Chapter Two
Tedia was a small town that did deserve it’s name. Tedia comes from the word ‘tedium’, a latin word which here means ‘complete and utter boredom’, and the town of Tedia was completely and utterly boring. The houses were all gray and dark, the grass was brown, there were no flowers, and there was a faint smell of horseradish that dominated the breathable air in town, due to the proximity to Lousy Lane. As the Baudelaires left the train station, they saw a cab laying outside, and decided to take it.
‘Hey there, the four of you!’ said the taxi driver, approaching the Baudelaires. He was a short old man who wore dark glasses. He looked strange, but friendly, some would say.
‘Oh, sir. How long to Montague Manor? Can we walk there or is it too far? We do have two small children with us.’ Klaus asked.
‘Objection!’ protested Beatrice, uttering a word here meaning ‘You don’t have the right to call me a small child, Klaus!’
‘Oh, Montague Manor, is it? But do you have the invitations?’ – asked the driver with a very strange look on his face.
‘No. Do we need them?’ Violet asked. ‘Of course you need them. Here, take these.’ And the driver took out four black envelopes out of his jacket, and handed them to each one of the Baudelaires. The envelopes looked strikingly similar to that first one in which a letter summoning the Baudelaires to Funeral Factory Fulfillment Ltd. ‘Those are the invitations to stay at Montague Manor, sent by Mr. Montague himself. He’s very old, and probably senile, so as long as you present these invitations he’ll believe he has invited you to stay there.’ Said the driver. He was beginning to look very familiar to the Baudelaires.
‘Sir…’ Violet began to speak carefully as if her every word was under scrutiny, a word which here means ‘being carefully analized’. ‘What would you think if I said that…the world is quiet here?’
‘I would say that indeed it is, Violet Baudelaire.’ And the driver removed his big, dark glasses to reveal the smallest pair of glasses had ever seen. The Baudelaires – except for Beatrice - immediately recognized him as the man they worked with during their time in Heimlich Hospital, who was also one of the oldest they had ever seen.
‘HAL!’ the three eldest Baudelaires shouted, and Hal showed them a big smile.
‘I came here to help you, Baudelaires. See, I also received letters.’ Said Hal, taking yet another envelope out of his jacket, an envelope that looked exactly like the one the Baudelaires had with them, red wax seal and all. ‘So, you are a volunteer now?’ Sunny asked. ‘Yes. I before the fire at Hotel Denouement. I survived the fire, but many others died. Unfortunately, most of the villains there survived.’
‘You don’t say…’ Violet began to speak, but the idea scared her too much for her to finish her sentence.
‘Yes. Most of the villains that were at Hotel Denouement have survived the fire and are still out there…looking for the sugarbowl, among other villainous goals which are too terrible to mention.’
‘So the bowl is still out there…’ Klaus said, to which Hal nodded affirmatively.
‘But Hal, what exactly is inside the sugarbowl? The object of search cannot be the bowl itself.’ Violet said, frustrated at the idea of the sugarbowl and it’s secret that they still didn’t know.
‘The bowl was lost by another of our taxi driving agents. He and the woman in his cab at the time suffered a vicious attack and a car accident, one after the other, and then they fell off a cliff. They survived, but the bowl was lost somehow during the confusion. Now that’s what I call bad luck.’ And then Hal opened his cab. ‘Now we must not waste time, Baudelaires. If things go according to plan, the villain meeting ocurring at the manor shall take place in fourty eight hundred hours.’
‘That long?’ Sunny asked while the Baudelaires entered the cab. Klaus sat up front and Violet in the back with Sunny and Beatrice.
‘No, Sunny, Hal used military time to say the villain meeting will take place in two days.’ Said Klaus, who was familiar with the military time from a book he had read on wars.
‘You four will need disguises, Baudelaires. I have a disguise kit in my trunk. We’ll stop halfway on the road to the Manor so you can put them on, and then we will proceed to the manor, where we will part ways. I have to go back to the city to meet one of our comrades at 141 Dark Avenue, but if things go according to plan, I will be back here to pick you four up and take you to our new headquarters in the city.’
As Hal drove the taxi, the Baudelaires could see the dark sillhouette of the manor against the light reflected by the clouds in the sky behind it. The manor looked very strange, and it was only when they stopped, and Hal parked the taxi and they got out of it, that the Baudelaires could see why the manor’s silhouette was so unusual. Every inch of the manor’s exterior was covered in thick moss and ivy, and they could barely see any windows. It was like an enourmous bush shaped as a manor by a very hard-working and persistent, yet sloppy gardener. Hal opened the trunk of the taxi and took out a disguise kit.
‘Here, Violet, here is your disguise.’ Hal handed to Violet a trench coat, glasses, and large earrings. He then gave Klaus a long black coat and a pot of hair gel, and to Sunny and Beatrice he gave two sets of overalls complete with small caps and shoes that made them look like little boys instead of girls.
‘Violet, you’ll be Veronica, Klaus will be Klyde, Sunny will be Sonny and Beatrice will be…I can’t think of a name that sounds like Beatrice for a boy…’
‘Femme!’ said Beatrice, a baby shriek that probably meant something along the lines of ‘But I’m not a boy, I’m a girl!’
‘With those invitations, you’ll get in the manor for sure. Now watch out Baudelaires. I’m afraid many enemies are gathered here at the manor, and you have to watch your every step. Also, this place is too big, and you might get lost, so my companion in V.F.D. readied a map of the manor you might find useful. Here.’ And he handed Violet the map. Seeing a map made Violet’s mind go far away, to her dearest, Quigley, who took a great interest in cartography and the thought of him made her feel lonely.
‘This companion you speak of…Is he or she the same person that sent us the first letter?’ Klaus asked.
‘I don’t know. To my knowledge, my companion never sent any letter that I know of, so I can’t tell.’ Said Hal. ‘Now go, Baudelaires. Here are your suitcases. I included several things you might find useful during your stay at the manor, but only check them after you know you are completely and safely by yourselves.’
‘But, Hal, where’s the entrance to the manor? I can’t spot it under all that ivy and moss.’ Violet asked.
‘Oh, it’s in the map. I never ventured into that house, fortunately. Big dark houses like that are a tad on the scary side, don’t you find? My sight is not it used to be, but I think just seeing that house gives me the shivers.’
The Baudelaires then looked at the manor, a mass of stone and wood covered in ivy and moss, with few windows giving an eerie yellow light in the darkness, as the night fell, and a cold wind blew, in what seemed to be a whisper of fear. The four Baudelaire orphans felt shivers going down their spines, an expression here meaning they ‘were not the least bit eager to enter the manor’.
‘Now we must part ways, Baudelaires. If thinks go according to plan, I’ll come for you when time is due. Until next time, take care!’ said Hal, hopping into the driver seat of the taxi and closing the door. He started the engine and drove his way back in the same road they came in. As Hal had stopped halfway on the road to the manor, the Baudelaires had to walk the rest of the way, and it was getting dark. Beatrice and even Sunny became scared, as it was very cold and the wind that blew towards the sea was cold as well. When they finally arrived in the manor grounds, Violet had to consult the map so that they could find the entrance, and when Violet knocked on the front door, which was almost invisible under the curtain of ivy, the door was opened and a tall man wearing a dark suit opened. He wore a monocle, the same kind as Count Olaf did when he disguised himself as Gunther, and for a moment, the Baudelaires thought it was him, but that could not be because Olaf was long dead, and the man standing before them looked less evil than he did look snobbish, a word here meaning ‘a person who does not like people who are not rich, despite the fact that the person in question is a mere butler and not a rich person’.
‘Invitations?’ the man asked, and the Baudelaires noticed that he was the butler, and not the owner of Montague Manor. They handed him the invitations, and he carefully examined each of them before letting them in, and they held their breaths, afraid that the man would realize they had not been invited at all.
‘Please come in. The Master will join the guests shortly in the tea room.’
And the Baudelaires walked into the Manor, afraid that bored would not describe what they were going to be during their stay there, and that terrified , or ambushed, or perhaps even 'in great peril' would be a more appropriate description. And in this, I’m very sad to say, the Baudelaires were correct.