Finally, the day for departure arrived, and as the coastal shelf began to flood the Baudelaires carried the boat—or, as Uncle Monty might have put it, “vaporetto”—down to the beach and began to load all of their supplies. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny gazed at the white sands of the beach, where new apple trees were beginning to grow. The children spent nearly all of their time in the arboretum, and so the side of the island where the colony had been now felt like the far side of the island, rather than where their parents had lived. “Are we ready to immerse ourselves in the world?” Violet asked.
“I just hope we don’t immerse ourselves in the sea,” Klaus said, with a small smile.
“Me too,” Sunny said, and smiled back at her brother.
“Where’s the baby?” Violet said. “I want to make sure these life jackets I’ve designed will fit properly.”
“She wanted to say good-bye to her mother,” Sunny said. “She’ll be along soon.”
Sure enough, the tiny figure of Kit’s daughter could be seen crawling over the brae, toward the children and their boat. The Baudelaires watched her approach, wondering what the next chapter in this infant’s life would be, and indeed that is difficult to say. There are some who say that the Baudelaires rejoined V.F.D. and are engaged in brave errands to this day, perhaps under different names to avoid being captured. There are others who say that they perished at sea, although rumors of one’s death crop up so often, and are so often revealed to be untrue. But in any case, as my investigation is over, we have indeed reached the last chapter of the Baudelaires’ story, even if the Baudelaires had not. The three children climbed into the boat, and waited for the baby to crawl to the water’s edge, where she could pull herself into a standing position by clinging to the back of the boat. Soon the coastal shelf would flood, and the Baudelaire orphans would be on their way, immersing themselves in the world and leaving this story forever. Even the baby clutching the boat, whose story had just begun, would soon vanish from this chronicle, after uttering just a few words.
“Vi!” she cried, which was her way of greeting Violet. “Kla! Sun!”
“We wouldn’t leave without you,” Violet said, smiling down at the baby.
“Come aboard,” Klaus said, talking to her as if she were an adult.
“You little thing,” Sunny said, using a term of endearment she had made up herself.
The baby paused, and looked at the back of the boat, where the nameplate had been affixed. She had no way of knowing this, of course, but the nameplate had been nailed to the back of the boat by a person standing on the very spot she was standing—at least, as far as my research has shown. The infant was standing on a spot in someone else’s story, during a moment of her own, but she was thinking neither of the story far in the past nor of her own, which stretched into the future like the open sea. She was gazing at the nameplate, and her forehead was wrinkled in concentration. Finally, she uttered a word. The Baudelaire orphans gasped when they heard it, but they could not say for sure whether she was reading the word out loud or merely stating her own name, and indeed they never learned this. Perhaps this last word was the baby’s first secret, joining the secrets the Baudelaires were keeping from the baby, and all the other secrets immersed in the world. Perhaps it is better not to know precisely what was meant by this word, as some things are better left in the great unknown. There are some words, of course, that are better left unsaid—but not, I believe, the word uttered by my niece, a word which here means that the story is over.
Beatrice.
To My Kind Editor:
The end of THE END can be found at the end of THE END
With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket
A Series of Unfortunate Events
THE BAD BEGINNING
THE REPTILE ROOM
THE WIDE WINDOW
THE MISERABLE MILL
THE AUSTERE ACADEMY
THE ERSATZ ELEVATOR
THE VILE VILLAGE
THE HOSTILE HOSPITAL
THE CARNIVOROUS CARNIVAL
THE SLIPPERY SLOPE
THE GRIM GROTTO
THE PENULTIMATE PERIL
THE END
Credits
Cover art © 2006 by Brett Helquist
Cover design by Alison Donalty
Copyright
The End
Copyright © 2006 by Lemony Snicket
Illustrations copyright © 2006 by Brett Helquist
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub Edition August 2007 ISBN 9780061757136
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN-10: 0-06-441016-1 (trade bdg.)
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-441016-8 (trade bdg.)
ISBN-10: 0-06-029644-5 (lib. bdg.)
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-029644-5 (lib. bdg.)
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About the Author
LEMONY SNICKET is often despondent, mostly about his published research, which includes A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS and THE COMPOSER IS DEAD.
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A Series of Unfortunate Events Collection: Books 1-13 with Bonus Material Page 165