Post by Dante on Jul 14, 2010 15:07:03 GMT -5
By Sherry Ann, with assistance from MyKindEditor. Original idea by beack.
The Bad Beginning
Chapter One
Mr. Poe was a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire’s whom the children had met many times at dinner parties. One of the things Violet, Klaus, and Sunny really liked about their parents was that they didn’t send their children away when they had company over, but allowed them to join the adults at the dinner table and participate in the conversation as long as they helped clear the table.
“The fire department arrived of course,” Mr. Poe said, “but they were too late. The entire house was engulfed in fire. It burned to the ground.”
Chapter Two
They passed the Fickle Fountain, an elaborately carved monument that occasionally spat out water in which young children played. They passed an enormous pile of dirt where the Royal Gardens once stood.
Chapter Three
Klaus, when Sunny was born, did not like her at all, but by the time she was six weeks old, the two of them were thick as thieves.
[Violet and Klaus] were both remembering a time when the two of them got up early to make a special breakfast for their parents. Violet had burned the toast, and their parents, smelling smoke, had run downstairs to see what the matter was. When they saw Violet and Klaus, looking forlornly at pieces of pitch-black toast, they laughed and laughed, and then made pancakes for the whole family.
“...But I can tell you it concerns a poisonous plant and illegal use of someone’s credit card.”-Justice Strauss
Although [Justice Strauss’s library] was not as big as their parents library...
“I’ve been collecting books for years,” – Justice Strauss
Chapter Seven
“I’ve always wanted to perform onstage. Ever since I was a little girl.” –Justice Strauss
Chapter Eight
Back when his parents were alive, Klaus used to take a flashlight to bed with him and hide under the covers, reading until he couldn’t keep his eyes open. Some mornings, his father would come into Klaus’s room to wake him up, only to find him asleep, still clutching his flashlight in one hand and his book in the other.
Chapter Ten
A group of female Finnish pirates invented it back in the fifteenth century, and named it the Devil’s Tongue because it twisted this way and that, in a most complicated and eerie way.
As [Violet] worked, she remembered something her parents had said to her when Klaus was born, and again when they bought Sunny home from the hospital. “You are the eldest Baudelaire child,” they had said, kindly but firmly. “And as the eldest, it will always be your responsibility to look after your younger siblings. Promise us that you will always watch out for them and make sure they don’t get into trouble.” Violet remembered her promise...
Chapter Eleven
...In my room, for instance, I have gathered a collection of objects that are important to me, including a dusty accordion on which I can play a few sad songs, a large bundle of notes on the activities of the Baudelaire orphans, and a blurry photograph, taken a very long time ago, of a woman whose name is Beatrice. These items are very precious and dear to me.
The Reptile Room
Chapter Three
...as I was writing the tale of the Baudelaire orphans, I happened to look at the clock and realized I was running late for a formal dinner party given by a friend of mine, Madame diLustro. Madame diLustro is a good friend, and excellent detective, and a fine cook, but she flies into a rage if you arrive even five minutes later than her invitation states, so you understand that I had to dash off.
“Remember that time,” Klaus said wistfully, “when we were bored one rainy afternoon, and all of us painted out toenails bright red?” “Yes,” Violet said, grinning, “and I spilled some on the yellow chair.” “Archo!” Sunny said quietly, which probably meant something like “And the stain never really came out.”
Chapter Four
For instance, sometimes when I am walking along the seashore, or visiting the grave of a friend, I will remember a day, a long time ago, when I didn’t bring a flashlight with me to a place where I should have brought a flashlight, and the results were disastrous. Why didn’t I bring a flashlight? I think to myself, even though it is too late to do anything about it. I should have bought a flashlight.
For years after this moment in the lives of the Baudelaire orphans, Klaus thought of the time when he and his siblings realized that Stephano was actually Count Olaf, and was filled with regret that he didn’t call out to the driver of the taxicab who was beginning to drive back down the driveway. Stop![/b] Klaus would think to himself, even though it was too late to do anything about it. Stop! Take this man away! Of course, it is perfectly understandable that Klaus and his sisters were too surprised to act so quickly, but Klaus would lie awake in bed, years later, thinking that maybe, just maybe, if he had acted in time, he could have saved Uncle Monty’s life.
Chapter Five
There was one night, shortly after Sunny was born, that all three children had a horrible flu, and tossed and turned in the grasp of a terrible fever, while their father tried to soothe them all at once, placing cold washcloths on their sweaty brows.
“When I was getting my herpetology degree, my roommate was so envious of a new toad I had discovered that he stole and ate my only specimen. I had to X-ray his stomach, and use the X-rays rather than the toad in my presentation.” – Uncle Monty
Chapter Eight
I cannot say that Violet, years later, slept easily when she looked back on her life- there were too many miserable times for any of the Baudelaires to be peaceful sleepers- but she was always a bit proud of herself that she realized she and her siblings should in fact excuse themselves from the kitchen and move to a more helpful location.
Chapter Nine
[Placing an object at the door when eavesdropping] was a trick [Violet] had learned when she was very small, when she would listen at her parents’ bedroom door to hear what they might be planning for her birthday.
Chapter Eleven
I confess that if I were in Violet’s place, with only a few minutes to open a locked suitcase, instead of on the deck of my friend Bela’s yacht writing this down...
Chapter Thirteen
“One day when [Gustav] was out collecting wildflowers I drowned him in the Swarthy Swamp. Then I forged a note saying he quit.” –Count Olaf (Stephano)
The Wide Window
Chapter One
...when [Klaus] had learned about his allergy at a birthday party when he was eight, he had immediately read all his parents’ books about allergies.
Chapter Two
Sunny had been given a rattle when she was very small, and it was the only thing she was not sorry to lose in the enormous fire that had destroyed the Baudelaire home.
I myself once enjoyed [chilled cucumber soup] in Egypt while visiting a friend of mine who works as a snake charmer.
“[Ike] was my husband, but he was much more than that. He was my best friend, my partner in grammar, and the only person I knew who could whistle with crackers in his mouth.” “Our mother could do that,” Klaus said, smiling. “Her specialty was Mozart’s fourteenth symphony.” “Ike’s was Beethoven’s fourth quartet,” Aunt Josephine replied.
“If I get much closer [to Lake Lachrymose] I remember my last picnic on the beach with my darling Ike. I warned him to wait an hour before he went into the lake, but he only waited forty-five minutes. He thought that was enough.”
Chapter Three
“My mother-in-law had not only one eyebrow, but also only one ear.” –Aunt Josephine.
Chapter Four
In order to escape from the castle of an enemy of mine, I once had cards printed that said I was an admiral in the French Navy.
I have a friend named Gina-Sue who is a socialist, and Gina-Sue has a favorite saying...
Chapter Five
...I am sitting in my room, in the middle of the night, writing down this story and looking out my window at the graveyard behind my home.
Chapter Seven
The Baudelaire allergies are famous for being quick-acting, so the orphans did not have long to wait.
Chapter Eight
The Baudelaire orphans were quiet as they thought of places they had hidden things they did not want to look at, back when they had lived with their parents in the Baudelaire home. Violet thought of an automatic harmonica she had invented that had made such horrible noises that she had hidden it so she didn’t have to think of her failure. Klaus thought of a book on the Franco-Prussian War that was so difficult that he had hidden it so as not to be reminded that he wasn’t old enough to read it. And Sunny thought of a piece of stone that was too hard for even her sharpest tooth, and how she had hidden it so her jaw would no longer ache from so many attempts at conquering it. And all three Baudelaire orphans thought of the hiding place they had chosen.
I have seen many amazing things in my long and troubled life history. I have seen a series of corridors built entirely out of human skulls. I have seen a volcano erupt and send a wall of lava crawling toward a small village. I have seen a woman I loved picked up by an enormous eagle and flown to its high mountain nest.
Chapter Eleven
The scientific principles of the convergence and refraction of light are very confusing, and quite frankly I can’t make head or tail of them, even when my friend Dr. Lorenz explains them to me. But they made perfect sense to Violet. Instantly she thought of a story her father had told her, long ago, when she was just beginning to be interested in science. When her father was a boy, he’d had a dreadful cousin who liked to burn ants, starting a fire by focusing the light of the sun with her magnifying glass.
The Miserable Mill
Chapter Two
I once loved a woman, who for various reasons could not marry me. If she had simply told me in person, I would have been very sad, of course, but eventually it might have passed. However, she chose instead to write a two-hundred page book, explaining every single detail of the bad news at great length, and instead my sadness had been of impossible depth. When the book was first brought to me, by a flock of carrier pigeons, I stayed up all night reading it, and I read it still, over and over, and it is as if my darling Beatrice is bringing me bad news every day and every night of my life.
Chapter Three
Except for one summer day, back when [the Baudelaires’] parents were still alive, when the Baudelaires had opened a lemonade stand in front of their house, the orphans had never had jobs, and they were nervous.
Chapter Four
If someone offered to smuggle me out of the country in her sailboat, in exchange for free tickets to an ice show, that would be a fair deal.
“[Sir] had a very terrible childhood.”
Chapter Five
A police man [tripped] me once, when I was carrying a crystal ball belonging to a Gypsy fortune-teller who never forgave me for tumbling to the ground and shattering her ball into hundreds of pieces.
Chapter Seven
My chauffeur once told me that I would feel better in the morning, but when I woke up the two of us were still on a tiny island surrounded by man-eating crocodiles, and, as I’m sure you can understand, I didn’t feel any better about it.
[Violet thinks again of the promise she made to her parents about watching over Klaus and Sunny]
...and worst of all, once again [Klaus’s glasses] became all twisted and cracked and hopelessly broken, like my friend Tutiana’s sculptures.
Chapter Eight
“Oh, no,” Klaus answered. “I read the Encyclopedia Hypnotica just last year.”
My beloved Beatrice, before her untimely death asked it, although she asked it too late.
Chapter Twelve
...And whenever I hear [a loud clink! noise] I am reminded of a sword fight I was forced to have with a television repairman not long ago.
When Klaus looked at the lumber mill equipment, he remembered a time when he was even more bored than he had been when working at Lucky Smells. This especially boring time had happened a very long time ago, when the Baudelaire parents were still alive. Klaus had read a book on different kinds of fish, and asked his parents if they would take him fishing. His mother warned him that fishing was one of the most boring activities in the world, but found two fishing poles in the basement and agreed to take him to a nearby lake. Klaus had been hoping that he would get to see the different types of fish he had read about, but instead he and his mother sat in a rowboat in the middle of a lake and did nothing for an entire afternoon. He and his mother had kept quiet, so as not to scare the fish away, but there were no fish, no conversation, and absolutely no fun.
The Austere Academy
Chapter One
One evening, the Baudelaire parents had gone out to hear an orchestra play, and the three children had stayed by themselves in the family mansion. The Baudelaires had something of a routine on nights like this. First, Violet and Klaus would play a few games of checkers while Sunny ripped up some old newspapers, and then the three children would read in the library until they fell asleep on comfortable sofas. When their parents came home early and the children were still up reading- or, in Sunny’s case, looking at the pictures. The siblings’ father stood in the doorway of the library and said something they never forgot. “Children,” he said, “there is no worse sound in the world than somebody who cannot play the violin who insists on doing so anyway.”
So as I hide out here in this mountain cabin...
Chapter Three
Several years before this story took place, when Violet was ten and Klaus was eight and Sunny was not even a fetus, the Baudelaire family went to a country fair in order to see a pig that their Uncle Elwyn had entered in a contest. The pig contest turned out to be a bit dull, but in the neighboring tent there was another contest that the family found quite interesting: the Biggest Lasagna Contest. The lasagna that won the blue ribbon had been baked by eleven nuns, and was as big and soft as a large mattress. Perhaps because they were at such an impressionable age... Violet and Klaus always remembered this lasagna, and they were sure they would never see another one anywhere near as big.
Chapter Four
...My friend Professor Reed made a triptych for me, and he painted fire on one panel, a typewriter on another, and the face of a beautiful, intelligent woman on the third. The triptych is entitled What Happened to Beatrice and I cannot look upon it without weeping.
Klaus could remember a time, when he was about eight years old, when he had measured the width of all the doorways in the Baudelaire mansion when he was bored one rainy afternoon.
Chapter Six
Prufrock Preparatory School is now closed. It has been closed for many years, even since Mrs. Bass was arrested for bank robbery, and if you were to visit it now, you would find it an empty and silent place. If you walked on the lawn, you would not see any children running around, as there were the day the Baudelaires arrived. If you walked by the building containing the classrooms, you would not hear the droning voice of Mr. Remora telling a story, and if you walked by the building containing the auditorium, you would not hear the ssalsaings and shrieking of Vice Principal Nero playing the violin. If you went and stood beneath the arch, looking up at the black letters spelling out the name of the school and its austere... motto, you would hear nothing but the swish of the breeze through the brown and patchy grass.
“Remember the picnic?” Violet said. “We were going to Rutabaga River for a picnic, and Father was so excited about the meal he made that he forgot to pack silverware!” “Of course I remember,” Klaus said. “We had to eat all that sweet-and-sour shrimp with our hands.” “Sticky!” Sunny said, holding her hands up. “It sure was,” Violet agreed. “Afterward, we went to wash our hands in the river, and he found a perfect place to try the fishing rod I made.” “And I picked blackberries with mother,” Klaus said. “Eroos,” Sunny said, which meant something like “And I bit rocks.” The children stopped laughing now as they remembered that afternoon, which hadn’t been so very long ago but felt like it had happened in the distant, distant, past... now, remembering the way the sunlight had shone on the water of Rutabaga River and the laughter of their parents as they’d made a mess of themselves eating the sweet-and-sour shrimp... the Baudelaires all knew that even if someday they went back to Rutabaga River- which they never did, by the way...
“Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass have taught at this school for more that forty-seven years,” –Vice Principal Nero
Scrambled eggs had never been the siblings’ favorite dish...
Chapter Nine
I discovered this myself when I was woken up in the middle of the night and chased sixteen miles by an angry mob arrived with torches, swords, and vicious dogs...
Chapter Eleven
I once attended one of the famed masked balls hosted by the duchess of Winnipeg, and it was one of the most exciting and dangerous evenings of my life. I was disguised as a bullfighter and slipped into the party while being pursued by the palace guards, who were disguised as scorpions. The moment I entered the Grand Ballroom, I felt as if Lemony Snicket had disappeared. I was wearing clothes I had never worn before- a scarlet cape made of silk and a vest embroidered with gold thread and a skinny black mask- and it made me feel as if I were a different person. And because I felt like a different person, I dared to approach a woman I had been forbidden to approach for the rest of my life. She was alone on the veranda- the word “veranda” is a fancy term for a porch made of polished gray marble- and costumed as a dragonfly, with a glittering green mask and enormous silvery wings. As my pursuers scurried around the party, trying to guess which guest was me, I slipped out to the veranda and gave her the message I’d been trying to give her for fifteen long and lonely years. “Beatrice,” I cried, just as the scorpions spotted me, “Count Olaf is—”
The Ersatz Elevator
Chapter One
Nowhere in this book will you will find the words “bubble,” “peacock,” “vacation,” or, unfortunately for me, anything about an execution being canceled.
Chapter Two
"...when our parents attended the Sixteenth Annual Run-a-thon and their feet were so tired when they got home that Dad prepared dinner while sitting on the kitchen floor, instead of standing?"[Violet said.] Of course I remember, we only had salad, because they couldn't stand up and reach the stove."[Klaus replied.] "It would have been the perfect meal for Aunt Josephine. She never wanted to use the stove, because she thought it might explode."
"Ah! You're adventurous! I like that in a person. Your mother was adventurous too. You know, she and I were very good friends a way back. We hiked up Mount Fraught with some friends- gosh it must have been 20 years ago. Mount Fraught was known for having dangerous animals on it, but your mother wasn't afraid. But then, swooping out of the sky..."[Jerome]
Chapter Three
...and it was a word that still haunts me in my dreams as I toss and turn each night, images of Beatrice and her legacy filling my weary, grieving brain no matter where in the world I travel and no matter what important evidence I discover .[Lemony as narrator]
Chapter Four
If you are ever forced to take a chemistry class, you will probably see, at the front of the classroom, a large chart divided into squares, with different numbers and letters in each of them. This chart is called the table of elements, and scientists like to say that it contains all the substances that make up our world. Like everyone else, scientists are wrong from time to time, and it is easy to see that they are wrong about the table of elements. Because although this table contains a great many elements, from the element oxygen, which is found in the air, to the element aluminum, which is found in cans of soda, the table of elements does not contain one of the most powerful elements that make up our world, and that is the element of surprise. The element of surprise is not a gas, like oxygen, or a solid like aluminum. The element of surprise is an unfair advantage, and it can be found in situations in which one person has sneaked up on another. The surprised person- or, in this sad case, the surprised persons-are too stunned to defend themselves, and the sneaky person has the element of surprise.’
Chapter Six
Morning is one of the best times for thinking. When one has just woken up, but hasn’t yet gotten out of bed, it is a perfect time to look up at the ceiling, consider one’s life, and wonder what the future will hold. The morning I am writing this chapter, I am wondering if the future will hold something that will enable me to saw through these handcuffs and crawl out of the double- locked window, but in the case of the Baudelaire orphans, when the morning sun shone through the eight hundred and forty-nine windows in the Squalor penthouse, they were wondering if the future would hold knowledge of the trouble they felt closing in around them.
At the mention of the Quagmire triplets, all three Baudelaires felt a stiffening of their resolve, a phrase here which means “realized that they had to search the penthouse for Gunther, even thought it was a scary thing to do.” The children remembered how hard Duncan and Isadora had worked to save them from Count Olaf’s clutches back at Prufrock Preparatory School, doing absolutely everything they could do to help the Baudelaires escape Olaf’s evil plan. The Quagmires had put on disguises, risking their lives on order to try to fool Olaf. And the Quagmires had done a lot of researching, finding out the secret of the V.F.D- although they had been snatched away before they could reveal the secret to the Baudelaires.
Chapter Seven
When you know someone a long time, you become accustomed to their idiosyncrasies, which is a fancy word for their unique habits. For instance, Sunny Baudelaire had known her sister Violet, for quite some time, and was accustomed to Violet's idiosyncrasy of tying her hair up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes whenever she was inventing something. Violet had known Sunny for exactly the same amount of time, and was accustomed to Sunny's idiosyncrasy of saying 'Freijip?' when she wanted to ask the question 'How can you think of elevators at a time like this?' And both the young Baudelaire women were very well acquainted with their brother, Klaus, and were accustomed to his idiosyncrasy of not paying a bit of attention to his surroundings when he was thinking very hard about something, as he was clearly doing as the afternoon wore on.
“My friend Ben once gave me some elevator blue prints for my birthday, and I studied them very closely . They were destroyed in the fire, of course, but I remember that an elevator is essentially a platform, surrounded by an enclosure, that moves along the vertical axis via an endlessly looped belt and a series of ropes. It's controlled by a push-button console that regulates an electromagnetic braking system so the transport sequence can be halted at any access point the passenger desires. In other words, it's a box that moves up and down, depending where you want to go.”[Violet]
Although there have been only five burglars in the history of robbery who have specialized in rope. All five of the robbers were caught and sent to prison, which is why scarcely any people lock up their rope for safekeeping.
[about The Devil's Tongue knot] It was invented by female Finnish pirates in the fifteenth century.
'The only thing they felt was sheer terror, as deep and as dark as the passageway itself, a terror so profound that I have slept with four night-lights ever since I visited 667 Dark Avenue and saw this deep pit that the Baudelaires climbed down. But I also saw, during my visit, what the Baudelaire orphans saw when they reached the bottom after climbing for more than three terrifying hours.
Chapter Eight
I once read about a journalist, who was reporting on a war and was imprisoned by the enemy for three years. Each morning, she looked out her cell window and thought she saw her grandparents coming to rescue her. But they weren't really there. It was a hallucination.
I remember reading about a poet, who would see six lovely maidens in his kitchen on Thursday nights, but his kitchen was really empty. It was a phantasm.
The word "haunted" I'm sure you know, usually applies to a house, graveyard, or supermarket that has ghosts living in it, but the word can also be used to describe people who have seen and heard such horrible things that they feel as if ghosts are living inside them, haunting their brains and hearts with misery and despair.
Waiting rooms, as I'm sure you know, are small rooms with plenty of chairs for waiting, as well as piles of old, dull magazines to read and some vapid paintings- the word "vapid" here means "usually containing horses, in a field or puppies in a basket"- while you endure the boredom that doctors and dentists inflict on their patients before bringing them in to poke them and prod them and do all the miserable things that such people are paid to do. It is very rare to have a waiting room in someone's home, because even a home as enormous as the squalor's does not contain doctor's or dentist's office, and also because waiting rooms are so uninteresting that you would never want one in the place where you live.
Chapter Nine
One of the greatest myths in the world- and the phrase "greatest myths" is just a fancy way of saying "big fat lies"- is that troublesome things get less and less troublesome if you do them more and more. People say this myth when they are teaching children to ride bicycles, for instance, as though falling off a bicycle and skinning your knee is less troublesome the fourteenth time you do it than it is the first time. The truth is that troublesome things tend to remain troublesome no matter how many times you do them, and that you should avoid doing them unless they are absolutely urgent.
Chapter Ten
This time, the plunge does not need to be represented by pages of darkness, because the terror of the long, dark fall was alleviated-the word "alleviated" here means "not particularly on Sunny's mind".
Chapter Eleven
One of my most prized possessions is a small wooden box with a special lock on it that is more than five hundred years old and works according to a secret code that my grandfather taught me. My grandfather learnt it from his grandfather, and his grandfather learned it from his grandfather, and I would teach it to my grandchild if I thought that I would ever have a family of my own instead of living out the remainder of my days all alone in this world. The small wooden box is one of my most prized possessions, because when the lock is opened according to the code, a small silver key may be found inside, and this key fits the lock on one of my other most prized possessions, which is a slightly larger wooden box given to me by a woman my grandfather always refused to speak about. Inside this slightly larger wooden box is a roll of parchment, a word here that means "some very old paper printed with a map of the city at the time the Baudelaire orphans lived in it." The map has every single detail of the city written down in dark blue ink, with measurements of buildings and sketches of costumes and charts of changes in the weather all added in the margins by the map's twelve previous owners, all of whom are now dead. I have spent more hours than I can ever count going over every inch of this maps carefully as possible, so that everything that can be learned from it can be copied into my files and then into books such as this one, in the hopes that the general public will finally learn every detail of the treacherous conspiracy I have spent my life trying to escape. The map contains thousands of fascinating things that have been discovered by all sorts of explorers, criminal investigators, and circus performers over the years, but the most fascinating thing that the map contains was discovered just at this moment by the three Baudelaire children. Sometimes, in the dead of night when I cannot sleep, I rise from my bed and work the code on the small wooden box to retrieve the silver key that opens the slightly larger box so that I can sit at my desk and look again, by candlelight, at the two dotted lines of the underground hallway that begins at the bottom of the elevator shaft at 667 Dark Avenue and ends up at the trapdoor that the Baudelaire managed to open with their ersatz crowbars. I stare and stare at the part of the city where the orphans climbed out of that ghastly corridor, but know no matter how much I stare I can scarcely believe my own eyes, anymore than the youngsters could believe theirs.
Chapter Twelve
Several years before the Baudelaires were born, Veblen Hall won the prestigious Door Prize, an award given each year to the city’s best-constructed opening...
Chapter Thirteen
Late at night, when not even the map of the city can comfort me, I close my eyes and imagine all those happy comforting things surrounding the Baudelaire children, instead of all those doilies that surrounded them and brought yet another scoop of misfortune into their lives.
“Your mother always said I wasn’t brave enough...” [Jerome speaking about Mrs. Baudelaire]
The Vile Village
Chapter Two
“...about three hundred and six years ago” Hector said, “A group of explorers discovered the murder of crows that we just saw... the explorers were so excited by it that they decided to live here. Before too long, a town sprung up, and so they named it V.F.D.”
Chapter Four
I myself fell in love with a wonderful woman who was so charming and intelligent that I trusted that she would be my bride, but there was no way of knowing for sure, and all too soon circumstances changed and she ended up marrying someone else, all because of something she read in The Daily Punctilio.
...Attempting to rescue Lemony Snicket by writing letters to a congressman, instead of digging an escape tunnel [is making a mistake.]
Chapter Five
“ ‘Curioser and curioser,’” [Hector] said, quoting one of the Baudelaires’ favorite books.”
Violet remembered what her father had taught her to say when he was unable to come to the phone, and she spoke up. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Hector is occupied at the moment. May I give him a message?”
Chapter Ten
“Something about this bread made me remember my twelfth Birthday, when our parents made that bread pudding.”[Klaus said.]... “I remember,” [Violet] said, smiling. “That was the worst dessert we ever tasted.”... “It was a new recipe that they were trying out,” Klaus said. “They wanted it to be special for my birthday, but it was burned and sour and soggy. And they promised next year, for my thirteenth birthday, I’d have the best birthday meal in the world.”
Chapter Twelve
You, unlike the Baudelaire orphans and the Quagmire triplets and me and my dear departed Beatrice, can stop this wretched story at this very moment...
Chapter Thirteen
The harpoon was sticking out of one of the ladder’s thick ropes, which was slowly uncurling around the hook. It reminded Violet of a time back when she was much younger, and had begged her mother to braid her hair so she could look like a famous inventor she had seen in a magazine. Despite her mother’s best efforts, the braids had not held their shapes, and had come unraveled almost as soon as she had tied their ends with ribbons. Violet’s hair had slowly spun out of the braid...
The Hostile Hospital
Chapter One
And if you were an author locked in an Italian restaurant that was slowly filling up with water, you might call upon your acquaintances in the locksmith, pasta, and sponge businesses to come and rescue you.
“I built myself when I was seven, so I know how to connect the electronic circuit.”[Violet] “And I’ve read two books about Morse code,” Klaus said.
Chapter Two
And I would hop like nobody has ever hopped before, if I could somehow go back to that terrible Thursday, and stop Beatrice from attending that afternoon tea where she met Esmé Squalor for the first time.
Chapter Three
For instance, as I crouch here behind the altar of the Cathedral of the Alleged Virgin, a friend of mine is playing a sonata on the pipe organ, to calm me down and so the sounds of my typewriter will not be heard by the worshippers sitting in the pews. The mournful melody of the sonata reminds me of a tune my father used to sing when he did the dishes, and as I listen to it I can temporarily forget six or seven of my troubles.
Chapter Five
The word “Beatrice” reminds me of a volunteer organization that was swarming with corruption, and the word “midnight” reminds me that I must keep writing this chapter very quickly, or else I will probably drown.
Chapter Six
If this were a book about me, instead of about the three children who would soon run into someone they had hoped never to see again, I might pause for a moment and tell you about something I did many years ago that still troubles me. It was a necessary thing to do, but it was not a nice thing, and even now, I get a small quiver of shame in my stomach whenever I remember it. I might be doing something I enjoy- walking along the promenade dick of a ship, or looking through a telescope at the aurora borealis, or wandering into a bookstore and placing my books on the highest place in the shelf, so that no one will be tempted to buy and read them- when I will suddenly remember this thing I did, and think to myself, Was it really necessary? Was it absolutely necessary to steal that sugar bowl from Esmé Squalor?
Chapter Seven
“For a moment it seemed to Violet her father would step out of the photograph and say, “There you are, Ed. Where have you been?” Ed was short for Thomas Alva Edison, one of the greatest inventors of all time, and it was a special nickname only used by her father...
[Klaus] looked at his mother’s coat, which had a secret pocket on the inside. In the secret pocket, she often kept a small pocket dictionary, which she would take out whenever she encountered a word she did not know. Because Klaus was so interested in reading, she had promised that some day she would give the pocket dictionary to him, and now it seemed to Klaus that his mother was about to reach into her coat and pull the small, leather bound book in his hand... “
[Sunny] looked at her parents’ smiles, and suddenly remembered, for the first time since the fire, a song that her mother and father used to sing together when it was time for Sunny to go to sleep. The song was called “The Butcher Boy,” and the Baudelaire parents would take turns singing the verses, her mother singing in her breathy, high voice, and her father in his, which was as low and deep as a fog horn. “The Butcher Boy” was the perfect was for Sunny to end the day, safe and cozy in the Baudelaire crib.
Chapter Nine
[Sunny remembered] the day she had learned to open cans all by herself. It was not that long ago, although it felt like it was in the very distant past, because it was before the Baudelaire mansion burned down, when the entire family was happy and together. It was the Baudelaires’ mother’s birthday, and she was sleeping late while everyone backed a cake for her. Violet was beating the eggs, butter, and sugar with a mixing device she had invented herself. Klaus was sifting the flour with the cinnamon, pausing every few minutes to wipe his glasses. And the Baudelaires’ father was making his famous cream-cheese frosting, which would be spread thickly on top of the cake. All was going well until the electric can opener broke, and Violet didn’t have the proper tools to fix it. The Baudelaires’ father disparately needed to open a can of condensed milk to make his frosting, and for a moment it looked like the cake was going to be ruined. But Sunny- who had been playing quietly on the floor this whole time- said her first word, “Bite,” and bit down on the can, poking four small holes so the sweet, thick milk could pour out. The Baudelaires laughed and applauded and the children’s mother came downstairs, and from then on they used Sunny whenever they needed to open a can of anything, except for beets.
Chapter Ten
I must interrupt [this story] for a moment and describe something that happened to a good friend of mine named Mr. Sirin. Mr. Sirin was a lepidopterist, a word which usually means “a person who studies butterflies.” In this case, however, the word “lepidopterist” means, “a man who was being pursued by angry government officials,” and on the night I am telling you about they were right on his heels. Mr. Sirin looked back to see how close they were- four officers in their bright-pink uniforms, with small flashlights in their left hands and large nets in their right- and realized that in a moment they would catch up, and arrest him and his six favorite butterflies, which were frantically flapping alongside him. Mr. Sirin did not care much if he was captured- he had been in prison four and a half times over the course of his long and complicated life- but he cared very much about the butterflies. He realized that these six delicate insects would undoubtedly perish in bug prison, where poisonous spiders, stinging bees, and other criminals would rip them to shreds. So, as the secret police closed in, Mr. Sirin opened his mouth as wide as he could and swallowed all six butterflies whole, quickly placing them in the dark but safe confines of his empty stomach. It was not a pleasant feeling to have these six insects living inside him, but Mr. Sirin kept them there for three years eating only the lightest foods served in prison so as not to crush the insects with a clump of broccoli or a baked potato. When his prison sentence was over, Mr. Sirin burped up the grateful butterflies and resumed his lepidoptery work in a community that was much more friendly to scientists and their specimens.
Chapter Twelve
Once I was a content man, with a comfortable home, a successful career, a person I loved very much, and an extremely reliable typewriter, but all of those things have been taken away from me, and now the only trace I have of those happy days is the tattoos on my left ankle. As I sit in this very tiny room, printing these words with this very large pencil, I feel as if my whole life has been nothing but a dismal play...
Chapter Thirteen
When Violet Baudelaire was five years old, she won her first invention contest with an automatic rolling pin she’d fashioned out of a broken window shade and six pairs on rollerskates. As the judges place the gold medal around her neck, one of them said to her, “I bet you could invent something with both hands tied behind your back,” and Violet smiled proudly.
The Carnivorous Carnival
Chapter One
When my workday is over, and I have closed my notebook, hidden my pen, and sawed holes in my rented canoe so that it cannot be found, I often like to spend the evening in conversation with my few surviving friends. Sometimes we discuss literature. Sometimes we discuss the people who are trying to destroy us, and if there is any hope of escaping from them.
Long ago the Baudelaire parents had promised they would bring their children someday to see the famous hinterland sunsets. Klaus... had read descriptions of the sunsets that had made the whole family eager to go, and Violet... had even begun building a solar oven so the family could enjoy grilled cheese sandwiches as they watched the dark blue light spread eerily over the hinterlands cacti while the sun slowly sank behind the distant and frosty Mortmain Mountains.
Chapter Two
“You said [the carnival will get plenty of money] about the Quagmire fortune... and about the Snicket fortune.” –Olivia (Madame Lulu)
I recently looked in the refrigerator of one of my enemies and learned she was a vegetarian, or at least pretending to be one, or had a vegetarian visiting her for a few days.
“Mother taught me how to draw fake scars on myself when she appeared in that play about the murderer.” –Violet
Chapter Three
I once had a very difficult job interview in which I had not only to explain that I could hit an olive with a bow and arrow, memorize up to three pages of poetry, and determine if there was poison mixed into cheese fondue without tasting it, but I had to demonstrate all these things as well.
Chapter Four
[The Story of Queen Debbie and her Boyfriend, Tony]
Chapter Five
When I am able, I go out walking on Briny Beach very early in the morning, which is the best time to find materials important to the Baudelaire case, and the ocean is so peaceful that I feel peaceful, too, as if I am no longer grieving for the woman I love and will never see again. But then, when I am cold and duck into a teashop where the owner is expecting me, I have only to reach for the sugar bowl before my grief returns, and I find myself crying so loudly that other customers ask me if I could possibly lower my sobs.
Chapter Six
My dear sister, if you are reading this, I am still alive , and heading north to try and find you.
“ ‘This might be helpful.’ And it’s signed with one initial- I think it’s an R, or maybe a K.” –Violet
You might want to become the sort of author who works calmly at home, for example, but something could happen that would lead you to become the sort of author who works frantically in the homes of other people, often without their knowledge. You might want to marry someone you love very much, but something could happen that would prevent the two of you from ever seeing one another again. You might want to find out something important about your parents, but something could happen that would mean you wouldn’t find out for quite some time.
Chapter Seven
“A friend of mine trained [the lions] to smell smoke, which was very helpful in our work.” –Olivia
Chapter Nine
Just last night, I was troubled by a decision involving an eye dropper, a greedy night watchman, and a try of individual custards, and this morning I am so tired that I can scarcely type these worfs.
“I wish I had Mother’s tool kit,” [Violet] said. “She had this tiny wrench I always admired, and it would be just perfect for this job.”
“Remember the train station?” Klaus said, and Violet nodded... there was no way [Sunny] could have [remembered this day], as she hadn’t been born at the time her siblings were remembering. The Baudelaire family and decided to go away for the weekend to a vineyard, a word which here means “a sort of farm where people grow grapes used in wine.” This vineyard was famous for having grapes that smelled delicious, and it was very pleasant to picnic in the fields, while the fragrance drifted in the air and the vineyard’s famous donkeys, who helped carry bushels of grapes at harvest time, slept in the shade of the grapevines. To reach the vineyard, the Baudelaires had to take not one train but two, transferring at a busy station not far from Paltryville, and on the day that Violet and Klaus were remembering, the children had been separated from their parents in the rush of the transferring crowd. Violet and Klaus, who were quite young, decided to search for their parents in their vow of shops just outside the station, and soon the local shoemaker, blacksmith, chimney sweep, and computer technician were all helping the two frightened children look for their mother and father. Soon enough the Baudelaire family was reunited, but the children’s father had taught them a serious lesson. “If you lose us,” he said, “stay put.” “Yes,” their mother agreed. “Don’t go wandering around looking for us. We’ll come and find you.”
I have found myself in places where staying put would be dangerously foolish, and foolishly dangerous. I have stood in a department store, and seen something written on a price tag that told me I had to leave at once, but in different clothing. I have sat in an airport, and heard something over the loudspeaker that told me I had to leave late that day, but on a different flight. And I have stood alongside the roller coaster at Caligari Carnival, and known what the Baudelaires could not possibly have known that quiet morning. I have looked at the carts, all melted together and covered in ash, and I have gazed into the pit dug by Count Olaf and his henchmen and seen all the burnt holes lying in a heap, and I have picked through the bits of mirror and crystal where the fortunetelling tent once stood, and all this research has told me the same thing, and if somehow I could slip out of the disguise I am in now, I would walk to the edge of the pit and tell the Baudelaire orphans the results of my findings. But of course I cannot. I can only fulfill my sacred duty and type this story as best I can, down to the last worf.
The Slippery Slope
Chapter One
I have never been able to find [the Caravan’s] remains, even after months of searching the area with only a lantern and a rhyming dictionary for company. It seems that even after countless nights of battling snow gnats and praying the batteries would not run out, it is my fate that some of my questions will never be answered.
Chapter Two
My brother asked the question once, and had nightmares about it for weeks. An associate of mine asked the question, and found himself falling through the air before he could knew the answer. It is a question I asked once, a very long time ago and in a very timid voice, and a woman replied by quickly putting or motorcycle helmet on her head and wrapping her body in a red silk cape.
Chapter Three
“I used to be a member of the organization [V.F.D.] myself, but I found it was more fun to be an individual practitioner.” – Count Olaf
... I have always preferred it stay in hotels or rented castles...
Chapter Four
“Years ago, apparently these mountains were crawling with bears. The bears were so intelligent that they were trained as soldiers. But they disappeared and no one knows why.” [Bruce.] “Not bears,” [Quigley] said, so quietly that the two Baudelaires had to lean in to hear him. “Lions lived in these caves. And they weren’t soldiers. The lions were detectives- volunteer feline detectives.”
Chapter Five
My dear sister, I am taking a great risk in hiding a letter to you inside one of my books, but I am certain that even the most melancholy and well-read people in the world have found my account of the lives of the three Baudelaire children even more wretched than I had promised, and so this book will stay on the shelves of libraries, utterly ignored, waiting for you to open it and find this message. As an additional precaution, I placed a warning that the rest of this chapter contains a description of the Baudelaires’ miserable journey up the Vertical Flame Diversion, so anyone who has the courage to read such a description is probably brave enough to read my letter to you. I have at last learned the whereabouts of the evidence that will exonerate me, a phrase which here means “prove to the authorities that it is Count Olaf, and not me, who has started so many fires.” Your suggestion, so many years ago at that picnic, that a tea set would be a handy place to hide anything important and small in the event of a dark day, has turned out to be correct. (Incidentally, your other picnic suggestion that a simple combination of sliced mango, black beans, and chopped celery mixed with black pepper, lime juice, and olive oil would make a delicious chilled salad also turned out to be correct.) I am on my way now to the Valley of Four Drafts, in order to continue my research on the Baudelaire case. I hope also to retrieve the aforementioned evidence at last. It is too late to restore my happiness, of course, but at least I can clear my name. From the site of V.F.D. headquarters, I will head straight for the Hotel Denouement. I should arrive by- well, it wouldn’t be wise to type the date, but it should be easy for you to remember Beatrice’s birthday. Meet me at the hotel. Try to get us a room without ugly curtains. With all due respect, [Lemony Snicket’s Signature] Lemony Snicket. P.S. If you substitute the chopped celery with hearts of palm, it is equally delicious.
[Sunny] remembered something her mother had told her once. They had both been busy in the kitchen- Sunny’s mother was busy preparing for a fancy luncheon, and Sunny was busy dropping a fork on the floor over and over again to see what sort of sound it made. The luncheon was due to start any minute, and Sunny’s mother was quickly mixing up a salad of sliced mango, black beans, and chopped celery mixed with black pepper, lime juice, and olive oil. “This isn’t a very complicated recipe, Sunny,” her mother had said. “But if I rearrange the salad very nicely on fancy plates, people will think I’ve been cooking all day. Often, when cooking, the presentation of the food can be as important as the food itself.”
Chapter Six
“I had an infant servant once- a long time ago, before the schism.” [woman with hair but no beard] “Before the schism?” Olaf said... “That is a long time ago. That infant must be all grown up by now.” “Not necessarily,” the woman said...
Chapter Seven
[Violet] was remembering one summer, very long ago, when Klaus was very young and Sunny was not even conceived. Every summer, the Baudelaires’ mother would read a very long book, joking that lifting a large novel was the only exercise she liked to get during the hot months. During the time Violet was thinking of, Mrs. Baudelaire chose Anna Karenina for her summer reading, and Klaus would sit on his mother’s lap for hours at a time while she read. The middle Baudelaire had not been reading very long, but their mother helped him with the big words and would occasionally stop reading to explain what had happened in the story, and in this way Klaus and his mother read [Anna Karenina]... Violet had spent most of that summer studying the laws of thermodynamics and building a miniature helicopter out of an eggbeater and some old copper wiring...
... And in my own case, in the few moments where I have led a daring life of impulsive passion, it has led to all sorts of trouble, from false accusations of arson to a broken cuff link I can never have repaired.
NOTICE: Chapter Eight was skipped, due to Quigley describing his story at length. Interested parties might turn to Chapter Eight of The Slippery Slope.
Chapter Nine
It is one of the great sadnesses of the Baudelaire case that Violet never got to meet a man named C.M. Kornbluth, an associate of mine who spent most of his life living and working in the Valley of Four Drafts as a mechanical instructor at the V.F.D. headquarters. Mr. Kornbluth was a quiet and secretive man, so secretive that no one ever knew who he was, where he came from, or even what the C or the M stood for, and he spent much of his time holed up in his dormitory room writing strange stories, or gazing sadly out the windows of the kitchen. The one thing that put Mr. Kornbluth in a good mood would be a particularly promising mechanical student. If a young man showed an interest in deep sea radar, Mr. Kornbluth would take off his glasses and smile. If a young woman brought him a staple gun she had built, Mr. Kornbluth would clap his hands in excitement. And if a pair of twins asked him how to properly reroute some copper wiring, he would take a paper bag out of his pocket and offer some pistachio nuts to anyone who happened to be around... I can imagine Mr. Kornbluth, even though he and his pistachios are long gone, turning from the window, smiling at the Baudelaire inventor, and saying, “Beatrice, come over here! Look at what this girl is making!”
Chapter Eleven
“My father always used to say that a good meal can cheer one up considerably.” [Quigley stated.] “My father always said the same thing,” Violet said, looking at Quigley curiously.
“Jacques Snicket mentioned a sugar bowl once,” [Quigley] said, “when we were in Dr. Montgomery’s library. He said it was very important to find it. I wrote it down on the top of a page in my commonplace book...”
Chapter Twelve
Not too long ago, in the Swedish city of Stockholm, a group of bank robbers took a few prisoners during the course of their work. For several days, the bank robbers and the prisoners lived together in close proximity, a word which here means “while the police gathered outside and eventually managed to arrest the robbers and take them to jail.” When the prisoners were finally freed, however, the authorities discovered that they had become friends with the bank rovers, and since that time the expression “Stockholm Syndrome” has been used...”
“I can just hear those words,” [Violet] said. “The world is quiet here.” She closed her eyes. “I think it was a very long time ago, before you were born, Klaus.” ... “Nobody said them to me,” she said finally. “Someone sang them. I think my parents sang the words ‘the world is quiet here’ a long time ago, but I don’t know why.”
“Being well-read won’t help you in this world. Many years ago, I was supposed to waste my entire summer reading Anna Karenina, but I knew that silly book would never help me, so I threw it into the fireplace.” [Esmé said.]
The Baudelaires would never do any of these things, any more than I will ever see my beloved Beatrice again, or retrieve the pickle from the refrigerator in which I left it, and return it to its rightful place in an important coded sandwich.”
Chapter Thirteen
I do not know, for instance, what happened to the two white-faced women who decided to quip Olaf’s troupe and walk away, all by themselves, down the Mortmain Mountains. There are some who say that they still paint their faces white, and can be seen singing sad songs in some of the gloomiest music halls in the city. There are some who say that they live together in the hinterlands, attempting to grow rhubarb in the dry and barren ground. And there are those who say that they did not survive the trip down from Mount Fraught, and that their bones can be found in one of the many caves in the odd, square peaks. But although I have sat through song after dreary song, and tasted some of the worst rhubarb in my life, and brought bone after bone to a skeleton expert until she told me that I was making her so miserable that I should never return, I have not been able to discover what truly happened to the two women. I do not know where the remains of the caravan are, as I have told you, and as I reach the end of the rhyming dictionary, and read the short list of words that rhyme with “zucchini,” I am beginning to think I should stop my search for the destroyed vehicle and give up that particular part of my research. And I have not tracked down the refrigerator in which the Baudelaires found the Verbal Fridge Dialogue, despite stories that it is also in one of the Mortmain Mountain caves, or performing in some of the gloomiest music halls in the city.
...but it took me quite some time before I decoded [the two lines that read: Even the weariest river/ Winds somewhere safe to sea].
The Grim Grotto
Chapter One
I recently experienced a passive moment myself, sitting in a chair as a shoe salesperson forced my feet into a series of ugly and uncomfortable positions, when all the while I wanted a bright red pair of shoes with strange buckles that nobody on earth was going to buy for me.
Chapter Two
“I’ve never been so insulted in my life! No—I have. Many times, in fact. Aye! I remember when Count Olaf turned to me and said, in that horrible voice of his—No, never mind... [The Queequeg has] been my submarine for years... I would think Josephine would have told you about the Queequeg! After all, I patrolled Lake Lachrymose for years!” [Captain Widdershins]
“We’ve been attacked by villains and leeches, by sharks and realtors, by pirates and girlfriends, by torpedoes and angry salmon!” [Captain Widdershins]
“Why, I remember when they wouldn’t let me go mountain climbing because I hadn’t trained properly, and—”[Captain Widdershins]
“The original second in the crew of two was Fiona’s mother, but she died in a manatee accident quite a few years ago.” [Captain Widdershins stated] “I’m not so sure it was an accident,” Fiona said. “Then we had Jacques!” the captain continued. “Aye, and then what’s-his-name, Jacques’s brother, and then a dreadful woman who turned out to be a spy, and finally we have Phil!”
Chapter Three
“That’s not why I’m limping,” Phil said. “I was bitten by a shark last week. It was very painful, but I’m quite lucky. Most people never get an opportunity to get so close to such a deadly animal!”
“My stepfather taught [the secret stain code] to Madame Lulu,” Fiona explained, “a long time ago, when they were both young.”
“Later this afternoon, for instance, I will enter a large room full of sand, and if I do not find the test tube I am looking for, it will be difficult to admit that I have sifted through all that sand for nothing.”
Chapter Four
“The captain sighed, and raised one finger to fiddle with the curl of his mustache. “Aye,” he said sadly. “Anwhistle Aquatics. It’s a marine research center and rhetorical advice service— or it was. It burned down.””Anwhistle?” Violet asked. “That was Aunt Josephine’s last name.” “Aye,” the captain said. “Anwhistle Aquatics was founded by Gregor Anwhistle, the famous ichnologist and Josephine’s brother-in-law.”
The Bad Beginning
Chapter One
Mr. Poe was a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire’s whom the children had met many times at dinner parties. One of the things Violet, Klaus, and Sunny really liked about their parents was that they didn’t send their children away when they had company over, but allowed them to join the adults at the dinner table and participate in the conversation as long as they helped clear the table.
“The fire department arrived of course,” Mr. Poe said, “but they were too late. The entire house was engulfed in fire. It burned to the ground.”
Chapter Two
They passed the Fickle Fountain, an elaborately carved monument that occasionally spat out water in which young children played. They passed an enormous pile of dirt where the Royal Gardens once stood.
Chapter Three
Klaus, when Sunny was born, did not like her at all, but by the time she was six weeks old, the two of them were thick as thieves.
[Violet and Klaus] were both remembering a time when the two of them got up early to make a special breakfast for their parents. Violet had burned the toast, and their parents, smelling smoke, had run downstairs to see what the matter was. When they saw Violet and Klaus, looking forlornly at pieces of pitch-black toast, they laughed and laughed, and then made pancakes for the whole family.
“...But I can tell you it concerns a poisonous plant and illegal use of someone’s credit card.”-Justice Strauss
Although [Justice Strauss’s library] was not as big as their parents library...
“I’ve been collecting books for years,” – Justice Strauss
Chapter Seven
“I’ve always wanted to perform onstage. Ever since I was a little girl.” –Justice Strauss
Chapter Eight
Back when his parents were alive, Klaus used to take a flashlight to bed with him and hide under the covers, reading until he couldn’t keep his eyes open. Some mornings, his father would come into Klaus’s room to wake him up, only to find him asleep, still clutching his flashlight in one hand and his book in the other.
Chapter Ten
A group of female Finnish pirates invented it back in the fifteenth century, and named it the Devil’s Tongue because it twisted this way and that, in a most complicated and eerie way.
As [Violet] worked, she remembered something her parents had said to her when Klaus was born, and again when they bought Sunny home from the hospital. “You are the eldest Baudelaire child,” they had said, kindly but firmly. “And as the eldest, it will always be your responsibility to look after your younger siblings. Promise us that you will always watch out for them and make sure they don’t get into trouble.” Violet remembered her promise...
Chapter Eleven
...In my room, for instance, I have gathered a collection of objects that are important to me, including a dusty accordion on which I can play a few sad songs, a large bundle of notes on the activities of the Baudelaire orphans, and a blurry photograph, taken a very long time ago, of a woman whose name is Beatrice. These items are very precious and dear to me.
The Reptile Room
Chapter Three
...as I was writing the tale of the Baudelaire orphans, I happened to look at the clock and realized I was running late for a formal dinner party given by a friend of mine, Madame diLustro. Madame diLustro is a good friend, and excellent detective, and a fine cook, but she flies into a rage if you arrive even five minutes later than her invitation states, so you understand that I had to dash off.
“Remember that time,” Klaus said wistfully, “when we were bored one rainy afternoon, and all of us painted out toenails bright red?” “Yes,” Violet said, grinning, “and I spilled some on the yellow chair.” “Archo!” Sunny said quietly, which probably meant something like “And the stain never really came out.”
Chapter Four
For instance, sometimes when I am walking along the seashore, or visiting the grave of a friend, I will remember a day, a long time ago, when I didn’t bring a flashlight with me to a place where I should have brought a flashlight, and the results were disastrous. Why didn’t I bring a flashlight? I think to myself, even though it is too late to do anything about it. I should have bought a flashlight.
For years after this moment in the lives of the Baudelaire orphans, Klaus thought of the time when he and his siblings realized that Stephano was actually Count Olaf, and was filled with regret that he didn’t call out to the driver of the taxicab who was beginning to drive back down the driveway. Stop![/b] Klaus would think to himself, even though it was too late to do anything about it. Stop! Take this man away! Of course, it is perfectly understandable that Klaus and his sisters were too surprised to act so quickly, but Klaus would lie awake in bed, years later, thinking that maybe, just maybe, if he had acted in time, he could have saved Uncle Monty’s life.
Chapter Five
There was one night, shortly after Sunny was born, that all three children had a horrible flu, and tossed and turned in the grasp of a terrible fever, while their father tried to soothe them all at once, placing cold washcloths on their sweaty brows.
“When I was getting my herpetology degree, my roommate was so envious of a new toad I had discovered that he stole and ate my only specimen. I had to X-ray his stomach, and use the X-rays rather than the toad in my presentation.” – Uncle Monty
Chapter Eight
I cannot say that Violet, years later, slept easily when she looked back on her life- there were too many miserable times for any of the Baudelaires to be peaceful sleepers- but she was always a bit proud of herself that she realized she and her siblings should in fact excuse themselves from the kitchen and move to a more helpful location.
Chapter Nine
[Placing an object at the door when eavesdropping] was a trick [Violet] had learned when she was very small, when she would listen at her parents’ bedroom door to hear what they might be planning for her birthday.
Chapter Eleven
I confess that if I were in Violet’s place, with only a few minutes to open a locked suitcase, instead of on the deck of my friend Bela’s yacht writing this down...
Chapter Thirteen
“One day when [Gustav] was out collecting wildflowers I drowned him in the Swarthy Swamp. Then I forged a note saying he quit.” –Count Olaf (Stephano)
The Wide Window
Chapter One
...when [Klaus] had learned about his allergy at a birthday party when he was eight, he had immediately read all his parents’ books about allergies.
Chapter Two
Sunny had been given a rattle when she was very small, and it was the only thing she was not sorry to lose in the enormous fire that had destroyed the Baudelaire home.
I myself once enjoyed [chilled cucumber soup] in Egypt while visiting a friend of mine who works as a snake charmer.
“[Ike] was my husband, but he was much more than that. He was my best friend, my partner in grammar, and the only person I knew who could whistle with crackers in his mouth.” “Our mother could do that,” Klaus said, smiling. “Her specialty was Mozart’s fourteenth symphony.” “Ike’s was Beethoven’s fourth quartet,” Aunt Josephine replied.
“If I get much closer [to Lake Lachrymose] I remember my last picnic on the beach with my darling Ike. I warned him to wait an hour before he went into the lake, but he only waited forty-five minutes. He thought that was enough.”
Chapter Three
“My mother-in-law had not only one eyebrow, but also only one ear.” –Aunt Josephine.
Chapter Four
In order to escape from the castle of an enemy of mine, I once had cards printed that said I was an admiral in the French Navy.
I have a friend named Gina-Sue who is a socialist, and Gina-Sue has a favorite saying...
Chapter Five
...I am sitting in my room, in the middle of the night, writing down this story and looking out my window at the graveyard behind my home.
Chapter Seven
The Baudelaire allergies are famous for being quick-acting, so the orphans did not have long to wait.
Chapter Eight
The Baudelaire orphans were quiet as they thought of places they had hidden things they did not want to look at, back when they had lived with their parents in the Baudelaire home. Violet thought of an automatic harmonica she had invented that had made such horrible noises that she had hidden it so she didn’t have to think of her failure. Klaus thought of a book on the Franco-Prussian War that was so difficult that he had hidden it so as not to be reminded that he wasn’t old enough to read it. And Sunny thought of a piece of stone that was too hard for even her sharpest tooth, and how she had hidden it so her jaw would no longer ache from so many attempts at conquering it. And all three Baudelaire orphans thought of the hiding place they had chosen.
I have seen many amazing things in my long and troubled life history. I have seen a series of corridors built entirely out of human skulls. I have seen a volcano erupt and send a wall of lava crawling toward a small village. I have seen a woman I loved picked up by an enormous eagle and flown to its high mountain nest.
Chapter Eleven
The scientific principles of the convergence and refraction of light are very confusing, and quite frankly I can’t make head or tail of them, even when my friend Dr. Lorenz explains them to me. But they made perfect sense to Violet. Instantly she thought of a story her father had told her, long ago, when she was just beginning to be interested in science. When her father was a boy, he’d had a dreadful cousin who liked to burn ants, starting a fire by focusing the light of the sun with her magnifying glass.
The Miserable Mill
Chapter Two
I once loved a woman, who for various reasons could not marry me. If she had simply told me in person, I would have been very sad, of course, but eventually it might have passed. However, she chose instead to write a two-hundred page book, explaining every single detail of the bad news at great length, and instead my sadness had been of impossible depth. When the book was first brought to me, by a flock of carrier pigeons, I stayed up all night reading it, and I read it still, over and over, and it is as if my darling Beatrice is bringing me bad news every day and every night of my life.
Chapter Three
Except for one summer day, back when [the Baudelaires’] parents were still alive, when the Baudelaires had opened a lemonade stand in front of their house, the orphans had never had jobs, and they were nervous.
Chapter Four
If someone offered to smuggle me out of the country in her sailboat, in exchange for free tickets to an ice show, that would be a fair deal.
“[Sir] had a very terrible childhood.”
Chapter Five
A police man [tripped] me once, when I was carrying a crystal ball belonging to a Gypsy fortune-teller who never forgave me for tumbling to the ground and shattering her ball into hundreds of pieces.
Chapter Seven
My chauffeur once told me that I would feel better in the morning, but when I woke up the two of us were still on a tiny island surrounded by man-eating crocodiles, and, as I’m sure you can understand, I didn’t feel any better about it.
[Violet thinks again of the promise she made to her parents about watching over Klaus and Sunny]
...and worst of all, once again [Klaus’s glasses] became all twisted and cracked and hopelessly broken, like my friend Tutiana’s sculptures.
Chapter Eight
“Oh, no,” Klaus answered. “I read the Encyclopedia Hypnotica just last year.”
My beloved Beatrice, before her untimely death asked it, although she asked it too late.
Chapter Twelve
...And whenever I hear [a loud clink! noise] I am reminded of a sword fight I was forced to have with a television repairman not long ago.
When Klaus looked at the lumber mill equipment, he remembered a time when he was even more bored than he had been when working at Lucky Smells. This especially boring time had happened a very long time ago, when the Baudelaire parents were still alive. Klaus had read a book on different kinds of fish, and asked his parents if they would take him fishing. His mother warned him that fishing was one of the most boring activities in the world, but found two fishing poles in the basement and agreed to take him to a nearby lake. Klaus had been hoping that he would get to see the different types of fish he had read about, but instead he and his mother sat in a rowboat in the middle of a lake and did nothing for an entire afternoon. He and his mother had kept quiet, so as not to scare the fish away, but there were no fish, no conversation, and absolutely no fun.
The Austere Academy
Chapter One
One evening, the Baudelaire parents had gone out to hear an orchestra play, and the three children had stayed by themselves in the family mansion. The Baudelaires had something of a routine on nights like this. First, Violet and Klaus would play a few games of checkers while Sunny ripped up some old newspapers, and then the three children would read in the library until they fell asleep on comfortable sofas. When their parents came home early and the children were still up reading- or, in Sunny’s case, looking at the pictures. The siblings’ father stood in the doorway of the library and said something they never forgot. “Children,” he said, “there is no worse sound in the world than somebody who cannot play the violin who insists on doing so anyway.”
So as I hide out here in this mountain cabin...
Chapter Three
Several years before this story took place, when Violet was ten and Klaus was eight and Sunny was not even a fetus, the Baudelaire family went to a country fair in order to see a pig that their Uncle Elwyn had entered in a contest. The pig contest turned out to be a bit dull, but in the neighboring tent there was another contest that the family found quite interesting: the Biggest Lasagna Contest. The lasagna that won the blue ribbon had been baked by eleven nuns, and was as big and soft as a large mattress. Perhaps because they were at such an impressionable age... Violet and Klaus always remembered this lasagna, and they were sure they would never see another one anywhere near as big.
Chapter Four
...My friend Professor Reed made a triptych for me, and he painted fire on one panel, a typewriter on another, and the face of a beautiful, intelligent woman on the third. The triptych is entitled What Happened to Beatrice and I cannot look upon it without weeping.
Klaus could remember a time, when he was about eight years old, when he had measured the width of all the doorways in the Baudelaire mansion when he was bored one rainy afternoon.
Chapter Six
Prufrock Preparatory School is now closed. It has been closed for many years, even since Mrs. Bass was arrested for bank robbery, and if you were to visit it now, you would find it an empty and silent place. If you walked on the lawn, you would not see any children running around, as there were the day the Baudelaires arrived. If you walked by the building containing the classrooms, you would not hear the droning voice of Mr. Remora telling a story, and if you walked by the building containing the auditorium, you would not hear the ssalsaings and shrieking of Vice Principal Nero playing the violin. If you went and stood beneath the arch, looking up at the black letters spelling out the name of the school and its austere... motto, you would hear nothing but the swish of the breeze through the brown and patchy grass.
“Remember the picnic?” Violet said. “We were going to Rutabaga River for a picnic, and Father was so excited about the meal he made that he forgot to pack silverware!” “Of course I remember,” Klaus said. “We had to eat all that sweet-and-sour shrimp with our hands.” “Sticky!” Sunny said, holding her hands up. “It sure was,” Violet agreed. “Afterward, we went to wash our hands in the river, and he found a perfect place to try the fishing rod I made.” “And I picked blackberries with mother,” Klaus said. “Eroos,” Sunny said, which meant something like “And I bit rocks.” The children stopped laughing now as they remembered that afternoon, which hadn’t been so very long ago but felt like it had happened in the distant, distant, past... now, remembering the way the sunlight had shone on the water of Rutabaga River and the laughter of their parents as they’d made a mess of themselves eating the sweet-and-sour shrimp... the Baudelaires all knew that even if someday they went back to Rutabaga River- which they never did, by the way...
“Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass have taught at this school for more that forty-seven years,” –Vice Principal Nero
Scrambled eggs had never been the siblings’ favorite dish...
Chapter Nine
I discovered this myself when I was woken up in the middle of the night and chased sixteen miles by an angry mob arrived with torches, swords, and vicious dogs...
Chapter Eleven
I once attended one of the famed masked balls hosted by the duchess of Winnipeg, and it was one of the most exciting and dangerous evenings of my life. I was disguised as a bullfighter and slipped into the party while being pursued by the palace guards, who were disguised as scorpions. The moment I entered the Grand Ballroom, I felt as if Lemony Snicket had disappeared. I was wearing clothes I had never worn before- a scarlet cape made of silk and a vest embroidered with gold thread and a skinny black mask- and it made me feel as if I were a different person. And because I felt like a different person, I dared to approach a woman I had been forbidden to approach for the rest of my life. She was alone on the veranda- the word “veranda” is a fancy term for a porch made of polished gray marble- and costumed as a dragonfly, with a glittering green mask and enormous silvery wings. As my pursuers scurried around the party, trying to guess which guest was me, I slipped out to the veranda and gave her the message I’d been trying to give her for fifteen long and lonely years. “Beatrice,” I cried, just as the scorpions spotted me, “Count Olaf is—”
The Ersatz Elevator
Chapter One
Nowhere in this book will you will find the words “bubble,” “peacock,” “vacation,” or, unfortunately for me, anything about an execution being canceled.
Chapter Two
"...when our parents attended the Sixteenth Annual Run-a-thon and their feet were so tired when they got home that Dad prepared dinner while sitting on the kitchen floor, instead of standing?"[Violet said.] Of course I remember, we only had salad, because they couldn't stand up and reach the stove."[Klaus replied.] "It would have been the perfect meal for Aunt Josephine. She never wanted to use the stove, because she thought it might explode."
"Ah! You're adventurous! I like that in a person. Your mother was adventurous too. You know, she and I were very good friends a way back. We hiked up Mount Fraught with some friends- gosh it must have been 20 years ago. Mount Fraught was known for having dangerous animals on it, but your mother wasn't afraid. But then, swooping out of the sky..."[Jerome]
Chapter Three
...and it was a word that still haunts me in my dreams as I toss and turn each night, images of Beatrice and her legacy filling my weary, grieving brain no matter where in the world I travel and no matter what important evidence I discover .[Lemony as narrator]
Chapter Four
If you are ever forced to take a chemistry class, you will probably see, at the front of the classroom, a large chart divided into squares, with different numbers and letters in each of them. This chart is called the table of elements, and scientists like to say that it contains all the substances that make up our world. Like everyone else, scientists are wrong from time to time, and it is easy to see that they are wrong about the table of elements. Because although this table contains a great many elements, from the element oxygen, which is found in the air, to the element aluminum, which is found in cans of soda, the table of elements does not contain one of the most powerful elements that make up our world, and that is the element of surprise. The element of surprise is not a gas, like oxygen, or a solid like aluminum. The element of surprise is an unfair advantage, and it can be found in situations in which one person has sneaked up on another. The surprised person- or, in this sad case, the surprised persons-are too stunned to defend themselves, and the sneaky person has the element of surprise.’
Chapter Six
Morning is one of the best times for thinking. When one has just woken up, but hasn’t yet gotten out of bed, it is a perfect time to look up at the ceiling, consider one’s life, and wonder what the future will hold. The morning I am writing this chapter, I am wondering if the future will hold something that will enable me to saw through these handcuffs and crawl out of the double- locked window, but in the case of the Baudelaire orphans, when the morning sun shone through the eight hundred and forty-nine windows in the Squalor penthouse, they were wondering if the future would hold knowledge of the trouble they felt closing in around them.
At the mention of the Quagmire triplets, all three Baudelaires felt a stiffening of their resolve, a phrase here which means “realized that they had to search the penthouse for Gunther, even thought it was a scary thing to do.” The children remembered how hard Duncan and Isadora had worked to save them from Count Olaf’s clutches back at Prufrock Preparatory School, doing absolutely everything they could do to help the Baudelaires escape Olaf’s evil plan. The Quagmires had put on disguises, risking their lives on order to try to fool Olaf. And the Quagmires had done a lot of researching, finding out the secret of the V.F.D- although they had been snatched away before they could reveal the secret to the Baudelaires.
Chapter Seven
When you know someone a long time, you become accustomed to their idiosyncrasies, which is a fancy word for their unique habits. For instance, Sunny Baudelaire had known her sister Violet, for quite some time, and was accustomed to Violet's idiosyncrasy of tying her hair up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes whenever she was inventing something. Violet had known Sunny for exactly the same amount of time, and was accustomed to Sunny's idiosyncrasy of saying 'Freijip?' when she wanted to ask the question 'How can you think of elevators at a time like this?' And both the young Baudelaire women were very well acquainted with their brother, Klaus, and were accustomed to his idiosyncrasy of not paying a bit of attention to his surroundings when he was thinking very hard about something, as he was clearly doing as the afternoon wore on.
“My friend Ben once gave me some elevator blue prints for my birthday, and I studied them very closely . They were destroyed in the fire, of course, but I remember that an elevator is essentially a platform, surrounded by an enclosure, that moves along the vertical axis via an endlessly looped belt and a series of ropes. It's controlled by a push-button console that regulates an electromagnetic braking system so the transport sequence can be halted at any access point the passenger desires. In other words, it's a box that moves up and down, depending where you want to go.”[Violet]
Although there have been only five burglars in the history of robbery who have specialized in rope. All five of the robbers were caught and sent to prison, which is why scarcely any people lock up their rope for safekeeping.
[about The Devil's Tongue knot] It was invented by female Finnish pirates in the fifteenth century.
'The only thing they felt was sheer terror, as deep and as dark as the passageway itself, a terror so profound that I have slept with four night-lights ever since I visited 667 Dark Avenue and saw this deep pit that the Baudelaires climbed down. But I also saw, during my visit, what the Baudelaire orphans saw when they reached the bottom after climbing for more than three terrifying hours.
Chapter Eight
I once read about a journalist, who was reporting on a war and was imprisoned by the enemy for three years. Each morning, she looked out her cell window and thought she saw her grandparents coming to rescue her. But they weren't really there. It was a hallucination.
I remember reading about a poet, who would see six lovely maidens in his kitchen on Thursday nights, but his kitchen was really empty. It was a phantasm.
The word "haunted" I'm sure you know, usually applies to a house, graveyard, or supermarket that has ghosts living in it, but the word can also be used to describe people who have seen and heard such horrible things that they feel as if ghosts are living inside them, haunting their brains and hearts with misery and despair.
Waiting rooms, as I'm sure you know, are small rooms with plenty of chairs for waiting, as well as piles of old, dull magazines to read and some vapid paintings- the word "vapid" here means "usually containing horses, in a field or puppies in a basket"- while you endure the boredom that doctors and dentists inflict on their patients before bringing them in to poke them and prod them and do all the miserable things that such people are paid to do. It is very rare to have a waiting room in someone's home, because even a home as enormous as the squalor's does not contain doctor's or dentist's office, and also because waiting rooms are so uninteresting that you would never want one in the place where you live.
Chapter Nine
One of the greatest myths in the world- and the phrase "greatest myths" is just a fancy way of saying "big fat lies"- is that troublesome things get less and less troublesome if you do them more and more. People say this myth when they are teaching children to ride bicycles, for instance, as though falling off a bicycle and skinning your knee is less troublesome the fourteenth time you do it than it is the first time. The truth is that troublesome things tend to remain troublesome no matter how many times you do them, and that you should avoid doing them unless they are absolutely urgent.
Chapter Ten
This time, the plunge does not need to be represented by pages of darkness, because the terror of the long, dark fall was alleviated-the word "alleviated" here means "not particularly on Sunny's mind".
Chapter Eleven
One of my most prized possessions is a small wooden box with a special lock on it that is more than five hundred years old and works according to a secret code that my grandfather taught me. My grandfather learnt it from his grandfather, and his grandfather learned it from his grandfather, and I would teach it to my grandchild if I thought that I would ever have a family of my own instead of living out the remainder of my days all alone in this world. The small wooden box is one of my most prized possessions, because when the lock is opened according to the code, a small silver key may be found inside, and this key fits the lock on one of my other most prized possessions, which is a slightly larger wooden box given to me by a woman my grandfather always refused to speak about. Inside this slightly larger wooden box is a roll of parchment, a word here that means "some very old paper printed with a map of the city at the time the Baudelaire orphans lived in it." The map has every single detail of the city written down in dark blue ink, with measurements of buildings and sketches of costumes and charts of changes in the weather all added in the margins by the map's twelve previous owners, all of whom are now dead. I have spent more hours than I can ever count going over every inch of this maps carefully as possible, so that everything that can be learned from it can be copied into my files and then into books such as this one, in the hopes that the general public will finally learn every detail of the treacherous conspiracy I have spent my life trying to escape. The map contains thousands of fascinating things that have been discovered by all sorts of explorers, criminal investigators, and circus performers over the years, but the most fascinating thing that the map contains was discovered just at this moment by the three Baudelaire children. Sometimes, in the dead of night when I cannot sleep, I rise from my bed and work the code on the small wooden box to retrieve the silver key that opens the slightly larger box so that I can sit at my desk and look again, by candlelight, at the two dotted lines of the underground hallway that begins at the bottom of the elevator shaft at 667 Dark Avenue and ends up at the trapdoor that the Baudelaire managed to open with their ersatz crowbars. I stare and stare at the part of the city where the orphans climbed out of that ghastly corridor, but know no matter how much I stare I can scarcely believe my own eyes, anymore than the youngsters could believe theirs.
Chapter Twelve
Several years before the Baudelaires were born, Veblen Hall won the prestigious Door Prize, an award given each year to the city’s best-constructed opening...
Chapter Thirteen
Late at night, when not even the map of the city can comfort me, I close my eyes and imagine all those happy comforting things surrounding the Baudelaire children, instead of all those doilies that surrounded them and brought yet another scoop of misfortune into their lives.
“Your mother always said I wasn’t brave enough...” [Jerome speaking about Mrs. Baudelaire]
The Vile Village
Chapter Two
“...about three hundred and six years ago” Hector said, “A group of explorers discovered the murder of crows that we just saw... the explorers were so excited by it that they decided to live here. Before too long, a town sprung up, and so they named it V.F.D.”
Chapter Four
I myself fell in love with a wonderful woman who was so charming and intelligent that I trusted that she would be my bride, but there was no way of knowing for sure, and all too soon circumstances changed and she ended up marrying someone else, all because of something she read in The Daily Punctilio.
...Attempting to rescue Lemony Snicket by writing letters to a congressman, instead of digging an escape tunnel [is making a mistake.]
Chapter Five
“ ‘Curioser and curioser,’” [Hector] said, quoting one of the Baudelaires’ favorite books.”
Violet remembered what her father had taught her to say when he was unable to come to the phone, and she spoke up. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Hector is occupied at the moment. May I give him a message?”
Chapter Ten
“Something about this bread made me remember my twelfth Birthday, when our parents made that bread pudding.”[Klaus said.]... “I remember,” [Violet] said, smiling. “That was the worst dessert we ever tasted.”... “It was a new recipe that they were trying out,” Klaus said. “They wanted it to be special for my birthday, but it was burned and sour and soggy. And they promised next year, for my thirteenth birthday, I’d have the best birthday meal in the world.”
Chapter Twelve
You, unlike the Baudelaire orphans and the Quagmire triplets and me and my dear departed Beatrice, can stop this wretched story at this very moment...
Chapter Thirteen
The harpoon was sticking out of one of the ladder’s thick ropes, which was slowly uncurling around the hook. It reminded Violet of a time back when she was much younger, and had begged her mother to braid her hair so she could look like a famous inventor she had seen in a magazine. Despite her mother’s best efforts, the braids had not held their shapes, and had come unraveled almost as soon as she had tied their ends with ribbons. Violet’s hair had slowly spun out of the braid...
The Hostile Hospital
Chapter One
And if you were an author locked in an Italian restaurant that was slowly filling up with water, you might call upon your acquaintances in the locksmith, pasta, and sponge businesses to come and rescue you.
“I built myself when I was seven, so I know how to connect the electronic circuit.”[Violet] “And I’ve read two books about Morse code,” Klaus said.
Chapter Two
And I would hop like nobody has ever hopped before, if I could somehow go back to that terrible Thursday, and stop Beatrice from attending that afternoon tea where she met Esmé Squalor for the first time.
Chapter Three
For instance, as I crouch here behind the altar of the Cathedral of the Alleged Virgin, a friend of mine is playing a sonata on the pipe organ, to calm me down and so the sounds of my typewriter will not be heard by the worshippers sitting in the pews. The mournful melody of the sonata reminds me of a tune my father used to sing when he did the dishes, and as I listen to it I can temporarily forget six or seven of my troubles.
Chapter Five
The word “Beatrice” reminds me of a volunteer organization that was swarming with corruption, and the word “midnight” reminds me that I must keep writing this chapter very quickly, or else I will probably drown.
Chapter Six
If this were a book about me, instead of about the three children who would soon run into someone they had hoped never to see again, I might pause for a moment and tell you about something I did many years ago that still troubles me. It was a necessary thing to do, but it was not a nice thing, and even now, I get a small quiver of shame in my stomach whenever I remember it. I might be doing something I enjoy- walking along the promenade dick of a ship, or looking through a telescope at the aurora borealis, or wandering into a bookstore and placing my books on the highest place in the shelf, so that no one will be tempted to buy and read them- when I will suddenly remember this thing I did, and think to myself, Was it really necessary? Was it absolutely necessary to steal that sugar bowl from Esmé Squalor?
Chapter Seven
“For a moment it seemed to Violet her father would step out of the photograph and say, “There you are, Ed. Where have you been?” Ed was short for Thomas Alva Edison, one of the greatest inventors of all time, and it was a special nickname only used by her father...
[Klaus] looked at his mother’s coat, which had a secret pocket on the inside. In the secret pocket, she often kept a small pocket dictionary, which she would take out whenever she encountered a word she did not know. Because Klaus was so interested in reading, she had promised that some day she would give the pocket dictionary to him, and now it seemed to Klaus that his mother was about to reach into her coat and pull the small, leather bound book in his hand... “
[Sunny] looked at her parents’ smiles, and suddenly remembered, for the first time since the fire, a song that her mother and father used to sing together when it was time for Sunny to go to sleep. The song was called “The Butcher Boy,” and the Baudelaire parents would take turns singing the verses, her mother singing in her breathy, high voice, and her father in his, which was as low and deep as a fog horn. “The Butcher Boy” was the perfect was for Sunny to end the day, safe and cozy in the Baudelaire crib.
Chapter Nine
[Sunny remembered] the day she had learned to open cans all by herself. It was not that long ago, although it felt like it was in the very distant past, because it was before the Baudelaire mansion burned down, when the entire family was happy and together. It was the Baudelaires’ mother’s birthday, and she was sleeping late while everyone backed a cake for her. Violet was beating the eggs, butter, and sugar with a mixing device she had invented herself. Klaus was sifting the flour with the cinnamon, pausing every few minutes to wipe his glasses. And the Baudelaires’ father was making his famous cream-cheese frosting, which would be spread thickly on top of the cake. All was going well until the electric can opener broke, and Violet didn’t have the proper tools to fix it. The Baudelaires’ father disparately needed to open a can of condensed milk to make his frosting, and for a moment it looked like the cake was going to be ruined. But Sunny- who had been playing quietly on the floor this whole time- said her first word, “Bite,” and bit down on the can, poking four small holes so the sweet, thick milk could pour out. The Baudelaires laughed and applauded and the children’s mother came downstairs, and from then on they used Sunny whenever they needed to open a can of anything, except for beets.
Chapter Ten
I must interrupt [this story] for a moment and describe something that happened to a good friend of mine named Mr. Sirin. Mr. Sirin was a lepidopterist, a word which usually means “a person who studies butterflies.” In this case, however, the word “lepidopterist” means, “a man who was being pursued by angry government officials,” and on the night I am telling you about they were right on his heels. Mr. Sirin looked back to see how close they were- four officers in their bright-pink uniforms, with small flashlights in their left hands and large nets in their right- and realized that in a moment they would catch up, and arrest him and his six favorite butterflies, which were frantically flapping alongside him. Mr. Sirin did not care much if he was captured- he had been in prison four and a half times over the course of his long and complicated life- but he cared very much about the butterflies. He realized that these six delicate insects would undoubtedly perish in bug prison, where poisonous spiders, stinging bees, and other criminals would rip them to shreds. So, as the secret police closed in, Mr. Sirin opened his mouth as wide as he could and swallowed all six butterflies whole, quickly placing them in the dark but safe confines of his empty stomach. It was not a pleasant feeling to have these six insects living inside him, but Mr. Sirin kept them there for three years eating only the lightest foods served in prison so as not to crush the insects with a clump of broccoli or a baked potato. When his prison sentence was over, Mr. Sirin burped up the grateful butterflies and resumed his lepidoptery work in a community that was much more friendly to scientists and their specimens.
Chapter Twelve
Once I was a content man, with a comfortable home, a successful career, a person I loved very much, and an extremely reliable typewriter, but all of those things have been taken away from me, and now the only trace I have of those happy days is the tattoos on my left ankle. As I sit in this very tiny room, printing these words with this very large pencil, I feel as if my whole life has been nothing but a dismal play...
Chapter Thirteen
When Violet Baudelaire was five years old, she won her first invention contest with an automatic rolling pin she’d fashioned out of a broken window shade and six pairs on rollerskates. As the judges place the gold medal around her neck, one of them said to her, “I bet you could invent something with both hands tied behind your back,” and Violet smiled proudly.
The Carnivorous Carnival
Chapter One
When my workday is over, and I have closed my notebook, hidden my pen, and sawed holes in my rented canoe so that it cannot be found, I often like to spend the evening in conversation with my few surviving friends. Sometimes we discuss literature. Sometimes we discuss the people who are trying to destroy us, and if there is any hope of escaping from them.
Long ago the Baudelaire parents had promised they would bring their children someday to see the famous hinterland sunsets. Klaus... had read descriptions of the sunsets that had made the whole family eager to go, and Violet... had even begun building a solar oven so the family could enjoy grilled cheese sandwiches as they watched the dark blue light spread eerily over the hinterlands cacti while the sun slowly sank behind the distant and frosty Mortmain Mountains.
Chapter Two
“You said [the carnival will get plenty of money] about the Quagmire fortune... and about the Snicket fortune.” –Olivia (Madame Lulu)
I recently looked in the refrigerator of one of my enemies and learned she was a vegetarian, or at least pretending to be one, or had a vegetarian visiting her for a few days.
“Mother taught me how to draw fake scars on myself when she appeared in that play about the murderer.” –Violet
Chapter Three
I once had a very difficult job interview in which I had not only to explain that I could hit an olive with a bow and arrow, memorize up to three pages of poetry, and determine if there was poison mixed into cheese fondue without tasting it, but I had to demonstrate all these things as well.
Chapter Four
[The Story of Queen Debbie and her Boyfriend, Tony]
Chapter Five
When I am able, I go out walking on Briny Beach very early in the morning, which is the best time to find materials important to the Baudelaire case, and the ocean is so peaceful that I feel peaceful, too, as if I am no longer grieving for the woman I love and will never see again. But then, when I am cold and duck into a teashop where the owner is expecting me, I have only to reach for the sugar bowl before my grief returns, and I find myself crying so loudly that other customers ask me if I could possibly lower my sobs.
Chapter Six
My dear sister, if you are reading this, I am still alive , and heading north to try and find you.
“ ‘This might be helpful.’ And it’s signed with one initial- I think it’s an R, or maybe a K.” –Violet
You might want to become the sort of author who works calmly at home, for example, but something could happen that would lead you to become the sort of author who works frantically in the homes of other people, often without their knowledge. You might want to marry someone you love very much, but something could happen that would prevent the two of you from ever seeing one another again. You might want to find out something important about your parents, but something could happen that would mean you wouldn’t find out for quite some time.
Chapter Seven
“A friend of mine trained [the lions] to smell smoke, which was very helpful in our work.” –Olivia
Chapter Nine
Just last night, I was troubled by a decision involving an eye dropper, a greedy night watchman, and a try of individual custards, and this morning I am so tired that I can scarcely type these worfs.
“I wish I had Mother’s tool kit,” [Violet] said. “She had this tiny wrench I always admired, and it would be just perfect for this job.”
“Remember the train station?” Klaus said, and Violet nodded... there was no way [Sunny] could have [remembered this day], as she hadn’t been born at the time her siblings were remembering. The Baudelaire family and decided to go away for the weekend to a vineyard, a word which here means “a sort of farm where people grow grapes used in wine.” This vineyard was famous for having grapes that smelled delicious, and it was very pleasant to picnic in the fields, while the fragrance drifted in the air and the vineyard’s famous donkeys, who helped carry bushels of grapes at harvest time, slept in the shade of the grapevines. To reach the vineyard, the Baudelaires had to take not one train but two, transferring at a busy station not far from Paltryville, and on the day that Violet and Klaus were remembering, the children had been separated from their parents in the rush of the transferring crowd. Violet and Klaus, who were quite young, decided to search for their parents in their vow of shops just outside the station, and soon the local shoemaker, blacksmith, chimney sweep, and computer technician were all helping the two frightened children look for their mother and father. Soon enough the Baudelaire family was reunited, but the children’s father had taught them a serious lesson. “If you lose us,” he said, “stay put.” “Yes,” their mother agreed. “Don’t go wandering around looking for us. We’ll come and find you.”
I have found myself in places where staying put would be dangerously foolish, and foolishly dangerous. I have stood in a department store, and seen something written on a price tag that told me I had to leave at once, but in different clothing. I have sat in an airport, and heard something over the loudspeaker that told me I had to leave late that day, but on a different flight. And I have stood alongside the roller coaster at Caligari Carnival, and known what the Baudelaires could not possibly have known that quiet morning. I have looked at the carts, all melted together and covered in ash, and I have gazed into the pit dug by Count Olaf and his henchmen and seen all the burnt holes lying in a heap, and I have picked through the bits of mirror and crystal where the fortunetelling tent once stood, and all this research has told me the same thing, and if somehow I could slip out of the disguise I am in now, I would walk to the edge of the pit and tell the Baudelaire orphans the results of my findings. But of course I cannot. I can only fulfill my sacred duty and type this story as best I can, down to the last worf.
The Slippery Slope
Chapter One
I have never been able to find [the Caravan’s] remains, even after months of searching the area with only a lantern and a rhyming dictionary for company. It seems that even after countless nights of battling snow gnats and praying the batteries would not run out, it is my fate that some of my questions will never be answered.
Chapter Two
My brother asked the question once, and had nightmares about it for weeks. An associate of mine asked the question, and found himself falling through the air before he could knew the answer. It is a question I asked once, a very long time ago and in a very timid voice, and a woman replied by quickly putting or motorcycle helmet on her head and wrapping her body in a red silk cape.
Chapter Three
“I used to be a member of the organization [V.F.D.] myself, but I found it was more fun to be an individual practitioner.” – Count Olaf
... I have always preferred it stay in hotels or rented castles...
Chapter Four
“Years ago, apparently these mountains were crawling with bears. The bears were so intelligent that they were trained as soldiers. But they disappeared and no one knows why.” [Bruce.] “Not bears,” [Quigley] said, so quietly that the two Baudelaires had to lean in to hear him. “Lions lived in these caves. And they weren’t soldiers. The lions were detectives- volunteer feline detectives.”
Chapter Five
My dear sister, I am taking a great risk in hiding a letter to you inside one of my books, but I am certain that even the most melancholy and well-read people in the world have found my account of the lives of the three Baudelaire children even more wretched than I had promised, and so this book will stay on the shelves of libraries, utterly ignored, waiting for you to open it and find this message. As an additional precaution, I placed a warning that the rest of this chapter contains a description of the Baudelaires’ miserable journey up the Vertical Flame Diversion, so anyone who has the courage to read such a description is probably brave enough to read my letter to you. I have at last learned the whereabouts of the evidence that will exonerate me, a phrase which here means “prove to the authorities that it is Count Olaf, and not me, who has started so many fires.” Your suggestion, so many years ago at that picnic, that a tea set would be a handy place to hide anything important and small in the event of a dark day, has turned out to be correct. (Incidentally, your other picnic suggestion that a simple combination of sliced mango, black beans, and chopped celery mixed with black pepper, lime juice, and olive oil would make a delicious chilled salad also turned out to be correct.) I am on my way now to the Valley of Four Drafts, in order to continue my research on the Baudelaire case. I hope also to retrieve the aforementioned evidence at last. It is too late to restore my happiness, of course, but at least I can clear my name. From the site of V.F.D. headquarters, I will head straight for the Hotel Denouement. I should arrive by- well, it wouldn’t be wise to type the date, but it should be easy for you to remember Beatrice’s birthday. Meet me at the hotel. Try to get us a room without ugly curtains. With all due respect, [Lemony Snicket’s Signature] Lemony Snicket. P.S. If you substitute the chopped celery with hearts of palm, it is equally delicious.
[Sunny] remembered something her mother had told her once. They had both been busy in the kitchen- Sunny’s mother was busy preparing for a fancy luncheon, and Sunny was busy dropping a fork on the floor over and over again to see what sort of sound it made. The luncheon was due to start any minute, and Sunny’s mother was quickly mixing up a salad of sliced mango, black beans, and chopped celery mixed with black pepper, lime juice, and olive oil. “This isn’t a very complicated recipe, Sunny,” her mother had said. “But if I rearrange the salad very nicely on fancy plates, people will think I’ve been cooking all day. Often, when cooking, the presentation of the food can be as important as the food itself.”
Chapter Six
“I had an infant servant once- a long time ago, before the schism.” [woman with hair but no beard] “Before the schism?” Olaf said... “That is a long time ago. That infant must be all grown up by now.” “Not necessarily,” the woman said...
Chapter Seven
[Violet] was remembering one summer, very long ago, when Klaus was very young and Sunny was not even conceived. Every summer, the Baudelaires’ mother would read a very long book, joking that lifting a large novel was the only exercise she liked to get during the hot months. During the time Violet was thinking of, Mrs. Baudelaire chose Anna Karenina for her summer reading, and Klaus would sit on his mother’s lap for hours at a time while she read. The middle Baudelaire had not been reading very long, but their mother helped him with the big words and would occasionally stop reading to explain what had happened in the story, and in this way Klaus and his mother read [Anna Karenina]... Violet had spent most of that summer studying the laws of thermodynamics and building a miniature helicopter out of an eggbeater and some old copper wiring...
... And in my own case, in the few moments where I have led a daring life of impulsive passion, it has led to all sorts of trouble, from false accusations of arson to a broken cuff link I can never have repaired.
NOTICE: Chapter Eight was skipped, due to Quigley describing his story at length. Interested parties might turn to Chapter Eight of The Slippery Slope.
Chapter Nine
It is one of the great sadnesses of the Baudelaire case that Violet never got to meet a man named C.M. Kornbluth, an associate of mine who spent most of his life living and working in the Valley of Four Drafts as a mechanical instructor at the V.F.D. headquarters. Mr. Kornbluth was a quiet and secretive man, so secretive that no one ever knew who he was, where he came from, or even what the C or the M stood for, and he spent much of his time holed up in his dormitory room writing strange stories, or gazing sadly out the windows of the kitchen. The one thing that put Mr. Kornbluth in a good mood would be a particularly promising mechanical student. If a young man showed an interest in deep sea radar, Mr. Kornbluth would take off his glasses and smile. If a young woman brought him a staple gun she had built, Mr. Kornbluth would clap his hands in excitement. And if a pair of twins asked him how to properly reroute some copper wiring, he would take a paper bag out of his pocket and offer some pistachio nuts to anyone who happened to be around... I can imagine Mr. Kornbluth, even though he and his pistachios are long gone, turning from the window, smiling at the Baudelaire inventor, and saying, “Beatrice, come over here! Look at what this girl is making!”
Chapter Eleven
“My father always used to say that a good meal can cheer one up considerably.” [Quigley stated.] “My father always said the same thing,” Violet said, looking at Quigley curiously.
“Jacques Snicket mentioned a sugar bowl once,” [Quigley] said, “when we were in Dr. Montgomery’s library. He said it was very important to find it. I wrote it down on the top of a page in my commonplace book...”
Chapter Twelve
Not too long ago, in the Swedish city of Stockholm, a group of bank robbers took a few prisoners during the course of their work. For several days, the bank robbers and the prisoners lived together in close proximity, a word which here means “while the police gathered outside and eventually managed to arrest the robbers and take them to jail.” When the prisoners were finally freed, however, the authorities discovered that they had become friends with the bank rovers, and since that time the expression “Stockholm Syndrome” has been used...”
“I can just hear those words,” [Violet] said. “The world is quiet here.” She closed her eyes. “I think it was a very long time ago, before you were born, Klaus.” ... “Nobody said them to me,” she said finally. “Someone sang them. I think my parents sang the words ‘the world is quiet here’ a long time ago, but I don’t know why.”
“Being well-read won’t help you in this world. Many years ago, I was supposed to waste my entire summer reading Anna Karenina, but I knew that silly book would never help me, so I threw it into the fireplace.” [Esmé said.]
The Baudelaires would never do any of these things, any more than I will ever see my beloved Beatrice again, or retrieve the pickle from the refrigerator in which I left it, and return it to its rightful place in an important coded sandwich.”
Chapter Thirteen
I do not know, for instance, what happened to the two white-faced women who decided to quip Olaf’s troupe and walk away, all by themselves, down the Mortmain Mountains. There are some who say that they still paint their faces white, and can be seen singing sad songs in some of the gloomiest music halls in the city. There are some who say that they live together in the hinterlands, attempting to grow rhubarb in the dry and barren ground. And there are those who say that they did not survive the trip down from Mount Fraught, and that their bones can be found in one of the many caves in the odd, square peaks. But although I have sat through song after dreary song, and tasted some of the worst rhubarb in my life, and brought bone after bone to a skeleton expert until she told me that I was making her so miserable that I should never return, I have not been able to discover what truly happened to the two women. I do not know where the remains of the caravan are, as I have told you, and as I reach the end of the rhyming dictionary, and read the short list of words that rhyme with “zucchini,” I am beginning to think I should stop my search for the destroyed vehicle and give up that particular part of my research. And I have not tracked down the refrigerator in which the Baudelaires found the Verbal Fridge Dialogue, despite stories that it is also in one of the Mortmain Mountain caves, or performing in some of the gloomiest music halls in the city.
...but it took me quite some time before I decoded [the two lines that read: Even the weariest river/ Winds somewhere safe to sea].
The Grim Grotto
Chapter One
I recently experienced a passive moment myself, sitting in a chair as a shoe salesperson forced my feet into a series of ugly and uncomfortable positions, when all the while I wanted a bright red pair of shoes with strange buckles that nobody on earth was going to buy for me.
Chapter Two
“I’ve never been so insulted in my life! No—I have. Many times, in fact. Aye! I remember when Count Olaf turned to me and said, in that horrible voice of his—No, never mind... [The Queequeg has] been my submarine for years... I would think Josephine would have told you about the Queequeg! After all, I patrolled Lake Lachrymose for years!” [Captain Widdershins]
“We’ve been attacked by villains and leeches, by sharks and realtors, by pirates and girlfriends, by torpedoes and angry salmon!” [Captain Widdershins]
“Why, I remember when they wouldn’t let me go mountain climbing because I hadn’t trained properly, and—”[Captain Widdershins]
“The original second in the crew of two was Fiona’s mother, but she died in a manatee accident quite a few years ago.” [Captain Widdershins stated] “I’m not so sure it was an accident,” Fiona said. “Then we had Jacques!” the captain continued. “Aye, and then what’s-his-name, Jacques’s brother, and then a dreadful woman who turned out to be a spy, and finally we have Phil!”
Chapter Three
“That’s not why I’m limping,” Phil said. “I was bitten by a shark last week. It was very painful, but I’m quite lucky. Most people never get an opportunity to get so close to such a deadly animal!”
“My stepfather taught [the secret stain code] to Madame Lulu,” Fiona explained, “a long time ago, when they were both young.”
“Later this afternoon, for instance, I will enter a large room full of sand, and if I do not find the test tube I am looking for, it will be difficult to admit that I have sifted through all that sand for nothing.”
Chapter Four
“The captain sighed, and raised one finger to fiddle with the curl of his mustache. “Aye,” he said sadly. “Anwhistle Aquatics. It’s a marine research center and rhetorical advice service— or it was. It burned down.””Anwhistle?” Violet asked. “That was Aunt Josephine’s last name.” “Aye,” the captain said. “Anwhistle Aquatics was founded by Gregor Anwhistle, the famous ichnologist and Josephine’s brother-in-law.”