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Post by Dante on Feb 13, 2012 8:14:15 GMT -5
This thread exists to collect together information about Lemony Snicket's All The Wrong Questions series - from years before the series's announcement, to preview chapters of the books themselves. Series: All The Wrong QuestionsAuthor: Lemony Snicket Illustrator: Seth (Gregory Gallant) Audiobook Narrator: Liam Aiken (?1, ?2); Terry Gross, Jon Scieszka, Sarah Vowell, Libba Bray, Ira Glass, Sophie Blackall, Jon Klassen, Chris Kluwe, Holly Black, Sook-Yin Lee, Rachel Maddow, Stephin Merritt, Wesley Stace ( File Under) >~- ALL THE WRONG QUESTIONS?1: "Who Could That Be At This Hour?"Release Date: 23 October 2012 Crime: Theft. Information: Read here.Previews: View Part 1 (Transcripts: Chapters 1-2); View Part 2 (Transcripts: Chapters 3-4; Book Trailer; Sketch Illustrations). ?2: "When Did You See Her Last?"Release Date: 15 October 2013 Crime: Kidnap. Information: Read here.Previews: View here (Transcripts: Chapters 1-3; Miscellaneous Lines; Preview Illustrations). ?3: "Shouldn't You Be In School?"Release Date: 30 September 2014 Crime: Arson. Information: Read here.Previews: View here (Transcripts: Chapters 1-2; Sketch and Preview Illustrations). ?4: " Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights?" Release Date: 29 September 2015 Crime: Murder. Information: Read here.Previews: View here (Transcripts: Chapter 1, Chapter 2 (partial); Sketch and Preview Illustrations). ADDITIONAL REPORTSSI: File Under: 13 Suspicious IncidentsRelease Date: 1 April 2014 (North America) Crimes: Thirteen. Information: Read here.Previews: View here (Transcripts: Inside Job, Pinched Creature, Ransom Note, Bad Gang, Troublesome Ghost, miscellaneous passages; Book Trailers; Sketch Illustrations; Preview Quiz) 29M: 29 Myths on the Swinster PharmacyRelease Date: 11 February 2014 Crime: Who knows? Information: Read here.BOX SET?1234: All The Wrong Questions: A Complete MysteryRelease Date: 20 October 2015 Crimes: Theft, Kidnap, Arson, Murder. Information: Read here.-~< Websites, Snicketmail, Crack the Case with Lemony Snicket, TwitterFiction Festival 2015: View here.Pre-Announcement Archive:Release Date: Fall 2012 (Little, Brown & Co.; Egmont) ( source); (2011 thought possible at one point, see here); books to be released yearly ( source); September (U.K.)? ( per here) Details: An "investigation." Announced here. Will have overlap with aSoUE (including returning characters) per here and here. May be a prequel, per here ( source). Definitely a prequel, per here, taking place before the Baudelaire orphans were born. Slightly ambiguously supposed to be "really about Lemony Snicket's childhood" or "more about Lemony Snicket himself" ( per here) ( source). Possible title or other associated lines obscured here. Legacy Articles: Mentioned here ( article), here ( article) and here ( article). Potential series title: Lemony Snickets Asks The Wrong Questions, All The Wrong Questions; potential book designations, The First Question; potential titles are questions. Source: See here and 2011 birthday response here.
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Post by Dante on Aug 14, 2012 3:07:57 GMT -5
Official Websites:Little, Brown & Co. (United States of America): LemonySnicketLibrary.comAll The Wrong Questions FacebookLemony Snicket Library TumblrLemony Snicket Library TwitterEgmont (United Kingdom): AllTheWrongQuestions.comLemonySnicketLibrary.com's Crack the Case with Lemony SnicketText reproduced below. 13 Cases. 13 Clues. 13 Challenges. Crack the Case with Lemony SnicketDo YOU Have What It Takes?As chronicled in his series of books All The Wrong Questions, Lemony Snicket spends his time in the town of Stain’d-By-The-Sea solving perplexing puzzles. Now it’s your turn. Thirteen challenges await those who are interested in aiding in Mr. Snicket’s noble work, or who just have nothing better to do at the moment. Challenge the FirstStormy WeatherVisiting Stain’d-By-The-Sea are three salesman: Ambrose, who sells umbrellas; Bartholomew, who sells mousetraps, and Cyril, who sells sticks. After a long, unsuccessful day, the three meet up at their hotel, the Lost Arms, and decide to take a walk, carrying absolutely nothing with them. Sadly, after three blocks it begins to rain. “Egad!” Ambrose cries. “My hair is getting soaked, and I spent all day combing it.” “You’re better off than I am,” Bartholomew says. “I’ve just finished putting my hair in curlers, and now it’s as wet as can be.” “My hair’s drier than my driest selection of sticks,” Cyril brags, and the other two salesmen have to admit he’s right. How is this possible?Reveal The Answer. Answer: Cyril is bald.
Challenge the SecondThe Case of the Pencils" Every Sunday morning, someone steals a pencil from my pencil case, which I keep here on the back porch where I can’t possibly keep an eye on it,” said Mrs. Vargas, Stain’d-By-The-Sea’s least interesting old lady. “I hope all of you children have alibis for this morning, or you’ll be locked up for extremely petty larceny.” “I didn’t steal your pencil,” Moxie Mallahan replied. “I have enough pencils at home. Besides, I spent the morning with my father, scrubbing ink stains out of the shower curtain.” “Don’t look at me,” Jake Hix said. “Every Sunday I bake bread, and while the dough is rising I roast fennel so I’ll have some handy for my dinner customers.” “I spent the whole morning going through today’s mail,” Stew Mitchum said, “so I could circle things in catalogs for my parents to buy me.” “I’m innocent too,” said Bouvard Bellerophon. “Like every Sunday, I was at the Unitarian Church, listening to a sermon on how to throw your voice so it sounds like it’s coming out of a bush.” “Aha!” exclaimed Mrs. Vargas. “I may not be interesting, but at least I know who’s been stealing my pencils.” How could she know a thing like that?Reveal The Answer. Answer: Stew Mitchum claimed to be going through the day’s mail, but mail isn’t delivered on Sundays.
Challenge the ThirdTo Your Health!Nervously, Senator Claude sipped a bourbon on the rocks, a phrase which here means “a beverage which is delicious, but inappropriate for children, served over ice,” and then poured out the same cocktail for his five guests. “To your health, gentlemen!” he said, and quickly downed his drink. “Wait! I’m not a gentleman,” said the fifth guest, who was a woman. “Neither am I,” said the fourth guest. “I prefer to think of myself as a ruffian, which means a man with very few social skills.” “That’s not really what ruffian means,” said the third guest, sipping his drink. “Yes it is,” insisted the second guest. “I’m not sure what all of you are talking about,” said the first guest, as Senator Claude refilled his drink. The guests and their host continued to drink and argue for a few more minutes before everyone dropped dead, except the Senator who was soon arrested. “Poison,” the judge said in disgust, sentencing Claude to 97 years and six months in prison. What? Poison? But Senator Claude was drinking the same drink! What happened?Reveal The Answer. Answer: The poison was in the ice, and wasn’t released until the ice melted.
Challenge the FourthCold Cash" That’s my thousand-lira note,” Moxie Mallahan exclaimed, pointing to the Italian money Stew Mitchum was clutching. “My mother gave it to me after a long weekend in Sardinia.” “It’s mine,” Stew Mitchum said. “I found it between pages 67 and 68 of Harriet Du Maurier’s famous novel But Her Lips Aren’t Moving.” “You’re lying,” Moxie Mallahan said, “and I can prove it.” Really?Reveal The Answer. Answer: Yes. In all books, odd pages are the right and even are on the left. Pg. 67 & 68 would be back-to-back, so nothing can be placed between them.
Challenge the FifthSealed With a Miss" Ruined!” cried Polly Partial, Stain’d-By-The-Sea’s last remaining grocer. “I’m ruined!” “What appears to be the problem?” asked an inquisitive customer, who was wearing a very shiny belt. “My stock boy put the wrong labels on each and every one of these three boxes,” she said, pointing to cardboard boxes marked APPLES, ORANGES and APPLES & ORANGES, “and then taped them shut with sixty six layers of tape. That’s the last time I hire grocery interns. They wreck everything! It’ll take hours to open them all and move the labels to the right boxes.” “You only have to open one box, and take out one piece of fruit, to sort it all out,” said the customer. “That can’t be true!”
“It is true, madam.” “If you can sort these out by opening only one box,” said Polly Partial, “I’ll give you a pint of rutabagas for free.” He did, and she did. How did he sort things out? And who wants rutabagas?Reveal The Answer. Answer: The customer opened the box labeled “APPLES & ORANGES,” and withdrew an apple. All three boxes had the wrong labels, so this box’s correct label was APPLES, and the box incorrectly labeled ORANGES therefore must be APPLES & ORANGES, and the box marked APPLES should be ORANGES.
Also, Rutabagas are decent if roasted with garlic.
Challenge the SixthLosing Your Marbles" I have a fun activity,” said Harley Stawking, who worked as a math tutor in Stain’d-By-The-Sea when he wasn’t hanging around the train station photographing the steam engine. “Here are twelve marbles, completely identical except one of them is heavier than the others. I also happen to have with me a balance scale. I challenge you to figure out which of the marbles is the heavier one in just four weighings.” “No, thank you,” I replied. “I’m reading right now.” “I bet you’re a dummy,” Mr. Stawking said rudely. “That’s why you won’t participate in my math game.” “I’m not a dummy,” I said sternly. “I can find the heavier marble in three weighings. But I’m not in the habit of playing math games with strangers.” “Please?” Mr. Stawking said. “Pretty please?” “Oh, very well.” What did I do and why?Reveal The Answer. The Answer: First I put 6 marbles on one side of the scale and 6 on the other. The heavier side contained the heavier marble, so I threw the other 6 marbles away and put 3 on one side and 3 on the other. Again, the heavier side contained the heavier marble, so I threw the three other marbles away. Then I put 1 marble on one side and 1 on the other to see if one of them was heavier. But they balanced equally, so I knew that the last marble was the heavier one. The mystery remains why I would do such a thing just because a stranger asked me to.
Challenge the SeventhWho's Hungry?" La la la la,” sang the little girl. “Please be quiet,” said her first cousin, Mona. “Give me that donut and I’ll be quiet,” the little girl said. “The donut is for my second cousin,” Mona said, and turned back to Dashiell Qwerty, who was Stain’d-By-The-Sea’s only librarian, a man full of secrets, and a very good sport. “You can see my problem, Mr. Qwerty. I need to transport a little girl, a donut, and this cannibal across town. There’s only room on this bicycle for one item besides myself. I’m willing to make several trips, but if I leave this little girl alone with the donut, she’ll eat it, and it’s the same situation with the little girl and this cannibal.” “It’s true,” admitted the cannibal, straightening his tie. “If I’m alone with that girl I will eat her right up. But I would never touch a donut.” “What can we do, Mr. Qwerty?” moaned Mona. Good question. What’s the answer, pray tell?Reveal The Answer. Answer: Mona should first take the little girl across town, leaving the cannibal and the donut alone. Upon her return, she should transport the donut, and then bring the little girl back with her. Then she should take the cannibal across town, and return alone for the little girl. Alternately, she could hire a babysitter, buy her donuts across town and/or stop associating with cannibals.
Challenge the EighthBasket CaseOne grey afternoon, Jake Hix was at work in Hungry’s diner, fitting a hot lunch into a small leather suitcase, in order to have a picnic with his sweetheart. He had just packed a thermos of sea urchin chowder and locked up the suitcase when Stew Mitchum came in with his parents Harvey and Mimi, Stain’d-By-The-Sea’s only police officers. “What are you doing back here, Stew?” Jake asked. “You couldn’t be hungry again so soon. I served you three Sloppy Joes and one Tidy Joe for lunch just a few minutes ago.” “I told you he was a liar,” Stew said to his parents. “I haven’t been in this diner all day. I’ve been looking for my harmonica, and I think Jake stole it.” “Don’t be ridiculous,” Jake said. “It’s unsanitary to use other people’s harmonicas. Also--and more importantly, I might add--I’m not a thief.” “Search him,” Stew said to his mother. “Search this whole diner. Open up that picnic basket and search that too. My harmonica’s got to be here somewhere.” “You don’t have to search me,” Jake said. “I’ve been framed.” That’s likely. But how did he prove it?Reveal The Answer. The Answer: Stew would not have known the suitcase was a picnic basket if he had not been there earlier, as Jake claimed, and he would not have lied unless he was trying to frame Jake.
Challenge the NinthUps and Downs" Quit your grousing,” ordered the manager of Lebab Towers, which had once been a fancy apartment building and was now something of a mess. “The elevator isn’t working, but in the meantime your guests can use the stairs to get to your party. Your apartment is on the second floor, so it isn’t far.” “But we’re going to make apple-kale smoothies and watch an old vaudeville act on television,” complained Horatio Algae, who had once lived in a fancy apartment building and now lived in a messy one. He held his flashlight sternly in the manager’s face. “With the elevator stalled, both those things are impossible.” The manager frowned. “They are?” Yes. Wait, why?Reveal The Answer. Answer: The power is out, so both the blender and the television are as useless as the elevator, so Mr. Algae’s guests will eat kale and apple salad and play cards.
Challenge the TenthDark and StormyUmbrellas in hand, the three salesman decide to take another walk. It rains again, and although the umbrellas keep them mostly dry, a small leak in the center makes raindrops slide down the handle of the umbrella. “Egad!” Ambrose cries. “My hand is damp.” “You’re better off than I am,” Bartholomew says. “I’m holding the umbrella with both hands, so both my hands are damp.” “My hands are no wetter than my driest sticks,” Cyril says, and the other two salesmen have to admit he’s right. I suppose you’re going to tell me that Cyril doesn’t have any hands?Reveal The Answer. Answer: He has hands, but he’s wearing gloves.
Challenge the EleventhArtifact, Artifaction" I tell you, it’s genuine,” said the stranger to Prosper Lost, the proprietor of the Lost Arms hotel. “I hear you have an interest in sculpture, so I brought this item especially from Egypt where I picked it up in an open-air market. It depicts Ra, the Sun God, with a golden spear in one hand and a scarab, or beetle, in the other. A prominent Egyptologist told me the statue dates back to the Middle Kingdom. You can see here, carved at the base, the date 1800 BC. It’s worth a fortune, but I’m willing to trade it for three nights at your fine hotel, preferably in a room with a waterbed.” “We don’t have waterbeds,” Prosper Lost said, “and we don’t cater to fakers.” That’s a very sound policy. But how did Prosper Lost know the statue was fake?Reveal The Answer. Answer: “BC” is a term used in the modern era to describe ancient times, but people in ancient times did not use it.
Challenge the TwelfthCandles on the Cake" Seven,” replied Pecuchet Bellerophon, who with his brother Bouvard drove one of Stain’d-By-The-Sea’s last taxi cabs. “Seven?” repeated Polly Partial in astonishment, sweeping up confetti from the floor of her grocery store. “The day before yesterday, you were seven years old, but next year you’ll turn ten? I’m confused.” “Don’t let him rattle you,” said Bouvard. “My brother loves confusing people about his age, but it’s very simple, actually.” Is it?Reveal The Answer. Answer: Sort of. The day Pecuchet was talking to Polly Partial was January 1st. December 31 was Pecuchet’s 8th birthday. On December 30, he was still seven. This year he will turn 9, and next year he will be ten.
Challenge the ThirteenthDead WrongThe Mediocre Corral, an abandoned ranch outside Stain’d-By-The-Sea which was once selected as Best Place To Get Murdered by the town’s only newspaper, The Stain’d Lighthouse, has seen another murder. Abdul Whey, a Kurdish arachnologist, was found strangled with either a very slender rope or a very thick thread. When the Officers Mitchum arrived on the scene, they found thirteen suspects, but forgot to write down their names - not even their initials - just their occupations and what was found in their pockets. Luckily, the identity of the murderer was initially hidden in this collection of thirteen puzzles. “Initially” means “at first,” but perhaps at last you can solve the mystery for yourself.
| Name | Occupation | Objects in Pocket | 1. | ? ? ? | Chef | grocery list | 2. | ??? | Grocer | name of Chef on piece of paper | 3. | ??? | Chimney Sweep | Soot | 4. | ??? | Seamstress | spool, map of nearby island | 5. | ??? | Piano teacher | thumbtacks, paring knife | 6. | ??? | Drifter | someone else's wallet | 7. | ??? | Cannibal | donut | 8. | ??? | Ventriloquist | nothing | 9. | ??? | Cartographer | compass, flipbook | 10. | ??? | Funnelcake enthusiast | napkin, fork | 11. | ??? | Salesman | stick, gloves | 12. | ??? | Tasteful dancer | money, glitter | 13. | ??? | Religious leader | lobster bib |
Who is the murderer?Enter your answer_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _I have unravelled this mystery. Submit my answer! [Chef] YOU ARE INCORRECT! [Go to "I am mystified. Please unravel me."]
[Grocer] YOU ARE INCORRECT! [Go to "I am mystified. Please unravel me."]
[Chimney Sweep] YOU ARE INCORRECT! [Go to "I am mystified. Please unravel me."]
[Seamstress] YOU ARE INCORRECT! [Go to "I am mystified. Please unravel me."]
[Piano teacher] YOU ARE INCORRECT! [Go to "I am mystified. Please unravel me."]
[Drifter] YOU ARE INCORRECT! [Go to "I am mystified. Please unravel me."]
[Cannibal] YOU ARE INCORRECT! [Go to "I am mystified. Please unravel me."]
[Ventriloquist] YOU ARE CORRECT!The ventriloquist was the murderer, having strangled Dr. Whey with the cord of his ventriloquist dummy, whose body was also found nearby. The first letter in each puzzle spells out VENTRILOQUIST. You have cracked all thirteen cases, and earned a place in our organization alongside great detectives, librarians and people who arrange plates of fruit and chocolate as snacks at our top-secret meetings. It is likely you solved these mysteries while you were supposed to be doing something else, so you may want to have this official excuse letter handy, to avoid trouble, embarrassment and/or imprisonment. Simply fill in the blanks and your actions will be entirely explained by a more or less complete stranger. [Cartographer] YOU ARE INCORRECT! [Go to "I am mystified. Please unravel me."]
[Funnelcake enthusiast] YOU ARE INCORRECT! [Go to "I am mystified. Please unravel me."]
[Salesman] YOU ARE INCORRECT! [Go to "I am mystified. Please unravel me."]
[Tasteful dancer] YOU ARE INCORRECT! [Go to "I am mystified. Please unravel me."]
[Religious leader] YOU ARE INCORRECT! [Go to "I am mystified. Please unravel me."]
I am mystified. Please unravel me. YOU ARE INCORRECT!Show me the answer! The ventriloquist was the murderer, having strangled Dr. Whey with the cord of his ventriloquist dummy, whose body was also found nearby. The first letter in each puzzle spells out VENTRILOQUIST. If you HAD gotten it right, you would hav earned a place in our organization alongside great detectives, librarians and people who arrange plates of fruit and chocolate as snacks at our top-secret meetings. Start reading the below and brush up on your detective skills! www.scribd.com/doc/96699623/Lemony-Snicket-s-All-the-Wrong-Questions-Who-Could-That-Be-at-This-Hour-Book-1I want to try again! [Return to the first challenge and try again.]
LemonySnicketLibrary.com's You Choose The Mystery:
TwitterFiction Festival 2015 EntryIn thirteen minutes... #TwitterFiction - I’m standing in the shade of a tree full of noisy birds. Perhaps their tweets will help me find out what is going on.#TwitterFiction - I know I’m Lemony Snicket and I know I’m almost 13. But the rest is a vague blur in my brain and a throbbing bump on my head.#TwitterFiction - Amnesia is like a pen without ink, or a toaster without bread - I have no idea why I am carrying it around. #TwitterFiction - “How did I get here?” I ask the birds, silently but not rhetorically. “What mode of transportation?” #TwitterFiction - But I feel no talon marks in my shoulders. - I scan the sky and see nothing but clouds, one of which is shaped like the wrong answer. - I silently berate myself for studying Esperanto and Braille and not Aviary. Some educations are nothing but waste. - Yes! A taxi! It comes back to me now! I even remember the drivers - my associates the Bellerophon Brothers. - Bouvard & Pecuchet Bellerophon,aka Pip & Squeak,have driven me in and out of suspicious locations and frantic states. - They're too loyal to leave me dazed and alone. The question is, did I (a) jump out of the taxi of my own accord, or (b) was I pushed? - It's coming back to me now - I jumped, so that even the Bellerophons would not know my secret destination. - I quickly search my pockets for clues as to my blurry plans, and find 3 objects. One is a scrap of paper, and the other two, hmm... - Not knowing what happens next in life can feel lonely and shaky, like a maraca when the mariachi band has gone home. - Is it possible? No, I'm just remembering a long-ago weekend in Sardinia with certain oft-surnburnt associates. - I look at the key and the matches, and the key and matches look back at me as if they are very busy but will get back to me later. - I uncrumple the paper and read the note written in familar but elusive handwriting. - "I have crucial information about a family member. Bring this key and box of matches and meet me..." Root beer and/or tears blurs the rest. - My noggin sore and my mind addled, I look around to get my bearings. My moral compass is intact but otherwise I can hardly see where I am. - To the South is a lonely-looking street full of boarded-up storefronts. - To the East is a building that was clearly impressive once, but now little more than crumbling minarets and sad stained glass windows. - To the North and Northwest are some train tracks leading far into a flat, rural landscape. What do do, what to do? - Liam R. Findlay is so polite. A courteous voice in a noisy flock is appreciated during amnesia and birthday parties alike. - I walk toward the shabby building, staring again at the note's familiar handwriting. Who would have me meet them here? - My associates appear like drawn images on an electronic screen. Could it be Moxie Mallahan, the intrepid journalist? - I am half-remembering a curious headline I saw in one of Moxie's recent articles...what was it, again? - Yes, the case of Ricardo Roulette, last seen, oddly, playing baccarat at Stain'd-By-the-Sea's last gambling house. - But what could a vanishing gambler have to do with this desolate house of worship and/or construction site? I look at one of the windows. - The cracked stained glass reveals a scene from a book I've never liked, although the title escapes me at the moment. - Precisely: this rendering of the self-righteous chapter on drunkenness is as insipid as de Saint-Exupéry's original. - But is it a clue? Drunkards and gamblers can occasionally go hand in hand, like gourmet chocolate and snobbery. - I look again at the key,wondering if I should head back to the storefronts, a more likely source for a keyhole, or stay here.A bird answers. - How could I have missed this box before? Amnesia is trouble enought without hyperopia. - A locked box is like a frowning friend who tells you nothing's wrong, although one is more likely to open up with a root beer float. - The box is small but very heavy, like the poetry of Basho, and its hinges creak like the noise you tell yourself, in bed, you did not hear. - Inside is a small musical instrument, the name of which is on the tip of my tongue. - I lift the kalimba out of the box and thumb its tines, listening to the plunky sounds reverberate. - I stare at the key and the kalimba, wondering how they are connected, aside from alliteration. - A note mentions "crucial information about a family member." A key unlocks a box in this abandoned building. Plunk, plunk. Think, Snicket. - I think of my associates again. Who else would want to meet me here? The esteemed chemist Cleo Knight, perhaps? - I do recall that Cleo had paused her work with invisible ink to test a new formula, consisting of letters, numbers and mathematical signs. - I close my eyes and, with twittery effort, conjure up the formula: - Yes, as part of Cleo's work on fireproof cufflinks, for firefighters to wear on formal occasions. - The same formula is printed on the side of the box of matches, above the words THESE ARE NOT TO PLAY WITH! and a picture of a child crying, - presumably because the warning ends with a preposition. Focus, Snicket. Do not digress on grammar. - But I was hungry. It is difficult to focus on an empty stomach, because you are busy focussing on an empty stomach. - This made me think of Jake Hix,Cleo's beau and a chef who spelled "DELICIOUS" as Deviled Eggs,Liquorice Ice Cream, Ikura Or Umbrian Salami." - I remembered when Jake made a dish from three random items suggested by passers-by. - The voice in my head,despite its dubious name, is right. So many suggestions from passers-by are disgusting, anyway. - The grey sky was getting darker, as if slowly giving up on the idea of daytime. I examined my clues once more. - Was there information about my sister, who had gotten herself in trouble more or less on my account? - Or was it my brother, whose whereabouts are even more shadowy? - I turned the kalimba over with a small plunk. There was a small sketch on the back, drawn by a child or perhaps a late Expressionist. - The sketch depicts an animal, Snicket. What do you call that fearsome creatures, again? - Heavens no. My evening is disturbing enough. - My second favorite animal - but this is smaller. - The various guesses ricocheted in my head, as if composed by various strangers in some elaborate and occasionally frustrating network. - It was a wildcat, and this jogged my memory. It was the only sort of jogging of which I approve. - There is a girl who is afraid of wildcats, Snicket. A girl with eyes bright enough to make you lose your memory all over again. - You might not call her an associate. In fact, all the names for her feel wrong, except the one her parents gave her. - But it's too late. She's already right behind you. - And as soon as you turn to see her face, Snicket, you realize that the handwriting on the note is yours. - The Bellerophons wouldn't have given you a ride to see her, but you knew you had something you needed to tell her, - as soon as you retrieved the kalimba with the wildcat scrawled on the back. - By now it's almost dark, so I light a match so Ellington can approach without stumbling on all the rubble. - "Good evening," she says. "Not so far," I reply. She gives me a frown and a tiny shrug. - "I didn't think I'd see you here," she says, but then her eyes move to the kalimba. "I always try to stay one step ahead of you," I say. - Ellington looks at the instrument, and then at the note in my hand. I give it to her. The note is for her, anyway. - "You wanted to tell me something tonight?" she asks. "Yes," I tell her, and light another match so I can see the curiousity in her eyes. - "You know where my father is?" she asks me. "I think so," I say. "This kalimba clinches it. At last the mystery may well be solved." - "Well, it's getting late," she says. "You might as well tell me now. I don't like to be around here at night." - I shake my head. "The window is closed," I say. She glances at the stained glass. "I've never liked The Little Prince." - "That's not what I'm talking about," I say. "I mean, my #TwitterFiction window is closed," and I blow out the match. - (With that, Mr. Snicket withdraws, with a salute of thanks to his associates on Twitter and elsewhere.) Snicketmail:File for 2012:Note: Egmont Snicketmails in 2012 were identical to Little, Brown & Co. Snicketmails (except where noted) and sent on a considerable delay relative to the originals. Egmont also ceased to send Snicketmails after October 23rd. The Little, Brown & Co. images and send dates will be used here, excluding Egmont exclusives.February: Tuesday 28th--- Why would anyone want to steal this statue? --- --- Note: The final version of this illustration appears on the front cover of the Little, Brown & Co. edition of ?1 and the spine of the Egmont edition of ?1. --- March: Wednesday 7th--- Who is Ellington Feint? --- --- March: Thursday 15th--- Where has all the ink gone? --- --- March: Friday 23rd--- Drop Everything --- [Note: Image replaced between Friday 23rd and Wednesday 28th with the following:] --- March: Wednesday 28th--- Just a cover until October 23rd? --- --- April: Wednesday 4th--- When does the bell ring? --- --- Note: The final version of this illustration appears on the front inside flap of the dustjacket of the Little, Brown & Co. edition and the Chapter Six illustration of ?1. --- April: Friday 13th--- How can we stop him? --- --- April: Thursday 19th--- What? --- --- Note: This sketch is unused, but may have been intended for Chapters Three or Six of ?1. --- April: Friday 27th--- It's for thee. --- --- Note: The final version of this illustration appears on the back cover of ?1. --- May: Wednesday 9th--- 804.1 --- --- Note: This sketch is unused, but may have been intended for Chapters Four or Eight of ?1. --- May: Tuesday 29th--- Keep your eyes on the road. --- --- Note: The final version of this illustration appears on the back cover of ?1. --- June: Thursday 14th--- Stormy weather. --- --- Note: This sketch is unused, but may have been intended for Chapters Three or Six of ?1. --- June: Thursday 28th--- And a toothbrush. --- --- July: Tuesday 24th--- Cave-dwellers, all of us. --- --- August: Tuesday 14th--- Qwerty. --- --- August: Tuesday 28th--- Third from the left --- --- Note: This illustration is an excerpt from a sketch, the final version of which appears in Chapter One of ?1. --- October: Wednesday 3rd--- attn VFD: stanzas in meditation re: ATWQ1/4;1/7 --- --- Note: This picture is an excerpt from a chapter illustration that appears in Chapter Two of ?1. --- October: Wednesday 10th--- attn VFD: stanzas in meditation re: ATWQ1/4;4/7 --- --- Note: This picture is an excerpt from a full-page illustration that appears in Chapter Eleven of ?1. --- October: Tuesday 16th--- Watch this and/or out. --- --- October: Tuesday 23rd--- The end is a new beginning --- [Links to here.]--- Note: This Snicketmail was an Egmont exclusive and was not sent by Little, Brown & Co. --- Note: All Snicketmails from here on for 2012 were Little, Brown & Co. exclusives.October: Tuesday 23rd--- Lemony Snicket Lands Today --- [Links to here.]--- October: Thursday 25th--- attn VFD: stanzas in meditation re: ATWQ1/4;3/7 --- --- Note: This picture is an excerpt from an illustration that appears on the back cover of ?1. --- October: Wednesday 31st--- Last minute advice on All Hallows' Eve. --- --- Note: This Snicketmail appeared only on the All the Wrong Questions Facebook page, despite the Facebook page otherwise only reprinting older Snicketmails; possibly the Snicketmail team realised Hallowe'en was a fitting date but were too late to actually send out a fresh e-mail. The final version of this illustration appears in Chapter Nine of ?1. --- November: Thursday 8th--- attn VFD: stanzas in meditation re: ATWQ1/4;6/7 --- --- Note: This picture appears on the back cover of the Little, Brown & Co. edition of ?1. --- November: Wednesday 14th--- attn VFD: stanzas in meditation re: ATWQ1/4;2/7 --- --- Note: This picture is an excerpt from a chapter illustration that appears in Chapter Eight of ?1. --- November: Thursday 29th--- attn VFD: stanzas in meditation re: ATWQ1/4;5/7 --- --- Note: This picture is an excerpt from a chapter illustration that appears in Chapter Thirteen of ?1. --- December: Thursday 20th--- attn VFD: stanzas in meditation re: ATWQ1/4;7/7 --- --- Note: This picture appears on the back cover of ?1. --- File for 2013:February: Thursday 28th--- Can You Be Trusted? --- Dear Alleged Associate, Please immediately listen to THIS which contains a top secret recorded conversation between Daniel Handler and myself, and see the attachment below, which depicts an undisclosed book cover. The more people who are made aware of this classified information the better chance we have of keeping our secret. With all due respect, Lemony Snicket --- June: Thursday 13th--- File under "Wrong Questions, All The" --- --- September: Sunday 15th--- Missing Lemony Snicket? --- Where is the missing girl? Who has the secret formula? Will this excerpt answer any of your questions? Why aren't you more worried? These are all the wrong questions. For answers, read this free preview of "When Did You See Her Last?". Also available for your eReader: Amazon | B&N | iTunes | Kobo--- September: Monday 30th--- Important information pertaining to new Lemony Snicket series. Shhhh. --- "When Did You See Her Last?" by Lemony Snicket'I asked the wrong question - four wrong questions, more or less. This is the account of the second.' Click here to read the opening chapters Publishing 15/10/2013 'A charming, clever and enormously enjoyable little mystery' Guardian 'A dazzlingly clever, funny and literary concoction' Irish Times 'A must for SOUE fans and converts' Daily Mail Click here to buy.978 1 4052 6884 4 Click here to preorder.978 1 4052 5622 3 --- Note: This Snicketmail was an Egmont exclusive and was not sent by Little, Brown & Co. This picture is an excerpt from the back cover of ?2. --- File for 2014January: Tuesday 14th--- File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents --- Match wits with Lemony Snicket and solve 13 mysterious cases in File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents, a new book darkening bookshelves April 1, 2014. READ "BAD GANG" NOW FOR FREE.--- April: Tuesday 1st--- Did Malcolm Gladwell Plagiarize Lemony Snicket? --- --- August: Monday 11th--- Enter Lemony Snicket's Fanart Contest! --- The #ATWQFanArt contest is top secret. Participation is and should be limited to professional artists, nonprofessional artists, unprofessional artists, their associates and friends of friends. Please help keep the #ATWQFanArt contest restricted by sharing this email only with members of our organization and other people. --- October: Monday 6th--- Help Lemony Snicket Choose the Mystery! --- This message contains graphics. If you cannot see the graphics, click here to view.ATTENTION: The material contained in this email is severely restricted to those who can read. If you cannot read, please stop reading this email. --- YOU CHOOSE THE MYSTERYIf you're looking to squander your valuable time, look no further than Lemony Snicket's You Choose the Mystery – an interactive adventure just released on the Snicket YouTube Channel. Through this series of more or less entertaining videos, YOU can help Lemony Snicket crack the case and determine what happens next. Here's what some eyewitnesses are saying: If you are able to locate the subtly blinking marquee above, click it to watch the trailer or view the first installment here. --- #ATWQ3Lemony Snicket's All the Wrong Questions 3: "Shouldn't You Be In School?" – has been privately published and is only available for purchase by his close associates and the general public. TOR.com recently reviewed the book: "if Wes Anderson were to make a mystery television series... it would probably feel like these Lemony Snicket books."Do have an opinion about Snicket's latest work? Share it with us on tumblr, facebook or tag it #ATWQ3 on twitter. Preview the Book--- SNICKET'S WHEREABOUTSUnfortunately, Lemony Snicket is everywhere these days. And if he's not, you'll be sure to find his official representative, Daniel Handler, sitting in his place. Mark down the following dates and times so you know where NOT to be: - Tuesday, 10/7 @ 4:00 pm EST / 1:00 pm PST on TUMBLR
- Tuesday, 10/7 @ 6:30pm in St. Paul
- Wednesday, 10/8 @ 6:30pm in Omaha
- Tuesday, 10/14 @ 1:00 pm EST/10:00 am PST on Google +
- Monday, 10/27 @ 6:00 pm in Anchorage
- Monday, 11/17 @ 6:00 pm in Denver
Learn more at LemonySnicketLibrary.com >>October: Monday 13th--- Join Lemony Snicket LIVE TOMORROW! --- Hang out with Lemony Snicket and Time for Kids LIVE October 14th at 1p ET / 10a PT.This message contains graphics. If you do not see the graphics, click here to view.JOIN LEMONY SNICKET LIVE!Tuesday, October 14th at 1p ET / 10a PT, the shadowy author will sit in a room filled with technology and be interrogated by a TIME for Kids reporter, who will ask all the wrong questions and receive some alarming answers—assuming of course that this mysterious man actually shows up… RSVP HERE.--- File for 2015:July: Wednesday 8th--- Bring Lemony Snicket to YOUR town! --- Like Stain’d-by-the-Sea, every town is shrouded in its own mystery. In association with the final volume of the All the Wrong Questions series, Lemony Snicket will visit the U.S. town that shows itself to be most desperate for his assistance. To vote, post your city and the hashtag #SnicketTour to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or Instagram!Voting ends July 29th! --- July: Friday 17th--- Questions? Ask Snicket on Facebook. --- ATTENTION: Regard this email with suspicion. It was sent by a trusted associate, nefarious nemesis, or both. SNICKET FACEBOOK Q&A!Even while Mr. Snicket is busy manufacturing the paper to print the final volume of the All the Wrong Questions series, he's made time to answer your #ATWQ questions. Post them on Facebook here.Mr. Snicket will supply answers on July 27th. Is your U.S. town in need of Lemony Snicket's assistance? There are only 13 voting days left to send Snicket to your city this fall. Several associates have already made some very compelling arguments: TO VOTE: Post your town with the hashtag #SnicketTour to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Tumblr. Voting ends July 29th.---
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Post by Dante on Aug 14, 2012 3:08:08 GMT -5
Information: ?1 (The First Question)Title: "Who Could That Be At This Hour?"Release Date: 23 October 2012 Cover (LB Hardcover):Cover (LB Paperback):Cover (LB Paper-Over-Board):Cover (Egmont):Cover (Hardie Grant Egmont):Promotional Synopses:Little, Brown & Co.: In a fading town, far from anyone he knew or trusted, a young Lemony Snicket began his apprenticeship in an organization nobody knows about. He began asking questions that shouldn’t have been on his mind. Now he has written an account that should not have been published, in four volumes that shouldn’t be read. This is the first volume. Lemony Snicket had an unusual education and a perplexing youth and now endures a despondent adulthood. His previous accounts and research have been collected and published as books, including those in A Series of Unfortunate Events, 13 Words, and The Composer is Dead. This is his first authorized autobiographical work. Seth is no stranger to a town that is fading. He is a multi-award-winning cartoonist, author, and artist, whose works include Palookaville, Clyde Fans, and The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists. He lives in Guelph, Canada.
Egmont:In a fading town, far from anyone he knew or trusted, a young Lemony Snicket began his apprenticeship in an organization nobody knows about. He began asking questions that shouldn't have been on his mind. In this title, he has written an account that should not be published and shouldn't be read. Author Lemony Snicket is a broken man, wracked with misery and despair as a result of writing A Series Of Unfortunate Events. He spends his days wandering the countryside weeping and moaning and his evenings eating hastily-prepared meals. But what was he like when he was thirteen years old? Find out in October 2012. Artist Seth is no stranger to a town that is fading. He is a multi-award-winning cartoonist, author, and artist, whose works include Palookaville, Clyde Fans, and The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists. He lives in Guelph, Canada. ( Source) Promotional Materials:File for ?1:
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Post by Dante on Sept 8, 2012 12:53:12 GMT -5
Previews: The First QuestionPart 1TranscriptsChapters 1-2(Chapters 3-4 in following post.) Click to read Chapter One. TO: Walleye FROM: LS FILE UNDER: Stain’d-by-the-Sea, accounts of; theft, investigations of; Hangfire; hawsers; ink; double-crossings; et cetera 1/4 cc: VFDhq CHAPTER ONE There was a town, and there was a girl, and there was a theft. I was living in the town, and I was hired to investigate the theft, and I thought the girl had nothing to do with it. I was almost thirteen and I was wrong. I was wrong about all of it. I should have asked the question “Why would someone say something was stolen when it was never theirs to begin with?” Instead, I asked the wrong question—four wrong questions, more or less. This is the account of the first. The Hemlock Tearoom and Stationery Shop is the sort of place where the floors always feel dirty, even when they are clean. They were not clean on the day in question. The food at the Hemlock is too awful to eat, particularly the eggs, which are probably the worst eggs in the city, including those on exhibit at the Museum of Bad Breakfast, where visitors can learn just how badly eggs can be prepared. The Hemlock sells paper and pens that are damaged and useless, but the tea is drinkable, and the place is located across the street from the train station, so it is an acceptable place to sit with one’s parents before boarding a train for a new life. I was wearing the suit I’d been given as a graduation present. It had hung in my closet for weeks, like an empty person. I felt glum and thirsty. When the tea arrived, for a moment the steam was all I could see. I’d said good-bye to someone very quickly and was wishing I’d taken longer. I told myself that it didn’t matter and that certainly it was no time to frown around town. You have work to do, Snicket, I told myself. There is no time for moping. You’ll see her soon enough in any case, I thought, incorrectly. Then the steam cleared, and I looked at the people who were with me. It is curious to look at one’s family and try to imagine how they look to strangers. I saw a large-shouldered man in a brown, linty suit that looked like it made him uncomfortable, and a woman drumming her fingernails on the table, over and over, the sound like a tiny horse’s galloping. She happened to have a flower in her hair. They were both smiling, particularly the man. “You have plenty of time before your train, son,” he said. “Would you like to order something to eat? Eggs?” “No, thank you,” I said. “We’re both so proud of our little boy,” said the woman, who perhaps would have looked nervous to someone who was looking closely at her. Or perhaps not. She stopped drumming her fingers on the table and ran them through my hair. Soon I would need a haircut. “You must be all a-tingle with excitement.” “I guess so,” I said, but I did not feel a-tingle. I did not feel a-anything. “Put your napkin in your lap,” she told me. “I did.” “Well, then, drink your tea,” she said, and another woman came into the Hemlock. She did not look at me or my family or anywhere at all. She brushed by my table, very tall, with a very great deal of very wild hair. Her shoes made noise on the floor. She stopped at a rack of envelopes and grabbed the first one she saw, tossing a coin to the woman behind the counter, who caught it almost without looking, and then she was back out the door. With all the tea on all the tables, it looked like one of her pockets was steaming. I was the only one who had noticed her. She did not look back. There are two good reasons to put your napkin in your lap. One is that food might spill in your lap, and it is better to stain the napkin than your clothing. The other is that it can serve as a perfect hiding place. Practically nobody is nosy enough to take the napkin off a lap to see what is hidden there. I sighed deeply and stared down at my lap, as if I were lost in thought, and then quickly and quietly I unfolded and read the note the woman had dropped there. CLIMB OUT THE WINDOW IN THE BATHROOM AND MEET ME IN THE ALLEY BEHIND THIS SHOP. I WILL BE WAITING IN THE GREEN ROADSTER. YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES. --S “Roadster,” I knew, was a fancy word for “car,” and I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of person would take the time to write “roadster” when the word “car” would do. I also couldn’t help but wonder what sort of person would sign a secret note, even if they only signed the letter S. A secret note is secret. There is no reason to sign it. “Are you OK, son?” “I need to excuse myself,” I said, and stood up. I put the napkin down on the table but kept the note crumpled up in my hand. “Drink your tea.” “ Mother,” I said. “Let him go, dear,” said the man in the brown suit. “He’s almost thirteen. It’s a difficult age.” I stood up and walked to the back of the Hemlock. Probably one minute had passed already. The woman behind the counter watched me look this way and that. In restaurants they always make you ask where the bathroom is, even when there’s nothing else you could be looking for. I told myself not to be embarrassed. “If I were a bathroom,” I said to the woman, “where would I be?” She pointed to a small hallway. I noticed the coin was still in her hand. I stepped quickly down the hallway without looking back. I would not see the Hemlock Tearoom and Stationery Shop again for years and years. I walked into the bathroom and saw that I was not alone. I could think of only two things to do in a bathroom while waiting to be alone. I did one of them, which was to stand at the sink and splash some cold water on my face. I took the opportunity to wrap the note in a paper towel and then run the thing under the water so it was a wet mess. I threw it away. Probably nobody would look for it. A man came out of the stall and caught my eye in the mirror. “Are you all right?” he asked me. I must have looked nervous. “I had the eggs,” I said, and he washed his hands sympathetically and left. I turned off the water and looked at the only window. It was small and square and had a very simple latch. A child could open it, which was good, because I was a child. The problem was that it was ten feet above me, in a high corner of the bathroom. Even standing on tiptoes, I couldn’t reach the point where I’d have to stand if I wanted to reach the point to open the latch. Any age was a difficult age for someone needing to get through that window. I walked into the bathroom stall. Behind the toilet was a large parcel wrapped in brown paper and string, but wrapped loosely, as if nobody cared whether you opened it or not. Leaned up against the wall like that, it didn’t look interesting. It looked like something the Hemlock needed, or a piece of equipment a plumber had left behind. It looked like none of your business. I dragged it into the middle of the stall and shut the door behind me as I tore open the paper. I didn’t lock it. A man with large shoulders could force open a door like that even if it were locked. It was a folding ladder. I knew it was there. I’d put it there myself. It was probably one minute to find the note, one to walk to the bathroom, one to wait for the man to leave, and two to set up the ladder, unlatch the window, and half-jump, half-side out the window into a small puddle in the alley. That’s five minutes. I brushed muddy water off my pants. The roadster was small and green and looked like it had once been a race car, but now it had cracks and creaks all along its curved body. The roadster had been neglected. No one had taken care of it, and now it was too late. The woman was frowning behind the steering wheel when I got in. Her hair was now wrestled into place by a small leather helmet. The windows were rolled down, and the rainy air matched the mood in the car. “I’m S. Theodora Markson,” she said. “I’m Lemony Snicket,” I said, and handed her an envelope I had in my pocket. Inside was something we called a letter of introduction, just a few paragraphs describing me as somebody who was an excellent reader, a good cook, a mediocre musician, and an awful quarreler. I had been instructed not to read my letter of introduction, and it had taken me some time to slip the envelope open and then reseal it. “I know who you are,” she said, and tossed the envelope into the backseat. She was staring through the windshield like we were already on the road. “There’s been a change of plans. We’re in a great hurry. The situation is more complicated than you understand or than I am in a position to explain to you under the present circumstances.” “Under the present circumstances,” I repeated. “You mean, right now?” “Of course that’s what I mean.” “If we’re in a great hurry, why didn’t you just say ‘right now’?” She reached across my lap and pushed open the door. “Get out,” she said. “What?” “I will not be spoken to this way. Your predecessor, the young man who worked under me before you, he never spoke to me this way. Never. Get out.” “I’m sorry,” I said. “Get out.” “I’m sorry,” I said. “Do you want to work under me, Snicket? Do you want me to be your chaperone?” I stared out at the alley. “Yes,” I said. “Then know this: I am not your friend. I am not your teacher. I am not a parent or a guardian or anyone who will take care of you. I am your chaperone, and you are my apprentice, a word which here means ‘person who works under me and does absolutely everything I tell him to do.’” “I’m contrite,” I said, “a word which here means—” “You already said you were sorry,” S. Theodora Markson said. “Don’t repeat yourself. It’s not only repetitive, it’s redundant, and people have heard it before. It’s not proper. It’s not sensible. I am S. Theodora Markson. You may call me Theodora or Markson. You are my apprentice. You work under me, and you will do everything I tell you to do. I will call you Snicket. There is no easy way to train an apprentice. My two tools are example and nagging. I will show you what it is I do, and then I will tell you to do other things yourself. Do you understand?” “What’s the S stand for?” “Stop asking the wrong questions,” she replied, and started the engine. “You probably think you know everything, Snicket. You are probably very proud of yourself for graduating, and for managing to sneak out of a bathroom window in five and a half minutes. But you know nothing.” S. Theodora Markson took one of her gloved hands off the steering wheel and reached up to the dashboard of the roadster. I noticed for the first time a teacup, still steaming. The side of the cup read HEMLOCK. “You probably didn’t even notice I took your tea, Snicket,” she said, and then reached across me and dumped the tea out the window. It steamed on the ground, and for a few seconds we watched an eerie cloud rise into the air of the alley. The smell was sweet and wrong, like a dangerous flower. “Laudanum,” she said. “It’s an opiate. It’s a medicament. It’s a sleeping draught.” She turned and looked at me for the first time. She looked pleasant enough, I would say, though I wouldn’t say it to her. She looked like a woman with a great deal to do, which is what I was counting on. “Three sips of that and you would have been incoherent, a word which here means mumbling crazy talk and nearly unconscious. You never would have caught that train, Snicket. Your parents would have hurried you out of that place and taken you someplace else, someplace I assure you that you do not want to be.” The cloud disappeared, but I kept staring at it. I felt all alone in the alley. If I had drunk my tea, I never would have been in that roadster, and if I had not been in that roadster, I never would have ended up falling into the wrong tree, or walking into the wrong basement, or destroying the wrong library, or finding all the other wrong answers to the wrong questions I was asking. She was right, S. Theodora Markson. There was no one to take care of me. I was hungry. I shut the door of the car and looked her in the eye. “Those weren’t my parents,” I said, and off we went. Click to read Chapter Two. CHAPTER TWO If you ask the right librarian and you get the right map, you can find the small dot of a town called Stain’d-by-the-Sea, about half a day’s drive from the city. But the town is actually nowhere near the sea but instead at the end of a long, bumpy road that has no name which is on no map you can find. I know this because it was in Stain’d-by-the-Sea that I spent my apprenticeship, and not in the city, where I thought it would be. I did not know this until S. Theodora Markson drove the roadster past the train station without even slowing down. “Aren’t we taking the train?” I asked. “That’s another wrong question,” she said. “I told you there’s been a change of plans. The map is not the territory. That’s an expression which means the world does not match the picture in our heads.” “I thought we were working across town.” “That’s exactly what I mean, Snicket. You thought we were working across town, but we are not working in the city at all.” My stomach fell to the floor of the car, which rattled as we took a sharp turn around a construction site. A team of workers were digging up the street to start work on the Fountain of Victorious Finance. Tomorrow, if it were possible for an apprentice to sneak away for lunch, I was supposed to meet someone right here, in hopes of measuring how deep the hole was that they were digging. I’d managed to acquire a new measuring tape for just that purpose, one that stretched out a very long distance and then scurried back into its holder with a satisfying click. The holder was shaped like a bat, and the tape measure was red, as if the bat had a very long tongue. I realized I would never see it again. “My suitcase,” I said, “is at the train station.” “I purchased some clothes for you,” Theodora said, and tilted her helmeted head toward the backseat, where I saw a small, bruised suitcase. “I was given your measurements, so hopefully they fit. If they don’t, you will have to either lose or gain weight or height. They’re unremarkable clothes. The idea is not to attract attention.” I thought that wearing clothes either too big or too small for me would be likely to attract attention, and I thought of the small stack of books I had tucked next to the bat. One of them was very important. It was a history of the city’s underground sewer system. I had planned to take a few notes on chapter 5 of the book, on the train across town. When I disembarked at Bellamy Station, I would crumple the notes into a ball and toss them to my associate without being seen. She would be standing at the magazine rack at Bellamy Books. It was all mapped out, but now the territory was different. She would read magazines for hours before catching her own train to her own apprenticeship, but then what would she do? What would I do? I scowled out the window and asked myself these and other hopeless questions. “Your reticence is not appreciated,” Theodora said, breaking my sour silence. “‘Reticence’ is a word which here means not talking enough. Say something, Snicket.” “Are we there yet?” I asked hopefully, although everyone knows that is the wrong question to ask the driver of a car. “Where are we going?” I tried instead, but for a moment Theodora did not answer. She was biting her lip, as if she were also disappointed about something, so I tried one more question that I thought she might like better. “What does the S stand for?” “Someplace else,” she replied, and it was true. Before long we had passed out of the neighbourhood, and then out of the district, and then out of the city altogether and were driving along a very twisty road that made me grateful I had eaten little. The air had such a curious smell that we had to close the windows of the roadster, and it looked like rain. I stared out the window and watched the day grow later. Few cars were on the road, but all of them were in better shape than Theodora’s. Twice I almost fell asleep thinking of places and people in the city that were dearly important to me, and the distance between them and myself growing and growing until the distance grew so vast that even the longest-tongued bat in the world could not lick the life I was leaving behind. A new sound rattled me out of my thoughts. The road had become rough and crackly under the vehicle’s wheels as Theodora took us down a hill so steep and long I could not see the bottom of it through the roadster’s dirty windows. “We’re driving on seashells,” my chaperone said in explanation. “This last part of the journey is all seashells and stones.” “Who would pave a road like that?” “Wrong question, Snicket,” she replied. “Nobody paved it, and it’s not really a road. This entire valley used to be underwater. It was drained some years back. You can see why it would be absolutely impossible to take the train.” A whistle blew right then. I decided not to say anything. Theodora glared at me anyway and then frowned out the window. A distance away was the hurried, slender shape of a long train, balancing high above the bumpy valley where we were driving. The train tracks were on a long, high bridge, which curved out from the shore to reach an island that was now just a mountain of stones rising out of the drained valley. Theodora turned the roadster toward the island, and as we approached I could see a group of buildings—faded brick buildings enclosed by a faded brick wall. A school, perhaps, or the estate of a dull family. The buildings had once been elegant, but many of the windows were shattered and gone, and there were no signs of life. I was surprised to hear, just as the roadster passed directly under the bridge, the low, loud clanging of a bell, from a high brick tower that looked abandoned and sad on a pile of rocks. Theodora cleared her throat. “There should be two masks behind you.” “Masks?” I said. “Don’t repeat what I say, Snicket. You are an apprentice, not a mynah bird. There are two masks on the backseat. We need them.” I reached back and found the items in question but had to stare at them a moment before I found the courage to pick them up. The two masks, one for an adult and one for a child, were fashioned from a shiny silver metal, with a tangle of rubber tubes and filters on the back. On the front were narrow slits for the eyes and a small ripple underneath for the nose. There was nothing where a mouth might be, so the faces of the masks looked at me silently and spookily, as if they thought this whole journey was a bad idea. “I absolutely agree,” I told them. Theodora frowned. “That bell means we should don these masks. ‘Don’ is a word which here means ‘put on our heads.’ The pressure at this depth will make it difficult to breathe otherwise.” “Pressure?” “Water pressure, Snicket. It’s everywhere around us. Masked or not, you must use your head.” My head told me it didn’t understand how there could be water pressure everywhere around us. There wasn’t any water. I wondered where all the water had gone when they’d drained this part of the sea, and I should have wondered. But I told myself it was the wrong question and asked something else instead. “Why did they do this? Why did they drain the sea of its water?” S. Theodora Markson took off her helmet, and for a moment I glimpsed a great deal of wild, long hair before she took one mask from my hands and slipped it onto her head. “To save the town,” she replied in a muffled voice. “Put your mask on, Snicket.” I did as Theodora said. The mask was dark inside and smelled faintly like a cave or a closet that had not been opened in some time. A few tubes huddled in front of my mouth, like worms in front of a fish. I blinked behind the slits at Theodora, who blinked back. “Is the mask working?” she asked me. “How can I tell?” “If you can breathe, then it’s working.” I did not say that I had been breathing previously. Something more interesting had attracted my attention. Out the window of the roadster I saw a line of big barrels, round and old, squatting uncovered next to some odd, enormous machines. The machines looked like hug hypodermic needles, as if a doctor were planning on giving several shots to a giant. Here and there were people—men or women, it was impossible to tell in their masks—checking on the needles to make sure they were working properly. They were. With a swinging of hinges and a turning of gears, the needles plunged deep into holes in the shell-covered ground and then rose up again, full of a black liquid. The needles deposited the liquid, with a quiet black splash, into the barrels and then plunged back into the holes, over and over again while I watched through the slits in my mask. “Oil,” I guessed. “Ink,” Theodora corrected. “The town is called Stain’d-by-the-Sea. Of course, it is no longer by the sea, as they’ve drained it away. But the town still manufactures ink that was once famous for making the darkest, most permanent stains.” “And the ink is in those holes?” “Those holes are long, narrow caves,” Theodora said, “like wells. And in the caves are octopi. That’s where the ink comes from.” I thought of a friend of mine who had also just graduated, a girl who knew about all sorts of underwater life. “I thought octopi make ink only when they are frightened.” “I imagine an octopus would find those machines very frightening indeed,” Theodora said, and she turned the roadster into a narrow path in the shells that twisted upward, climbing a steep and craggy mountain. At its peak, I could see a faint, pulsing light through the afternoon gray. It took me a minute to realize that it was a lighthouse, which stood on a cliff that overlooked what had been waves and water and was now just a vast, eerie landscape. As the roadster spluttered up the hill, I looked out the windows on Theodora’s side and saw that opposite the inkwells was another strange sight. “The Clusterous Forest,” Theodora said, before I could even ask. “When they drained the sea, everyone thought all of the seaweed would shrivel up and die. But my information says that for some mysterious reason, the seaweed learned to grown on dry land, and now for miles and miles there is an enormous forest of seaweed. Never go in there, Snicket. It is a wild and lawless place, not fit for man or beast.” She did not have to tell me not to go into the Clusterous Forest. It was frightening enough just to look at it. It was less like a forest and more like an endless mass of shrubbery, with the shiny leaves of the seaweed twisting this way and that, as if the plants were still under churning water. Even with the windows shut, I could smell the forest, a brackish scent of fish and oil, and I could hear the rustling of thousands of strands of seaweed that had somehow survived the draining of the sea. The bell rang again as the roadster finally reached the top of the hill, signaling the all-clear. We removed our masks, and Theodora steered the car onto an actual paved road that wound past the blinking lighthouse and down a hill lined with trees. We passed a small white cottage and then came to a stop at the driveway of a mansion so large it looked like several mansions had crashed together. Parts of it looked like a castle, with several tall towers stretching high into the cloudy air, and parts of it looked like a tent, with heavy gray cloth stretched over an ornate garden crawling with fountains and statues, and parts of it looked more like a museum, with a severe front door and a long, long stretch of window. The view from the window must have been very pretty once, with the waves crashing below the cliffs. It wasn’t pretty anymore. I looked down and saw the top of the Clusterous Forest, moving in slow ripples like spooky laundry hung out to dry, and the distant sight of the needles spilling ink into the waiting barrels. Theodora braked and got out of the car, stretched, and took off her gloves and her leather helmet. I finally had a good look at her long, thick hair, which was almost as strange a sight as everything I had seen on the way. I needed a haircut, but S. Theodora Markson made me look bald. Her hair stretched out every which way from her head in long, curly rows, like a waterfall made from tangled yarn. It was very hard to listen to her while it was in front of me. “Listen to me, Snicket,” my chaperone said. “You are on probation. Your penchant for asking too many questions and for general rudeness makes me reluctant to keep you. ‘Penchant’ is a word which here means habit.” “I know what penchant means,” I said. “That is exactly what I’m talking about,” Theodora said sternly, and quickly ran her fingers through her hair in an attempt to tame it. It was impossible to tame, like leeches. “Our first client lives here, and we are meeting with her for the first time. You are to speak as little as possible and let me do the work. I am very excellent at my job, and you will learn a great deal as long as you keep quiet and remember you are merely an apprentice. Do you understand?” I understood. Shortly before graduation I’d been given a list of people with whom I could apprentice, ranked by their success in their various endeavours. There were fifty-two chaperones on the list. S. Theodora Markson was ranked fifty-second. She was wrong. She was not excellent at her job, and this was why I wanted to be her apprentice. The map was not the territory. I had pictured working as an apprentice in the city, where I would have been able to complete a very important task with someone I could absolutely trust. But the world did not match the picture in my head, and instead I was with a strange, uncombed person, overlooking a sea without water and a forest without trees. I followed Theodora along the driveway and up a long set of brick stairs to the front door, where she rang the doorbell six times in a row. It felt like the wrong thing to do, standing at the wrong door in the wrong place. We did it anyway. Knowing that something is wrong and doing it anyway happens very often in life, and I doubt I will ever know why.
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Post by Dante on Oct 4, 2012 3:47:37 GMT -5
Previews: The First QuestionPart 2TranscriptsChapters 3-4(Chapters 1-2 in previous post.) Click to read Chapter Three. CHAPTER THREE After the sixth ring of the doorbell, I could hear faint footsteps approaching the door, but my thoughts had drifted someplace else. Instead of standing at the door of a mansion in this strange, faraway place, I imagined myself back in the city, standing at the top of a hole with my tape measure and my trusted associate. I pictured myself in possession of all my belongings I had put in my suitcase. I pretended that I had no need of a strange, shiny mask. And most of all I had a vision of myself in which I was not so very hungry. I had planned to eat something on the train but instead had journeyed a great distance in Theodora's roadster with not even the tiniest of snacks, and while in my mind I was quite full from an excellent meal, in Stain'd-by-the-Sea my stomach was growling something awful. It was for this reason that I took little notice of the butler who opened the door for us or the hallway he led us down before opening a set of double doors and asking us to wait in the library. I should have paid attention. An apprentice should pay close attention to the details of a new location, particularly if the furniture seems wrong for the room, or if the library seems to have only a handful of books in it. But I didn't even look back as the butler shut the doors behind us, and instead cast my eyes across the large, dim room to a small, bright table where tea had been laid out on a tray, along with a dozen cookies on a plate. I walked over to get a closer look. They were almond cookies, although they could have been made of spinach and shoes for all I cared. I ate eleven of them, right in a row. It is rude to take the last cookie. Theodora had sat down on a small sofa and was looking at me with disgust. "Not proper, Snicket," she said, shaking her head. "Not proper at all." "I saved you one," I said. "Sit right here next to me and stop talking," Theodora said, tapping the sofa with a glove. "The butler told us to wait, and wait we shall." Wait we did. We waited long enough that I looked for something to read. The few books on the shelves looked like the sort of books someone would leave behind rather than ever look at again. I read five chapters of a book about a boy named Johnny. He lived in America when America was still England. One day he burned his hand and was no longer able to work as a silversmith, which sounded like a miserable line of work anyway, so he took an interest in local politics. I felt sorry for the guy, but I had other things on my mind and put the book back on the shelf just as the double doors opened and an old woman walked into the room with a limp and a black cane to go with it. "Thank you for waiting," she said in a voice even creakier than I thought it would be. "I am Mrs. Murphy Sallis." "S. Theodora Markson," said S. Theodora Markson, standing up quickly and yanking me up beside her. "I have been told that my client was a man." "I am not a man," said the woman, with a frown. "I can see that," Theodora said. "It's very nice to meet you," I said quickly. Theodora glared at me, but Mrs. Murphy Sallis gave me a brief smile and offered me her hand, which was as smooth and soft as old lettuce. "Charming boy," she said, and then frowned again at Theodora. "What does the S stand for?" "Standing next to me is my apprentice," Theodora said, and handed the old woman an envelope. Mrs. Sallis tore it open and lowered herself into the largest chair to read it, without offering to ring for more cookies. Even in the dim room, I could see the insignia on the letter, which matched that of my letter of introduction. I've never cared for it. The old woman looked about as interested in the letter as I was in Johnny's silversmithing. "This will do," she said, and put the letter down on the tray with a quick look at the crumb-covered plate. Then, with a great sigh, as if preparing herself for an important performance, Mrs. Sallis looked at Theodora and began to speak. "I'm in desperate need of your assistance," she began. "A priceless item has been stolen from my home, and I need to get it back." "First," Theodora aid, "we'll need to know what the item is." "I know that," the woman snapped. "I was just about to tell you. It's a small statue, about the size of a bottle of milk. It's made of an extremely rare species of wood that is very shiny and black in color. The statue has been in my family for generations and has been valued at upward of a great deal of money." "A great deal of money," Theodora repeated thoughtfully. "When was it stolen?" "That I do not know," Mrs. Sallis said. "I have not been in this room for quite some time, and normally the statue is kept here in the library, on the mantel over there." We looked at the mantel. Sure enough, there was nothing on it. "Two days ago I came in here looking for something and saw that it was missing. I've been upset ever since." "Hmm," Theodora said, and walked quickly to the windows of the library, which were shrouded by heavy curtains. She yanked them aside and then fiddled with both of the windows, first one and then the other. "These are latched." "They're always latched," Mrs. Sallis replied. "Hmm." Theodora crossed slowly to the mantel and then leaned her head down to look at it very closely. There was still nothing on it. She took two large, slow steps backward and then stared up at the ceiling. "What is above this room?" "A small parlor, I believe," the old woman said. "The burglar could have broken into this room from the parlor," Theodora said. "He or she would have had to saw a hole in the ceiling, of course, but then gravity would have done the rest, dropping the burglar right in front of the mantel." Everyone in the room looked at the ceiling, which was as red and blank as the surface of an apple. "Glue," Theodora said, "Glue and plaster could cover it up." The old woman put her hand to her head. "I know who stole it," she said. Theodora coughed a little. "Well, that doesn't necessarily mean they didn't come in through the ceiling." "Who stole it?" I asked. The old woman rose and limped to one of the windows. She pointed out at the lighthouse we had passed on the way. "The Mallahan family," she said. "They've been enemies of my family for many lifetimes. They always swore they'd steal the statue, and at last they have." "Why don't you call the police?" I asked Mrs. Murphy Sallis looked surprised and stammered for a few seconds before Theodora butted in. "Because she called us," she said. "Rest assured, Mrs. Sallis, we will find this statue and bring the thieves to justice." "I just want the statue back with its rightful owner," the old woman said hastily. "I want nobody to know you are working for me, and I want nothing done to the Mallahans. They're nice people." It is not common to hear someone refer to enemies of their family for many lifetimes as "nice people," but Theodora nodded and said, "I understand." "Do you?" the woman demanded. "Do you promise to return the statue to its rightful owner, and do you promise to be discreet about the Sallis name?" My chaperone waved her hand quickly, as if an insect were flying in her face. "Yes, yes, of course." Mrs. Sallis turned her gaze to me. "And what about you, lad? Do you promise?" I looked right back at her. To me, a promise is not an insect in my face. It is a promise. "Yes," I said. "I promise to return the statue to its rightful owner, and I promise to be discreet about who has hired us." "Mrs. Sallis has hired me," Theodora said sternly. "You're just my apprentice. Well, Mrs. Sallis, I believe we're all done here." "Perhaps Mrs. Sallis could tell us what the statue looks like," I said. "I'm sorry," Theodora said to Mrs. Sallis. "My apprentice apparently wasn't listening. But I remember. It's the size of a milk bottle, made of shiny, black wood." "But what is it a statue of?" Mrs. Murphy Sallis limped one step closer and gave us each a long, dark look. "The Bombinating Beast," she said. "It is a mythical creature, something like a seahorse. Its head looks like this." She lifted one limp hand from her cane to reveal the head of a creature carved into its top. The creature looked like a seahorse like a hawk looks like a chicken. Its eyes were thin and fierce, and its lips were drawn back in a snarl to reveal rows and rows of tiny, sharp teeth. Even at the end of a cane, it looked like something you'd want to avoid, but plenty of people put nasty things on their mantels. "Thank you," Theodora said briskly. "You'll be hearing from us, Mrs. Sallis. We'll let ourselves out." "Thank you," the old woman said, and took another deep sigh as we walked back down the hallway and out of the mansion. The butler was standing on the lawn, facing away from us with a bowl of seeds he was throwing to some noisy birds. They whistled to him, and he whistled back, mimicking their calls exactly. It would have been pleasant to watch that for a few more minutes, and I wish I had. But instead Theodora started the roadster's engine, put her helmet back on her head, and was halfway down the driveway before I had time to shut the door. "This will be an easy case!" she crowed happily. "It's not often that a client gives us the name of the criminal. You're bringing me luck, Snicket." "If Mrs. Sallis knew who the burglar was," I asked, "why wouldn't she call the police?" "That's not important," Theodora said. "What we need to figure out is how the Mallahans broke in through the ceiling." "We don't know that they broke in through the ceiling," I said. "The windows were latched," Theodora said. "There's no other way they could have gotten into the library." "We got in through a pair of double doors," I said, but Theodora just shook her head at me and kept driving. We passed the small white cottage and then came to a stop in front of the lighthouse, which needed painting and seemed to lean ever so slightly to one side. "Listen, Snicket," she said, taking off her helmet again. "We can't just knock on the door of a house of thieves and tell them we're looking for stolen goods. We're going to have to use a con, a word which here means a bit of trickery. And don't tell me you already know what that means. In fact, don't say anything at all. You hear me, Snicket?" I heard her, so I didn't say anything at all. She marched up to the door of the lighthouse and rang the doorbell six times. "Why do you always--" "I said don't say anything," Theodora hissed as the door swung open. A man stood there wearing a bathrobe and a pair of slippers and a large, yawning mouth. He looked like he was planning on staying in that bathrobe for quite some time. "Yes?" he said when the yawn was done with him. "Mr. Mallahan?" Theodora asked. "That's me." "You don't know me," she said in a bright, false voice. "I'm a young woman and this is my husband and we're on our honeymoon and we're both crazy about lighthouses. Can we come in and talk to you for a minute?" Mallahan scratched his head. I started to hide my hands behind my back, because I wasn't wearing a wedding ring, but it occurred to me that there were lots of reasons not to believe that a boy of almost thirteen was married to a woman of Theodora's age, so I left my hands where they were. "I guess so," the man said, and ushered us into a small room with a large, winding staircase leading up. The staircase undoubtedly led to the top of the lighthouse, but to get there, you would have to step over the girl sitting on the stairs with a typewriter. She looked about my age, although the typewriter looked a lot older. She pecked a few sentences into it and then paused to look up at me and smile. Her smile was nice to look at, along with the hat she was wearing, which was brown with a rounded top like a lowercase a. She looked up from her typing, and I saw that her eyes were full of questions. "I was just trying to find the coffee," Mallahan said, gesturing to an open door through which I could see a small kitchen stacked with dishes. "Do you want some?" "No," Theodora said, "But I'll come along and talk to you while we let the children play." Mallahan gave a shrug and walked off to the kitchen while Theodora made little shooing motions at me. It is always terrible to be told to go play with people one doesn't know, but I climbed the stairs until I was standing in front of the typing girl. "I'm Lemony Snicket," I said. She stopped typing and reached into the band of her hat for a small card, which she gave me to read, MOXIE MALLAHAN. THE NEWS. " The News," I repeated. "What's the news, Moxie?" "That's what I'm trying to find out," she replied, and typed a few more words. "Who's that woman who knocked on the door? How could she be married to you? Where did you come from? What makes you crazy about lighthouses? Why did she shoo you away? And is Snicket spelled like it sounds?" "Yes," I said, answering the last question first. "Are you a reporter?" "I'm the only reporter left in Stain'd-by-the-Sea," Moxie replied. "It's in my blood. My parents were both reporters when this place wasn't just a lighthouse but a newspaper too. The Stain'd Lighthouse. Maybe you've heard of it?" "I can't say I have," I said, "but I'm not from around here." "Well, the newspaper's out of business," Moxie said, "but I still try to find out everything that's happening in this town. So?" "So?" So what's happening, Snicket? Tell me what's going on." She put her fingers down on the keys, ready to type whatever I was going to say. Her fingers looked ready to work. "Do you generally know everything that's happening in this town?" I asked. "Of course," she said. "Really, Moxie?" "Really, Snicket. Tell me what's going on and maybe I can help you." I stopped looking at her typewriter and looked at her eyes. Their color was pretty interesting, too, a dark gray, like they'd once been black but somebody had washed them or perhaps had made her cry for a long time. "Can I tell you without you writing it down?" I asked. "Off the record, you mean?" "Off the record, yes." She reached under the typewriter and clicked something, and the whole apparatus folded into a square with a handle, like a black metal suitcase. It was a neat trick. "What is it?" I looked back down the stairs to make sure nobody else was listening. "I'm trying to solve a mystery," I said, "concerning the Bombinating Beast." "The mythical creature?" "No, a statue of it." "That old gimcrack?" she said with a laugh. "Come on up." She stood and ran quickly up the spiral staircase, her shoes making the sort of racket that might give your mother a headache, if you have that sort of mother. I followed her up a few curves to a large room with high ceilings and piles of junk that were almost as high. There were a few large, dusty machines with cobwebbed cranks and buttons that hadn't been pressed for years. There were tables with chairs stacked on them, and piles of paper shoved underneath desks. You could tell it had been a busy room once, but now Moxie and I were the only people in it, and all that busyness was just a ghost. "This is the newsroom," she said. " The Stain'd Lighthouse was here on the waterfront, typing up stories day and night, and this was the center of the whole operation. We'd develop photographs in the basement, and reporters would type up stories in the lantern room. We'd print the paper with ink made just that day, and we'd let the papers dry on the long hawser that runs right out the window." "Hawser?" I said, and she clomped to the window and opened it. Outside, hanging high over the trees, was a long, thick cable that ran straight down the hill toward the gleaming windows of the mansion I'd just visited. "It looks like this goes right down to the Sallis place," I said. "The Mallahans and the Sallises have been friends for generations," Moxie said. "We got our water from the well on their property, and our science and garden reporters did research on their grounds. Our copy editor rented their guest cottage, and we would turn on the lighthouse lantern for midnight badminton parties. Of course, that's all gone now." "Why?" "Not enough ink," Moxie said. "The industry is down to its last few schools of octopi. This whole town is fading, Snicket. There's a library, and a police station, and a few other places open for business, but more than half the buildings in town are completely unpeopled. The Stain'd Lighthouse had to shut down publication. Most inkworkers have been fired. The train passes through about once a month. Soon Stain'd-by-the-Sea will be gone completely. My mother got a letter from the city and left for a job with another newspaper." "When are you joining her?" I asked. Moxie looked quietly out the window for a moment, giving me an idea about who had made her cry. "As soon as I can," she said with a sigh, and I realized it had been the wrong thing to say. "The Bombinating Beast," I reminded her. "Oh, right," she said, and walked over to a table covered in a sheet. "The Bombinating Beast was sort of the mascot of the newspaper. Its body made the S in Stain'd. Legend has it that hundreds of years ago Lady Mallahan slew the Bombinating Beast on one of her voyages. So my family has quite the collection of Bombinating merchandise, although no one's ever cared about it except--" "Snicket!" Theodora's voice came from the bottom of the staircase. "Time to go!" "Just one minute!" I called back. “Right this minute, Snicket!” Theodora answered, but I didn’t leave right that minute. I stayed as Moxie drew back the sheet to reveal another table piled with items nobody wanted. The sea horse face of the Bombinating Beast wasn’t any less hideous no matter how many times I saw it. There were three stuffed Bombinating Beasts that you might give to a baby you wanted to frighten, and a deck of cards with Bombinating Beasts printed on the back. There were Bombinating Beast coffee mugs and Bombinating Beast cereal bowls stacked up with Bombinating Beast napkins on Bombinating Beast place mats. But beside this beastly meal, next to the Bombinating Beast ashtray and the Bombinating Beast candleholders, was an object very shiny and black in color. Moxie had called it a gimcrack, and Mrs. Murphy Sallis had called it a priceless item. It was about the size of a bottle of milk and said to be valued at upward of a great deal of money. It was the Bombinating Beast, the statue we were looking for, as dusty and forgotten as the rest of the items in the room. “Snicket!” Theodora called again, but I didn’t answer her. I spoke to the statue instead. “Hello,” I said. “What are you doing here?” Moxie looked at me and smiled. “I guess your mystery is solved, Snicket,” she said, but that, too, was the wrong thing to say. Click to read Chapter Four. CHAPTER FOUR “While you were mucking about with that flatfooted girl,” Theodora said to me as she started her roadster and put on her helmet, “I managed to solve the mystery. I have reason to believe that the Bombinating Beast is in that very lighthouse.” “It is,” I said. “Then we’re in agreement,” Theodora said. “I had quite a talk with that Mr. Mallahan. He told me he used to work in the newspaper business but lately he has had quite the run of bad luck! Aha!” My chaperone looked at me like I should aha! back, but all I could manage was a quiet “ah.” I made a note to ha later. We drove past the mansion toward the center of town. Moxie was right. It was an unpeopled place. Stain’d-by-the-Sea looked like it had been a regular town once, with shops full of items, and restaurants full of food, and citizens looking for one or the other. But now the whole place had faded to gray. Many of the buildings had windows that were broken or boarded up, and the sidewalks were uncared for, with great cracks in the concrete, and empty bottles and cans rolling around in the bored wind. Whole blocks were completely empty, with no cars except our own and not a single pedestrian on the streets. Some ways away was a building shaped like a pen that towered over the rest of the town, as if Stain’d-by-the-Sea were about to be crossed out. I didn’t like it. It looked like anyone could move in and do anything they wanted without anyone stopping them. The Clusterous Forest almost looked friendlier. “No job, no wife, a man like that can get desperate,” Theodora was saying. “Desperate enough to steal a very valuable statue from one of his enemies. When I asked him if there was anything in his house that was worth upward of a great deal of money, he looked at me strangely and said something about his only daughter. I think he has it hidden away somewhere.” “It’s upstairs,” I said, “on a table covered in a sheet.” “What?” Theodora stopped at a red light. I had seen no other cars on the road. Only the stoplights were around, telling nobody but us when to stop and when to go. “How did you find it?” “His daughter showed me,” I said. “She’s not flatfooted, by the way. She just wears heavy shoes.” “Be sensible,” Theodora said. “How did you get her to show it to you?” “I asked her,” I said. “She must be onto us,” Theodora said, with a frown. “We’d better act quickly if we want to steal it back.” “How do we even know it was stolen?” I asked. “Don’t be a numbskull, Snicket. Mrs. Sallis told us it was stolen right off her mantel.” “Moxie said the statue belonged to her family. The beast was the mascot of The Stain’d Lighthouse.” “That lighthouse wasn’t stained. It just needed painting.” “We need to investigate further,” I said. “No, we don’t,” Theodora said firmly. “We’re not going to call a distinguished woman a liar and believe the word of a little girl. Particularly one with a ridiculous name.” “That reminds me,” I said. “What does the S stand for?” “Silly boy,” she said with a shake of her head, and pulled the car to a stop. We were parked in front of a building with a sagging roof and a porch crowded with dying plants in cracked flowerpots. A painted wooden sign, which must have been magnificent to look at centuries ago when it was painted, read THE LOST ARMS. “This is our headquarters,” Theodora said, taking off her helmet and shaking her hair. “This is our lodgings and our nerve center and our home office and our command post. This is where we’ll be staying. Carry the suitcases, Snicket.” She bounded up the stairs, and I got out of the roadster and looked around the dreary street. Down the block I could see one other open business, a lonely-looking restaurant called Hungry’s, and in the other direction the street came to a dead end at a tall building with gray carved pillars on either side of the doors. There was no one about, and the only other car I could see was a dented yellow taxi parked in front of the restaurant. I was hungry again, or maybe I was still hungry. Something in me felt empty, certainly, but the more I stood there the less sure I was that it was my stomach, so I leaned into the backseat and pulled out two suitcases – the one that Theodora had said was mine and another, larger one that must have been hers. It was burdensome to carry them up the stairs, and when I entered the Lost Arms, I put them down for a minute to catch my breath in the lobby. The room had a complicated smell, as if many people were in it, but there were very few things in the place. There was a small sofa with a table next to it that was even smaller, and it was hard to say from this angle which was grimier. It was probably a tie. On the table was a small wooden bowl of peanuts that were either salted or dusty. There was a small booth in the corner, where a tall man with no hat was talking on the phone, which I looked at wistfully for a moment, hoping he would hang up and give me a chance to use it. There was a desk in a far corner, where Theodora was talking to a thin man who was rubbing his hands together, and right in the center of the room was a tall statue made of plaster, of a woman who were no clothes and had no arms. “I guess you have it worse than I do,” I said to her. “Stop dawdling, Snicket,” Theodora called to me, and I trudged our suitcases to the desk. The thin man was handing two keys to Theodora, who handed me one of them. “Welcome to the Lost Arms,” the man said in a voice as thin as he was. His manner reminded me of a word I’d been taught and then had forgotten. It was on the tip of my tongue, as was one last cookie crumb. “I’m the owner and operator of this establishment, Prosper Lost. You can call me Prosper, and you can call me anytime you have a problem. The phone is right over there.” “Thank you,” I said, thinking I’d probably just walk over to the desk rather than wait for the phone. “As you requested,” Prosper continued, “I’ve arranged for you two to have the least expensive room, the Far East Suite, located on the second floor. I’m afraid the elevator isn’t working today, so you’ll have to take the stairs. May I ask how long you plan on staying?” “For the duration,” my chaperone said, and walked quickly toward a carpeted staircase with banisters that looked too fragile to touch. I did not need Theodora or anyone else to explain that “for the duration” was a phrase which here meant nothing at all. Instead, I followed Theodora up the stairs, dragging the suitcases behind me, and down a narrow hallway to a room marked FAR EAST SUITE. Theodora got the key into a fight with the keyhole, but after a few minutes the door was open, and we stepped into our new home. You’ve probably never been to the Far East Suite at the Lost Arms in Stain’d-by-the-Sea, but I’m sure you’ve been in a room you couldn’t wait to leave, which is about the same thing. Most of the room was a large bed and a small bed, separated by a squat chest of drawers that appeared to be frowning. There was a door to a bathroom, and a small table in a corner with a metal plate that plugged into the wall, probably for heating up food. Overhead was a light fixture shaped like a complicated star, and the only thing on the walls was a painting, hung over the smaller bed, of a little girl holding a dog with a bandaged paw. The room was quite dark, but even when I unshuttered the lone window, the Far East Suite was no brighter than it had been. “We’re sharing a room?” I asked. “Be sensible, Snicket,” Theodora replied. “We can change our clothes in the bathroom. Now why don’t you slide your suitcase under your bed and go out to the lobby to play or something? I’m going to unpack and take a nap. That always helps me think, and I need to think of how we can get our hands on that statue.” “There’s a hawser,” I said, “that runs from the lighthouse down to the Sallis mansion.” “Hawser?” “A hawser is a cable,” I said. “I knew that.” “Really?” I couldn’t help asking. “I had to learn it from a little girl.” Theodora sat on the large bed with a long sigh and ran her hands through her endless hair. “Let me rest, Snicket,” she said. “Be back for dinner. I think we’ll dine later this evening.” “Later than what?” “Later than usual.” “We’ve never dined together.” “You’re not helping me rest, Snicket.” I was restless, too, and slid my suitcase under the bed and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind me.A minute later I was back on the sidewalk, looking at the empty street with my hands full of peanuts I’d grabbed from the lobby. I had more privacy outside the Lost Arms than I did in the Far East Suite. I liked privacy, but I still didn’t know how to fill the time I had before dinner, so I turned and walked down the block to the building with the pillars, which looked like my best bet for something interesting. I used to be that young man, almost thirteen, walking alone down an empty street in a half-faded town. I used to be that person, eating stale peanuts and wondering about a strange, dusty item that was stolen or forgotten and that belonged to one family or another or their enemies or their friends. Before that I was a child receiving an unusual education, and before that I was a baby who, I’m told, liked looking in mirrors and sticking his toes into his mouth. I used to be that young man, and that child, and that baby, and the building I stood in front of used to be a city hall. Stretched out in front of me was my time as an adult, and then a skeleton, and then nothing except perhaps a few books on a few shelves. And now stretched out in front of me was a scraggly lawn and a tall metal statue so worn from rain and age that I could not tell what it was a statue of, even when I was close enough to touch it. The shadows of the building’s two pillars were wiggly stripes, and the building itself looked like it had been slapped several times by a giant creature that had lost its temper. The pillars held an arch with the words STAIN’D-BY-THE-SEA written in letters that had once been darker, and carved into the wall were the words CITY and HALL, although they were difficult to read, as someone had hurriedly nailed up two other signs on top of them. Over CITY was a sign that read POLICE STATION, and over HALL was a sign that read LIBRARY. I walked up the steps and made the sensible choice. The library was one enormous room, with long, high metal shelves and the perfect quiet that libraries provide for anyone looking for an answer. A mystery is solved with a story. The story starts with a clue, but the trouble is that you usually have no idea what the clue is, even if you think you know. I thought the clue was the Bombinating Beast, sitting under a sheet in a forgotten room of a lighthouse, and I wondered how I might find out more. I crossed the room looking for the librarian, and soon found him behind a desk, swatting at a couple of moths with a checkered handkerchief. The moths were fluttering over a small sign at the desk that read DASHIELL QWERTY, SUB-LIBRARIAN. He was younger than I think of librarians as being, younger than the father of anyone I knew, and he had the hairstyle one gets if one is attacked by a scissors-carrying maniac and lives to tell the tale. He was wearing a black leather jacket with various metallic items up and down the sleeves, which jangled slightly as he went after the moths. “Excuse me,” I asked, “are you the librarian?” Qwerty waved his handkerchief one more time at the moths and then gave up. “Sub-librarian,” he said in a voice so deep I thought for a moment we were both at the bottom of a well. “Stain’d-by-the-Sea cannot afford a permanent librarian, so I am here instead.” “How long have you been here?” “Since I replaced the other one,” he said. “Can I help you?” “I am looking for information on local legends,” I said. “Dame Sally Murphy is probably Stain’d-by-the-Sea’s most famous actress,” Qwerty suggested. “There should be a book about her career in the Theater Section.” “Not that kind of legend,” I said. “I mean old stories about strange creatures.” Qwerty stepped around the desk. “Allow me to lead you to Mythology,” he said, and without hesitating he walked me toward a row of shelves in the center of the room. “There’s also a good Zoology and Oceanography Section, if you’re interested in real animals.” “Not today, thank you.” “One never knows. They say in every library there is a single book that can answer the question that burns like a fire in the mind.” “Perhaps, but not today.” “Very well. Shall I help you further, or do you like to browse on your own?” “Browse on my own, please,” I said, and Qwerty nodded and walked away without another word. The Mythology section had several books that looked interesting and one that looked like it would be helpful. Sadly, it was not one of the ones that looked interesting. I found a table in a far corner where I could read without being disturbed and opened Stain’d Myths. According to chapter 7, the Bombinating Beast was a mythological creature, half horse and half shark—although some legends claim half alligator and half bear—that lurked in the waters just outside Stain’d-by-the-Sea. It had a great appetite for human flesh and made a terrifying bombinating sound—I had to get up from the table and find a dictionary to learn that “bombinating” was a word which here meant buzzing—when looking for prey. Moxie had struck me as a somewhat unusual girl but not a liar, and, sure enough, there was a story that Lady Mallahan had slain the Bombinating Beast hundreds of years ago, although the author said that in all likelihood Lady Mallahan had just found a dead walrus on the beach at the bottom of the lighthouse’s cliffs, and the local townspeople gossiped about it until it became much more interesting. Other stories said that people could tame the Bombinating Beast by imitating its fearsome buzz, and there was a myth about a wizard who held the beast under his power, as long as the terrible monster was kept fed. In the olden days, a gong was rung in the town square to warn away the beast on moonless nights. The gong was long gone, but the legend lingered. Mothers still told their children and their husbands that the Bombinating Beast would eat them if they did not finish their vegetables, and locals still dressed as the Bombinating Beast on Halloween and Purim, with masks that looked not very different from the one I’d donned in the roadster, at least in the book’s illustrations. Supposedly sailors still saw the Bombinating Beast, swimming with its body curled up like an underwater question mark, although with the sea drained, I couldn’t imagine that this could be true, at least not anymore. The book did not say anything about a statue, valuable or otherwise, and so I stopped reading about the Bombinating Beast and got interested in the chapter about the Stain’d witches, who had ink instead of blood in their veins. I wondered what they kept in their pens. I read for quite some time before I was distracted by a noise that sounded like a rock being thrown against the wall, just above my head. I looked up in time to see a small object fall to the table. It was a rock, which had been thrown against the wall, just above my head. It would be nice to think of something clever to say when something like that happens, but I always ended up saying the same thing. “ Hey,” I said. “ Hey,” repeated a mocking voice, and a boy about my age stuck his head out from behind a shelf. He looked like the child of a man and a log, with a big, thick neck and hair that looked like a bowl turned upside down. He had a slingshot tucked into his pocket and a nasty look tucked into his eyes. “You almost hit me,” I said. “I’m trying to get better,” he said, stepping closer. He wanted to tower over me, but he wasn’t tall enough. “I can’t be expected to hit my target every time.” “That’s your idea of fun?” I said. “Slinging rocks at people in the library?” “I prefer to hit birds,” he said, “but there aren’t very many birds around here anymore.” “I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t want to be frolicking with a nice guy like you,” I said. “Hold still,” the boy replied, taking out his slingshot. “Let me see if I can hit that idiotic smile of yours from across the room.” Qwerty appeared as if from nowhere. “ Stew,” he said, a word that sounded much scarier in such a deep voice. “Leave this library at once.” “I’m allowed in here,” Stew said, glaring at the librarian. “This is a public library.” “And you are a public nuisance,” Qwerty replied, grabbing Stew’s arm and propelling him toward the door. “Out.” “See you soon,” Stew called out nastily to me, but he left without further insult, and Qwerty went over to examine the wall. “I’m sorry about that,” he said, frowning at a small dent and rubbing it with his finger. “Stew Mitchum is like something stuck at the bottom of a waste bin. I try and try to throw him out, but he just sticks there, getting older and older. Did you find what you were looking for?” “Sort of,” I said. “Can I check out books if I don’t live in town?” “Regrettably, no,” Qwerty said. “But I open the library very early every day. You’re always welcome to come in and read anything you like. It’s not often we get people interested in theater.” I did not bother to remind him that famous actresses were not the legends I was researching. “Thank you,” I said. “I suppose I should get going.” “Of course,” Qwerty said, “if you have a library card, you can send requests for books from the library closer to where you live.” “You mean, my library in the city can send books here that I can check out?” “No,” Qwerty said, “but you could fill out the paperwork here, and the book would be waiting for you in the city.” “I don’t know when I’ll be back there,” I said. The city, and the people I liked best in it, seemed even farther away than they were. Qwerty reached into a pocket of his jacket and pulled out a blank card. “You see, how it works is that you write down your name and the title of the book, and the person working t the research desk sees what book you are requesting.” I thought quickly. “So the person at the research desk sees the title of the book I want?” “Yes.” “Or their apprentice?” “I suppose so,” Qwerty said. “Have you changed your mind?” “Yes,” I said. “I’d like to request a book from the Fourier Branch.” “The Fourier Branch?” Qwerty repeated, taking a pencil from behind his ear. “Isn’t that near where they’re building that new statue?” “I’m not sure,” I said, perfectly sure. “And what is your name?” he asked me. I told him, and told him it was spelled like it sounded. He wrote it down in careful block letters and then paused with his pencil in the air. “And the author of the book you’re looking for?” I was blank for a moment. “Sorry,” I said. “Sorry is the author’s name?” “Yes,” I stammered. “I believe she’s Belgian.” “Belgian,” he said, and looked at me and wrote it down and looked at me again. “And the title of the book?” he said, and it was a perfectly reasonable question. I hoped my answer sounded reasonable, too. “ But I Cannot Meet You at the Fountain.” Qwerty looked at me, his face as blank as one of those extra pages tucked in the back of a book for notes or secrets. “So your complete request,” he said, “is ‘Sorry, But I Cannot Meet You at the Fountain.’” “That’s right,” and Qwerty looked at me just for a second before slowly writing it down. Book TrailerSketch IllustrationsFile for ?1:(Note that Snicketmails also feature sketch illustrations, and their location or possible location in the books is noted alongside them where known.) From Mr. Handler's letter: --- 1.The final version of this sketch appears in Chapter One of ?1. 2.The final version of this sketch appears in Chapter Two of ?1. --- From the Little, Brown & Co. Young Readers' Catalogue: --- 3.--- This sketch is unused, but may have been intended for Chapter Four of ?1. From the All The Wrong Questions Facebook: --- 4.The final version of this illustration appears in Chapter Six of ?1. 5.The final version of this illustration appears on the back cover of the Little, Brown & Co. edition of ?1. 6.The final version of this illustration appears on the back cover of ?1. 7.The final version of this illustration appears in Chapter Eight of ?1. 8.The final version of this illustration appears in Chapter Six of ?1. ---
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Post by Dante on Feb 28, 2013 11:03:26 GMT -5
Information: ?2 (The Second Question)Title: "When Did You See Her Last?"Release Date: 15 October 2012 ( Source) Cover (LB Hardback):Cover (LB Paperback):Cover (Egmont):Cover (Hardie Grant Egmont):Promotional Synopses:Little, Brown & Co.:In the fading town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea, young apprentice Lemony Snicket has a new case to solve when he and his chaperone are hired to find a missing girl. Is the girl a runaway? Or was she kidnapped? Was she seen last at the grocery store? Or could she have stopped at the diner? Is it really any of your business? These are all the wrong questions. ( Source) Lemony Snicket was once referred to as a missing person by someone who knew where he was all along. He is also referred to as the author of the thirteen volumes in A Series of Unfortunate Events, and "Who Could That Be at This Hour?" the first in a four book series collectively known as All The Wrong Questions. Seth has undergone and portrayed many dire circumstances. His multi-award-winning talents are evident in cartoons, graphic novels, and a barbershop located in the city of Guelph, Canada, where he resides. ( Source) Egmont:In the fading town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea, the young apprentice Mr. Snicket has a new case to solve when he and his chaperone are hired to find a missing girl. Is the girl a runaway? Or was she kidnapped? Was she seen last at the grocery store? Or could she have stopped at the diner? Is it really any of your business? ( Source) Promotional Materials:File for ?2:Announcement Trailer:Preview Cover (Egmont):
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Post by Dante on Apr 4, 2013 10:38:58 GMT -5
Previews: The Second QuestionTranscriptsChapters 1-3Click to read Chapter One. TO: Pocket FROM: LS FILE UNDER: Stain’d-by-the-Sea, accounts of; kidnapping, investigations of; Hangfire; skip tracing; laudanum; doppelgängers; et cetera 2/4 cc: VFDhq CHAPTER ONE There was a town, and there was a statue, and there was a person who had been kidnapped. While I was in the town, I was hired to rescue this person, and I thought the statue was gone forever. I was almost thirteen and I was wrong. I was wrong about all of it. I should have asked the question “How could someone who was missing be in two places at once?” Instead, I asked the wrong question—four wrong questions, more or less. This is the account of the second. It was cold and it was morning and I needed a haircut. I didn’t like it. When you need a haircut, it looks like you have no one to take care of you. In my case it was true. There was no one taking care of me at the Lost Arms, the hotel in which I found myself living. My room was called the Far East Suite, although it was not a suite, and I shared it with a woman who was called S. Theodora Markson, although I did not know what the S stood for. It was not a nice room, and I tried not to spend too much time in it, except when I was sleeping, trying to sleep, pretending to sleep, or eating a meal. Theodora cooked most of our meals herself, although “cooking” is too fancy a word for what she did. What she did was purchase groceries from a half-empty store a few blocks away and then warm them up on a small, heated plate that plugged into the wall. That morning breakfast was a fried egg, which Theodora had served to me on a towel from the bathroom. She kept forgetting to buy plates, although she occasionally remembered to blame me for letting her forget. Most of the egg stuck to the towel, so I didn’t eat much of it, but I had managed to find an apple that wasn’t too bruised and now I sat in the lobby of the Lost Arms with its sticky core in my hand. There wasn’t much else in the lobby. There was a man named Prosper Lost, who ran the place with a smile that made me step back as if it were something crawling out of a drawer, and there was a phone in a small booth in the corner that was nearly always in use, and there was a plaster statue of a woman without clothes or arms. She needed a sweater, a long one without sleeves. I liked to sit beneath her on a dirty sofa and think. If you want to know the truth, I was thinking about Ellington Feint, a girl with strange, curved eyebrows like question marks, and green eyes, and a smile that might have meant anything. I had not seen that smile for some time. Ellington Feint had run off, clutching a statue in the shape of the Bombinating Beast. The beast was a very terrible creature in very old myths, whom sailors and citizens were worried about encountering. All I was worried about was encountering Ellington. I did not know where she was or when I might see her again. The phone rang right on schedule. “Hello?” I said. There was a careful pause before she said “Good morning.” “Good morning,” she said. “I’m conducting a voluntary survey. ‘A survey’ means you’ll be answering questions, and ‘voluntary’ means—” “I know what voluntary means,” I interrupted, as planned. “It means I’ll be volunteering.” “Exactly, sir,” she said. It was funny to hear my sister call me sir. “Is now a good time to answer some questions?” “Yes, I have a few minutes,” I said. “The first question is, how many people are currently in your household?” I looked at Prosper Lost, who was across the room, standing at his desk and looking at his fingernails. Soon he would notice I was on the phone and find some reason to stand where he might eavesdrop better. “I live alone,” I said, “but only for the time being.” “I know just what you mean.” I knew from my sister’s reply that she was also in a place without privacy. Lately it had not been safe to talk on the phone, and not only because of eavesdroppers. There was a man named Hangfire, a villain who had become the focus of my investigations. Hangfire had the unnerving ability to imitate anyone’s voice, which meant you could not always be sure whom you were talking to on the telephone. You also couldn’t be sure when Hangfire would turn up again, or what his scheme might be. It was entirely too many things to be unsure about. “In fact,” my sister continued, “things in my own household have become so complicated that I am unsure I can get to the library anymore.” “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, which was code for being sorry to hear that. Recently my sister and I had been communicating through the library system. Now she seemed to be telling me that it would no longer be possible. “My second question is, do you prefer visiting a museum alone or with a companion?” “With a companion,” I said quickly. “Nobody should go to a museum alone.” “What if you could not find your usual companion,” she asked, “because he was very far away?” I wasted a few seconds staring at the receiver in my hand, as if I could peer through the little holes and see all the way to the city, where my sister was, like me, working as an apprentice. “Then you should find another companion,” I said, “rather than visiting a museum by yourself.” “What if there were no other suitable companions?” she asked, and then her voice changed, as if someone had walked into the room. “That’s my third question, sir.” “Then you should not go to the museum at all,” I said, but then I, too, was interrupted, by the figure of S. Theodora Markson coming down the stairs. Her hair came first, a wild tangle as if several heads of hair were having a wrestling match, and the rest of her followed, frowning and tall. There are many mysteries I have never solved, and the hair of my chaperone is perhaps my most curious unsolved case. “But sir—” my sister was saying, but I had to interrupt her again. “Give Jacques my regards,” I said, which was a phrase which here meant two things. One was “I must get off the phone.” The other thing the phrase meant was exactly what it said. “There you are, Snicket,” Theodora said to me. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. It’s a missing-persons case.” “It’s not a missing-persons case,” I said patiently. “I told you I was going to be in the lobby.” “Be sensible,” Theodora told me. “You know I don’t listen to you very well in the morning, and so you should make the proper adjustments. If you’re going to be someplace in the morning, tell me in the afternoon. But where you are is neither here nor there. As of this morning, Snicket, we’re skip tracers.” “Skip tracers?” “‘Skip tracer’ is a term which here means ‘a person who finds missing persons and brings them back.’ Come on, Snicket, we’re in a great hurry.” Theodora had an impressive vocabulary, which can be charming if it is used at a convenient time. But if you are in a great hurry and someone uses something like “skip tracer,” which you are unlikely to understand, then an impressive vocabulary is quite irritating. Another way of saying this is that it is vexing. Another way of saying this is that it is annoying. Another way of saying this is that it is bothersome. Another way of saying this is that it is exasperating. Another way of saying this is that it is troublesome. Another way of saying this is that it is chafing. Another way of saying this is that it is nettling. Another way of saying this is that it is ruffling. Another way of saying this is that it is infuriating or enraging or aggravating or embittering or envenoming, or that it gets one’s goat or raises one’s dander or makes one’s blood boil or gets one hot under the collar or blue in the face or mad as a wet hen or on the warpath or in a huff or up in arms or in high dudgeon, and as you can see, it also wastes time when there isn’t any time to waste. I followed Theodora out of the Lost Arms to where her dilapidated roadster was parked badly at the curb. She slid into the driver’s seat and put on the leather helmet she always wore when driving, which was the primary suspect in the mystery of why her hair always looked so odd. We were in a town called Stain’d-by-the-Sea, which was no longer by the sea and was hardly a town anymore. The streets were quiet and many buildings were empty, but here and there I could see signs of life. We passed Hungry’s, a diner I had yet to try, and I saw through the window the shapes of several people having breakfast. We passed Partial Foods, where we purchased our groceries, and I saw a shopper or two walking among the half-empty shelves. Black Cat Coffee had a solitary figure at the counter, pressing one of the three automated buttons that gave customers coffee, bread, or access to the attic, which had served as a good hiding place. On this drive I also noticed something new in town—something pasted up on the sides of lampposts, and on the wood that barricaded the doors and windows of abandoned houses. Even the mailboxes had the posters on them, although from the hurrying roadster I could only read one word on them. “This is a very crucial matter,” Theodora was saying. “We were given this important case because of our earlier success with the theft of the statue of the Bombinating Beast.” “I would not call it success,” I said. “I don’t care what you would call it,” Theodora said. “Try to be more like your predecessor, Snicket.” I was tired of hearing about the apprentice before me. Theodora had liked him better, which made me think he was worse. “We were hired to return that statue to its rightful owners,” I reminded her, “but that turned out to be one of Hangfire’s tricks, and now both the item and the villain could be anywhere.” “I think you’re just mooning over that girl Eleanor,” Theodora said. “Cupidity is not an attractive quality in an apprentice, Snicket.” I was not sure what “cupidity” meant, but it began with the word “Cupid,” the winged god of love, and Theodora was using the tone of voice everyone uses to tease boys who have friends who are girls. I felt myself blushing and did not want to say her name, which wasn’t Eleanor. “She is in danger,” I said instead, “and I promised to help her.” “You’re not concentrating on the right person,” Theodora said, and tossed a large envelope into my lap. The envelope had a black seal on it that had been broken. Inside was nothing but a piece of paper with a photograph of a girl several years older than I was. She had hair so blond it looked white and glasses that made her eyes look very small. The glasses were shiny, or maybe just reflecting the light of the camera’s flash. Her clothes looked brand-new, with brand-new black-and-white stripes like a zebra that had been recently polished. She was standing in what I guessed to be her bedroom, which also looked brand-new. I could see the edge of a shiny bed and a shiny dresser stacked with trophies that looked as if they had been awarded yesterday. Most trophies I’d seen had figures of athletes at the top of them. These had shapes that were bright and strange. They reminded me of illustrations in a science book, explaining the very small things that supposedly make up the world. The only things in the photograph that did not look brand-new were the hat she was wearing, which was round and the color of a raspberry, and the frown on her face. She looked displeased at having her photograph taken, and also like she used her displeased expression quite frequently. Printed underneath the frowning girl was her name, MISS CLEO KNIGHT, and at the top of the poster was printed another word, in much bigger type. It was the same word I had read on the copies of the same flyer all over town. MISSING. The word applied to the girl, but it could have applied to anything in town. Ellington Feint had vanished. Theodora’s roadster sped down whole blocks that had been emptied of businesses and people. I realized we were heading toward the town’s tallest building, a tower shaped like an enormous pen. Once this town had been known for producing the world’s darkest ink, from frightened octopi shivering in deep wells that were once underwater. But the sea had been drained away, leaving behind an eerie, lawless expanse of seaweed that somehow still lived even when the water had disappeared. Nowadays there were few octopi left, and eventually there would be nothing at all but the shimmering seaweed of the Clusterous Forest. Soon everything will go missing, Snicket, I thought to myself. Your chaperone is right. You are in a great hurry. If you do not hurry to find what has gone missing, there will be nothing left. Click to read Chapter Two. CHAPTER TWO The pen-shaped tower had a surprisingly small door printed with letters that were far too large. The letters said INK INC., and the doorbell was in the shape of a small, dark ink stain. It was the name of the largest business in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. Theodora stuck out a gloved finger and rang the doorbell six times in a row. There was not a doorbell in the world that Theodora did not ring six times when she encountered it. “Why do you do that?” My chaperone drew herself up to her full height and took off her helmet so her hair could make her even taller. “S. Theodora Markson does not need to explain anything to anybody,” she said. “What does the S stand for?” I asked. “Silence,” she hissed, and the door opened to reveal two identical faces and a familiar scent. The faces belonged to two worried-looking women in black clothes almost completely covered in enormous white aprons, but I could not quite place the smell. It was sweet but wrong, like an evil bunch of flowers. “Are you S. Theodora Markson?” one of the women said. “No,” Theodora said, “ I am.” “We meant you,” said the other woman. “Oh,” Theodora said. “In that case, yes. And this is my apprentice. You don’t need to know his name.” I told them anyway. “I’m Zada and this is Zora,” said one of the women. “We’re the Knight family servants. Don’t worry about telling us apart. Miss Knight is the only one who can. You’ll find her, won’t you, Ms. Markson?” “Please call me Theodora.” “We’ve known Miss Knight since she was a baby. We’re the ones who took her home from the hospital when she was born. You’ll find her, won’t you, Theodora?” “Unless you would prefer to call me Ms. Markson. It really doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.” “But you’ll find her?” “I promise to try my best,” Theodora replied, but Zada looked at Zora—or perhaps Zora looked at Zada —and they both frowned. Nobody wants to hear that you will try your best. It is the wrong thing to say. It is like saying “I probably won’t hit you with a shovel.” Suddenly everyone is afraid you will do the opposite. “You must be worried sick” is what I said instead. “We would like to know all of the details of this case, so we can help you as quickly as possible.” “Come in,” Zada or Zora said, and ushered us inside a room that at first seemed hopelessly tiny and quite dark. When my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see that what had first appeared to be walls were large cardboard boxes stacked up in every available place, making the room seem smaller than it really was. The dark was real, though. It almost always is. The smell was stronger once the door was shut—so strong that my eyes watered. “Excuse the mess,” said one of the aproned women. “The Knights were just packing up to move when this dreadful thing happened. Mr. and Mrs. Knight are beside themselves with worry.” Zada’s and Zora’s eyes were watering too, or perhaps they were crying, but they led us through the gap between the boxes and down a dark hallway to a sitting room that appeared to have been entirely packed up and then unpacked for the occasion. A tall lamp sat in its box with its cord snaking out of it to the plug. A sofa sat half out of a box shaped like a sofa, and in two more open boxes sat two chairs holding the only things in the room that weren’t ready to be carried into a truck: Mr. and Mrs. Knight. Mr. Knight’s chair was bright white and his clothes dark black, and for Mrs. Knight it was the other way. They were sitting beside each other, but they did not appear to be beside themselves with worry. They looked very tired and very confused, as if we had woken them up from a dream. “Good evening,” said Mrs. Knight. “It’s morning, madam,” said either Zada or Zora. “It does feel cold,” Mr. Knight said, as if agreeing with what someone had said, and he looked down at his own hands. “This is S. Theodora Markson,” continued one of the aproned women, “and her apprentice. They’re here about your daughter’s disappearance.” “Your daughter’s disappearance,” Mrs. Knight repeated calmly. Her husband turned to her. “Doretta,” he said, “Miss Knight has disappeared?” “Are you sure, Ignatius dear? I don’t think Miss Knight would disappear without leaving a note.” Mr. Knight continued to stare at his hands, and then blinked and looked up at us. “Oh!” he said. “I didn’t realize we had visitors.” “Good evening,” said Mrs. Knight. “It’s morning, madam,” said either Zada or Zora, and I was afraid the whole strange conversation was about to start up all over again. “We’ve come about Miss Knight,” I said quickly. “We understand she’s gone missing, and we’d like to help." But Mr. Knight was looking at his hands again, and Mrs. Knight’s eyes had wandered off too, toward a doorway at the back of the room, where a round little man was gazing at all of us through round little glasses. He had a small beard on his chin that looked like it was trying to escape from his nasty smile. He looked like the sort of person who would tell you that he did not have an umbrella to lend you when he actually had several and simply wanted to see you get soaked. “Mr. and Mrs. Knight are in no state for visitors,” he said. “Zada or Zora, please take them away so I can attend to my patients.” “Yes, Dr. Flammarion,” one of the aproned women said with a little bow, and motioned us out of the room. I looked back and saw Dr. Flammarion drawing a long needle out of his pocket, the kind of needle doctors like to stick you with. I recognized the smell and hurried to follow the others out of the room. We made our way through a skinny hallway made skinnier by rows of boxes, and then suddenly we were in a kitchen that made me feel much better. It was not dark. The sunlight streamed in through some big, clean windows. It smelled of cinnamon, a much better scent than what I had been smelling, and either Zada or Zora hurried to the oven and pulled out a tray of cinnamon rolls that made me ache for a proper breakfast. One of the aproned women put one on a plate for me while it was still steaming. Anyone who gives you a cinnamon roll fresh from the oven is a friend for life. “What’s wrong with the Knights?” I asked after I had thanked them. “Why are they acting so strangely?” “They must be in shock from their daughter’s disappearance,” Theodora said. “People sometimes act very strangely when something terrible has happened.” One of the aproned women handed Theodora a cinnamon roll and shook her head. “They’ve been like this for quite some time,” she said. “Dr. Flammarion has been serving as their private apothecary for a few weeks now.” “What does that mean?” I asked. “Flammarion is a tall pink bird,” Theodora said. “An apothecary,” continued the woman, more helpfully, “is something like a doctor and something like a pharmacist. For years Dr. Flammarion worked at the Colophon Clinic, just outside town, before coming here to treat the Knights. He’s been using a special medicine, but they just keep getting worse.” “That must have been very upsetting for Miss Knight,” I said. Zada and Zora looked very sad. “It made Miss Knight very lonely,” one of them said. “It is a lonely feeling when someone you care about becomes a stranger.” “So Miss Knight has no one caring for her,” Theodora said thoughtfully. The cinnamon rolls were the sort that is all curled up like a snail in its shell, and my chaperone had unraveled the roll before starting to eat it, so both of her hands were covered in icing and cinnamon. It was the wrong way to do it. She was also wrong about no one caring for Miss Knight. Zada and Zora were the ones who were beside themselves with worry. I leaned forward and looked first at Zada and then at Zora, or perhaps the other way around. And then, while my chaperone licked her fingers, I asked the question that is printed on the cover of this book. It was the wrong question, both when I asked it and later, when I asked the question to a man wrapped in bandages. The right question in this case was “Why was she wearing an article of clothing she did not own?” but this is not an account of times when I asked the right questions, much as I wish it were. “Miss Knight was with us yesterday morning,” one of the women said, using her apron to dab at her eyes. “She was sitting right where you are sitting now, having her usual breakfast of Schoenberg Cereal. Then she spent some time in her room before going out to meet a friend.” “Who was this friend?” I asked. “She didn’t say. She just drove off, and she hasn’t come back.” “She’s old enough to drive?” “Yes, she got her license a few months ago, and her parents bought her a shiny new Dilemma.” “That’s a nice automobile,” I said. The Dilemma was one of the fanciest automobiles manufactured. It was claimed that you could drive a Dilemma through the wall of a building and emerge without a dent or scratch, although the building might collapse. “Mr. and Mrs. Knight give their daughter whatever she wants,” the aproned woman said. “New clothes, a new car, and all sorts of equipment for her experiments.” “Experiments?” “Miss Knight is a brilliant chemist,” Zada or Zora said proudly. “She often stays up all night working on experiments in her bedroom.” “I imagine she learned that from watching you cook,” I said. “This cinnamon roll is the best I have ever tasted.” Complimenting someone in an exaggerated way is known as flattery, and flattery will generally get you anything you want, but Zada and Zora were too worried to offer me a second pastry. “She probably inherited her abilities from her grandmother,” the woman said. “Ingrid Nummet Knight founded Ink Inc. when she was a young scientist, after years of experimenting with many different inks from many different creatures. Before long Ink Inc. made the Knights the wealthiest family in town. But those days are over. Ink Inc. is almost finished, and so is the town. That’s why we’re leaving Stain’d-by-the-Sea.” “When are you leaving?” I asked. “Whenever the Knights give the word.” “Even if Miss Knight doesn’t come back?” “What can we do?” asked the other woman sadly. “We’re only the servants.” “Then make me some tea,” said an eager voice from the doorway. The bright kitchen seemed to grow darker as Dr. Flammarion strolled into the room, took a cinnamon roll without asking, and sat down loudly. “We were talking about Miss Knight,” one woman said quietly. “Very worrisome,” the apothecary agreed, with his mouth full. “But at least her parents are resting comfortably. They were shocked to hear of the disappearance. I gave them an extra injection of medicine so that they might pass the afternoon in a comfortable state of unhurried delirium.” “What medicine is it, Doctor?” I asked. Dr. Flammarion frowned at me. “You’re a curious young man,” he said. “I’m sorry, Dr. Flammarion,” Theodora said. She had finished her cinnamon roll and was wiping her fingers on the photograph of the missing girl. “My apprentice has forgotten his manners.” “It’s quite all right,” Dr. Flammarion said. “Curiosity tends to get little boys into trouble, but he’ll learn that soon enough for himself.” He offered me his nasty smile like a bad gift, and then said quickly, “The medicine I gave them is called Beekabackabooka.” I have never been to medical school and am never quite sure how to spell the word “aspirin,” but I still knew that Beekabackabooka is not a medicine of any kind. It didn’t matter. Even without his revealing himself to be a liar, I knew there was something suspicious about Dr. Flammarion, and even without his telling me, I knew the medicine he was giving the Knights was laudanum. I recognized the smell from an incident some weeks earlier, when people had tried to sneak some into my tea. This incident is described in my account of the first wrong question, on the rare chance you have access to, or interest in, such a report. “It must be difficult to care for Mr. and Mrs. Knight all by yourself,” I said, and looked him in the eye. He blinked behind his glasses, and his beard tried harder to flee from his nasty smile. “I’m not quite all by myself, young man,” he told me. “I have a nurse who is good with a knife.” Theodora stood up. “I want to conduct a thorough search of the scene of the crime,” she said. “What crime?” Dr. Flammarion said. “What scene?” I asked. “It seems likely a terrible crime has been committed,” Theodora said firmly, with no thought to how much that would upset the two women who cared for Miss Knight. “As the Knight family’s private apothecary, I must say that I’m not sure a crime has been committed at all. Miss Knight likely just ran away, as young girls often do.” The two servants looked at each other in frustration. “She wouldn’t have run away,” one of them said, “not without leaving a note.” “Who knows what a wealthy young girl will do?” Dr. Flammarion said with a smooth shrug. “In any case, I told Zada it was not worth alarming the police.” “Zora,” she corrected him sharply. “I’m sorry, Zora,” Dr. Flammarion said with a little bow that indicated he was not sorry at all. “I’m Zada,” she corrected him again, “but it’s true. Dr. Flammarion stopped Zora from calling the police and suggested we call you instead.” “The good doctor made a good choice,” Theodora said in a tone of voice she probably thought was reassuring, and then stood up and made a dramatic gesture. “Nevertheless, I would like to search the place Miss Knight was last seen. Take me to her bedroom!” There was no arguing with S. Theodora Markson when she began to gesture dramatically, so I followed my chaperone as she followed Zada and Zora through the packed-up house, with Dr. Flammarion close behind me, his breath as unpleasant as the rest of him. Soon we were in a room I recognized from the photograph, which Theodora put down on a brand-new desk in order to rifle through the clothing in the closet. There was no sense in it. This was not the place Miss Knight was last seen. It was simply the place Zada and Zora had seen her last. The girl had driven off in a fancy automobile. It was likely someone else had seen her afterward. “This room isn’t packed up,” I said. “Miss Knight wants to do it herself,” one of the women said, “but she hasn’t packed up anything but a few items of clothing.” That made me ask a question that was closer to the right question than I knew. “What was she wearing when she left?” Zada or Zora pointed to the photograph. “See for yourself,” she said. “We took that photograph yesterday morning, at her request. It was a lucky thing. Now that photograph is all over town.” I looked at the picture again. Nothing seemed familiar, but the pink hat looked out of place. “That’s an unusual cap,” I said. “Do you know where she got it?” “Snicket,” Theodora said sternly. “A young man should not take an interest in fashion. We have a crime to solve.” Dr. Flammarion smiled at me again, and I looked down at the desk rather than look at either my chaperone or this suspicious doctor. In the middle of the tidy desk was a plain white sheet of paper with nothing on it. No, Snicket, I thought. That’s not right. Here and there were tiny indentations, as if something had scratched at it. I leaned down to the desk and inhaled, and for the second time since I entered the tall pen-shaped tower, I smelled a familiar scent, or really two familiar scents mixed together. The first was the scent of the sea, a strong and briny smell that still came from the seaweed of the Clusterous Forest when the wind was blowing in the direction of Stain’d-by-the-Sea. The second scent took me a moment to identify. It smelled in a certain way that was on the tip of my tongue until I breathed it in one more time. “Lemony,” I said, but I was not saying my name out loud. I took the piece of paper over to the bed stand, turned on the reading light, and waited a minute or two for the lightbulb to get good and hot. While I waited I looked around the room, and it occurred to me that Zada and Zora were wrong. The Knight girl had started packing. She often stayed up all night in her bedroom working on scientific experiments, but there was not one piece of scientific equipment to be seen. At last the bulb was warm enough. There are three things to know about invisible ink. The first is that most recipes for it involve lemon juice. The second is that the invisible ink becomes visible when the paper is exposed to something hot, such as a candle or a lightbulb that has been on for a few minutes. I held the paper up, very close to the lightbulb, and watched. Zada and Zora saw what I was doing and walked over to get a look. Dr. Flammarion also stepped closer. Only Theodora did not watch the paper as it warmed up, and instead took a blouse from the closet and held it up to her own body to look at herself in the mirror. No matter how many slow and complicated mysteries I encounter in my life, I still hope that one day a slow and complicated mystery will be solved quickly and simply. An associate of mine calls this feeling “the triumph of hope over experience,” which simply means that it’s never going to happen, and that is what happened then. The third thing to know about invisible ink is that it hardly ever works. After several minutes of exposing the paper to heat, I looked at it and read what it had to say: In other words, nothing. But the curious thing was that the nothingness was finally a clue I could use. Click to read Chapter Three. CHAPTER THREE “This is a fortunate day,” Theodora said to me. With one gloved hand she was steering the green roadster back toward the Lost Arms, and with her other glove she was tapping me firmly on the knee. Nobody likes to be tapped on the knee. Practically nobody likes to be tapped anywhere. She kept doing it. “‘Fortunate’ is a word which here means fortuitous, and it’s particularly fortuitous for you. It’s auspicious. It’s opportune. It’s kismet. It’s as lucky as can be. Lucky you, Snicket! With this new case, I will reveal my routine and my methods for skip tracing.” Outside it looked like it might rain again. Inside I had the photograph of the girl in my lap. The promising young chemist looked even more annoyed, perhaps because Theodora had left sugary fingerprints all over the picture. “What shall we do first?” I asked. “Don’t talk, Snicket,” Theodora said. “Fools talk while wise people listen, so listen up and I’ll tell you how we will solve this case sensibly and properly. We will do six things, and for each thing, I will hold up a finger of my hand, so at the end I will be holding up six fingers and you will not be confused.” I stopped listening, of course. Theodora’s sensible and proper methods of solving our previous case had led to our dangling unnecessarily from a hawser, which is a cable suspended up in the air, not a sensible or proper thing to do. I nodded solemnly at thing number one, and when she lifted a second gloved finger, I stared out the window and thought. It was surprising to me that so much of the mystery had been solved already. Dr. Flammarion was giving Ignatius and Doretta Knight heavy doses of laudanum with his hypodermic needle, leaving them mumbling and half conscious. It was not difficult to think of reasons why an apothecary would want to control the wealthiest family in town, even if they were not as wealthy as they once had been and the town was fading away to nothing. But Dr. Flammarion would have a more difficult time with a promising young chemist, who would know all about laudanum and its sleepy, dangerous ways. And so she had vanished. The part of the story that confused me was the note. Zada and Zora had insisted that Miss Knight would have left a note if she had run away, but Dr. Flammarion had said there was no note. But I had found a sort of half note—a message written in invisible ink that hadn’t worked. Miss Knight was a chemist. She would know that invisible ink hardly ever works. She also seemed to like brand-new clothes but was wearing an old hat in the picture. There’s a connection, my brain said to me, between the hat and the disappearance, but I told my brain that if there was a connection, it had to think of it itself, because my eyes had spotted a bigger clue on the street outside. “Stop the car,” I said. “Be sensible,” Theodora said. “I haven’t even gotten to thing number four.” “Stop the car, please.”She stopped the car, perhaps because I had said “please.” I stepped out onto the curb of a quiet street, although practically all of the streets in Stain’d-by-the-Sea were quiet. They were so quiet that if you drove through them on a regular basis, you would notice anything new, such as the flyers of Miss Knight printed with the word MISSING. You would also notice an enormous automobile, particularly if it was one of the fanciest automobiles manufactured. I was standing in front of a Dilemma. There are people in the world who care about automobiles, and there are people who couldn’t care less, and then there are the people who are impressed by the Dilemma, and those people are everyone. The Dilemma is such a tremendous thing to look at that I stared at it for a good ten seconds before reminding myself that I should think of it as a clue to a mystery rather than as a wonder of modern engineering. It was one of the newer models, with a small, old-fashioned horn perched just outside each front window, and a shiny crank on the side so you could roll down the roof if Stain’d-by-the-Sea ever offered pleasant weather, and it was the color of someone buying you an ice cream cone for no reason at all. Theodora had gotten out of the roadster and stared at the Dilemma for as long as I had. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Snicket,” she said, when she had remembered to be a chaperone. “You’re supposed to be looking for Miss Knight, not getting distracted by automobiles, no matter how beautiful they are and how interesting to behold and no matter how long you want to stand here staring at it because it’s very beautiful and interesting to behold and so you find yourself staring at it for quite some time because it is so beautiful and interesting—” “This car probably belongs to Miss Knight,” I said before she could continue. “Not many people can afford a new Dilemma.” “Then she must be nearby,” Theodora said, turning quickly all the way around to look in every direction down the empty street. “I read once,” I said, “about a person who parked their car and then went someplace else.” “Don’t be impertinent.” Theodora frowned. “Where could she have gone?” I looked down the block. “Impertinent” is a word which actually means “not suitable to the circumstances,” but most people use it to mean “I am using a complicated word in the hopes that it will make you stop talking,” so I merely pointed at the only remaining grocery store in town. Partial Foods must have once been a grand grocery store. It was not a grand grocery store for the duration of my stay in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. It looked like a grand grocery store that someone had thrown down the stairs. To enter the store, you walked through a pair of enormous glass doors with brass handles carved with images of fresh fruit and vegetables, but the doors were badly cracked and difficult to open. There were wide shelves and deep bins ready to hold enormous mountains of delicious food, but at least half of them were empty, and the rest held food that was unripe or stale, mushy or brittle, bruised or encased in too many layers of plastic, or something I didn’t like. The place was almost enormous and almost deserted, so it took some time wandering through the big, meager aisles until we found someone to talk to. The owner of Partial Foods was a woman who could look both very angry and very bored at the same time and in fact was doing so when we found her. On a stained smock, she was wearing a peeled name tag that read POLLY PARTIAL. “Good day,” Theodora said to her. “Who are you?” Polly Partial asked. She was standing next to a basket of honeydew melons. I do not like honeydew melons. I do not see the point of them. “My name is S. Theodora Markson, and this is my apprentice,” Theodora said, and took the flyer from my hand. “We’re looking for this person.” Polly Partial peered at the frowning girl. “That’s Cleo Knight,” she said, pointing to the words printed above the photograph. “Yes, we know,” Theodora said. “I was wondering if you had seen her recently.” “Hard to say,” Polly Partial said. “She looks like any other runaway girl, even if she is from a wealthy family. Is there a reward? With enough money, I could retire and devote myself to raising minks.” The Knights had not said anything about a reward, but Theodora did not say anything about there not being one. “Only if you help us,” she said. “Have you seen this girl?” The shopkeeper squinted at the flyer. “Yesterday morning,” she said, “about ten thirty. She hurried in here to buy that silly breakfast food she likes.” She led us down an aisle and pulled down a box for us to see. It was Schoenberg Cereal, the brand Zada and Zora had mentioned. TWELVE WHOLESOME GRAINS COMBINED IN A STRICT SEQUENCE, the label read. I could not imagine who would eat such a thing in a kitchen where fresh-baked cinnamon rolls could be had. “The Knights are the only ones who buy it,” Polly Partial said, “although usually it’s one of those twin servants who does the shopping.” “Did she say anything?” Theodora asked. “She said thanks,” Polly said, “and then she said she was running away to join the circus.” My chaperone scratched her hair. “The circus?” “That’s what she said,” said Polly Partial. “Aha!” Theodora cried. “Then she walked outside and got into a taxicab and went off.” “Aha!”I didn’t see anything to aha! about, but I’ve never been an aha! sort of person. “What was she wearing?” I asked. Theodora gave me an exasperated sigh. “What did I tell you about your interest in fashion?” she said. “A young man who asks too much about clothing will find himself the subject of unflattering rumors.” “You can see for yourself what she was wearing,” Polly Partial said, and handed me back the flyer. “The Knight family always wears black and white, to honor the family business and the paper it’s scrawled on. I remember the hat surprised me. It wasn’t black and it wasn’t white. It looked French.” “You’ve been very helpful, Ms. Partial,” Theodora said. “I’m sure the Knights will thank you.” “Of course, everything looks French when you stop to think about it.” “You’re a very reliable witness,” I couldn’t help saying, and Polly Partial looked at me like she had never seen me before. “Off with you,” she said. “I have canned smelt to stack.” We left the store and stood in the street. Overhead the clouds talked with the wind about whether or not it should rain again. “Well, I’d say the case is solved,” Theodora said, and her hair ruffled in agreement. “Dr. Flammarion was right. There is no crime. The Knight girl ran away from home. She drove into town, bought the supplies she needed, and took a taxi to join the circus. Do you have any questions?” I had so many questions that they fought for a minute in my head over which one got to ask itself first. “Why didn’t she need more than cereal?” was the winner. “Why didn’t she leave a note?” was in second place, followed by “Why wouldn’t she run away in her car?” Theodora waved her gloved hand at me like I was a bad smell. “Be sensible,” she said. “There is no indication of a crime. I’m going to write the report myself so I get full credit for solving the case.” “We should investigate further,” I said. “That’s what you said last time,” Theodora reminded me, putting on her helmet and opening the door of the roadster, “and the only thing you investigated was that silly girl. Girls and fashion, Snicket. You are too easily distracted.” I felt myself blush. It is not a feeling I like. My ears get hot, and my face gets red, and it is no way to win an argument. “I’m going to walk back to the Lost Arms if you don’t mind,” I said. “It’s only a couple of blocks.” “By all means,” Theodora said. “You’d only be a fifth wheel if you hung around our headquarters while I wrote my report. In fact, Snicket, why don’t you make yourself scarce until dinnertime?” She shut the door of the roadster and drove off. I waited for the sound of the engine to fade, and then spent another minute looking once more at the Dilemma. I even put out a hand and rested my palm on one of the horns. “A fifth wheel” is an expression meaning someone who is of no help at all, the way a fifth wheel on an automobile doesn’t make it go any faster. It made no sense that Miss Knight would drive to Partial Foods and then take a taxi someplace else. She would never need a taxi at all, with an automobile like that. But she did. But she wouldn’t. But she did. Stop arguing with yourself, Snicket. You can’t win. I looked down at the ground and wished I’d looked there earlier. One of the tires of the Dilemma was deflated, so instead of looking round, it looked like an old potato. You couldn’t drive far like that. A Dilemma with a flat tire was a reminder that no matter how splendid and shiny the world might be, it could be spoiled by something you didn’t notice until the damage had been done. I leaned down to get a closer look and found myself staring at a needle. It was the kind of needle doctors like to stick you with, and it was sticking out of the flattened tire. “Hello,” I said to the needle. The needle didn’t say anything, and neither did anybody else. I slipped the needle out of the tire. It didn’t smell like anything, but you wouldn’t have to inject a tire with laudanum. Flattening it would be enough. Carefully, so I wouldn’t get punctured, I put the needle in my pocket and stood up and looked this way and that. No one was around. Like most blocks in town, this block was nothing but boarded-up shops and homes and flyers with Cleo Knight staring back at me. But there was also someplace I’d been meaning to visit since my arrival in town. Why not now? I thought. Hungry’s was a small and narrow place, and a large and wide woman was standing just inside the doors, polishing the counter with a rag. “Good afternoon,” she said. I said the same thing. “I’m hungry,” she said. “Well, you’re probably in the right place.” She gave me a frown and a menu. “No, I mean I’m Hungry. It’s my name. Hungry Hix. I own this place. Are you hungry?” “No,” I said. “You are.” “Don’t be a smart aleck,” Hungry said. “But it cheers me up,” I said. “Sit anywhere you want,” she said. “A waiter will be right with you.” There were a few booths alongside one wall, but I always like sitting at the counter. There was a boy a few years older than I was, leaning against a sink full of dirty dishes with a book in his hand and shaggy red hair in his eyes. I had not heard of the book, but I liked the author. “How’s that book?” “Good,” he said, without looking up. “A guy named Johnny takes the wrong train and ends up in Constantinople in 1453. This guy’s books are always good.” “That’s true,” I said, “but there’s a bunch of books that he didn’t really write. They put his name on them anyway. You have to check carefully to make sure you don’t get one of those.” “Is that so?” he said, and put down the book and poured me a glass of water and shook my hand. “I’m Jake Hix,” he said. “I haven’t seen you in here before.” “I’m Lemony Snicket and I’ve never been in here,” I said. “Are you Hungry’s son?” “Hungry’s my aunt,” Jake said. “I work for her in exchange for room and board.” “I know the feeling,” I said. “I’m an apprentice myself.” “An apprentice what?” “It’s a long story,” I said. “I have time.” “No you don’t,” Hungry grumbled, squeezing by Jake and swatting him with a towel. “Take his order and do the dishes.” “Never mind her,” Jake said, when his aunt was out of earshot. “She’s cranky because business is bad. Few people come in here anymore. This town is draining like somebody pulled the plug. You’re the first paying customer we’ve had all day.” “I don’t have any money,” I said. Jake shrugged. “If you’re hungry, I’ll make you something,” he said. “It’s better than doing dishes. You like soup Never say you’re hungry until you learn what they’re fixing. “I like good soup,” I said. “Good soup it is,” Jake said with a smile. “With dumplings’ Jake busied himself at the stove, and I put the flyer down on the counter. “Have you seen this person?” I asked Jake looked quickly at the photograph and then looked away. “Of course,” he said. “That’s the Knight girl. Those flyers are all over town.” “I’m looking for her,” I said. “Everybody is, it looks like.” “You said few people come in here,” I told him. “Was she one of them?” Jake turned away from me and chopped something very hard and very quickly before throwing it into a pan to sizzle. “I don t talk about my customers,” he said. “If she’s in trouble,” I said, “I can help.” Jake turned around then and gave me a look like I was a fifth wheel after all. It Didn’t look like he really meant it, but I still didn’t like getting it. “You?” he asked. “Some stranger who just wandered into the diner?” “I’m not a stranger,” I said, and pointed to his book. “I read the same authors you do.” Jake thought about this for a minute, and the food started to smelt good. “Miss Knight was in here yesterday morning,” he said, “about ten thirty.” “Ten thirty?” I asked. “Are you sure about that?” “Sure I’m sure,” he said. “Did she have breakfast?” “Tea,” he said. “It helps her think.’ “Did she say anything?” Jake gave me a curious look. “She said thanks.” “Anything else?” “I don’t know what you’ve heard, Snicket, but Miss Knight’s not a friend of mine. She’s just a customer.” “What was she wearing?” “The same as in the picture.” “Let me guess,” I said. “Then she got into a taxi.” “A taxi?” Jake repeated with a laugh. “You really are a stranger. Cleo in a taxi! Miss Knight’s got a brand-new Dilemma that’s way better than any taxi.” There’s no need to insult us, Jake,” said a voice from the door. Two boys had walked into Hungry’s, and they were two boys I knew. Their names were Bouvard Bellerophon and Pecuchet Bellerophon, which explains why everyone called them Pip and Squeak. They worked as taxi drivers when their father was sick, and it looked like he was sick today. I said hello and they said hello and Jake said hello and we figured out we all knew one another. “I’m making Snicker here some soup,” Jake said. ‘You two want some?” “Absolutely,” Pip said. “Business is slow today.” “Then can you give me a ride after lunch?” I asked them. “Sure,” said Squeak in the voice that matched his nickname. “We’re parked right outside. Going to see your friend again, in Handkerchief Heights?” “She doesn’t live there anymore,” I said, not wanting to say Ellington’s name, “and I don’t know if I’d call her a friend, exactly.” “That s too bad,” Pip said. “She seemed nice enough to me.” “I’d rather not talk about it,” I said. “How’s your father?” “We’d rather not talk about that,” Squeak said. “Well, then what should we talk about?” “Books,” Jake said, and served up soup. After one bite I knew where I’d be eating for the duration. The dumplings had the flavor of paradise, and the broth spread through my veins like a secret that’s fun to keep. I wanted to tell the secret to my sister, who would have enjoyed the soup, but she was back in the city, doing the wrong things while I was asking the wrong questions, so I couldn’t share it with her. Pip and Squeak probably wanted to share the soup with their father, and I had a feeling as to whom Jake would like to share it with. But we didn’t talk about that. We talked about the author of the book he was reading. It felt good. I finished my soup and wiped my mouth and asked if there was anything else he could think of to tell me about Miss Cleo Knight. He said there wasn’t. He wasn’t telling me the truth, but I couldn’t get sore about it. I wasn’t telling everyone my business either. I stood up, and Pip and Squeak stood up, and we walked out of Hungry’s to the cab. Squeak got in and hunched down by the brake and gas pedals, and Pip arranged some books so he could sit on them and reach the steering wheel. I got in back, moving carefully so I wouldn’t get punctured by the needle in my pocket. “Where are we going, Snicket?” Pip asked me. “To the lighthouse,” I said, which reminded me of a book I’d been meaning to read. “I need a haircut.” Miscellaneous LinesSource here. Transcribed by Antenora. Not necessarily presented in sequential order.[Top double-page] fault it was that Ellington had slipped out of the cell, while Dr. Flammarion and Nurse Dander sat, handcuffed and forced to listen. The library looked closed and locked up, although I thought I saw a few moths fluttering near the entrance, now that their home, a tall, broad tree, was gone. I wondered if Dashiell Qwerty had finished all the the work he was doing in the library. Perhaps he was sleeping there now. "What happened?" I asked finally. "Kit's been arrested," my associate said. "My sources tell me they got her just as she was try- ing to open the hatch. It was too heavy for her to open by herself. I closed my eyes. It was even darker that way. "She was not supposed to be by herself," I said. "Snicket, I said before, it's not your fault." "You can say it as many times as you want." "Kit knew you wouldn't be there. She [Below the text is a right-pointing arrow and a handwritten note, mostly illegible, but the end looks like "valley?" Also, "Dashiell Qwerty" is outlined and linked to another handwritten note in the margin which is only partly visible, apparently ending in "is?"] decided to try anyway. And I can't blame her. The Museum of Items hasn't had an exhibit like that in years." "Eighty-four years," I said. "If we don't get the item now, we won't have another opportu- nity in our lifetimes." "She got the There will go to [Bottom single page] CHAPTER "Lemony Snicket," she said right back to me We stood and faced each other. I hadn't known Ellington Feint very long, and you couldn't quite say that we were friends. We both found ourselves in Stain'd-by-the-Sea on mysterious errands. We had both stolen the same statue, and we were both searching for the same vil- lain, and now the Cleo Knight case had thrown us together again. But the Bombinating Beast, fashioned after Stain'd-by-the-Sea's legendary Sketch and Preview IllustrationsFile for ?2:
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Post by Dante on Aug 14, 2013 11:05:09 GMT -5
Information: SI (Additional Reports)Title: File Under: 13 Suspicious IncidentsRelease Date: April 1, 2014 (North America), June 28, 2018 (U.K.) (eBook) Cover (LB):Cover (Egmont):Promotional Synopses:Little, Brown & Co.:Match wits with Lemony Snicket to solve thirteen mini-mysteries. Paintings have been falling off of walls, a loud and loyal dog has gone missing, a specter has been seen walking the pier at midnight — strange things are happening all over the town of Stain'd-By-The-Sea. Called upon to investigate thirteen suspicious incidents, young Lemony Snicket collects clues, questions witnesses, and cracks every case. Join the investigation and tackle the mysteries alongside Snicket, then turn to the back of the book to see the solution revealed. A delicious read that welcomes readers into Lemony Snicket's world of deep mystery, mysterious depth, deductive reasoning, and reasonable deductions. Lemony Snicket was somewhere else on the night in question, if anybody's asking. He is the suspicious author of All The Wrong Questions, including "Who Could That Be at This Hour?" and "When Did You See Her Last?," all the books in A Series of Unfortunate Events, and The Dark. If you think you spotted Seth at the scene of the crime, it probably wasn't him after all. He is the creator of Palookaville, Clyde Fans, The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists, and the unnerving art found in All the Wrong Questions. ( Source) Paintings have been falling off of walls, a loud and loyal dog has gone missing, a gurgled message is being transmitted by walkie-talkie-strange things are happening all over the town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea. Called upon to investigate these suspicious incidents, young Lemony Snicket collects clues, questions witnesses, and cracks every case. Join the investigation and tackle the mysteries alongside Snicket, then turn to the back of the book to see the solution revealed. ( Source; ebook part one) An important postcard never reached its destination, three brothers have been apprehended for one crime, a specter has been seen walking on the pier at midnight-more peculiar events are unfolding all over the town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea. Lemony Snicket is on the case! Join the investigation and tackle the mysteries alongside Snicket. Think you've cracked them? Turn to the back of the book to see the solution revealed. ( Source; ebook part two) Note: Previously known as File Under: Suspicious Incidents. Promotional Materials:File for SI:Teaser Cover Art:
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Post by Dante on Oct 15, 2013 14:30:34 GMT -5
Previews: File Under: 13 Suspicious IncidentsTranscriptsIntroductionClick to read an introductory paragraph explaining how the book works. Please find enclosed herein thirteen (13) reports filed under “Suspicious Incidents” in our archives. The thirteen (13) reports have thirteen (13) conclusions which have been separated from their corresponding reports for security reasons. The reports are contained in sub-file One (1) and the conclusions in sub-file B (b) so that it is impossible for each report and conclusion to be in the same place at once. For your convenience, both sub-files are enclosed together in this bound volume. The information contained herein is secret and important, meant only for members of our organization. If you are not a member of our organization, please put this down, as it is neither secret nor important and therefore will not interest you. All misfiled information, by definition, is none of your business. Passage from "Inside Job" Draft.Click here to read a short excerpt of the book included in Hachette Books's Spring/Summer 2014 catalog (page 45). Note that the book as published features some changes to this passage. “I’m Colette Gracq,” she said. “I spell it in the French way.” “I’m Lemony Snicket,” I said. “I think my name is spelled the same in any language.” “Around town they say you’re something of a detective.” “Around town they’re wrong. I’m something else.” “Well, I need some help.” “What kind of help?” “Pictures are falling down in my living room.” “Sounds like you need a handyman.” Colette shook her head. “They’re falling too neatly.” “Maybe it’s just because I’ve had a lousy breakfast,” I told her, “but I’m not following you.” “Follow me to my home,” Colette said, “and I’ll explain everything and poach you an egg besides. I put a little vinegar in the poaching water, so my eggs turn out nice and fluffy.”
Inside Job.Click to listen to the Suspicious Incident entitled "Inside Job." Read by Jon Scieszka. www.kirkusreviews.com/features/lemony-snicket/Click to read a transcript of the above recording. Inside Job One morning I was arguing with the adult in charge of me. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what that is like, and it is one of the world’s great difficulties that this sort of argument goes on nearly every place on almost every morning between practically every child and some adult or other. Another one of the world’s great difficulties was S. Theodora Markson. During my time in Stain’d-by-the-Sea, Theodora was my chaperone and I was her apprentice. Being her apprentice meant that we shared a small room in a hotel called the Lost Arms. The room was too small to share with one of the world’s great difficulties, and this was probably why we were arguing. “Lemony Snicket,” she was saying to me, “tell me exactly what being an apprentice means.” “S. Theodora Markson,” I said, “tell me exactly what the S stands for in your name.” “Snide answers aren’t proper,” she said. “They’re not sensible.” “I know it,” I said, and I did. “Snide” is a word which here means “the kind of tone you use in an argument,” and “sensible” refers to the tone you are supposed to use instead. “If you’re smart enough to know that,” Theodora said, snidely, “then tell me all about being an apprentice.” “You and I are in a secret organization,” I began, but Theodora looked wildly around the room and shook her head at me. My chaperone’s hair was a crazed and woolly mess, so when she looked around the room and shook her head, it was like seeing something go wrong at a mop factory. “Shush!” she hissed. “Why shush?” “You know why shush. You shouldn’t talk about our secret organization. You shouldn’t even say the words ‘secret organization’ out loud. “You’ve just said them twice.” “It doesn’t count if I say it in order to tell you not to say it.” “Well, what can I say instead?” “You know what.” “No, I don’t know what,” I said. “That’s why I asked you.” “Say ‘you know what,’” Theodora said, “instead of ‘secret organization.’ That way you won’t have to say ‘secret organization’ out loud, which you should never do.” “Except in order to tell me not to say it,” I reminded her, and went on with my answer. “You and I are in you know what, and being your apprentice means I’m learning all the methods and techniques used by you know what. There are sinister plots afoot in this town, and you and I should be working together to defeat them in the name of you know what.” “Wrong,” Theodora said, with a stern hairshake. “Being my apprentice means you do everything I say.” “That’s not what I was told,” I said. “Who told you?” “You know who,” I said, just to be safe, “at you know what, you know where, when, and how.” “You’re talking nonsense,” Theodora said. “Breakfast is ready. As your chaperone, I’m telling you to hand me two napkins.” “As your apprentice,” I said, “I’m telling you we don’t have any.” “I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Theodora said, and I suppose she was right. My chaperone made us breakfast every morning on a metal plate provided by the Lost Arms. When you flicked a switch the plate got hot, and this morning Theodora had laid two slices of bread on it and then begun arguing with me. Now the bread was burned black on one side, like a shingle covered in tar, and the other side was soft and cold from sitting on the windowsill we used as a refrigerator. A napkin would not turn a half-burned, half-cold piece of bread into breakfast. A garbage bin would have been more helpful. I put the failed toast in my mouth anyway. Theodora didn’t think it was proper for her apprentice to talk with his mouth full, so it was the best way to avoid talking to her. Over the sound of burned crusts against my teeth I heard a knock on the door, and Prosper Lost peeked in at us. He was the Lost Arms’ proprietor, a word which here means he stood around the lobby with a small smile and called it running the place. I called it a little creepy, although not to his face. “Lemony Snicket,” he said. “You’re not Lemony Snicket,” Theodora said to him. “There’s someone downstairs to see you,” Lost explained to me. Theodora frowned at the proprietor. “Whoever’s waiting downstairs isn’t Lemony Snicket either,” she said. “Lemony Snicket is right here with crumbs on his shirt.” “Someone is here to see Lemony Snicket,” Prosper Lost said, as clearly as he could. “Thank you,” I told the proprietor, and excused myself. “Whatever you’re doing,” Theodora called after me, “be quick about it. You have a very busy day, Snicket. You have to buy some napkins.” My mouth wasn’t full, but I pretended it was so I didn’t have to answer as Prosper Lost led me down the stairs. “Who is it that wants to see me?” I asked him. “A minor,” Lost replied. “Do you mean a child, or someone who works in a mine?” “Both,” Lost said, and sure enough, in the lobby was a girl about my age wearing a helmet with a light attached to it, the kind people wear when digging underground. The hat looked a little big on her head, and she took off some oversized work gloves so she could shake my hand. “I’m Marguerite Gracq,” she said. “I spell it in the French way.” “I’m Lemony Snicket,” I said. “I think my name is spelled the same in any language.” “Around town they say you’re something of a detective.” “Around town they’re wrong. I’m something else.” “Well, I need some help.” “What kind of help?” “Pictures are falling down in my living room.” “Sounds like you need a handyman.” Marguerite shook her head. “They’re falling too neatly.” “Maybe it’s just because I’ve had a lousy breakfast,” I told her, “but I’m not following you.” “Follow me to my home,” Marguerite said, “and I’ll explain everything and poach you an egg, besides. I put a little vinegar in the poaching water, so my eggs turn out nice and fluffy.” A fluffy poached egg is a good breakfast, and a good breakfast is better than a bad one, like a good book is better than having your toe chopped off. We walked out of the Lost Arms together and down the quiet street. Most of the streets in Stain’d-by-the-Sea were quiet. The town was emptying out. “I know that most businesses in town have been failing,” I told Marguerite, with a nod at a boarded-up shop. “How’s mining going?” “There’s just one small mine in Stain’d-by-the-Sea,” she said, “and it’s in my front yard. My father says we’ve gotten all the gold we’re going to get from it. He’s out of town for a few weeks finding us a better place to live. I’m staying here to close up the mine and make sure nothing happens to the gold.” “He left you here all alone?” Marguerite frowned and shook her head. “He hired a woman named Dagmar to watch over me. She doesn’t do much but sit and listen to the radio. I don’t like her.” “What does she listen to?” “Polkas.” “No wonder you don’t like her.” Marguerite smiled. “That’s not the only reason,” she said. “Dagmar doesn’t seem trustworthy. The paintings didn’t start falling until she arrived, and nobody else has been around. I keep thinking she’s after something, but nothing has been stolen.” “Most untrustworthy people hanging around a gold mine are after the gold.” “My father has been very careful about his stash,” she said. “When we bring gold up from the mine, he immediately takes it all to his workshop to melt it down. Then he hides it someplace in that room. Even I don’t know exactly where, and I have the only workshop key. My father gave it to me when he left town, and I keep it with me always.” Marguerite reached into her overalls and drew out a skinny key on a thick cord around her neck. “Have you ever let Dagmar use the key?” I asked. “She could have had a copy made.” Marguerite shook her head. “I’m the only one who’s been in the workshop since my father left, and I can see that nothing has been touched. The problem’s not with the gold, Snicket. It’s with the pictures in my living room.” We arrived at a small wooden house with a roof covered in moss, narrow windows wide open, and a large hole in the front yard with the top of a ladder jutting out from it. Various tools were scattered around the browning lawn. From the windows I could hear a particularly peppy polka. All polka music is peppy. There’s nothing wrong with feeling peppy, but a polka insists that everyone else has to be peppy too, even if they don’t feel like it. Marguerite kicked off her boots and led me into a friendly-looking place. There was a large wooden staircase with piles of books here and there, and a carpet decorated with images of mythical beasts and smudges of dirt. Leafy plants hung in the windows, shedding leaves wherever I looked. “I’m back, Dagmar,” Marguerite called upstairs. “I have a friend with me! I’m going to make him a poached egg!” “Do whatever you want,” replied a cranky voice, over the sound of the polka. The music’s peppiness had clearly not spread to Dagmar. “The kitchen’s right over here,” Marguerite said, “but if you don’t mind, I’d like to show you the living room first.” “Of course,” I said, and she led me through an archway into a room as pleasant and rumpled as the rest of the house. The wooden floor was painted black, with the paint peeling off here and there, and the sofas and chairs were all bright yellow excerpt where they were patched up with squares of other bright fabrics. There was a large reading lamp, made from another miner’s helmet, and on the walls were portraits of pale, thoughtful-looking people, with one portrait leaning against the wall underneath a blank space on the wall where it clearly belonged. One portrait, depicting a man with a bow tie and an elegant cane, had a large rip right across the middle, and Marguerite looked at it sadly. “Henry Parland was the first one to fall,” she said, “just a few minutes after Dagmar arrived. Luckily, it’s the only one that’s been damaged. Since then, it seems that one falls whenever I’m down in the mine. Paavo Cajander, Katri Vala, Eino Leino, Otto Manninen, and this morning Larin Paraske, who had already fallen, was found right as you see her, leaning on the wall like all the others.” “Your father certainly likes Finnish poets,” I said. “These portraits belonged to my mother,” Marguerite said. “They were precious to her, but they’re not particularly valuable.” “And they haven’t particularly been taken,” I said. “Nothing has,” Marguerite said, looking around the room. “I admit I’m suspicious of Dagmar, but I can’t say she’s committed any kind of crime. The paintings just keep falling and then we hang them back up.” “You say they fall when you’re in the mine,” I said, glancing out the window at the hole in the yard, “but surely you can’t hear them fall from down there.” “Dagmar tells me they’ve fallen,” Marguerite said, “or I notice myself when I come in for a snack.” “And who puts them back up?” “I do,” Marguerite said, with a note of pride in her voice. “I fetch a hammer and a nail from the workshop and do the job myself. And I do it right, Snicket. Don’t think it’s my fault they keep falling.” “Maybe the first one fell,” I said, with a glance at the rip in Henry Parland, “but if the others were found leaning against the wall like this, they probably didn’t fall.” “That’s how they were,” Marguerite said with a nod. “Leaning against the wall, nice and neat, with nothing damaged.” “Do you leave the workshop door open while you rehang them?” Marguerite gave me a sharp look. “Of course not. The gold is somewhere in that room, and it’s my responsibility to keep it locked up.” I turned my eyes from the girl to Larin Paraske. The poet in the portrait looked back at me but offered nothing more than a thoughtful gaze and an unusual hat. I tilted the portrait and looked behind it at the cord stretched across so the painting would hang evenly from the nail. I looked at the blank space on the wall, and at the tiny hole in the dark wood. “Do you have a lot of nails in the workshop?” “Jars and jars full,” Marguerite said. “My father uses these special black nails all around the house. They curve slightly, so they do less damage to the wall.” “And what about the hammer?” “It’s an ordinary enough hammer,” Marguerite said. “Do you want to see it?” “I don’t need to,” I said. “I’m going upstairs to talk to Dagmar.” “What are you going to ask her?” “First,” I said, “I’ll ask her to turn off that blasted polka music. And then I’ll demand that she return all she’s stolen from your family before we hand her over to the police.” The conclusion to "Inside Job" is filed under "Black Paint." Pinched Creature.Click to listen to the Suspicious Incident entitled "Pinched Creature." Read by Terry Gross. geekdad.com/2014/04/13-suspicious-incidents/Click to read a transcript of the above recording. Pinched Creature. I was spending the afternoon with my associate Moxie Mallahan. Moxie was Stain’d-by-the-Sea’s only reporter, a job she had learned from her parents, who had run the town’s newspaper, The Stain’d Lighthouse. The newspaper was shut down, Mrs. Mallahan had left town, Mr. Mallahan was sleeping late, and Moxie and I were just hanging around the lighthouse, doing a little reading and talking over various incidents that had happened recently. “It’s been too long since we’ve done this,” Moxie said. “Done what?” “Had an uneventful time like this.” Right on cue, the doorbell rang, as if to say enough was enough of uneventfulness, and when Moxie opened the door, there was an event. The event was a boy several years younger than I was and much more upset. He wore a white coat like a scientist and had two pairs of glasses, one over his eyes and the other perched on his head. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” the boy said, “but you’re the closest neighbour and I need some help.” “Oliver,” Moxie said. “I didn’t know your family was still in town.” She turned to me. “Oliver’s parents are the only veterinarians left in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. So few people have pets nowadays, I’d assumed the Doctors Sobol had closed up shop.” “They have,” Olive said, his eyes blinking nervously behind his glasses, “but I’m here for a few more months running the business until they come and fetch me.” “Well, if you ever want company,” Moxie said, “hike up the hill and we’ll play some Parcheesi. This is my friend Lemony Snicket, by the way. He won’t play Parcheesi because he says it’s inane.” “It is inane,” I said, “and inane is a word which here means pointless and dull.” Oliver frowned, and I can’t say I blame him. If you are worried about something, it is not a good time to listen to people argue over games and vocabulary. He sat down glumly at the bottom of the stairs that spiralled up to the lighthouse’s lantern. “I’m sorry, Oliver,” Moxie said. “We were prattling on while you have something on your mind.” “I sure do,” Oliver said. “I’ve lost a newt.” Moxie and I both looked at Oliver. If we’d looked at each other we might have laughed. “It might sound silly,” Oliver said, “but this newt is very important.” Moxie’s eyebrows went up underneath her hat. “What could be so important about a little lizard?” “First of all,” Oliver said, “newts aren’t lizards. A lizard is a reptile, and a newt is an amphibian. Second of all, this newt is a very rare subspecies. I’ve lost an Amaranthine Newt, known for its bright yellow color and prevalent left-handedness. It was the only one in captivity and prized by herpetologists and southpaws all over the world.” “Why do they call it the Amaranthine Newt, if it’s bright yellow?” I asked. “Amaranthine means purple, doesn’t it?” “Its eggs are purple,” Oliver said. “My father took the eggs with him to his new job at Amphibians-A-Go-Go, an aquatic animal center and amusement park just outside the city. The newt and I are supposed to join them there soon. If I can’t find the newt, my father might lose his job.” “Don’t fret, Oliver,” Moxie said, although I could see that Oliver just kept on fretting. “Snicket here has a knack for finding strange missing items. Isn’t that so, Snicket?” “It’s sometimes so,” I said. “Oliver, why don’t you tell us how the newt slipped away?” “I don’t think it slipped away,” Oliver said. “I think it was pinched.” “Somebody stole it?” Moxie said. “That’s a serious accusation to make.” She sat down and opened a case sitting on the floor. Inside was a typewriter that Moxie Mallahan always kept nearby, and she started taking notes immediately on the clattering machine. “I’m making it seriously,” Oliver said. “The Amaranthine Newt lives in a special tank on a desk in my examining room, so I can always keep an eye on it. It was there when I opened for business this morning.” “And how many patients did you have today?” I asked. “Just one,” Oliver said. “You were right about few people having pets, Moxie, but Polly Partial has two of the last cats in town, and one of them has a narcissistic disorder.” “Polly Partial, the grocer?” Moxie asked, and met my eye. Neither of us was fond of the woman who ran Partial Foods, but lots of people nobody is fond of have sick cats. “Her cat Paperbag has been a patient of my family’s for a very long time,” Oliver said. “I can’t imagine that his owner is a thief, but greed and newts can do strange things to people. I examined Paperbag and went to my desk to write out a prescription. Then I escorted Partial and Paperbag out and spent a few minutes in the backyard watering my father’s zinnias. The flowers match the trim on the office, as long as you keep them healthy, and I’d like to leave the place looking nice. When I went back into the office, the tank was empty.” “Someone must have snuck in while you were gardening,” Moxie said. Oliver shook his head. “I would have heard anyone else driving up the road.” “They need not have arrived by automobile,” I said. “To pinch my newt,” Oliver said, “they’d need a similar tank. You couldn’t fit one on a bicycle or a donkey. Polly Partial must have stolen the newt, but I don’t see how.” “I don’t mean to be rude,” I said, “but can you really trust your eyes? I notice you have not one but two pairs of glasses.” Oliver gave me a stern, lens-covered look. “My eyes aren’t perfect,” he said, “but with these glasses I can see perfectly well, and I keep the other pair on my head for reading.” “You don’t have bifocals?” I asked, referring to eyeglasses that combine two lenses into one. “There aren’t any optometrists left in town,” Moxie told me. “The closest eye doctor is way over in Paltryville, but she doesn’t have a very good reputation.” “Did you use your reading glasses when you were with Paperbag?” I asked Oliver. He nodded. “When I wrote out the prescription.” “Well, I’m sure you saw clearly,” I said, “but I’m not sure I do. Shall we walk over to the Sobol office?” Oliver said yes and so we did, Moxie carrying her typewriter and me trying to think. It was a warm, breezy day, with the wind carrying a salty smell from the seaweed of the Clusterous Forest, an eerie phenomenon that lay below the cliff we were on. But we walked the other way, down a road as bumpy and cracked as a vase falling down stairs. Soon enough, we could see the office of the Doctors Sobol, a faraway building with yellow and orange trim, but when we rounded a corner, something made us stop. There was a car, pulled over to the side of the road, and a man frowning at the car like it’d given him socks for his birthday. “Good afternoon,” I said. “Not in my opinion,” the man replied, and used his right hand to point at one of the car’s tires. It also looked a little sad. “I seem to have a flat.” “There’s a garage about a half mile thataway,” Moxie said, pointing thataway with one finger. “Thank you,” the man said. “I’m a doorknob salesman passing through town, and I’m late for an appointment. I guess I’d better walk on over to the garage. My car doesn’t have anything valuable in it, so I suppose it will be all right.” I peeked through the window of his car. I couldn’t help it. I’ve been trained to do such things. There was nothing in it. Oliver had other concerns. “You haven’t noticed a newt crawling around, have you?” “Or a suspicious person?” Moxie added. “What kind of person?” the man asked. “I saw a woman driving by in a beat-up grocery van. And what kind of lizard?” Oliver sighed in annoyance. “It’s an Amaranthine Newt,” he said, “and that woman is probably a thief.” “A newt will be hard to find,” said the stranger. “But I might look in a patch of zinnias I passed. It could blend in and hide there easily.” “You’re thinking of a chameleon,” I said, “but you’re probably right that we won’t find the newt. We might as well help you instead.” “What?” Oliver said, blinking in astonishment, and Moxie frowned. “Do you have a spare tire in the trunk?” I continued, talking to the man. The supposed salesman shook his head. “Nope.” “That’s too bad,” I said, “but maybe you have something that would do in a pinch.” “I don’t think so,” the man said quickly, in a pinched voice. “In a pinch” is a phrase which here means “in a difficult situation,” and a pinched voice is a whiny and nervous one. But neither of these pinches was the pinch I was thinking of. “Open the trunk anyway,” I said, “so we can see the special newt tank you have hidden there.” The conclusion to “Pinched Creature” is filed under “Dishonest Salesman.” Ransom Note.Click to read the Suspicious Incident entitled "Ransom Note." FILE UNDER: SUSPICIOUS INCIDENTS RANSOM NOTE. Lemony Snicket has provided this report for members of a secret organization. If you are a member of a secret organization, be on watch for further accounts, collectively titled File Under: Suspicious Incidents.
If you are not, good afternoon. RANSOM NOTE. Bouvard and Pecuchet Bellerophon, better known as Pip and Squeak, were the best cabdrivers in Stain’d-by-the-Sea, although to be fair, they were also the only cabdrivers I’d ever come across in town. The brothers weren’t really old enough to drive—or tall enough, for that matter—so Pip worked the steering wheel and Squeak worked the brakes, and in this way they got their customers around in the taxi belonging to their father, whom they’d told me was very ill. The Bellerophon brothers were valuable associates of mine, so when they told me their mechanic needed help, I agreed to ride over to Moray Wheels, a dirty and lonely-looking garage in what had once been a bustling district of town and now sat mostly empty. “I know it doesn’t look like much,” Pip said as his brother brought the taxi to a halt, “but Jackie’s an excellent mechanic.” “You can say that again,” Squeak said in his high-pitched voice, but nobody did. We were busy watching an elderly man wander out onto the driveway with a limp and a sneer. He wobbled slightly as he walked, and his fingers fluttered at his sides, like he was counting to infinity on his fingers. “That’s the mechanic?” I asked doubtfully, imagining those fingers trying to operate a wrench. “That,” Pip said, with a shake of his head, “is the mechanic’s grandfather. Wednesdays he works at the bowling alley, but the rest of the time he sits around here eating molasses and bragging about his career as a race car driver. Jackie’s probably inside. Let’s go.” Let’s go we did. The brothers led me in a curve around the old man and then into a garage that felt like a birthday party for mechanical parts, with tires and bumpers drinking gasoline punch, and stacks of tools and equipment nibbling on grease and talking together on the floor. There was no sign of Jackie or anyone else, but in the middle of the place was a car I recognized. “What’s wrong with Cleo Knight’s Dilemma? I asked. “Ms. Knight is an associate of mine, and her automobile has always been top-of-the-line. You wouldn’t believe some of the stunts that car has pulled.” A figure rolled out from under the shiny automobile, and someone about my age sat up and nodded at all of us. “Even something top-of-the-line bottoms out once in a while,” the mechanic said. “She just needs a little tune-up, that’s all. Is this the guy, brothers?” “This is the guy,” Squeak squeaked. Jackie gave me a quick frowny glance. “He doesn’t look so tough.” “He’s plenty tough,” Pip said. “I need someone very tough,” Jackie said. “Do you need someone who can hear what you say, even when he’s standing right here?” I asked. Jackie gave me an apologetic smile. “It’s nothing personal,” the mechanic said. “I just have some trouble on my hands.” “Trouble is like grease,” I said, with a nod at Jackie’s jumpsuit. “If you have it on you, you’ll probably get it on everyone nearby.” “Pip and Squeak said you’re good in a jam,” Jackie said. “Depends on the jam,” I said. “They say you’re brave.” “Brave is what they call you until it doesn’t work,” I said. “Then they call you beaten. But you don’t want to hear my story. You want to tell me yours.” Jackie sighed and sat down on a stack of tires. “My dog’s gone.” Squeak gasped. “Not Lysistrata? She’s the best watchdog I’ve ever seen!” “Loudest bark this side of the Mortmain Mountains,” Jackie said with pride,” but someone swiped her last night, and left this note for me taped to the Dilemma’s windshield.” The mechanic took a sheet of paper out of a dirty pocket, and we all leaned in to see: If you ever want to see your dog alive again, bring a complete set of Dugga Drills to 1300 Blotted Boulevard at midnight tonight. Be sensible. Come alone. Yours sincerely, The Person Who Kidnapped Your Dog“Dugga makes the best drills money can buy,” Jackie said, “but I’d give anything to have my dog back.” “Who knows you have such valuable tools?” I asked. The mechanic pointed to a corner, where there was a bright red case marked Dugga. “Anyone who comes by,” Jackie said. “But what I can’t figure is how a stranger got my Lysistrata to come with them, and where they’re hiding her now. She’d be barking like crazy, but I rode around all morning and heard nothing.” “Did you go by the Hairdryer Emporium?” Pip asked. “That’s probably the loudest place in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. The kidnapper could be hiding her there.” “I’m not from around here,” I reminded the Bellerophons. “Who runs the Hairdryer Emporium?” “Hal Hairdryer,” said Squeak. “You’ve probably seen him out in front of his brother’s place, Hairdryer’s Salamis. He has a funny hat and two very serious arms.” “But that place closed up a couple of weeks ago,” Jackie said, and sighed. “If he’s the kidnapper, I don’t know where we’d find him.” “Running a loud business isn’t reason enough to call him a kidnapper,” I said. “The best way to find out who took Lysistrata is to catch them red-handed when you bring them the ransom.” “Will you come with me tonight, Snicket?” The mechanic gestured to a motorcycle waiting by the door. “I’ll put the drills in the saddlebag and pick you up at the Lost Arms around eleven. We’ll get there early and you can hide yourself. That way we can get my dog back and catch whoever did it.” “Blotted Boulevard sure will be spooky at that hour,” Pip said, reminding me of a time we’d been out there together, chasing a villain named Hangfire. “We’ll come with you, too.” “No,” Jackie said. “The kidnappers would notice your taxi. The note said to come alone.” I looked at the note again. “Be sensible” was something my chaperone, Theodora, said all the time, but like the case of Dugga Drills, this was something plenty of people had noticed. “You kids get outta here!” The voice came from the doorway, where Jackie’s grandfather was leaning with a jar of molasses in one hand and, in the other, a jar of molasses. His voice was sticky and slurry, either because his mouth was full of molasses or empty of teeth, or both. “They’re friends, Grampa,” Jackie said. “They’re keeping you from your work,” the old man said, spitting a brown glop onto the floor. “That Knight girl’s going to get very impatient.” “I’ve told you a thousand times,” Jackie said. “You’re not going to take over this job for me.” “You could at least let me deliver it,” slurred the old man. “That car deserves to have a driver like me. After all, I competed in the Magritte Derby.” “That was thirty-seven years ago,” Jackie said patiently, “and you came in thirty-eighth place. I’ll deliver it myself, thank you.” “You can’t drive a Dilemma. You don’t have the reflexes of a professional like me.” “Your hands shake from too much sugar,” Jackie said, “and your ears ring constantly from the bowling alley.” “I like ringing ears!” the old man cried. It is better to dive into a shark tank than a family argument. “We’d better get going,” I said. “See you later, Jackie.” “Much obliged,” Jackie replied, which is a fancy way of saying “thank you,” and slid back under the equally fancy car. It was not easy to persuade my chaperone to let me help Jackie get Lysistrata back, but I explained it to her in a whisper at about ten thirty that night, when Theodora had fallen asleep, and I took her silence to be words which here mean “Go ahead, Snicket. Sneak out without waking me, and take a motorcycle ride in the middle of the night.” I gave Prosper Lost a wave as I headed out, and Jackie was waiting with an extra helmet and a grim expression. “I took the long way here, just to see if I could hear my dog barking anyplace.” “The kidnapper could have drugged her,” I said, thinking of Hangfire again. The mechanic shuddered. “I just can’t imagine who would kidnap my dog, even to get a set of expensive drills as ransom.” “They could have stolen those drills,” I said, “when they stole the dog.” “Lysistrata would have barked at any intruder,” Jackie said, “and I would have awoken.” It wasn’t a bad answer, but it wasn’t good enough, just like my list of suspects. Hangfire was associated with Blotted Boulevard. Hal Hairdryer ran a loud establishment suitable for hiding a loud dog. Theodora liked the word “sensible.” Not a bad list, but it didn’t feel good enough. I probably do not need to tell you that young people should not be riding around on motorcycles, even if the driver is a skilled mechanic with an extra helmet, and even if there’s a sort of magical terror to feeling the night air rushing in your face and the engine whining underneath you. I hung on tight to Jackie’s shoulders and tried to decide if I was more scared than excited or more excited than scared. I decided it was a tie. We arrived early at Blotted Boulevard, as planned, and stood for a moment together on the silent, empty block. I hid behind a pile of rubble that looked like it had once been a newsstand, and Jackie stood beneath a flickering streetlight and waited. I waited, too. We kept waiting and then we kept at it. Both of us waited for almost two hours. Even in my hiding place I felt like a target, or an animal soon to become prey. I don’t know what Jackie felt like, out there where anyone could see. But if anyone saw, nobody came forward. We spent two late hours waiting for nothing, and finally the mechanic came to fetch me. “Nobody showed,” Jackie said. “I thought nobody would,” I admitted, “but it didn’t hurt to be sure.” “Well, you’re a good sport to help me,” Jackie said. “I’ll take you back to your hotel.” I shook my head. “Let’s ride around for a while,” I said. Jackie smiled. “You like a joyride?” “Joyride” is a word for driving around just for fun, but I’d had enough excitement for one evening and said so. “But joyriding is the whole reason for your dog’s disappearance. I think the kidnapper’s had his fun by now, and I’m sure Lysistrata will be returned to you.” The solution to this mystery is restricted to members of my secret organization, who can identify themselves by turning this report upside down. Bad Gang.Click to read the Suspicious Incident entitled "Bad Gang." BAD GANG. This is an account of an eventful weekend I had unchaperoned. I was unchaperoned because S. Theodora Markson decided to leave one Thursday morning to visit her sister, who lived in a charming cottage out in the country with a beautiful garden and a darling teacup collection and no little boy underfoot to muck up everything and ruin their fun. That was me. I was going to stay by myself all weekend and not make any trouble and maybe she would bring me a teacup as a reward if I did. “That’s all right,” I told her. “You don’t have to steal your sister’s teacups on my behalf.” Theodora glared at me and put her suitcase in the back of her roadster, which was parked crookedly in front of the Lost Arms. My chaperone drove around in a green car that was so dilapidated I was afraid it would fall apart every time someone touched it. “I expect you to be good and follow all the rules of our organization.” “It’s against the rules of our organization for the chaperone to take a vacation and leave her apprentice all alone,” I said. “You sound like a person who doesn’t want a brand new teacup.” “Most people sound like that,” I said, but Theodora just shook her head and put on the leather helmet she always wore when driving, which captured her wild hair about as well as a handkerchief would capture a swarm of eels. She was a curious sight, S. Theodora Markson. She always was, and I was always curious about her. “What does the S stand for?” I asked, over the ragged sound of the engine. “ What?” she shouted back. “ What does the S stand for in your name?” “ See you Sunday!” she said, and puttered off. I watched her go and then waited a sensible amount of time in case she forgot something and had to come puttering back. She didn’t. I went back up to my room, and I’m not ashamed to say I did a little dance. It was the sort of dance you do when you’re finally alone in your room. It was a short dance, and I had plenty of time to head on over to the library and read as long as I liked. That was Thursday. --- The next morning I took a walk to the oldest neighborhood in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. I don’t know what I was looking for. I was thinking about my biggest case, a mystery which had started long, long before I’d arrived in town. Most of the clues had vanished. I thought perhaps a good place to look was the town’s first business district, which was a few blocks of buildings around a small paved courtyard. The buildings had once been very impressive and now looked only as if they had once been very impressive. Weeds had come through the cobblestones of the courtyard, pushing them aside like their turn was over, and little metal chairs where people had once sat and sipped drinks were now scattered and rusty. I found something straightaway, but I’m sorry to report it was Harvey and Mimi Mitchum, Stain’d-by-the-Sea’s only police officers and the sort of married couple who argued from the moment they woke up in the morning to the moment they fell asleep in the middle of some cranky sentence. They weren’t very good police officers, but to be fair, it was probably because they didn’t have enough time to do a good job. They were too busy arguing. This particular Mitchum argument was taking place in front of a shop window which had been shattered, leaving jagged fragments of glass everywhere on the sidewalk. According to the sign, the store was called Boards, and sure enough, the man waiting for the officers to stop arguing was holding a thick plank. “And I’m telling you, Mimi,” Harvey Mitchum was saying when I approached, “that he only thought he heard the heart beating in his room. It wasn’t actually beating.” “You’re wrong about that,” Mimi said. “I read the story better than you did.” “You can’t read something better, Mimi. That’s absurd.” “Then why did you think the store was called Broads when we first got here?” “I just glanced at the sign.” “It’s because you were thinking about broads, that’s why.” “Excuse me,” I said, and everyone turned to look at me, although only the man holding the board wasn’t glaring. “Move along, Snicket,” Harvey said sternly. “This is police business. The Big Bad Brick Gang has struck again.” “Who are the Big Bad Brick Gang?” I asked. “Not that it’s any of your business,” Mimi said, “but the Big Bad Brick Gang is an anonymous group of vandals and other malcontents who strike in secret in the middle of the night, with clever strategy and bricks. We cannot know when they will strike next and no one will ever catch them, but the whole world knows the menace of the Big Bad Brick Gang.” “I’ve never heard of them,” I said. The Mitchums looked at each other as if they were a little embarrassed. “Confidentially,” Harvey Mitchum said, using a word which here means “please don’t tell anyone,” “we hadn’t heard of them until this morning.” “My son has mentioned them before,” said the man with the board. “When we heard the crash in the middle of the night, he guessed it was the Big Bad Brick Gang who was responsible.” He called into the shop through the shattered window. “Kevin!” A boy about my age stepped forward, holding a board in each hand. “Tell the police,” the man said. “Tell them what you’ve heard about this Big Bad Brick Gang.” “Not much,” Kevin said. “Just that they’re an anonymous group of vandals and other malcontents. Vandals are people who destroy property, and malcontents are people who are angry enough to do such things.” “My son has been telling me that we should get a weapon to keep the store safe from this gang,” the man said, using the plank to gesture down the street. “He’s always going on about fencing and swashbuckling and all the other nonsense he gets from pirate books. I’ve told him it’s foolishness.” “It is foolishness,” Mimi said. “Weapons would be of no help. We cannot know where they will strike next.” “Did they steal anything, or just break the window?” I asked. “They stole a board,” the shopkeeper said. “It’s our bestselling model, and it looks like this. In fact, this might be it. It’s hard to tell. But there was a board in the window we had on sale, and I think they took it after they threw the brick.” “I’m glad that’s all they took,” I said. “Don’t be glad,” Harvey snapped. “The police force of Stain’d-by-the-Sea will do all we can for Boards. It’s an Old family business.” “I’m Bob Old,” the shopkeeper explained. “My family has run this business for years. I’m grateful that you came, Officers, but I’m not sure what the police can do.” “That’s true,” Harvey said. “No one will ever catch them.” “How do you know all this about the Big Bad Brick Gang,” I asked, “if you’ve never heard of them until today?” Mimi reached into the pocket of her police uniform and handed me a wadded-up piece of paper. “This was wrapped around the brick,” she said, and I uncrumpled the note and read what it said. Hello there, We are the Big Bad Brick Gang, an anonymous group of vandals and other malcontents who strike in secret in the middle of the night, with clever strategy and bricks. You cannot know when we will strike next and no one will ever catch us, but the whole world knows the menace of the Big Bad Brick Gang. Yours truly, The Big Bad Brick Gang“Just because they wrote that no one will ever catch them,” I said, “doesn’t mean it’s true.” “You see?” Harvey said to his wife. “You don’t read very well.” “What this foolish kid said has nothing to do with how well I read,” Mimi said, and Bob Old walked back into his store as the Mitchums started up arguing again. I decided to leave, too. Listening to adults argue was a waste of a perfectly good unchaperoned day. Instead, I found Moxie Mallahan and we played a dice game her mother had taught her. Moxie’s father went to bed so early that she was unchaperoned most of the time. It was the sort of dice game you could play for money, but we didn’t. If we had played for money I would have owed Moxie a fortune. That was Friday. --- I woke up early and had breakfast at Hungry’s, but as soon as Jake Hix told me the news I left my frittata half-finished and hurried back to the old section of town. There was another shattered window and another shopkeeper out front. This time the sign read SWORDS, and this time the Mitchums were standing there arguing again, although this time they had their son, Stew, with them. Stew Mitchum was a nasty piece of work. Like a cactus, the best thing to do with him was ignore him, no matter how much he kept poking me. “Here you are again,” Harvey Mitchum said. “I’m beginning to think you’re a member of the BBBG yourself.” I was already a member of an organization that sometimes struck in the middle of the night, but I saw no reason to volunteer that information to the Mitchums. “I heard they struck again,” I said. Mimi shook her head and kicked at a piece of glass. “A Distinguished family business,” she said. “I can’t believe the BBBG dared to strike here.” “I’m Muriel Distinguished,” the shopkeeper explained to me, and she began to sweep up the broken glass. “Was anything stolen?” I asked. “Just one sword, which we had displayed in the window,” Ms. Distinguished said. “Similar crime, similar note,” Harvey said, waving a piece of paper. Hello there, We are the Big Bad Brick Gang. You probably can’t believe we struck here, but we did. You’ll never figure out what makes us choose a place to strike. By the way, if you want to call us the BBBG, that’s fine with us. Yours truly, The Big Bad Brick Gang, aka the BBBG“We’ll never figure out what makes them choose a place to strike,” Mimi said. “What in the world do Boards and Swords have in common?” “Nothing,” Stew said. “That’s right, son,” Harvey said proudly. “You’re a genius.” “They rhyme,” I said. Mimi frowned. “What rhymes?” “The names of the stores,” I said, and turned to Muriel Distinguished. “Are there any other stores with similar-sounding names?” “There’s an electrical supply store, Cords, just down the street,” the shopkeeper said, “and across the square is Gourds, where I buy all my decorative squashes. There used to be a Scandinavian travel place called Fjords, but it went out of business last winter.” I turned to the Mitchums. “The crimes of the Big Bad Brick Gang appear to be following a pattern. If you like, I’d be happy to help you keep an eye on those two other businesses.” “First of all, let’s call them the BBBG,” Harvey said. “And thirdly, we don’t need your help when we have Stewart around. Our son is smarter than you, and more handsome. Isn’t that right, Stewie?” “You’re so nice to me, Daddy,” Stew said, and when his father chuckled and turned his back, he gave me a big, hard poke. That was Saturday. --- I asked the Bellerophon brothers, known as Pip and Squeak, to drive me around the old neighborhood as soon as the sun came up. All was quiet at Cords. Nothing was amiss at Gourds. But then through the taxi window I saw more shattered glass, and the Bellerophons deposited me in front of another vandalized business with a stunned shopkeeper and police officers arguing in front of it. There were pink and red petals on the sidewalk, along with the familiar sight of broken glass, and painted petals decorated the sign over the door. I looked at the name of the business and sighed the sigh of someone who’s wrong and sighs about it. “And I’m telling you, Harvey,” Mimi said, “the dead bird is what changed her mind about her mother’s old suitor, and that’s why she came back.” “I don’t know why you bother to read at all,” Harvey said, “when you understand no more than a garden slug.” “I’ll slug you if you keep talking like that,” Mimi growled. “I can’t believe you said that! Apologize at once!” “You’re the one who got me angry enough to say it! Apologize for provoking me!” “Apologize for provoking me!” “Apologize for provoking my provocation!” My shoes crackled on a piece of broken glass, and the bickering Mitchums turned to glare at me. “You have some nerve coming around here,” Harvey said. “Boards and Swords don’t rhyme with the name of this store. It’s not even half-rhyme!” “Chrysanthemums,” Mimi said, “is a Respectable family business, and we are helpless to bring the BBBG to justice.” She waved another piece of paper, but I didn’t need to read it. I was sure it said that the police were helpless to bring the gang to justice. “I’m Lemony Snicket,” I said to the shopkeeper. “I’m sorry about what happened to your store. I had a theory about what was going on, and I’m sad to say I was wrong about it. I assume you’re Ms. Respectable?” The shopkeeper gave me a curious look. “My name is Smith,” she said. “Delphinium Smith. Our family happens to be respectable, but it’s not our name.” “I’m sorry,” I said, although I was used to asking the wrong questions during my days in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. “Was anything stolen, Ms. Smith?” “My daughter’s just checking,” the shopkeeper said. “The brick almost hit the bed where she slept last night.” She dropped her broom for a moment and cupped both hands to her mouth to call into the shop. “Florence!” A girl emerged from the shop, giving her mother an apologetic look and holding a book I recognized. “Sorry, Mother. I got distracted by a good part of my book. Peter is just escaping from Barbados and has decided to be a buccaneer.” “It’s about to get even better,” I said. “Don’t tell me what happens next,” Florence said. “I hate having a book spoiled.” “I would never do such a thing,” I said. “Another bookworm,” the shopkeeper said to me with a grimace. “I don’t know where Florence gets those books. Personally, I think literature is garbage. None of my daughters are allowed a library card, and Florence can’t have a bookshelf in her room unless she builds it herself.” “I’m sorry to hear you say that,” I said. “It makes me less enthusiastic about telling you I’ve solved the crimes. But perhaps the guilty parties will work together to repair the windows and explain their behavior.” “Hold on,” Harvey Mitchum said. “Are you saying you know how to stop the Big Bad Brick Gang? Because according to something I read recently, no one will ever figure out how to stop them.” “They’re not really a gang,” I said. “Just two people in cahoots.” “Name them,” Mimi said, “so we can arrest the cahooters.” “Yes,” Harvey said, for once in agreement with his wife. “We can’t have any cahooting in this town.” I didn’t tell them. Nor did I tell Theodora anything that evening, when she came home and asked me what I’d done all weekend. I told her nothing and she gave me a teacup decorated with an ugly pattern. Unchaperoned people often do things that respectable adults don’t understand, and the unchaperoned people like to keep it that way. The gang probably wouldn’t strike again, I thought, putting my teacup on the floor where I might carelessly step on it in the morning. And that was Sunday. --- The conclusion to “Bad Gang” is filed under “homemade Furniture,” page 225. HOMEMADE FURNITURE. People who share their pirate books might be sharing a crime as well. Kevin Old, son of the Boards shopkeeper, was in cahoots with Florence Smith, the daughter of the owner of Chrysanthemums. Florence wanted a bookshelf, and Kevin wanted a sword, so they concocted a story about a gang and even broke an extra window to put people off the trail. A page from "Violent Butcher."Click here to read a page of the book included on this promotional webpage. him. If you help me out here, I'll give you a rack of lamb."
"No, thanks," I said, thinking that it wasn't a good day to go to Black Cat Coffee after all. It was a good day to sit at the library by myself and fill my head with something other than the story of this family.
"Nothing I can say to convince you?" Mack asked.
"I'm afraid not."
"You ever get hit with a magazine?" Mack asked me. His voice was friendly enough, but he was rolling Read Meat up into a mean-looking tube. "They say it stings something awful."
I looked up and down the empty streets. "Well," I said, "you've convinced me."
"Thattaboy," Mack said, and rose up from the sidewalk like a new volcanic island. He lurched through the door with thattaboy following glumly behind. Black Cat Coffee looked the same as always and as empty as usual, but
Troublesome Ghost.Click to listen to the Suspicious Incident entitled "Troublesome Ghost." Read by Stephin Merritt. www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2014/03/stephin-merritt-narrates-an-exclusive-excerpt-from.htmlClick to read a transcript of the above recording. Troublesome Ghost. I woke up early and uncomfortable under my heavy blanket. Outside the window the morning was gray, and the air felt like a heavy blanket. At the other end of the Far East Suite was the figure of S. Theodora Markson, snoring in bed. She looked like a heavy blanket. When everything reminds you of a heavy blanket, you are probably going to have a grumpy day. I grumped out of bed and put on my clothes. They felt like a heavy blanket. I knew one of Theodora’s meagre breakfasts was not going to improve my mood, so I walked downstairs and nodded at Prosper Lost on my way out of the Lost Arms. He nodded back, or maybe the proprietor of the hotel was asleep. Stain’d-by-the-Sea once had a great number of restaurants, most of them specializing in seafood. With the sea drained away, the seafood was in very scarce supply, so now most of the town’s restaurants specialized in being closed and boarded up. But Hungry’s, where my associate Jake Hix cooked up marvellous things behind the counter, was still around, and I thought a Hix breakfast might improve my morning. I took the short walk through the quiet streets. The morning fog hung slow and thick around the streetlights. I probably don’t need to tell you what that reminded me of. I expected to be Hungry’s only customer, but when I walked in, Jake was serving up a plate of banana waffles to a worried-looking man in overalls that looked worried, too. IF you’ve ever had a good banana waffle, you know it’s nothing to worry about, and Jake’s waffles were very good. His secret was that he caramelized the bananas first, although there’s no reason to tell him who you learned that from. “Good morning, Snicket. My waffle iron’s still hot, if you’re interested.” “I’m definitely interested,” I said. “And a cup of tea to go with it?” “I’m interested in that, too.” “And a ghost story? Would you be interested in that?” I just gave him a look. Everyone’s interested in ghost stories. If you ask if anyone wants to hear a ghost story, no one is going to say “No thanks, I’d rather just sit here,” and neither did I. Jake gestured to his other customer, and the worried-looking man shook my hand, and when he was done with his bite of waffle, told me his name. “Hans Mann,” he said. “Lemony Snicket,” I said. “You’re not from around here,” the man said. “Snicket’s only been in town a little while,” Jake said, busy with bananas at the stove, “but he’s helped out a lot of people.” “I wish he’d help out my mother,” Hans said, “but I’m afraid it’s too late now.” Jake tilted the sizzling bananas into a bowl of battler. “Hans used to work at the Stain’d Playhouse,” he said. “He built all the sets for the big productions, and Old Lady Mann ran the box office.” “We put on some terrific shows back then,” Hans said wistfully. “We had a huge pirate ship with all the rigging for Shiver Me Timbers. Sally Murphy rose to the ceiling on invisible wires when she played the title role in Mother of Icarus. We even had a train wreck onstage when we performed Look Out for That Train Wreck.” “I remember that,” Jake said, whisking briskly. “I could never figure out how you split that passenger car in two every night.” “The whole thing was held together with chains,” Hans explained. “When the actor playing the cowboy shouted ‘I wonder what’s taking Margery so long,’ Billy Becker and I would give the apparatus a good tug and it would split apart. The chains were hidden behind the train car so the audience couldn’t see them, and after the shepherd discovered his identical twin in the last scene, the curtain would come down and we’d push the two halves of the train car back together for the next performance.” “And now you’re doing a play about ghosts?” I asked. “I don’t build sets anymore,” Hans said with a sigh. “When the Playhouse closed down, I moved to the city and found work in a staple gun factory.” “Most of the actors and stagehands have left town,” Jake said to me. “Billy Becker and Sally Murphy are the only ones still in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. Billy lives in an old shack in what used to be the Anchovy District, and spends his time trying to catch rats in an old pillowcase, and you know what Sally Murphy’s up to.” “I do indeed,” I said grimly, thinking of my biggest case. “Becker and Murphy aren’t the only ones,” Hans said. “My mother’s still here. She’s old and her legs ache and she hardly ever leaves the house, but she’s still around.” “What does she do all day?” Jake asked. “Reads,” Hans replied, “plays the harmonium, and maintains the fish scale mosaics.” “I thought she donated those to a museum someplace,” Jake said. “Those mosaics are worth a fortune.” “She wants them in her house until the day she no longer lives there,” Hans said, “but I’m afraid that day has come. I drove in from the city today to get my mother to come live with me. It’s nothing like our grand home here in Stain’d-by-the-Sea, but there’s a small spare room waiting for her in my apartment, and the staple gun factory has greed to let her work part-time in the Customer Complaints Department.” “Listening to people complain about their staple guns can’t be as fun as playing the harmonium,” I said. “You got that right, brother,” Hans said, “but you can’t always have the life you want most. I wish my mother could live in the Mann mansion forever, but she’s too frightened of my father’s ghost to live out here by herself anymore.” “Waffles are ready,” Jake said, and gave me mine. I dug in. It was a good time to eat, now that we were at the ghost part of the ghost story, although any time would have been a good time to dig into these waffles. Hix had put a thin layer of whipped cream, real whipped cream that wasn’t too sweet, in between them, making each bite crisp and light, the opposite of a heavy blanket and the heavy sigh Hans gave me as he continued his story. “A few weeks ago,” he said, “my mother woke up in the middle of the night to a loud noise coming from the East Wing. She put on her slippers and walked downstairs to see what it was. She told me it sounded clanky and rattly, but when she got there, the noise stopped, and she didn’t see anything unusual in the sitting room, the game room, or the solarium. Thinking it was her imagination, she returned to her room, but she was kept up all night by a sinister muttering that was coming from under the bed. She turned on the lights and searched everywhere but couldn’t find anything, even though the muttering continued all night, along with squeaks and scrapes that lasted until dawn. When she finally went down the west staircase to have her morning tea in the morning tea room, she was a wreck, and when she went back upstairs to change out of her robe, she found that the chest at the foot of her bed had been opened and all of its contents thrown around the room.” “What were its contents?” Jake asked. “Was there anything valuable inside the chest?” “It was nothing but heavy blankets,” replied Hans. “Hmm,” I said. “You need maple syrup, Snicket?” Jake asked. “No thanks,” I said. I never need maple syrup. I can’t shake the feeling that it’s like drinking the blood of a tree. “What happened next, Hans?” “What happened next was the same thing the next night,” Hans said, “and the next and the next and the next. Clanking in some distant part of the house, and then muttering and scraping under the bed.” “I’m surprised Old Lady Mann didn’t sleep in a different room,” Jake said. “There must be a dozen bedrooms in that place.” “Seventeen,” Hans said. “We used to host visiting theater troupes when they came through town. Some of the bedrooms have been closed up for years, but even when my mother tried sleeping in those rooms, the noises followed her, and there were things thrown around every morning.” He pushed his plate away and faced me. “Hix knows my mother,” he said, “but you don’t, Snicket. So let me tell you that she is tough as nails. She doesn’t frighten easily. In fifty years of local theater she’s seen too many crazy actors and elaborate productions to be troubled by nonsense. So when she told me she was frightened, I was worried, but now she’s panicked and I’m frantic.” I put down my fork. It is not polite to talk to frantic people with one’s mouth full of whipped cream. “Was there something specific that made her panic?” I asked. Hans nodded. “Last night, she says, she finally saw the ghost who was responsible for all the disturbances.” “There are many things that could be responsible instead of ghosts,” I said. “Right again, brother,” Hans said with a nod. “I don’t believe in ghosts, and my mother never did either. But last night she told me she saw the ghost of my father floating outside her bedroom window. That’s on the fifth floor! No person could climb up all that way!” “Most people couldn’t,” I agreed, “but some people could. I went to school with a few of them. I bet there’s even a windowsill they could stand on.” “It’s too narrow,” Hans said, “and too crumbly. But my mother said she saw my father there, clear as day in the middle of the night—a floating, fluttering spectre with a dark and shadowy face.” “A shadowy face,” I repeated. “Then how could your mother be sure who it was?” “Because she was married to him for thirty-seven years,” Hans said. “You could recognize your husband, even if it was dark out.” “The whole town could recognize him,” Jake said. “He was famous in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. He made those mosaics we were talking about.” “He was in a few of the Playhouse shows, too,” Hans said. “I remember my sister worked all night on his costume for The Man Who Looked Somewhat Like Winston Churchill before she joined the air force. But now it’s my father’s ghost flying around out there, my mother says. But it doesn’t really matter if it’s a real ghost or not. I’m taking my mother back to the city.” “Not so fast,” Jake said, and pointed his spatula at me. “I bet Snicket can solve this mystery just by asking a question or two. Am I wrong, Snicket?” “What makes these bananas taste so good?” I asked. Hix frowned, and I guess I deserved a frown. I was showing off a little. “I caramelize them,” Jake said, “but that’s a professional secret.” “It’s no secret that the world is full of secrets,” I said. “I guess we’d better go over to the Mann mansion and uncover one or two.” “You’re welcome to talk to my mother,” Hans said, “but I told you everything she told me.” “It’s not your mother I want to talk to,” I said, and pushed my plate away with a sigh. “In a way I feel sorry for the guy. You were right, Hans. You can’t always have the life you want most. And even if the mosaics go to a museum, a mansion is a much better home than an old shack in the former Anchovy District.” The conclusion to “Troublesome Ghost” is filed under “Train Wreck.” Book Trailers" Inside Job," read by Jon Scieszka. " Pinched Creature," read by Terry Gross. " Ransom Note," read by Sarah Vowell. " Walkie-Talkie," read by Libba Bray. " Bad Gang," read by Ira Glass. " Violent Butcher," read by Jon Klassen. " Twelve or Thirteen," read by Chris Kluwe. " Troublesome Ghost," read by Stephin Merritt. Sketch IllustrationsFile for SI:From PublishersWeekly: The final version of the left-hand full-page illustration can be found in the Suspicious Incident entitled "Bad Gang." The final version of the centre full-page illustration can be found in the Suspicious Incident entitled "Three Suspects." The final version of the right-hand full-page illustration can be found in the Suspicious Incident entitled "Pinched Creature." Preview QuizClick to view a quiz written by Mr. Snicket containing quotes and illustrations from every Suspicious Incident. QUIZ: Can You Find The Mistakes In These Sentences?by Lemony SnicketThere is nothing authors enjoy more than receiving letters from readers informing them of grammatical or rhetorical errors in their published work. Each time a book of Mr. Snicket's is published, he receives many such letters, and as his official representative I always wish I could meet these correspondents in person so I might explain that Mr. Snicket purposefully litters his work with textual mistakes in order to test their acumen. Why not challenge yourself now, grammarians and other policers? Here are thirteen sentences from Mr. Snicket's new work, File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents [Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, $12.00], which some say has a punctuation error in the title and others say contains a set of bewildering mysteries which will lead young readers alarmingly astray. Read each sentence carefully, and then choose from the two suggested improvements so that the book might be more beneficial to people less wise and discerning than yourselves.img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/FFWF/slide_343743_3573255_free.jpg1. Sometimes you are suspicious because of something, and sometimes you are suspicious because of nothing. A. Sometimes one is suspicious with cause, and sometimes one isn't. B. Sometimes you are suspicious, but it's probably nothing, so go back to bed. img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/FFWF/slide_343743_3573256_free.jpg2. But my mother said she saw my father there, clear as day in the middle of the night--a floating, fluttering specter with a dark and shadowy face. A. However, my mother said she clearly saw my father there that evening--a floating, fluttering specter with a dark and shadowy face. B. But my mother said she saw my father there, clear as day in the middle of the night--a certified public accountant in a navy blue suit. img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/FFWF/slide_343743_3573257_free.jpg3. It was remarkable, I thought, how many neighborhoods were named after the things that used to be there before the neighborhood came along and changed the neighborhood. A. I found it remarkable how many neighborhoods had historical names. B. It was remarkable, I thought, how many neighborhoods were safe, were clean, and had good schools and low taxes. img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/FFWF/slide_343743_3573258_free.jpg4. Literature and the law don't always get along. A great number of authors have been locked in prison for certain pieces of writing, and just as many police officers have been reduced to tears when reading a particularly powerful book. A. Literature and the law are two abstract concepts which are not always compatible. Specifically, some authors have been imprisoned, and some lawfolk can read. B. Literature and the law don't always get along, so if you enjoy literature, you don't have to attend law school just because your parents say so, and if you're a lawyer, certainly don't write a novel. img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/FFWF/slide_343743_3573259_free.jpg5. "The marriage I've arranged for my daughter," she said, gesturing to Tatiana, "is being ruined by a demon." A. "The marriage I've arranged for my only daughter, Tatiana," she said, "is being ruined by a demon." B. "The marriage I've arranged for my daughter," she said, gesturing to Tatiana, "is being ruined by a certified public accountant in a navy blue suit." img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/FFWF/slide_343743_3573260_free.jpg6. "What kind of funny?" I asked her. "Funny like a clown onstage? Or funny like a clown hanging around the entrance to a bank?" A. "What kind of 'funny'?" I asked her. "'Funny' with the synonym 'humorous'? Or 'funny' with the synonym 'strange'? B. "Hee hee hee hee," I guffawed. img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/FFWF/slide_343743_3573261_free.jpg7. "You ever get hit with a magazine?" Mack asked me. His voice was friendly enough, but he was rolling Read Meat up into a mean‐looking tube. A. "You ever get hit with a magazine?" Mack asked me. His voice was friendly enough, but his gesture of rolling up a publication entitled Read Meat could be interpreted as hostile. B. "You ever subscribe to a magazine?" Mack asked me, showing me his catalog. "The prices are very reasonable, and it helps me earn money for college." img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/FFWF/slide_343743_3573262_free.jpg8. Stain'd‐by‐the‐Sea was the sort of place where secrets lurked everywhere, like shuddering plants behind a fence I'd never thought twice about. A. Stain'd‐by‐the‐Sea was the sort of place in which secrets lurked, like shuddering plants behind a fence about which I'd never thought twice. B. Stain'd‐by‐the‐Sea was the sort of place which could serve as an eerie setting for a series of children's books available by clicking here. img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/FFWF/slide_343743_3573263_free.jpg9. We are the Big Bad Brick Gang, an anonymous group of vandals and other malcontents who strike in secret in the middle of the night, with clever strategy and bricks. A. We are the Big Bad Brick Gang, an anonymous group of vandals and other malcontents who strike strategically and secretly at night, using bricks. B. We are the Big Bad Brick Gang, a group of honor students who use their spare hours to pick up litter. img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/FFWF/slide_343743_3573264_free.jpg10. "Help! Help!" the voice called again, and in moments I was crouching on the floor next to the counter. A. "Help; Help!" the voice called again, and in moments I was crouching on the floor next to the counter. B. "Help! Help!" the voice called again, and in moments I had run quickly down the block so as not to get involved in anything dangerous. img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/FFWF/slide_343743_3573265_free.jpg11. "Trouble is like grease," I said, with a nod at Jackie's jumpsuit. "If you have it on you, you'll probably get it on everyone nearby." A. "Trouble is like grease," I said, gesturing to Jackie's greasy jumpsuit. "If you have grease on you, you'll probably get it on everyone nearby." B. "Trouble is like grease," I said, with a nod at Jackie's jumpsuit. "Eventually it will serve as the title of a cloying musical." img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/FFWF/slide_343743_3573266_free.jpg12. It was a warm, breezy day, with the wind carrying a salty smell from the seaweed of the Clusterous Forest, an eerie phenomenon that lay below the cliff we were on. A. It was a warm, breezy day, with the wind carrying a salty smell from the seaweed of the Clusterous Forest, an eerie phenomenon that lay below the cliff on which we were standing. B. It was a warm, breezy day, and thank goodness I was nowhere near a cliff or the Clusterous Forest but on a beautiful balcony waiting for my nine-year-old niece to finish mixing me a gimlet. img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/FFWF/slide_343743_3573267_free.jpg13. "Snide" is a word which here means "the kind of tone you use in an argument," and "sensible" refers to the tone you are supposed to use instead. A. "Snide" is a word which means "the kind of tone one uses in an argument," and "sensible" refers to the tone one is supposed to use instead. B. "Snide" is a word which describes people who know all about grammar, although "sensible" is the word they use to describe themselves. SCORING THE QUIZ:If you chose more As than Bs:Grr! It's "'A's' and 'B's!'" If you chose A's and B's equally:Literature is a slithery beast, which slips from the grasp of rule and ethic, like life. If you chose more B's than A's:You have the feeling this isn't a quiz with any educational merit whatsoever, but some sort of goofy piece serving to promote a book, thus besmirching the reputations of both Lemony Snicket and the Huffington Post. From now on, you will rely only on J. K. Rowling and BuzzFeed. Art by Seth.
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Post by Dante on Feb 11, 2014 11:47:49 GMT -5
Information: ?3 (The Third Question)Title: "Shouldn't You Be In School?"Release Date: 30 September 2014 Cover (LB):Cover (LB Paperback):Cover (Egmont):Cover (Hardie Grant Egmont):Promotional Synopses:Little, Brown & Co.:Is Lemony Snicket a detective or a smoke detector?Do you smell smoke? Young apprentice Lemony Snicket is investigating a case of arson but soon finds himself enveloped in the ever-increasing mystery that haunts the town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea. Who is setting the fires? What secrets are hidden in the Department of Education? Why are so many schoolchildren in danger? Is it all the work of the notorious villain Hangfire? How could you even ask that? What kind of education have you had? Maybe you should be in school? Lemony Snicket had an unusual education which may or may not explain his ability to evade capture. He is the author of the 13 volumes in A Series of Unfortunate Events, several picture books including The Dark, and the books collectively titled All The Wrong Questions. Seth was educated in Canada, where he learned that doodling in the margins could translate into gainful employment. He is the multi-award-winning creator of cartoons, graphic novels, and a barbershop located in the city of Guelph, Canada, where he resides. ( Source) HarperCollins Canada:Young apprentice Lemony Snicket is trying to smoke out an arsonist but soon finds himself enveloped in a thickening haze of mystery that has settled upon the town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea. Who is setting the fires? What secrets are hidden in the Department of Education? Why are so many schoolchildren in danger? Is it all the work of the notorious villain Hangfire? How could you even ask that? Maybe you should be in school. Promotional Materials:File for ?3:File under: Predictions, confirmed. Meeting transcript: S: If the first crime was theft, and the second crime was kidnapping, what will the third crime be? D: [Looks about.] Well, I don't want to say with all these people here ... guess a vowel. S: E. D: [Writes.] No. Guess another vowel. S: A. D: [Writes.] You can probably figure it out from here. Encl: Evidence. Provisional Release Dates: 30 September 2014? ( Source) 7 October 2014? (Source 1, 2) Teaser Cover Art:
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Post by Dante on Apr 28, 2014 11:37:31 GMT -5
Previews: The Third QuestionTranscriptsChapter OneClick to read Chapter One. TO: Erastothenes FROM: LS FILE UNDER: Stain’d-by-the-Sea, accounts of; arson, investigations of; Hangfire; pedagogy; Haines family, suspicions concerning; et cetera 3/4 cc: VFDhq CHAPTER ONE There was a town, and there was a librarian, and there was a fire. While I was in town I was hired to investigate this fire, and I thought the librarian could help me bring a villain to justice. I was almost thirteen and I was wrong. I was wrong about all of it. I should have asked the question, "Why would someone destroy one building when they really wanted to destroy another?" Instead, I asked the wrong questions- four wrong questions, more or less. This is the account of the third. I was spending a bad morning in a good library. What was bad was the weather, which was unforgivably hot. The sun was having a tantrum so fierce that all the shade had been scared away, and the sidewalks of Stain'd-by-the-Sea, the town in which I had been spending my time, were no place for a decent person to walk. The library, with its calm and cooling silence, was the only comfortable place to spend the early hours of the day. The weather wasn't the only thing that made the morning bad. There was a man, a vicious villain who went by the name ofHangfire. Every morning that found Hangfire still at large was a bad morning. He was hiding somewhere in town, biding his sinister time and planning his troublesome plans, and hiding and planning with him were his associates in an organization called the Inhumane Society. Recently they had set up shop in the Colophon Clinic, if the phrase "set up shop" can mean "turn an empty hospital into a place where many children could be kept prisoner for some sinister purpose." Although the Colophon Clinic had been destroyed, I was certain Hangfire was looking for a new location for whatever plot he was cooking up. For this reason I'd taken to spending my afternoons watching over the town's only remaining school. I guess I was watching to see if any children were being abducted. They weren't, not byHangfire or anyone else. Most of them were already gone. The ink industry, which had once been the pride of Stain'd-by-the-Sea, had faded away, and most of the town had faded along with it. Stain 'd Secondary had a large campus, a phrase which here meant that there was a tall, wide building that curved slightly like a seashell—the auditorium perhaps, or the gymnasium—with a grouping of small buildings in its shadow. Once the campus must have been a loud and busy place when the buzzer signaled the end of the day. Now it was much too large for the handful of students who walked quietly out into the gray afternoon. Some of them looked familiar from my time in town. Some of them didn't. All of them looked tired and none of them met my eyes. It was lonely work to watch over them, but I didn't learn anything about Hangfire's dark scheme. I hoped I'd have better luck in the library, and on that bad morning I was reading two things I hoped would help. The first was a book on caviar, and I didn't care who knew it. Caviar is the eggs of a fish, usually a sturgeon, black and shiny and served on small pieces of toast at parties to which you are not invited. As of that morning, at thirteen years of age, I'd never eaten any. I was not interested in eating any. I was reading Caviar: Salty Jewel of the Tasty Sea in the hopes of learning something, but as I finished a paragraph about the special tanks they use when the sturgeon are young, I wondered if I was wrong once more. The other thing I was reading was a secret. It had taken ten days to reach me, through the hard work of a number of people close to my heart but far away on the map. We'd learned together, in what most people would call a history class, that one good way to hide things is in plain sight. People often forget to look at some-thing right in front of them, and as promised I had found something taped to the underside of the table where I always sat. It had been tricky to peel away the tape without anyone noticing, and once it was removed from its hiding place and smoothed out so it would be easier to read, I kept sliding it under the book on caviar whenever I feared I was being watched. It was silly to hide it. It was just a small news-paper article from the city. Nobody in Stain'd-by-the-Sea cared about it. Nobody but me. I hid it anyway, when the librarian approached. You cannot have a really terrific library without at least one terrific librarian, the way you cannot have a really terrific bedroom unless you can lock the door. Stain'd-by-the-Sea's only librarian—or, as he called himself, sub-librarian—was terrific because he was kind and helpful without being irritating or bossy. This sort of person is an endangered species, almost extinct. Spending time in his library was like seeing a rare and strange beast that I might not ever see again, and sure enough, in a few short days this library, the only one in Stain'd-by-the-Sea, would be gone forever. "I'm sorry to interrupt you, Snicket," the librarian said, in his very deep voice. His name was Dashiell Qwerty, a tidy and proper name that didn't match his appearance. As usual, he was wearing a leather jacket decorated with small scraps of metal, a garment so dangerous-looking that Qwerty's hair always seemed to be scurrying away from it. I don't know what a matching name might have been. Wildhairy Oddjacket comes to mind. "That's quite all right," I said, and heard the newspaper rustle underneath my book. The article told the story of a young woman who had been arrested in the city for the crime of breaking and entering. Breaking and entering wasn't the right term, I thought. My sister didn't break in, not really. She had simply entered the Museum of Items when the museum was closed. It didn't seem like a good reason to put someone in prison, but according to the article that was likely to happen. "I was just checking to see if you had found everything you need," Qwerty said, either not noticing or pretending not to notice what I was hiding. "There are some new Italian dictionaries that I thought you might find interesting." "Maybe another time," I said. "Right now I have just the book I'm looking for. I'm glad to see that the shelves are in order again." "Yes, it was a bother to reorganize everything," Qwerty said, "but now the sprinkler and alarm system is finally installed. The controls are right over there in the northeast corner of the room, so I feel much less nervous about the threats that have been made." "You've mentioned those threats before," I said, "but you've never said anything more about them." "Yes, I have," Qwerty agreed, with a glance at the article in my lap, "and no, I haven't." He looked at me and I looked at him. We both wanted to know each other's secrets, and we both wanted the other person to go first. This is something that happens quite a bit, which is why you so often see children and adults staring at one another in nervous silence. We might have stayed there for quite a long time, but a moth flew into Qwerty's line of sight and he swatted at it with a checkered handkerchief. Qwerty was a predator of the moth known as the Farnsworth Pulpeater, as the FarnsworthPulpeater is a predator of paper. It appeared to be a battle that was to go on for quite some time without Qwerty or the moths giving up. "Well, if you're content," Qwerty said, as a moth escaped his attack, "I'll excuse myself and let you be. That young woman looks like she might need my help." I stood up too quickly. Even when reading two things at once, I had been thinking of some-thing else entirely. The something else was a girl, taller than I was or older than I was or both. She had curious eyebrows, curved and coiled like question marks, and she had a smile that might have meant anything. Her eyes were green and her hair so black it made caviar look beige, and in her possession was a statue that was blacker still. The statue was of a mythical creature called the Bombinating Beast, and it gazed out through hollow, wicked eyes at all the trouble gathered around it. The girl's father was in trouble, captured byHangfire, and she had tried to save him by doing favors for the Inhumane Society, so now she was in trouble too. I had promised to help her, but I hadn't seen the girl or the statue in quite some time. The girl, and the promise I'd made, hovered in my head no matter what I was reading, and her name hovered in my ears like the song she played on an old-fashioned phonograph, and on a music box that her father had left behind. I didn't know what the song was, but I liked it. Ellington Feint. Ellington Feint. Ellington Feint. It's probably not her, I told myself, as I hurried to the entrance of the library, and it wasn't. It was Moxie Mallahan, a fine journalist and a good friend, with a hat that looked like a lower-case a and a typewriter in its own folding case that could type a and all the other letters. She put the case down with a small frown of pain. Her arm was still bandaged from a recent encounter with someone good with a knife. "What's the news, Moxie?" I said. "It's good to see you, Snicket," she replied. "You're not too busy doing whatever it is you're doing?" "I always have time for an associate," I said. I led her back to my table, carrying her typewriter case. Her injury was partially my fault, as you can read in an account of mine. You don't have to read about it. I'm sure you have your own troubles. "I've been looking through the archives of The Stain'd Lighthouse, like you asked me to," Moxie said, sitting down across from me. "It was boring work, Snicket." "I'm sure it was," I said. The Stain'd Lighthouse was a newspaper that had once been at the breakfast table of every resident of Stain'd-by-the-Sea, thanks to the hard work of Moxie's family. But now the newspaper had folded, a term Moxie had explained to me. It did not mean folded the way you can fold a newspaper into a hat or a boat or a man with a sword riding on a swan. It meant that it had surrendered to the ink shortages that had scared so many of the town's citizens away. Moxie was the only journalist left in Stain'd-by-the-Sea, and the only thing left of the newspaper was vast piles of past editions, strewn around the rooms of the Mallahan lighthouse. "I'm sorry I had to ask you to do that," I said, but I couldn't find anything in the library about Stain'd-by-the-Sea's fishing industry." "I looked at the business section of the news-paper," Moxie said, all the way back to before I was born. My mother used to say that the business section had all of the really exciting secrets hidden there in plain sight, but I'm not sure I found any. I wish she were still in town, so she would have been able to help me." "I'm sure you'll hear from her soon," I said quickly, although I wasn't sure at all. Moxie nodded, but she wasn't looking at me. She opened her typewriter case and looked at the page of notes she'd been typing. "The business section might have exciting secrets, but it's very boring to read." "That's probably why they hide the secrets there." "Maybe so. It was difficult to stay awake while I was reading it." "Maybe you should have had some coffee." "Not I, Snicket. I don't drink coffee. You're thinking of that girl who caused all the trouble with that statue." "I guess I am thinking of her," I admitted. Ellington liked to sit at the counter of an establishment called Black Cat Coffee, on the corner of Caravan and Parfait. She often had her coffee very late at night and stayed there to watch the sun rise. "Well, I wish you'd stop," Movie said sourly. "Anyway, I found something that I thought you might think was helpful. It's from an article published when the town was arguing about draining the sea: 'Porter Roeman, who runs the Roe House, told reporters that he opposed the draining, as it would adversely affect local marine life.' What's 'adversely' mean?" "Badly," I said, and we gave each other one grim nod each. Some years ago, the town had decided to drain the sea so the last few octopi could be found and harvested for ink. The idea was to save Ink Inc., which was Stain'd-by-the-Sea's largest and most important company. It was the wrong idea. The draining of the sea had drained the town along with it. The town's stores and restaurants had folded as quickly as The Stain'd Lighthouse. A fancy, top-drawer school on an island was now nothing but empty buildings on a pile of craggy rocks, connected by a bridge that was no longer necessary. Where once had been countless fish and swirling waves, there was now the Clusterous Forest, a vast, law-less landscape of shivering seaweed. And Ink Inc. had been affected as adversely as the rest of town, and had recently shut its doors for good. A young woman of my acquaintance, a brilliant chemist named Cleo Knight, was in a small cottage working on a solution to the ink problem, but I didn't know if she'd finish her work before the town disappeared completely. Nobody knew. Moxie continued to read from her notes. "A successful fish business requires loyal workers and a steady supply of food. Mr.Roeman said that without a local source of plankton, Roe House would likely go out of business. And it did, Snicket. Stain'd-by-the-Sea's fishing industry is gone, just like everything else." She reached into her typewriter case and took out a photograph. "I developed this photograph myself, in the basement darkroom. It's Roe House on its last day of business. Feast your eyes,Snicket." My eyes tried to feast but they nearly starved. The photograph showed a large, empty room, with small rectangular marks on the scuffed floor. In the far corner of the room was a small door, the only thing to look at. I looked at it. It could have led anywhere. A back room, I thought. An exit someplace. "It's a big room," I said finally. Moxie looked at me. "Big enough to be Hangfire's new headquarters?" "It doesn't look big enough to hold a large group of kidnapped children," I said, 'but perhaps Hangfire has given up on that part of his plan." "But what's the rest of his plan, Snicket?" "I don't know," I admitted. "The Inhumane Society had all that aquatic equipment at the Colophon Clinic, so I thought the fishing industry might be involved somehow. But it doesn't seem like your search through the archives has turned up much." "That's what I thought," Moxie said, and scratched at the bandage on her arm. She had told me to stop asking her if it still hurt. "But then I thought maybe we should go see for ourselves." "Good idea." "Come on, then. The address is 350 Wayward Way." "350 Wayward Way? I don't know where that is." "Good thing you have an associate who grew up in this town," Moxie said with a smile. "Come on, Snicket. Stop lollygagging." It is true that I was moving slowly, trying to figure out how to stand up and keep the news-paper article hidden at the same time. "I'll be with you in a moment," I said, using a phrase that rarely works. Moxie cocked her head at me. "What is roe, anyway, Snicket?" "Fish eggs," I said. "Caviar." Moxie looked down at my reading. "So all this has to do with that book?" "I'm not sure." "Because I thought it might have to do with that newspaper article you're hiding under it." "What newspaper article?" "I'm a journalist, Snicket. You'll have to do better than that. Take out that newspaper article nice and slow, and don't use any cheap tricks to try and distract me." " Fire! Fire!" The sudden cry almost made me drop the newspaper. I looked quickly around the library, as I'd been trained to do in such emergencies. Sprinkler system, I thought.Northeast corner. But without a compass, the phrase "northeast corner" might as well have been "I haven't the faintest idea." " Help has arrived," I called. " Where is the fire?" "There isn't one, Snicket," said the voice, familiar now. "I was just looking for you." Moxie and I sighed, like we were both balloons pricked by the same needle, and down the aisle came the person who had deflated us. Part of my education required each apprentice to have a chaperone, and S. Theodora Markson was mine. The function of a chaperone is to serve as an example of the adult you might become, and Theodora served as a bad example. Her hair, for instance, was always a frightful mess, particularly when it was struggling against the leather helmet she seemed to enjoy wearing. She refused to tell me what the S stood for in her name, no matter how many times I asked her. But neither her hair nor her first name was the main problem with Theodora. I don't need to tell you what the problem is. You have met impossible people, and you know when you are stuck with them. They are of no more use than a heap of old boxes left in the middle of the sidewalk, but you end up tripping on them anyway. "You're not supposed to scream fire in a library," I said, "unless you mean it." "I wouldn't have had to scream," Theodora said, "if you'd left me a note saying where you were, as I specifically instructed." "I did leave a note. It said I'd be at the library." "Well, I didn't have time to read it all. We're in a hurry, Snicket. We have to stop screaming fire and investigate a case of arson." "Arson?" Moxie said, rolling a new page into her typewriter. A suspicious fire was just the sort of thing that Moxie liked to write about. My chaperone looked down at her and frowned. "Who are you?" Moxie reached into the brim of her hat, which was where she kept printed cards stating her name and occupation. "We've met on a number of occasions," Moxie said, handing her one. "It's lovely to see you, Ms. Markson. Your apprentice was just returning a scrap of newspaper I lent him." I frowned at Moxie while Theodora frowned at the card. "I believe this is my scrap of newspaper," I said, trying to sound dignified. "You must have left your scrap someplace else." "Be sensible, Snicket," Theodora said. "We don't have time to fight over scraps. Give it to your playmate and let's go." Moxie gave me a sly smile and held out her hand. I didn't want to give her the newspaper article, and I certainly didn't want to think of her as my playmate. But under Theodora's supervision I could not think what else to do. I surrendered the article, and in no time at all my sister's dilemma was folded up into a neat square and tucked into Moxie's hat. "Maybe later," Moxie said to me, "you and I can take that trip we were discussing." I thought of 350 Wayward Way, and the large, empty room in the photograph with the door in the corner and the rectangles on the floor. Secrets, I thought. Hidden in plain sight. "Maybe later," I agreed. Theodora frowned. "Whatever playdate you two had planned," she said, "it will have to wait. Come along, Snicket. We've got to go to 350 Wayward Way." Chapter TwoClick to read Chapter Two. CHAPTER TWO 350 Wayward Way turned out to be in a particularly deserted part of town. Theodora steered her shaky roadster past Diceys Department Store and then onto a street full of dead buildings with boarded-up doors and broken windows. It was like a garden that someone had stopped watering. Those gardens always look slightly sinister. You never know what’s hiding amongst all the wild and ragged weeds. “You know what I like about neighborhoods like this?” Theodora asked, as the brakes squeaked us to a halt. “There’s plenty of parking.” “There’s plenty of parking because nobody wants to come here,” I said. “Not sensible, Snicket,” my chaperone said, with a shake of her helmet. “Not proper. We want to be here. There are questions that S. Theodora Markson needs to have answered.” “What does the S stand for?” I asked. Theodora glared at me. “Smart,” she said. “You’re a smart boy, Snicket, but you need to apply yourself.” “I’ve never really understood what that means,” I said. “It means your predecessor never gave me such problems.” “You must miss having him as an apprentice.” “I do.” “Maybe you should send him a bunch of heart-shaped helium balloons just to let him know you’re thinking about him.” “Don’t laugh at me, Snicket. I am not a puppet show. We’re very lucky to get such a prestigious client as the Department of Education. You’ll have to adjust your attitude accordingly. For instance, we are not to reveal anything about this case, or who has hired us to solve it. I expect my apprentice not to say a word about the whole thing.” “What is the whole thing?” “I told you, we shouldn’t say a word about it.” “How can I say a word about something I don’t know about?” She did not answer but got out of the car and slammed the door unnecessarily hard. I did the same. “Prestigious” is a word which here means “important or having great influence,” although the Department of Education didn’t look prestigious as we approached the door. It was a tall, thin building, sagging against another tall, thin building to its right, and being sagged on by a tall, thin building to its left. The tall, thin buildings kept going, saggy and shabby, all the way down the block, like grass curved over in the wind. Just over the door was a cardboard sign reading DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION that I wanted to remove, just so I could see the words ROE HOUSE that were probably carved into the stone beneath it. Before we could get to the door, it opened and a man walked out, putting on his hat and taking out a cigarette. Theodora nodded to him as he held the door open, and he turned briefly to her and said something she had to ask him to repeat. “Do you have any fire?” he repeated. “We are in fact here to investigate a case of arson,” Theodora said, “but that is a secret I am not to reveal.” The man frowned impatiently and pointed to his cigarette to show what he meant. The cigarette sat tucked in his mouth, hanging over his beard, unlit. “Oh!” Theodora said. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t have any matches.” The man turned his eyes to me and I shook my head. I did in fact have a box of matches in my pocket, but I don’t think adults should be encouraged to smoke. He frowned again and started to walk away before turning around and asking me a question. It is not a question anyone enjoys hearing, especially people my age. It is the question printed on the cover of this book. “I’m in a special program,” I said, as Theodora stepped inside the building. “Are you indeed,” the man said. It didn’t sound like it was news to him, or perhaps he just didn’t care much. He reached up and took the cigarette out of his mouth and turned around and walked away. I watched him, but I didn’t know why. He looked like nothing to watch. He was just a man, moving quickly down the block. At the corner he tossed his cigarette into a dented trash can with a noise louder than it should have been. Most of Stain’d-by-the-Sea’s trash cans were as empty as its sidewalks. I stopped watching and followed Theodora in. I’d expected to be in the large, empty room Moxie had shown me in the photograph. Instead I found myself in a small waiting area, separated from the large room by a wall that looked like it would fall over if you gave it one good push. In the middle of the wall was a swinging door, not swinging, and tacked to the door was a sign that said WELCOME TO THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, WHERE LEARNING IS FUN! LEARNING IS IMPORTANT! said another sign, on another wall. There was one that said BOOKS ARE FOR LEARNING! that hung over a bookshelf, and one that said TAKE TIME FOR LEARNING! hanging over a table. On a table were a stack of stickers reading LEARNING! that you could affix to the bumper of your car or boat, and a bowl of badges reading LEARNING! that you could pin to your shirt or jacket or lampshade. They’d pinned a few of them to the lamp’s lampshade, was how I knew, along with a small sign that read LEARNING! It seemed like a lot of learning. There was a boy about my age going clickety-clack into a typewriter at a large wooden desk. His hair had been trimmed into a sort of tilted spike, like the fuse on a stick of dynamite, and his eyes were wide and not looking at us. When he was done typing the page, he took it out of the typewriter and put it on a large pile of other pages. Then he started up on another sheet of paper. He typed faster than I’d ever seen Moxie type, much faster. His hands hardly moved around the keyboard, as if he were typing the same thing over and over again. There had been a sign pasted onto the side of the desk, and the sign had probably said LEARNING!, but somebody had tried to unpeel it and now it was just a scratchy white mess, like a cloud you might stare at after a picnic. Through the flimsy wall I could hear more typewriters, plus the shuffle of papers and the other muttery noises of a busy office, but the boy behind the desk was the only person from the Department of Education to be seen. “S. Theodora Markson,” announced S. Theodora Markson, “and her associate. We have an appointment.” “Please wait,” the boy said, without looking up from his typing. Theodora sat in one chair and I sat in another, near the bookshelf. I took down a book that had been recommended to me by several people I didn’t like. The swinging door swung, and a tall, neatly dressed woman strode to the desk where the boy was typing and took a few papers from the tall pile. Pinned to her collar was a very shiny gold badge shaped like a lime, and pinned to her face was a smile that shone much less brightly. Theodora stood, but the woman did not look at us or say anything, just retreated back into the busy office. Theodora sat. I tried the book. A man gave his son Jody a pony, and Jody had to promise to take care of it. Then the pony got sick. I could see where this was going and put the book down. It was more pleasant to sit and think what the cloud looked like. We waited awhile. The boy kept typing and typing and typing and then finally stopped but he was just scratching his elbow and then he was typing again. The tall woman made several trips through the swinging door and back again without looking at us. Theodora took up the book and seemed quite interested in it. I stood up. He might not talk to me, but I would talk to him, so I asked him if it would be much longer. “I don’t know,” he said, and typed and typed and typed. “You don’t have to look busy on my account,” I said. Now he stopped. “I look busy because I am busy.” “So you say,” I said. “You don’t have to take my word for it,” the boy said, and pointed to the pile he was making. “Look at what I’m typing if you don’t believe me.” “I’m not a math tutor,” I said. “I don’t feel the need to check your work.” “The Department of Education is a very busy office. We’re in charge of every pedagogical institution in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. Read about us in the newspaper if you don’t believe me.” “Why wouldn’t I believe you?” “All right then, Snicket.” I sat down and then stood up again. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours. That doesn’t seem fair.” “It’s Kellar,” the boy said. “Kellar Haines.” “Well, Kellar Haines,” I said, “shouldn’t you be in school?” Kellar had been ready to start typing again, but now he blinked and looked down at his fingers. They were trembling a little bit. “Yes,” he said, and there was something about the way he said it, quiet and sad, that made me see the two of us a little differently. The door swung open again, and the woman with the lime pin came out and looked at us at last. Then she looked at Kellar Haines. Then she looked behind her and then she smiled nervously and then she began to speak. “Good morning” is what she said. “I’m Sharon Haines. I work here, which is the Department of Education. Yes, that is what it is.” “I’m S. Theodora Markson,” said S. Theodora Markson, “and never mind who this is.” “Lemony Snicket,” I said. “This is my son Kellar,” Sharon said, “and never mind him, either.” Sharon gave a little nod to indicate Kellar, and Theodora gave a little nod in my direction. Then they both smiled, Theodora first and Sharon after a few seconds, like a mirror running late. “Perhaps we should talk in your office,” I said. “Yes, of course,” Sharon said, leading us to the swinging door, and then she gave a sort of gasp. “No, let’s just sit here, shall we? The Department of Education is very busy today. Very busy. And my desk gives me some kind of medical condition. My tongue swells up if I sit there too long, and I end up talking like my mouth is full of baby mice.” She sat down between us, and I watched Theodora nodding seriously at Sharon the way one adult has nodded at the nonsense of another adult since the first adult walked on the earth. “I think I have a medical condition, too,” Theodora said. “Lately when I’m driving my roadster I have the peculiar sensation of everything being quieter than it should be.” “That could be because your helmet covers your ears,” I said. The two women looked at me the way you look at a leaky pen. I looked down at the floor. There was an ugly rug with ugly triangles on it in an ugly pattern. Underneath, I thought, were the rectangular marks I’d seen in the photograph. I wondered what was covering the floor in the office on the other side of the flimsy wall. Desks, chairs. Whatever all those muttering people kept in their office. “Perhaps I’d better tell you about the case,” Sharon said, and she went to her son’s desk and took something out of a drawer. It was a photograph, but we couldn’t see it. It was facedown, and she left it that way in her lap when she sat back down. She sighed and looked behind her. Behind her was a wall. “There is a villain,” she said, “who is putting every schoolchild in town in terrible danger.” I knew it, I thought. Sharon gave us a long look. Kellar went type-type-type. “We have had some dealings with such a villain,” I said. “It would probably be best not to say his name.” “It’s Hangfire,” Theodora explained. Type-type-stop. “Hangfire,” Sharon repeated with a frown. “What do you know about him?” “Not much,” Theodora said. “He’s violent and treacherous. You know the kind of man I mean.” “Yes, I do,” Sharon said, with a nervous smile. Kellar started typing again. “I had a boyfriend like that in eighth grade.” “Me too!” Theodora was using a tone of voice I hadn’t heard from her before. I regret to say that I’d have to describe it as a squeal. “He was always saying impolite things about my hair.” “Well,” Sharon said, “I think it looks nice.” “Well,” Theodora said, “I think you’re nice.” “Nevertheless,” I said, spoiling the party, “we’re here to talk about Hangfire.” Sharon sighed again and rattled her fingers on the photograph. “Recently a local business was burned to the ground,” she said. “Birnbaum’s Sheep Barn caught fire in the middle of the night, and there was scarcely enough time to evacuate the sheep. The fire was not an accident. It was a crime.” Theodora turned to me. “She means arson,” she explained, unnecessarily. You could not become an apprentice without knowing what arson is. You could not even start to study for an apprenticeship without knowing “arson.” I even knew the original Latin term from which the word “arson” was derived. “We’ll assign this case extra-crucial status,” Theodora said to Sharon, using an expression that meant absolutely nothing. “I appreciate that,” Sharon said. “As luck would have it, there was a witness to the fire and I’m hoping you and your apprentice will go interview this man and see if he can tell you anything.” “A witness!” Theodora cried. “ Aha!” “For instance,” Sharon continued, “he might say the arsonist had an unusual jacket, so it would help you find him and capture him.” “Unusual jacket! Aha!” Theodora looked at me triumphantly, but I saw nothing triumphant about an imaginary jacket mentioned by a witness we hadn’t met yet. “Who is this witness?” I asked. Sharon’s eyes widened and she moved her hands up and down, over and over, like she couldn’t decide whether or not to remove her ears. She looked over at her son and then down at her collar, and then she cleared her throat and answered my question at last. “Harold Limetta is his name.” “Harold Limetta?” “Yes, Harold Limetta. I believe his name is Italian, though he lives here in town at 421 Ballpoint Avenue, walking distance from the library.” “We’ll take my car,” Theodora said. “Thank you for meeting with us, Ms. Haines.” Call me Sharon,” Sharon said, “and call me the minute you have an update.” “Of course I will,” Theodora said. “After all, our progress is being evaluated.” Kellar stopped typing for a second and shared a look with his mother I didn’t quite understand, but every family has a look they give each other that makes no sense to anybody else. “Yes,” Sharon agreed, when the look was over. “Our progress is being evaluated. Do you have any more questions?” “Yes,” Theodora said. “How can I reach you outside of office hours?” “I’ll give you my number,” Sharon promised. “I must say, I didn’t expect so much kindness and understanding from such a prestigious investigator.” “It is you who are prestigious,” Theodora said. “Come along, Snicket. We’re done here. Let’s head on over to Harold Limetta’s house.” I was still staring at the photograph turned upside down on the desk. “I have a question,” I said. “Why are schoolchildren in danger because a barn burned down?” Sharon sat up in her chair and straightened the creases on the coat she was wearing. I didn’t like the coat and I didn’t like its creases. “The Department of Education takes its mission very seriously,” she said to me. “Even one schoolchild in danger is a terrible thing. Children are the future of the world, and we must keep them safe from harm. Every night I tremble thinking about how I’d feel if something terrible happened, even if it happened to somebody I did not know.” I made myself nod. I’d heard every word the woman had said, but I didn’t mistake it for something that made sense. Her fingers slipped under the edge of the photograph, and she slowly began to turn it over. “If this jacketed villain burned down a barn,” she said, “it stands to reason that he’d burn down a school.” She leaned forward and looked very sternly at me. “I can guarantee you, young man, that it will probably happen. If you don’t believe me, take a good, long look at this!” With a flick of her wrist, like a magician at a birthday party, she turned the photograph over and I took a look. It was not a good, long look because there was nothing much to look at. It was a photograph of a barn, or at least it had been a barn, before it burned down. Now it was a great deal of ashes and a few lonely sticks of burned wood. The remains of a fire are not a nice thing to look at, but they are not a great danger to schoolchildren. I looked at the photograph and then I looked around the room I was in. There was no sign of the fishing industry. There was none of the necessary equipment described in Caviar: Salty Jewel of the Tasty Sea. Still, there was something fishy about the whole place. You might as well play along, I said to myself. Hangfire might be involved, and you might find Ellington Feint again and be able to keep your promise, and in any case Theodora is in charge, so you don’t have much choice, do you, Snicket? No, Snicket, I don’t. I looked at the photograph again, and then I looked at Sharon and thanked her for answering my question. We all stood up and said the usual things and Sharon led Theodora and me out of the Department of Education. I let the adults go out ahead of me and then stepped quickly back to Kellar’s desk. “You know that restaurant Hungry’s?” I said. “You can find me there, when I’m not at the library or the Lost Arms.” Kellar looked up at me and spoke very, very carefully, as if he were walking through shattered glass. “I’ll look up the address,” he said, “just like you’ll look up Harold Limetta.” “Your mother already told us Harold Limetta’s address,” I said, and then Sharon walked back in. Kellar went back to his typing and I went out. Theodora was already in the roadster, pushing her head into her helmet. I stood on the sidewalk for a moment, wondering about both of the people I had met inside. It was hard to figure them out, but that is true of almost everything when it is very hot outside. “That went very well, Snicket,” Theodora said. “I’m glad Sharon gave me her phone number. I’m going to call her this evening and give her a full report.” “I think it’s nice you’re making friends your own age,” I said. Her smile faded and she started the motor. “You should have listened to what she said, Snicket. She said our progress is being evaluated.” “You’re the one who said that.” “Well, Sharon agreed with me, and it’s true. If you were a better apprentice, you’d remember I told you that someone from our organization was keeping an eye on us.” I remembered. Theodora was quite nervous about this person, whoever it was. I didn’t think it was likely that it was Sharon Haines of the Department of Education. I had my own ideas. “I did listen to what she said,” I said. “She thinks all of Stain’d-by-the-Sea’s schoolchildren are in danger because someone burned down a sheep barn. That doesn’t make much sense to me.” “Well, I’m sure Harold Limetta will be able to tell us more.” I looked down the empty block. The man who had asked for matches was long gone, of course. The dented trash can sulked on the corner. “Why would the Department of Education know about a witness to a fire?” “It wasn’t just a fire, Snicket. It was arson. Any apprentice of S. Theodora Markson should know what that means.” “What does the S stand for?” She opened the passenger door. “Slide in, Snicket.” I slid in and squinted out the window of the roadster. The sun told me that it was about noon. It also told me that it was going to continue to beat down on Stain’d-by-the-Sea and make it blazing hot and that there was no point in arguing with it, because it was the sun and I was a boy of about thirteen. The sun was right. There was no point in arguing. The roadster puttered us through Stain’d-by-the-Sea, and I didn’t say anything more to Theodora. She called herself an intrepid personage and said that was an expression which there meant an excellent investigator, and I didn’t correct her. She called me ungrateful and I didn’t disagree. I just sat in the heat and wished for an ice cream cone. Nobody brought me one. Maybe Harold Limetta has a freezer full of the stuff, I told myself. Peppermint ice cream in particular would really hit the spot. But there was no freezer at 421 Ballpoint Avenue. I could tell that in a minute, when Theodora brought her automobile to a stop. A freezer is almost always made of metal, so when a house has been burned to the ground it usually remains there in the ashes, along with the oven, the wall safe, and any anvils lying around, each item a blackened gravestone for the home that has been destroyed. At 421 Ballpoint Avenue I could see a metal bench, which looked like it might have been by the front door, for taking off your boots. I could see a large set of small metal rectangles, each one about the size of a book, stacked up in several rows and surrounded by broken glass. I could see a metal picture frame, which might have held photographs of the Limetta children or grandchildren. But the rest of the house was nothing but ashes and smoke—thick gray smoke that was rising into the sky. I didn’t know if it would block the sun and make it cooler. I didn’t know whose pictures had been in the frames. I didn’t know what it meant that Harold Limetta’s house had burned down, just when we’d been sent to it. Fires were of grave importance to the organization of which I was a part. It would be a black mark on my record, I knew, to have suspicious fires occur and go unsolved and unpolished right under my eyes. Hangfire, I thought. I will find you and stop you. But I didn’t know how to find him. I didn’t know how to stop him. I didn’t even know for certain that this fire was his handiwork. Ardere is the Latin, I thought. That’s what they said in ancient Rome when they were talking about fire. But that was all I knew as I stood and waited for the smoke to clear. Sketch and Preview IllustrationsFile for ?3:From the All the Wrong Questions Facebook page and LemonySnicketLibrary Tumblr page: The final version of this sketch appears in Chapter One of ?3. From the All the Wrong Questions Facebook and LemonySnicketLibrary Tumblr page: This illustration appears on the back cover of ?3.
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Post by Dante on Dec 4, 2014 16:36:20 GMT -5
Information: ?4 (The Fourth Question)Title: " Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights?" Release Date: 29 September 2015 Cover (LB Hardcover):Cover (LB Paperback):Cover (Egmont):Cover (Hardie Grant Egmont):Promotional Synopses:Little, Brown & Co.:Train travel! Murder! Librarians! A Series Finale!On all other nights, the train departs from Stain'd Station and travels to the city without stopping. But not tonight. You might ask, why is this night different from all other nights? But that's the wrong question. Instead ask, where is this all heading? And what happens at the end of the line? The final book in Lemony Snicket's bestselling series, All The Wrong Questions. ( Source) Egmont:Can Lemony Snicket finally discover all the right answers?There was a town, and there was a train, and there was a murder. Apprentice investigator Lemony Snicket was on the train, and he thought that if he solved the murder he could save the town. He was almost thirteen and he was wrong. He was wrong about all of it. He should have asked the question “Is it more beastly to be a murderer or to let one go free?” Instead, he asked the wrong question – four wrong questions, more or less. This is the account of the last… Source. Promotional Materials:File for ?4:("I think my favorite character is laced with a certain amount of regret and bitterness because out of all the people chronicled in the book [?1] there's one of them who is murdered." Source) "The mystery of Ellington Feint and the Bominating Beast crop up in each book until we have the whole picture. While the secret continues to perplex the town until the end, Lemony Snicket himself solves the mystery as soon as he holds the statue." ( Source) lemonysnicketlibrary.tumblr.com/post/104343388312/is-the-title-of-lemony-snickets-next-book-hiddenTeaser Cover Art:
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Post by Dante on Dec 4, 2014 16:40:15 GMT -5
Previews: The Fourth QuestionTranscriptsChapter OneClick here to read Chapter One. TO: B., P. Bellerophon. FROM: LS FILE UNDER: Stain'd-by-the-Sea, accounts of; murder, investigations of; Hangfire; Bombinating Beast 4/4 cc: VFDhq CHAPTER ONE There was a town, and there was a train, and there was a murder. I was on the train, and I thought if I solved the murder I could save the town. I was almost thirteen and I was wrong. I was wrong about all of it. I should have asked the question "Is it more beastly to be a murderer or to let one go free?" Instead, I asked the wrong question—four wrong questions, more or less. This is the account of the last. I was in a small room, not sleeping and not liking it. The room was called the Far East Suite, and it sat uncomfortably in the Lost Arms, the only hotel in town. It had a chest of drawers and a little table with a metal plate that was responsible for heating up a number of very bad meals. A puzzling shape on the ceiling was someone's idea of a light fixture, and a girl on the wall, holding an injured dog, was someone else's idea of a painting. There was one window and one shutter covering it, so the room was far too dark except in the morning. In the morning it was far too light. But most of the room was a pair of beds, and most of what I didn't like slept in the larger one. Her name was S. Theodora Markson. I was her apprentice and she was my chaperone and the person who had brought me to the town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea in the first place. She had wild hair and a green automobile, and those are the nicest things I could think of to say about her. We'd had a fight over our last big case, which you can read about if you're the sort of person who likes to know about other people's fights. She was still mad at me and had informed me I was not allowed to be mad at her. We had not talked much lately, except when I occasionally asked her what the S stood for in her name and she occasionally replied, "Stop asking." That night she had announced to me that we were both going to bed early. There is nothing wrong with an early bedtime, as long as you do not insist that everyone has to go with you. Now her wild hair lay sprawled on the pillow like a mop had jumped off a roof, and she was snoring a snore I'd never heard before. It is lonely to lie on your bed, wide awake, listening to someone more. I told myself I had no reason to feel lonely. It was true I had a number of companions in Stain'd-by-the-Sea, people more or less my own age, who had similar interests. Our most significant interest was in defeating a villain named Hangfire. My associates and I had formed an ad hoc branch of the organization that had sent me to this town. "Ad hoc" means we were all alone and making it up as we went along. Hangfire worked in the shadows, scheming to get his hands on a statue of a mythical creature called the Bombinating Beast, so my friends and I had also started to keep our activities quiet, so that Hangfire would not find out about us. We no longer saw each other as much as we used to, but worked in solitude, in the hopes of stopping Hangfire and saving Stain'd-by-the-Sea. The distant whistle of a train reminded we that so far my associates and I hadn't had much success. Stain'd-by-the-Sea was a town that had faded almost to nothing. The sea had been drained away to save the ink business, but now the ink business was draining away, and everything in town was going down the drain with it. The newspaper was gone. The only proper school had burned down, and the town's schoolchildren were being held prisoner. Hangfire and his associates in the Inhumane Society had them hidden in Wade Academy, an abandoned school on Offshore Island, for some reason that was surely nefarious, a word which here means "wicked, and involving stolen honeydew melons and certain equipment from an abandoned aquarium." The town's only librarian, Dashiell Qwerty, had been framed for arson, so now the town's only police officers would take the town's only librarian out of his cell and put him on the town's only train, so he could stand trial in the city. You know who else is in the city standing trial, I told myself, but thinking about my sister didn't make it any easier to get to sleep. Kit had been caught on a caper when I was supposed to be there helping her. I felt very bad about this, and kept writing her letters in my head. The preamble was always "Dear Kit," but then I had trouble. Sometimes I promised her I would get her out, but that was a promise I couldn't necessarily keep. Sometimes I told her that soon she would be free, but I didn't know if that was true. So I told her I was thinking of her, but that felt very meager, so I kept crumpling up these imaginary letters and throwing them into a very handsome imaginary trash can. And then there's the one, I thought, who has stolen more sleep from you than all the rest. Ellington Feint, like me, was somewhat new in town, having come to rescue her father from Hangfire's clutches. She'd told me that she would do "anything and everything" to rescue him, and "anything and everything" turned out to be a phrase which meant "a number of terrible crimes." Her crimes had caught up with her, and now she was locked in Stain'd-by-the-Sea's tiny jail. The train is coming for her too, I told myself. Soon she will be transported through the outskirts of town and down into the valley that was once the floor of the ocean. She will ride past the Clusterous Forest, a vast, lawless landscape of seaweed that has managed to survive without water, and you might never see her again. So many people to think about, Snicket, and still you are all alone. The whistle blew again, louder this time, or perhaps it just seemed louder because Theodora's odd snoring had stopped. It had stopped because it wasn't snoring. She'd been pretending to be asleep. I closed my eyes and held still so I could find out why. "Snicket?" she whispered in the dark room. "Lemony Snicket?" I didn't make a sound. When pretending to be asleep, you should never fake snoring in front of people who may have heard your actual snores. You should simply breathe and keep still. There are a great number of circumstances in which this strategy is helpful. "Snicket?" I kept still and kept breathing. "Snicket, I know you're awake." I didn't fall for that old trick. I listened to Theodora sigh, and then, with a great creaking, she got out of bed and pattered to the bathroom. There was a click and a small stripe of light fell across my face. I let it. Theodora rustled around in the bathroom and then the light went out and she walked across the Far East Suite with her feet sounding different than they had. She'd put on her boots, I realized. She was going out in the middle of the night, just when the train was coming to a stop. I heard the doorknob rattle and quit. She was giving me one last look. Perhaps I should have opened my eyes, or simply said, suddenly in the dark, "Good luck." It would have been fun to startle her like that. But I just let her walk out and shut the door. I decided to count to ten to make sure she was really gone. When I reached fourteen, she opened the door again to check on me. Then she walked out again and knocked the door shut again and I counted again and then one more time and then I stood up and turned the light on and moved quickly. I was at a disadvantage because I was in my pajamas, and it took me a few moments to hurry into clothing. I put on a long-sleeved shirt with a stiff collar that was clean enough, and my best shoes and a jacket that matched some good thick pants with a very strong belt. I mention the belt for a reason. I walked quickly to the door and opened it and looked down the hallway to make sure she wasn't waiting for me, but S. Theodora Markson had never been that clever. I looked back at the room. The star-shaped fixture shone down on everything. The girl with the dog with the bandaged paw gave me her usual frown, as if she were bored and hoped I'd give her a magazine. Had I known I was leaving the Far East Suite behind forever, I might have taken a longer look. But instead I just glanced at it. The room looked like a room. I killed the lights. In the lobby were two familiar figures, but neither of them was my chaperone. One was the statue that was always there in the middle of the room, depicting a woman with no clothes or arms, and the other was Prosper Lost, the hotel's proprietor, who stood by the desk giving me his usual smile. It was a smile that meant he would do anything to help you, anything at all, as long as it wasn't too much trouble. "Good evening, Mr. Snicket." "Good evening," I told him back. "How's your daughter, Lost?" "If you hadn't decided to go to bed early, you would have seen her," Prosper told me. "She stopped by to visit me, and left something for you as well." "Is that so?" I said. Ornette Lost was one of my associates, and for reasons I didn't quite understand, she lived with her uncles, Stain'd-by-the-Sea's only remaining firefighters, instead of with her father. "That is so," her father said now, and reached into his desk to retrieve a small object made of folded paper. I picked it up just as the whistle blew again. It was a train. "Ornette's always been good at fashioning extraordinary things out of ordinary materials," Lost said. "I suppose it runs in the family. Her mother had a great interest in sculpture." "Did she?" I said, although I was not really listening. When someone leaves a folded paper train for you, you take a moment to wonder why. "She did indeed," Lost said. "Alice had an enormous collection of statues and a great number of her own sculptures as well. They were displayed in the Far West Wing of this very hotel. My wife hoped the glyptotheca would attract tourists, but things didn't go as planned." "They hardly ever do," I said. "Glyptotheca" is a word which here means "a place where sculpture is displayed," but I was more interested in unfolding the train. It had been constructed out of a single business card. All my associates in Stain'd-by-the-Sea had cards nowadays, printed with their names and areas of specialty. My eyes fell on the word "sculptor." "Most of the statues were destroyed in a fire some time ago," Lost said. "Ornette was the one who smelled the smoke, which runs in the family too. By the time her uncles arrived to fight the fire, my daughter had managed to rouse the entire hotel and help the guests and staff to safety. Everyone was rescued—everyone but Alice." I stopped looking at what was in my hands and stared into the sad eyes of Prosper Lost. I had always found the hotel where I had been living, and the man who ran it, to be shabby and uncomfortable. Not until now had I thought of either of them as damaged. I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't know." "I didn't tell you," Lost said, with his faint smile. "I suppose we all have our troubles, don't we, Snicket?" "Mine are smaller than yours, Lost." "I'm not so sure about that," Lost said quietly. "It seems to me we're in the same situation, both alone in the lobby." "So you saw my chaperone go out?" "Yes, just a minute ago." "Did she tell you where she was going?" "I'm afraid not." "Did she say anything at all?" Prosper Lost shifted slightly. It must have been tiring for him to stand up at the desk, but I don't think I'd ever seen him sit. "Actually," he said, "she told me that if she didn't return by tomorrow, I ought to make sure you were provided for." "What?" "She told me that if she didn't return—" "I heard you, Lost. She said she wasn't coming back." My chaperone had once told me she was leaving town, but our organization did not permit leaving apprentices unsupervised. I looked at the train again, fashioned out of a card that was designed for communication. But what is Ornette communicating, I asked myself. Myself couldn't answer, so I asked somebody else something else. "How long does the train stop at the station?" "Oh, quite a while," Prosper said, with a glance at his watch. "The railway switches engines at Stain'd-by-the-Sea, and it takes a long time to load in all the passengers. It seems there are always more and more people who want to get out of town." "Listen, Lost," I said. "If I don't return by tomorrow, will you do something for me?" "What is it?" "There's a book beside my bed," I said. "If I'm not back, please give it to the Bellerophon brothers." "The taxi drivers?" he said. "All right, Snicket. If you say so. Although I'm surprised you're not bringing the book along. It seems to me that you always have a book with you." "I do," I said, "but this book belongs to the library." "The library was destroyed, Snicket. Don't you remember?" "Of course I remember," I said, "but I still shouldn't take it with me. It's too bad, too. I'm only partway through." "So it goes," Prosper Lost said, a little sadly. "There are some stories you never get to finish." I nodded in agreement and I never saw him again. Outside, the night was colder than I would have guessed, but not colder than I like it. I headed toward the train station, thinking of the book. It was about a man who went to sleep one night, and when he woke up he was an insect. It was causing him a great deal of trouble. The streets were quiet and I went several blocks, all the way to the town's last remaining department store, before I saw a single person. Diceys was a tall building that looked like a neatly stacked pile of square windows, catching the starlight and winking it back at the sky. In each window was a mannequin dressed in Diceys clothes, posed with some item or other that the store had for sale. Diceys was closed at this time of night, but a few lights were still on inside, and the mannequins stood eerily looking down at the store's large entrance, a fancy door chained shut with a padlock as big as a suitcase. Struggling with the lock was S. Theodora Markson. Her efforts to unlock Diceys were fierce and required both her hands and occasionally a foot, and her bushy hair waved back and forth as she tried to wrestle her way into the store. From across the street she almost looked like an insect herself, as frantic and frightened as the man in the book. What happens next, I thought. Finally, Theodora persuaded the door to open and slipped inside Diceys. I waited just a few seconds before slipping after her. I didn't move too carefully. Anyone who struggles endlessly with a lock on a public street is not worried about being followed. There was a large, spiky metal object stuck in the lock. It was a skeleton key, but not a good one. A good skeleton key can open any lock at any time. A bad one can open some locks, some of the time, after much struggle. I looked at it, but only for a second, because I had seen it before. It was likely the only one in town. I left it where it was. I had no skeleton key as I stepped inside Diceys. I had only the clothes on my back, and a small folded paper train in my hand. My chaperone had something better. She had a secret. Chapter TwoClick here to read the opening pages of Chapter Two. CHAPTER TWO Diceys was dark. I entered where perfume was sold, with glass bottles waiting on shelves like a laboratory with the mad scientist on vacation. I scanned the large room I was in. Nothing moved in it but a small light on a far wall. I made my way. The bottles watched me. I never have liked perfume. It always smells like someone’s been hit by a truck full of flowers. The light on the wall was over the elevator doors, indicating that the elevator was moving. The light marked 4 turned on, and then the one marked 5. Theodora was going up. There was another elevator, but I couldn’t risk taking it. I waited to see where it stopped. Then I’d take the stairs. I hoped it would stop soon. It stopped at 11. The staircase was a fancy one, very wide, with banisters that were probably brass and carpeting that was probably red when the lights were on. With the lights off, the banister was just smudgy and the carpeting was dotted with light lint and dark stains. At each turn of the staircase was a sign telling me what they sold on the floor. The second floor sold shoes for men. The third floor sold shoes for women. The fourth floor also sold shoes for women. The fifth floor sold housewares, with radios and mixing bowls casting shapely shadows on the walls. The sixth floor sold toys, and I thought of a book for small children as I paused to catch my breath. A bear wanders a department store at night, looking for a button he has lost. He’s caught by the night watchman. Diceys probably doesn’t have a night watchman, I told myself. If they can’t afford to polish the banisters, they can’t afford to pay a man to watch over the place. They just lock the door and go home. In any case, you’re not the one who broke in. Theodora broke in. You’re just following her. So stop leaning against the banister and follow her. The seventh floor sold formal clothing. The eighth sold casual clothing. The ninth sold children’s clothing, and I remembered Theodora taking me there some weeks back, to be measured for new pants. It is embarrassing to be measured for new pants. The tenth floor sold the bright, shiny clothing people apparently enjoy wearing to play sports. The eleventh floor sold uniforms. One of the advantages of the organization to which Theodora and I belonged was that there were no uniforms, unless you count a small tattoo on the ankle. I walked quietly between the racks of matching clothing hung up like flattened women and men, and wondered what Theodora was doing there. But she didn’t seem to be there at all. Aisle after aisle of uniforms was empty. I looked this way and that. The uniforms shrugged back at me. Finally I reached the far end of the eleventh floor, where the windows looked down on the street. There was a mannequin dressed like a police officer in one window, and one dressed as a firefighter in the next. Then there was a uniformed nurse, and a cook, and a sailor, and then, standing in a window, there was a mannequin wearing nothing at all. At its feet were a pile of clothes I recognized as Theodora’s. She had stood right there and changed her clothing, putting on whatever uniform had been worn by the mannequin. I did not like to think about it. I was at least relieved that Theodora’s underwear was not in the pile, so she had not been completely naked in the window of a department store. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a familiar light moving on a distant wall. The elevator was heading back down. “Why not?” I said to the bare mannequin. “She’s gotten what she wanted.” The mannequin didn’t say anything. I didn’t want her job and she didn’t want mine. It was easier to go down the stairs, as it always is. In no time at all I was hurrying back past the perfume and out Diceys’s front door. My chaperone hadn’t thought to lock it back up again, but the skeleton key was gone. I could hear Theodora’s footsteps and caught her distant silhouette as she rounded a corner, although I couldn’t tell what she was wearing. She didn’t look around. Why should she? She was in disguise and I was asleep in the Far East Suite. Theodora took me past a diner called Hungry’s, where my associate Jake Hix still occasionally slipped me a free meal, and Partial Foods, a grocery store where Hangfire had orchestrated some recent treachery. She walked quickly through the neighborhood and then past an enormous pen-shaped building, now abandoned, that once had been the home of my associate Cleo Knight, who was working on a formula for invisible ink that was Stain’d-by-the-Sea’s best hope. I silently wished Cleo luck, and then found myself walking past Black Cat Coffee, a favorite haunt of Ellington Feint. I’d sat at the counter many times and watched the shiny machinery make small cups of strong coffee and loaves of fresh, warm bread. Had I known I’d never see it again, I might have taken a closer look. As it was, I hardly glanced inside the place. I knew Ellington Feint wasn’t at Black Cat Coffee. The Officers Mitchum were putting her aboard the train. Soon she’d be in prison in the city, I thought, along with my sister. We walked a little farther, Theodora ahead and me following, until we were both where she wanted to be. Stain’d Station was the busiest place I’d ever seen in town. The enormous room was thronging with people, and the noise of the crowd echoed up to the ceiling, which was lined with curved iron bars, like a black rainbow hanging in the loud air. Someone had lit torches that lined the walls, and by the flickering light I could see the train, twenty or thirty cars in length, at rest on one of the station’s many tracks. Most of the train’s cars were cargo cars, with INK INC. stamped on the sides and the tops open, to hold the ink extracted from octopi by enormous mechanized needles. But Ink Inc. was no longer a thriving business, and the octopi were scarcer and scarcer, so the cargo cars sat empty, ready to rattle through the fading town on tracks hardly used anymore. Behind the cargo cars were some passenger cars, decorated with wooden curlicues over the windows and old-fashioned railings bolted below and brightly painted designs everywhere else, and up front was a huge, tired engine, where people in black aprons hurried about with shovels and wheelbarrows, loading coal into the train’s tender. Porters in bright blue jackets helped the passengers push their way through the crowd, and conductors in gray suits punched people’s tickets with silver punchers clipped to their belts. Something was pinned to the lapels of their suits and jackets. I couldn’t see what it was, but I could hear the echo of each puncher’s click as it bounced off the ceilings, over and over again. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry to leave town. Somewhere, I thought, is the car where they lock all of Stain’d-by-the-Sea’s prisoners on their journey into the city. Somewhere there is Dashiell Qwerty and somewhere there is Ellington Feint, but you don’t see them, do you, Snicket? You can’t even find S. Theodora Markson, and you were supposed to be following her. With the black aprons, the blue jackets, and the gray suits, you don't even know what uniform to look for. I found a ticket booth where a woman sat behind a window, reading a book I didn't like. [The preview ends here.] Sketch and Preview IllustrationsFile for ?4:
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Post by Dante on Mar 2, 2015 7:30:30 GMT -5
Information: 29M (Additional Reports)Title: 29 Myths on the Swinster PharmacyRelease Date: 11 February 2014 Cover (McSweeney's McMullen's):Promotional Synopsis:We are very curious about the Swinster Pharmacy. We stay up late every night wondering what sort of eerie secrets it contains. Why are there three styrofoam heads in the windows? Who is the owner? Is it really closed on weekends? Renowned investigator Lemony Snicket has compiled 29 myths about this bewildering establishment, in the vain hope that he could help us shine some light on this enduring mystery. ( Source)
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Post by Dante on Mar 2, 2015 7:32:08 GMT -5
Information: ?1234 (Box Set)Title: All The Wrong Questions: A Complete MysteryRelease Date: 20 October 2015 Cover (LB):Promotional Synopsis:Give the gift of Lemony Snicket!Before his research into the plight of children in strange circumstances, which was published as A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket was himself a child in strange circumstances. He was almost thirteen and undertook an apprenticeship that didn't go as planned. His record of this curious time, published as four books in the bestselling series All The Wrong Questions, has been gathered together for the first time in one handsome gift box. It's a complete mystery. ( Source) Promotional Materials:File for ?1234:Teaser Cover Art:
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