A Series of Unfortunate Events Box: The Complete Wreck
Page 28
“I know what it means,” Klaus said.
“Please listen to us,” Violet begged Mr. Poe. “It’s a matter of life or death. Please just take a look at the note.”
“You can show it to him,” Captain Sham said, his voice rising in anger, “in the morning. Now please follow my associate to my minivan and go straight to bed.”
“Hold on a minute, Captain Sham,” Mr. Poe said. “If it upsets the children so much, I’ll take a look at the note. It will only take a moment.”
“Thank you,” Klaus said in relief, and reached into his pocket for the note. But as soon as he reached inside his face fell in disappointment, and I’m sure you can guess why. If you place a piece of paper in your pocket, and then soak yourself in a hurricane, the piece of paper, no matter how important it is, will turn into a soggy mess. Klaus pulled a damp lump out of his pocket, and the orphans looked at the remains of Aunt Josephine’s note. You could scarcely tell that it had been a piece of paper, let alone read the note or the secret it contained.
“This was the note,” Klaus said, holding it out to Mr. Poe. “You’ll just have to take our word for it that Aunt Josephine was still alive.”
“And she might still be alive!” Violet cried. “Please, Mr. Poe, send someone to rescue her!”
“Oh my, children,” Mr. Poe said. “You’re so sad and worried. But you don’t have to worry anymore. I have always promised to provide for you, and I think Captain Sham will do an excellent job of raising you. He has a steady business and doesn’t seem likely to throw himself out of a window. And it’s obvious he cares for you very much—why, he went out alone, in the middle of a hurricane, to search for you.”
“The only thing he cares about,” Klaus said bitterly, “is our fortune.”
“Why, that’s not true,” Captain Sham said. “I don’t want a penny of your fortune. Except, of course, to pay for the sailboat you stole and wrecked.”
Mr. Poe frowned, and coughed into his handkerchief. “Well, that’s a surprising request,” he said, “but I suppose that can be arranged. Now, children, please go to your new home while I make the final arrangements with Captain Sham. Perhaps we’ll have time for breakfast tomorrow before I head back to the city.”
“Please,” Violet cried. “Please, won’t you listen to us?”
“Please,” Klaus cried. “Please, won’t you believe us?”
Sunny did not say anything. Sunny had not said anything for a long time, and if her siblings hadn’t been so busy trying to reason with Mr. Poe, they would have noticed that she wasn’t even looking up to watch everyone talking. During this whole conversation, Sunny was looking straight ahead, and if you are a baby this means looking at people’s legs. The leg she was looking at was Captain Sham’s. She wasn’t looking at his right leg, which was perfectly normal, but at his peg leg. She was looking at the stump of dark polished wood, attached to his left knee with a curved metal hinge, and concentrating very hard.
It may surprise you to learn that at this moment, Sunny resembled the famous Greek conqueror Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great lived more than two thousand years ago, and his last name was not actually “The Great.” “The Great” was something that he forced people to call him, by bringing a bunch of soldiers into their land and proclaiming himself king. Besides invading other people’s countries and forcing them to do whatever he said, Alexander the Great was famous for something called the Gordian Knot. The Gordian Knot was a fancy knot tied in a piece of rope by a king named Gordius. Gordius said that if Alexander could untie it, he could rule the whole kingdom. But Alexander, who was too busy conquering places to learn how to untie knots, simply drew his sword and cut the Gordian Knot in two. This was cheating, of course, but Alexander had too many soldiers for Gordius to argue, and soon everybody in Gordium had to bow down to You-Know-Who the Great. Ever since then, a difficult problem can be called a Gordian Knot, and if you solve the problem in a simple way—even if the way is rude—you are cutting the Gordian Knot.
The problem the Baudelaire orphans were experiencing could certainly be called a Gordian Knot, because it looked impossible to solve. The problem, of course, was that Captain Sham’s despicable plan was about to succeed, and the way to solve it was to convince Mr. Poe of what was really going on. But with Aunt Josephine thrown in the lake, and her note a ruined lump of wet paper, Violet and Klaus were unable to convince Mr. Poe of anything. Sunny, however, stared at Captain Sham’s peg leg and thought of a simple, if rude, way of solving the problem.
As all the taller people argued and paid no attention to Sunny, the littlest Baudelaire crawled as close as she could to the peg leg, opened her mouth and bit down as hard as she could. Luckily for the Baudelaires, Sunny’s teeth were as sharp as the sword of Alexander the Great, and Captain Sham’s peg leg split right in half with a crack! that made everybody look down.
As I’m sure you’ve guessed, the peg leg was fake, and it split open to reveal Captain Sham’s real leg, pale and sweaty from knee to toes. But it was neither the knee nor the toes that interested everyone. It was the ankle. For there on the pale and sweaty skin of Captain Sham was the solution to their problem. By biting the peg leg, Sunny had cut the Gordian Knot, for as the wooden pieces of fake peg leg fell to the floor of Damocles Dock, everyone could see a tattoo of an eye.
CHAPTER
Thirteen
Mr. Poe looked astonished. Violet looked relieved. Klaus looked assuaged, which is a fancy word for “relieved” that he had learned by reading a magazine article. Sunny looked triumphant. The person who looked like neither a man nor a woman looked disappointed. And Count Olaf—it is such a relief to call him by his true name—at first looked afraid, but in a blink of his one shiny eye, he twisted his face to make it look as astonished as Mr. Poe’s.
“My leg!” Count Olaf cried, in a voice of false joy. “My leg has grown back! It’s amazing! It’s wonderful! It’s a medical miracle!”
“Oh come now,” Mr. Poe said, folding his arms. “That won’t work. Even a child can see that your peg leg was false.”
“A child did see it,” Violet whispered to Klaus. “Three children, in fact.”
“Well, maybe the peg leg was false,” Count Olaf admitted, and took a step backward. “But I’ve never seen this tattoo in my life.”
“Oh come now,” Mr. Poe said again. “That won’t work, either. You tried to hide the tattoo with the peg leg, but now we can see that you are really Count Olaf.”
“Well, maybe the tattoo is mine,” Count Olaf admitted, and took another step backward. “But I’m not this Count Olaf person. I’m Captain Sham. See, I have a business card here that says so.”
“Oh come now,” Mr. Poe said yet again. “That won’t work. Anyone can go to a print shop and have cards made that say anything they like.”
“Well, maybe I’m not Captain Sham,” Count Olaf admitted, “but the children still belong to me. Josephine said that they did.”
“Oh come now,” Mr. Poe said for the fourth and final time. “That won’t work. Aunt Josephine left the children to Captain Sham, not to Count Olaf. And you are Count Olaf, not Captain Sham. So it is once again up to me to decide who will care for the Baudelaires. I will send these three youngsters somewhere else, and I will send you to jail. You have performed your evil deeds for the last time, Olaf. You tried to steal the Baudelaire fortune by marrying Violet. You tried to steal the Baudelaire fortune by murdering Uncle Monty.”
“And this,” Count Olaf growled, “was my greatest plan yet.” He reached up and tore off his eyepatch—which was fake, of course, like his peg leg—and stared at the Baudelaires with both of his shiny eyes. “I don’t like to brag—actually, why should I lie to you fools anymore?—I love to brag, and forcing that stupid old woman to write that note was really something to brag about. What a ninny Josephine was!”
“She was not a ninny!” Klaus cried. “She was kind and sweet!”
“Sweet?” Count Olaf repeated, with a horrible smile. “Well
, at this very moment the Lachrymose Leeches are probably finding her very sweet indeed. She might be the sweetest breakfast they ever ate.”
Mr. Poe frowned, and coughed into his white handkerchief. “That’s enough of your revolting talk, Olaf,” he said sternly. “We’ve caught you now, and there’s no way you’ll be getting away. The Lake Lachrymose Police Department will be happy to capture a known criminal wanted for fraud, murder, and the endangerment of children.”
“And arson,” Count Olaf piped up.
“I said that’s enough,” Mr. Poe growled. Count Olaf, the Baudelaire orphans, and even the massive creature looked surprised that Mr. Poe had spoken so sternly. “You have preyed upon these children for the last time, and I am making absolutely sure that you are handed over to the proper authorities. Disguising yourself won’t work. Telling lies won’t work. In fact there’s nothing at all you can do about your situation.”
“Really?” Count Olaf said, and his filthy lips curved up in a smile. “I can think of something that I can do.”
“And what,” said Mr. Poe, “is that?”
Count Olaf looked at each one of the Baudelaire orphans, giving each one a smile as if the children were tiny chocolates he was saving to eat for later. Then he smiled at the massive creature, and then, slowly, he smiled at Mr. Poe. “I can run,” he said, and ran. Count Olaf ran, with the massive creature lumbering behind him, in the direction of the heavy metal gate.
“Get back here!” Mr. Poe shouted. “Get back here in the name of the law! Get back here in the name of justice and righteousness! Get back here in the name of Mulctuary Money Management!”
“We can’t just shout at them!” Violet shouted. “Come on! We have to chase them!”
“I’m not going to allow children to chase after a man like that,” Mr. Poe said, and called out again, “Stop, I say! Stop right there!”
“We can’t let them escape!” Klaus cried. “Come on, Violet! Come on, Sunny!”
“No, no, this is no job for children,” Mr. Poe said. “Wait here with your sisters, Klaus. I’ll retrieve them. They won’t get away from Mr. Poe. You, there! Stop!”
“But we can’t wait here!” Violet cried. “We have to get into a sailboat and look for Aunt Josephine! She may still be alive!”
“You Baudelaire children are under my care,” Mr. Poe said firmly. “I’m not going to let small children sail around unaccompanied.”
“But if we hadn’t sailed unaccompanied,” Klaus pointed out, “we’d be in Count Olaf’s clutches by now!”
“That’s not the point,” Mr. Poe said, and began to walk quickly toward Count Olaf and the creature. “The point is—”
But the children didn’t hear the point over the loud slam! of the tall metal gate. The creature had slammed it shut just as Mr. Poe had reached it.
“Stop immediately!” Mr. Poe ordered, calling through the gate. “Come back here, you unpleasant person!” He tried to open the tall gate and found it locked. “It’s locked!” he cried to the children. “Where is the key? We must find the key!”
The Baudelaires rushed to the gate but stopped as they heard a jingling sound. “I have the key,” said Count Olaf’s voice, from the other side of the gate. “But don’t worry. I’ll see you soon, orphans. Very soon.”
“Open this gate immediately!” Mr. Poe shouted, but of course nobody opened the gate. He shook it and shook it, but the spiky metal gate never opened. Mr. Poe hurried to a phone booth and called the police, but the children knew that by the time help arrived Count Olaf would be long gone. Utterly exhausted and more than utterly miserable, the Baudelaire orphans sank to the ground, sitting glumly in the very same spot where we found them at the beginning of this story.
In the first chapter, you will remember, the Baudelaires were sitting on their suitcases, hoping that their lives were about to get a little bit better, and I wish I could tell you, here at the end of the story, that it was so. I wish I could write that Count Olaf was captured as he tried to flee, or that Aunt Josephine came swimming up to Damocles Dock, having miraculously escaped from the Lachrymose Leeches. But it was not so. As the children sat on the damp ground, Count Olaf was already halfway across the lake and would soon be on board a train, disguised as a rabbi to fool the police, and I’m sorry to tell you that he was already concocting another scheme to steal the Baudelaire fortune. And we can never know exactly what was happening to Aunt Josephine as the children sat on the dock, unable to help her, but I will say that eventually—about the time when the Baudelaire orphans were forced to attend a miserable boarding school—two fishermen found both of Aunt Josephine’s life jackets, all in tatters and floating alone in the murky waters of Lake Lachrymose.
In most stories, as you know, the villain would be defeated, there would be a happy ending, and everybody would go home knowing the moral of the story. But in the case of the Baudelaires everything was wrong. Count Olaf, the villain, had not succeeded with his evil plan, but he certainly hadn’t been defeated, either. You certainly couldn’t say that there was a happy ending. And the Baudelaires could not go home knowing the moral of the story, for the simple reason that they could not go home at all. Not only had Aunt Josephine’s house fallen into the lake, but the Baudelaires’ real home—the house where they had lived with their parents—was just a pile of ashes in a vacant lot, and they couldn’t go back there no matter how much they wanted to.
But even if they could go home it would be difficult for me to tell you what the moral of the story is. In some stories, it’s easy. The moral of “The Three Bears,” for instance, is “Never break into someone else’s house.” The moral of “Snow White” is “Never eat apples.” The moral of World War One is “Never assassinate Archduke Ferdinand.” But Violet, Klaus, and Sunny sat on the dock and watched the sun come up over Lake Lachrymose and wondered exactly what the moral was of their time with Aunt Josephine.
The expression “It dawned on them,” which I am about to use, does not have anything to do with the sunlight spreading out over Damocles Dock. “It dawned on them” simply means “They figured something out,” and as the Baudelaire orphans sat and watched the dock fill with people as the business of the day began, they figured out something that was very important to them. It dawned on them that unlike Aunt Josephine, who had lived up in that house, sad and alone, the three children had one another for comfort and support over the course of their miserable lives. And while this did not make them feel entirely safe, or entirely happy, it made them feel appreciative.
“Thank you, Klaus,” Violet said appreciatively, “for figuring out that note. And thank you, Sunny, for stealing the keys to the sailboat. If it weren’t for the two of you we would now be in Count Olaf’s clutches.”
“Thank you, Violet,” Klaus said appreciatively, “for thinking of the peppermints to gain us some time. And thank you, Sunny, for biting the peg leg just at the right moment. If it weren’t for the two of you, we would now be doomed.”
“Pilums,” Sunny said appreciatively, and her siblings understood at once that she was thanking Violet for inventing the signaling device, and thanking Klaus for reading the atlas and guiding them to Curdled Cave.
They leaned up against one another appreciatively, and small smiles appeared on their damp and anxious faces. They had each other. I’m not sure that “The Baudelaires had each other” is the moral of this story, but to the three siblings it was enough. To have each other in the midst of their unfortunate lives felt like having a sailboat in the middle of a hurricane, and to the Baudelaire orphans this felt very fortunate indeed.
To My Kind Editor
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
Credits
Cover art © 2000 Brett Helquist
Cover design by Alison Donalty
Cover © 2000 by HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Copyright
THE WIDE WINDOW Text copyright © 2000 by Lemony Snicket Illustrations copyright © 2000 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 9780061757150
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Snicket, Lemony.
The wide window/ by Lemony Snicket ; illustrations by Brett Helquist.
p. cm.—(A series of unfortunate events ; bk. 3)
ISBN 0-06-440768-3—ISBN 0-06-028888-4 (lib. bdg.)
43 45 47 49 48 46 44
A Series of Unfortunate Events #4: The Miserable Mill
A Series of Unfortunate Events
BOOK the Fourth
THE MISERABLE MILL
by LEMONY SNICKET
Illustrations by Brett Helquist
Dear Reader,
I hope, for your sake, that you have not chosen to read this book because you are in the mood for a pleasant experience. If this is the case, I advise you to put this book down instantaneously, because of all the books describing the unhappy lives of the Baudelaire orphans, THE MISERABLE MILL might be the unhappiest yet. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are sent to Paltryville to work in a lumbermill, and they find disaster and misfortune lurking behind every log.