The Ersatz Elevator

by Lemony Snicket

  "I don't have time to put my head together," Esmé said. "The In Auction is coming up, and I have to devote all of my energy to making sure it's a success."

  "The In Auction?" Klaus asked.

  "An auction," Jerome explained, "is a sort of sale. Everyone gets together in a large room, and an auctioneer shows off a bunch of things that are available for purchase. If you see something you like, you call out how much you'd be willing to pay for it. That's called a bid. Then somebody else might call out a bid, and somebody else, and whoever calls out the highest price wins the auction and buys the item in question. It's terribly exciting. Your mother used to love them! I remember one time--"

  "You forgot the most important part," Esmé interrupted. "It's called the In Auction because we're selling only things that are in. I always organize it, and it's one of the most smashing events of the year!"

  "Smashi?" Sunny asked.

  "In this case," Klaus explained to his younger sister, "the word 'smashing' doesn't mean that things got smashed up. It just means 'fabulous.'"

  "And it is fabulous," Esmé said, finishing her aqueous martini. "We hold the auction at Veblen Hall, and we auction off only the innest things we can find, and best of all, all the money goes to a good cause."

  "Which good cause?" Violet asked. Esmé clapped her long-nailed hands together with glee. "Me! Every last bit of money that people pay at the auction goes right to me! Isn't that smashing?"

  "Actually, dear," Jerome said, "I was thinking that this year, perhaps we should give the money to another good cause. For instance, I was just reading about this family of seven. The mother and father lost their jobs, and now they're so poor that they can't even afford to live in a one-room apartment. We might send some of the auction money to people like them."

  "Don't talk nonsense," Esmé said crossly. "If we give money to poor people, then they won't be poor anymore. Besides, this year we're going to make heaps of money. I had lunch with twelve millionaires this morning, and eleven of them said they were definitely going to attend the In Auction. The twelfth one has to go to a birthday party. Just think of the money I'll make, Jerome! Maybe we could move to a bigger apartment!"

  "But we just moved in a few weeks ago," Jerome said. "I'd rather spend some money on putting the elevator back in use. It's very tiring to climb all the way up to the penthouse."

  "There you go, talking nonsense again," Esmé said. "If I'm not listening to my orphans babble about their kidnapped friends, I'm listening to you talk about out things like elevators. Well, we have no more time for chitchat in any case. Gunther is stopping by tonight, and I want you, Jerome, to take the children out for dinner."

  "Who is Gunther?" Jerome asked.

  "Gunther is the auctioneer, of course," Esmé replied. "He's supposed to be the innest auctioneer in town, and he's going to help me organize the auction. He's coming over tonight to discuss the auction catalog, and we don't want to be disturbed. That's why I want you to go out to dinner, and give us a little privacy."

  "But I was going to teach the children how to play chess tonight," Jerome said.

  "No, no, no," Esmé said. "You're going out to dinner. It's all arranged. I made a reservation at Café Salmonella for seven o'clock. It's six o'clock now, so you should get moving. You want to allow plenty of time to walk down all those stairs. But before you leave, children, I have a present for each of you."

  At this, the Baudelaire children were taken aback, a phrase which here means "surprised that someone who was so selfish had purchased gifts for them," but sure enough, Esmé reached behind the dark red sofa she was sitting on, and brought out three shopping bags that had the words "In Boutique" written on them in fancy, curly script. With an elegant gesture, Esmé handed a bag to each Baudelaire.

  "I thought if I bought you something you really wanted," she said, "you might stop all this chatter about the Quagmires."

  "What Esmé means," Jerome added hurriedly, "is that we want you to be happy here in our home, even when you're worried about your friends."

  "That's not what I mean at all," Esmé said, "but never mind. Open the bags, kids."

  The Baudelaires opened their presents, and I'm sorry to say that the shopping bags were mixed bags as well. There are many, many things that are difficult in this life, but one thing that isn't difficult at all is figuring out whether someone is excited or not when they open a present. If someone is excited, they will often put exclamation points at the ends of their sentences to indicate their excited tone of voice. If they say "Oh!" for instance, the exclamation point would indicate that the person is saying "Oh!" in an excited way, rather than simply saying "Oh," with a comma after it, which would indicate that the present is somewhat disappointing.

  "Oh," Violet said, as she opened her present.

  "Oh," Klaus said, as he opened his.

  "Oh," Sunny said, as she tore open her shopping bag with her teeth.

  "Pinstripe suits! I knew you'd be excited!" Esmé said. "You must have been mortified the last few days, walking around the city without wearing any pinstripes! Pinstripes are in, and orphans are in, so just imagine how in you'll be when you orphans are wearing pinstripes! No wonder you're so excited!"

  "They didn't sound excited when they opened the presents," Jerome said, "and I don't blame them. Esmé, I thought we said that we'd buy Violet a tool kit. She's very enthusiastic about inventing, and I thought we'd support that enthusiasm."

  "But I'm enthusiastic about pinstripe suits, too," Violet said, knowing that you should always say that you are delighted with a present even when you don't like it at all. "Thank you very much."

  "And Klaus was supposed to get a good almanac," Jerome continued. "I told you about his interest in the International Date Line, and an almanac is the perfect book to learn all about that."

  "But I'm very interested in pinstripes," said Klaus, who could lie as well as his sister, when the need arose. "I really appreciate this gift."

  "And Sunny," Jerome said, "was going to be given a large square made of bronze. It would have been attractive, and easily bitable."

  "Ayjim," Sunny said. She meant something along the lines of "I love my suit. Thank you very much," even though she didn't mean it one bit.

  "I know we discussed buying those silly items," Esmé said, with a wave of her long-nailed hand, "but tools have been out for weeks, almanacs have been out for months, and I received a phone call this afternoon informing me that large bronze squares are not expected to be in for at least another year. What's in now is pinstripes, Jerome, and I don't appreciate your trying to teach my new children that they should ignore what's in and what's out. Don't you want what's best for the orphans?"

  "Of course," Jerome sighed. "I hadn't thought of it that way, Esmé. Well, children, I do hope you like your gifts, even though they don't exactly match up with your interests. Why don't you go change into your new suits, and we'll wear them to dinner?"

  "Oh, yes!" Esmé said. "Café Salmonella is one of the innest restaurants. In fact, I think they don't even let you eat there if you're not wearing pinstripes, so go change. But hurry up! Gunther is due to arrive any minute."

  "We'll hurry," Klaus promised, "and thank you again for our gifts."

  "You're very welcome," Jerome said with a smile, and the children smiled back at him, walked out of the living room, down a long hallway, across a kitchen, through another living room, past four bathrooms, and so on and so on and so on, eventually finding their way to their bedrooms. They stood together for a minute outside the three bedroom doors, looking sadly into their shopping bags.

  "I don't know how we're going to wear these things," Violet said.

  "I don't either," Klaus said. "And it's all the worse knowing that we almost got presents we really want."

  "Puictiw," Sunny agreed glumly.

  "Listen to us," Violet said. "We sound hopelessly spoiled. We're living in an enormous apartment. We each have our own room. The doorman has promised to watch out for Count Olaf,
and at least one of our new guardians is an interesting person. And yet we're standing here complaining."

  "You're right," Klaus said. "We should make the best of things. Getting a lousy present isn't really worth complaining over--not when our friends are in such terrible danger. We're really very lucky to be here at all."

  "Chittol," Sunny said, which meant something like "That's true. We should stop complaining and go change into our new outfits."

  The Baudelaires stood together for another moment and nodded resolutely, a phrase which here means "tried to make themselves stop feeling ungrateful and put on the suits." But even though they didn't want to seem spoiled, even though they knew their situation was not a terrible one at all, and even though they had less than an hour to change into the suits, find Jerome, and walk down all those hundreds and hundreds of stairs, the three children could not seem to move. They simply stood in front of their bedroom doors and stared into their bags from the In Boutique.

  "Of course," Klaus said finally, "no matter how lucky we are, the fact remains that these pinstripe suits are entirely too big for us."

  Klaus spoke the truth. It was a truth that might help you understand why the Baudelaires were so disappointed with what was in their bags. It was a truth that might help you understand why the Baudelaires were so reluctant to go into their rooms and change into their pinstripe suits. And it was a truth that became even more obvious when the Baudelaires finally went into their rooms, and opened their bags and put on the gifts that Esmé had given them.

  It is often difficult to tell if a piece of clothing will fit you or not until you try it on, but the Baudelaire children could tell the instant they first looked into the shopping bags that these clothes dwarfed them by comparison. The expression "dwarfed by comparison" has nothing to do with dwarves, who are dull creatures in fairy tales who spend their time whistling and cleaning house. "Dwarfed by comparison" simply means that one thing seems small when compared to another thing. A mouse would be dwarfed by comparison with an ostrich, which is much bigger, and an ostrich would be dwarfed by comparison with the city of Paris. And the Baudelaires were dwarfed by comparison with the pinstripe suits. When Violet put the pants part of her suit on, the legs of the suit stretched much, much farther than the legs of her body, so it was as if she had two huge noodles instead of feet. When Klaus put the jacket part of his suit on, the sleeves fell far, far past his hands, so his arms looked as if they had shrunk up inside his body. And Sunny's suit dwarfed her so much by comparison that it was as if she had pulled the covers over her in bed instead of changing her clothes. When the Baudelaires stepped back out of their bedrooms and met up again in the hallway, they were so dwarfed by comparison that they scarcely recognized one another.

  "You look like you're skiing," Klaus said, pointing at his older sister's pant legs. "Except your skis are made of cloth instead of titanium alloy."

  CHAPTER

  Four

  If you are ever forced to take a chemistry class, you will probably see, at the front of the classroom, a large chart divided into squares, with different numbers and letters in each of them. This chart is called the table of the elements, and scientists like to say that it contains all the substances that make up our world. Like everyone else, scientists are wrong from time to time, and it is easy to see that they are wrong about the table of the elements. Because although this table contains a great many elements, from the element oxygen, which is found in the air, to the element aluminum, which is found in cans of soda, the table of the elements does not contain one of the most powerful elements that make up our world, and that is the element of surprise. The element of surprise is not a gas, like oxygen, or a solid, like aluminum. The element of surprise is an unfair advantage, and it can be found in situations in which one person has sneaked up on another. The surprised person--or, in this sad case, the surprised persons--are too stunned to defend themselves, and the sneaky person has the advantage of the element of surprise.

  "Hello, please," Count Olaf said in his raspy voice, and the Baudelaire orphans were too stunned to defend themselves. They did not scream. They did not run away from Olaf. They did not call out for their guardians to save them. They merely stood there, in their enormous pinstripe suits, and stared at the terrible man who had somehow found them once more.

  As Olaf looked down at them with a nasty smile, enjoying the unfair advantage of the element of surprise, the children saw that he was in yet another of his nefarious disguises, a phrase which here means that he did not fool them one bit no matter what he was wearing. On Olaf's feet were a pair of shiny black boots with high tops that almost reached his knees--the sort of boots that someone might wear to ride a horse. Over one of Olaf's eyes was a monocle, which is an eyeglass for one eye, instead of two--the sort of eyewear that requires you to furrow your brow in order to keep it in place. And the rest of his body was covered in a pinstripe suit--the sort of suit that someone might wear in order to be in at the time when this story takes place. But the Baudelaires knew that Olaf didn't care about being in, any more than he had imperfect vision in one eye or was about to go horseback riding. The three children knew that Olaf was wearing boots to cover up the tattoo of an eye that he had on his left ankle. They knew he was wearing the monocle so that he could furrow his brow and make it difficult to see that he had only one long eyebrow over his shiny, shiny eyes. And they knew that he was wearing a pinstripe suit so that people would think he was a rich, in person who belonged on Dark Avenue, instead of a greedy, treacherous villain who belonged in a heavily guarded prison.

  "You must be children, please," he continued, using the word "please" incorrectly for the second time. "The name of mine is Gunther. Please excuse the talking of me. Please, I am not fluent in the English language, please."

  "How . . ." Violet said, and then stopped. She was still stunned, and it was difficult to finish the sentence "How did you find us so quickly, and how did you get past the doorman, who promised to keep you away from us?" while under the element of surprise.

  "Where . . ." Klaus said, and then stopped. He was as stunned as his sister, and he found it impossible to finish the sentence "Where have you put the Quagmire triplets?" while under the element of surprise.

  "Bik . . ." Sunny said, and stopped. The element of surprise weighed down on the youngest Baudelaire as heavily as it did on Violet and Klaus, and Sunny could not find the words to finish the sentence "Bikayado?" which meant something like "What new evil plan have you cooked up to steal our fortune?"

  "I see you are not fluent in the English language either, please," Count Olaf said, continuing to fake a different way of talking. "Where is the mother and father?"

  "We're not the mother and father," Esmé said, and the Baudelaires felt another element of surprise as the Squalors walked into the hallway from another door. "We're the legal guardians. These children are orphans, Gunther."

  "Ah!" From behind his monocle, Count Olaf's eyes grew even shinier, as they often did when he was looking down on the helpless Baudelaires. The children felt as if his eyes were a pair of lit matches, about to burn them to a crisp. "Orphans in!" he said.

  "I know orphans are in," Esmé said, ignoring Olaf's improper grammar. "In fact, they're so in they ought to be auctioned off next week at the big event!"

  "Esmé!" Jerome said. "I'm shocked! We're not going to auction off these children."

  "Of course we're not," Esmé said. "It's against the law to auction off children. Oh, well. Come along, Gunther. I'll give you a full tour of our apartment. Jerome, take the children to Café Salmonella."

  "But we haven't even introduced them," Jerome said. "Violet, Klaus, Sunny--meet Gunther, the auctioneer we were talking about earlier. Gunther, meet the newest members of our family."

  "I am happy to meet you, please," Olaf said, reaching out one of his scraggly hands.

  "We've met before," Violet said, happy to see that the element of surprise was fading away and that she was finding the courage to speak
up. "Many times before. Jerome and Esmé, this man is an impostor. He's not Gunther and he's not an auctioneer. This is Count Olaf."

  "I am not understanding, please, what the orphan is saying," Olaf said. "Please, I am not fluent in the English language, please."

  "Yes you are," said Klaus, who also found himself feeling more courageous than surprised. "You speak English perfectly."

  "Why, Klaus, I'm surprised at you!" Jerome said. "A well-read person such as yourself should know he made a few grammatical errors."

  "Waran!" Sunny shrieked.

  "My sister is right," Violet said. "His improper English is just part of his disguise. If you make him take off his boots, you'll see his tattoo, and if you make him take off his monocle, his brow will unfurrow, and--"

  "Gunther is one of the innest auctioneers in the world," Esmé said impatiently. "He told me so himself. I'm not going to make him get undressed just to make you feel better. Now shake Gunther's hand, and go off to dinner and we'll say no more about it."

  "He's not Gunther, I tell you!" Klaus cried. "He's Count Olaf."

  "I am not knowing what you are saying, please," Count Olaf said, shrugging his scrawny shoulders.

  "Esmé," Jerome said hesitantly. "How can we be sure this man is really who he says he is? ' The children do seem quite alarmed. Perhaps we should--"

  "Perhaps we should listen to me," Esmé said, pointing one long-nailed finger at herself. "I am Esmé Gigi Geniveve Squalor, the city's sixth most important financial advisor. I live on Dark Avenue, and I am unbelievably wealthy." "I know that, dear," Jerome said. "I live with you."

  "Well, if you want to continue to live with me, you will call this man by his proper name, and this goes for you three children as well. I go to the trouble of buying you some smashing pinstripe suits, and you start accusing people of being in disguise!"

  "It is O.K., please," Count Olaf said. "The children are confused."