“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?”
“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 t
he 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, beverages, 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.”
“It’s a bit exciting,” Hector agreed, “but it also makes me very skittish. The Council of Elders gets very, very angry when people break the rules. I hate to think what they’d do to me if they found out I was secretly using mechanical devices and reading interesting books.”
“Azzator!” Sunny said, which meant “Don’t worry—your secret is safe with us!”
Hector looked down at her quizzically. “I don’t know what ‘azzator’ means, Sunny,” he said, “but I would guess it means ‘Don’t forget about me!’ Violet will use the studio, and Klaus will use the library, but what can we do for you? What do you like to do best?”
“Bite!” Sunny responded at once, but Hector frowned and took another look around him.
“Don’t say that so loudly, Sunny!” he whispered. “Rule #4,561 clearly states that citizens are not allowed to use their mouths for recreation. If the Council of Elders knew that you liked to bite things for your own enjoyment, I can’t imagine what they’d do. I’m sure we can find you some things to bite, but you’ll have to do it in secret. Well, here we are.”
Hector led the Baudelaires around one last corner, and the children got their first glimpse of where they would be living. The street they had been walking on simply ended at the turn of the corner, leading them to a place as wide and as flat as the countryside they had crossed that afternoon, with just three shapes standing out on the flat horizon. The first was a large, sturdy-looking house, with a pointed roof and a front porch big enough to contain a picnic table and four wooden chairs. The second was an enormous barn, right next to the house, that hid the studio and library Hector had been talking about. But it was the third shape that caused the Baudelaires to stare.
The third shape on the horizon was Nevermore Tree, but to simply say it was a tree would be like saying the Pacific Ocean was a body of water, or that Count Olaf was a grumpy person or that the story of Beatrice and myself was just a little bit sad. Nevermore Tree was gargantuan, a word which here means “having attained an inordinate amount of botanical volume,” a phrase which here means “it was the biggest tree the Baudelaires had ever seen.” Its trunk was so wide that the Baudelaires could have stood behind it, along with an elephant, three horses, and an opera singer, and not have been seen from the other side. Its branches spread out in every direction, like a fan that was taller than the house and wider than the barn, and the tree was made even taller and wider by what was sitting in it. Every last V.F.D. crow was roosting in its branches, adding a thick layer of muttering black shapes to the immense silhouette of the tree. Because the crows had gotten to Hector’s house as the crow flies, instead of walking, the birds had arrived long before the Baudelaires, and the air was filled with the quiet rustling sounds of the birds settling in for the evening. A few of the birds had already fallen asleep, and the children could hear a few crow snores as they approached their new home.
“What do you think?” Hector asked.
“It’s marvelous,” Violet said.
“It’s superlative,” Klaus said.
“Ogufod!” Sunny said, which meant “What a lot of crows!”
“The noises of the crows might sound strange at first,” Hector said, leading the way up the steps of the house, “but you’ll get used to them before long. I always leave the windows open when I go to bed. The sounds of the crows remind me of the ocean, and I find it very peaceful to listen to them as I drift off to sleep. Speaking of bed, I’m sure you must be very tired. I’ve prepared three rooms for you upstairs, but if you don’t like them you can choose other ones. There’s plenty of room in the house. There’s even room for the Quagmires to live here, when we find them. It sounds like the five of you would be happy living together, even if you had to do the chores of an entire town.”
“That sounds delightful,” Violet said, smiling at Hector. It made the children happy just to think of the two triplets being safe and sound, instead of in Count Olaf’s clutches. “Duncan is a journalist, so maybe he could start a newspaper—then V.F.D. wouldn’t have to read all of the mistakes in The Daily Punctilio.”
“And Isadora is a poet,” Klaus said. “She could write a book of poetry for the library—as long as she didn’t write poetry about things that were against the rules.”
Hector started to open the door of his house, but then paused and gave the Baudelaires a strange look. “A poet?” he asked. “What kind of poetry does she write?”
“Couplets,” Violet replied.
Hector gave the children a look that was even stranger. He put down the Baudelaires’ suitcases and reached into the pocket of his overalls. “Couplets?” he asked.
“Yes,” Klaus said. “She likes to write rhyming poems that are two lines long.”
Hector gave the youngsters a look that was one of the strangest they had ever seen, and took his hand out of his pocket to show them a scrap of paper rolled into a tiny scroll. “Like this?” he asked, and unrolled the paper. The Baudelaire orphans had to squint to read it in the dying light of the sunset, and when they read it once they had to read it again, to make sure that the light wasn’t playing tricks on them and that they had read what was really there on the scrap of paper, in shaky but familiar handwriting:
For sapphires we are held in here.
Only you can end our fear.
CHAPTER
Four
The Baudelaire orphans stared at the scrap of paper, and then at Hector, and then at the scrap of paper again. Then they star
ed at Hector again, and then at the scrap of paper once more and then at Hector once more and then at the scrap of paper once again, and then at Hector once again and then at the scrap of paper one more time. Their mouths were open as if they were about to speak, but the three children could not find the words they wanted to say.
The expression “a bolt from the blue” describes something so surprising that it makes your head spin, your legs wobble, and your body buzz with astonishment—as if a bolt of lightning suddenly came down from a clear blue sky and struck you at full force. Unless you are a lightbulb, an electrical appliance, or a tree that is tired of standing upright, encountering a bolt from the blue is not a pleasant experience, and for a few minutes the Baudelaires stood on the steps of Hector’s house and felt the unpleasant sensations of spinning heads, wobbly legs, and buzzing bodies.
“My goodness, Baudelaires,” Hector said. “I’ve never seen anyone look so surprised. Here, come in the house and sit down. You look like a bolt of lightning just hit you at full force.”
The Baudelaires followed Hector into his house and down a hallway to the parlor, where they sat down on a couch without a word. “Why don’t you sit here for a few minutes,” he said. “I’m going to fix you some hot tea. Maybe by the time it’s ready you’ll be able to talk.” He leaned down and handed the scrap of paper to Violet, and gave Sunny a little pat on the head before walking out of the parlor and leaving the children alone. Without speaking, Violet unrolled the paper so the siblings could read the couplet again.
For sapphires we are held in here.
Only you can end our fear.
“It’s her,” Klaus said, speaking quietly so Hector wouldn’t hear him. “I’m sure of it. Isadora Quagmire wrote this poem.”
“I think so, too,” Violet said. “I’m positive it’s her handwriting.”