"Thank goodness for that," muttered the man in plaid pants.
"Now, Baudelaires," said yet another member of the Council. She was sitting so far from the platform that she had to crane her head to look at the children, and her hat looked like it would fall off her head. "Before Hector takes you to his house, I'm sure you have some concerns of your own. It's too bad you're not allowed to speak right now, otherwise you could tell us what they were. But Mr. Poe sent us some materials regarding this Count Olaf person."
"Omar," corrected Mrs. Morrow, pointing to the headline in the newspaper.
"Silence!" the Elder said. "Now, Baudelaires, I'm sure you are very concerned about this Olaf fellow, but as your guardian, the town will protect you. That is why we have recently made up a new rule, Rule #19,833. It clearly states that no villains are allowed within the city limits."
"Hear, hear!" the townspeople cried, and the Council of Elders nodded in appreciation, bobbing their crow-shaped hats.
"Now, if there are no more questions," an Elder concluded, "Hector, please take the Baudelaires off the platform and take them to your house."
Still keeping his eyes on the floor, the man in overalls strode silently to the platform and led them out of the room. The children hurried to catch up with the handyman, who had not said one word all this time. Was he unhappy to be taking care of three children? Was he angry at the Council of Elders? Was he unable to speak at all? It reminded the Baudelaires of one of Count Olaf's associates, the one who looked like neither a man nor a woman and who never seemed to speak. The children kept a few steps behind Hector as he walked out of the building, almost afraid to get any closer to a man who was so strange and silent.
When Hector opened the door of Town Hall and led the children back out onto the crow-covered sidewalk, he let out a big sigh — the first sound the children had heard from him. Then he looked down at each Baudelaire and gave them a gentle smile. "I'm never truly relaxed," he said to them in a pleasant voice, "until I have left Town Hall. The Council of Elders makes me feel very skittish. All those strict rules! It makes me so skittish that I never speak during one of their council meetings. But I always feel much better the moment I walk out of the building. Now, it looks like we're going to be spending quite a bit of time together, so let's get a few things straight. Number one, call me Hector. Number two, I hope you like Mexican food, because that's my specialty. And number three, I want you to see something marvelous, and we're just in time. The sun is starting to set."
It was true. The Baudelaires hadn't noticed, when they stepped out of Town Hall, that the afternoon light had slipped away and that the sun was now just beginning to dip below the horizon. "It's lovely," Violet said politely, although she had never understood all the fuss about standing around admiring sunsets.
"Shh," Hector said. "Who cares about the sunset? Just be quiet for a minute, and watch the crows. It should happen any second now."
"What should happen?" Klaus said.
"Shh," Hector said again, and then it began to happen. The Council of Elders had already told the Baudelaires about the roosting habits of the crows, but the three children hadn't really given the matter a second thought, a phrase which here means "considered, even for a second, what it would look like when thousands of crows would fly together to a new location." One of the largest crows, sitting on top of the mailbox, was the first to fly up in the air, and with a rustle of wings he — or she; it was hard to tell from so far away — began to fly in a large circle over the children's heads. Then a crow from one of Town Hall's windowsills flew up to join the first crow, and then one from a nearby bush, and then three from the street, and then hundreds of crows began to rise up at once and circle in the air, and it was as if an enormous shadow was being lifted from the town. The Baudelaires could finally see what all the streets looked like, and they could gaze at each detail of the buildings as more and more crows left their afternoon roosts. But the children scarcely looked at the town. Instead they looked straight up, at the mysterious and beautiful sight of all those birds making a huge circle in the sky.
"Isn't it marvelous?" Hector cried. His long skinny arms were outstretched, and he had to raise his voice over the sound of all the fluttering wings. "Isn't it marvelous?"
Violet, Klaus, and Sunny nodded in agreement, and stared at the thousands of crows circling and circling above them like a mass of fluttering smoke or like black, fresh ink — such as the ink I am using now, to write down these events — that somehow had found its way to the heavens. The sound of the wings sounded like a million pages being flipped, and the wind from all that fluttering blew in their grinning faces. For a moment, with all that air rushing toward them, the Baudelaire orphans felt as if they too could fly up into the air, away from Count Olaf and all their troubles, and join the circle of crows in the evening sky.
Chapter Three
"Wasn't that marvelous?" Hector said, as the crows stopped circling and began to fly, like an enormous black cloud, over the buildings and away from the Baudelaire orphans. "Wasn't that just marvelous? Wasn't that absolutely superlative? That means the same thing as 'marvelous', by the way."
"It certainly was," Klaus agreed, not adding that he had known the word "superlative" since he was eleven. "I see that just about every evening," Hector said, "and it always impresses me. It always makes me hungry, too. What shall we eat this evening? How about chicken enchiladas? That's a Mexican dish consisting of corn tortillas rolled around a chicken filling, covered with melted cheese and a special sauce I learned from my second-grade teacher. How does that sound?"
"That sounds delicious," Violet said.
"Oh, good," Hector said. "I despise picky eaters. Well, it's a pretty long walk to my house, so let's talk as we go. Here, I'll carry your suitcases and you two can carry your sister. I know you had to walk from the bus stop, so she's had more than enough exercise for a baby."
Hector grabbed the Baudelaires' bags and led the way down the street, which was now empty except for a few stray crow feathers. High above their heads, the crows were taking a sharp left-hand turn, and Hector raised Klaus's suitcase to point at them. "I don't know if you're familiar with the expression 'as the crow flies,'" Hector said, "but it means 'the most direct route.' If something is a mile away as the crow flies, that means it's the shortest way to get there. It usually has nothing to do with actual crows, but in this case it does. We're about a mile away from my home as the crow flies — as all those crows fly, as a matter of fact. At night, they roost in Nevermore Tree, which is in my backyard. But it takes us longer to get there, of course, because we have to walk through V.F.D. instead of flying up in the air."
"Hector," Violet said timidly, "we were wondering exactly what V.F.D. stands for."
"Oh yes," Klaus said. "Please tell us."
"Of course I'll tell you," Hector said, "but I don't know why you're so excited about it. It's just more nonsense from the Council of Elders."
The Baudelaires looked at one another uncertainly. "What do you mean?" Klaus asked.
"Well, about three hundred and six years ago," Hector said, "a group of explorers discovered the murder of crows that we just saw."
"Sturo?" Sunny asked.
"We didn't see any crows get killed," Violet said.
"'Murder' is the word for a group of crows, like a flock of geese or a herd of cows or a convention of orthodontists. Anyway, the explorers were impressed with their patterns of migration — you know, they always fly uptown in the morning, downtown in the afternoon and over to Nevermore Tree in the evening. It's a very unusual pattern, and the explorers were so excited by it that they decided to live here. Before too long, a town sprung up, and so they named it V.F.D."
"But what does V.F.D. stand for?" Violet asked.
"The Village of Fowl Devotees," Hector said. "'Devotees' is a word for people who are devoted to something, and 'fowl' — "
" — means 'bird,'" Klaus finished. "That's the secret of V.F.D.? Village of Fowl Devotees?"
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"What do you mean, secret?" Hector asked. "It's not a secret. Everyone knows what those letters mean."
The Baudelaires sighed with confusion and dismay, which is not a pleasant combination. "What my brother means," Violet explained, "is that we chose V.F.D. to become our new guardian because we'd been told of a terrible secret — a secret with the initials V.F.D."
"Who told you about this secret?" Hector asked.
"Some very dear friends of ours," Violet replied. "Duncan and Isadora Quagmire. They discovered something about Count Olaf, but before they could tell us anything more — "
"Hold on a minute," Hector said. "Who's Count Olaf? Mrs. Morrow was talking about Count Omar. Is Olaf his brother?"
"No," Klaus said, shuddering at the very thought of Olaf having a brother. "I'm afraid The Daily Punctilio got many of the facts wrong."
"Well, why don't we get them right," Hector said, turning a corner. "Suppose you tell me exactly what happened."
"It's sort of a long story," Violet said.
"Well," Hector said, with a slight smile, "we have sort of a long walk. Why don't you begin at the beginning?"
The Baudelaires looked up at Hector, sighed, and began at the beginning, which seemed such a long way off that they were surprised they could remember it so clearly. Violet told Hector about the dreadful day at the beach when she and her siblings learned from Mr. Poe that their parents had been killed in the fire that had destroyed their home, and Klaus told Hector about the days they spent in Count Olaf's care. Sunny — with some help from Klaus and Violet, who translated for her — told him about poor Uncle Monty, and about the terrible things that had happened to Aunt Josephine. Violet told Hector about working at Lucky Smells Lumbermill, and Klaus told him about enrolling at Prufrock Preparatory School, and Sunny related the dismal time they had living with Jerome and Esmé Squalor at 667 Dark Avenue. Violet told Hector all about Count Olaf's various disguises, and about each and every one of his nefarious associates, including the hook-handed man, the two powder-faced women, the bald man with the long nose, and the one who looked like neither a man nor a woman, of whom the Baudelaires had been reminded when Hector had been so silent. Klaus told Hector all about the Quagmire triplets, and about the mysterious underground passageway that had led back to their home, and about the shadow of misfortune that had seemed to hang over them nearly every moment since that day at the beach. And as the Baudelaires told Hector their long story, they began to feel as if the handyman was carrying more than their suitcases. They felt as if he was carrying each word they said, as if each unfortunate event was a burden that Hector was helping them with. The story of their lives was so miserable that I cannot say they felt happy when they were through telling it, but by the time Sunny concluded the whole long story, the Baudelaires felt as if they were carrying much less.
"Kyun," Sunny concluded, which Violet was quick to translate as "And that's why we chose this town, in the hopes of finding the secret of V.F.D., rescuing the Quagmire triplets, and defeating Count Olaf once and for all."
Hector sighed. "You've certainly been through an ordeal," he said, using a word which here means "a heap of trouble, most of which was Count Olaf's fault." He stopped for a second and looked at each Baudelaire. "You've been very brave, all three of you, and I'll do my best to make sure you have a proper home with me. But I must tell you that I think you've hit a dead end."
"What do you mean?" Klaus asked.
"Well, I hate to add some bad news to the terrible story you just told me," Hector said, "but I think the initials that the Quagmires told you about and the initials of this town are just a coincidence. As I said, this village has been called V.F.D. for more than three hundred years. Scarcely anything has changed since then. The crows have always roosted in the same places. The meetings of the Council of Elders have always been at the same time every day. My father was the handyman before me, and his father was the handyman before him, and so on and so on. The only new things in this town are you three children and the new Fowl Fountain uptown, which we'll be cleaning tomorrow. I don't see how this village could have anything to do with the secret the Quagmires discovered."
The Baudelaire children looked at one another in frustration. "Pojik?" Sunny asked in exasperation. She meant something along the lines of "Do you mean we've come here for nothing?" but Violet translated it somewhat differently.
"What my sister means," Violet said, "is that it's very frustrating to find that we're in the wrong place."
"We're very concerned for our friends," Klaus added, "and we don't want to give up on finding them."
"Give up?" Hector said. "Who said anything about giving up? Just because the name of this town isn't helpful, that doesn't mean you're in the wrong place. We obviously have a great many chores to do, but in our spare time we can try to find out the whereabouts of Duncan and Isadora. I'm a handyman, not a detective, but I'll try to help you the best I can. We'll have to be very careful, though. The Council of Elders has so many rules that you can scarcely do anything without breaking one of them."
"Why does the Council have so many rules?" Violet asked.
"Why does anyone have a lot of rules?" Hector said with a shrug. "So they can boss people around, I guess. Thanks to all the rules of V.F.D., the Council of Elders can tell people what to wear, how to talk, what to eat, and even what to build. Rule #67, for instance, clearly states that no citizen is allowed to build or use any mechanical devices."
"Does that mean I can't build or use any mechanical devices?" Violet asked Hector. "Are my siblings and I citizens of V.F.D., now that the town is our guardian?"
"I'm afraid you are," Hector said. "You have to follow Rule #67, along with all the other rules."
"But Violet's an inventor!" Klaus cried. "Mechanical devices are very important to her!"
"Is that so?" Hector said, and smiled. "Then you can be a very big help to me, Violet." He stopped walking, and looked around the street as if it was full of spies, instead of being completely empty. "Can you keep a secret?" he asked.
"Yes," Violet answered.
Hector looked around the street once more, and then leaned forward and began speaking in a very quiet voice. "When the Council of Elders invented Rule #67," he said, "they instructed me to remove all the inventing materials in town."
"What did you say?" Klaus asked.
"I didn't say anything," Hector admitted, leading the children around another corner. "The Council makes me too skittish to speak; you know that. But here's what I did. I took all of the materials and hid them out in my barn, which I've been using as sort of an inventing studio."
"I've always wanted to have an inventing studio," Violet said. Without even realizing it, she was reaching into her pocket for a ribbon, to tie her hair up and keep it out of her eyes, as if she were already inventing something instead of just talking about it. "What have you invented so far, Hector?"
"Oh, just a few little things," Hector said, "but I have an enormous project that is nearing completion. I've been building a self-sustaining hot air mobile home."
"Neebdes?" Sunny said. She meant something like, "Could you explain that a bit more?" but Hector needed no encouragement to keep talking about his invention.
"I don't know if you've ever been up in a hot air balloon," he said, "but it's very exciting. You stand in a large basket, with the enormous balloon over your head, and you can gaze down at the entire countryside below you, spread out like a blanket. It's simply superlative. Well, my invention is nothing more than a hot air balloon — except it's much larger. Instead of one large basket, there are twelve baskets, all tied together below several hot air balloons. Each basket serves as a different room, so it's like having an entire flying house. It's completely self-sustaining — once you get up in it, you never have to go back down. In fact, if my new engine works properly, it will be impossible to get back down. The engine should last for more than one hundred years, and there's a huge storage basket that I'm filling with food, bevera
ges, clothing, and books. Once it's completed, I'll be able to fly away from V.F.D. and the Council of Elders and everything else that makes me skittish, and live forever in the air."
"It sounds like a marvelous invention," Violet said. "How in the world have you been able to get the engine to be self-sustaining, too?"
"That's giving me something of a problem," Hector admitted, "but maybe if you three took a look at it, we could fix the engine together."
"I'm sure Violet could be of help," Klaus said, "but I'm not much of an inventor. I'm more interested in reading. Does V.F.D. have a good library?"
"Unfortunately, no," Hector said. "Rule #108 clearly states that the V.F.D. library cannot contain any books that break any of the other rules. If someone in a book uses a mechanical device, for instance, that book is not allowed in the library."
"But there are so many rules," Klaus said. "What kind of books could possibly be allowed?"
"Not very many," Hector said, "and nearly all of them are dull. There's one called The Littlest Elf that's probably the most boring book ever written. It's about this irritating little man who has all sorts of tedious adventures."
"That's too bad," Klaus said glumly. "I was hoping that I could do a little research into V.F.D. — the secret, that is, not the village — in my spare time."
Hector stopped walking again, and looked once more around the empty streets. "Can you keep another secret?" he asked, and the Baudelaires nodded. "The Council of Elders told me to burn all of the books that broke Rule #108," he said in a quiet voice, "but I brought them to my barn instead. I have sort of a secret library there, as well as a secret inventing studio."
"Wow," Klaus said. "I've seen public libraries, private libraries, school libraries, legal libraries, reptile libraries, and grammatical libraries, but never a secret library. It sounds exciting."