"No lean!" she said sternly, and her brother smiled.
"Don't worry, Sunny," he said. "We'll make sure not to lean on you if we fall asleep. We don't have much time for napping, anyway — we should be at V.F.D. any minute now."
"What do you think it could stand for?" Violet asked. "Neither the brochure nor the map at the bus station showed anything more than the three initials."
"I don't know," Klaus said. "Do you think we should have told Mr. Poe about the V.F.D. secret? Maybe he could have helped us."
"I doubt it," Violet said. "He hasn't been very helpful before. I wish the Quagmires were here. I bet they could help us."
"I wish the Quagmires were here even if they couldn't help us," Klaus said, and his sisters nodded in agreement. No Baudelaire had to say anything more about how worried they were about the triplets, and they sat in silence for the rest of the ride, hoping that their arrival at V.F.D. would bring them closer to saving their friends.
"V.F.D.!" the bus driver finally called out. "Next stop V.F.D.! If you look out the window, you can see the town coming up, folks!"
"What does it look like?" Violet asked Klaus.
Klaus peered out the window past the layer of dead bugs. "Flat," he said.
Violet and Sunny leaned over to look and saw that their brother had spoken the truth. The countryside looked as if someone had drawn the line of the horizon — the word "horizon" here means "the boundary where the sky ends and the world begins" — and then forgot to draw in anything else. The land stretched out as far as the eye could see, but there was nothing for the eye to look at but flat, dry land and the occasional sheet of newspaper stirred up by the passing of the bus.
"I don't see any town at all," Klaus said. "Do you suppose it's underground?"
"Novedri!" Sunny said, which meant "Living underground would be no fun at all!"
"Maybe that's the town over there," Violet said, squinting to try and see as far as she could. "You see? Way out by the horizon line, there's a hazy black blur. It looks like smoke, but maybe it's just some buildings seen from far away."
"I can't see it," Klaus said. "That smushed moth is blocking it, I think. But a hazy blur could just be fata morgana."
"Fata?" Sunny asked.
"Fata morgana is when your eyes play tricks on you, particularly in hot weather," Klaus explained. "It's caused by the distortion of light through alternate layers of hot and cool air. It's also called a mirage, but I like the name 'fata morgana' better."
"Me too," Violet agreed, "but let's hope it's not a mirage or fata morgana. Let's hope it's V.F.D."
"V.F.D.!" the bus driver called, as the bus came to a stop. "V.F.D.! Everyone off for V.F.D.!"
The Baudelaires stood up, gathered their belongings, and walked down the aisle, but when they reached the open door of the bus they stopped and stared doubtfully out at the flat and empty landscape.
"Is this really the stop for V.F.D.?" Violet asked the driver. "I thought V.F.D. was a town."
"It is," the driver replied. "Just walk toward that hazy black blur out there on the horizon. I know it looks like — well, I can't remember the phrase for when your eyes play tricks on you — but it's really the town."
"Couldn't you take us a little closer?" Violet asked shyly. "We have a baby with us, and it looks like a long way to walk."
"I wish I could help you," the bus driver said kindly, looking down at Sunny, "but the Council of Elders has very strict rules. I have to let off all passengers for V.F.D. right here; otherwise I could be severely punished."
"Who are the Council of Elders?" Klaus asked.
"Hey!" a voice called from the back of the bus. "Tell those kids to hurry up and get off the bus! The open door is letting bugs in!"
"Off you go, kids," the bus driver said, and the Baudelaires stepped out of the bus onto the flat land of V.F.D. The doors shut, and with a little wave the bus driver drove off and left the children alone on the empty landscape. The siblings watched the bus get smaller and smaller as it drove away, and then turned toward the hazy black blur of their new home.
"Well, now I can see it," Klaus said, squinting behind his glasses, "but I can't believe it. It's going to take the rest of the afternoon to walk all that way."
"Then we'd better get started," Violet said, hoisting Sunny up on top of her suitcase. "This piece of luggage has wheels," she said to her sister, "so you can sit on top of it and I can pull you along."
"Sanks!" Sunny said, which meant "That's very considerate of you!" and the Baudelaires began their long walk toward the hazy black blur on the horizon. After even the first few steps, the disadvantages of the bus ride seemed like small potatoes. "Small potatoes" is a phrase which has nothing to do with root vegetables that happen to be tiny in size. Instead, it refers to the change in one's feelings for something when it is compared with something else. If you were walking in the rain, for instance, you might be worried about getting wet, but if you turned the corner and saw a pack of vicious dogs, getting wet would suddenly become small potatoes next to getting chased down an alley and barked at, or possibly eaten. As the Baudelaires began their long journey toward V.F.D., dead bugs, stepped-on toes, and the possibility of someone leaning on them became small potatoes next to the far more unpleasant things they were encountering. Without anything else on the flat land to blow up against, the wind concentrated its efforts on Violet, a phrase which here means that before long her hair was so wildly tangled that it looked like it had never seen a comb. Because Klaus was standing behind Violet, the wind didn't blow on him much, but without anything else in the empty landscape to cling to, the dust on the ground concentrated its efforts on the middle Baudelaire, and soon he was dusty from head to toe, as if it had been years since he'd had a shower. Perched on top of Violet's luggage, Sunny was out of the way of the dust, but without anything else in the desolate terrain to shine on, the sun concentrated its efforts on her, which meant that she was soon as sunburned as a baby who had spent six months at the seashore, instead of a few hours on top of a suitcase.
But even as they approached the town, V.F.D. still looked as hazy as it did from far away. As the children drew closer and closer to their new home, they could see a number of buildings of different heights and widths, separated by streets both narrow and wide, and the Baudelaires could even see the tall skinny shapes of lampposts and flagpoles stretching out toward the sky. But everything they saw — from the tip of the highest building to the curve of the narrowest street — was pitch black, and seemed to be shaking slightly, as if the entire town were painted on a piece of cloth that was trembling in the wind. The buildings were trembling, and the lampposts were trembling, and even the very streets were shaking ever so slightly, and it was like no town the three Baudelaires had ever seen. It was a mystery, but unlike most mysteries, once the children reached the outskirts of V.F.D. and learned what was causing the trembling effect, they did not feel any better to have the mystery solved.
The town was covered in crows. Nearly every inch of nearly every object had a large black bird roosting on it and casting a suspicious eye on the children as they stood at the very edge of the village. There were crows sitting on the roofs of all the buildings, perching on the windowsills, and squatting on the steps and on the sidewalks. Crows were covering all of the trees, from the very top branches to the roots poking out of the crow-covered ground, and were gathered in large groups on the streets for crow conversations. Crows were covering the lampposts and flagpoles, and there were crows lying down in the gutters and resting between fence posts. There were even six crows crowded together on the sign that read "Town Hall," with an arrow leading down a crow-covered street. The crows weren't squawking or cawing, which is what crows often do, or playing the trumpet, which crows practically never do, but the town was far from silent. The air was filled with the sounds the crows made as they moved around. Sometimes one crow would fly from one perch to another, as if it had suddenly become bored roosting on the mailbox and thought it might
be more fun to perch on the doorknob of a building. Occasionally, several crows would flutter their wings, as if they were stiff from sitting together on a bench and wanted to stretch a little bit. And almost constantly, the crows would shift in their places, trying to make themselves as comfortable as they could in such cramped quarters. All this motion explained why the town had looked so shivery in the distance, but it certainly didn't make the Baudelaires feel any better, and they stood together in silence for quite some time, trying to find the courage to walk among all the fluttering black birds.
"I've read three books on crows," Klaus said. "They're perfectly harmless."
"Yes, I know," Violet said. "It's unusual to see so many crows in one place, but they're nothing to worry about. It's small potatoes."
"Zimuster," Sunny agreed, but the three children still did not take a step closer to the crow-covered town. Despite what they had said to one another — that the crows were harmless birds, that they had nothing to worry about, and "Zimuster," which meant something along the lines of "It would be silly to be afraid of a bunch of birds" — the Baudelaires felt they were encountering some very large potatoes indeed.
If I had been one of the Baudelaires myself, I would have stood at the edge of town for the rest of my life, whimpering with fear, rather than take even one step into the crow-covered streets, but it only took the Baudelaires a few minutes to work up the courage to walk through all of the muttering, scuffling birds to Town Hall.
"This isn't as difficult as I thought it might be," Violet said, in a quiet voice so as not to disturb the crows closest to her. "It's not exactly small potatoes, but there's enough space between the groups of crows to step."
"That's true," Klaus said, his eyes on the sidewalk to avoid stepping on any crow tails. "And they tend to move aside, just a little bit, as we walk by."
"Racah," Sunny said, crawling as carefully as she could. She meant something along the lines of "It's almost like walking through a quiet, but polite, crowd of very short people," and her siblings smiled in agreement. Before too long, they had walked the entire block of the crow-lined street, and there at the far corner was a tall, impressive building that appeared to be made of white marble — at least, as far as the Baudelaires could tell, because it was as covered with crows as the rest of the neighborhood. Even the sign reading "Town Hall" looked like it read "wn Ha," because three enormous crows were perched on it, gazing at the Baudelaires with their tiny beady eyes. Violet raised her hand as if to knock on the door, but then paused.
"What's the matter?" Klaus said.
"Nothing," Violet replied, but her hand still hung in the air. "I guess I'm just a little skittish. After all, this is the Town Hall of V.F.D. For all we know, behind this door may be the secret we've been looking for since the Quagmires were first kidnapped."
"Maybe we shouldn't get our hopes up," Klaus said. "Remember, when we lived with the Squalors, we thought we had solved the V.F.D. mystery, but we were wrong. We could be wrong this time, too."
"But we could be right," Violet said, "and if we're right, we should be prepared for whatever terrible thing is behind this door."
"Unless we're wrong," Klaus pointed out. "Then we have nothing to be prepared for."
"Gaksoo!" Sunny said. She meant something along the lines of "There's no point in arguing, because we'll never know whether we're right or wrong until we knock on the door," and before her siblings could answer her she crawled around Klaus's legs and took the plunge, a phrase which here means "knocked firmly on the door with her tiny knuckles."
"Come in!" called a very grand voice, and the Baudelaires opened the door and found themselves in a large room with a very high ceiling, a very shiny floor, and a very long bench, with very detailed portraits of crows hanging on the walls. In front of the bench was a small platform where a woman in a motorcycle helmet was standing, and behind the platform were perhaps one hundred folding chairs, most of which had a person sitting on them who was staring at the Baudelaire orphans. But the Baudelaire orphans were not staring back. The three children were staring so hard at the people sitting on the bench that they scarcely glanced at the folding chairs at all.
On the bench, sitting stiffly side by side, were twenty-five people who had two things in common. The first thing was that they were all quite old — the youngest person on the bench, a woman sitting on the far end, looked about eighty-one years of age, and everyone else looked quite a bit older. But the second thing they had in common was far more interesting. At first glance it looked like a few crows had flown in from the streets and roosted on the bench-sitters' heads, but as the Baudelaires looked more closely, they saw that the crows did not blink their eyes, or flutter their wings or move at all in any way, and the children realized that they were nothing more than black hats, made in such a way as to resemble actual crows. It was such a strange kind of hat to be wearing that the children found themselves staring for quite a few minutes without noticing anything else.
"Are you the Baudelaire orphans?" asked one of the old men who was sitting on the bench, in a gravelly voice. As he talked, his crow head flapped slightly, which only made it look more ridiculous. "We've been expecting you, although I wasn't told you would look so terrible. You three are the most windswept, dusty, and sunburned children I have ever seen. Are you sure you're the children we've been waiting for?"
"Yes," Violet replied. "I'm Violet Baudelaire, and this is my brother, Klaus, and my sister, Sunny, and the reason why we — "
"Shush," one of the other old men said. "We're not discussing you right now. Rule #492 clearly states that the Council of Elders will only discuss things that are on the platform. Right now we are discussing our new Chief of Police. Are there any questions from the townspeople regarding Officer Luciana?"
"Yes, I have a question," called out a man in plaid pants. "I want to know what happened to our previous Chief of Police. I liked that guy."
The woman on the platform held up a white-gloved hand, and the Baudelaires turned to look at her for the first time. Officer Luciana was a very tall woman wearing big black boots, a blue coat with a shiny badge, and a motorcycle helmet with the visor pulled down to cover her eyes. The Baudelaires could see her mouth, below the edge of the visor, covered in bright red lipstick. "The previous Chief of Police has a sore throat," she said, turning her helmet to the man who had asked the question. "He accidentally swallowed a box of thumbtacks. But let's not waste time talking about him. I am your new Chief of Police, and I will make sure that any rulebreakers in town are punished properly. I can't see how there's anything more to discuss."
"I quite agree with you," said the first Elder who had spoken, as the people in folding chairs nodded. "The Council of Elders hereby ends the discussion of Officer Luciana. Hector, please bring the orphans to the platform for discussion."
A tall skinny man in rumpled overalls stood up from one of the folding chairs as the Chief of Police stepped off the platform with a lipsticked smile on. His eyes on the floor, the man walked over to the Baudelaires and pointed first at the Council of Elders sitting on the bench and then at the empty platform. Although they would have preferred a more polite method of communication, the children understood at once, and Violet and Klaus stepped up onto the platform and then lifted Sunny up to join them.
One of the women in the Council of Elders spoke up. "We are now discussing the guardianship of the Baudelaire orphans. Under the new government program, the entire town of V.F.D. will act as guardian over these three children because it takes a village to raise a child. Are there any questions?"
"Are these the same Baudelaires," came a voice from the back of the room, "who are involved in the kidnapping of the Quagmire twins by Count Omar?"
The Baudelaires turned around to see a woman dressed in a bright pink bathrobe and holding up a copy of The Daily Punctilio. "It says here in the newspaper that an evil count is coming after those children. I don't want someone like that in our town!"
"We've taken care
of that matter, Mrs. Morrow," replied another member of the Council soothingly. "We'll explain in a moment. Now, when children have a guardian, the guardian makes them do chores, so it follows that you Baudelaires will do all the chores for the entire village. Beginning tomorrow, you three children will be responsible for anything that anyone asks you to do."
The children looked at each other in disbelief. "Begging your pardon," Klaus said timidly, "but there are only twenty-four hours in a day, and there appear to be several hundred townspeople. How will we find the time to do everyone's chores?"
"Hush!" several members of the Council said in unison, and then the youngest-looking woman spoke up. "Rule #920 clearly states that no one may talk while on the platform unless you are a police officer. You're orphans, not police officers, so shut up. Now, due to the V.F.D. crows, you will have to arrange your chore schedule as follows: In the morning, the crows roost uptown, so that's when you will do all the downtown chores, so the crows don't get in your way. In the afternoon, as you can see, the crows roost downtown, so you will do the uptown chores then. Please pay particular attention to our new fountain, which was just installed this morning. It's very beautiful, and needs to be kept as clean as possible. At night, the crows roost in Nevermore Tree, which is on the outskirts of town, so there's no problem there. Are there any questions?"
"I have a question," said the man in plaid pants. He stood up from his folding chair and pointed at the Baudelaires. "Where are they going to live? It may take a village to raise a child, but that doesn't mean that our homes have to be disturbed by noisy children, does it?"
"Yes," agreed Mrs. Morrow. "I'm all for the orphans doing our chores, but I don't want them cluttering up my house."
Several other townspeople spoke up. "Hear, hear!" they said, using an expression which here means "I don't want Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire to live with me, either!"
One of the oldest-looking Elders raised both his hands up in the air. "Please," he said. "There is no reason for all this fuss. The children will live with Hector, our handyman. He will feed them, clothe them, and make sure they do all the chores, and he is responsible for teaching them all of the rules of V.F.D., so they won't do any more terrible things, such as talking while on the platform."