Doom, Overall Feeling of
Apportionment the Second
by Lemona Snicket
The Intrusive Intrigue
To Pen, an early part of the wave of 667 fics which inspired me, and a member we very nearly lost.
If you have had any experience with the world, you will know that during the course of your life you are bound to encounter many people who refuse to accept you the way you are, and who will do anything to demonstrate that you are not worthy of their time, and that you would do well to associate exclusively with people of whom they have the same opinion. For instance, if you are shopping in a posh neighbourhood, and do not present yourself in the way that conforming locals do, you may find that the store’s personnel treat you as if you have no place to be there unless you know most of the other shoppers, are dressed in the fashions of the season, and are prepared to spend unbelievable amounts on small, dull, but expensive items.
Neighbourhoods, stores, and situations like this are never pleasant to find yourself in, but if you do, it is always helpful to have friends willing to assist you in practicing a deception – a phrase which here means “disguising yourself as a conforming local in order to be able to shop and eat in the neighbourhood without being stared at and ignored”. Sophie Baudelaire was unfortunate enough to find herself in a neighbourhood full of pretentiousness, but certainly fortunate enough to have associates in her deception. The neighbourhood regularly refused privileges, such as being served in stores, to those who simply wanted a life without treachery or snobbery, and it can be observed in the previous apportionment of this tale how Sophie was treated dreadfully at “Empire of In”, which was a small, fancy department store without price tags.
Sophie adjusted the large collection of shopping bags on her wrists. It was early in the afternoon, and she had just been around to at least four shops in the district of 667 Dark Avenue, which was her home, practicing a deception. Her friend Emma had been very helpful in lending Sophie clothes, and giving her hints on the many unspoken codes that those at the height of inness used to identify themselves. Sophie frowned as she finished adjusting her bags and one fell on the concrete. A small but intense frown, according to Emma, was the best way of showing annoyance, as to anyone watching, it gave the appearance that you were not aware that you were being observed, but impressed them with the obvious fact that you upheld your standard of poise – a phrase which here means “did not break the code of inness and sophistication” – anyway. As Sophie retrieved her bags and straightened up, she consciously arranged her chin. “Style,” Emma had remarked, “largely depends on how the chin is worn. It is worn very high just at present.” In addition to the simple white dress with fancy buttons that Emma had lent her, Sophie was now wearing a pair of long white gloves and a wide brimmed hat.
She was thoroughly enjoying her deception, and was observing how very differently she was being treated by snobbish staff wherever she went. I, on the many occasions when I have had reason to practice a deception of my own, have always been in far too desperate a situation to enjoy myself at all. In order to smuggle away the typewriter that I am now using to record this story, it was necessary for me to disguise myself as a large pile of antique plates, and later pose as the niece of the owner of a Canadian coin laundry, and being greatly at risk, highly uncomfortable and slightly embarrassed both times, I did not share Sophie Baudelaire’s experience. Sophie peered through the window of “Empire of In”, and opened the door, smiling quietly to herself, just as I opened the door of the tableware storage room, sighing loudly to my companion, only to discover that he wasn’t there.
“May I help you?” asked a staff member, as Sophie walked into the store. “No thank you,” she replied, as she walked up to Pandora, who was adjusting a clothes display. “Hi,” Sophie said confidently. “Hello,” Pandora said, turning politely and seeing only a customer who, though obviously new to the store, looked as if she belonged there. “Do you remember me?” “No, I’m sorry,” Pandora shook her head. Sophie put on a questioning and slightly pointed look. “I was in here yesterday? You wouldn’t wait on me?” she prompted. “Oh,” said the other rather blankly, as Sophie began to edge round the display, intent on leaving again. “You work on commission, right?” Sophie asked softly. “Uh, yes.” “Big mistake. Big.
Huge,” Sophie said firmly, rather awkwardly emphasising her statement with her arms, which were weighed down with bags. “I,” she added, gliding towards the door, “have to go shopping now”.
When Sophie arrived back at her apartment building, she found that the joint was hopping – a curious phrase which does not literally refer to a single leg of mutton jumping up and down, but here means “the inhabitants of 667 Dark Avenue were all greatly excited at the news that there had just been a shift in inness, and various forms of travel were now fashionable that hadn’t been before”. “A cruise,” said Emma Squalor, attempting to handle the huge pile of glossy brochures in her arms. Ms. Squalor was referring to the possibility of taking a luxury ocean cruise with some friends. Luxury cruising, of course, is nothing more than a way for people to experience sea travel without experiencing the sea itself, as being on a large and expensive cruise ship is very like being in a small city. Many people were eager to take advantage of the new trend, and Emma was planning to take a small group, and was looking for people who wanted to join her. Sophie shook her head as Emma turned to her enquiringly. A cruise might be enjoyable, but not while it was in. She doubted if she could keep up her deception for such a length of time, though my deceptions have been known to last months, particularly if I find myself in a storage room with no escape, no way of communicating if I am discovered by the right people, and no way of attacking if I am discovered by the wrong people.
Sophie took her shopping up the two flights of stairs to her apartment. She passed the door of Mr. Dante Rubens, and I wish that she could have seen the large, deep scratch in the paintwork of the door. I wish that she had noticed the scratch, and had noticed that behind the scratched door the apartment was extremely quiet, with not even the sound of a typewriter, or the sound of piles of envelopes being shifted around to make room when Mr. Rubens had a guest. I wish that Sophie had stopped to think about the quiet, and I wish that she had told someone else her thoughts, and I wish that, through Sophie Baudelaire’s noticing the scratched door, much peril and discomfort could have been avoided. I can wish these things, but I cannot make them true.
Emma picked up a small pile of cruise brochures and dumped them into a bin in the corner of the lobby (recycling was out), and returned to her seat on the floor in front of a coffee table. Over the last half-hour, Emma had been narrowing down her options for the planned cruise – a phrase which here means that she had now brought the number of brochures down to two, based on what the other people interested in going with her had said. About five other residents of 667 Dark Avenue were crowded around her, trying to decide which unbelievably expensive cruise company to select. The very quiet, slightly creepy landlord of the building, a man whose name meant calamity, was hanging around the fringe of the group, looking as if he might be mildly interested in accompanying them. It was unusual for Tragedy to be around in the first place, as he generally hid himself away, or crept about to spy on people.
On the front of one brochure was a photograph of a large painting in a gold frame hanging on a wall. The brush strokes were so artistically shaped that it was hard to make out that the painting was of the side of a large ship, with unnaturally blue water and white foam below it. The other brochure displayed a picture taken on the deck of a cruise ship, next to a swimming pool, of several women in sundresses and bathing suits waving brightly with painfully large smiles. Emma and her friends finally chose the first. Tragedy slunk away. The letters “CLC” were printed in fancy script below the photograph, and you had to read some very fine print inside to find out that the name of the company was Charon Luxury Cruises because, like any snobbish business, they made an effort to exclude anyone who hadn’t already dealt with them.
---
“Success, I think,” said Sixteen to himself, putting down the phone and breathing out. He had a chest pain from suppressing audible breathing while speaking, so that it wouldn’t make an unpleasant rustling noise in the phone and annoy the person on the other end. Calling Charon Luxury Cruises to make a booking is one of the most taxing and unpleasant telephonic experiences it is possible to have, and I sincerely hope you have not had occasion to be exposed to their administration department. Over the last fourteen minutes and fifteen seconds, Sixteen had been obliged to weave into his words a string of impressions - some false - carefully orchestrated to subtly indicate the kind of lifestyle he led. It was exhausting, but Sixteen, tragically, was pleased he had made the effort, because he had now secured a booking for himself and four companions to take a one-month luxury cruise, departing on June 10. I myself would never want to take a cruise lasting a whole month, but Sixteen and his companions were eager to take advantage of the new trend.
---
Emma Squalor, Sixteen, Antenora, Bee and Pen stepped off the rickety trolley that had brought them to the sea district of town. No one could understand why it was called the sea district, as the district itself was not in the sea but merely beside it, and the only townsperson who did know the real reason for the district’s name was at that moment contained in an aerodrome very, very far away, with no way of reaching the city for several months, and no current access to French silk pie, which was this particular person’s favourite food.
The members of the little group dragged their suitcases off the trolley and picked them up, with a great deal of difficulty. Trolleys are not designed for suitcases, but city transport with sufficient luggage room was out. The suitcases thudded onto the concrete, and made crashing sounds. Sixteen’s suitcase, however, thumped demurely on the ground, as it was padded inside with sheeps’ wool. “Errgh,” said Pen, which is a word in no particular language that people often use when shifting heavy objects. He looked up. “Hey, what’s this?” he added, which is a phrase in English that people often use when they discover that the road they are supposed to go down is barricaded off. Similar phrases for the occasion rose from his companions.
Occasionally, when I pause in my typing to stretch my arms and sigh, I imagine myself as a drop of water being poured hurriedly down a drain and into a pipe. I think of how ghastly it would feel to be shoved away from the inside of the decanter or glass by the force of gravity. I think how terrible it would feel to be funnelled untidily through a dark opening at great speed. And I imagine how startling it would be to whoosh down a pipe, pushed along by gravity and hemmed in by my companions. You can see why this is not a situation anyone would choose to be in, but it is very like the one that the five companions found themselves in when they tried to walk around the barricade.
It is never pleasant to be hustled along without explanation by authoritative-looking people, particularly when you were planning on going in a different direction, and it is certainly not pleasant to be told to
go ahead, move it, hurry up, go on. “What
is this?” Pen continued crossly, to no one in particular, as the small crowd, consisting of the group of five, along with several other people who had arrived in the district, intending to board CLC’s ship, were directed into a different, smaller dock nearby.
---
“This is absolutely ridiculous,” fumed a man in a tuxedo, which is a very fancy outfit worn either at very formal gatherings, or just regular occasions when the wearer wants to make everybody else look sloppily dressed. “Uh huh,” said Bee. They were sitting on a bench on the deck of a small, slightly shabby cruise ship the following day. The crowd had all been shoved onto a different cruise ship – run by a “sister” company of CLC, apparently – because there had been some “emergency” with the vessel they were supposed to board. Everyone had been a bit doubtful, as I’m sure I would have been, when they saw that the ship they would now have to take their cruise on was, to their minds, very dilapidated. Many of the people in the crowd had taken cruises with CLC before, the last time it was in, and furiously expounded that nothing like this had ever happened in the past, and that the whole situation was inconvenient, incommodious and, most importantly, out.
Bee had been unfortunate enough to get stuck in a one-way conversation with the tuxedo-wearing man and – though she did not much care for the substitute ship herself – was sick to death of hearing him complain. “What’s more,” he continued, “there has been no refund.” “We haven’t been refunded?” asked Bee. “No. We paid for an authentic CLC experience.” Bee tuned out again. “They shove us here. Say there’s a major problem and they can’t use the usual ship. OK, fine – but they should refund us at least –.” The man broke off and did some mental sums, while Bee stared at the sea. “At least half. We aren’t getting nearly what we paid for on this dump.” “Mmm,” said Bee, doing her best to convey, without being too rude, that she wanted to leave. “My friends and I come from the city. We wanted sea air, scenery, and a luxurious, built-up craft. And no hassle.” Bee made another barely-interested noise.
“Ah!” the tuxedo-wearing man stood up. “Here’s one of them now.” Another man, thankfully in slightly less formal attire, and rather bright socks, had wandered across the deck toward them. “Bertie, old thing, I’m surprised you don’t…” the tuxedo-wearing man trailed off a little awkwardly. “I mean to say, you’re not exactly…” Bee realised that he was trying to ask his friend why he too wasn’t fuming about the ship to any total strangers who happened to be nearby. She was pleased, because, as I’m sure you can imagine, one person fuming when you don’t want to listen is better than two people fuming when you want to listen even less. The friend, Bertie, was obviously taking a far more placid approach to being forced to accept a ship of lower calibre. “I suppose the situation was unavoidable, but I admit it is not the place I would choose to spend my time designated for recreation in.” Bertie had obviously figured out what his friend was trying to ask. “Still, we Woosters can rough it,” he went on, frowning around at the deck. Bee slipped away.
---
Later that night, Bee strolled tiredly down the little corridor to her tiny cabin. She was exhausted, even though she had spent most of the day sitting around as the cruise ship continued its round trip. It is odd that travel is so tiring, particularly considering that the whole point of travel is to rest while you are transported someplace else. She opened the cabin door, and then glanced back. Pen was standing in the corridor, staring fixedly at the wall. She hoped he was alright. He noticed her looking. “Fire,” he said softly. Bee frowned. She hoped he hadn’t meant “flame”, because the landlord of 667 Dark Avenue, who liked to play sage, had recently attempted to pair these two residents up, despite insistences from all sources that Pen and Bee had no interest in the idea. Since then, they had both been very careful not to provide any fodder for further misinterpretation – a phrase which here means “be found in any situation which would falsely indicate to an onlooker that Tragedy’s words were proving true”. Bee glanced at the wall. The corridor was wallpapered in stripes of salmon and white, and a tiny flame was fluttering on it. There was a dark burn mark around it.
In this confusing world of ours, there are many, many things it is difficult to imagine. It is not easy to imagine why someone would set fire to some wallpaper. It is not easy to imagine what could have happened to the ship of a respected cruise company to make it suddenly unusable. And it is very, very difficult to imagine why Tragedy is so fond of pairing his tenants up, why he hardly shows himself, or even why he was called Tragedy in the first place. But there is one thing that is always easy to imagine, and that is the worst case scenario. The phrase “worst case scenario” refers to someone imagining the most dreadful thing that could possibly come of a situation. Though I have found, in my own life, that the worst case scenario is generally also the most likely to happen, fortunately this was not the case for the people in the hallway at the time when Pen discovered the burn.
The flame died away and there was a brief silence. “That was weird,” said Bee pointlessly. Pen noticed something on the floor. Discovering a scrap of paper lying around almost always leads to something else, because paper is rarely produced in scraps, and therefore a scrap of paper must have been torn from something else, perhaps by an archivist looking to make a small note, or by a harpoon as it destroys several notebooks in one moment. “This is weird, too,” Pen commented, reading the sentence written in black ink on the paper. He showed it to Bee. “If I were an hors d'oeuvre, where would I be?” she read. “Erm – on the table?” said Sixteen, who had entered the corridor and heard her. They showed him the wall, and the paper. His eyes narrowed as he stared at the burn mark. Then he shook himself slightly, wished them goodnight, and disappeared. Bee and Pen shrugged, dropped the paper on the ground, and retreated through their respective cabin doors, which, much to their distaste, faced each other across the corridor.
---
If you have ever passed a whole month of your life on a small cruise ship going slowly in a circle, then you know that there are many words you could use to describe your experience. The word “expensive” comes to mind, as does the word “cramped”, the word “vexing”, and the word “incommodious”, which means both “cramped” and “vexing” - and was in fact used by the tuxedo-wearing man who Bee had been forced to listen to on day two - but most of all, the word “boring” comes to mind over and over and over. It is boring to have only the same people to talk to for a long time. It is boring to observe nothing but the sea for a month. And it is boring to eat from one menu, wear only the clothes you have brought with you, and stay in one confined space for the whole blasted time you are travelling. By the time the five companions had reached their twenty-fourth day on the ocean, they were entirely bored of everything.
But nothing happened to break their boring experience until the evening of the twenty-fifth day. Emma sat in her cabin, leaned her head on her hand, and thought wistfully of Jerome Squalor, a man living in her apartment building who, to Emma’s great displeasure, had recently become engaged. Antenora sat in her cabin and thought wistfully of a man who owned two apartments, Sixteen sat in his and thought wistfully of a domesticated mammal who owned hooves, and Bee and Pen sat in their cabins and thought about writing instruments and flying insects, respectively. Finally the thoughts of all five turned to the piece of paper Pen had discovered so early in the cruise. No one had give any thought to it since then, and indeed Pen had briefly commented the following day that he had “chucked it out”, but the minds of the companions had been so deprived of anything interesting for most of the journey that they now were suddenly fascinated by “If I were an hors d'oeuvre, where would I be?”.
Pen stood up, deciding to go check out the place in the corridor where he had found the message and the burning wallpaper. It felt foreign to have something to do. Bee stood up, deciding to go check out the place in the corridor where Pen had found the message and the burning wallpaper. It felt foreign to have something to do. She pushed open her door and glanced outside, and something caught her eye. Directly across the dim corridor, Pen was pushing open his door and glancing outside. Sadly, both of them were so alarmed at the possibility that their minds may have been thinking the same thing simultaneously that they leapt back inside their cabins and slammed the doors. It was a terrifying prospect, of course, that Tragedy’s words may have been proving true, but as it turns out, that particular event was merely a coincidence.
Antenora jumped slightly at the sound of two doors slamming in unison, then opened her own door and walked quietly down the corridor to the burn-mark in the wall. She couldn’t rid herself of the idea that the words on the paper were familiar to her in some way. Emma and Sixteen came to join her within seconds, and then Bee and Pen emerged very nervously. The five of them stood around rather awkwardly in the piece of corridor where Pen had made his discovery.
After a moment, there was a weak moaning noise, and Sixteen lunged suddenly at the burnt patch of wallpaper and banged his head, taking everyone by surprise. Emma caught him by the shoulders and pulled him away. Sixteen raised a hand to point at the mark. Everyone peered at it. It suddenly hit Emma. “Oh,” she said. “I see.
It looks like a sheep. See?” She traced the outline of the mark with a finger. It was true that it had a small, round, darker part at one end (that was the sheep’s head), and that the rest of it was paler and rather round and fluffy-looking. Sixteen nodded, and then sunk down onto the floor of the corridor.
“Hey,” said Pen, “what’s this?” He pointed to a small horizontal split in the wallpaper just above the burn. Emma scratched it with an impressive nail, and the paper peeled away downwards so easily it was as if it had just been sitting there. Underneath was another layer of wallpaper, white, and covered with handwriting. “Whoa,” said Antenora. There was a pause while Sixteen tottered off into his cabin to lie down, and while the others started to read in the dim light. “It’s just a bunch of random sentences
,” Emma said. Antenora ran her eyes over the text, murmuring words and phrases out loud as she scanned them. “Hmm, let’s see… ‘If you can breathe, then it’s working’… ‘To amuse myself during this nineteen-hour wait’... ‘Haberdashery’…‘acute unhappiness’… ‘If you haven’t already, get an antique wooden stand’… ‘688 San Jose Avenue, San Francisco’… ‘Don’t know where to go, and we don’t know how to get there’… ‘Laborious Day 2011 ’… ‘Does anyone want a cup of coffee? Can someone call a taxi?’… what is all this?”
Emma shrugged and went to see if Sixteen had fully recovered from his paroxysm, and Bee reached out a hand and slid the big flap of wallpaper up and over the writing, as cries of “what’s going on?” could be heard from other cabins. Bee and Pen both fled. Clearly, the sound of Sixteen’s forehead hitting the wall had echoed and disturbed some passengers. Antenora, however, peeled the paper away again, in order to read the words she had noticed at the bottom of the lines of text. They were underlined, and she hadn’t had the chance to read what they said before Bee had intervened. “What the hell was that huge noise?” said a voice from a few doors down the corridor. Antenora hurriedly bent down and frowned at the words. “Further archives depart June 10 on this craft.” Antenora leaped up, shoved the paper back into place, and went flying through her door.
---
If you discover a mysterious collection of text hidden behind the wallpaper of a corridor of a cruise ship you are on, you should realise that it is none of your business, and forget about it. But if you are Antenora, you will realise no such thing, and you will ask, search, and research – a word which here means “search over and over” – and discover on your second last day of cruising, in the bowels of the ship, a group of three filing cabinets. Lying on the ground beside them was a very old wooden sign, with the motto of the cruise company on it: “Quorg Yen Distite,” which, according to the brochure, was taken from an old dialect that the ancestors of the company’s original owners had spoken.
Antenora walked over to the first cabinet. The little area where it was stored, or perhaps hidden, was very low and she had to bend her head. She gently kicked the cabinet to see if it was empty. It made a thudding sound. It was obviously full. Antenora tugged at the top drawer. When you are trying to open a filing cabinet, door or cat food company that is none of your business, it is likely that it will be locked, bolted, unnecessary or otherwise difficult to access. Antenora yanked, which didn’t help, and after she had stood up again she glared at the cabinet and stalked over to the one behind it. Sulkily, she yanked at a drawer, and it slid out and hit her in the stomach. Yanking something that you don’t know won’t open is never a good move, because if it does open it will do so much faster than you were expecting.
“Round white root vegetable,” Antenora muttered. She peered inside the drawer. A row of files sat inside like folds on a curtain, but they were all pushed to one side, and in the very front of the drawer, sitting on the bottom, was something else. It was a small bowl, made of ceramic. It had no lid, and Antenora could see it would be an unsuitable vessel for disaccharides. It was a pale sand colour inside, and a rich brown outside. It was the sort of thing one might fill with dip or with salted nuts and set out on a side table when guests arrive. Antenora shuffled through the files.
Were these, she wondered,
the archives apparently being stored on the ship? She pulled out a sheet of paper, and recognised some of the same phrases from the wall. She scanned them excitedly. There were no underlined words at the bottom of the page discussing archives departing, and many of the words here had not been on the piece of wall. Antenora flipped the page over. Her eyes widened.
There are many reasons why someone might widen their eyes. You might widen your eyes, for instance, if you were attempting to prove to someone that they were blue and not green. You might widen your eyes if you were taking a monocle out of one of them. I have been known to widen my eyes when I am trying to stay awake after very little sleep while on the run. And you might widen your eyes if you had just turned over a piece of paper that you thought was none of your business, and seen the address where you live typed at the top of the page.
“Antenora?” asked a voice from somewhere to the right, accompanied by clattering sounds. “Emma?” asked Antenora, looking around. “
,” said Emma’s voice, followed by more clattering. “Coming. Where are you?” “Some storage area
. There’s a heap of crates here, and also pipes.” “Erm, OK,” said Antenora, hurrying around the cabinet and taking the sheet of paper with her. To her right was a wall, and the voice was coming through it. Antenora turned and walked away from the filing cabinets, then out of the little area, turned left twice and found Emma Squalor struggling to walk over some pipes and around some wooden crates in her six-inch heels. Emma turned clatteringly. “
Antenora,” she said. “We’ve been looking for you
. What are you doing down here?
”
The plight of the archivist and researcher is a sad and awkward one, for just when you are immersed in your work or hobby, someone usually asks what you are doing. “OK; you know that wallpaper with all the writing we found?” Antenora began. “Oh, you mean when Sixteen bashed his head *nods*,” said Emma. “Yes – when Sixteen bashed his head and the noise woke up heaps of people. Well, I noticed something about archives being transported on this ship.” “What – written there?” “Yes, near the bottom. And I’ve kind of… hunted around, I guess, over the last few days.” Antenora was experiencing the difficulties of a researcher explaining what they’ve been doing to someone else.
She pointed behind her. “I’ve found some filing cabinets just over there, and I got this page out of one, and there’s something about 667 Dark Avenue,” she finished up, brandishing the paper. Emma reached for it, slipped, slipped again, finally decided to take her shoes off, and then read the back of the paper: “June 8. 667 Dark Avenue – the beginning of the end. I now have reason to believe that the aforementioned high-rent apartment building on Dark Avenue is indeed the site of a planned removal. As I feel sure you will say, there is little hope; however I believe that some fairly major unpleasantries may be avoided by the system AS mentioned. At any rate, it will help us put things to rights afterward much faster than would be the case otherwise, even if said removal cannot be avoided. I doubt many of the residents will be alerted in time, though, as they are entirely preoccupied with their culture of trends. SJ.”
Antenora frowned. “I guess it means something’s happened, or is happening, at home,” she said. “There are some handwritten notes at the bottom of the page,” Emma noted, and read them out. “First the word ‘COPY’ in capitals, followed by – er - wow, that’s bad writing – oh, yes. ‘Notes – Christie’s Resort a strong possibility. Why didn’t I think of that before I sent the stupid thing? Also: top floor out of action. SJ.’”
Emma shrugged. Antenora’s eyes gleamed in the way that is so puzzling and embarrassing to anyone who is not a researcher. “I really think,” she said, “that we had better tell the others. The cruise will be over soon, and if there’s any trouble at 667…” “What makes you think there’s trouble?” Emma asked. Antenora shook her head; she was lost in thought.
Just because you are a resident of a building does not necessarily mean that every time you hear troubling news about it, go away for a while, or see a scratch in someone’s door, you should immediately poke yourself into the situation. But the residents of 667 Dark Avenue (and particularly some of them) chose to go to great lengths to involve themselves in any suspicious happenings that they had access to. And really, it was none of their business.
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