The five children got moving. With the Quagmire triplets in the lead, the group of youngsters peered down one street after another until they found one without a sign of anyone coming, and hurried out of the courtyard.
"Olaf smuggled us away in that item from the In Auction with the help of Esmé Squalor," Duncan began, referring to the last time the Baudelaires had seen him and his sister. "And he hid us for a while in the tower room of his terrible house."
Violet shuddered. "I haven't thought of that room in quite some time," she said. "It's hard to believe that we used to live with such a vile man."
Klaus pointed to the distant figure who was walking toward them, and the five children turned onto another empty street. "This street doesn't lead to Hector's house," he said, we'll try to double back. Go on, Duncan."
"Olaf learned that you three would be living with Hector at the outskirts of this town " Duncan continued, "and he had his associates build that hideous fountain."
"Then he placed us inside," Isadora said "and had us installed in the uptown courtyard so he could keep an eye on us while he tried to hunt you down. We knew that you were our only chance of escaping."
The children reached a corner and stopped, while Duncan peeked around it to make sure no one was approaching. He signaled that it was safe, and continued the story. "We needed to send you a message, but we were afraid it would fall into the wrong hands. Isadora had the idea of writing in couplets, with our location hidden in the first letter of each line."
"And Duncan figured out how to get them to Hector's house," Isadora said. "He'd done some research about migration patterns in large black birds, so he knew that the crows would roost every night in Nevermore Tree — right next to Hector's house. Every morning, I would write a couplet, and the two of us would reach up through the fountain's beak."
"There was always a crow roosting on the very top of the fountain," Duncan said, "so we would wrap the scrap of paper around its leg. The paper was all wet from the fountain, so it would stick easily."
"And Duncan's research was absolutely right. The paper dried off, and fell at night." Isadora recited.
"That was a risky plan," Violet said.
"No riskier than breaking out of jail, and putting your lives in danger to rescue us," Duncan said, and looked at the Baudelaires in gratitude. "You saved our lives — again."
"We wouldn't leave you behind," Klaus said. "We refused to entertain the notion."
Isadora smiled, and patted Klaus's hand. "Meanwhile," she said, "while we were trying to contact you, Olaf hatched a plan to steal your fortune — and get rid of an old enemy at the same time."
"You mean Jacques," Violet said. "When we saw him with the Council of Elders, he was trying to tell us something. Why does he have the same tattoo as Olaf? Who is he?"
"His full name," Duncan said, flipping through his notebook, "is Jacques Snicket."
"That sounds familiar," Violet said.
"I'm not surprised," Duncan said. "Jacques Snicket is the brother of a man who — "
"There they are!" a voice cried, and in an instant the children realized they had neglected to look in back of them, as well as in front of them and around each corner. About two blocks behind them was Mr. Lesko, leading a small group of torch-carrying citizens straight up the street. The day was getting later, and the torches left long, skinny shadows on the sidewalk as if the mob were being led by slithering black serpents, instead of a man in plaid pants. "There are the orphans!" Mr. Lesko cried triumphantly. "After them, citizens!"
"Who are those other two?" asked an Elder in the crowd.
"Who cares?" said Mrs. Morrow, and waved her torch. "They're probably more accomplices! Let's burn them at the stake, too!"
"Why not?" said another Elder. "We already have torches and kindling, and I don't have anything else to do right now."
Mr. Lesko stopped at a corner and called down a street the children couldn't see. "Hey, everyone!" he shouted. "They're over here!"
The five children had been staring at the group of citizens, too terrified to get moving again. Sunny was the first to recover. "Lililk!" she shouted, and began crawling down the street as fast as she could. She meant something like "Let's go! Don't look behind you! Let's just try to get to Hector and his self-sustaining hot air mobile home before the mob catches up with us and burns us at the stake!" but her companions didn't need any encouragement. Down the street they raced, paying no attention to the footsteps and shouts behind them, which seemed to be growing in number as more and more people heard the news that V.F.D.'s prisoners were escaping. The children ran down narrow alleys and wide main streets, across parks and bridges that were all covered in black feathers. Occasionally they had to retrace their steps, a phrase which here means "turn around and run the other way when they saw townspeople approaching," and often they had to duck into doorways or hide behind shrubbery while angry citizens ran by, as if the children were playing a game of hide-and-go-seek instead of running for their lives. The afternoon wore on, and the shadows on V.F.D.'s streets grew longer and longer, and still the sidewalks echoed with the sounds of the mob's cries and the windows of the buildings reflected the flames from the torches the townspeople were carrying. Finally, the five children reached the outskirts of town, and stared at the flat, bare landscape. The Baudelaires searched desperately for a sign of the handyman and his invention, but only the shapes of Hector's house, the barn, and Nevermore Tree were visible on the horizon.
"Where's Hector?" Isadora asked frantically.
"I don't know," Violet said. "He said he'd be at the barn, but I don't see him."
"Where can we go?" Duncan cried. "We can't hide anywhere around here. The citizens will spot us in a second."
"We're trapped," Klaus said, his voice hoarse with panic.
"Vireo!" Sunny cried, which meant "Let's run — or, in my case, crawl — as fast as we can!"
"We'll never run fast enough," Violet said, pointing behind them. "Look."
The youngsters turned around, and saw the entire Village of Fowl Devotees, marching together in a huge group. They had rounded the last corner and were now heading straight toward the five children, their footsteps as loud as a roll of thunder. But the youngsters did not feel as if it was thunder that was rolling toward them. As hundreds of fierce and angry citizens approached, it felt more like the rolling of an enormous root vegetable. It felt like a root vegetable that could crush all of the reptiles in Uncle Monty's collection in five seconds flat, or one that could soak up every drop of water of Lake Lachrymose in an instant. The approaching crowd felt like a root vegetable that made every tree in the Finite Forest look like a tiny twig, made the huge lasagna served at the Prufrock Preparatory School cafeteria look like a light snack, and made the skyscraper at 667 Dark Avenue look like a dollhouse made for midget children to play with, a root vegetable so tremendous in size that it would win every first-place ribbon in every starchy farm crop competition in every state and county fair in the entire world from now until the end of time. The march of the torch-wielding mob, eager to capture Violet and Klaus and Sunny and Duncan and Isadora and burn each one of them at the stake, felt like the largest potato the Baudelaire orphans and the Quagmire triplets had ever encountered.
Chapter Thirteen
The Baudelaires looked at the Quagmires, and the Quagmires looked at the Baudelaires, and then all five children looked at the mob. All the members of the Council of Elders were walking together, their crow-shaped hats bobbing in unison. Mrs. Morrow was leading a chant of "Burn the orphans! Burn the orphans!" which the Verhoogen family was taking up with spirit, and Mr. Lesko's eyes were shining as brightly as his torch. The only person missing from the mob was Detective Dupin, who the children would have expected to be leading the crowd. Instead, Officer Luciana walked in front, A scowling below the visor of her helmet as she led the way in her shiny black boots. In one white-gloved hand she was clutching something covered in a blanket, and with the other hand she was pointing at
the terrified children.
"There they are!" Officer Luciana cried, pointing her white-gloved finger at the five terrified children. "They have nowhere else to go!"
"She's right!" Klaus cried. "There's no way to escape!"
"Machina!" Sunny shrieked.
"There's no sign of deus ex machina, Sunny," Violet said, her eyes filling with tears. "I don't think anything helpful will arrive unexpectedly."
"Machina!" Sunny insisted, and pointed at the sky. The children took their eyes off the approaching mob and looked up, and there was the greatest example of deus ex machina they had ever seen. Floating just over the children's heads was the superlative sight of the self- sustaining hot air mobile home. Although the invention had been quite marvelous to look at in Hector's studio, it was truly wondrous now that it was actually being put to use, and even the angry citizens of V.F.D. stopped chasing the children for a moment, just so they could stare at this amazing sight. The self-sustaining hot air mobile home was enormous, as if an entire cottage had somehow detached itself from its neighborhood and was wandering around the sky. The twelve baskets were all connected and floating together like a group of rafts, with all of the tubes, pipes, and wires twisted around them like a huge piece of knitting. Above the baskets were dozens of balloons in varying shades of green. Fully inflated, they looked like a floating crop of crisp, ripe apples glistening in the last light of the afternoon. The mechanical devices were working at full force, with flashing lights, spinning gears, ringing bells, dripping faucets, whirring pulleys, and a hundred other gadgets all going at once, but miraculously, the entire self-sustaining hot air mobile home was as silent as a cloud. As the invention sailed toward the ground, the only sound that could be heard was Hector's triumphant shout.
"Here I am!" the handyman called from the control basket. "And here it is, like a bolt from the blue! Violet, your improvements are working perfectly. Climb aboard, and we'll escape from this wretched place." He flicked a bright yellow switch, and a long ladder made of rope began to unfurl down to where the children were standing. "Because my invention is self-sustaining," he explained, "it isn't designed to come back down to the ground, so you'll have to climb up this ladder."
Duncan caught the end of the ladder and held it for Isadora to climb up. "I'm Duncan Quagmire," he said quickly, "and this is my sister, Isadora."
"Yes, the Baudelaires have told me all about you," Hector said. "I'm glad you're coming along. Like all mechanical devices, the self-sustaining hot air mobile home actually needs several people to keep it running."
"Aha!" cried Mr. Lesko, as Isadora hurriedly climbed the ladder with Duncan right behind her. The mob had stopped staring at the deus ex machina and was now marching once again toward the children. "I knew it was a mechanical device! All those buttons and gears can't fool me!"
"Why, Hector!" an Elder said. "Rule #67 clearly states that no citizen is allowed to build or use any mechanical devices."
"Burn him at the stake, too!" cried Mrs. Morrow. "Somebody get extra kindling!"
Hector took a deep breath, and then called down to the mob without a trace of skittishness in his voice. "Nobody's going to be burned at the stake," he said firmly, as Isadora reached the top of the ladder and joined Hector in the control basket. "Burning people at the stake is a repulsive thing to do!"
"What's repulsive is your behavior," an Elder replied. "The children have murdered Count Olaf, and you have built a mechanical device. You have both broken very important rules!"
"I don't want to live in a place with so many rules," Hector replied in a quiet voice, "or a place with so many crows. I'm floating away from here, and I'm taking these five children with me. The Baudelaires and the Quagmires have had a horrible time since their parents died. The Village of Fowl Devotees ought to be taking care of them, instead of accusing them of things and chasing them through the streets."
"But who's going to do our chores?" an Elder asked. "The Snack Hut is still full of dirty dishes from our hot fudge sundaes."
"You should do your own chores," the handyman said, as he leaned over to lift Duncan aboard his invention, "or take turns doing them according to a fair schedule. The aphorism is 'It takes a village to raise a child,' not 'Three children should clean up after a village.' Baudelaires, climb aboard. Let's leave these terrible people behind us."
The Baudelaires smiled at one another, and began climbing up the rope ladder. Violet went first, her hands clutching the scratchy rope as tightly as she could, and Klaus and Sunny followed closely behind. Hector turned a knob, and the mobile home rose up higher just as the crowd reached the end of the ladder. "They're getting away!" another Elder called, her crow-shaped hat bobbing with frustration. She jumped up to try to grab the edge of the ladder, but Hector had maneuvered his invention too high for her to reach. "The rulebreakers are getting away! Officer Luciana, do something!"
"I'll do something, all right," Officer Luciana said with a snarl, and tossed away the blanket she had been holding. From halfway down the ladder, the three climbing Baudelaires looked down and saw a large, wicked-looking object in Luciana's hands, with a bright red trigger and four long, sharp hooks. "You're not the only one with a mechanical device!" she called up to Hector. "This is a harpoon gun that my boyfriend bought for me. It fires four hooked harpoons, which are long spears perfect for popping balloons."
"Oh no!" Hector said, looking down at the climbing children.
"Raise the self-sustaining hot air mobile home, Hector!" Violet called. "We'll keep climbing!"
"Our Chief of Police is using a mechanical device?" Mrs. Morrow asked in astonishment. "That means she's breaking Rule #67, too."
"Officers of the law are allowed to break rules," Luciana said, aiming the harpoon gun in Hector's direction. "Besides, this is an emergency. We need to get those murderers down from there." Members of the mob looked at one another in confusion, but Luciana merely gave them a lipsticked smile, and pressed the harpoon gun's trigger with a sharp click! followed by a swoosh! as one of the hooked harpoons flew out of the gun straight toward Hector's invention. The handyman managed to manuever the self-sustaining hot air mobile home so the harpoon did not hit a balloon, but it struck a metal tank on the side of one of the baskets, making a large hole.
"Drat!" Hector said, as a purplish liquid began to pour out of the hole. "That's my supply of cranberry juice! Baudelaires, hurry up! If she causes any serious damage, we're all doomed!"
"We're coming as fast as we can!" Klaus cried, but as Hector moved his invention even higher in the air, the rope ladder was shaking so much that the Baudelaires could not move very fast at all.
Click! Swoosh! Another harpoon flew through the air and landed in the sixth basket, sending a cloud of brown dust fluttering to the ground, followed by some thin metal tubes. "She hit our supply of whole wheat flour," Hector cried, "and our box of extra batteries!"
"I'll hit a balloon with this one!" Officer Luciana called. "Then you'll fall to the ground, where we can burn you at the stake!"
"Officer Luciana," said one of the Council of Elders in the crowd, "I don't think you should break the rules in order to capture people who have broken the rules. It doesn't make sense."
"Hear, hear!" called out a townsperson from the opposite side of the crowd. "Why don't you put down the harpoon gun, and we'll walk over to Town Hall and have a council meeting."
"It's not cool," called out a voice, "to have meetings!" There was a rumble, as if another large potato had arrived, and the crowd parted to reveal Detective Dupin, riding through the mob on a motorcycle painted turquoise to match his blazer. Below his sunglasses was a grin of triumph, and his bare chest swelled with pride.
"Detective Dupin is using a mechanical device too?" an Elder asked. "We can't burn everyone at the stake!"
"Dupin isn't a citizen," another member of the Council pointed out, "so he's not breaking Rule #67."
"But he's riding through a crowd of people," Mr. Lesko said, "and he's not wearing a hel
met. He's not showing good judgment, that's for sure."
Detective Dupin ignored Mr. Lesko's lecture about motorcycle safety and pulled to a stop beside Officer Luciana. "It's cool to be late," he said, and snapped his fingers. "I was buying today's edition of The Daily Punctilio."
"You shouldn't be buying newspapers," said an Elder, shaking his crow hat in disapproval. "You should be catching criminals."
"Hear, hear!" said several voices in agreement, but the crowd was beginning to look uncertain. It is hard work to be fierce all afternoon, and as the situation grew more complicated, the citizens of V.F.D. seemed a bit less bloodthirsty. A few townspeople even lowered their torches, which had been heavy to hold up all this time.
But Detective Dupin ignored this change in V.F.D.'s mob psychology. "Leave me alone, you crow-hatted fool," he said to the Elder, and snapped his fingers. "It's cool to fire away, Officer Luciana."
"It certainly is," Luciana said, and looked up into the sky to aim the harpoon gun again. But the self-sustaining hot air mobile home was no longer alone in the sky. In all the commotion, no one had noticed that the afternoon was over, and the V.F.D. crows had left their downtown roost to fly in circles before migrating to Nevermore Tree to spend the night as usual. Now the crows were arriving, thousands and thousands of them, and in seconds the evening sky was covered in black, muttering birds. Officer Luciana could not see Hector and his invention. Hector could not see the Baudelaires. And the Baudelaires could not see anything. The rope ladder was right in the path of the migrating crows, and the three children were absolutely surrounded by the birds of V.F.D. The wings of the crows rustled against the children, and their feathers became tangled in the ladder, and all the three siblings could do was hang on for dear life.
"Baudelaires!" Hector called down. "Hang on for dear life! I'm going to fly even higher, over the crows!"
"No!" Sunny cried, which meant something like, "I'm not sure that's the wisest plan — we won't survive a fall from such a height!" but Hector couldn't hear her over another click! and swoosh! from Luciana's harpoon gun. The Baudelaires felt the rope ladder jerk sharply in their hands, and then twist dizzily in the crow-filled air. From up in the control basket, the Quagmire triplets looked down and caught a glimpse, through the migrating crows, of some very bad news.