- Florence Smith: Sorry, Mother. I got distracted by a good part of my book. Peter is just escaping from Barbados and has decided to be a buccaneer.
- Lemony Snicket: It's about to get even better.
Florence Smith is a girl living in Stain'd-by-the-Sea. She appears in File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents, in the fifth incident, "Bad Gang."
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Florence lived in Stain'd-by-the-Sea with her mother, Delphinium Smith, who owned a flower shop called Chrysanthemums. While Florence was very interested in books, her mother thought that literature was garbage, and forbid her and her sister(s) from getting library cards. She told Florence that if she wanted a bookshelf, she would have to build it herself.
Florence teamed up with Kevin Old, whose father owned Boards, to form the Big Bad Brick Gang. They first threw a brick through the window of Boards so Florence could steal her wood, and then the next night they broke the window of Swords to get a sword for Kevin, leaving behind notes claiming that they were an anonymous group of vandals and malcontents who would never be caught. Florence, at some point, also borrowed a pirate book from Kevin.
The night after vandalizing Swords, her and Kevin threw a brick through the window of Chrysanthemums to throw the police off of their trail. The brick landed by Florence's bed.[1]
File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents []
Bad Gang/Homemade Furniture[]
On Sunday, Lemony Snicket arrives at Chrysanthemums after it has been vandalized; Florence had been sent inside to check if anything
had been stolen. When Delphinium calls her daughter out, Florence apologizes for being late, as she was distracted by a good part of her book. Snicket tells her that the book is about to get better, and Florence asks him not to spoil it for her.
Delphinium disapproves, explaining to Snicket her opinions on literature. Snicket figures out that Florence and Kevin are the Big Bad Brick Gang and announces he's solved the crimes, and that hopefully the guilty parties will work together to repair the windows and explain their behavior. He does not, however, turn them into the police.
Later Life[]
Florence Smith is not mentioned by name after the events of File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents. It is possible that she was still in town when the Inhumane Society gathered up the students of Stain'd Secondary School and other children of the town and held them hostage at Wade Academy; Snicket mentions that he recognized some of the children at school "from [his] time in town," which could potentially indicate the children of the thirteen suspicious incidents.[2]
Should she have been there, she would have likely been drugged by Laudanum at Wade Academy and forced to steal honeydew melons for the Inhumane Society,[2] before the students managed to revolt and turn the society out of the school.[3]
Trivia[]
- The pirate book that Florence was reading is probably the 1922 adventure novel Captain Blood: His Odyssey by Rafael Sabatini as the plot points she and Snicket discuss- Peter escaping from Barbados and deciding to be a buccaneer- are accurate to the story.
Family[]
Delphinium Smith | |||||||||||||||||||
Unnamed Sister(s) | Florence Smith | ||||||||||||||||||
Appearances[]