Shouldn't You Be in School? (All The Wrong Questions)

by Lemony Snicket

The question was, how much trouble are you in? and the answer was I didn’t know. Nobody ever does. Ellington put her hand on my shoulder and guided me to the very edge of the rock, like it was a diving board. I could feel the nothingness of the dark pond, just under the tips of my toes, and Ellington’s fingers on my shoulder. If she pushes you, I thought, at last you will know. All of the reading and thinking you have done has pointed you toward a mystery of unspeakable size, and here it is, Snicket. Here’s the dark thing you imagine very late, on very terrible nights. It has been beckoning you since you were a baby, when you emerged from the darkness of the womb. You didn’t know it then, but from that moment on you would float toward another darkness, all the mysterious days and all the mysterious nights of your whole mysterious life. Here it is, Snicket. Listen for this mystery that has been stalking you since they first inked your ankle. These thoughts did not appear out of thin air. They had a cause somewhere.