* A Series of Unfortunate Events *
                                                                   BOOK the Fifth



                                              THE AUSTERE ACADEMY

                                                                   by LEMONY SNICKET




                                                                           For Beatrice-
                                                                  You will always be in my heart,
                                                                            in my mind,
                                                                       and in your grave.

     The Austere Academy
     Text copyright © 2000 by Lemony Snicket
     Illustrations copyright © 2000 by Brett Helquist
     All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case
quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Printed in the United States of America. For information address HarperCollins Children's Books, a div
HarperCollins Publishers, 1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019.
     Library of Congress Cataloging-m-Pubhcation Data Snicket, Lemony.
     The austere academy / by Lemony Snicket ; illustrations by Brett Helquist.
     p.      m. - (A series of unfortunate events ; bk. 5)
            C


     orphans are shipped off to a miserable boarding school, where they befriend
     the two Quagmire triplets and find that they have been followed by the
     dreaded Count Olaf.
     ISBN 0-06-440863-9 - ISBN 0-06-028888-4 (lib. bdg.)
     [1. Orphans-Fiction. 2. Brothers and sisters-Fiction. 3. Boarding
     schools-Fiction. 4. Schools-Fiction. 5. Humorous stories.] I. Helquist,
     Brett, ill. II. Title.
     PZ7.S6795 Au 2000         00-24349
     [Fie]-dc21       CIP

     7 9 10 8 <•
     First Edition, 2000 Visit us on the World Wide Web! www.harperchildrens.com
                                                                THE AUSTERE ACADEMY



                                                                   CHAPTER
                                                                      One

   If you were going to give a gold medal to the least delightful person on Earth, you would
have to give that medal to a person named Carmelita Spats, and if you didn't give it to her,
Carmelita Spats was the sort of person who would snatch it from your hands anyway.
Carmelita Spats was rude, she was violent, and she was filthy, and it is really a shame that
must describe her to you, because there are enough ghastly and distressing things in this sto
without even mentioning such an unpleasant person.
    It is the Baudelaire orphans, thank goodness, who are the heroes of this story, not the and
since then Olaf had followed them everywhere, usually accompanied by one or more of his
sinister and ugly associates. No matter who was caring for the Baudelaires, Count Olaf wa
always right behind them, performing such dastardly deeds that I can scarcely list them all:
kidnapping, murder, nasty phone calls, disguises, poison, hypnosis, and atrocious cooking a
just some of the adversities the Baudelaire orphans survived at his hands. Even worse, Cou
Olaf had a bad habit of avoiding capture, so he was always sure to turn up again. It is truly
awful that this keeps happening, but that is how the story goes.
    I only tell you that the story goes this way because you are about to become acquainted w
rude, violent, filthy Carmelita Spats, and if you can't stand reading about her, you had best p
this book down and read something else, because it only gets worse from here. Before too
long, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire will have so much adversity that being dreadful
Carmelita Spats, and if you wanted to give a gold medal to Violet, Klaus, and Sunny
Baudelaire, it would be for survival in the face of adversity. Adversity is a word which he
means "trouble," and there are very few people in this world who have had the sort of
troubling adversity that follows these three children wher-ever they go. Their trouble began
one day when they were relaxing at the beach and received the distressing news that their
parents had been killed in a terrible fire, and so were sent to live with a distant relative nam
Count Olaf.
    If you were going to give a gold medal to Count Olaf, you would have to lock it up
some-place before the awarding ceremony, because Count Olaf was such a greedy and evil
man that he would try to steal it beforehand. The Baude-laire orphans did not have a go
medal, but they did have an enormous fortune that their Parents had left them, and
was that fortune Count Olaf tried to snatch. The three siblings survived living with Count
Olaf, but just barely, shoved aside by Carmelita Spats will look like a trip to the ice cream
store.
    "Get out of my way, you cakesniffers!" said a rude, violent, and filthy little girl, shoving
Baudelaire orphans aside as she dashed by. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny were too startled to
answer. They were standing on a sidewalk made of bricks, which must have been very old
because there was a great deal of dark moss oozing out from in between them. Surrounding
sidewalk was a vast brown lawn that looked like it had never been watered, and on the law
were hundreds of children running in various directions. Occasionally someone would slip
fall to the ground, only to get back up and keep running. It looked exhausting and pointless,
things that should be avoided at all costs, but the Baudelaire orphans barely glanced at the
other children, keeping their eyes on the mossy bricks below them.
    Shyness is a curious thing, because, like quicksand, it can strike people at any time, and
also, like quicksand, it usually makes its victims look down. This was to be the Baudelaire
first day at Prufrock Preparatory School, and all three siblings found that they would rather
look at the oozing moss than at anything else.
    "Have you dropped something?" Mr. Poe asked, coughing into a white handkerchief. On
place the Baudelaires certainly didn't want to look was at Mr. Poe, who was walking
closely behind them. Mr. Poe was a banker who had been placed in charge of the Baudelai
affairs following the terrible fire, and this had turned out to be a lousy idea. Mr. Poe meant
well, but a jar of mustard probably also means well and would do a better job of keepin
the Baudelaires out of danger. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny had long ago learned that the o
thing they could count on from Mr. Poe was that he was always coughing.
    "No," Violet replied, "we haven't dropped anything." Violet was the oldest Baudelaire,
usually she was not shy at all. Violet liked to invent things, and one could often find h
thinking hard about her latest invention, with her hair tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of he
eyes. When her inventions were done, she liked to show them to people she knew, who we
usually very impressed with her skill. Right now, as she looked down at the mossy bricks,
thought of a machine she could build that could keep moss from growing on the sidewalk, b
she felt too nervous to talk about it. What if none of the teachers, children, or administrative
staff were interested in her inventions?
    As if he were reading her thoughts, Klaus put a hand on Violet's shoulder, and she
smiled at him. Klaus had known for all twelve of his years that his older sister found a hand
her shoulder comforting-as long as the hand was attached to an arm, of course. Normally K
would have said something comforting as well, but he was feeling as shy as his sister. Mos
the time, Klaus could be found doing what he liked to do best, which was reading. Some
mornings one could find him in bed with his glasses on because he had been reading so late
that he was too tired to take them off. Klaus looked down at the sidewalk and remembered
book he had read called Moss Mysteries, but he felt too shy to bring it up. What if Prufrock
Preparatory School had nothing good to read?
    Sunny, the youngest Baudelaire, looked up at her siblings, and Violet smiled and picked
up. This was easy to do because Sunny was a baby and only a little bit larger than a loaf of
bread. Sunny was also too nervous to say anything, although it was often difficult to underst
what she said when she did speak up. For instance, if Sunny had not been feeling so shy, sh
might have opened her mouth, revealing her four sharp teeth, and said "Marimo!" which ma
have meant "I hope there are plenty of things to bite at school, because biting things is one o
my favorite things to do!"
    "I know why you're all so quiet," Mr. Poe said. "It's because you're excited, and I don't
blame you. I always wanted to go to boarding school when I was younger, but I never had t
chance. I'm a little jealous of you, if you want to know the truth."
    The Baudelaires looked at one another. The fact that Prufrock Preparatory School was a
boarding school was the part that made them feel the most nervous. If no one was interested
inventions, or there was nothing to read, or biting wasn't allowed, they were stuck there, no
only all day but all night as well. The siblings wished that if Mr. Poe were really jealous o
them he would attend Prufrock Preparatory School himself, and they could work at the bank
    "You're very lucky to be here," Mr. Poe continued. "I had to call more than four schools
before I found one that could take all three of you at such short notice. Prufrock Prep-that's
what they call it, as a sort of nickname-is a very fine academy. The teachers all have advan
degrees. The dormitory rooms are all finely furnished. And most important of all, there is a
advanced computer system which will keep Count Olaf away from you. Vice Principal Ner
told me that Count Olaf's complete description-everything from his one long eyebrow to the
tattoo of an eye on his left ankle-has been programmed into the computer, so you three shou
be safe here for the next several years."
    "But how can a computer keep Count Olaf away?" Violet asked in a puzzled voice, still
looking down at the ground.
    "It's an advanced computer," Mr. Poe said, as if the word "advanced" were a proper
explanation instead of a word meaning "having attained advancement." "Don't worry your l
heads about Count Olaf. Vice Principal Nero has promised me that he will keep a close eye
you. After all, a school as advanced as Prufrock Prep wouldn't allow people to simply
run around loose."
    "Move, cakesniffers!" the rude, violent, and filthy little girl said as she dashed by them
again.
    "What does 'cakesniffers' mean?" Violet murmured to Klaus, who had an enormous
vocabulary from all his reading.
    "I don't know," Klaus admitted, "but it doesn't sound very nice."
    "What a charming word that is," Mr. Poe said. "Cakesniffers. I don't know what it mean
but it reminds me of pastry. Oh well, here we are." They had come to the end of the mossy
brick sidewalk and stood in front of the school. The Baudelaires looked up at their new hom
and gasped in surprise. Had they not been staring at the sidewalk the whole way across the
lawn, they would have seen what the academy looked like, but perhaps it was best to delay
looking at it for as long as possible. A person who designs buildings is called an architect,
in the case of Prufrock Prep a better term might be "depressed architect." The school was m
up of several buildings, all made of smooth gray stone, and the buildings were grouped
together in a sort of sloppy line. To get to the buildings, the Baudelaires had to walk beneat
immense stone arch casting a curved shadow on the lawn, like a rainbow in which all
the colors were gray or black. On the arch were the words "PRUFROCK PREPARATORY
SCHOOL" in enormous black letters, and then, in smaller letters, the motto of the school,
"Memento Mori." But it was not the buildings or the arch that made the children gasp. It wa
how the buildings were shaped-rectangular, but with a rounded top. A rectangle with a roun
top is a strange shape, and the orphans could only think of one thing with that shape. To the
Baudelaires each building looked exactly like a gravestone.
    "Rather odd architecture," Mr. Poe commented. "Each building looks like a thumb. In my
case, you are to report to Vice Principal Nero's office immediately. It's on the ninth floor of
main building."
    "Aren't you coming with us, Mr. Poe?" Violet asked. Violet was fourteen, and she knew
fourteen was old enough to go to somebody's office by herself, but she felt nervous about
walking into such a sinister-looking building without an adult nearby.
    Mr. Poe coughed into his handkerchief and looked at his wristwatch at the same time. "I'
afraid not," he said when his coughing passed. "The banking day has already begun. But I'v
talked over everything with Vice Principal Nero, and if there's any problem, remember you
always contact me or any of my associates at Mulctuary Money Management. Now, off you
Have a wonderful time at Prufrock Prep."
    "I'm sure we will," said Violet, sounding much braver than she felt. "Thank you for
everything, Mr. Poe."
    "Yes, thank you," Klaus said, shaking the banker's hand.
    "Terfunt," Sunny said, which was her way of saying "Thank you."
   "You're welcome, all of you," Mr. Poe said. "So long." He nodded at all three Baudelai
and Violet and Sunny watched him walk back down the mossy sidewalk, carefully avoiding
running children. But Klaus didn't watch him. Klaus was looking at the enormous arch over
academy.
   "Maybe I don't know what 'cakesniffer' means," Klaus said, "but I think I can transl
our new school's motto."
   "It doesn't even look like it's in English," Violet said, peering up at it.
   "Racho," Sunny agreed.
   "It's not," Klaus said. "It's in Latin. Many mottoes are in Latin, for some reason. I don't
know very much Latin, but I do remember reading this phrase in a book about the Mid
Ages. If it means what I think it means, it's certainly a strange motto."
   "What do you think it means?" Violet asked.
   "If I'm not mistaken," said Klaus, who was rarely mistaken, "'Memento Mori' mean
'Remember you will die.'"
   "Remember you will die," Violet repeated quietly, and the three siblings stepped closer
one another, as if they were very cold. Everybody will die, of course, sooner or later. Circ
performers will die, and clarinet experts will die, and you and I will die, and there might b
person who lives on your block, right now, who is not looking both ways before he crosses
street and who will die in just a few seconds, all because of a bus. Everybody will die, but
very few people want to be reminded of that fact. The children certainly did not want to
remember that they would die, particularly as they walked beneath the arch over Prufrock P
The Baudelaire orphans did not need to be reminded of this as they began their first day in t
giant graveyard that was now their home.


                                          CHAPTER
                                            Two

    As the Baudelaire orphans stood outside Vice Principal Nero's door, they were reminde
of something their father said to them just a few months before he died. One evening
Baudelaire parents had gone out to hear an orchestra play, and the three children had staye
by themselves in the family mansion. The Baudelaires had something of a routine on
nights like this. First, Violet and Klaus would play a few games of checkers while Sunny
ripped up some old newspapers, and then the three children would read in the library until
fell asleep on comfortable sofas. When their parents came home they would wake up t
sleeping children, talk to them a little about the evening, and send them off to bed. But on th
particular night, the Baudelaire parents came home early and the children were still up
reading-or, in Sunny's case, looking at the pictures. The siblings' father stood in the doorwa
the library and said something they never forgot. "Children," he said, "there is no worse sou
in the world than somebody who cannot play the violin who insists on doing so anyway."
    At the time, the Baudelaires had merely giggled, but as they listened outside the vic
principal's door, they realized that their father had been absolutely right. When they first
approached the heavy wooden door, it sounded like a small animal was having a temper
tantrum. But as they listened more closely, the children realized it was somebody who cann
play the violin insisting on doing so anyway. The sounds shrieked and hissed and scratched
moaned and made other horrible sounds that are really impossible to describe, and finally
Violet could take it no longer and knocked on the door. She had to knock very hard and at
length, in order to be heard over the atrocious violin recital going on inside, but at last the
wooden door opened with a creak and there stood a tall man with a violin under his chin an
an angry glare in his eyes.
    "Who dares interrupt a genius when he is rehearsing?" he asked, in a voice so loud
booming that it was enough to make anyone shy all over again.
    "The Baudelaires," Klaus said quietly, looking at the floor. "Mr. Poe said to come right
Vice Principal Nero's office."
    "Mr. Poe said to come right to Vice Principal Nero's office," the man mimicked in a hi
shrieky voice. "Well, come in, come in, I don't have all afternoon."
    The children stepped into the office and got a better look at the man who had mocked the
He was dressed in a rumpled brown suit that had something sticky on its jacket, and he was
wearing a tie decorated with pictures of snails. His nose was very small and very red, as if
somebody had stuck a cherry tomato in the middle of his splotchy face. He was almost
completely bald, but he had four tufts of hair, which he had tied into little pigtails with som
old rubber bands. The Baudelaires had never seen anybody who looked like him before and
they weren't particularly interested in looking at him any further, but his office was so smal
and bare that it was difficult to look at anything else. There was a small metal desk with a
small metal chair behind it and a small metal lamp to one side. The office had one window
decorated with curtains that matched the man's tie. The only other object in the room was a
shiny computer, which sat in a corner of the room like a toad. The computer had a blank gra
screen and several buttons as red as the pigtailed man's nose.
    "Ladies and gentlemen," the man announced in a loud voice, "Vice Principal Nero!"
    There was a pause, and the three children looked all around the tiny room,
wondering where Nero had been hiding all this time. Then they looked back at the man wi
the pigtails, who was holding both hands up in the air, his violin and bow almost
touching the ceiling, and they realized that the man he had just intro-duced so grandly
himself. Nero paused for a moment and looked down at the Baudelaires.
    "It is traditional," he said sternly, "to applaud when a genius has been introduced
    Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course. Piracy, for example
a tradition that has been carried on for hundreds of years, but that doesn't mean we sho
all attack ships and steal their gold. But Vice Principal Nero looked so ferocious that the
chil-drcn felt this was a time to honor tradition, so they began clapping their hands and didn
stop until Nero took several bows and sat down in his chair.
    "Thank you very much, and welcome to Prufrock Preparatory School, blah blah blah" h
said, using the word "blah" to mean that he was too bored to finish his sentence properly. "I
certainly doing Mr. Poe a favor in taking on three orphans at such short notice. He assured m
that you won't cause any trouble, but I did a little research of my own. You've been sent to l
guardian after legal guardian, and adversity has always followed. 'Adversity' means 'troubl
by the way."
    "In our case," Klaus said, not pointing out that he already knew what the word "adversity
meant, "'adversity' means Count Olaf. He was the cause of all the trouble with our guardian
    "He was the cause of all the trouble with our guardians," Nero said in his nasty,
mimicking way. "I'm not interested in your problems, quite frankly. I am a genius and have
time for anything other than playing the violin. It's depressing enough that I had to take
job as vice principal because not a single orchestra appreciates my genius. I'm not going to
depress myself further by listening to the problems of three bratty children. Anyway, here a
Prufrock Prep there'll be no blaming your own weaknesses on this Count Olaf person. Look
this."
    Vice Principal Nero walked over to the computer and pressed two buttons over and ove
again. The screen lit up with a light green glow, as if it were seasick. "This is an advanced
computer," Nero said. "Mr. Poe gave me all the necessary information about the man you c
Count Olaf, and I programmed it into the computer. See?" Nero pressed another button, and
small picture of Count Olaf appeared on the computer screen. "Now that the advanced
computer knows about him, you don't have to worry."
    "But how can a computer keep Count Olaf away?" Klaus asked. "He could still show up
cause trouble, no matter what appears on a computer screen."
    "I shouldn't have bothered trying to explain this to you," Vice Principal Nero said. "The
no way uneducated people like yourself can understand a genius like me. Well,
Prufrock Prep will take care of that. You'll get an education here if we have to break both
your arms to do it. Speaking of which, I'd better show you around. Come here to th
window."
    The Baudelaire orphans walked to the window and looked down at the brown lawn. Fro
the ninth floor, all the children running around looked like tiny ants, and the sidewalk looke
like a ribbon somebody had thrown away. Nero stood behind the siblings and pointed at thi
with his violin.
    "Now, this building you're in is the administrative building. It is completely off-limits to
students. Today is your first day, so I'll forgive you, but if I see you here again, you will no
allowed to use silverware at any of your meals. That gray building over there contains the
classrooms. Violet, you will be studying with Mr. Remora in Room One, and Klaus, y
will be studying with Mrs. Bass in Room Two. Can you remember that, Room One and Roo
Two? If you don't think you can remember, I have a felt-tipped marker, and I will write 'Ro
One' and 'Room Two' on your hands in permanent ink."
    "We can remember," Violet said quickly. "But which classroom is Sunny's?"
    Vice Principal Nero drew himself up to his full height, which in his case was five feet, t
inches. "Prufrock Preparatory School is a serious academy, not a nursery school. I told Mr.
Poe that we would have room for the baby here, but we do not have a classroom for her. Su
will be employed as my secretary."
    "Aregg?" Sunny asked incredulously. "Incredulously" is a word which here means "not
being able to believe it," and "Aregg" is a word which here means "What? I can't believe it
    "But Sunny's a baby" Klaus said. "Babies aren't supposed to have jobs."
    "Babies aren't supposed to have jobs " Nero mimicked again, and then continued. "We
babies aren't supposed to be at boarding schools, either," Nero pointed out. "Nobody can te
a baby anything, so she'll work for me. All she has to do is answer the phone and take care
paperwork. It's not very difficult, and it's an honor to work for a genius, of course. Now, if
either of you are late for class, or Sunny is late for work, your hands will be tied behind yo
back during meals. You'll have to lean down and eat your food like a dog. Of course, Sunny
will always have her silverware taken away, because she will work in the administrative
building, where she's not allowed."
    "That's not fair!" Violet cried.
    "That's not fair!" the vice principal squealed back at her. "The stone building over ther
contains the cafeteria. Meals are served promptly at breakfast time, lunchtime, and dinnerti
If you're late we take away your cups and glasses, and your beverages will be served to yo
large puddles. That rectangular building over there, with the rounded top, is the auditorium
Every night I give a violin recital for six hours, and attendance is mandatory. The word
'mandatory' means that if you don't show up, you have to buy me a large bag of candy and w
me eat it. The lawn serves as our sports facility. Our regular gym teacher, Miss Tench,
accidentally tell out of a third-story window a few days ago, but we have a replacement, w
should arrive shortly. In the meantime, I've instructed the children just to run around as fast
they can during gym time. I think that just about covers everything. Are there any questions?
    "Could anything be worse than this?" was the question Sunny had, but she was too well
mannered to ask this. "Are you kidding about all these incredibly cruel punishments and rul
was the question Klaus thought of, but he already knew that the answer was no. Only Violet
thought of a question that seemed useful to ask.
    "I have a question, Vice Principal Nero," she said. "Where do we live?"
    Nero's response was so predictable that the Baudelaire orphans could have said it along
with this miserable administrator. "Where do we live?" he said in his high, mocking tone, b
when he was done making fun of the children he decided to answer it. "We have a magnific
dormitory here at Prufrock Prep," he said. "You can't miss it. It's a gray building, entirely m
of stone and shaped like a big toe. Inside is a huge living room with a brick fireplace, a gam
room, and a large lending library. Every student has his or her own room, with a bowl of fr
fruit placed there every Wednesday. Doesn't that sound nice?"
    "Yes, it does," Klaus admitted.
    "Keeb!" Sunny shrieked, which meant something along the lines of "I like fruit!"
    "I'm glad you think so," Nero said, "although you won't get to see much of the place. In o
to live in the dormitory, you must have a permission slip with the signature of a parent or
guardian. Your parents are dead, and Mr. Poe tells me that your guardians have either
been killed or have fired you."
    "But surely Mr. Poe can sign our permission slip," Violet said.
    "He surely can not" Nero replied. "He is neither your parent nor your guardian. He is a
hanker who is in charge of your affairs."
    "But that's more or less the same thing," Klaus protested.
    "That's more or less the same thing," Nero mimicked. "Perhaps after a few semes
at Prufrock Prep, you'll learn the difference between a parent and a banker. No, I'm
afraid you'll have to live in a small shack, made entirely of tin. Inside there is no living roo
no game room, and no lending library whatsoever. You three will each have your own bale
hay to sleep on, but no fruit. It's a dismal place, but Mr. Poe tells me that you've had a
number of uncomfortable experiences, so I figured you'd be used to such things."
    "Couldn't you please make an exception?" Violet asked.
    "I'm a violinist!" Nero cried. "I have no time to make exceptions! I'm too busy practicing
violin. So if you will kindly leave my office, I can get back to work."
    Klaus opened his mouth to say something more, but when he looked at Nero, he kne
that there was no use saying another word to such a stubborn man, and he glumly followed
sisters out of the vice principal's office. When the office door shut behind them, howe
Vice Principal Nero said another word, and he said it three times. The three children
listened to these three words that he said and knew for certain that he had not been so
at all. For as soon as the Baudelaires left the office and Nero thought he was alone, he said
him-self, Hee hee hee."
    Now, the vice principal of Prufrock Preparatory School did not actually say the syllable
hee hee hee," of course. Whenever you see the words "hee hee hee" in a book, or "ha ha ha
"har har har," or "heh heh heh," or even "ho ho ho," those words mean somebody was laugh
In this case, however, the words "hee hee hee" cannot really describe what Vice Principal
Nero's laugh sounded like. The laugh was squeaky, and it was wheezy, and it had a rough,
crackly edge to it, as if Nero were eating tin cans as he laughed at the children. But most of
the laugh sounded cruel. It is always cruel to laugh at people, of course, although sometime
they are wearing an ugly hat it is hard to control yourself. But the Baudelaires were not
wearing ugly hats. They were young children receiving bad news, and if Vice Principal Ne
really had to laugh at them, he should have been able to control himself until the siblings w
out of earshot. But Nero didn't care about controlling himself, and as the Baudelaire orphan
listened to the laugh, they realized that what their father had said to them that night when he
come home from the symphony was wrong.
    There was a worse sound in the world than somebody who cannot play the violin insistin
on doing so anyway. The sound of an administrator laughing a squeaky, wheezy, rough, crac
cruel laugh at children who have to live in a shack was much, much worse. So as I hide out
here in this mountain cabin and write the words "hee hee hee," and you, wherever you are
hiding out, read the words "hee hee hee," you should know that "hee hee hee" stands for the
worst sound the Baudelaires had ever heard.


                                            CHAPTER
                                              Three

   The expression "Making a mountain out of a molehill" simply means making a big deal o
of something that is actually a small deal, and it is easy to see how this expression came ab
Molehills are simply mounds of earth serving as condominiums for moles, and they have ne
caused anyone any harm except for maybe a stubbed toe if you were walking through t
wilderness without any shoes on. Mountains, however, are very large mounds of earth
and are constantly causing problems. They are very tall, and when people try to climb them
they often fall off, or get lost and die of starvation. Sometimes two countries fight over who
really owns a mountain, and thousands of people have to go to war and come home grumpy
wounded. And, of course, mountains serve as homes to mountain goats and mountain lions,
enjoy attacking helpless picnickers and eating sandwiches or children. So when someone is
making a mountain out of a molehill, they are pretending that something is as horrible as a w
or a ruined picnic when it is really only as horrible as a stubbed toe.
   When the Baudelaire orphans reached the shack where they were going to live, however
they realized that Vice Principal Nero hadn't been making a mountain out of a molehill at al
when he had said that the shack was a dismal place. If anything, he had been making a mole
out of a mountain. It was true that the shack was tiny, as Nero had said, and made of tin, and
was true that there was no living room, no game room, and no lending library. It was true th
there were three bales of hay instead of beds, and that there was absolutely no fresh fruit in
sight. But Vice Principal Nero had left out a few details in his description, and it was these
details that made the shack even worse. The first detail the Baudelaires noticed was that the
shack was infested with small crabs, each one about the size of a matchbox, scurrying aroun
the wooden floor with their tiny claws snapping in the air. As the children walked across th
shack to sit glumly on one of the bales of hay, they were disappointed to learn that the crabs
were territorial, a word which here means "unhappy to see small children in their living
quarters." The crabs gathered around the children and began snapping their claws at them.
Luckily, the crabs did not have very good aim, and luckily, their claws were so small that th
probably wouldn't hurt any more than a good strong pinch, but even if they were more or le
harmless they did not make for a good shack.
   When the children reached the bale of hay and sat down, tucking their legs up under them
avoid the snapping crabs, they looked up at the ceiling and saw another detail Nero had
neglected to mention. Some sort of fungus was growing on the ceiling, a fungus that was lig
tan and quite damp. Every few seconds, small drops of moisture would fall from the fungus
with a plop! and the children had to duck to avoid getting light tan fungus juice on them. Lik
the small crabs, the plop!ing fungus did not appear to be very harmful, but also like the sma
crabs, the fungus made the shack even more uncomfortable than the vice principal had
described it.
   And lastly, as the children sat on the bale of hay with their legs tucked beneath them and
ducked to avoid fungus juice, they saw one more harmless but unpleasant detail of the shack
that was worse than Nero had led them to believe, and that was the color of the walls.
   Each tin wall was bright green, with tiny pink hearts painted here and there as if the shac
were an enormous, tacky Valentine's Day card instead of a place to live, and the Baudelair
found that they would rather look at the bales of hay, or the small crabs on the floor, or even
light tan fungus on the ceiling than the ugly walls.Overall, the shack was too miserable to
serve as a storage space for old banana peels, let alone as a home for three young peo
and I confess that if I had been told that it was my home I probably would have lain on the
bales of hay and thrown a temper tantrum. But the Baudelaires had learned long ago that tem
tantrums, however fun they may be to throw, rarely solve whatever problem is causing them
So after a long, miserable silence, the orphans tried to look at their situation in a more posi
light. "
   "This isn't such a nice room," Violet said finally, "but if I put my mind to it, I bet I can
invent something that can keep these crabs away from us."
   "And I'm going to read up on this light tan fungus," Klaus said. "Maybe the dormitory lib
has information on how to stop it from dripping."
   "Ivoser," Sunny said, which meant something like "I bet I can use my four sharp teeth to
scrape this paint away and make the walls a bit less ugly."
    Klaus gave his baby sister a little kiss on the top of her head. "At least we get to go to
school," he pointed out. "I've missed being in a real classroom."
    "Me too," Violet agreed. "And at least we'll meet some people our own age. We've only
the company of adults for quite some time."
    "Wonic," Sunny said, which probably meant "And learning secretarial skills is an excitin
opportunity for me, although I should really be in nursery school instead."
    "That's true," Klaus said. "And who knows? Maybe the advanced computer really can k
Count Olaf away, and that's the most important thing of all."
    "You're right," Violet said. "Any room that doesn't have Count Olaf in it is good enough
me."
    "Olo," Sunny said, which meant "Even if it's ugly, damp, and filled with crabs."
    The children sighed and then sat quietly for a few moments. The shack was quiet, except
the snapping of tiny crab claws, the plop! of fungus, and the sighs of the Baudelaires as they
looked at the ugly walls. Try as they might, the youngsters just couldn't make the shack into
molehill. No matter how much they thought of real classrooms, people their own age, or the
exciting opportunity of secretarial skills, their new home seemed much, much worse than ev
the sorest of stubbed toes.
    "Well," Klaus said after a while, "it feels like it's about lunchtime. Remember, if we're
they take away our cups and glasses's so we should probably get a move on."
    "Those rules are ridiculous," Violet said, ducking to avoid a plop! "Lunchtime isn
specific time, so you can't be late for it. It's just a word that means 'around lunch.'"
    "I know," Klaus said, "and the part about Sunny being punished for going to the
administrative building, when she has to go there to be Nero's secretary, is completely
absurd."
    "Kalc!" Sunny said, putting her little hand on her brother's knee. She meant something lik
"Don't worry about it. I'm a baby, so I hardly ever use silverware. It doesn't matter that it'll
taken away from me."
    Ridiculous rules or not, the orphans did not want to be punished, so the three of them
walked gingerly-the word "gingerly" here means "avoiding territorial crabs"-across the sha
and out onto the brown lawn. Gym class must have been over, because all the running child
were gone, and this only made the Baudelaires walk even more quickly to the cafeteria.
    Several years before this story took place, when Violet was ten and Klaus was eight and
Sunny was not even a fetus, the Baudelaire family went to a county fair in order to see a pig
that their Uncle Elwyn had entered in a contest. The pig contest turned out to be a bit dull, b
in the neighboring tent there was another contest that the family found quite interesting: the
Biggest Lasagna Contest. The lasagna that won the blue ribbon had been baked by eleven nu
and was as big and soft as a large mattress. Perhaps because they were at such an
impressionable age-the phrase "impressionable age" here means "ten and eight years old,
respectively"- Violet and Klaus always remembered this lasagna, and they were sure they
would never see another one anywhere near as big.
    Violet and Klaus were wrong. When the Baudelaires entered the cafeteria, they found a
lasagna waiting for them that was the size of a dance floor. It was sitting on top of an enorm
trivet to keep it from burning the floor, and the person serving it was wearing a thick metal
mask as protection, so that the children could only see their eyes peeking out from tiny
eyeholes. The stunned Baudelaires got into a long line of children and waited their turn for
metal-masked person to scoop lasagna onto ugly plastic trays and hand it wordlessly to the
children. After receiving their lasagna, the orphans walked further down the line and helped
themselves to green salad, which was waiting for them in a bowl the size of a pickup truck.
Next to the salad was a mountain of garlic bread, and at the end of the line was anothe
metal-masked person, handing out silverware to the students who had not been inside
administrative building.
    The Baudelaires said "thank you" to the person, who gave them a slow metallic nod
return. They took a long look around the crowded cafeteria. Hundreds of children had alrea
received their lasagna and were sitting at long rectangular tables. The Baudelaires saw sev
other children who had undoubtedly been in the administrative building, because they had n
silverware. They saw several more students who had their hands tied behind their backs as
punishment for being late to class. And they saw several students who had a sad look on th
faces, as if they had been forced to buy somebody a bag of candy and watch them eat it, and
orphans guessed that these students had failed to show up to one of Nero's six-hour concert
    But it was none of these punishments that made the Baudelaire orphans pause for so
long. It was the fact that they did not know where to sit. Cafeterias can be confusing places,
because there are different rules for each one, and sometimes it is difficult to know where o
should eat. Normally, the Baudelaires would simply eat with one of their friends, but their
friends were far, far away from Prufrock Preparatory School, and Violet, Klaus, and Sunny
gazed around the cafeteria full of strangers and thought they might never put down the
ugly trays. Finally, they caught the eye of the girl they had seen on the lawn, who had cal
them such a strange name, and walked a few steps toward her.
    Now, you and I know that this loathsome little girl was Carmelita Spats, but the
Baude-laires had not been properly introduced to her and so did not realize just how loaths
she was, although as the orphans drew closer she gave them an instant education.
    "Don't even think of eating around here, you cakesniffers!" Carmelita Spats cried, and
several of her rude, filthy, violent friends nodded in agreement. "Nobody wants to have lun
with people who live in the Orphans Shack!"
    "I'm terribly sorry," Klaus said, although he wasn't terribly sorry at all. "I didn't mean to
disturb you."
    Carmelita, who had apparently never been to the administrative building, picked up her
silverware and began to bang it on her tray in a rhythmic and irritating way. "Cakesniffing
orphans in the Orphans Shack! Cakesniffing orphans in the Orphans Shack!" she chanted, an
the Baudelaires' dismay, many other children joined right in. Like many other rude, violent,
filthy people, Carmelita Spats had a bunch of friends who were always happy to help her
torment people-probably to avoid being tor-mented themselves. In a few seconds, it seemed
like the entire cafeteria was banging their silverware and chanting, "Cakesniffing
orphans in the Orphans Shack!" The three siblings stepped closer together, craning
their necks to see if there was any possible place to which they could escape and eat thei
lunch in peace.
    "Oh, leave them alone, Carmelita!" a voice cried over the chanting. The Baudelaires tur
around and saw a boy with very dark hair and very wide eyes. He looked a little older than
Klaus and a little younger than Violet and had a dark green notebook tucked into the pocket
his thick wool sweater. "You're the cakesniffer, and nobody in their right mind would want
eat with you anyway. Come on," the boy said, turning to the Baudelaires. "There's room at o
table."
    "Thank you very much," Violet said in relief and followed the boy to a table that had ple
of room. He sat down next to a girl who looked absolutely identical to the boy. She looked
about the same age, and also had very dark hair, very wide eyes, and a notebook tucked into
pocket of her thick wool sweater. The only difference seemed to be that the girl's notebook
was pitch black. Seeing two people who look so much alike is a little bit eerie, but it was
better than looking at Carmelita Spats, so the Baudelaires sat down across from them and
introduced themselves.
    "I'm Violet Baudelaire," said Violet Baudelaire, "and this is my brother, Klaus, and our
baby sister, Sunny."
    "It's nice to meet you," said the boy. "My name is Duncan Quagmire, and this is my siste
Isadora. And the girl who was yelling at you, I'm sorry to say, was Carmelita Spats."
    "She didn't seem very nice," Klaus said.
    "That is the understatement of the century," Isadora said. "Carmelita Spats is
rude, filthy, and violent, and the less time you spend with her the happier you will be."
    "Read the Baudelaires the poem you wrote about her," Duncan said to his sister.
    "You write poetry?" Klaus asked. He had read a lot about poets but had never met one.
    "Just a little bit," Isadora said modestly. "I write poems down in this notebook. It's
interest of mine."
    "Sappho!" Sunny shrieked, which meant something like "I'd be very pleased to
hear a poem of yours!"
    Klaus explained to the Quagmires what Sunny meant, and Isadora smiled and opene
her notebook. "It's a very short poem," she said. "Only two rhyming lines."
    "That's called a couplet," Klaus said. "I learned that from a book of literary criticism."
    "Yes, 1 know," Isadora said, and then read her poem, leaning forward so Carmelita Spa
would not overhear:

                           "I would rather eat a bowl of vampire bats
                           than spend an hour with Carmelita Spats."

   The Baudelaires giggled and then covered their mouths so nobody would know they wer
laughing at Carmelita. "That was great," Klaus said. "I like the part about the bowl of bats."
   "Thanks," Isadora said. "I would be interested in reading that book of literary criticism y
told me about. Would you let me borrow it?"
   Klaus looked down. "I can't," he said. "That book belonged to my father, and it was
destroyed in a fire."
   The Quagmires looked at one another, and their eyes grew even wider. "I'm very sorry t
hear that," Duncan said. "My sister and I have been through a terrible fire, so we know wha
that's like. Did your father die in the fire?"
   "Yes he did," Klaus said, "and my mother too."
   Isadora put down her fork, reached across the table, and patted Klaus on the hand. Norm
this might have embarrassed Klaus a little bit, hut under the circumstances it felt perfe
natural. "I'm so sorry to hear that," she said. "Our parents died in a fire as well. It's a
to miss your parents so much, isn't it?"
    "Bloni," Sunny said, nodding.'"
    "For a long time," Duncan admitted, "I was afraid of any kind of fire. I didn't even like to
look at stoves."
    Violet smiled. "We stayed with a woman for a while, our Aunt Josephine, who was afra
of stoves. She was afraid that they might explode."
    "Explode!" Duncan said. "Even I wasn't afraid as all that. Why aren't you staying w
your Aunt Josephine now?"
    Now it was Violet's turn to look down, and Duncan's turn to reach across the table and t
her hand. "She died too," Violet said. "To tell you the truth, Duncan, our lives have been ve
topsy-turvy for quite some time."
    "I'm very sorry to hear it," Duncan said, "and I wish I could tell you that things wil
better here. But between Vice Principal Nero playing the violin, Carmelita Spats teasing us
and the dreadful Orphans Shack, Prufrock Prep is a pretty miserable place."
    "I think it's awful to call it the Orphans Shack," Klaus said. "It's a bad enough place with
giving it an insulting nickname."
    "The nickname is more of Carmelita's handiwork, I'm sorry to say," Isadora said. "Dunc
and I had to live there for three semesters because we needed a parent or guardian to sign o
permission slip, and we didn't have one."
    "That's the same thing that happened to us!" Violet cried. "And when we asked Nero to
make an exception-"
    "He said he was too busy practicing the violin," Isadora said, nodding as she finished
Violet's sentence. "He always says that. Anyway, Carmelita called it the Orphans Shack wh
we were living there, and it looks like she's going to keep on doing it."
    "Well," Violet sighed, "Carmelita's nasty names are the least of our problems in the
shack. How did you deal with the crabs when you lived there?"
    Duncan let go of her hand to take his notebook out of his pocket. "I use my notebook to ta
notes on things," he explained. "I plan to be a newspaper reporter when I get a little older a
figure it's good to start practicing. Here it is: notes on the crabs. They're afraid of loud nois
you see, so I have a list of things we did to scare them away from us."
    "Afraid of loud noises," Violet repeated, and tied her hair up in a ribbon to keep it out o
her eyes.
    "When she ties her hair up like that," Klaus explained to the Quagmires, "it means
she's thinking of an invention. My sister is quite an inventor."
    "How about noisy shoes?" Violet said suddenly. "If we took small pieces of metal
glued them to our shoes? Then wherever we walked would make a loud noise, and I b
we'd hardly ever see those crabs."
    "Noisy shoes!" Duncan cried. "Isadora and I lived in the Orphans Shack all that time and
never thought of noisy shoes!" He took a pencil out of his pocket and wrote "noisy shoes" in
the dark green notebook, and then turned a page. "I do have a list of fungus books that
in the school library, if you need help with that tan stuff on the ceiling."
    "Zatwal!" Sunny shrieked.
    "We'd love to see the library," Violet translated. "It sure is lucky that we ran into you tw
twins."
    Duncan's and Isadora's faces fell, an expression which does not mean that the front part
their heads actually fell to the ground. It simply means that the two siblings suddenly
looked very sad.
    "What's wrong?" Klaus asked. "Did we say something that upset you?"
    "Twins," Duncan said, so softly that the Baudelaires could barely hear him.
    "You are twins, aren't you?" Violet asked. "You look just alike."
    "We're triplets," Isadora said sadly.
    "I'm confused," Violet said. "Aren't triplets three people born at the same time?"
    "We were three people born at the same time," Isadora explained, "but our brother, Quig
died in the fire that killed our parents."
    "I'm very sorry to hear that," Klaus said. "Please forgive our calling you twins. We mean
disrespect to Quigley's memory."
    "Of course you didn't," Duncan said, giving the Baudelaires a small smile. "There's no w
you could have known. Come on, if you're done with your lasagna we'll show you the libra
    "And maybe we can find some pieces of metal," Isadora said, "for noisy shoes."
    The Baudelaire orphans smiled, and the five of them bussed their trays and walked out o
the cafeteria. The library turned out to be a very pleasant place, but it was not the
comfortable chairs, the huge wooden bookshelves, or the hush of people reading that made
three siblings feel so good as they walked into the room. It is useless for me to tell you all
about the brass lamps in the shapes of different fish, or the bright blue curtains that rippled
water as a breeze came in from the window, because although these were wonderful things
they were not what made the three children smile. The Quagmire triplets were smiling, too,
although I have not researched the Quagmires nearly as much as I have the Baudelaires, I ca
say with reasonable accuracy that they were smiling for the same reason.
    It is a relief, in hectic and frightening times, to find true friends, and it was this relief tha
five children were feeling as the Quagmires gave the Baudelaires a tour of the Prufrock
Library. Friends can make you feel that the world is smaller and less sneaky than it really i
because you know people who have similar experiences, a phrase which here means "havin
lost family members in terrible fires and lived in the Orphans Shack." As Duncan and Isado
whispered to Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, explaining how the library was organized, the
Baudelaire children felt less and less distressed about their new circumstances, and by the
Duncan and Isadora were recommending their favorite books, the three siblings thought tha
perhaps their troubles were coming to an end at last. They were wrong about this, of course
but tor the moment it didn't matter. The Baudelaire orphans had found friends, and as they s
in the library with the Quagmire triplets, the world felt smaller and safer than it had for a lo
long time.


                                           CHAPTER
                                              Four
    If you have walked into a museum recently- whether you did so to attend an art exhibitio
to escape from the police-you may have noticed a type of painting known as a triptych. A
triptych has three panels, with something different painted on each of the panels. For
instance, my friend Professor Reed made a trip-tych for me, and he painted fire on one pan
typewriter on another, and the face of a beautiful, intelligent woman on the third. The tripty
entitled What Happened to Beatrice and I cannot look upon it without weeping.
    I am a writer, and not a painter, but if I were to try and paint a triptych entitled The
Baudelaire Orphans' Miserable Experiences at Prufrock Prep, I would paint Mr. Remora
one panel, Mrs. Bass on another, and a box of staples on the third, and the results would ma
me so sad that between the Beatrice triptych and the Baudelaire triptych I would scarcely s
weeping all day.
    Mr. Remora was Violet's teacher, and he was so terrible that Violet thought th
she'd almost rather stay in the Orphans Shack all morning and eat her meals with her hands
tied behind her back rather than hurry to Room One and learn from such a wretched m
Mr. Remora had a dark and thick mustache, as if somebody had chopped off a gorilla's
thumb and stuck it above Mr. Remora's lip, and also like a gorilla, Mr. Remora was consta
eating bananas. Bananas are a fairly delicious fruit and contain a healthy amount of potassiu
but after watching Mr. Remora shove banana after banana into his mouth, dropping banana
peels on the floor and smearing banana pulp on his chin and in his mustache, Violet never
wanted to see another banana again. In between bites of banana, Mr. Remora would tell
stories, and the children would write the stories down in notebooks, and every so often the
would be a test. The stories were very short, and there were a whole lot of them on every
conceivable subject. "One day I went to the store to purchase a carton of milk," Mr. Remor
would say, chewing on a banana. "When I got home, I poured the milk into a glass and
drank it. Then I watched television. The end." Or: "One after noon a man named Edward
got into a green truck and drove to a farm. The farm had geese and cows. The end." Mr.
Remora would tell story after story, and eat banana after banana, and it would get more and
more difficult for Violet to pay attention. To make things better, Duncan sat next to Violet, a
they would pass notes to one another on particularly boring days. But to make things wo
Carmelita Spats sat right behind Violet, and every few minutes she would lean forward
and poke Violet with a stick she had found on the lawn. "Orphan," she would whisper
poke Violet with the stick, and Violet would lose her concentration and forget to write d
some detail of Mr. Remora's latest story.
    Across the hall in Room Two was Klaus's teacher Mrs. Bass, whose black hair was so l
and messy that she also vaguely resembled a gorilla. Mrs. Bass was a poor teacher, a phras
which here does not mean "a teacher who doesn't have a lot of money" but "a teacher who i
obsessed with the metric system." The metric system, you probably know, is the system by
which the majority of the world measures things. Just as it is perfectly all right to eat a bana
or two, it is perfectly all right to be interested in measuring things. Klaus could remember a
time, when he was about eight years old, when he had measured the width of all the doorwa
in the Baudelaire mansion when he was bored one rainy afternoon. But rain or shine, a
Mrs. Bass wanted to do was measure things and write down the measurements on t
chalkboard. Each morning, she would walk into Room Two carrying a bag full of ordinar
objects-a frying pan, a picture frame, the skeleton of a cat-and place an object on each stud
desk. "Measure!" Mrs. Bass would shout, and everybody would take out their rulers and
measure whatever it was that their teacher had put on their desks. They would call out t
measurements to Mrs. Bass, who would write them on the board and then have
everybody switch objects. The class would continue on in this way for the entire morning, a
Klaus would feel his eyes glaze over-the phrase "glaze over" here means "ache slightly out
boredom." Across the room, Isadora Quagmire's eyes were glazing over too, and
occasionally the two of them would look at one another and stick their tongues out as
say, Mrs. Bass is terribly boring, isn't she?
   But Sunny, instead of going into a classroom, had to work in the administrative building,
I must say that her situation was perhaps the worst in the entire triptych. As Vice Principal
Nero's secretary, Sunny had numerous duties assigned to her that were simply impossible f
baby to perform. For instance, she was in charge of answering the telephone, but people wh
called Vice Principal Nero did not always know that "Seltepia!" was Sunny's way of saying
"Good morning, this is Vice Principal Nero's office, how may I help you?" By the second d
Nero was furious at her for confusing so many of his business associates. In addition, Sunny
was in charge of typing, stapling, and mailing all of Vice Principal Nero's letters, which me
she had to work a typewriter, a stapler, and stamps, all of which were designed for adult us
Unlike many babies, Sunny had some experience in hard work-after all, she and her siblin
had worked for some time at the Lucky Smells Lumbermill-but this equipment wa
simply inappropriate for such l i n y fingers. Sunny could scarcely move the typewriter'
keys, and even when she could she did not know how to spell most of the words Nero dicta
She had never used a stapler before, so she sometimes stapled her fingers by mistake, whic
hurt quite a bit. And occasionally one of the stamps would stick to her tongue and wouldn'
come off.
   In most schools, no matter how miserable, the students have a chance to recuperate durin
the weekend, when they can rest and play instead of attending wretched classes, and th
Baudelaire orphans looked forward to taking a break from looking at bananas, rulers, and
secretarial supplies. So they were quite distressed one Friday when the Quagmires informe
them that Prufrock Prep did not have weekends. Saturday and Sunday were regular schoold
supposedly in keeping with the school's motto. This rule did not really make any sense-it is
after all, just as easy to remember you will die when you are relaxing as when you are
school-but that was the way things were, so the Baudelaires could never remember exactly
what day it was, so repetitive was their schedule. So I am sorry to say that I cannot tell you
what day it was when Sunny noticed that the staple supply was running low, but I can tell y
that Nero informed her that because she had wasted so much time learning to be a secretary
would not buy any more when they ran out. Instead Sunny would have to make staples
herself, out of some skinny metal rods Nero kept in a drawer.
   "That's ridiculous!" Violet cried when Sunny told her of Nero's latest demand. It was aft
dinner, and the Baudelaire orphans were in the Orphans Shack with the Quagmire triplets,
sprinkling salt at the ceiling. Violet had found some pieces of metal behind the cafeteria and
had fashioned five pairs of noisy shoes: three for the Baudelaires and two for the Quagmire
the crabs wouldn't bother them when they visited the Orphans Shack. The problem of
tan fungus, however, was yet to be solved. With Duncan's help, Klaus had found a book on
fungus in the library and had read that salt might make this particular fungus shrivel up. The
Quagmires had distracted some of the masked cafeteria workers by dropping their trays on
ground, and while Nero yelled at them for making a mess, the Baudelaires had slipped thre
saltshakers into their pockets. Now, in the brief recess after dinner, the five children were
sitting on bales of hay, trying to toss salt onto the fungus and talking about their day.
    "It certainly is ridiculous," Klaus agreed. "It's silly enough that Sunny has to be a secreta
but making her own staples? I've never heard of anything so unfair."
    "I think staples are made in factories," Duncan said, pausing to flip through his green
notebook to see if he had any notes on the matter. "I don't think people have made staples by
hand since the fifteenth century."
    "If you could snitch some of the skinny metal rods, Sunny," Isadora said, "we could
help make the staples after dinnertime. If five of us worked together, it would be much less
trouble. And speaking of trouble, I'm working on a poem about Count Olaf, but I'm
not sure I know words that are terrible enough to describe him."
    "And I imagine it's difficult to find words that rhyme with 'Olaf,'" Violet said.
    "It is difficult," Isadora admitted. "All I can think of so far is 'pilaf,' which is a kind of r
dish. And that's more a half-rhyme, anyway."
    "Maybe someday you'll be able to publish your poem about Count Olaf," Klaus said, "an
everyone will know how horrible he is."
    "And I'll write a newspaper article all about him," Duncan volunteered.
    "I think I could build a printing press myself," Violet said. "Maybe when I come of
I can use some of the Baudelaire fortune to buy the materials I would need."
    "Could we print books, too?" Klaus asked.
    Violet smiled. She knew her brother was thinking of a whole library they could print for
themselves. "Books, too," she said.
    "The Baudelaire fortune?" Duncan asked. "Did your parents leave behind a fortune
too? Our parents owned the famous Quagmire sapphires, which were unharmed in the fire.
When we come of age, those precious jewels will belong to us. We could start our printing
business together."
    "That's a wonderful idea!" Violet cried. "We could call it Quagmire-Baudelaire
Incorporated."
    "We could call it Quagmire-Baudelaire Incorporated!" The children were so surprised
hear the sneering voice of Vice Principal Nero that they dropped their saltshakers on t
ground. Instantly, the tiny crabs in the Orphans Shack picked them up and scurried away wi
them before Nero could notice. "I'm sorry to interrupt you in the middle of your
important business meeting," he said, although the youngsters could see that the vice
principal wasn't sorry one bit. "The new gym teacher has arrived, and he was interest
in meeting our orphan population before my concert began. Apparently orphans have
excellent bone structure or something. Isn't that what you said, Coach Genghis?"
    "Oh yes," said a tall, skinny man, who stepped forward to reveal himself to the chil
dren. The man was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt, such as any gym teacher mig
wear. On his feet were some expensive-looking running shoes with very high tops, and arou
his neck was a shiny silver whistle. Wrapped around the top of his head was a length of clo
secured in place with a shiny red jewel. Such things are called turbans and are worn by som
people for religious reasons, but Violet, Klaus, and Sunny took one look at this man and kn
that he was wearing a turban for an entirely different reason.
    "Oh yes," the man said again. "All orphans have perfect legs for running, and I couldn't w
to see what specimens were waiting for me here in the shack."
    "Children," Nero said, "get up off of your hay and say hello to Coach Genghis."
    "Hello, Coach Genghis," Duncan said.
    "Hello, Coach Genghis," Isadora said.
    The Quagmire triplets each shook Coach Genghis's bony hand and then turned and gave
Baudelaires a confused look. They were clearly surprised to see the three siblings still sitti
on the hay and staring up at Coach Genghis rather than obeying Nero's orders. But had I bee
there in the Orphans Shack, I most certainly would not have been surprised, and I would be
What Happened to Beatrice, my prized triptych, that had you been there you would not hav
been surprised, either. Because you have probably guessed, as the Baudelaires guessed, wh
the man who was calling himself Coach Genghis was wearing a turban. A turban covers
people's hair, which can alter their appearance quite a bit, and if the turban is arranged so t
it hangs down rather low, as this one did, the folds of cloth can even cover the eyebrows-o
this case, eyebrow-of the person wearing it. But it cannot cover someone's shiny, shiny eye
the greedy and sinister look that somebody might have in their eyes when the person looks
down at three relatively helpless children.
    What the man who called himself Coach Genghis had said about all orphans having perf
legs for running was utter nonsense, of course, but as the Baudelaires looked up at their new
gym teacher, they wished that it weren't nonsense. As the man who called himself Coach *
Genghis looked back at them with his shiny, shiny eyes, the Baudelaire orphans wished mo
than anything that their legs could carry them far, far away from the man who was really Co
Olaf.


                                        CHAPTER
                                           Five

   The expression "following suit" is a curious one, because it has nothing to do with
walking behind a matching set of clothing. If you follow suit, it means you do th
same thing somebody else has just done. If all of your friends decided to jump off a bri
into the icy waters of an ocean or river, for instance, and you jumped in right after them, yo
would be following suit. You can see why following suit can be a dangerous thing
do, because you could end up drowning simply because somebody else thought of it first.
   This is why, when Violet stood up from the hay and said, "How do you do, Coach
Genghis?" Klaus and Sunny were reluctant to follow suit. It was inconceivable to the young
Baudelaires that their sister had not recognized Count Olaf, and that she hadn't leaped to he
feet and informed Vice Principal Nero what was going on. For a moment, Klaus and Sunny
even considered that Violet had been hypnotized, as Klaus had been back when the Baudel
orphans were living in Paltryville. But Violet's eyes did not look any wider than they did
normally, nor did she say "How do you do, Coach Genghis?" in the dazed tone of voice Kla
had used when he had been under hypnosis.
    But although they were puzzled, the younger Baudelaires trusted their sister absolutely. S
had managed to avoid marrying Count Olaf when it had seemed like it would be inevitable,
word which here means "a lifetime of horror and woe." She had made a lockpick when they
needed one in a hurry, and had used her inventing skills to help them escape from some ver
hungry leeches. So even though they could not think what the reason was, Klaus and Sunny
knew that Violet must have had a good reason to greet Count Olaf politely rather than revea
him instantly, and so, after a pause, they followed suit.
    "How do you do, Coach Genghis?" Klaus said.
    "Gefidio!" Sunny shrieked.
    "It's a pleasure to meet you," Coach Genghis said, and smirked. The Baudelaires could t
he thought he had fooled them completely and was very pleased with himself.
    "What do you think, Coach Genghis?" Vice Principal Nero asked. "Do any of these orph
have the legs you're looking for?"
    Coach Genghis scratched his turban and looked down at the children as if they wer
all-you-can-eat salad bar instead of five orphans. "Oh yes," he said in the wheezy voic
the Baudelaires still heard in their nightmares. With his bony hands, he pointed first at Vio
then at Klaus, and lastly at Sunny. "These three children here are just what I'm looking for,
right. I have no use for these twins, however."
    "Neither do I," Nero said, not bothering to point out that the Quagmires were triplets. He
then looked at his watch. "Well, it's time for my concert. Follow me to the auditorium, all o
you, unless you are in the mood to buy me a bag of candy."
    The Baudelaire orphans hoped never to buy their vice principal a gift of any sort, le
alone a bag of candy, which the children loved and hadn't eaten in a very long time, so they
followed Nero out of the Orphans Shack and across the lawn to the auditorium. The Quagm
followed suit, staring up at the gravestone buildings, which looked even spookier in the
moonlight.
    "This evening," Nero said, "I will be playing a violin sonata I wrote myself. It only lasts
about a half hour, but I will play it twelve times in a row."
    "Oh, good," Coach Genghis said. "If I may say so, Vice Principal Nero, I am an enormou
fan of your music. Your concerts were one of the main reasons I wanted to work here at
Prufrock Prep."
    "Well, it's good to hear that," Nero said. "It's difficult to find people who appreciate me
the genius I am."
    "I know the feeling," Coach Genghis said. "I'm the finest gym teacher the world has ever
seen, and yet there hasn't even been one parade in my honor."
    "Shocking," Nero said, shaking his head.
    The Baudelaires and the Quagmires, who were walking behind the adults, looked a
one another in disgust at the braggy conversation they were overhearing, but they didn'
dare speak to one another until they arrived at the auditorium, taking seats as far awa
possible from Carmelita Spats and her loathsome friends.
    There is one, and only one, advantage to somebody who cannot play the violin
insisting on doing so anyway, and the advantage is that they often play so loudly that they
cannot hear if the audience is having a conversation. It is extremely rude, of course, for an
audience to talk during a concert performance, but when the performance is a wretched one
and lasts six hours, such rudeness can be forgiven. So it was that evening, for after introduc
himself with a brief, braggy speech, Vice Principal Nero stood on the stage of the auditoriu
and began playing his sonata for the first time.
    When you listen to a piece of classical music, it is often amusing to try and guess what
inspired the composer to write those particular notes. Sometimes a composer will be inspi
by nature and will write a symphony imitating the sounds of birds and trees. Other times a
composer will be inspired by the city and will write a concerto imitating the sounds of traf
and sidewalks. In the case of this sonata, Nero had apparently been inspired by
somebody beating up a cat, because the music was loud and screechy and made it quite ea
to talk during the performance. As Nero sawed away at his violin, the students of Prufrock
Prep began to talk amongst themselves. The Baudelaires even noticed Mr. Remora and Mrs
Bass, who were supposed to be figuring out which students owed Nero bags of candy, gigg
and sharing a banana in the back row. Only Coach Genghis, who was sitting in the center of
very front row, seemed to be paying any attention to the music.
    "Our new gym teacher looks creepy," Isadora said.
    "That's for sure," Duncan agreed. "It's that sneaky look in his eye."
    "That sneaky look," Violet said, taking a sneaky look herself to make sure Coach Genghi
wasn't listening in, "is because he's not really Coach Genghis. He's not really any coach. H
Count Olaf in disguise."
    "I knew you recognized him!" Klaus said.
    "Count Olaf?" Duncan said. "How awful! How did he follow you here?"
    "Stewak," Sunny said glumly.
    "My sister means something like 'He follows us everywhere,'" Violet explained, "and sh
right. But it doesn't matter how he found us. The point is that he's here and that he un
doubtedly has a scheme to snatch our fortune."
    "But why did you pretend not to recognize him?" Klaus asked.
    "Yes," Isadora said. "If you told Vice Principal Nero that he was really Count Olaf, then
Nero could throw the cakesniffer out of here, if you'll pardon my language."
    Violet shook her head to indicate that she disagreed with Isadora and that she didn't min
about "cakesniffer." "Olaf's too clever for that," she said. "I knew that if I tried to tell Nero
he wasn't really a gym teacher, he would manage to wiggle out of it, just as he did with Aun
Josephine and Uncle Monty and everybody else."
    "That's good thinking," Klaus admitted.
    "Plus, if Olaf thinks that he's fooled us, it might give us some more time to figure ou
exactly what he's up to."
    "Lirt!" Sunny pointed out.
    "My sister means that we can see if any of his assistants are around," Violet translated.
"That's a good point, Sunny. I hadn't thought of that."
    "Count Olaf has assistants?" Isadora asked. "That's not fair. He's bad enough witho
people helping him."
    "His assistants are as bad as he is," Klaus said. "There are two powder-faced women w
forced us to be in his play. There's a hook-handed man who helped Olaf murder our Uncle
Monty."
    "And the bald man who bossed us around at the lumbermill, don't forget him," Violet ad
    "Aeginu!" Sunny said, which meant something like "And the assistant that looks like neit
a man nor a woman."
    "What does 'aeginu' mean?" Duncan asked, taking out his notebook. "I'm going to
write down all these details about Olaf and his troupe."
    "Why?" Violet asked.
    "Why?" Isadora repeated. "Because we're going to help you, that's why! You don't think
we'd just sit here while you tried to escape from Olaf's clutches, would you?"
    "But Count Olaf is very dangerous," Klaus said. "If you try and help us, you'll be risking
your lives."
    "Never mind about that," Duncan said, although I am sorry to tell you that the Quagmire
triplets should have minded about that. They should have minded very much. Duncan and
Isadora were very brave and caring to try and help the Baudelaire orphans, but bravery ofte
demands a price. By "price" I do not mean something along the lines of five dollars. I mean
much, much bigger price, a price so dreadful that I cannot speak of it now but must return to
scene I am writing at this moment.
    "Never mind about that," Duncan said. "What we need is a plan. Now, we need to prove
Nero that Coach Genghis is really Count Olaf. How can we do that?"
    "Nero has that computer," Violet said thoughtfully. "He showed us a little picture o
laf on the screen, remember?"
    "Yes," Klaus said, shaking his head. "He told us that the advanced computer
system would keep Olaf away. So much for computers."
    Sunny nodded her head in agreement, and Violet picked her up and put her on her lap. N
had reached a particularly shrieky section of his sonata, and the children had to lean forwar
one another in order to continue their conversation. "If we go and see Nero first thing
tomorrow morning," Violet said, "we can talk to him alone, without Olaf butting in. We'll a
him to use the computer. Nero might not believe us, but the computer should be able to
convince him to at least investigate Coach Genghis."
    "Maybe Nero will make him take off the rurban," Isadora said, "revealing Olaf's only
eyebrow."
    "Or take off those expensive-looking running shoes," Klaus said, "revealing Olaf's tattoo
    "But if you talk to Nero," Duncan said, "then Coach Genghis will know that you're
suspicious."
    "That's why we'll have to be extra careful," Violet said. "We want Nero to find out abou
Olaf, without Olaf finding out about us."
    "And in the meantime," Duncan said, "Isadora and I will do some investigating
ourselves. Perhaps we can spot one of these assistants you've described."
    "That would be very useful," Violet said, "if you're sure about wanting to help us."
    "Say no more about it," Duncan said and patted Violet's hand. And they said no more ab
it. They didn't say another word about Count Olaf for the rest of Nero's sonata, or whi
performed it the second time, or the third time, or the fourth time, or the fifth time, or even t
sixth time, by which time it was very, very late at night. The Baudelaire orphans and t
Quagmire triplets merely sat in a companionable comfort, a phrase which here means many
things, all of them happy even though it is quite difficult to be happy while hearing a terribl
sonata performed over and over by a man who cannot play the violin, while attending an
atrocious boarding school with an evil man sitting nearby undoubtedly planning something
dreadful. But happy moments came rarely and unexpectedly in the Baudelaires' lives, and th
three siblings had learned to accept them. Duncan kept his hand on Violet's and talked to he
about terrible concerts he had attended back when the Quagmire parents were alive, and sh
was happy to hear his stories. Isadora began working on a poem about libraries and showe
Klaus what she had written in her notebook, and Klaus was happy to offer suggestions. And Sunn
snuggled down in Violet's lap and chewed on the armrest of her seat, happy to bite somethin
that was so sturdy.
    I'm sure you would know, even if I didn't tell you, that things were about to get much wo
for the Baudelaires, but I will end this chapter with this moment of companionable comfort
rather than skip ahead to the unpleasant events of the next morning, or the terrible trials of t
days that followed, or the horrific crime that marked the end of the Baudelaires' time at
Prufrock Prep. These things happened, of course, and there is no use pretending they didn't.
for now let us ignore the terrible sonata, the dreadul teachers, the nasty, teasing students, an
the even more wretched things that will be happening soon enough. Let us enjoy this brief
moment of comfort, as the Baudelaires enjoyed it in the company of the Quagmire triplets a
in Sunny's case, an armrest. Let us enjoy, at the end of this chapter, the last happy moment a
of these children would have for a long, long time.


                                         CHAPTER
                                            Six


    Prufrock Preparatory School is now closed. It has been closed for many years, eve
since Mrs. Bass was arrested for bank robbery, and if you were to visit it now, you wou
find it an empty and silent place. If you walked on the lawn, you would not see any chil
running around, as there were the day the Baudelaires arrived. If you walked by the
building containing the classrooms, you would not hear the droning voice of Mr. Remora
telling a story, and if you walked by the building containing the auditorium, you would not h
the scrapings and shriekings of Vice Principal Nero playing the violin. If you went and stoo
beneath the arch, looking up at the black letters spelling out the name of the school and its
austere-a word which here means "stern and severe"-motto, you would hear nothing but the
swish of the breeze through the brown and patchy grass.
    In short, if you went and visited Prufrock Preparatory School today, the academy would
look more or less as it did when the Baudelaires woke up early the next morning and walke
the administrative building to talk to Nero about Coach Genghis. The three children were s
anxious to talk to him that they got up especially early, and as they walked across the lawn
felt as if everyone else at Prufrock Prep had slipped away in the middle of the night, leavin
the orphans alone amongst the tombstone-shaped buildings. It was an eerie feeling, which i
why Violet and Sunny were surprised when Klaus broke the silence by laughing suddenly.
    "What are you snickering at?" Violet asked.
    "I just realized something," Klaus said. "We're going to the administrative
building without an appointment. We'll have to eat our meals without silverware."
    "There's nothing funny about that!" Violet said. "What if they serve oatmeal for breakfas
We'll have to scoop it up with our hands."
    "Oot," Sunny said, which meant "Trust me, it's not that difficult," and at that the Baudela
sisters joined their brother in laughter. It was not funny, of course, that Nero enforced such
terrible punishments, but the idea of eating oatmeal with their hands gave all three siblings
giggles.
    "Or fried eggs!" Violet said. "What if they serve runny fried eggs?"
    "Or pancakes, covered in syrup!" Klaus said.
    "Soup!" Sunny shrieked, and they all broke out in laughter again.
    "Remember the picnic?" Violet said. "We were going to Rutabaga River for a picn
and Father was so excited about the meal he made that he forgot to pack silverware!"
    "Of course I remember," Klaus said. "We had to eat all that sweet-and-sour shrimp with
hands.
    "Sticky!" Sunny said, holding her hands up.
    "It sure was," Violet agreed. "Afterward, we went to wash our hands in the river, and w
found a perfect place to try the fishing rod I made."
    "And I picked blackberries with Mother," Klaus said.
    "Eroos," Sunny said, which meant something like "And I bit rocks."
    The children stopped laughing now as they remembered that afternoon, which hadn't bee
very long ago but felt like it had happened in the distant, distant past. After the fire, the chil
had known their parents were dead, of course, but it had felt like they had merely gone awa
somewhere and would be back before long. Now, remembering the way the sunlight had sh
on the water of Rutabaga River and the laughter of their parents as they'd made a mess of
themselves eating the sweet-and-sour shrimp, the picnic seemed so far away that they knew
their parents were never coming back.
    "Maybe we'll go back there," Violet said quietly. "Maybe someday we can visit the rive
again, and catch fish and pick blackberries."
    "Maybe we can," Klaus said, but the Baude-laires all knew that even if someday they we
back to Rutabaga River-which they never did, by the way-that it would not be the same.
"Maybe we can, but in the meantime we've got to talk to Nero. Come on, here's the
administrative building."
    The Baudelaires sighed and walked into the building, surrendering the use of Prufro
Prep's silverware. They climbed the stairs to the ninth floor and knocked on Nero's door,
surprised that they could not hear him practicing the violin. "Come in if you must," Nero sa
and the orphans walked in. Nero had his back to the door, looking at his reflection in t
window as he tied a rubber band around one of his pigtails. When he was finished, he held
both hands up in the air. "Ladies and gentlemen, Vice Principal Nero!" he announ
and the children began applauding obediently. Nero whirled around.
    "I only expected to hear one person clapping," he said sternly. "Violet and Klaus, you're
allowed up here. You know that."
    "I beg your pardon, sir," Violet said, "but all three of us have something very important
need to discuss with you."
    "All three of us have something very important we need to discuss with you," Nero
replied in his usual nasty way. "It must be important for you to sacrifice your silverware
privileges. Well, well, out with it. I have a lot of rehearsing to do for my next concert, so d
waste my time."
   "This won't take long," Klaus promised. He paused before continuing, which is a good th
to do if you're choosing your words very, very carefully. "We are concerned," he
continued, choosing his words very, very carefully, "that Count Olaf may have somehow
managed to get to Prufrock Prep."
   "Nonsense," Nero said. "Now go away and let me practice the violin."
   "But it might not be nonsense," Violet said. "Olaf is a master of disguise. He could be rig
under our very noses and we wouldn't know it."
   "The only thing under my nose," Nero said, "is my mouth, which is telling you to leave."
   "Count Olaf could be Mr. Remora," Klaus said. "Or Mrs. Bass."
   "Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass have taught at this school for more than forty-seven years,"
Nero said dismissively. "I would know if one of them were in disguise."
   "What about the people who work at the cafeteria?" Violet asked. "They're always
wearing those metal masks."
   "Those are for safety, not for disguises," Nero said. "You brats have some very silly ide
Next you'll be saying that Count Olaf has disguised himself as your boyfriend,
what's-his-name, the triplet."
   Violet blushed. "Duncan Quagmire is not my boyfriend," she said, "and he's not Count O
either."
   But Nero was too busy making idiotic jokes to listen. "Who knows?" he asked, and then
laughed again. "Hee hee hee. Maybe he's disguised himself as Carmelita Spats."
   "Or me!" came a voice from the doorway. The Baudelaires whirled around and saw Coa
Genghis standing there with a red rose in his hand and a fierce look in his eye.
   "Or you!" Nero said. "Hee hee hee. Imagine this Olaf fellow pretending to be the finest g
teacher in the country."
   Klaus looked at Coach Genghis and thought of all the trouble he had caused, whether he
pretending to be Uncle Monty's assistant Stefano, or Captain Sham, or Shirley, or any of the
other phony names he had used. Klaus wanted desperately to say "You are Count Olaf
but he knew that if the Baudelaires pretended that Coach Genghis was fooling them, they ha
better chance of revealing his plan, whatever it was. So he bit his tongue, a phrase which h
means that he simply kept quiet. He did not actually bite his tongue, but opened his mouth a
laughed. "That would be funny!" he lied. "Imagine if you were really Count Olaf! Wouldn't
be funny, Coach Genghis? That would mean that your turban would really be a disguise!"
   "My turban?" Coach Genghis said. His fierce look melted away as he realized-incorrect
of course-that Klaus was joking. "A disguise? Ho ho ho!"
   "Hee hee hee!" Nero laughed.
   Violet and Sunny both saw at once what Klaus was doing, and they followed suit. "
yes, Genghis," Violet cried, as if she were joking, "take your turban off and show us the one
eyebrow you are hiding! Ha ha ha!"
   "You three children are really quite funny!" Nero cried. "You're like three professional
comedians!"
   "Volasocks!" Sunny shrieked, showing all four teeth in a fake smile.
    "Oh yes," Klaus said. "Sunny is right! If you were really Olaf in disguise, then your runn
shoes would be covering your tattoo!"
    "Hee hee hee!" Nero said. "You children are like three clowns!"
    "Ho ho ho!" Count Olaf said.
    "Ha ha ha!" Violet said, who was beginning to feel queasy from faking all this laughter.
Looking up at Genghis, and smiling so hard that her teeth ached, she stood on tiptoe and trie
reach his turban. "I'm going to rip this off," she said, as if she were still joking, "and show o
your one eyebrow!"
    "Hee hee hee!" Nero said, shaking his pigtails in laughter. "You're like three trained
monkeys!"
    Klaus crouched down to the ground and grabbed one of Genghis's feet. "And I'm go
to rip your shoes off," he said, as if he were still joking, "and show off your tattoo!"
    "Hee hee hee!" Nero said. "You're like three-"
    The Baudelaires didn't get to hear what they were three of, because Coach
Genghis stuck out both of his arms, catching Klaus with one hand and Violet with the other
"Ho ho ho!" he said, and then abruptly stopped laughing. "Of course," he said in a ton
voice that was suddenly serious, "I can't take off my running shoes, because I've been
exercising and my feet smell, and I can't take off my turban for religious reasons."
    "Hee hee-" Nero stopped giggling and became very serious himself. "Oh, Coac
Genghis," he said, "we wouldn't ask you to violate your religious beliefs, and I certainly do
want your feet stinking up my office."
    Violet struggled to reach the turban and Klaus struggled to remove one of the evil
coach's shoes, but Genghis held them both tight.
    "Drat!" Sunny shrieked.
    "Joke time is over!" Nero announced. "Thank you for brightening up my mornin
children. Good-bye, and enjoy your breakfast without silverware! Now, Coach Genghis, w
can I do for you?"
    "Well, Nero," Genghis said, "I just wanted to give you this rose-a small gift of
congratulations for the wonderful concert you gave us last night!"
    "Oh, thank you," Nero said, taking the rose out of Genghis's hand and giving it a good sm
"I was wonderful, wasn't I?"
    "You were perfection!" Genghis said. "The first time you played your sonata, I was dee
moved. The second time, I had tears in my eyes. The third time, I was sobbing. The fo
time, I had an uncontrollable emotional attack. The fifth time-"
    The Baudelaires did not hear about the fifth time because Nero's door swung s
behind them. They looked at one another in dismay. The Baudelaires had come very c
to revealing Coach Genghis's disguise, but close was not enough. They trudged silently
out of the administrative building and over to the cafe-teria. Evidently, Nero had already
called the metal-masked cafeteria workers, because when Violet and Klaus reached the end
the line, the workers refused to hand them any silverware. Prufrock Prep was not serving
oatmeal for breakfast, but Violet and Klaus knew that eating scrambled eggs with their hand
was not going to be very pleasant.
    "Oh, don't worry about that," Isadora said when the children slid glumly into seats
beside the Quagmires. "Here, Klaus and I will take turns with my silverware, and
you can share with Duncan, Violet. Tell us how everything went in Nero's office."
   "Not very well," Violet admitted. "Coach Genghis got there right after we did, and we
didn't want him to see that we knew who he really was."
   Isadora pulled her notebook out of her pocket and read out loud to her friends.

                                     "It would be a stroke of luck
                                 if Coach Genghis were hit by a truck,"

    she read. "That's my latest poem. I know it's not that helpful, but I thought you might like
hear it anyway."
    "I did like hearing it," Klaus said. "And it certainly would be a stroke of luck if that
happened. But I wouldn't bet on it."
    "Well, we'll think of another plan," Duncan said, handing Violet his fork.
    "I hope so," Violet said. "Count Olaf doesn't usually wait very long to put his evil schem
into action."
    "Kosbal!" Sunny shrieked.
    "Does Sunny mean 'I have a plan'?" Isadora asked. "I'm trying to get the hang of her way
talking."
    "I think she means something more like 'Here comes Carmelita Spats,'" Klaus said,
pointing across the cafeteria. Sure enough, Carmelita Spats was walking toward their
table with a big, smug smile on her face.
    "Hello, you cakesniffers," she said. "I have a message for you from Coach Genghis. I ge
be his Special Messenger because I'm the cutest, prettiest, nicest girl in the whole
school."
    "Oh, stop bragging, Carmelita," Duncan said.
    "You're just jealous," Carmelita replied, "because Coach Genghis likes me best instead
you."
    "I couldn't care less about Coach Genghis," Duncan said. "Just deliver your message and
leave us alone."
    "The message is this," Carmelita said. "The three Baudelaire orphans are to report
the front lawn tonight, immediately after dinner."
    "After dinner?" Violet said. "But after dinner we're supposed to go to Nero's violin reci
    "That's the message," Carmelita insisted.
    "He said that if you don't show up you'll be in big trouble, so if I were you, Violet-"
    "You aren't Violet, thank goodness," Duncan interrupted. It is not very polite to interrup
person, of course, but sometimes if the person is very unpleasant you can hardly stop yours
"Thank you for your message. Good-bye."
    "It is traditional," Carmelita said, "to give a Special Messenger a tip after she has deliv
a message."
    "If you don't leave us alone," Isadora said, "you're going to get a headful of scrambled eg
as a tip."
    "You're just a jealous cakesniffer," Carmelita sneered, but she left the Baudelaires and
Quagmires alone.
    "Don't worry," Duncan said when he was sure Carmelita couldn't hear him. "It's sti
morning. We have all day to figure out what to do. Here, have another spoonful of egg
Violet."
    "No, thank you," Violet said. "I don't have much of an appetite." And it was true. None o
he Baudelaires had an appetite. Scrambled eggs had never been the siblings' favorite
dish, particularly Sunny, who much preferred food she could really sink her teeth into, but t
lack of appetite had nothing to do with the eggs. It had to do with Coach Genghis, of course
and the message that he had sent to them. It had to do with the thought of meeting him on
the lawn, after dinner, all alone. Duncan was right that it was still morning, and that they h
all day to figure out what to do. But it did not feel like morning. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny s
in the cafeteria, not taking another bite of their break-fast, and it felt like the sun had already
set. It felt like night had already fallen, and that Coach Genghis was already waiting for them
was only morning, and the Baudelaire orphans already felt like they were in his clutches.


                                          CHAPTER
                                            Seven

   The Baudelaire orphans' schoolday was particularly austere, a word which here means t
Mr. Remora's stories were particularly boring, Mrs. Bass's obsession with the metric syste
was particularly irritating, and Nero's administrative demands were particularly difficult, b
Violet, Klaus, and Sunny did not really notice. Violet sat at her schooldesk, and anybody w
did not know Violet would have thought that she was paying close attention, because her ha
was tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. But Violet's thoughts were far, far away fr
the dull tales Mr. Remora was telling. She had tied her hair up, of course, to help focus her
keen inventing brain on the problem that was facing the Baudelaires, and she didn't want to
waste an ounce of her attention on the rambling, banana-eating man.in the front of the room.
   Mrs. Bass had brought in a box of pencils for her class and was having them figure out i
one of them was any longer or shorter than the rest. And if Mrs. Bass weren't so busy pacin
around the room shouting "Measure!" she might have looked at Klaus and though
that perhaps he shared her obsession with measurement, because his eyes were sharply
focused as if he were concentrating. But Klaus was spending the morning on autopilot,
word which here means "measuring pencils without really thinking about them." As he pla
pencil after pencil next to his ruler, he was thinking of books he had read that migh
be helpful for their situation.
   And if Vice Principal Nero had stopped practicing his violin and looked in on his
infant secretary, he would have guessed that Sunny was working very hard, mailing letters h
had dictated to various candy companies complaining about their candy quality. But even
though Sunny was typing, stapling, and stamping as quickly as she could, her mind was not
secretarial supplies but on the appointment she and her siblings had with Coach Genghis th
evening, and what they could do about it.
   The Quagmires were curiously absent from lunch, so the Baudelaires were really forced
cat with their hands this time, but as they picked up handfuls of spaghetti and tried to eat the
as neatly as possible the three children were thinking so hard that they barely spoke. They
knew, almost without discussing the matter, that none of them had been able to guess Coach
Genghis's plan, and that they hadn't figured out a way to avoid their appointment with him o
the lawn, an appointment that drew closer and closer with every handful of lunch. The
Baudelaires passed the afternoon in more or less the same way, ignoring Mr. Remora's stor
Mrs. Bass's pencils, and the diminishing supply of staples, and even during gym period-one
Carmelita's bratty friends informed them that Genghis would start teaching the next day, b
in the meantime they were to run around as usual-the three children raced around the law
utter silence, devoting all of their brainpower to thinking about their situation.
    The Baudelaires had been so very quiet, and thinking so very hard, that when the Quagm
sat down across from them at dinnertime and said in unison, "We've solved your problem,"
was more of a startle than a relief.
    "Goodness," Violet said. "You startled me."
    "I thought you'd be relieved," Duncan said. "Didn't you hear us? We said we've solved y
problem."
    "We're startled and relieved," Klaus said. "What do you mean, you've solved our proble
My sisters and I have been thinking about it all day, and we've gotten nowhere. We don't kn
what Coach Genghis is up to, although we're sure he's up to something. And we don't know
how we can avoid meeting him after dinner, although we're sure that he'll do something terr
if we do."
    "At first I thought he might simply be planning to kidnap us," Violet said, "but he wouldn
have to be in disguise to do that."
    "And at first I thought we should call Mr. Poe after all," Klaus said, "and tell him
what's going on. But if Count Olaf can fool an advanced computer, he'll surely be able to fo
an average banker."
    "Toricia!" Sunny said in agreement.
    "Duncan and I have been thinking about it all day, too," Isadora said. "I filled up five an
half pages of my notebook writing down possible ideas, and Duncan filled up three."
    "I write smaller," Duncan explained, handing his fork to Violet so she could take her turn
the meat loaf they were having for dinner.
    "Right before lunch, we compared notes," Isadora continued, "and the two of us had the
same idea. So we sneaked away and put our plan into action."
    "That's why we weren't at lunch," Duncan explained. "You'll notice that there are puddle
beverages on our tray instead of glasses."
    "Well, you can share our glasses," Klaus said, handing his to Isadora, "just like you're
letting us share your silverware. But what is your plan? What did you put into action?"
    Duncan and Isadora looked at one another, smiled, and leaned in close to the Baudelaire
they could be sure no one would overhear.
    "We propped open the back door of the auditorium," Duncan said. He and Isadora smile
triumphantly and leaned back in their chairs. The Baudelaires did not feel triumphant.
They felt confused. They did not want to insult their friends, who had broken the rules and
sacrificed their drinking glasses just to help them, but they were unable to see how
propping open the back door of the auditorium was a solution to the trouble in which they
found themselves.
    "I'm sorry," Violet said after a pause. "I don't understand how propping open the ba
door of the auditorium solves our problem."
    "Don't you see?" Isadora asked. "We're going to sit in the back of the
auditorium tonight, and as soon as Nero begins his concert, we will tiptoe out and sneak o
to the front lawn. That way we can keep an eye on you and Coach Genghis. If anything
fishy happens, we will run back to the concert and alert Vice Principal Nero."
    "It's the perfect plan, don't you think?" Duncan asked. "I'm rather proud of my sister and
if I do say so myself."
    The Baudelaire children looked at one another doubtfully. They didn't want to disap-poi
their friends or criticize the plan that the Quagmire triplets had cooked up, particularly sinc
the Baudelaires hadn't cooked up any plan themselves. But Count Olaf was so evil and so
clever that the three siblings couldn't help but think that propping a door open and sneaking
to spy on him was not much of a defense against his treachery.
    "We appreciate you trying to solve our problem," Klaus said gently, "but Count Olaf is a
extremely treacherous person. He always has something up his sleeve. I wouldn't want you
get into any danger on our behalf."
    "Don't talk nonsense," Isadora said firmly, taking a sip from Violet's glass. "You're the o
in danger, and it's up to us to help you. And we're not frightened of Olaf. I'm confident this
is a good one."
    The Baudelaires looked at one another again. It was very brave of the Quagmire triplets
to be frightened of Olaf and to be so confident about their plan. But the three siblings
could not help but wonder if the Quagmires should be so brave. Olaf was such a
wretched man that it seemed wise to be frightened of him, and he had defeated so many of t
Baudelaires' plans that it seemed a little foolish to be so confident about this one. But the
children were so appreciative of their friends' efforts that they said nothing more about the
matter. In the years to come, the Baudelaire orphans would regret this, this time wh
they said nothing more about the matter, but in the meantime they merely finished their
dinner with the Quagmires, passing silverware and drinking glasses back and forth and tryi
to talk about other things. They discussed other projects they might do to improve the Orpha
Shack, and what other matters they might research in the library, and what they could do ab
Sunny's problem with the staples, which were running out quite rapidly, and before they kn
it dinner was over. The Quagmires hurried off to the violin recital, promising to sneak out a
quickly as they could, and the Baudelaires walked out of the cafeteria and over to the front
lawn.
    The last few rays of the sunset made the children cast long, long shadows as they
walked, as if the Baudelaires had been stretched across the brown grass by some horrible
mechanical device. The children looked down at their shadows, which looked as flimsy as
sheets of paper, and wished with every step that they could do something else-anything
else-other than meet Coach Genghis alone on the front lawn. They wished they could just ke
walking, under the arch, past the front lawn, and out into the world, but where could they go
The three orphans were all alone in the world. Their parents were dead. Their banker was
busy to take good care of them. And their only friends were two more orphans, who the
Baudelaires sincerely hoped had snuck out of the recital by now and were spying on them a
they approached the solitary figure of Coach Genghis, waiting for them impatiently on the e
of the lawn. The waning light of the sunset-the word "waning" here means "dim, and making
everything look extra-creepy"-made the shadow of the coach's turban look like a huge, deep
hole.
    "You're late," Genghis said in his scratchy voice. As the siblings reached him, they coul
see that he had both hands behind his back as if he were hiding something. "Your instructio
were to be here right after dinner, and you're late."
    "We're very sorry," Violet said, craning her neck to try and catch a glimpse of what was
behind his back. "It took us a little longer to eat our dinner without silverware."
    "If you were smart," Genghis said, "you would have borrowed the silverware of one of
friends."
    "We never thought of that," Klaus said. When one is forced to tell atrocious lies, on
often feels a guilty flutter in one's stomach, and Klaus felt such a flutter now. "You certainly
an intelligent man," he continued.
    "Not only am I intelligent," Genghis agreed, "but I'm also very smart. Now, let's get
right to work. Even stupid children like yourselves should remember what I said abou
orphans having excellent bone structure for running.
    That's why you are about to do Special Orphan Running Exercises, or S.O.R.E. for short
    "Ooladu!" Sunny shrieked.
    "My sister means that sounds exciting," Violet said, although "Ooladu!" actually meant "
wish you'd tell us what you're really up to, Genghis."
    "I'm glad you're so enthusiastic," Genghis said. "In certain cases, enthusiasm can make u
for a lack of brainpower." He took his hands from behind his back, and the children saw tha
was holding a large metal can and a long, prickly brush. The can was open, and an eerie wh
glow was shining out of the top. "Now, before we begin S.O.R.E., we'll need a track. This
luminous paint, which means it glows in the dark."
    "How interesting," Klaus said, although he'd known what the word "luminous" mea
for two and a half years.
    "Well, if you find it so interesting," Genghis said, his eyes looking as luminous as the pa
"you can be in charge of the brush. Here."
    He thrust the long, prickly brush into Klaus's hands. "And you little girls can hold the pa
can. I want you to paint a big circle on the grass so you can see where you are running when
you start your laps. Go on, what are you waiting for?"
    The Baudelaires looked at one another. What they were waiting for, of course, was Gen
revealing what he was really up to with the paint, the brush, and the ridiculous Special Orp
Running Exercises. But in the meantime, they figured they'd better do as Genghis said. Paint
a big, luminous circle on the lawn didn't seem to be particularly dangerous, so Violet picke
the paint can, and Klaus dipped the brush into the paint and began making a big circle. For t
moment, Sunny was something of a fifth wheel, a phrase which means "not in a position to d
anything particularly helpful," but she crawled alongside her siblings, offering moral suppo
    "Bigger!" Genghis called out in the dark. "Wider!" The Baudelaires followed his
instructions and made the circle bigger and wider, walking farther away from Genghis and
leaving a glowing trail of paint. They looked out into the gloom of the evening, wondering
where the Quagmire triplets were hiding, or if indeed they had managed to sneak out of the
recital at all. But the sun was down now, and the only thing the orphans could see was the
bright circle of light they were painting on the lawn and the dim figure of Genghis, his whit
turban looking like a floating skull in the night. "Bigger! Wider! All right, all right, that's big
and wide enough! Finish the circle where I am standing! Hurry up!"
    "What do you think we're really doing?" Violet whispered to her brother.
    "I don't know," Klaus said. "I've only read three or four books on paint. I know that pain
can sometimes be poisonous or cause birth defects. But Genghis isn't making us eat the circ
and you're not pregnant, of course, so I can't imagine."
    Sunny wanted to add "Gargaba!" which meant "Maybe the luminous paint is serving as s
sort of glowing signal," but the Baude-laires had come full circle and were too close to
Genghis to do any more talking.
    "I suppose that will do, orphans," Genghis said, snatching the brush and the can of paint
of their hands. "Now, take your marks, and when I blow my whistle, begin running around t
circle you've made until I tell you to stop."
    "What?" Violet said. As I'm sure you know, there are two types of "What?" in the world
The first type simply means "Excuse me, I didn't hear you. Could you please repeat yoursel
The second type is a little trickier. It means something more along the lines of "Excuse me,
did hear you, but I can't believe that's really what you meant," and this second type is obvio
the type Violet was using at this moment. She was standing right next to Genghis, so she'd
obviously heard what had come out of the smelly mouth of this miserable man. But she coul
believe that Genghis was simply going to make them run laps. He was such a sneaky and
revolting person that the eldest Baudelaire simply could not accept that his scheme was onl
evil as the average gym class.
    "What?" Genghis repeated in a mocking way. He had obviously taken a page out of Ner
book, a phrase which here means "learned how to repeat things in a mocking way, in order
make fun of children." "I know you heard me, little orphan girl. You're standing right next t
me. Now take your marks, all of you, and begin running as soon as I blow my whistle."
    "But Sunny is a baby," Klaus protested. "She can't really run, at least not professionally.
    "Then she may crawl as fast as she can," Genghis replied. "Now-on your marks, get set,
!"
    Genghis blew his whistle and the Baudelaire orphans began to run, pacing themselves so
they could run together even though they had different-sized legs. They finished one lap, and
then another, and then another and another and then five more and then another and then sev
more and then another and then three more and then two more and then another and then ano
and then six more and then they lost track. Coach Genghis kept blowing his whistle and
occasionally shouted tedious and unhelpful things like "Keep running!" or "Another lap!" T
children looked down at the luminous circle so they could stay in a circle, and the children
looked over at Genghis as he grew fainter and then clearer as they finished a lap, and the
children looked out into the darkness to see if they could catch a glimpse of the Quagmires.
    The Baudelaires also looked at one another from time to time, but they didn't speak, not
even when they were far enough away from Genghis that he could not overhear. One reason
they did not speak was to conserve energy, because although the Baudelaires were in
reasonably good shape, they had not run so many laps in their lives, and before too long the
were breathing too hard to really discuss anything. But the other reason they did not speak w
that Violet had already spoken for (hem when she had asked the second type of "What?" Co
Genghis kept blowing his whistle, and the children kept running around and around the trac
and echoing in each of their minds was this second, trickier type of question. The three sibl
had heard Coach Genghis, but they couldn't believe that S.O.R.E. was the extent of his
evil plan. The Baudelaire orphans kept running around the glowing circle until the
first rays of sunrise began to reflect on the jewel in Genghis's turban, and all they could th
was What? What? What?


                                          CHAPTER
                                            Eight

    "What?" Isadora asked.
    "I said, 'Finally, as the sun rose, Coach Genghis had us stop running laps and let us go to
bed,'" Klaus said.
    "My sister didn't mean that she didn't hear you," Duncan explained. "She meant that she
heard you, but she didn't believe that's really what you meant. And to tell you the truth, I can
scarcely believe it myself, even though I saw it with my own eyes."
    "I can't believe it either," Violet said, wincing as she took a bite of the salad that the mas
people had served for lunch. It was the next afternoon, and all three Baudelaire orphans we
doing a great deal of wincing, a word which here means "frowning in pain, alarm, or distress."
When Coach Genghis had called last night's activities S.O.R.E., he had merely used the nam
as an acronym for Special Orphan Running Exercises, but the three children thought that the
name S.O.R.E. was even more appropriate than that. After a full night of S.O.R.E., they'd b
sore all day. Their legs were sore from all their running. When they'd finally entered the
Orphans Shack to go to sleep, they had been too tired to put on their noisy shoes, so their to
were sore from the claws of the tiny territorial crabs. And their heads were sore, not only f
headaches, which often occur when one doesn't get enough sleep, but also from trying to fig
out what Coach Genghis was up to in making them run all those laps. The Baudelaire legs w
sore, the Baudelaire toes were sore, the Baudelaire heads were sore, and soon the muscles
the sides of the Baudelaire mouths would be sore from wincing all day long.
    It was lunchtime, and the three children were trying to discuss the previous evening with
Quagmire triplets, who weren't very sore and not nearly as tired. One reason was that they
been hiding behind the archway, spying on Genghis and the Baudelaires, instead of running
around and around the luminous circle. The other reason was that the Quagmires had done t
spying in shifts. After the Baudelaires had run the first few laps and there was no sign of the
stopping, the two triplets had decided to alternate between Duncan sleeping and Isadora
spying, and Duncan spying and Isadora sleeping. The two siblings promised each other that
they would wake up the sleeping one if the spying one noticed anything unusual.
    "I had the last shift," Duncan explained, "so my sister didn't see the end of S.O.R.E.
But it doesn't matter. All that happened was that Coach Genghis had you stop running laps
let you go to bed. I thought that he might insist on getting your fortune before you could stop
running."
    "And I thought that the luminous circle would serve as a landing strip," Isadora said
"for a helicopter, piloted by one of his assistants, to swoop down and take you away. The o
thing I couldn't figure out was why you had to run all those laps before the helicopter show
up."
    "But the helicopter didn't show up," Klaus said, taking a sip of water and wincing. "Noth
showed up."
    "Maybe the pilot got lost," Isadora said.
    "Or maybe Coach Genghis became as tired as you did, and forgot to ask for your fortune
Duncan said.
    Violet shook her sore head. "He would never get too tired to get our fortune," she s
"He's up to something, that much is for sure, but I just can't figure out what it is."
    "Of course you can't figure it out," Duncan said. "You're exhausted. I'm glad Isador
and
    I thought of spying in shifts. We're going to use all our spare time to investigate. We'll go
through all of our notes, and do some more research in the library. There must be something
that can help us figure it out."
    "I'll do research, too," Klaus said, yawning. "I'm quite good at it."
    "I know you are," Isadora said, smiling. "But not today, Klaus. We'll work on uncoverin
Genghis's plan, and you three can catch up on your sleep. You're too tired to do much good
library or anywhere else."
    Violet and Klaus looked at each other's tired faces, and then down at their baby sis
and they saw that the Quagmire triplets were right. Violet had been so tired that she had tak
only a few notes on Mr. Remora's painfully dull stories. Klaus had been so tired that he had
incorrectly measured nearly all of Mrs. Bass's objects. And although Sunny had not reporte
what she had done that morning in Nero's office, she couldn't have been a very good
administrative assistant, because she had fallen asleep right there in the cafeteria, her little
head on her salad, as if it were a soft pillow instead of leaves of lettuce, slices of tomato, g
of creamy honey-mustard dressing, and crispy croutons, which are small toasted pieces of
bread that give a salad some added crunch. Violet gently lifted her sister's head out of the s
and shook a few croutons out of her hair. Sunny winced, made a faint, miserable noise, and
went back to sleep in Violet's lap. "Perhaps you're right, Isadora," Violet said. "We'll stum
through the afternoon somehow and get a good night's sleep tonight. If we're lucky, Vice
Principal Nero will play something quiet at tonight's concert and we can sleep through that
well."
    You can see, with that last sentence, just how tired Violet really was, because "if we're
lucky" is not a phrase that she, or either of her siblings, used very often. The reason, of cou
is quite clear: the Baudelaire orphans were not lucky.
    Smart, yes. Charming, yes. Able to survive austere situations, yes. But the children were
lucky, and so wouldn't use the phrase "if we're lucky" any more than they would use the phr
"if we're stalks of celery," because neither phrase was appropriate. If the Baudelaire orpha
had been stalks of celery, they would not have been small children in great distress, and if t
had been lucky, Carmelita Spats would not have approached their table at this particular
moment and delivered another unfortunate message.
    "Hello, you cakesniffers," she said, "although judging from the baby brat you're more lik
saladsniffers. I have another message for you from Coach Genghis. I get to be his Special
Messenger because I'm the cutest, prettiest, nicest little girl in the whole school."
   "If you were really the nicest person in the whole school," Isadora said, "you woul
make fun of a sleeping infant. But never mind, what is the message?"
   "It's actually the same one as last time," Carmelita said, "but I'll repeat it in case you're t
stupid to remember. The three Baudelaire orphans are to report to the front lawn tonight,
immediately after dinner."
   "What?" Klaus asked.
   "Are you deaf as well as cakesniffy?" Carmelita asked. "I said-"
   "Yes, yes, Klaus heard you," Isadora said quickly. "He didn't mean that kind of 'What?' W
have received the message, Carmelita. Now please go away."
   "That's two tips you owe me," Carmelita said, but she flounced off.
   "I can't believe it," Violet said. "Not more laps! My legs are almost too sore to walk, let
alone run."
   "Carmelita didn't say anything about more laps," Duncan pointed out. "Maybe Coach
Genghis is putting his real plan into action tonight. In any case, we'll sneak out of the recita
again and keep an eye on you."
   "In shifts," Isadora added, nodding in agreement. "And I bet we'll have a clear picture o
plan by then. We have the rest of the day to do research." Isadora paused, and flipped open
black notebook to the right page. She read,


                          ''Don't worry Baudelaires, don't feel disgrace-
                             The Quagmire triplets are on the case."

   "Thank you," Klaus said, giving Isadora a tired smile of appreciation. "My sisters and I
thankful for all your help. And we're going to put our minds to the problem, even though we
too exhausted to do research. If we're lucky, all of us working together can defeat Coach
Genghis."
   There was that phrase again, "if we're lucky," coming out of the mouth of a Baudela
and once again it felt about as appropriate as "if we're stalks of celery." The only differenc
was that the Baudelaire orphans did not wish to be stalks of celery. While it is true that if t
were stalks of celery they would not be orphans because celery is a plant and so canno
really be said to have parents, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny did not wish to be the stringy,
low-calorie vegetable. Unfortunate things can happen to celery as easily as they can happen
children. Celery can be sliced into small pieces and dipped into clam dip at fancy parties. I
can be coated in peanut butter and served as a snack. It can merely sit in a field and ro
away, if the nearby celery farmers are lazy or on vacation. All these terrible things can hap
to celery, and the orphans knew it, so if you were to ask the Baudelaires if they wanted
be stalks of celery they would say of course not. But they wanted to be lucky. The Baudela
did not necessarily want to be extremely lucky, like someone who finds a treasure map or
someone who wins a lifetime supply of ice cream in a contest, or like the man-and not, alas
me- who was lucky enough to marry my beloved Beatrice, and live with her in happiness o
the course of her short life. But the Baudelaires wanted to be lucky enough. They wanted to
lucky enough to figure out how to escape Coach Genghis's clutches, and it seemed that bein
lucky would be their only chance. Violet was too tired to invent anything, and Klaus was to
tired to read anything, and Sunny, still asleep in Violet's lap, was too tired to bite anything
anybody, and it seemed that even with the diligence of the Quagmire triplets-the word
"diligence" here means "ability to take good notes in dark green and pitch-black note
books"-they needed to be lucky if they wanted to stay alive. The Baudelaires huddled
together as if the cafeteria were extremely cold, wincing in soreness and worry. It seemed t
the Baudelaire orphans that they wanted to be lucky more than they had in their entire lives.


                                         CHAPTER
                                            Nine

    Occasionally, events in one's life become clearer through the prism of experience, a phr
which simply means that things tend to become clearer as time goes on. For instance,
when a person is just born, they usually have no idea what curtains are and spend a great de
of their first months wondering why on earth Mommy and Daddy have hung large pieces of
cloth over each window in the nursery. But as the person grows older, the idea of curtains
becomes clearer through the prism of experience. The person will learn the word
"curtains" and notice that they are actually quite handy for keeping a room dark when it is ti
to sleep, and for decorating an otherwise boring window area. Eventually, they will entirel
accept the idea of curtains, and may even purchase some curtains of their own, or Venetian
blinds, and it is all due to the prism of experience.
    Coach Genghis's S.O.R.E. program, however, was one event that didn't seem to get any
clearer at all through the Baudelaire orphans' prism of experience. If anything, it grew even
harder and harder to understand, because Violet, Klaus, and Sunny became so utterly exhau
as the days-and, more particularly, the nights- wore on. After the children received their
second message from Carmelita Spats, they spent the rest of the afternoon wondering what
Coach Genghis would make them do that evening. The Quagmire triplets wondered along w
them, so everyone was surprised-the Baudelaires, who met Genghis out on the front lawn a
dinner again, and the Quagmires, who tiptoed out of the recital and spied on them, in shifts,
from behind the archway again-when Genghis began blowing his whistle and ordered the
Baudelaire orphans to begin running. The Baudelaires and Quagmires thought that surely
Genghis would do something far more sinister than more laps.
    But while a second evening of running laps might have lacked in sinisterity, Violet, Klau
and Sunny were too exhausted to notice. They could scarcely hear the shrieks of Genghis's
whistle and his cries of "Keep running!" and "Another lap!" over the sound of their own
desperate panting for breath. They grew so sweaty that the orphans thought they would give
the entire Baudelaire fortune for a good long shower. And their legs grew so sore that
children forgot, even with their prism of experience, what it felt like to have legs that didn't
ache from thigh to toe.
    Lap after lap the Baudelaires ran, hardly taking their eyes off the circle of luminous pain
that still glowed brightly on the darkening lawn, and staring at this circle was somehow the
worst part of all. As the evening turned to night, the luminous circle was all the Baudelaire
could really see, and it imprinted itself into their eyes so they could see it even when they w
staring desperately into the darkness. If you've ever had a flash photograph taken, and t
blob of the flash has stayed in your view for a few moments afterward, then you are famili
with what was happening to the Baudelaires, except the glowing circle stayed in their mind
for so long that it became symbolic. The word "symbolic" here means that the glowing circ
felt like it stood for more than merely a track, and what it stood for was zero. The luminous
zero glowed in the Baudelaire minds, and it was symbolic of what they knew of their situat
They knew zero about what Genghis was up to. They knew zero about why they were
running endless laps. And they had zero energy to think about it.
    Finally, the sun began to rise, and Coach Genghis dismissed his orphan track team.
Baudelaires stumbled blearily to the Orphans Shack, too tired to even see if Duncan and
Isadora were sneaking back to their dormitory after their last shift of spying. Once again, th
three siblings were too tired to put on their noisy shoes, so their toes were doubly sore whe
they awoke, just two hours later, to begin another groggy day. But-and I shudder to tell you this-th
was not the last groggy day for the Baudelaire orphans. The dreadful Carmelita Spats deliv
them the usual message at lunch, after they spent the morning dozing through classes and
secretarial duties, and the Baudelaires put their heads on the cafeteria table in despair at th
idea of another night of running. The Quagmires tried to comfort them, promising to double
their research efforts, but Violet, Klaus, and Sunny were too tired for conversation, even w
their closest friends. Luckily, their closest friends understood completely and didn't find the
Baudelaires' silence rude or discouraging.
    It seems impossible to believe that the three Baudelaires managed to survive another
evening of S.O.R.E., but in times of extreme stress one can often find energy hidden in even
most exhausted areas of the body. I discovered this myself when I was woken up in the mid
of the night and chased sixteen miles by an angry mob armed with torches, swords, and vic
dogs, and the Baudelaire orphans discovered it as they ran laps, not only for that night but a
for six nights following. This made a grand total of nine S.O.R.E. sessions, although "grand
would seem to be the wrong word for endless evenings of desperate panting, sweaty bodie
and achy legs. For nine nights, the Baudelaire brains were plagued with the symbolic, lumin
zero glowing in their minds like a giant donut of despair.
    As the Baudelaire orphans suffered, their schoolwork suffered with them. As I'm sure yo
know, a good night's sleep helps you perform well in school, and so if you are a student you
should always get a good night's sleep unless you have come to the good part of your book,
then you should stay up all night and let your schoolwork fall by the wayside, a phrase whic
means "flunk." In the days that followed, the Baudelaires were much more exhausted than
somebody who had stayed up all night reading, and their schoolwork did more than fall by
wayside. It fell off the wayside, a phrase which here has different meanings for each child.
Violet, it meant that she was so drowsy that she did not write down a single word of Mr.
Remora's stories. For Klaus, it meant that he was so weary that he didn't measure a single o
of Mrs. Bass's objects. And for Sunny, it meant that she was so exhausted that she didn't do
anything Vice Principal Nero assigned her to do. The Baudelaire orphans believed that doin
well in school was extremely important, even if the school happened to be run by a tyrannic
idiot, but they were simply too fatigued from their nightly laps to do their assigned work.
Before long, the circle of luminous paint was not the only zero the Baudelaires saw. Violet
a zero at the top of her paper when she was unable to recall any of Mr. Remora's stori
for a test. Klaus saw a zero in Mrs. Bass's gradebook when he was called on to report the
exact length of a tube sock he was supposed to be measuring and was discovered to be taki
nap instead. And Sunny saw a zero when she checked the staple drawer and saw that there
were zero staples inside.
   "This is getting ridiculous," Isadora said when Sunny updated her siblings and friends at
start of another weary lunch. "Look at you, Sunny. It was inappropriate to hire you as an
administrative assistant in the first place, and it's simply absurd to have you crawl laps by n
and make your own staples by day."
   "Don't call my sister absurd or ridiculous!" Klaus cried.
   "I'm not calling her ridiculous!" Isadora said.
   "I'm calling the situation ridiculous!"
   "Ridiculous means you want to laugh at it," said Klaus, who was never too tired to defin
words, "and I don't want you laughing at us."
   "I'm not laughing at you," Isadora said. "I'm trying to help."
   Klaus snatched his drinking glass from Isadora's side of the table. "Well, laughing at us
doesn't help at all, you cakesniffer."
   Isadora snatched her silverware from Klaus's hands. "Calling me names doesn't help eit
Klaus."
   "Mumdum!" Sunny shrieked.
   "Oh, stop it, both of you," Duncan said. "Isadora, can't you see that Klaus is just tired? A
Klaus, can't you see that Isadora is just frustrated?"
   Klaus took his glasses off and returned his drinking glass to Isadora. "I'm too tired to see
anything," he said. "I'm sorry, Isadora. Being tired makes me crabby. In a few days I'll turn
nasty as Carmelita Spats."
   Isadora handed her silverware back to Klaus and patted him on the hand in forgiveness.
"You'll never be as nasty as Carmelita Spats," she said.
   "Carmelita Spats?" Violet said, lifting her head from her tray. She had dozed through
Isadora and Klaus's argument but woken up at the sound of the Special Messenger's name.
"She's not coming here again to tell us to do laps, is she?"
   "I'm afraid she is," Duncan said ruefully, a word which here means "while pointing at a
rude, violent, and filthy little girl."
   "Hello, cakesniffers," Carmelita Spats said. "Today I have two messages for you, so I
should really get two tips instead of one."
   "Oh, Carmelita," Klaus said. "You haven't gotten a tip for the last nine days, and I see no
reason to break that tradition."
   "That's because you're a stupid orphan," Carmelita Spats said promptly. "In any case,
message number one is the usual: meet Coach Genghis on the front lawn right after dinner."
   Violet gave an exhausted groan. "And what's the second message?" she asked.
   "The second message is that you must report to Vice Principal Nero's office right away."
   "Vice Principal Nero's office?" Klaus asked. "Why?"
   "I'm sorry," Carmelita Spats said with a nasty smile to indicate that she wasn't sorry one
"I don't answer questions from nontipping orphan cakesniffers."
   Some children at the neighboring table laughed when they heard that and began banging
silverware on the table. "Cakesniffing orphans in the Orphans Shack! Cakesniffing orphans
the Orphans Shack!" they chanted as Carmelita Spats giggled and skipped off to finish her
lunch. "Cakesniffing orphans in the Orphans Shack! Cakesniffing orphans in the Orphans
Shack!" they chanted while the Baude-laires sighed and stood up on their aching legs. "We'
better go to Nero's," Violet said. "We'll see you later, Duncan and Isadora."
    "Nonsense," Duncan said. "We'll walk you. Carmelita Spats has made me lose my appet
so we'll skip lunch and take you to the administrative building. We won't go inside-otherwi
there'll be no silverware between the five of us-but we'll wait outside and you can te
what's going on."
    "I wonder what Nero wants," Klaus said, yawning.
    "Maybe he's discovered that Genghis is really Olaf, all by himself," Isadora said, a
the Baudelaires smiled back. They didn't dare hope that this was the reason for their summo
to Nero's office, but they appreciated their friends' hopefulness. The five children hand
their scarcely eaten lunches to the cafeteria workers, who blinked at them silently from beh
their metal masks, and walked to the administrative-building. The Quagmire triplets
wished the Baudelaires luck, and Violet, Klaus, and Sunny trudged up the steps to Nero's
office.
    "Thank you for taking the time out of your busy orphan schedule to see me," Vice Princip
Nero said, yanking open his door before they could knock. "Hurry up and come inside. Eve
minute I spend talking to you is a minute I could spend practicing the violin, and when you'
musical genius like me, every minute counts."
    The three children walked into the tiny office and began clapping their tired hands togeth
as Nero raised both his arms in the air. "There are two things I wanted to talk to you about,
said when the applause was over. "Do you know what they are?"
    "No, sir," Violet replied.
    "No, sir," Nero mimicked, although he looked disappointed that the children hadn't give
him a longer answer to make fun of. "Well, the first one is that the three of you have missed
nine of my violin concerts, and each of you owes me a bag of candy for each one. Nine hag
candy times three equals twenty-nine.
    In addition, Carmelita Spats has told me that she has delivered ten messages to you, if yo
include the two she delivered today, and that you've never given her a tip. That's a disgrace
Now, I think a nice tip is a pair of earrings with precious stones, so you owe her ten pairs o
earrings. What do you have to say about that?"
    The Baudelaire orphans looked at one another with their sleepy, sleepy eyes. They had
nothing to say about that. They had plenty to think about that - that they'd only missed Nero'
concerts because Coach Genghis had forced them to, that nine bags of candy times three eq
twenty-seven, not twenty-nine, and that tips are always optional and usually consist of mon
instead of earrings - but Violet, Klaus, and Sunny were too tired to say anything about it at
This was another disappointment to Vice Principal Nero, who stood there scratching his
pigtails and waiting for one of the children to say something that he could repeat in his nast
mocking voice. But after a moment of silence, the vice principal went on to the second thing
"The second thing," he said, going on, "is that you three have become the worst students
Prufrock Preparatory School has ever seen. Violet, Mr. Remora tells me that you have flunk
a test. Klaus, Mrs. Bass reports that you can scarcely tell one end of a metric ruler from
another. And Sunny, I've noticed that you haven't made a single staple! Mr. Poe told me you
were intelligent and hardworking children, but you're just a bunch of cakesniffers!"
    At this, the Baudelaires could keep quiet no longer. "We're flunking school because we'
exhausted!" Violet cried.
    "And we're exhausted because we're running laps every night!" Klaus cried.
    "Galuka!" Sunny shrieked, which meant "So yell at Coach Genghis, not at us!"
    Vice Principal Nero gave the children a big smile, delighted that he was able to answer
them in his favorite way. "We're flunking school because we're exhausted!" he squealed.
"And we're exhausted because we're running laps every night! Galuka! I've had enough o
your nonsense! Prufrock Preparatory School has promised you an excellent education, and
excellent education you will get-or, in Sunny's case, an excellent job as an administrative
assistant! Now, I've instructed Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass to give comprehensive exams
tomorrow-large tests on absolutely everything you've learned so far. Violet, you'd better
remember every detail of Mr. Remora's stories, and Klaus, you'd better remember the lengt
width, and depths of Mrs. Bass's objects, or I will expel you from school. Also, I've found
bunch of papers that need to be stapled tomorrow. Sunny, you will staple all of them, with
homemade staples, or I will expel you from your job. First thing tomorrow morning we wil
have the test and the stapling, and if you don't get As and make enough staples, you'll leave
Prufrock Preparatory School. Luckily for you, Coach Genghis has offered to home-school y
That means he'd be your coach, your teacher, and your guardian, all in one. It's a very gener
offer, and if I were you I'd give him a tip, too, although I don't think earrings are appropriat
this case."
    "We're not going to give Count Olaf a tip!" Violet blurted out.
    Klaus looked at his older sister in horror. "Violet means Coach Genghis," Klaus said
quickly to Nero.
    "I do not\" Violet cried. "Klaus, our situation is too desperate to pretend not to recogniz
him any longer!"
    "Hifijoo!" Sunny agreed.
    "I guess you're right," Klaus said. "What have we got to lose?"
    "What have we got to lose?" Nero mocked. "What are you talking about?"
    "We're talking about Coach Genghis," Violet said. "He's not really named Genghis.
He's not even a real coach. He's Count Olaf in disguise."
    "Nonsense!" Nero said.
    Klaus wanted to say "Nonsense!" right back at Nero, in Nero's own repulsive way, but h
bit his exhausted tongue. "It's true," he said. "He's put a turban over his eyebrow and expen
running shoes over his tattoo, but he's still Count Olaf."
    "He has a turban for religious reasons," Nero said, "and running shoes because he's a co
Look here." He strode over to the computer and pressed a button. The screen began to glow
its usual seasick way, and once again showed a picture of Count Olaf. "You see? Coach
Genghis looks nothing like Count Olaf, and my advanced computer system proves it."
    "Ushilo!" Sunny cried, which meant "That doesn't prove anything!"
    "Ushilo!" Nero mocked. "Who am I going to believe, an advanced computer system or t
children flunking school and a little baby too dumb to make her own staples? Now, stop
wasting my time! I will personally oversee tomorrow's comprehensive exams, which w
be given in the Orphans Shack! And you'd better do excellent work, or it's a free ride from
Coach Genghis! Sayonara, Baudelaires!"
   "Sayonara" is the Japanese word for goodbye, and I'm sure that each and every one of th
millions of people who live in Japan would be ashamed to hear their language used by such
revolting person. But the Baudelaire orphans had no time to think such international thought
They were too busy giving the Quagmire triplets the latest news.
   "This is awful!" Duncan cried as the five children trudged across the lawn so they could
things over in peace. "There's no way you can get an A on those exams, particularly if you
have to run laps tonight!"
   "This is dreadful!" Isadora cried. "There's no way you can make all those staples, either
You'll be homeschooled before you know it!"
   "Coach Genghis won't homeschool us," Violet said, looking out at the front lawn, where
luminous zero was waiting for them. "He'll do something much, much worse. Don't you
see? That's why he's made us run all those laps! He knew we'd be exhausted. He knew
we'd flunk our classes, or fail to perform our secretarial duties. He knew we'd be expelled
from Prufrock Prep, and then he could get his hands on us."
   Klaus groaned. "We've been waiting for his plan to be made clear, and now it is. But it
might be too late."
   "It's not too late," Violet insisted. "The comprehensive exams aren't until tomorrow
morning. We must be able to figure out a plan by then."
   "Plan!" Sunny agreed.
   "It'll have to be a complicated plan," Duncan said. "We have to get Violet ready fo
Mr. Remora's test, and Klaus ready for Mrs. Bass's test."
   "And we have to make staples," Isadora said. "And the Baudelaires still have to run lap
   "And we have to stay awake," Klaus said.
   The children looked at one another, and then out at the front lawn. The afternoon sun wa
shining brightly, but the five youngsters knew that soon it would set behind the
tombstone-shaped buildings, and that it would be time for S.O.R.E. They didn't have much
time. Violet tied her hair up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. Klaus polished his glasse
and set them on his nose. Sunny scraped her teeth together, to make sure they were sharp
enough for any task ahead. And the two triplets took their notebooks out of their sweater
pockets. Coach Genghis's evil plan had become clear through the prism of the Baudelaire a
Quagmire experiences, and now they had to use their experience to make a plan of their ow


                                        CHAPTER
                                           Ten


    The three Baudelaire orphans and the two Quagmire triplets sat in the Orphans Shack,
which had never looked less unpleasant than it did now. All five children were wearing the
noisy shoes Violet had invented, so the territorial crabs were nowhere to be seen. The
salt had dried up the dripping tan fungus into a hard beige crust that was not particularly
attractive but at least did not plop! drops of fungus juice on the youngsters. Because the arr
of Coach Genghis had focused their energies on defeating his treachery, the five orphans ha
done anything about the green walls with the pink hearts on them, but otherwise the Orphan
Shack had become quite a bit less mountainous and quite a bit more molehilly since the
Baudelaires' arrival. It still had a long way to go to be attractive and comfortable living
quarters, but for thinking of a plan, it would do in a pinch.
    And the Baudelaire children were certainly in a pinch. If Violet, Klaus, and Sunny spent
more exhausting night running laps, they would flunk their comprehensive exams and
secretarial assignment, and then Coach Genghis would whisk them away from Prufrock Pre
and as they thought of this they could almost feel Genghis's bony fingers pinching the
right out of them. The Quagmire triplets were so worried about their friends that t
felt pinched as well, even though they were not directly in danger-or so they thought,
anyway.
    "I can't believe we didn't figure out Coach Genghis's plan earlier," Isadora said mournfu
paging through her notebook. "Duncan and I did all this research, and we still didn't figure i
out."
    "Don't feel badly," Klaus said. "My sisters and I have had many encounters with Olaf, an
it's always difficult to figure out his scheme."
    "We were trying to find out the history of Count Olaf," Duncan said. "The Prufrock
Preparatory library has a pretty good collection of old newspapers, and we thought if we c
find out some of his other schemes, we might figure out this one."
    "That's a good idea," Klaus said thoughtfully. "I've never tried that."
    "We figured that Olaf must have been an evil man even before he met you," Duncan
continued, "so we looked up things in old newspapers. But it was difficult to find too many
articles, because as you know he always uses a different name. But we found a person
matching his description in the Bangkok Gazette, who was arrested for strangling a bishop
escaped from prison in just ten minutes."
    "That sounds like him, all right," Klaus said.
    "And then in the Verona Daily News," Duncan said, "there was a man who had thrown a
rich widow off of a cliff. He had a tattoo of an eye on his ankle, but he had eluded authoriti
And then we found a newspaper from your hometown that said-"
    "I don't mean to interrupt," Isadora said, "but we'd better stop thinking about th
past and start thinking about the present. Lunchtime is more than half over, and we despera
need a plan."
    "You're not napping, are you?" Klaus asked Violet, who had been silent for a very long
time.
    "Of course I'm not napping," Violet replied. "I'm concentrating. I think I can invent some
thing to make all those staples Sunny needs. But I can't figure out how I can inven
the device and study for the test at the same time. Since S.O.R.E. began, I haven't taken
good notes in Mr. Remora's class, so I won't be able to remember his stories."
    "Well, you don't have to worry about that," Duncan said, holding up his dark green
notebook. "I've written down every one of Mr. Remora's stories. Every boring detail is
recorded here in my notebook."
    "And I've written down how long, wide, and deep all of Mrs. Bass's objects are,"
Isadora said, holding up her own notebook. "You can study from my notebook, Klaus, a
Violet can study from Duncan's."
   "Thank you," Klaus said, "but you're forgetting something. We're supposed to be running
laps this evening. We don't have time to read anybody's notebook."
   "Tarcour," Sunny said, which meant "You're right, of course. S.O.R.E. always lasts unti
dawn, and the tests are first thing in the morning."
   "If only we had one of the world's great inventors to help us," Violet said. "I wonder wh
Nikola Tesla would do."
   "Or one of the world's great journalists," Duncan said. "I wonder what Dorothy
Parker would do in this situation."
   "And I wonder what Hammurabi, the ancient Babylonian, would do to help us," Klaus s
"He was one of the world's greatest researchers."
   "Or the great poet Lord Byron," Isadora said.
   "Shark," Sunny said, rubbing her teeth thoughtfully.
   "Who knows what any of those people or fish would do in our shoes?" Violet said. "It's
impossible to know."
   Duncan snapped his fingers, not to signal a waiter or because he was listening to catchy
music but because he had an idea. "In our shoes!" he said. "That's it!"
   "What's it?" Klaus asked. "How will our noisy shoes help?"
   "No, no," Duncan said. "Not the noisy shoes. I'm thinking about Coach Genghis's
expensive running shoes that he said he couldn't take off because his feet were smelly."
   "And I bet they are smelly," Isadora said.
   "I've noticed he doesn't bathe much."
   "But that's not why he wears them," Violet said. "He wears them for a disguise."
   "Exactly!" Duncan said. "When you said 'in your shoes,' it gave me an idea. I know you j
meant 'in our shoes' as an expression meaning 'in our situation.' But what if someone else w
actually in your shoes-what if we disguised ourselves as you? Then we could run laps, and
could study for the comprehensive exams."
   "Disguise yourselves as us?" Klaus said. "You two look exactly like each other, but you
don't look anything like us."
   "So what?" Duncan said. "It'll be dark tonight. When we've watched you from
archway, all we could see were two shadowy figures running-and one crawling."
   "That's true," Isadora said. "If I took the ribbon from your hair, Violet, and Duncan took
Klaus's glasses, we'd look enough like you that I bet Coach Genghis couldn't tell."
   "And we could switch shoes, so your running on the grass would sound exactly the same
Duncan said.
   "But what about Sunny?" Violet asked. "There's no way two people could disguise
themselves as three people."
   The Quagmire triplets' faces fell. "If only Quigley were here," Duncan said. "I just know
he'd be willing to dress up as a baby if it meant helping you."
   "What about a bag of flour?" Isadora asked. "Sunny's only about as big as a bag of flour-
nothing personal, Sunny."
   "Denada," Sunny said, shrugging.
   "We could snitch a bag from the cafeteria," Isadora said, "and drag it alongside us as we
ran. From a distance, it would probably look enough like Sunny to avoid suspicion."
   "Being in each other's shoes seems like an extremely risky plan," Violet said. "If it fails,
only are we in trouble but you are as well, and who knows what Coach Genghis will do to
you?"
   This, as it turns out, was a question that would haunt the Baudelaires for quite some tim
but the Quagmires gave it barely a thought. "Don't worry about that," Duncan said. "Th
important thing is to keep you out of his clutches. It may be a risky plan, but being in each
other's shoes is the only thing we've been able to think of."
   "And we don't have any time to waste thinking of anything else," Isadora added. "We'd
better hurry if we want to snitch the bag of flour and not be late for class."
   "And we'll need a string, or something, so we can drag it along and make it look like Sun
crawling," Duncan said.
   "And I'll need to snitch some things, too," Violet said, "for my staple-making invention."
   "Nidop," Sunny said, which meant something along the lines of "Then let's get moving."
   The five children walked out of the Orphans Shack, taking off their noisy shoes and putti
on their regular shoes so they wouldn't make a lot of noise as they walked nervously across
lawn to the cafeteria. They were nervous because they were not supposed to be sneaking in
the cafeteria, or snitching things, and they were nervous because their plan was indeed a ris
one. It is not a pleasant feeling, nervousness, and I would not wish for small children to be
more nervous than the Baudelaires and the Quagmires were as they walked toward the
cafeteria in their regular shoes. But I must say that the children weren't nervous enough. The
didn't need to be more nervous about sneaking into the cafeteria, even though it was against
rules, or snitching things, even though they didn't get caught. But they should have been mor
nervous about their plan, and about what would happen that evening when the sun set on the
brown lawn and the luminous circle began to glow. They should have been nervous, now, i
their regular shoes, about what would happen when they were in each other's.


                                         CHAPTER
                                           Eleven

    If you've ever dressed up for Halloween or attended a masquerade, you know that there
certain thrill to wearing a disguise-a thrill that is half excitement and half danger. I once
attended one of the famed masked balls hosted by the duchess of Winnipeg, and it was one
the most exciting and dangerous evenings of my life. I was disguised as a bullfighter and
slipped into the party while being pursued by the palace guards, who were disguised as
scorpions. The moment I entered the Grand Ballroom, I felt as if Lemony Snicket had
disappeared. I was wearing clothes I had never worn before-a scarlet cape made of silk an
vest embroidered with gold thread and a skinny black mask-and it made me feel as if I wer
different person. And because I felt like a different person, I dared to approach a woman I h
been forbidden to approach for the rest of my life. She was alone on the veranda-the word
"veranda" is a fancy term for a porch made of polished gray marble-and costumed as a
dragonfly, with a glittering green mask and enormous silvery wings. As my pursuers scurrie
around the party, trying to guess which guest was me, I slipped out to the veranda and gave
the message I'd been trying to give her for fifteen long and lonely years. "Beatrice," I cried,
as the scorpions spotted me, "Count Olaf is--"

   I cannot go on. It makes me weep to think of that evening, and of the dark and desperate
times that followed, and in the meantime I'm sure you are curious what happened to the
Baudelaire orphans and the Quagmire triplets, after dinner that evening at Prufrock Prep.
   "This is sort of exciting," Duncan said, putting Klaus's glasses on his face. "I know that
we're doing this for serious reasons, but I'm excited anyway."
   Isadora recited, tying Violet's ribbon in her hair,

                                    "It may not be particularly wise,
                                    but it's a thrill to be disguised."

   "That's not a perfect poem, but it will have to do under the circumstances. How do we
look?"
   The Baudelaire orphans took a step back and regarded the Quagmires carefully. It was j
after dinner, and the children were standing outside the Orphans Shack, hurriedly putting th
risky plan into action. They had managed to sneak into the cafeteria and steal a Sunny-sized
of flour from the kitchen while the metal-masked cafeteria workers' backs were turned. Vio
had also snitched a fork, a few teaspoons of creamed spinach, and a small potato, all of wh
she needed for her invention. Now they had just a few moments before the Bau-delaires-or,
this case, the Quagmires in disguise-had to show up for S.O.R.E. Duncan and Isadora hand
over their notebooks so the Baudelaires could study for their comprehensive exams, and
switched shoes so the Quagmires' laps would sound exactly like the Baudelaires'. Now, wi
only seconds to spare, the Baudelaires looked over the Quagmires' disguise and realized
instantly just how risky this plan was.
   Isadora and Duncan Quagmire simply did not look very much like Violet and Klaus
Baudelaire. Duncan's eyes were of a different color from Klaus's, and Isadora had differen
hair from Violet's, even if it was tied up in a similar way. Being triplets, the Quagmires
were the exact same height, but Violet was taller than Klaus because she was older, and t
was no time to make small stilts for Isadora to mimic this height difference. But it wasn't re
these small physical details that made the disguise so unconvincing. It was the simple fact t
the Baudelaires and the Quagmires were different people, and a hair ribbon, a pair of glass
and some shoes couldn't turn them into one another any more than a woman disguised as a
dragonfly can actually take wing and escape the disaster awaiting her.
   "I know we don't look much like you," Duncan admitted after the Baudelaires had been q
for some time. "But remember, it's quite dark on the front lawn. The only light is coming fro
the luminous circle. We'll make sure to keep our heads down when we're running, so our fa
won't give us away. We won't speak a word to Coach Genghis, so our voices won't give us
away. And we have your hair ribbon, glasses, and shoes, so our accessories won't give us
away, either."
   "We don't have to go through with this plan," Violet said quietly. "We appreciate your h
but we don't have to try and fool Genghis. My siblings and I could just run away right
now, tonight. We've gotten to be pretty good runners, so we'd have a good head start o
Coach Genghis."
    "We could call Mr. Poe from a pay phone somewhere," Klaus said.
    "Zubu," Sunny said, which meant "Or attend a different school, under different names."
    "Those plans don't have a chance of working," Isadora said. "From what you've told us
about Mr. Poe, he's never very helpful. And Count Olaf seems to find you wherever you go
a different school wouldn't help, either."
    "This is our only chance," Duncan agreed. "If you pass the exams without arousing
Genghis's suspicion, you will be out of danger, and then we can focus our efforts on exposi
the coach for who he really is."
    "I suppose you're right," Violet said. "I just don't like the idea of your putting your lives
such danger, just to help us."
    "What are friends for?" Isadora said. "We're not going to attend some silly recital while
run laps to your doom. You three were the first people at Prufrock Prep who weren't m
to us just for being orphans. None of us have any family, so we've got to stick together."
    "At least let us go with you to the front lawn," Klaus said. "We'll spy on you from the
archway, and make sure you're fooling Coach Genghis."
    Duncan shook his head. "You don't have time to spy on us," he said. "You have to m
staples out of those metal rods and study for two comprehensive exams."
    "Oh!" Isadora said suddenly. "How will we drag this bag of flour along the track? We n
a string or something."
    "We could just kick it around the circle," Duncan said.
    "No, no, no," Klaus said. "If Coach Genghis thinks you're kicking your baby sister,
he'll know something is up."
    "I know!" Violet said. She leaned forward and put her hand on Duncan's chest, running h
fingers along his thick wool sweater until she found what she was looking for-a loose threa
Carefully, she pulled, unraveling the sweater slightly until she had a good long piece of yar
Then she snapped it off and tied one end around the bag of flour. The other end she handed
Duncan. "This should do it," she said. "Sorry about your sweater."
    "I'm sure you can invent a sewing machine," he said, "when we're all out of danger. Well, we
better go, Isadora. Coach Genghis will be waiting. Good luck with studying."
    "Good luck with running laps," Klaus said.
    The Baudelaires took a long look at their friends. They were reminded of the last time th
saw their parents, waving good-bye to them as they left for the beach. They had not known,
course, that it would be the last moment they would spend with their mother and father, and
again and again, each of the Baudelaires had gone back to that day in their lives, wishing
they had said something more than a casual good-bye. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny looked a
the two triplets and hoped that this was not such a time, a time when people they cared for
would disappear from their lives forever. But what if it were?
    "If we never see-" Violet stopped, swallowed, and began again. "If something goes wro
    Duncan took Violet's hands and looked right at her. Violet saw, behind Klaus's glasses, t
serious look in Duncan's wide eyes. "Nothing will go wrong," he said firmly, though of cou
he was wrong at that very moment. "Nothing will go wrong at all. We'll see you in the
morning, Baudelaires."
    Isadora nodded solemnly and followed her brother and the bag of flour away from t
Orphans Shack. The Baudelaire orphans watched them walk toward the front lawn until the
triplets were merely two specks, dragging another speck along with them.
    "You know," Klaus said, as they watched them, "from a distance, in the dim light,
they look quite a bit like us."
    "Abax," Sunny agreed.
    "I hope so," Violet murmured. "I hope so. But in the meantime, we'd better stop thinking
about them and get started on our half of the plan. Let's put our noisy shoes on and go into th
shack."
    "I can't imagine how you're going to make staples," Klaus said, "with only a fork, a few
teaspoons of creamed spinach, and a small potato. That sounds more like the ingredients fo
side dish than for a staple-making device. I hope your inventing skills haven't been dulled b
lack of sleep."
    "I don't think they have," Violet said. "It's amazing how much energy you can have once y
have a plan. Besides, my plan doesn't only involve the things I snitched. It involves one of t
Orphan Shack crabs and our noisy shoes. Now, when we all have our shoes on, please foll
my instructions."
    The two younger Baudelaires were quite puzzled at this, but they had learned long ago th
when it came to inventions, Violet could be trusted absolutely. In the recent past, she had
invented a grappling hook, a lockpick, and a signaling device, and now, come hell or high
water-an expression which here means "using a fork, a few teaspoons of creamed spinach,
small potato, a live crab, and noisy shoes"-she was going to invent a staple-making device.
    The three siblings put on their shoes and, following Violet's instructions, entered the sha
As usual, the tiny crabs were lounging around, taking advantage of their time alone in the sh
when they wouldn't be frightened by loud noises. On most occasions, the Baudelaires woul
stomp wildly on the floor when they entered the shack, and the crabs would scurry undernea
the bales of hay and into other hiding places in the room. This time, however, Violet instruc
her siblings to step on the floor in carefully arranged patterns, so as to herd one of the
grumpiest and biggest-clawed crabs into a corner of the shack. While the other crabs scatte
this crab was trapped in a corner, afraid of the noisy shoes but with nowhere to hide from
them.
    "Good work!" Violet cried. "Keep him in the corner, Sunny, while I ready the potato."
    "What is the potato for?" Klaus asked.
    "As we know," Violet explained as Sunny tapped her little feet this way and that to keep
crab in the corner, "these crabs love to get their claws on our toes. I specifically snitched a
potato that was toe-shaped. You see how it's curved in a sort of oval way, and the little bum
part here looks like a toenail?"
    "You're right," Klaus said. "The resemblance is remarkable. But what does it have to do
with staples?"
    "Well, the metal rods that Nero gave us are very long, and need to be cut cleanly into sm
staple-sized pieces. While Sunny keeps the crab in the corner, I'm going to wave the potato
him. He-or she, come to think of it, I don't know how to tell a boy crab from a girl crab-"
    "It's a boy," Klaus said. "Trust me."
     "Well, he'll think it's a toe," Violet continued, "and snap at it with his claws. At that insta
I'll yank the potato away and put a rod in its place. If I do it carefully enough, the crab shou
do a perfect job of slicing it up."
     "And then what?" Klaus asked.
     "First things first," Violet replied firmly. "O.K. Sunny, keep tapping those noisy shoes. I
ready with the potato and rod number one."
     "What can I do?" Klaus asked.
     "You can start studying for the comprehensive exam, of course," Violet said. "I couldn't
possibly read all of Duncan's notes in just one night. While Sunny and I make the staples, yo
need to read Duncan's and Isadora's notebooks, memorize the measurements from Mrs. Bas
class, and teach me all of Mr. Remora's stories."
     "Roger," Klaus said. As you probably know, the middle Baudelaire was not referrin
to anybody named Roger. He was saying a man's name to indicate that he understood what
Violet had said and would act accordingly, and over the course of the next two hours, that's
exactly what he did. While Sunny used her noisy shoes to keep the crab in the corner and V
used the potato as a toe and the crab's claws as clean cutters, Klaus used the Quagmire
notebooks to study for the comprehensive exams, and everything worked the way it should.
Sunny tapped her shoes so noisily that the crab remained trapped. Violet was so quick with
potato and metal rods that soon they were snipped into staple-sized pieces. And
Klaus-although he had to squint because Duncan was using his glasses-read Isadora's
measuring notes so carefully that before long he had memorized the length, width, and depth
just about everything.
     "Violet, ask me the measurements of the navy blue scarf," Klaus said, turning the notebo
over so he couldn't peek.
     Violet yanked the potato away just in time, and the crab snipped off another bit of the me
rods. "What are the measurements of the navy blue scarf?" she asked.
     "Two decimeters long," Klaus recited, "nine centimeters wide, and four millimeters thic
It's boring, but it's correct. Sunny, ask me the measurements of the bar of deodorant soap."
     The crab saw an opportunity to leave the corner, but Sunny was too quick for it. "Soap?"
Sunny quizzed Klaus, tapping her tiny noisy shoes until the crab retreated.
     "Eight centimeters by eight centimeters by eight centimeters," Klaus said promptly.
"That one's easy. You're doing great, you two. I bet that crab's going to be almost as tired a
are."
     "No," Violet said, "he's done. Let him go, Sunny. We have all the staple-sized pieces we
need. I'm glad that part of the staple-making process is over. It's very nerve-wracking to tea
crab."
     "What's next?" Klaus said, as the crab scurried away from the most frightening moments
his life.
     "Next you teach me Mr. Remora's stories," Violet said, "while Sunny and I bend these li
bits of metal into the proper shape."
     "Shablo," Sunny said, which meant something like "How are we going to do that?"
     "Watch," Violet said, and Sunny watched. While Klaus closed Isadora's black notebook
began paging through Duncan's dark green one, Violet took the glob of creamed spinach and
mixed it with a few pieces of stray hay and dust until it was a sticky, gluey mess. Then she
placed this mess on the spiky end of the fork, and stuck it to one of the bales of hay so the
handle end of the fork hung over the side. She blew on the
creamed-spinach-stray-hay-and-dust mixture until it hardened. "I always thought that Prufro
Prep's creamed spinach was awfully sticky," Violet explained, "and then I realized it could
used as glue. And now, we have a perfect method of making those tiny strips into stap
See, if I lay a strip across the handle of the fork, a tiny part of the strip hangs off each of th
sides. Those are the parts that will go inside the paper when it's a staple. If I take
my noisy shoes"-and here Violet paused to take off her noisy shoes-"and use the metal ends
tap on the strips, they'll bend around the handle of the fork and turn into staples. See?"
    "Gyba!" Sunny shrieked. She meant "You're a genius! But what can I do to help?"
    "You can keep your noisy shoes on your feet," Violet replied, "and keep the crabs away
from us. And Klaus, you start summarizing stories."
    "Roger," Sunny said.
    "Roger," Klaus said, and once again, neither of them were referring to Roger. They mean
once again, that they understood what Violet had said, and would act accordingly, and all th
Baudelaires acted accordingly for the rest of the night. Violet tapped away at the rneta
strips, and Klaus read out loud from Duncan's notebook, and Sunny stomped her noisy shoe
Soon, the Baudelaires had a pile of homemade staples on the floor, the details of Mr. Remo
stories in their brains, and not a single crab bothering them in the shack, and even with the
threat of Coach Genghis hovering over them, the evening actually began to feel rather cozy.
reminded the Baudelaires of evenings they had spent when their parents were alive, in one
the living rooms in the Baudelaire mansion. Violet would often be tinkering away at some
invention, while Klaus would often be reading and sharing the information he was learning
and Sunny would often be making loud noises. Of course, Violet was never tinkering frantic
at an invention that would save their lives, Klaus was never reading something so boring, a
Sunny was never making loud noises to scare crabs, but nevertheless as the night wore on, t
Baudelaires felt almost at home in the Orphans Shack. And when the sky began to lighten w
the first rays of dawn, the Baudelaires began to feel a certain thrill that was quite different f
the thrill of being in disguise. It was a thrill that I have never felt in my life, and it was a th
that the Baudelaires did not feel very often. But as the morning sun began to shine, the
Baudelaire orphans felt the thrill of thinking your plan might work after all, and that
perhaps they would eventually be as safe and happy as the evenings they remembered.


                                          CHAPTER
                                            Twelve


    Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make-bombs
instance, or strawberry shortcake-if you make even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself
terrible trouble. Making assumptions simply means believing things are a certain way with
little or no evidence that shows you are correct, and you can see at once how this can lead
terrible trouble. For instance, one morning you might wake up and make the assumption tha
your bed was in the same place that it always was, even though you would have no real
evidence that this was so. But when you got out of your bed, you might discover that it had
floated out to sea, and now you would be in terrible trouble all because of the incorrect
assumption that you'd made. You can see that it is better not to make too many assumptions,
particularly in the morning.
   The morning of the comprehensive exams, however, the Baudelaire orphans were so tire
not only from staying up all night studying and making staples but also from nine consecutiv
nights of running laps, that they made plenty of assumptions, and every last one of them turn
out to be incorrect.
   "Well, that's the last staple," Violet said, stretching her tired muscles. "I think we can sa
assume that Sunny won't lose her job."
   "And you seem to know every detail of Mr. Remora's stories as well as I know all of M
Bass's measurements," Klaus said, rubbing his tired eyes, "so I think we can safely assume
we won't be expelled."
   "Nilikoh," Sunny said, yawning her tired mouth. She meant something like "And we
haven't seen either of the Quagmire triplets, so I think we can safely assume that their part o
the plan went well."
   "That's true," Klaus said. "I assume if they'd been caught we would have heard by now."
   "I'd make the same assumption," Violet said.
   "I'd make the same assumption," came a nasty, mimicking voice, and the children were
startled to see Vice Principal Nero standing behind them holding a huge stack of papers. In
addition to the assumptions they had made out loud, the Baudelaires had made the assumpti
that they were alone, and they were surprised to find not only Vice Principal Nero but also
Remora and Mrs. Bass waiting in the doorway of the Orphans Shack. "I hope you've been
studying all evening," Nero said, "because I told your teachers to make these exams
extra-challenging, and the pieces of paper that the baby has to staple are very thick. Well, l
get started. Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass will take turns asking you questions until one of you
gets an answer wrong, and then you flunk. Sunny will sit in the back and staple these papers
into booklets of five papers each, and if your homemade staples don't work perfectly, then
flunk. Well, a musical genius like myself doesn't have all day to oversee exams. I've missed
much practice time as it is. Let's begin!"
   Nero threw the papers into a big heap on one of the bales of hay, and the stapler rig
after it. Sunny crawled over as quickly as she could and began inserting the staples int
the stapler, and Klaus stood up, still clutching the Quagmire notebooks. Violet put her nois
shoes back on her feet, and Mr. Remora swallowed a bite of banana and asked his fir
question.
   "In my story about the donkey," he said, "how many miles did the donkey run?"
   "Six," Violet said promptly.
   "Six, " Nero mimicked. "That can't be correct, can it, Mr. Remora?"
   "Um, yes, actually," Mr. Remora said, taking another bite of banana.
   "How wide," Mrs. Bass said to Klaus, "was the book with the yellow cover?"
   "Nineteen centimeters," Klaus said immediately.
   "Nineteen centimeters," Nero mocked. "That's wrong, isn't it, Mrs. Bass?"
   "No," Mrs. Bass admitted. "That's the right answer."
   "Well, try another question, Mr. Remora," Nero said.
   "In my story about the mushroom," Mr. Remora asked Violet, "what was the name of the
chef?"
   "Maurice," Violet answered.
   "Maurice," Nero mimicked.
   "Correct," Mr. Remora said.
   "How long was chicken breast number seven?" Mrs. Bass asked.
   "Fourteen centimeters and five millimeters," Klaus said.
   "Fourteen centimeters and five millimeters, Nero mimicked.
   "That's right," Mrs. Bass said. "You're actually both very good students, even if
you've been sleeping through class lately."
   "Stop all this chitchat and flunk them," Nero said. "I've never gotten to expel any
students, and I'm really looking forward to it."
   "In my story about the dump truck," Mr. Remora said, as Sunny began to staple the
of thick papers into booklets, "what color were the rocks that it carried?"
   "Gray and brown."
   "Gray and brown."
   "Correct."
   "How deep was my mother's casserole dish?"
   "Six centimeters."
   "Six centimeters."
   "Correct."
   "In my story about the weasel, what was its favorite color?"
   The comprehensive exams went on and on, and if I were to repeat all of the tiresome and
pointless questions that Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass asked, you might become so bored that
might go to sleep right here, using this book as a pillow instead of as an entertaining and
instructive tale to benefit young minds. Indeed, the exams were so boring that the Baudelair
orphans might normally have dozed through the test themselves. But they dared not doze. On
wrong answer or unstapled piece of paper, and Nero would expel them from Prufrock
Preparatory School and send them into the waiting clutches of Coach Genghis, so the three
children worked as hard as they could. Violet tried to remember each detail Klaus had taug
her, Klaus tried to remember every measurement he had taught himself, and Sunny stapled l
mad, a phrase which here means "quickly and accurately." Finally, Mr. Remora stopped in
middle of his eighth banana and turned to Vice Principal Nero.
   "Nero," he said, "there's no use continuing these exams. Violet is a very fine student, and
obviously studied very hard."
   Mrs. Bass nodded her head in agreement. "In all my years of teaching, I've never
encountered a more metric-wise boy than Klaus, here. And it looks like Sunny is a fine
secretary as well. Look at these booklets! They're gorgeous."
   "Pilso!" Sunny shrieked.
   "My sister means 'Thank you very much,'" Violet said, although Sunny really meant
something more like "My stapling hand is sore." "Does this mean we get to stay at Prufrock
Prep?"
   "Oh, let them stay, Nero," Mr. Remora said. "Why don't you expel that Carmelita
Spats? She never studies, and she's an awful person besides."
    "Oh yes," Mrs. Bass said. "Let's give her an extra-challenging examination."
    "I can't flunk Carmelita Spats," Nero said impatiently. "She's Coach Genghis's
Special Messenger."
    "Who?" Mr. Remora asked.
    "You know," Mrs. Bass explained, "Coach Genghis, the new gym teacher."
    "Oh yes," Mr. Remora said. "I've heard about him, but never met him. What is he like?"
    "He's the finest gym teacher the world has ever seen," Vice Principal Nero said, shaking
four pigtails in amazement. "But you don't have to take my word for it. You can see for
yourself. Here he comes now."
    Nero pointed one of his hairy hands out of the Orphans Shack, and the Baudelaire orpha
saw with horror that the vice principal was speaking the truth. Whistling an irritating tune to
himself, Coach Genghis was walking straight toward them, and the children could see at on
how incorrect one of their assumptions had been. It was not the assumption that Sunny wou
not lose her job, although that assumption, too, would turn out to be incorrect. And it was n
the assumption that Violet and Klaus would not be expelled, although that, too, was a wron
one. It was the assumption about the Quagmire triplets and their part of the plan
going well. As Coach Genghis walked closer and closer, the Baudelaires saw that he was
holding Violet's hair ribbon in one of his scraggly hands and Klaus's glasses in the other, an
with every step of his expensive running shoes, the coach raised a small white cloud, which
children realized must be flour from the snitched sack. But more than the ribbon, or the glas
or the small clouds of flour was the look in Genghis's eyes. As Coach Genghis reached the
Orphans Shack, his eyes were shining bright with triumph, as if he had finally won a game t
he had been playing for a long, long time, and the Baudelaire orphans realized that the
assumption about the Quagmire triplets had been very, very wrong indeed.


                                        CHAPTER
                                          Thirteen

    "Where are they?" Violet cried as Coach Genghis stepped into the shack. "What have yo
done with them?" Normally, of course, one should begin conversations with something mor
along the lines of "Hello, how are you," but the eldest Baudelaire was far too distressed to
so.
    Genghis's eyes were shining as brightly as could be, but his voice was calm and pleasan
"Here they are," he said, holding up the ribbon and glasses. "I thought you might be worried
about them, so I brought them over first thing
    "We don't mean these them!" Klaus said, taking the items from Genghis's scraggly hands
"We mean them them!"
    "I'm afraid I don't understand all those thems," Coach Genghis said, shrugging at the adu
"The orphans ran laps last night as part of my S.O.R.E. program, but they had to dash off in
morning to take their exams. In their hurry, Violet dropped her ribbon and Klaus dropped h
glasses. But the baby-"
    "You know very well that's not what happened," Violet interrupted. "Where are the
Quagmire triplets? What have you done with our friends?"
    "What have you done with our friends?" Vice Principal Nero said in his mocking tone.
"Stop talking nonsense, orphans."
    "I'm afraid it's not nonsense," Genghis said, shaking his turbaned head and continuing his
story. "As I was saying before the little girl interrupted me, the baby didn't dash off with the
other orphans. She just sat there like a sack of flour. So I walked over to her and gave her a
kick to get her moving."
    "Excellent idea!" Nero said. "What a wonderful story this is! And then what happened?"
    "Well, at first it seemed like I'd kicked a big hole in the baby," Genghis said, his eyes
shining, "which seemed lucky, because Sunny was a terrible athlete and it would have been
blessing to put her out of her misery."
    Nero clapped his hands. "I know just what you mean, Genghis," he said. "She's a terrible
secretary as well."
    "But she did all that stapling," Mr. Remora protested.
    "Shut up and let the coach finish his story," Nero said.
    "But when I looked down," Genghis continued, "I saw that I hadn't kicked a hole in a bab
I'd kicked a hole in a bag of flour! I'd been tricked!"
    "That's terrible!" Nero cried.
    "So I ran after Violet and Klaus," Genghis continued, "and I found that they weren't Viol
and Klaus after all, but those two other orphans- the twins."
    "They're not twins!" Violet cried. "They're triplets!"
    "They're triplets!" Nero mocked. "Don't be an idiot. Triplets are when four babies are b
at the same time, and there are only two Quagmires."
    "And these two Quagmires were pretending to be the Baudelaires, in order to give the
Baudelaires extra time to study."
    "Extra time to study?" Nero said, grinning in delight. "Hee hee hee! Why, that's cheating!
    "That's not cheating!" Mrs. Bass said.
    "Skipping gym class to study is cheating," Nero insisted.
    "No, it's just good time management," Mr. Remora argued. "There's nothing wrong with
athletics, but they shouldn't get in the way of your schoolwork."
    "Look, I'm the vice principal," the vice principal said. "I say the Baudelaires were
cheating, and therefore-hooray!-I can expel them. You two are merely teachers, so if you
disagree with me, I can expel you, too."
    Mr. Remora looked at Mrs. Bass, and they both shrugged. "You're the boss, Nero," Mr.
Remora said finally, taking another banana out of his pocket. "If you say they're expelled,
they're expelled."
    "Well, I say they're expelled," Nero said. "And Sunny loses her job, too."
    "Rantaw!" Sunny shrieked, which meant something along the lines of "I never wanted to
work as a secretary, anyway!"
    "We don't care about being expelled," Violet said. "We want to know what happen
to our friends."
    "Well, the Quagmires had to be punished for their part in the cheating," Coach Genghis s
"so I brought them over to the cafeteria and put those two workers in charge of them. They'
whisking eggs all day long."
    "Very sensible," Nero agreed.
    "That's all they're doing?" Klaus said suspiciously. "Whisking eggs?"
    "That's what I said," Genghis said and leaned so close to the Baudelaires that all th
could see were his shiny eyes and the crooked curve of his wicked mouth. "Those two
Quagmires will whisk and whisk until they are simply whisked away."
    "You're a liar," Violet said.
    "Insulting your coach," Nero said, shaking his pigtailed head. "Now you're
doubly expelled."
    "What's this?" said a voice from the doorway. "Doubly expelled?"
    The voice stopped to have a long, wet cough, so the Baudelaires knew without looking t
it was Mr. Poe. He was standing at the Orphans Shack holding a large paper sack and looki
busy and confused. "What are all of you doing here?" he said. "This doesn't look like a pro
place to have a conversation. It's just an old shack."
    "What are you doing here?" Nero asked. "We don't allow strangers to wander around
Prufrock Preparatory School."
    "Poe's the name," Mr. Poe said, shaking Nero's hand. "You must be Nero. We've talked
the phone. I received your telegram about the twenty-eight bags of candy and the ten pairs o
earrings with precious stones. My associates at Mulctuary Money Management thought I'd
better deliver them in person, so here I am. But what's this about expelled?"
    "These orphans you foisted on me," Nero said, using a nasty word for "gave," "have pro
to be terrible cheaters, and I'm forced to expel them."
    "Cheaters?" Mr. Poe said, frowning at the three siblings. "Violet, Klaus, Sunny, I'm very
disappointed in you. You promised me that you'd be excellent students."
    "Well, actually, only Violet and Klaus were students," Nero said. "Sunny was an
administrative assistant, but she was terrible at it as well."
    Mr. Poe's eyes widened in surprise as he paused to cough into his white handkerchief. "A
administrative assistant?" he repeated. "Why, Sunny's only a baby. She should be in presch
not an office environment."
    "Well, it doesn't matter now," Nero said. "They're all expelled. Give me that candy."
    Klaus looked down at his hands, which were still clutching the Quagmire notebooks. He
was afraid that the notebooks might be the only sign of the Quagmires he would ever see ag
"We don't have any time to argue about candy!" he cried. "Count Olaf has done something
terrible to our friends!"
    "Count Olaf?" Mr. Poe said, handing Nero the paper sack. "Don't tell me he's found you
here!"
    "No, of course not," Nero said. "My advanced computer system has kept him away, of
course. But the children have this bizarre notion that Coach Genghis is actually Olaf in
disguise."
    "Count Olaf," Genghis said slowly. "Yes,
    I've heard of him. He's supposed to be the best actor in the whole world. I'm the bes
gym teacher in the whole world, so we couldn't possibly be the same person."
    Mr. Poe looked Coach Genghis up and down, then shook his hand. "A pleasure to meet
you," he said, and then turned to the Baudelaires. "Children, I'm surprised at you. Even with
an advanced computer system, you should be able to tell that this man isn't Count Olaf. Olaf
only one eyebrow, and this man is wearing a turban. And Olaf has a tattoo of an eye on his
ankle, and this man is wearing expensive running shoes. They are quite handsome, by the w
    "Oh, thank you," Coach Genghis said. "Unfortunately, thanks to these children, they have
flour all over them, but I'm sure it'll wash off."
    "If he removes his turban and his shoes," Violet said impatiently, "you will be able to se
that he's Olaf."
    "We've been through this before," Nero said. "He can't take off his running sho
because he's been exercising and his feet smell."
    "And I can't take off my turban for religious reasons," Genghis added.
    "You're not wearing a turban for religious reasons!" Klaus said in disgust, and Sunny
shrieked something in agreement. "You're wearing it as a disguise! Please, Mr. Poe, make h
take it off!"
    "Now, Klaus," Mr. Poe said sternly. "You have to learn to be accepting of other cultures
I'm sorry, Coach Genghis. The children aren't usually prejudiced."
    "That's quite all right," Genghis said. "I'm used to religious persecution."
    "However," Mr. Poe continued, after a brief coughing spell, "I would ask you to remove
your running shoes, if only to set the Baudelaires' minds at ease. I think we can all stand a l
smelliness if it's in the cause of criminal justice."
    "Smelly feet," Mrs. Bass said, wrinkling her nose. "Ew, gross."
    "I'm afraid I cannot take off my running shoes," Coach Genghis said, taking a
step toward the door. "I need them."
    "Need them?" Nero asked. "For what?"
    Coach Genghis took a long, long look at the three Baudelaires and smiled a terrible, toot
grin. "For running, of course," he said, and ran out the door.
    The orphans were startled for a moment, not only because he had started running so
suddenly but also because it seemed like he had given up so easily. After his long, elaborat
plan-disguising himself as a gym teacher, forcing the Baudelaires to run laps, getting them
expelled-he was suddenly racing across the lawn without even glancing back at the children
he'd been chasing for such a long time. The Baudelaires stepped out of the Orphans Shack,
Coach Genghis turned back to sneer at them.
    "Don't think I've given up on you, orphans!" he called to them. "But in the meantime, I ha
two little prisoners with a very nice fortune of their own!"
    He began to run again, but not before pointing a bony finger across the lawn. The
Bau-delaires gasped. At the far end of Prufrock Prep, they saw a long, black car with dark
smoke billowing out of its exhaust pipes. But the children were not gasping at air pollution.
The two cafeteria workers were walking toward the car, but they had taken off their metal
masks at last, and the three youngsters could see that they were the two powder-faced wom
who were comrades of Count Olaf's. But this was not what the children were gasping at eit
although it was a surprising and distressing turn of events. What they were gasping at was w
each of the women was dragging toward the car. Each powder-faced woman was dragging
of the Quagmire triplets, who were struggling desperately to get away.
    "Put them in the back seat!" Genghis called. "I'll drive! Hurry!"
    "What in the world is Coach Genghis doing with those children?" Mr. Poe asked, frown
    The Baudelaires did not even turn to Mr. Poe to try and explain. After all their S.O.R.E.
training sessions, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny found that their leg muscles could respond insta
if they wanted to run. And the Baudelaire orphans had never wanted to run more than they d
now.
    "After them!" Violet cried, and the children went after them. Violet ran, her hair flying
wildly behind her. Klaus ran, not even bothering to drop the Quagmire notebooks. And Sun
crawled as fast as her legs and hands could carry her. Mr. Poe gave a startled cough and be
running after them, and Nero, Mr. Remora, and Mrs. Bass began running after Mr. Poe. If yo
had been hiding behind the archway, spying on what was going on, you would have seen wh
looked like a strange race on the front lawn, with Coach Genghis running in front, the
Baudelaire orphans right behind, and assorted adults huffing and puffing behind the children
But if you continued watching, you would have seen an exciting development in the race, a
phrase which here means that the Baudelaires were gaining on Genghis. The coach had muc
longer legs than the Baudelaires, of course, but he had spent the last ten nights standing arou
blowing a whistle. The children had spent those nights running hundreds of laps around the
luminous circle, and so their tiny, strong legs-and, in Sunny's case, arms-were overcoming
Genghis's height advantage.
    I hate to pause at such a suspenseful part of the story, but I feel I must intrude and give yo
one last warning as we reach the end of this miserable tale. You were probably thinking, as
you read that the children were catching up to their enemy, that perhaps this was the time in
lives of the Baudelaire orphans when this terrible villain would finally be caught, and that
perhaps the children would find some kind guardians and that Violet, Klaus, and Sunny wou
spend the rest of their lives in relative happiness, possibly creating the printing business tha
they had discussed with the Quagmires. And you are free to believe that this is how the stor
turns out, if you want. The last few events in this chapter of the Baudelaire orphans' lives a
incredibly unfortunate, and quite terrifying, and so if you would prefer to ignore them entire
you should put this book down now and think of a gentle ending to this horrible story. I hav
made a solemn promise to write the Baudelaire history exactly as it occurred, but you have
made no such promise- at least as far as I know-and you do not need to endure the wretched
ending of this story, and this is your very last chance to save yourself from the woeful
knowledge of what happened next.
    Violet was the first to reach Coach Genghis, and she stretched her arm out as far as she
could, grabbing part of his turban. Turbans, you probably know, consist of just one piece of cloth
wrapped very tightly and in a complicated way around someone's head. But Genghis h
cheated, not knowing the proper way to tie a turban, because he was wearing it as a disguis
and not for religious reasons. He had merely wrapped it around his head the way you might
wrap a towel around yourself when getting out of the shower, so when Violet grabbed the
turban, it unraveled immediately. She had been hoping that grabbing his turban would stop t
coach from running, but all it did was leave her with a long piece of cloth in her hands. Coa
Genghis kept running, his one eyebrow glistened with sweat over his shiny eyes.
    "Look!" Mr. Poe said, who was far behind the Baudelaires but close enough to see.
"Genghis has only one eyebrow, like Count Olaf!"Sunny was the next Baudelaire to reach
Genghis, and because she was crawling on the ground, she was in a perfect position to attac
his shoes. Using all four of her sharp teeth, she bit one pair of his shoelaces, and then the ot
    The knots came undone immediately, leaving tiny, bitten pieces of shoelace on the brow
lawn. Sunny had been hoping that untying his shoes would make the coach trip, but Genghis
merely stepped out of his shoes and kept running. Like many disgusting people, Coach Geng
was not wearing socks, so with each step his eye tattoo glistening with sweat on his left ank
    "Look!" Mr. Poe said, who was still too far to help but close enough to see. "Genghis ha
eye tattoo, like Count Olaf! In fact, I think he is Count Olaf!"
    "Of course he is!" Violet cried, holding up the unraveled turban.
    "Merd!" Sunny shrieked, holding up a tiny piece of shoelace. She meant something like
"That's what we've been trying to tell you."
    Klaus, however, did not say anything. He was putting all of his energy toward running, b
he was not running toward the man we can finally call by his true name, Count Olaf. Klaus
running toward the car. The powder-faced women were just shoving the Quagmires in
the back seat, and he knew this might be his only chance to rescue them.
    "Klaus! Klaus!" Isadora cried as he reached the car. Klaus dropped the notebooks t
the ground and grabbed his friend's hand. "Help us!"
    "Hang on!" Klaus cried and began to drag Isadora back out of the car. Without a word, o
of the powder-faced women leaned forward and bit Klaus's hand, forcing him to let go of th
triplet. The other powder-faced woman leaned across Isadora's lap and began pulling the c
door closed.
    "No!" Klaus cried and grabbed the door handle. Back and forth, Klaus and Olaf's associ
tugged on the door, forcing it halfway open and halfway shut.
    "Klaus!" Duncan cried, from behind Isadora. "Listen to me, Klaus! If anything goes wron
    "Nothing will go wrong," Klaus promised, pulling on the car door as hard as he co
    "You'll be out of here in a second!"
    "If anything goes wrong," Duncan said again, "there's something you should know. When
were researching the history of Count Olaf, we found out something dreadful!"
    "We can talk about this later," Klaus said, struggling with the door.
    "Look in the notebooks!" Isadora cried. "The-" The first powder-faced woman put her h
over Isadora's mouth so she couldn't speak. Isadora turned her head roughly and slipped fro
the woman's grasp. "The-" The powdery hand covered her mouth again.
    "Hang on!" Klaus called desperately. "Hang on!"
    "Look in the notebooks! V.F.D." Duncan screamed, but the other woman's powdery hand
covered his mouth before he could continue.
    "What?" Klaus said.
    Duncan shook his head vigorously and freed himself from the woman's hand for just one
moment. "V.F.D." he managed to scream again, and that was the last Klaus heard. Count Ol
who had been running slower without his shoes, had reached the car, and with a deafening
roar, he grabbed Klaus's hand and pried it loose from the car door. As the door slammed sh
Olaf kicked Klaus in the stomach, sending him falling to the ground and landing with a roug
thump! near the Quagmire notebooks he had dropped. The villain towered over Klaus and
him a sickening smile, then leaned down, picked up the notebooks, and tucked them under h
arm.
    "No!" Klaus screamed, but Count Olaf merely smiled, stepped into the front seat, and be
driving away just as Violet and Sunny reached their brother.
    Clutching his stomach, Klaus stood up and tried to follow his sisters, who were trying to
chase the long, black car. But Olaf was driving over the speed limit and it was simply
impossible, and after a few yards the Baudelaires had to stop. The Quagmire triplets climb
over the powder-faced women and began to pound on the rear window of the car.
Violet, Klaus, and Sunny could not hear what the Quagmires were screaming through the
glass; they only saw their desperate and terrified faces. But then the powdery hands of Ol
assistants grabbed them and pulled them back from the window. The faces of the
Quagmire triplets faded to nothing, and the Baudelaires saw nothing more as the car pulled
away.
    "We have to go after them!" Violet screamed, her face streaked with tears. She turned
around to face Nero and Mr. Poe, who were pausing for breath on the edge of the lawn. "W
have to go after them!"
    "We'll call the police," Mr. Poe gasped, wiping his sweaty forehead with his handkerch
"They have an advanced computer system, too. They'll catch him. Where's the nearest phon
Nero?"
    "You can't use my phone, Poe!" Nero said. "You brought three terrible cheaters here, an
now, thanks to you, my greatest gym teacher is gone and took two students with him! The
Baudelaires are triple-expelled!"
    "Now see here, Nero," Poe said. "Be reasonable."
    The Baudelaires sunk to the brown lawn, weeping with frustration and exhaustion. They
paid no attention to the argument between Vice Principal Nero and Mr. Poe, because they knew,
the prism of their experience, that by the time the adults had decided on a course of action,
Count Olaf would be long gone. This time, Olaf had not merely escaped but escaped with
friends of theirs, and the Baudelaires wept as they thought they might never see the triplets
again. They were wrong about this, but they had no way of knowing they were wrong, and j
imagining what Count Olaf might do to their dear friends made them only weep harder. Vio
wept, thinking of how kind the Quagmires had been to her and her siblings upon the
Baudelaires' arrival at this dreadful academy. Klaus wept, thinking of how the Quagmires h
risked their lives to help him and his sisters escape from Olaf's clutches. And Sunny wept,
thinking of the research the Quagmires had done, and the information they hadn't had time to
share with her and her siblings.
    The Baudelaire orphans hung on to one another, and wept and wept while the adult
argued endlessly behind them. Finally-as, I'm sorry to say, Count Olaf forced the Quagmire
into puppy costumes so he could sneak them onto the airplane without anyone noticing
Baudelaires cried themselves out and just sat on the lawn together in weary silence. They
looked up at the smooth gray stone of the tombstone buildings and at the arch with
"PRUFROCK PREPARATORY SCHOOL" in enormous black letters and the motto "Meme
Mori" printed beneath. They looked out at the edge of the lawn, where Olaf had snatc
the Quagmire notebooks. And they took long, long looks at one another. The Baudelaire
remembered, as I'm sure you remembered, that in times of extreme stress one can find ene
hidden in even the most exhausted areas of the body, and Violet, Klaus, and Sunny felt that
energy surge through them now.
    "What did Duncan shout to you?" Violet asked. "What did he shout to you from the car,
about what was in the notebooks?"
    "V.F.D." Klaus said, "but I don't know what it means."
    "Ceju," Sunny said, which meant "We have to find out."
    The older Baudelaires looked at their sister and nodded. Sunny was right. The children
to find out the secret of V.F.D. and the dreadful thing the Quagmires had discovered. Perha
could help them rescue the two triplets. Perhaps it could bring Count Olaf to justice. And
perhaps it could somehow make clear the mysterious and deadly way that their lives had
become so unfortunate.
    A morning breeze blew through the campus of Prufrock Preparatory School, rustling the
brown lawn and knocking against the stone arch with the motto printed on it. "Memento
Mori"-"Remember you will die." The Baudelaire orphans looked up at the motto and vowe
that before they died, they would solve this dark and complicated mystery that cast a shado
over their lives.


      LEMONY SNICKET first received his education from public schools and private tutors, and then vice versa. He has been haile
brilliant scholar, discredited as a brilliant fraud, and mistaken for a much taller man on several occasions. Mr. Snicket's researching skill
currently and devoutly concentrated on the plight of the Baudelaire orphans, published serially by HarperCollins.



    To My Kind Editor,

   Please excuse this ridiculously fancy stationery. I am writing to you from 667 Dark Avenue, and thi
the only paper available in the neighborhood. My investigation of the Baudelaire orphans' stay in this
wealthy and woeful place is finally complete - I only pray that the manuscript will reach you.

   Not next Tuesday, but the Tuesday after that, purchase a first-class, oneway ticket on the
second-to-last train out of the city. Instead of boarding the train, wait until it departs and climb d
to the tracks to retrieve the complete summary of my investigation, entitled THE ERSATZ ELEVATOR, as w
as one of Jerome's neckties, a small photograph of Veblen Hall, a bottle of parsley soda, and the door
coat, so that Mr. Helquist can properly illustrate this terrible chapter in the Baudelaires' lives.

   Remember, you are my last hope that the tales of the Baudelaire orphans can finally be told to the
general public.

    With all due respect,

    .




    Lemony Snicket