A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Slippery Slope (9 page)

Chapter Ten

Violet and Quigley walked carefully across the frozen pool until they reached the bottom of the waterfall. "Good luck!" Klaus called, from the archway of the ruined library. He was polishing his glasses, as he often did before embarking on serious research. "Good luck to you!" Violet replied, shouting over the rush of the mountain winds, and as she looked back at her brother, she remembered when the two siblings were trying to stop the caravan as it hurtled down the mountain. Klaus had wanted to say something to her, in case the drag chute and the mixture of sticky substances hadn't worked. Violet had the same feeling now as she prepared to climb the frozen waterfall and leave her brother behind at the ashy remains of the V.F.D. headquarters. "Klaus..." she said. Klaus put his glasses on and gave his sister his bravest smile. "Whatever you're thinking of saying," he said, "say it when you return." Violet nodded, and tapped the candelabra against a spot on the ice. She heard a deep thunk!, as if she were tapping something very solid. "We'll start here," she said to Quigley. "Brace yourself." The expression "brace yourself," as I'm sure you know, does not mean to take some metal wiring and rivets and other orthodontic materials and apply them to your own teeth in order straighten them. The expression simply means "get ready for something that will probably be difficult,"and it was indeed very difficult to climb a frozen waterfall in the middle of a windswept valley with nothing but a candelabra and a few well-placed forks to aid the two children in their climb. It took a few moments for Violet and Quigley to work her invention properly, and push the forks into the ice just far enough to hold them there, but not so far that they would be permanently stuck, and once both of them were in position, Violet had to reach up as far as she could and tap the candelabra on the ice above them to find the next solid place to climb. For the first few steps, it seemed like ascending the icy slope in this manner would be impossible, but as time went on, and the two volunteers grew more and more skillful with the fork-tipped climbing shoes and the candelabra ice-tester, it became clear that once again Violet's inventing skills would carry the day, a phrase which here means "enable Violet Baudelaire and Quigley Quagmire to climb up a frozen waterfall after bracing themselves for the difficult journey." "Your invention is working," Quigley called up to Violet. "These fork-assisted climbing shoes are marvelous." "They do seem to be working," Violet agreed, "but let's not celebrate just yet. We have a long way to go." "My sister wrote a couplet about that very thing," Quigley said, and recited Isadora's poem: "Celebrate when you're half-done, And the finish won't be half as fun." Violet smiled, and reached up to test the ice above her. "Isadora is a good poet," Violet said, "and her poems have come in handy more than once. When we were at the Village of Fowl Devotees, she led us to her location by hiding a secret message in a series of couplets." "I wonder if that's a code she learned from V.F.D.," Quigley said, "or if she made it up herself." "I don't know," Violet said thoughtfully. "She and Duncan were the first to tell us about V.F.D., but it never occurred to me that they might already be members. When I think about it, however, the code she used was similar to one that our Aunt Josephine used. They both hid a secret location within a note, and waited for us to discover the hidden message. Maybe they were all volunteers." She removed her left fork-assisted climbing shoe from the ice, and kicked it back in a few inches up to further her climb. "Maybe all our guardians have been members of V.F.D., on one side or the other of the schism." "It's hard to believe," Quigley said, "that we've always been surrounded by people carrying out secret errands, and never known it." "It's hard to believe that we're climbing a frozen waterfall in the Mortmain Mountains," Violet replied, "and yet, here we are. There Quigley, do you see the ledge where my left-fork is? It's solid enough for both of us to sit for a moment and catch our breath." "Good," Quigley said. "I have a small bag of carrots in my backpack we can eat to regain our energy." The triplet climbed up to where Violet was sitting, on a small ledge scarcely the size of a sofa, and slid so he was sitting next to her. The two climbers could see that they had traveled farther than they'd thought. Far below them were the blackened ruins of the headquarters, and Klaus was only a small speck near a tiny iron archway. Quigley handed Violet a carrot, and she bit down on it thoughtfully. "Sunny loves raw carrots," Violet said. "I hope that she's eating well, wherever she is." "I hope my siblings are eating well, too," Quigley said. "My father always used to say that a good meal can cheer one up considerably." "My father always said the same thing," Violet said, looking at Quigley curiously. "Do you think that was a code, too?" Quigley shrugged and sighed. Small bits of ice from the waterfall fell from the ends of forks and blew away in the wind. "It's like we never really knew our parents," he said. "We knew them," Violet said. "They just had a few secrets, that's all. Everyone should keep a few secrets." "I suppose so,' Quigley said, "but they might have mentioned that they were in a secret organization with a headquarters hidden in the Mortmain Mountains." "Maybe they didn't want us to find out about such a dangerous place," Violet said, peering off the ledge, "although if you have to hide a headquarters, it's a beautiful place to do it. Aside from the remains of the fire, this is a very lovely view." "Very lovely indeed," Quigley said, but he was not looking at the view beneath him. He was looking beside him, where Violet Baudelaire was sitting. Many things have been taken from the three Baudelaires. Their parents were taken, of course, and their home was taken from them, by a terrible fire. Their various guardians were taken from them, because they were murdered by Count Olaf or were simply miserable guardians who soon lost interest in three young children with nowhere to go. The Baudelaires' dignity was taken from them, on the occasions when the siblings were forced to wear absurd disguises, and recently they had been taken from one another, with the kidnapped Sunny doing chores at the top of the frozen waterfall while Violet and Klaus learned the secrets of V.F.D. at the bottom. But one thing that was taken from the Baudelaires that is not often discussed is their privacy, a word which here means "time by oneself, without anyone watching or interfering.' Unless you are a hermit or half of a pair of Siamese twins, you probably enjoy taking the occasional break from members of your family to enjoy some privacy, perhaps with a friend or companion, in your room or in a railway car you have managed to sneak aboard. But since that dreadful day at Briny Beach, when Mr. Poe arrived to tell the Baudelaires that their parents had perished, the three children had scarcely had any privacy at all. From the small, dark bedroom where they slept at Count Olaf's house, to the crowded caravan at Caligari Carnival, and all of the other woeful places in between, the Baudelaires' situation was always so desperate and cramped that they were rarely able to spare a moment for a bit of private time. So, as Violet and Quigley rest for a few minutes more on a ledge halfway up the frozen waterfall, I will take this opportunity to give them a bit of privacy, by not writing down anything more of what happened between these two friends on that chilly afternoon. Certainly there are aspects of my own personal life that I will never write down, however precious they are to me, and I will offer the eldest Baudelaire the same courtesy. I will tell you that the two young people resumed their climb, and that the afternoon slowly turned to evening and that both Violet and Quigley had small secret smiles on their faces as the candelabra ice-tester and the fork-assisted climbing shoes helped them both get closer and closer to the mountains' highest peak, but there has been so little privacy in the life of Violet Baudelaire that I will allow her to keep a few important moments to herself, rather than sharing them with my distressed and weeping readers. "We're almost there," Violet said. "It's difficult to see with the sun going down, but I believe we're just about at the top of the peak." "I can't believe we've been climbing all afternoon," Quigley said. "Not all afternoon," she reminded him with a shy smile. "I guess this waterfall is about as high as 667 Dark Avenue. It took a very long time to go up and down that elevator shaft trying to rescue your siblings. I hope this is a more successful journey." "Me, too," Quigley said. "What do you think we will find at the top?" "Set!" came the reply. "I couldn't hear you over the wind," Quigley said. "What did you say?" "I didn't say anything," Violet said. She squinted above her, trying to see in the last of the sunset, and scarcely daring to hope that she had heard correctly. Out of all the words in the English language, the word "set" has the most definitions, and if you open a good dictionary and read the word's long, long entry, you will begin to think that "set" is scarcely a word at all, only a sound that means something different depending on who is saying it. If a group of jazz musicians says "set," for instance, they are probably referring to the songs they are planning to play at a club that evening, assuming it doesn't burn down. If the owner of a restaurant uses the word "set," they might mean group of matching wineglasses, or a bunch of waitresses who look exactly alike. A librarian will say "set" to refer to a collection of books that are all by the same author or about the same subject, and an Egyptologist will use the word "set" to refer to the ancient god of evil, although he does not come up very often in conversation. But when Violet heard the word "set" from the top of Mount Fraught, she did not think there was a group of jazz musicians, a restaurant owner, a librarian, or an Egyptologist talking about jazz tunes, wineglasses, waitresses, thematically linked books, or a black, immoral aardvark who is the sworn enemy of the god Osiris. She reached her fork as high as she could so she could climb closer, and saw the rays of the sunset reflect off a large tooth, and Violet knew that this time, the definition of "set" was "I knew you would find me!" and the speaker was Sunny Baudelaire. "Set!" Sunny said again. "Sunny!" Violet cried. "Sssh!" Sunny said. "What is going on?" Quigley asked, several forksteps behind Violet. "It's Sunny," Violet said, and hoisted herself onto the peak to see her baby sister, standing next to Count Olaf's car and grinning from ear to ear. Without another word, the two Baudelaire sisters hugged fiercely, Violet taking care not to poke Sunny with one of the forks she was holding. By the time Quigley reached the top of the peak and pulled himself up to lean against one of the car's tires, the two Baudelaires were smiling at each other with tears in their eyes. "I knew we'd see you again, Sunny," Violet said. "I just knew it." "Klaus?" Sunny asked. "He's safe and nearby," Violet said. "He knew we could find you, too." "Set," Sunny agreed, but then she noticed Quigley and her eyes grew wide. "Quagmire?" she asked in amazement. "Yes," Violet said. "This is Quigley Quagmire, Sunny. He survived the fire after all." Sunny walked unsteadily over to Quigley and shook his hand. "He led us to the headquarters, Sunny, with a map he drew himself." "Arigato," Sunny said, which meant something like, "I appreciate your help, Quigley." "Was it you who signaled us?" Quigley asked. "Yep," Sunny said. "Lox." "Count Olaf's been making you do the cooking?" Violet asked in amazement. "Vaccurum," Sunny said. "Olaf even made her clean crumbs out of the car," Violet translated to Quigley, "by blowing as hard as she could." "That's ridiculous!" Quigley said. "Cinderella," Sunny said. She meant something along the lines of, "I've had to do all of the chores, while being humiliated at every turn," but Violet had no time to translate over the sound of Count Olaf's scratchy voice. "Where are you, Babylaire?" he asked, adding an absurd nickname to his list of insults. "I've thought of more tasks for you to perform." The three children looked at one another in panic. "Hide," Sunny whispered, and there was no need for translation. Violet and Quigley looked around the desolate landscape of the peak for a place to hide, but there was only one place to go. "Under the car," Violet said, and she and Quigley wriggled underneath the long, black automobile, which was as dirty and smelly as its owner. As an inventor, the eldest Baudelaire had stared closely at automotive machinery plenty of times, but she had never seen such an extreme state of disrepair, a phrase which here means "an underside of an automobile in such bad shape that it was dripping oil on her and her companion." But Violet and Quigley didn't have a moment to waste thinking of their discomfort. They had no sooner moved their fork-assisted climbing shoes out of view when Count Olaf and his companions arrived. From underneath he car, the two volunteers could see only the villain's tattoo on the filthy ankle above his left shoe and a pair of very stylish pumps, decorated with glitter and tiny paintings of eyes, that could only belong to Esme Squalor. "All we've had to eat all day is that smoked salmon, and it's almost dinnertime," Count Olaf said. "You'd better get cooking, orphan." "Tomorrow is False Spring," Esme said, "and it would be very in to have a False Spring dinner." "Did you hear that, toothy?" Olaf asked. "My girlfriend wants a stylish dinner. Get to work." "Olaf, we need you," said a very deep voice, and Violet and Quigley saw two pairs of sinister black shoes appear behind the villain and his girlfriend, whose shoes twitched nervously at the sight of them. All of a sudden, it seemed much colder underneath the car, and Violet had to push her legs against the tires, so they would not shiver against the mechanics of the underside and be heard. "Yes, Olaf," agreed the hoarse voice of the man with a beard but no hair, although Violet and Quigley could not see him. "Our recruitment plan will happen first thing in the morning so we need you to help spread the net out on the ground." "Can't you ask one of our employees?" asked Esme. "There's the hook-handed man the two white-faced women, and the three freaks we picked up at the carnival. That's eight people, if you include yourselves, to spread out the net. Why should we do it?" The four black shoes stepped toward Esme's stylish pumps and Olaf's tattoo. "You'll do it," said the woman with hair but no beard,
"because I say so." There was a long, ominous pause, and then Count Olaf gave a little high-pitched laugh. "That's a good point," he said. "Come on, Esme. We've bossed around the baby, so there's nothing else to do around here anyway." "That's true," Esme agreed. "In fact, I was thinking about taking up smoking again, because I'm bored. Do you have any more of those green cigarettes?" "I'm afraid not," replied the man with a beard but no hair, leading the villains away from the car. "That's the only one I found." "That's too bad," Esme said. "I don't like the taste or the smell, and they're very bad for you, but cigarettes are very in and I'd like to smoke another one." "Maybe there's another one in the ruins of headquarters," said the woman with hair but no beard. "It's hard to find everything in all those ashes. We searched for days and couldn't find the sugar bowl." "Not in front of the baby," Olaf said quickly, and the four pairs of shoes walked away. Violet and Quigley stayed underneath the car until Sunny said "Coastkleer," which meant something like, "It's safe to come out now." "Those were terrible people," Quigley said with a shudder, brushing oil and grime off his coat. "They made me feel cold all over." "They certainly had an aura of menace " Violet agreed in a whisper. "The feet with the tattoo were Count Olaf, and those glittery shoes were Esme Squalor, but who were the other two, Sunny?" "Unno Narsonist," Sunny murmured. She meant something along the lines of "I don't know, but they burned down V.F.D. headquarters," and Violet was quick to explain this to Quigley. "Klaus has found an important message that survived the fire," Violet said. "By the time we take you down the waterfall, I'm sure he'll have decoded the message. Come on." "Nogo," Sunny said, which meant "I don't think I ought to accompany you." "Why on earth not?" Violet asked. "Unasanc," Sunny said. "Sunny says that the villains have mentioned one more safe place for volunteers to gather," Violet explained to Quigley. "Do you know where it is?" Quigley asked. Sunny shook her head. "Olafile," she said. "But if Count Olaf has the Snicket file," Violet said, "how are you going to find out where this safe place is?" "Matahari," she said, which meant something like, "If I stay, I can spy on them and find out." "Absolutely not," Violet said, after she had translated. "It's not safe for you to stay here, Sunny. It's bad enough that Olaf has made you do the cooking." "Lox," Sunny pointed out. "But what are you going to make for a False Spring dinner?" Violet asked. Sunny gave her sister a smile, and walked over to the trunk of the car. Violet and Quigley heard her rummaging around among the remaining groceries, but stayed put so Olaf or any of his associates wouldn't spot them. When Sunny returned, she had a triumphant smile on her face, and the frozen hunk of spinach, the large bag of mushrooms, the can of water chestnuts, and the enormous eggplant in her arms. "False spring rolls!" she said, which meant something like, "An assortment of vegetables wrapped in spinach leaves, prepared in honor of False Spring." "I'm surprised you can even carry that eggplant, let alone prepare it," Violet said. "It must weigh as much as you do." "Suppertunity," Sunny said. She meant something like, "Serving the troupe dinner will be a perfect chance to listen to their conversation," and Violet reluctantly translated. "It sounds dangerous," Quigley said. "Of course it's dangerous," Violet said. "If she's caught spying, who knows what they'll do?" "Ga ga goo goo," Sunny said, which meant "I won't be caught, because they think I'm only a helpless baby." "I think your sister is right," Quigley said. "It wouldn't be safe to carry her down the waterfall, anyway. We need our hands and feet for the climb. Let Sunny investigate the mystery she's most likely to solve, while we work on an escape plan." Violet shook her head. "I don't want to leave my sister behind," she said. "The Baudelaires should never be separated." "Separate Klaus," Sunny pointed out. "If there's another place where volunteers are gathering," Quigley said, "we need to know where it is. Sunny can find out for us, but only if she stays here." "I'm not going to leave my baby sister on top of a mountain," Violet said. Sunny dropped her vegetables on the ground and walked over to her sister and smiled. "I'm not a baby," Sunny said, and hugged her. It was the longest sentence the youngest Baudelaire had ever said, and as Violet looked down at her sister, she saw how true it was. Sunny was not really a baby, not anymore. She was a young girl with unusually sharp teeth, some impressive cooking skills, and an opportunity to spy on a group of villains and discover a piece of crucial information. Sometime, during the unfortunate events that had befallen the three orphans, Sunny had grown out of her babyhood, and although it made Violet a bit sad to think about it, it made her proud, too, and she gave her sister a smile. "I guess you're right," Violet said. "You're not a baby. But be careful, Sunny. You're a young girl, but it's still quite dangerous for a young girl to spy on villains. And remember, we're right at the bottom of the slope, Sunny. If you need us, just signal again." Sunny opened her mouth to reply, but before she could utter a sound, the three children heard a long, lazy hissing noise from underneath Olaf's car, as if one of Dr. Montgomery's snakes were hiding there. The car shifted lightly, and Violet pointed to one of Olaf's tires, which had gone flat. "I must have punctured it," Violet said, "with my fork-assisted climbing shoes." "I suppose that's not a nice thing to do," Quigley said, "but I can't say I'm sorry." "How's dinner coming along, toothface?" called Count Olaf's cruel voice over the sound of the wind. "I guess we'd better leave before we're discovered," Violet said, giving her sister one more hug and a kiss on the top of her head. "We'll see you soon, Sunny." "Good-bye, Sunny," Quigley said. "I'm so glad we finally met in person. And thank you very much for helping us find the last safe place." Sunny Baudelaire looked up at Quigley, and then at her older sister, and gave them both a big, happy smile that showed all of her impressive teeth. After spending so much time in the company of villains, she was happy to be with some people who respected her skills, appreciated her work, and understood her way of speaking. Even with Klaus still at the bottom of the waterfall, Sunny felt as if she had already been happily reunited with her family, and that her time in the Mortmain Mountains would have a happy ending. She was wrong about that of course, but for now the youngest Baudelaire smiled up at these two people who cared about her, one she had just met and one she had known her entire life, and felt as if she were growing taller at that very moment. "Happy," said the young girl, and everyone who heard her knew what she was talking about.