Violet tried to smile at Phil, but her smiling muscles just stayed put. She knew—or she thought she knew, anyway, because she was actually wrong—that the only thing in disguise was Count Olaf. “We have to go see Sir,” Violet said finally. “We have to explain to him what has happened.”
“You’re not supposed to see Sir without an appointment,” Phil said.
“This is an emergency,” Violet said. “Come on, Sunny. Come on…” She looked at her brother, who looked back at his older sister with wide, wide eyes. Violet remembered the accident he had caused, and all the previous Baudelaire guardians who had been destroyed. She could not imagine that Klaus would be capable of the sort of heinous murders that Count Olaf had committed, but she could not be sure. Not when he was hypnotized.
“Dinel,” Sunny said.
“Klaus simply cannot go,” Violet decided. “Phil, will you please keep an eye on our brother while we go and visit Sir?”
“Of course,” Phil said.
“A very close eye,” she emphasized, leading Klaus to the Baudelaire bunk. “He’s…he’s not been himself lately, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Please make sure he stays out of trouble.”
“I will,” Phil promised.
“Now, Klaus,” Violet said, “please get some sleep, and I hope you’ll feel better in the morning.”
“Wub,” Sunny said, which meant something along the lines of “I hope so, too.”
Klaus lay down on the bunk, and his sisters looked at his bare feet, which were filthy from walking around all day without any shoes on. “Good night, Violet,” Klaus said. “Good night, Susan.”
“Her name is Sunny,” Violet said.
“I’m sorry,” Klaus said. “I’m just so exhausted. Do you really think I will feel better in the morning?”
“If we’re lucky,” Violet said. “Now, go to sleep.”
Klaus glanced at his older sister. “Yes, sir,” he said, quietly. He shut his eyes and immediately fell asleep. The eldest Baudelaire tucked the blanket around her brother and took a long, worried glance at him. Then she took Sunny’s hand and, with a smile to Phil, walked back out of the dormitory and across the courtyard to the offices. Inside, the two Baudelaires walked past the mirror without even a glance at their reflections, and knocked on the door.
“Come in!” The children recognized the booming voice of Sir, and nervously opened the door to the office. Sir was sitting at an enormous desk made of dark, dark wood, still smoking a cigar so his face could not be seen behind the cloud of smoke. The desk was covered with papers and folders, and there was a name-plate that read “The Boss” in letters made of chewed-up gum, just like the lumbermill sign outside. It was difficult to see the rest of the room, because there was only one tiny light in the room, which sat on Sir’s desk. Next to Sir stood Charles, who gave the children a shy smile as they walked up to their guardian.
“Do you have an appointment?” Sir asked.
“No,” Violet said, “but it’s very important that I talk to you.”
“I’ll decide what’s very important!” Sir barked. “You see this nameplate? It says ‘The Boss,’ and that’s who I am! It’s very important when I say it’s very important, understand?”
“Yes, Sir,” Violet said, “but I think you’ll agree with me when I explain what’s been going on.”
“I know what’s been going on,” Sir said. “I’m the boss! Of course I know! Didn’t you get my memo about the accident?”
Violet took a deep breath and looked Sir in the eye, or at least the part of the cloud of smoke where she thought his eye probably was. “The accident,” she said finally, “happened because Klaus was hypnotized.”
“What your brother does for a hobby is none of my concern,” Sir said, “and it doesn’t excuse accidents.”
“You don’t understand, Sir,” Violet said. “Klaus was hypnotized by Dr. Orwell, who is in cahoots with Count Olaf.”
“Oh no!” Charles said. “You poor children! Sir, we have to put a stop to this!”
“We are putting a stop to this!” Sir said. “You children will cause no more accidents, and you’ll be safely employed by this lumbermill. Otherwise, out you go!”
“Sir!” Charles cried. “You wouldn’t throw the children out into the street!”
“Of course not,” Sir said. “As I explained in my memo, I met a very nice young lady who works as a receptionist. When I mentioned there were three children in my care, she said that if you were ever any trouble, she’d take you, because she’d always wanted children of her own.”
“Palsh!” Sunny cried.
“That’s Count Olaf!” Violet cried.
“Do I look like an idiot to you?” Sir asked, pointing to his cloud. “I have a complete description of Count Olaf from Mr. Poe, and this receptionist looked nothing like him. She was a very nice lady.”
“Did you look for the tattoo?” Charles asked. “Count Olaf has a tattoo on his ankle, remember?”
“Of course I didn’t look for the tattoo,” Sir said impatiently. “It’s not polite to look at a woman’s legs.”
“But she’s not a woman!” Violet burst out. “I mean, he’s not a woman! He’s Count Olaf!”
“I saw her nameplate,” Sir said. “It didn’t say ‘Count Olaf.’ It said ‘Shirley.’”
“Fiti!” Sunny shrieked, which you already know meant “That nameplate doesn’t prove anything, of course!” But Violet did not have time to translate, because Sir was pounding his hands on the desk.
“Hypnosis! Count Olaf! Fiti! I’ve had enough of your excuses!” he yelled. “Your job is to work hard at the lumbermill, not cause accidents! I am busy enough without having to deal with clumsy children!”
Quickly, Violet thought of something else. “Well, can we call Mr. Poe?” she asked. “He knows all about Count Olaf, so perhaps he can be helpful.” Violet did not add that Mr. Poe was not usually a very helpful person.
“You want to add the cost of a long-distance phone call to the burden of caring for you?” Sir asked. “I think not. Let me put it to you in the simplest way I can: If you screw up again, I will give you away to Shirley.”
“Now, Sir,” Charles said. “These are children. You shouldn’t talk to them this way. As you remember, I never thought it was a good idea for the Baudelaires to work in the mill. They should be treated like members of the family.”
“They are being treated like members of the family,” Sir said. “Many of my cousins live there in the dormitory. I refuse to argue with you, Charles! You’re my partner! Your job is to iron my shirts and cook my omelettes, not boss me around!”
“You’re right, of course,” Charles said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“Now get out of here, all of you!” Sir barked. “I have lots of work to do!”
Sunny opened her mouth to say something, but she knew it would be useless. Violet thought of something else she could point out, but she knew it would be worthless. And Charles started to raise his hand to make a point, but he knew it would be bootless, a word which here means “useless and worthless.” So Charles and the two Baudelaires left the dark office without another word, and stood for a moment together in the hallway.
“Don’t worry,” Charles whispered. “I’ll help you.”
“How?” Violet whispered back. “Will you call Mr. Poe and tell him Count Olaf is here?”
“Ulo?” Sunny asked, which meant “Will you have Dr. Orwell arrested?”
“Will you hide us from Shirley?” Violet asked.
“Henipul?” Sunny asked, which meant “Will you undo Klaus’s hypnotism?”
“No,” Charles admitted. “I can’t do any of those things. Sir would get mad at me, and we can’t have that. But tomorrow, I will try and sneak you some raisins at lunchtime. O.K.?”
It was not O.K., of course, not at all. Raisins are healthy, and they are inexpensive, and some people may even find them delicious. But they are rarely considered helpful. In fact, raisins were one of the least helpful
things Charles could offer, if he really wanted to help. But Violet didn’t answer him. She was looking down the hallway and thinking. Sunny didn’t answer him either, because she was already crawling toward the door to the library. The Baudelaire sisters had no time to talk with Charles. They had to figure out a plan, and they had to figure it out quickly. The Baudelaire orphans were in a very difficult situation, and they needed every available moment to come up with something much, much more helpful than raisins.
CHAPTER
Eleven
As we have discussed previously, a book’s first sentence can often tell you what sort of story the book contains. This book, you will remember, began with the sentence “The Baudelaire orphans looked out the grimy window of the train and gazed at the gloomy blackness of the Finite Forest, wondering if their lives would ever get any better,” and the story has certainly been as wretched and hopeless as the first sentence promised it would be. I only bring this up now so you can understand the feeling of dread that Violet and Sunny Baudelaire experienced as they opened a book in the library of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill. The two Baudelaire sisters already had a feeling of dread, of course. Part of the dread came from how cruelly unfairly Sir had behaved. Another part of the dread came from how Charles, kind as he was, seemed unable to help them. Yet another part of the dread came from the fact that Klaus had been hypnotized once more. And of course, the lion’s share of the dread—the phrase “lion’s share” here means “the biggest part” and has nothing to do with lions or sharing—came from the fact that Count Olaf—or, as he insisted on calling himself, Shirley—was back in the Baudelaires’ lives and causing so much misery.
But there was an extra helping of dread that Violet and Sunny felt when they began Advanced Ocular Science, by Dr. Georgina Orwell. The first sentence was “This tome will endeavor to scrutinize, in quasi-inclusive breadth, the epistemology of ophthalmologically contrived appraisals of ocular systems and the subsequent and requisite exertions imperative for expugnation of injurious states,” and as Violet read it out loud to her sister, both children felt the dread that comes when you begin a very boring and difficult book.
“Oh dear,” Violet said, wondering what in the world “tome” meant. “This is a very difficult book.”
“Garj!” Sunny said, wondering what in the world “endeavor” meant.
“If only we had a dictionary,” Violet said glumly. “Then we might be able to figure out what this sentence means.”
“Yash!” Sunny pointed out, which meant something like “And if only Klaus weren’t hypnotized, then he could tell us what this sentence means.”
Violet and Sunny sighed, and thought of their poor hypnotized brother. Klaus seemed so different from the brother they knew that it was almost as if Count Olaf had already succeeded with his dastardly scheme, and destroyed one of the Baudelaire orphans. Klaus usually looked interested in the world around him, and now he had a blank expression on his face. His eyes were usually all squinty from reading, and now they were wide as if he had been watching TV instead. He was usually alert, and full of interesting things to say, and now he was forgetful, and almost completely silent.
“Who knows if Klaus could define these words for us?” Violet asked. “He said it felt like part of his brain had been wiped clean. Maybe he doesn’t know all those words when he’s hypnotized. I don’t think I’ve heard him define anything since the accident with Phil, when he explained the word ‘inordinate.’ You might as well get some rest, Sunny. I’ll wake you up if I read anything useful.”
Sunny crawled up on the table and lay down next to Advanced Ocular Science, which was almost as big as she was. Violet gazed at her sister for a moment, and then turned her attention to the book. Violet liked to read, of course, but at heart she was an inventor, not a researcher. She simply did not have Klaus’s amazing reading skills. Violet stared at Dr. Orwell’s first sentence again, and just saw a mess of difficult words. She knew that if Klaus were in the library, and not hypnotized, he would see a way to help them out of their situation. Violet began to imagine how her brother would go about reading Advanced Ocular Science, and tried to copy his methods.
First she turned back the pages of the book, back before even the first page, to the table of contents, which as I’m sure you know is a list of the titles and page numbers of each chapter in a book. Violet had paid scarcely any attention to it when she first opened the book, but she realized that Klaus would probably examine the table of contents first, so he could see which chapters of the book might be most helpful. Quickly she scanned the table of contents:
1.
Introduction
1
2.
Basic Ophthalmology
105
3.
Nearsightedness and Farsightedness
279
4.
Blindness
311
5.
Itchy Eyelashes
398
6.
Damaged Pupils
501
7.
Blinking Problems
612
8.
Winking Problems
650
9.
Surgical Practices
783
10.
Glasses, Monocles, and Contact Lenses
857
11.
Sunglasses
926
12.
Hypnosis and Mind Control
927
13.
Which Eye Color Is the Best One?
1,000
Immediately, of course, Violet saw that chapter twelve would be the most helpful, and was glad she’d thought of looking at the table of contents instead of reading 927 pages until she found something helpful. Grateful that she could skip that daunting first paragraph—the word “daunting” here means “full of incredibly difficult words”—she flipped through Advanced Ocular Science until she reached “Hypnosis and Mind Control.”
The phrase “stylistic consistency” is used to describe books that are similar from start to finish. For instance, the book you are reading right now has stylistic consistency, because it began in a miserable way and will continue that way until the last page. I’m sorry to say that Violet realized, as she began chapter twelve, that Dr. Orwell’s book had stylistic consistency as well. The first sentence of “Hypnosis and Mind Control” was “Hypnosis is an efficacious yet precarious methodology and should not be assayed by neophytes,” and it was every bit as difficult and boring as the first sentence of the whole book. Violet reread the sentence, and then reread it again, and her heart began to sink. How in the world did Klaus do it? When the three children lived in the Baudelaire home, there was a huge dictionary in their parents’ library, and Klaus would often use it to help him with difficult books. But how did Klaus read difficult books when there was no dictionary to be found? It was a puzzle, and Violet knew it was a puzzle she had to solve quickly.
She turned her attention back to the book, and reread the sentence one more time, but this time she simply skipped the words she did not know. As often happens when one reads in this way, Violet’s brain made a little humming noise as she encountered each word—or each part of a word—she did not know. So inside her head, the opening sentence of chapter twelve read as follows: “‘Hypnosis is an hmmm yet hmmm method hmmm and should not be hmmmed by hmmms’” and although she could not tell exactly what it meant, she could guess. “It could mean,” she guessed to herself, “that hypnosis is a difficult method and should not be learned by amateurs,” and the interesting thing is that she was not too far off. The night grew later and later, and Violet continued to read the chapter in this way, and she was surprised to learn that she could guess her way through pages and pages of Dr. Orwell’s book. This is not the best way to read, of course, because you can make horribly wrong guesses, but it will do in an emergency.
For several hours, the Lucky Smells library was completely quiet except for the tur
ning of pages, as Violet read the book searching for anything helpful. Every so often she glanced at her sister, and for the first time in her life Violet wished that Sunny were older than she was. When you are trying to figure out a difficult problem—such as the problem of trying to get your brother unhypnotized so as not to be placed into the hands of a greedy man disguised as a receptionist—it is often helpful to discuss the problem with other people in order to come up with a quick and useful solution. Violet remembered that, when the Baudelaires were living with Aunt Josephine, it had been extremely helpful to talk to Klaus about a note that turned out to have a secret hidden within it. But with Sunny it was different. The youngest Baudelaire was charming, and well toothed, and quite intelligent for a baby. But she was still a baby, and as Violet hmmed through chapter twelve, she worried that she would fail to find a solution with only a baby as a discussion partner. Nevertheless, when she found a sentence that appeared to be useful, she gave Sunny a waking nudge and read the sentence out loud.
“Listen to this, Sunny,” she said, when her sister opened her eyes. “‘Once a subject has been hypnotized, a simple hmmm word will make him or her perform whatever hmmm acts any hmmm wants hmmmed.’”
“Hmmm?” Sunny asked.
“Those are the words I don’t know,” Violet explained. “It’s difficult to read this way, but I can guess what Dr. Orwell means. I think she means that once you’ve hypnotized someone, all you need to do is say a certain word and they will obey you. Remember what Klaus told us he learned from the Encyclopedia Hypnotica? There was that Egyptian king who did chicken imitations, and the merchant who played the violin, and that writer, and all the hypnotists did was say a certain word. But they were all different words. I wonder which word applies to Klaus.”
“Heece,” Sunny said, which probably meant something like “Beats me. I’m only a baby.”
Violet gave her a gentle smile and tried to imagine what Klaus would have said if he had been there, unhypnotized, in the library with his sisters. “I’ll search for more information,” she decided.