks," I said, unable to keep the sarcastic edge out of my voice. Klaus picked up on it straight away.

"Don't act like you're not excited."

I didn't want to argue but, at the same time, I didn't want him to just assume things. Usually Klaus was understanding, usually we were on the same page about everything, but now he seemed irritable and it was getting on my nerves.

"I'm not excited. I'm excited to put our plan into action, that's it. I don't care about playing golf with some muscle man, nor do I care that he flirted with me. I'm not that easily impressed, you know."

But he wouldn't give it up. "Anyone would be happy for a guy like that to flirt with them, you don't have to pretend you're not."

"I'm not arguing with you," I said, "you either believe me or you don't."

Klaus stared back at me for a long moment before saying, "Fine, I believe you."

Then we finally got back to business and focused our conversations on the plan itself, putting the final preparations into place ready for tomorrow. I just had to hope everything would go smoothly so Klaus and I wouldn't be left looking like idiots.

* * *

At 11am sharp, myself and my brothers found ourselves outside the activity centre, under the swelteringly hot sun. We had tried to all fit in the shade of the building but, given it was almost midday, we were hard pressed to find a spot, which meant we were all left sweating and using tourist guides as makeshift fans. I was about to truly lose hope as more and more families and groups of friends walked past us and into the building, which was probably being blasted with air conditioning, while we were stuck outside until everyone else arrived. Next time, I decided, I'm turning up fashionably late. 

Finally, I saw the Baudelaire's familiar red car pull up and out jumped Klaus and Violet. I was glad to see them for about ten seconds, before something caught my eye. Or rather, something didn't. 

"I'm actually going to punch you in the face," I said to Klaus, which instantly took away his happy expression.

"Whoa, Isadora," Quigley exclaimed, "slightly violent for a Wednesday morning, don't you think?"

"And good morning to you too," Klaus said, giving me a look, "What've I done wrong now?"

The night before, during our bickering in Dilton's, I had insisted that I be the one to look after everything we needed for mini golfing, including the activity centre passes we had got online and printed out. But with Klaus usually being the sensible one, he had argued that he was the best person to look after everything. Looking at him standing before me, not a bag or even a scrap of paper in sight, I knew we had made the wrong decision.

"Where's the stuff?" I asked forcefully, and Klaus instantly paled.

All he said was, "Oh no," quietly, before staring at the wall, as if even he couldn't believe what he had done. "Are you sure you didn't take it?"

"Don't be annoying, Klaus, you literally made me give it all to you."

"Oh no," he repeated. "But you have the tickets on your phone right? They might still let us in."

"And what about picking the teams?" We had cut up paper in the diner, painstakingly sticking strips on top of each other so they wouldn't be see through. The last thing we wanted was the others to pick up on the fact that the strips were blank and that we were rigging everything. But now the sandwich bag of paper "names" was gone as well. 

"We'll figure something out," Klaus said, "But where's your beefcake? He's late."

I was about to point out that he was as well, when I saw the guy in question, strolling up to us in a brightly coloured hawaiian shirt and flip flops. He smiled when he saw me, but then his expression was clouded by confusion, probably because he wasn't expecting to see a whole group of us. Oh well, I thought to myself, he can't exactly bail now.

Liam awkwardly introduced himself to everyone, who looked equally as confused as to why he was suddenly hanging out with us, but Klaus and I just acted like it was normal, so no one questioned it. Perhaps it was also because no one wanted to be rude and suddenly ask what he was doing there. Whatever the reason, the six of us headed inside without incident, a cooling wave of AC rushing over us as soon as we entered. 

We went up to the desk and I pulled the email up, showing that I had bought six passes. It had said on the website that they needed to be printed, which personally I thought was a pain and a waste of paper, but I hoped they would let us in regardless, otherwise I would've paid all that money for nothing.

"Hi," I said to the lady behind the desk, taking charge as I was the one who had got the passes in the first place, "I've got an email confirmation here-"

"You need printed passes," the lady interrupted, regarding me with an irritated look. "Next please!"

I frowned. "Um no. We had trouble printing them but we've paid for them, and there's a barcode to scan on the email so can't you at least try please?"

The lady stared back at me for a long time, unmoving to the point where I started to wonder if she had passed away mid conversation, before huffing dramatically and pointing her scanner at my phone. To my delight, it beeped immediately, and I thought we were home free. However, the lady frowned at her screen and then directed it at me. 

"Your passes are for 11am. It is now 11:18 so these are no longer valid."

"Can you make an exception?" Violet spoke up, coming to stand next to me at the desk. 

"I cannot."

I couldn't believe our luck. After all our planning and buying the passes, now we couldn't even get in. And as much as I wanted to blame Klaus and his sudden forgetfulness, I couldn't bring myself to be annoyed with him. All I had done recently was bicker with him, I didn't think I had the energy to bicker anymore. So instead I was just annoyed with the situation. And now we had a random guy with us for no reason so we couldn't even just give up and go to one of our houses. However, when we were about to walk away from the desk and try and brainstorm some more activities we could do instead, Liam finally proved himself useful.

"Er... Brenda?" He said, and the lady behind the desk snapped to attention.

"Liam? Oh my, I hardly recognised you!" She exclaimed, turning into a completely different person. She smiled sweetly and then said, "Ah, I'll let you kids off then. Go on, in you go. But next time make sure you're on time! And Liam, tell your mum I said hi!"

And then we were in, surrounded by countless activities and screaming kids, all of us sharing the same thought: what just happened?

A/N: Little bit of a filler but more will happen in the next one I promise :)) Thanks for all the support on this story so far! ❤