A Series of Unfortunate Events 7 - The Vile Village

     “Kyun,” Sunny concluded, which Violet was quick to translate as “And that's why we chose this town, in the hopes of finding the secret of V.F.D., rescuing the Quagmire triplets, and defeating Count Olaf once and for all.”

     Hector sighed. “You've certainly been through an ordeal,” he said, using a word which here means “a heap of trouble, most of which was Count Olaf's fault.” He stopped for a second and looked at each Baudelaire. “You've been very brave, all three of you, and I'll do my best to make sure you have a proper home with me. But I must tell you that I think you've hit a dead end.”

     “What do you mean?” Klaus asked.

     “Well, I hate to add some bad news to the terrible story you just told me,” Hector said, “but I think the initials that the Quagmires told you about and the initials of this town are just a coincidence. As I said, this village has been called V.F.D. for more than three hundred years. Scarcely anything has changed since then. The crows have always roosted in the same places. The meetings of the Council of Elders have always been at the same time every day. My father was the handyman before me, and his father was the handyman before him, and so on and so on. The only new things in this town are you three children and the new Fowl Fountain uptown, which we'll be cleaning tomorrow. I don't see how this village could have anything to do with the secret the Quagmires discovered.”

     The Baudelaire children looked at one another in frustration. “Pojik?” Sunny asked in exasperation. She meant something along the lines of “Do you mean we've come here for nothing?” but Violet translated it somewhat differently.

     “What my sister means,” Violet said, “is that it's very frustrating to find that we're in the wrong place.”

     “We're very concerned for our friends,” Klaus added, “and we don't want to give up on finding them.”

     “Give up?” Hector said. “Who said anything about giving up? Just because the name of this town isn't helpful, that doesn't mean you're in the wrong place. We obviously have a great many chores to do, but in our spare time we can try to find out the whereabouts of Duncan and Isadora. I'm a handyman, not a detective, but I'll try to help you the best I can. We'll have to be very careful, though. The Council of Elders has so many rules that you can scarcely do anything without breaking one of them.”

     “Why does the Council have so many rules?” Violet asked.

     “Why does anyone have a lot of rules?” Hector said with a shrug. “So they can boss people around, I guess. Thanks to all the rules of V.F.D., the Council of Elders can tell people what to wear, how to talk, what to eat, and even what to build. Rule #67, for instance, clearly states that no citizen is allowed to build or use any mechanical devices.”

     “Does that mean I can't build or use any mechanical devices?” Violet asked Hector. “Are my siblings and I citizens of V.F.D., now that the town is our guardian?”

     “I'm afraid you are,” Hector said. “You have to follow Rule #67, along with all the other rules.”

     “But Violet's an inventor!” Klaus cried. “Mechanical devices are very important to her!”

     “Is that so?” Hector said, and smiled. “Then you can be a very big help to me, Violet.” He stopped walking, and looked around the street as if it was full of spies, instead of being completely empty. “Can you keep a secret?” he asked.

     “Yes,” Violet answered.

     Hector looked around the street once more, and then leaned forward and began speaking in a very quiet voice. “When the Council of Elders invented Rule #67,” he said, “they instructed me to remove all the inventing materials in town.”

     “What did you say?” Klaus asked.

     “I didn't say anything,” Hector admitted, leading the children around another corner. “The Council makes me too skittish to speak; you know that. But here's what I did. I took all of the materials and hid them out in my barn, which I've been using as sort of an inventing studio.”

     “I've always wanted to have an inventing studio,” Violet said. Without even realizing it, she was reaching into her pocket for a ribbon, to tie her hair up and keep it out of her eyes, as if she were already inventing something instead of just talking about it. “What have you invented so far, Hector?”

     “Oh, just a few little things,” Hector said, “but I have an enormous project that is nearing completion. I've been building a self-sustaining hot air mobile home.”

     “Neebdes?” Sunny said. She meant something like, “Could you explain that a bit more?” but Hector needed no encouragement to keep talking about his invention.

     “I don't know if you've ever been up in a hot air balloon,” he said, “but it's very exciting. You stand in a large basket, with the enormous balloon over your head, and you can gaze down at the entire countryside below you, spread out like a blanket. It's simply superlative. Well, my invention is nothing more than a hot air balloon — except it's much larger. Instead of one large basket, there are twelve baskets, all tied together below several hot air balloons. Each basket serves as a different room, so it's like having an entire flying house. It's completely self-sustaining — once you get up in it, you never have to go back down. In fact, if my new engine works properly, it will be impossible to get back down. The engine should last for more than one hundred years, and there's a huge storage basket that I'm filling with food, beverages, clothing, and books. Once it's completed, I'll be able to fly away from V.F.D. and the Council of Elders and everything else that makes me skittish, and live forever in the air.”

     “It sounds like a marvelous invention,” Violet said. “How in the world have you been able to get the engine to be self-sustaining, too?”

     “That's giving me something of a problem,” Hector admitted, “but maybe if you three took a look at it, we could fix the engine together.”

     “I'm sure Violet could be of help,” Klaus said, “but I'm not much of an inventor. I'm more interested in reading. Does V.F.D. have a good library?”

     “Unfortunately, no,” Hector said. “Rule #108 clearly states that the V.F.D. library cannot contain any books that break any of the other rules. If someone in a book uses a mechanical device, for instance, that book is not allowed in the library.”

     “But there are so many rules,” Klaus said. “What kind of books could possibly be allowed?”

     “Not very many,” Hector said, “and nearly all of them are dull. There's one called The Littlest Elf that's probably the most boring book ever written. It's about this irritating little man who has all sorts of tedious adventures.”

     “That's too bad,” Klaus said glumly. “I was hoping that I could do a little research into V.F.D. — the secret, that is, not the village — in my spare time.”

     Hector stopped walking again, and looked once more around the empty streets. “Can you keep another secret?” he asked, and the Baudelaires nodded. “The Council of Elders told me to burn all of the books that broke Rule #108,” he said in a quiet voice, “but I brought them to my barn instead. I have sort of a secret library there, as well as a secret inventing studio.”

     “Wow,” Klaus said. “I've seen public libraries, private libraries, school libraries, legal libraries, reptile libraries, and grammatical libraries, but never a secret library. It sounds exciting.”

     “It's a bit exciting,” Hector agreed, “but it also makes me very skittish. The Council of Elders gets very, very angry when people break the rules. I hate to think what they'd do to me if they found out I was secretly using mechanical devices and reading interesting books.”

     “Azzator!” Sunny said, which meant “Don't worry — your secret is safe with us!”

     Hector looked down at her quizzically. “I don't know what 'azzator' means, Sunny,” he said, “but I would guess it means 'Don't forget about me!' Violet will use the studio, and Klaus will use the library, but what can we do for you? What do you like to do best?”

     “Bite!” Sunny responded at once, but Hector frowned and took another look around him.

     “Don't say that so loudly, Sunny!” he whispered. “Rule #4,561 clearly states that citizens are not allowed to use their mouths for recreation. If the Council of Elders knew that you liked to bite things for your own enjoyment, I can't imagine what they'd do. I'm sure we can find you some things to bite, but you'll have to do it in secret. Well, here we are.”

     Hector led the Baudelaires around one last corner, and the children got their first glimpse of where they would be living. The street they had been walking on simply ended at the turn of the corner, leading them to a place as wide and as flat as the countryside they had crossed that afternoon, with just three shapes standing out on the flat horizon. The first was a large, sturdy-looking house, with a pointed roof and a front porch big enough to contain a picnic table and four wooden chairs. The second was an enormous barn, right next to the house, that hid the studio and library Hector had been talking about. But it was the third shape that caused the Baudelaires to stare.

     The third shape on the horizon was Nevermore Tree, but to simply say it was a tree would be like saying the Pacific Ocean was a body of water, or that Count Olaf was a grumpy person or that the story of Beatrice and myself was just a little bit sad. Nevermore Tree was gargantuan, a word which here means “having attained an inordinate amount of botanical volume,” a phrase which here means “it was the biggest tree the Baudelaires had ever seen.” Its trunk was so wide that the Baudelaires could have stood behind it, along with an elephant, three horses, and an opera singer, and not have been seen from the other side. Its branches spread out in every direction, like a fan that was taller than the house and wider than the barn, and the tree was made even taller and wider by what was sitting in it. Every last V.F.D. crow was roosting in its branches, adding a thick layer of muttering black shapes to the immense silhouette of the tree. Because the crows had gotten to Hector's house as the crow flies, instead of walking, the birds had arrived long before the Baudelaires, and the air was filled with the quiet rustling sounds of the birds settling in for the evening. A few of the birds had already fallen asleep, and the children could hear a few crow snores as they approached their new home.

     “What do you think?” Hector asked.

     “It's marvelous,” Violet said.

     “It's superlative,” Klaus said.

     “Ogufod!” Sunny said, which meant “What a lot of crows!”

     “The noises of the crows might sound strange at first,” Hector said, leading the way up the steps of the house, “but you'll get used to them before long. I always leave the windows open when I go to bed. The sounds of the crows remind me of the ocean, and I find it very peaceful to listen to them as I drift off to sleep. Speaking of bed, I'm sure you must be very tired. I've prepared three rooms for you upstairs, but if you don't like them you can choose other ones. There's plenty of room in the house. There's even room for the Quagmires to live here, when we find them. It sounds like the five of you would be happy living together, even if you had to do the chores of an entire town.”

     “That sounds delightful,” Violet said, smiling at Hector. It made the children happy just to think of the two triplets being safe and sound, instead of in Count Olaf's clutches. “Duncan is a journalist, so maybe he could start a newspaper — then V.F.D. wouldn't have to read all of the mistakes in The Daily Punctilio.”

     “And Isadora is a poet,” Klaus said. “She could write a book of poetry for the library — as long as she didn't write poetry about things that were against the rules.”

     Hector started to open the door of his house, but then paused and gave the Baudelaires a strange look. “A poet?” he asked. “What kind of poetry does she write?”

     “Couplets,” Violet replied.

     Hector gave the children a look that was even stranger. He put down the Baudelaires' suitcases and reached into the pocket of his overalls. “Couplets?” he asked.

     “Yes,” Klaus said. “She likes to write rhyming poems that are two lines long.”

     Hector gave the youngsters a look that was one of the strangest they had ever seen, and took his hand out of his pocket to show them a scrap of paper rolled into a tiny scroll.

     “Like this?” he asked, and unrolled the paper. The Baudelaire orphans had to squint to read it in the dying light of the sunset, and when they read it once they had to read it again, to make sure that the light wasn't playing tricks on them and that they had read what was really there on the scrap of paper, in shaky but familiar handwriting:

     For sapphires we are held in here.

     Only you can end our fear.

 

C H A P T E R

Four

     The Baudelaire orphans stared at the scrap of paper, and then at Hector, and then at the scrap of paper again. Then they stared at Hector again, and then at the scrap of paper once more and then at Hector once more and then at the scrap of paper once again, and then at Hector once again and then at the scrap of paper one more time. Their mouths were open as if they were about to speak, but the three children could not find the words they wanted to say.

     The expression “a bolt from the blue” describes something so surprising that it makes your head spin, your legs wobble, and your body buzz with astonishment — as if a bolt of lightning suddenly came down from a clear blue sky and struck you at full force. Unless you are a light bulb, an electrical appliance, or a tree that is tired of standing upright, encountering a bolt from the blue is not a pleasant experience, and for a few minutes the Baudelaires stood on the steps of Hector's house and felt the unpleasant sensations of spinning heads, wobbly legs, and buzzing bodies.

     “My goodness, Baudelaires,” Hector said. “I've never seen anyone look so surprised. Here, come in the house and sit down. You look like a bolt of lightning just hit you at full force.”

     The Baudelaires followed Hector into his house and down a hallway to the parlor, where they sat down on a couch without a word. “Why don't you sit here for a few minutes,” he said. “I'm going to fix you some hot tea. Maybe by the time it's ready you'll be able to talk.” He leaned down and handed the scrap of paper to Violet, and gave Sunny a little pat on the head before walking out of the parlor and leaving the children alone. Without speaking, Violet unrolled the paper so the siblings could read the couplet again.

     For sapphires we are held in here. Only you can end our fear.

     “It's her,” Klaus said, speaking quietly so Hector wouldn't hear him. “I'm sure of it. Isadora Quagmire wrote this poem.”

     “I think so, too,” Violet said. “I'm positive it's her handwriting.”

     “Blake!” Sunny said, which meant “And the poem is written in Isadora's distinct literary style!”

     “The poem talks about sapphires,” Violet said, “and the triplets' parents left behind the famous Quagmire sapphires when they died.”

     “Olaf kidnapped them to get ahold of those sapphires,” Klaus said. “That must be what it means when it says 'For sapphires we are held in here.'”

     “Peng?” Sunny asked.

     “I don't know how Hector got ahold of this,” Violet replied. “Let's ask him.”

     “Not so fast,” Klaus said. He took the poem from Violet and looked at it again. “Maybe Hector's involved with the kidnapping in some way.”

     “I hadn't thought of that,” Violet said. “Do you really think so?”

     “I don't know,” Klaus said. “He doesn't seem like one of Count Olaf's associates, but sometimes we haven't been able to recognize them.”

     “Wryb,” Sunny said thoughtfully, which meant “That's true.”

     “He seems like someone we can trust,” Violet said. “He was excited to show us the migration of the crows, and he wanted to hear all about everything that has happened to us. That doesn't sound like a kidnapper, but I suppose there's no way of knowing for sure.”

     “Exactly,” Klaus said. “There's no way of knowing for sure.”

     “The tea's all ready,” Hector called from the next room. “If you're up to it, why don't you join me in the kitchen? You can sit at the table while I make the enchiladas.”

     The Baudelaires looked at one another, and nodded. “Kay!” Sunny called, and led her siblings into a large and cozy kitchen. The children took seats at a round wooden table, where Hector had placed three steaming mugs of tea, and sat quietly while Hector began to prepare dinner. It is true, of course, that there is no way of knowing for sure whether or not you can trust someone, for the simple reason that circumstances change all of the time. You might know someone for several years, for instance, and trust him completely as your friend, but circumstances could change and he could become very hungry, and before you knew it you could be boiling in a soup pot, because there is no way of knowing for sure. I myself fell in love with a wonderful woman who was so charming and intelligent that I trusted that she would be my bride, but there was no way of knowing for sure, and all too soon circumstances changed and she ended up marrying someone else, all because of something she read in The Daily Punctilio. And no one had to tell the Baudelaire orphans that there was no way of knowing for sure, because before they became orphans, they lived for many years in the care their parents, and trusted their parents to keep on caring for them, but circumstances changed, and now their parents were dead and the children were living with a handyman in a town full of crows. But even though there is no way of knowing for sure, there are often ways to know for pretty sure, and as the three siblings watched Hector work in the kitchen they spotted some of those ways. The tune he hummed as he chopped the ingredients, for instance, was a comforting one, and the Baudelaires could not imagine that a person could hum like that if he were a kidnapper. When he saw that the Baudelaires' tea was still too hot to sip, he walked over to the kitchen and blew on each of their mugs to cool it, and it was hard to believe that someone could be hiding two triplets and cooling three children's tea at the same time. And most comforting of all, Hector didn't pester them with a lot of questions about why they were so surprised and silent. He simply kept quiet and let the Baudelaires wait until they were ready to speak about the scrap of paper he had given them, and the children could not imagine that such a considerate person was involved with Count Olaf in any way whatsoever. There was no way of knowing for sure, of course, but as the Baudelaires watched the handyman place the enchiladas in the oven to bake, they felt as if they knew for pretty sure, and by the time he sat down and joined them at the table they were ready to tell him about the couplet they had read.

     “This poem was written by Isadora Quagmire,” Klaus said without preamble, a phrase which here means “almost as soon as Hector sat down.”

     “Wow,” Hector said. “No wonder you were so surprised. But how can you be sure? Lots of poets write couplets. Ogden Nash, for instance.”

     “Ogden Nash doesn't write about sapphires,” said Klaus, who had received a biography of Ogden Nash for his seventh birthday. “Isadora does. When the Quagmire parents died, they left behind a fortune in sapphires. That's what she means by 'For sapphires we are held in here.'”

     “Besides,” Violet said, “it's Isadora's handwriting and distinct literary style.”

     “Well,” Hector said, “if you say this poem is by Isadora Quagmire, I believe you.”

     “We should call Mr. Poe, and tell him,” Klaus said.

     “We can't call him,” Hector said. “There are no telephones in V.F.D., because telephones are mechanical devices. The Council of Elders can send a message to him. I'm too skittish to ask them, but you can do so if you wish.”

     “Well, before we talk to the Council, we should know a bit more about the couplet,” Violet said. “Where did you get ahold of this scrap of paper?”

     “I found it today,” Hector said, “beneath the branches of Nevermore Tree. I woke up this morning, and I was just leaving to walk downtown to do the morning chores when I noticed something white among all the black feathers the crows had left behind. It was this scrap of paper, all rolled up in a little scroll. I didn't understand what was written on it, and I needed to get the chores done, so I put it in the pocket of my overalls, and I didn't think of it again until just now, when we were talking about couplets. It's certainly very mysterious. How in the world did one of Isadora's poems end up in my backyard?”

     “Well, poems don't get up and walk by themselves,” Violet said. “Isadora must have put it here. She must be someplace nearby.”

     Hector shook his head. “I don't think so,” he said. “You saw for yourself how flat it is around here. You can see everything for miles around, and the only things here on the outskirts of town are the house, the barn, and Nevermore Tree. You're welcome to search the house, but you're not going to find Isadora Quagmire or anyone else, and I always keep the barn locked because I don't want the Council of Elders to find out I'm breaking the rules.”

     “Maybe she's in the tree,” Klaus said. “It's certainly big enough that Olaf could hide her in the branches.”

     “That's true,” Violet said. “Last time Olaf was keeping them far below us. Maybe this time they're far above us.” She shuddered, thinking of how unpleasant it would be to find yourself trapped in Nevermore Tree's enormous branches, and she pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. “There's only one thing to do,” she said. “We'll have to go up and look for them.”

     “You're right,” Klaus said, and stood up beside her. “Let's go.”

     “Gerhit!” Sunny agreed.

     “Hold on a minute,” Hector said. “We can't just go climbing up Nevermore Tree.”

     “Why not?” Violet said. “We've climbed up a tower and down an elevator shaft. Climbing a tree should be no problem.”

     “I'm sure you three are fine climbers,” Hector said, “but that's not what I mean.” He stood up and walked over to the kitchen window. “Take a look outside,” he said. “The sun has completely set. It's not light enough to see a friend of yours up in Nevermore Tree. Besides, the tree is covered in roosting birds. You'll never be able to climb through all of those crows — it'll be a wild-goose chase.”

     The Baudelaires looked out the window and saw that Hector was right. The tree was merely an enormous shadow, blurry around the edges where the birds were roosting. The children knew that a climb in such darkness would indeed be a wild-goose chase, a phrase which here means “unlikely to reveal the Quagmires triplets' location.” Klaus and Sunny looked at their sister, hoping that she could invent a solution, and were relieved to hear she had thought of something before she could even tie her hair back in a ribbon. “We could climb with flashlights,” Violet said. “If you have some tinfoil, an old broom handle, and three rubber bands, I can make a flashlight myself in ten minutes.”

     Hector shook his head. “Flashlights would only disturb the crows,” he said. “If someone woke you up in the middle of the night and shone a light in your face, you would be very annoyed, and you don't want to be surrounded by thousands of annoyed crows. It's better to wait until morning, when the crows have migrated uptown.”

    “We can't wait until morning,” Klaus said. “We can't wait another second. The last time we found them, we left them alone for a few minutes, and then they were gone again.”

     “Ollawmove!” Sunny shrieked, which meant “Olaf could move them at any time!”

     “Well, he can't move them now,” Hector pointed out. “It would be just as difficult for him to climb the tree.”

     “We have to do something,” Violet insisted. “This poem isn't just a couplet — it's a cry for help. Isadora herself says 'Only you can end our fear.' Our friends are frightened, and it's up to us to rescue them.”

     Hector took some oven mitts out of the pocket of his overalls, and used them to take the enchiladas out of the oven. “I'll tell you what,” he said. “It's a nice evening, and our chicken enchiladas are done. We can sit out on the porch, and eat our dinner, and keep an eye on Nevermore Tree. This area is so flat that even at night you can see for quite a distance, and if Count Olaf approaches — or anybody else, for that matter — we'll see him coming.”

     “But Count Olaf might perform his treachery after dinner,” Klaus said. “The only way to make sure that nobody approaches the tree is to watch the tree all night.”

     “We can take turns sleeping,” Violet said, “so that one of us is always awake to keep watch.”

     Hector started to shake his head, but then stopped and looked at the children. “Normally I don't approve of children staying up late,” he said finally, “unless they are reading a very good book, seeing a wonderful movie, or attending a dinner party with fascinating guests. But this time I suppose we can make an exception. I'll probably fall asleep, but you three can keep watch all night if you wish. Just please don't try to climb Nevermore Tree in the dark. I understand how frustrated you are, and I know that the only thing we can do is wait until morning.”

     The Baudelaires looked at one another and sighed. They were so anxious about the Quagmires that they wanted to run right out and climb Nevermore Tree, but they knew in their hearts that Hector was right.

     “I guess you're right, Hector,” Violet said. “We can wait until morning.”

     “It's the only thing we can do,” Klaus agreed.

     “Contraire!” Sunny said, and held up her arms so that Klaus could pick her up. She meant something along the lines of “I can think of something else we can do — hold me up to the window latch!” and her brother did so. Sunny's tiny fingers undid the latch of the window and pushed it open, letting in the cool evening air and the muttering sound of the crows. Then she leaned forward as far as she could and stuck her head out into the night. “Bark!” she cried out as loudly as she could. “Bark!”

     There are many expressions to describe someone who is going about something in the wrong way. “Making a mistake” is one way to describe this situation. “Screwing up” is another, although it is a bit rude, and “Attempting to rescue Lemony Snicket by writing letters to a congressman, instead of digging an escape tunnel” is a third way, although it is a bit too specific. But Sunny calling out “Bark!” brings to mind an expression that, sadly enough, describes the situation perfectly.

     By “Bark!” Sunny meant “If you're up there, Quagmires, just hang on, and we'll get you out first thing in the morning,” and I'm sorry to say that the expression which best describes her circumstances is “barking up the wrong tree.” It was a kind gesture of Sunny's, to try to reassure Isadora and Duncan that the Baudelaires would help them escape from Count Olaf's clutches, but the youngest Baudelaire was going about it the wrong way. “Bark!” she cried one more time, as Hector began to dish up the chicken enchiladas, and led the Baudelaires to the front porch so they could eat at the picnic table and keep an eye on Nevermore Tree, but Sunny was making a mistake. The Baudelaires did not realize the mistake as they finished their dinner and kept their eye on the immense, muttering tree. They did not realize the mistake as they sat on the porch for the rest of the night, taking turns at squinting at the flat horizon for any sign of someone approaching and dozing beside Hector using the picnic table as a pillow. But when the sun began to rise, and one V.F.D. crow left Nevermore Tree and began to fly in a circle, and three more crows followed, and then seven more, and then twelve more, and soon the morning sky was filled with the sound of fluttering wings as the thousands of crows circled and circled above the children's heads as they rose from the wooden chairs and walked quickly toward the tree to look for any sign of the Quagmires, the Baudelaires saw at once how deeply mistaken they had been.

     Without the murder of crows roosting in its branches, Nevermore Tree looked as bare as a skeleton. There was not a single leaf among the hundreds and hundreds of the tree's branches. Standing on its scraggly roots and looking up into the empty branches, the Baudelaires could see every last detail of Nevermore Tree, and they could see at once that they would not find Duncan and Isadora Quagmire no matter how far they climbed. It was an enormous tree, and it was a sturdy tree, and it was apparently very comfortable to roost in, but it was the wrong tree. Klaus had been barking up the wrong tree when he'd said that their kidnapped friends were probably up there, and Violet had been barking up the wrong tree when she'd said that they should climb up and look for them, and Sunny had been barking up the wrong tree when she'd said “Bark!” The Baudelaire orphans had been barking up the wrong tree all evening, because the only thing the children found that morning was another scrap of paper, rolled into a scroll, among all the black feathers that the crows had left behind

     “Maybe it was here yesterday, but Hector didn't see it,” Klaus said.

     Violet shook her head. “A white scrap of paper is very easy to see next to all these black feathers. It must have arrived here sometime in the night. But how?”

     “How it got here is the least of our questions,” Klaus said. “Where are the Quagmires? That's the question I want answered.”

     “But why doesn't Isadora just tell us,” Violet said, rereading the couplet and frowning, “instead of leaving us mysterious poems on the ground where anyone could find them?”

     “Maybe that's why,” Klaus said slowly. “Anyone could find them here on the ground. If Isadora simply wrote out where they were, and Count Olaf found the scrap of paper, he'd move them — or worse. I'm not that experienced with reading poetry, but I bet Isadora is telling us where she and her brother are. It must be hidden somewhere in the poem.”

     “It'll be difficult to find,” Violet said, rereading the couplet. “There are so many confusing things about this poem. Why does she say 'beak'? Isadora has a nose and mouth, not a beak.”

     “Cra!” Sunny said, which meant “She probably means the beak of a V.F.D. crow.”

     “You might be right,” Violet agreed. “But why does she say that no words can come from it? Of course no words can come from a beak. Birds can't talk.”

     “Actually, some birds can talk,” Klaus said. “I read an ornithological encyclopedia that discussed the parrot and the myna bird, which both can imitate human speech.”

      “But there aren't any parrots or myna birds around here,” Violet said. “There are only crows, and crows certainly can't speak.”

     “And speaking of speaking,” Klaus said, “why does the poem say 'Until dawn comes we cannot speak'?”

     “Well, both these poems arrived in the morning,” Violet said. “Maybe Isadora means that she can only send us poems in the morning.”

     “None of this makes any sense,” Klaus said. “Maybe Hector can help us figure out what's going wrong.”

     “Laper!” Sunny said in agreement, and the children went to wake up the handyman, who was still asleep on the front porch. Violet touched his shoulder, and as he yawned and sat up the children could see that his face had lines on it from sleeping on the picnic table.

     “Good morning, Baudelaires,” he said, stretching his arms and giving them a sleepy smile. “At least, I hope it's a good morning. Did you find any sign of the Quagmires?”

     “It's more like a strange morning,” Violet replied. “We found a sign of them, all right. Take a look.”

     Violet handed Hector the second poem, and he read it and frowned. '“Curiouser and curiouser,'” he said, quoting one of the Baudelaires' favorite books. “This is really turning into a puzzle.”

     “But a puzzle is just something you do for amusement,” Klaus said. “Duncan and Isadora are in grave danger. If we don't figure out what these poems are trying to tell us, Count Olaf will — ”

     “Don't even say it,” Violet said with a shiver. “We absolutely must solve this puzzle, and that is that.”

     Hector stood up to stretch, and looked out on the flat and empty horizon surrounding his home. “Judging by the angle of the sun,” he said, “it's just about time to leave. We don' t even have time for breakfast.”

     “Leave?” Violet asked.

     “Of course,” Hector said. “Are you forgetting how many chores we have ahead of us today?” He reached into the pocket of his overalls and pulled out a list. “We begin downtown, of course, so the crows don't get in our way. We have to trim Mrs. Morrow's hedges, wash Mr. Lesko's windows, and polish all the doorknobs at the Verhoogen family's mansion. Plus we have to sweep all the feathers out of the street, and take out everyone's garbage and recyclables.”

     “But the Quagmire kidnapping is much more important than any of those things,” Violet said.

     Hector sighed. “I agree with you,” he said, “but I'm not going to argue with the Council of Elders. They make me too skittish.”

     “I'll be happy to explain the situation to them,” Klaus said.

     “No,” Hector decided. “It will be best to do our chores as usual. Go wash your faces, Baudelaires, and then we'll go.”

     The Baudelaires looked at one another in dismay, wishing that the handyman wasn't quite so afraid of a group of old people wearing crow-shaped hats, but without further discussion they walked back into the house, washed their faces, and followed Hector across the flat landscape until they reached the outskirts of town and then through the uptown district, where the V.F.D. crows were roosting, until they reached the downtown house of Mrs. Morrow, who was waiting in her pink robe on her front porch. Without a word she handed Hector a pair of hedge clippers, which are nothing more than large scissors designed to cut branches and leaves rather than paper, and gave each Baudelaire a large plastic bag to gather up the leaves and branches Hector would snip off. Hedge clippers and a plastic bag are not appropriate methods of greeting someone, of course, particularly first thing in the morning, but the three siblings were so busy thinking about what the poems could mean that they scarcely noticed. As they gathered up the hedge trimmings they floated several theories — the phrase “floated several theories” here means “talked quietly about the two couplets by Isadora Quagmire” — until the hedge looked nice and neat and it was time to walk down the block to where Mr. Lesko lived. Mr. Lesko — whom the Baudelaires recognized as the man in plaid pants who was worried that the children might have to live with him — was even ruder than Mrs. Morrow. He merely pointed at a pile of window-cleaning supplies and stomped back into his house, but once again the Baudelaires were concentrating on solving the mystery of the two messages they had been left, and scarcely noticed Mr. Lesko's rudeness. Violet and Klaus each began scrubbing dirt off a window with a damp rag, while Sunny stood by with a bucket of soapy water and Hector climbed up to clean the windows on the second floor, but all the children thought of was each line of Isadora's confusing poem, until they were finished with the windows and were ready to go to work on the rest of the chores for the day, which I will not describe for you, not only because they were so boring that I would fall asleep while writing them down on paper, but because the Baudelaire orphans scarcely noticed them. The children thought about the couplets while they polished the Verhoogen doorknobs, and they thought about them when they swept the feathers from the street into a dustpan that Sunny held while crawling in front of her siblings, but they still could not imagine how Isadora managed to leave a poem underneath Nevermore Tree. They thought about the couplets as they carried the garbage and recyclables from all of V.F.D.'s downtown residents, and they thought about them as they ate a lunch of cabbage sandwiches that one of V.F.D.'s restaurant owners had agreed to provide as his part in the village's attempt to raise the children, but they still could not figure out what Isadora was trying to tell them. They thought of the couplets when Hector read out the list of afternoon chores, which included such tedious duties as making citizens' beds, washing townspeople's dishes, preparing enough hot fudge sundaes for the entire Council of Elders to enjoy as an afternoon snack, and polishing Fowl Fountain, but no matter how hard they thought, the Baudelaires got no closer to solving the couplets' mysteries. “I'm very impressed with how hard you three children are working,” Hector said, as he and the children began their last afternoon chore. Fowl Fountain was made in the shape of an enormous crow, and stood in the middle of the uptown district, in a courtyard with many different streets leading out of it. The children were scrubbing at the crow's metal body, which was covered in carvings of feather shapes to make it look more realistic. Hector was standing on a ladder scrubbing at the crow's metal head, which was facing straight up and spitting a steady stream of water out of a hole fashioned to look like its mouth, as if the enormous bird were gargling and spitting water all over its own body. The effect was hideous, but the V.F.D. crows must have thought differently, because the fountain was covered in feathers that they had left behind during their uptown morning roost.

     “When the Council of Elders told me that the village was serving as your guardian,” Hector continued, “I was afraid that three small children wouldn't be able to do all these chores without complaining.”

     “We're used to strenuous exercise,” Violet replied. “When we lived in Paltryville, we debarked trees and sawed them into boards, and at Prufrock Preparatory School we had to run hundreds of laps every night.”

     “Besides,” Klaus said, “we're so busy thinking about the couplets that we've scarcely noticed our work.”

     “I thought that's why you were so quiet,” Hector said. “How do the poems go again?”

     The Baudelaires had looked at the two scraps of paper so many times over the course of the day that they could recite both poems from memory.

     “For sapphires we are held in here. Only you can end our fear .” Violet said.

     “Until dawn comes we cannot speak. No words can come from this sad beak.” Klaus said.

     “Dulch!” Sunny added, which meant something like, “And we still haven't figured out what they really mean.”

     “They're tricky, all right,” Hector said. “In fact, I...”

     Here his voice trailed off, and the children were startled to see the handyman turn around so he was no longer facing them and begin to scrub the left eye of the metal crow, as if someone had flicked a switch that stopped him from talking.

     “Fowl Fountain still doesn't look completely clean,” said a stern voice from behind the children, and the Baudelaires turned around to see three women from the Council of Elders who had entered the courtyard and now stood frowning at them. Hector was so skittish that he didn't even look up to answer, but the children were not nearly as intimidated, a word which here means “made skittish by three older women wearing crow-shaped hats.”

     “We're not completely finished cleaning it,” Violet explained politely. “I do hope you enjoyed your hot fudge sundaes that we prepared for you earlier.”

     “They were O.K.,” one of them said, with a shrug that bobbed her crow hat slightly.

     “Mine had too many nuts,” another one of them said. “Rule #961 clearly states that the Council of Elders' hot fudge sundaes cannot have more than fifteen pieces of nuts each, and mine might have had more than that.”

     “I'm very sorry to hear that,” Klaus said, not adding that anyone who is so picky about a hot fudge sundae should make it themselves.

     “We've stacked up the dirty ice cream dishes in the Snack Hut,” the third one said. “Tomorrow afternoon you'll wash them as part of your uptown chores. But we came to tell Hector something.”

     The children looked up to the top of the ladder, thinking that Hector would have to turn around and speak to them now, no matter how skittish he was. But he merely gave a little cough, and continued to scrub at Fowl Fountain. Violet remembered what her father had taught her to say when he was unable to come to the phone, and she spoke up.

     “I'm sorry,” she said. “Hector is occupied at the moment. May I give him a message?”

     The Elders looked at one another and nodded, which made it look like their hats were pecking at one another. “I suppose so,” one of them said. “If we can trust a little girl like you to deliver it.”

     “The message is very important,” the second one said, and once again I find it necessary to use the expression “bolt from the blue.” You would think, after the mysterious appearance of not one but two poems by Isadora Quagmire at the base of Nevermore Tree, that no more bolts from the blue would appear in the village of V.F.D. A bolt of lightning, after all, rarely comes down from a clear blue sky and strikes the exact same place more than once. But for the Baudelaire orphans, life seemed to be little else than bolt after unfortunate bolt from the blue, ever since Mr. Poe had delivered the first bolt from the blue in telling them that their parents had been killed, and no matter how many bolts from the blue they experienced, their heads never spun any less, and their legs never got less wobbly, and their bodies never buzzed any less with astonishment when another bolt arrived from the blue. So when the Baudelaires heard the Elders' message, they almost had to sit down in Fowl Fountain, because the message was such an utter surprise. It was a message that they thought they might never hear, and it is a message that only reaches me in my most pleasant dreams, which are few and far between.

     “The message is this,” said the third member of the Council of Elders, and she leaned her head in close so that the children could see every felt feather of her crow hat. “Count Olaf has been captured,” she said, and the Baudelaires felt as if a bolt of lightning had struck them once more.

 

C H A P T E R

Six

     Although “jumping to conclusions” is an expression, rather than an activity, it is as dangerous as jumping off a cliff, jumping in front of a moving train, and jumping for joy. If you jump off a cliff, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful landing unless there is something below you to cushion your fall, such as a body of water or an immense pile of tissue paper. If you jump in front of a moving train, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful voyage unless you are wearing some sort of train-proof suit. And if you jump for joy, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful bump on the head, unless you make sure you are standing someplace with very high ceilings, which joyous people rarely do. Clearly, the solution to anything involving jumping is either to make sure you are jumping to a safe place, or not to jump at all.

     But it is hard not to jump at all when you are jumping to conclusions, and it is impossible to make sure that you are jumping to a safe place, because all “jumping to conclusions” means is that you are believing something is true even though you don't actually know whether it is or not. When the Baudelaire orphans heard from the three members of V.F.D.'s Council of Elders that Count Olaf had been captured, they were so excited that they immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was true.

     “It's true,” said one of the Elders, which didn't help things any. “A man arrived in town this morning, with one eyebrow and a tattoo of an eye on his ankle.”

     “It must be Olaf,” Violet said, jumping to conclusions.

      “Of course it is,” the second Council member said. “He matched the description that Mr. Poe gave us, so we arrested him immediately.”

     “So it's true,” Klaus said, joining his sister in the jump. “You've really captured Count Olaf.”

     “Of course it's true,” the third woman said impatiently. “We've even contacted The Daily Punctilio, and they'll write a story about it. Soon the whole world will know that Count Olaf has been captured at last.”

     “Hooray!” cried Sunny, the last Baudelaire to jump to conclusions.

     “The Council of Elders has called a special meeting,” said the woman who appeared to be the eldest Elder. Her crow hat bobbed in excitement as she spoke. “All citizens are required to go to Town Hall immediately, to discuss what is to be done with him. After all, Rule #19,833 clearly states that no villains are allowed within the city limits. The usual punishment for breaking a rule is burning at the stake.”

     “Burning at the stake?” Violet said.

     “Of course,” an Elder said. “Whenever we capture rulebreakers, we tie them to a wooden pole and light a fire underneath their feet. That's why I warned you about the number of nuts on my hot fudge sundae. It would be a shame to light you on fire.”

     “You mean the punishment is the same, no matter what rule you break?” Klaus asked.

     “Of course,” another Elder replied. “Rule #2 clearly states that anyone who breaks a rule is burned at the stake. If we didn't burn a rule-breaker at the stake, we would be rule breakers ourselves, and someone else would have to burn us at the stake. Understand?”

     “Sort of,” Violet said, although in truth she didn't understand it at all. None of the Baudelaires did. Although they despised Count Olaf, the children didn't like the idea of lighting him on fire. Burning a villain at the stake felt like something a villain would do rather than something done by fowl devotees.

     “But Count Olaf isn't just a rulebreaker,” Klaus said, choosing his words very carefully. “He has committed all sorts of terrible crimes. It would seem best to turn him over to the authorities, rather than burning him at the stake.”

     “Well, that's something we can talk about at the meeting,” a Councilwoman said, “and we'd better hurry or we'll be late. Hector, get down from that ladder.”

     Hector didn't answer, but he got down from the ladder and followed the three members of the Council of Elders away from Fowl Fountain, keeping his eyes on the ground at all times. The Baudelaires followed Hector, their stomachs fluttering as they walked through the uptown district to the downtown one, where the crows were roosting as they had been yesterday, when the children had first arrived in V.F.D. Their stomachs were fluttering with relief and excitement, because they believed that Count Olaf had been captured, but also with nervousness and fear, because they hated the idea that he might be burned at the stake. The punishment for V.F.D. rulebreakers made the Baudelaires remember their parents' deaths, and they didn't like the idea of anyone being lit on fire, no matter how vile a person they were. It was unpleasant to feel relief, excitement, nervousness, and fear all at once, and by the time they arrived at Town Hall, the stomachs of the Baudelaire orphans were as fluttery as the crows, which were muttering and scuffling as far as the eye could see.

     When one's stomach is as fluttery as all that, it is nice to take a short break to lie down and perhaps sip a fizzy beverage, but there was no time for such things. The three members of the Council led the way to the large room in Town Hall decorated with portraits of crows. The room was in pandemonium, a phrase which here means “filled with Elders and townspeople standing around arguing.” The Baudelaires scanned the room for a sign of Olaf, but it was impossible to see anyone over the bobbing crow heads.

     “We need to begin the meeting!” called one of the Council. “Elders, find your places on the bench. Townspeople, find your places on folding chairs.” The townspeople stopped talking at once and hurried into their seats, perhaps afraid that they would be burned at the stake if they didn't sit down quickly enough. Violet and Klaus sat down next to Hector, who was still staring at the floor in silence, and picked up Sunny so she could see.