“Blake!” Sunny said, which meant “And the poem is written in Isadora’s distinct literary style!”
“The poem talks about sapphires,” Violet said, “and the triplets’ parents left behind the famous Quagmire sapphires when they died.”
“Olaf kidnapped them to get ahold of those sapphires,” Klaus said. “That must be what it means when it says ‘For sapphires we are held in here.’”
“Peng?” Sunny asked.
“I don’t know how Hector got ahold of this,” Violet replied. “Let’s ask him.”
“Not so fast,” Klaus said. He took the poem from Violet and looked at it again. “Maybe Hector’s involved with the kidnapping in some way.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Violet said. “Do you really think so?”
“I don’t know,” Klaus said. “He doesn’t seem like one of Count Olaf’s associates, but sometimes we haven’t been able to recognize them.”
“Wryb,” Sunny said thoughtfully, which meant “That’s true.”
“He seems like someone we can trust,” Violet said. “He was excited to show us the migration of the crows, and he wanted to hear all about everything that has happened to us. That doesn’t sound like a kidnapper, but I suppose there’s no way of knowing for sure.”
“Exactly,” Klaus said. “There’s no way of knowing for sure.”
“The tea’s all ready,” Hector called from the next room. “If you’re up to it, why don’t you join me in the kitchen? You can sit at the table while I make the enchiladas.”
The Baudelaires looked at one another, and nodded. “Kay!” Sunny called, and led her siblings into a large and cozy kitchen. The children took seats at a round wooden table, where Hector had placed three steaming mugs of tea, and sat quietly while Hector began to prepare dinner. It is true, of course, that there is no way of knowing for sure whether or not you can trust someone, for the simple reason that circumstances change all of the time. You might know someone for several years, for instance, and trust him completely as your friend, but circumstances change all of the time. You might know someone for several years, for instance, and trust him completely as your friend, but circumstances could change and he could become very hungry, and before you knew it you could be boiling in a soup pot, because there is no way of knowing for sure. I myself fell in love with a wonderful woman who was so charming and intelligent that I trusted that she would be my bride, but there was no way of knowing for sure, and all too soon circumstances changed and she ended up marrying someone else, all because of something she read in The Daily Punctilio. And no one had to tell the Baudelaire orphans that there was no way of knowing for sure, because before they became orphans, they lived for many years in the care their parents, and trusted their parents to keep on caring for them, but circumstances changed, and now their parents were dead and the children were living with a handyman in a town full of crows. But even though there is no way of knowing for sure, there are often ways to know for pretty sure, and as the three siblings watched Hector work in the kitchen they spotted some of those ways. The tune he hummed as he chopped the ingredients, for instance, was a comforting one, and the Baudelaires could not imagine that a person could hum like that if he were a kidnapper. When he saw that the Baudelaires’ tea was still too hot to sip, he walked over to the kitchen and blew on each of their mugs to cool it, and it was hard to believe that someone could be hiding two triplets and cooling three children’s tea at the same time. And most comforting of all, Hector didn’t pester them with a lot of questions about why they were so surprised and silent. He simply kept quiet and let the Baudelaires wait until they were ready to speak about the scrap of paper he had given them, and the children could not imagine that such a considerate person was involved with Count Olaf in any way whatsoever. There was no way of knowing for sure, of course, but as the Baudelaires watched the handyman place the enchiladas in the oven to bake, they felt as if they knew for pretty sure, and by the time he sat down and joined them at the table they were ready to tell him about the couplet they had read.
“This poem was written by Isadora Quagmire,” Klaus said without preamble, a phrase which here means “almost as soon as Hector sat down.”
“Wow,” Hector said. “No wonder you were so surprised. But how can you be sure? Lots of poets write couplets. Ogden Nash, for instance.”
“Ogden Nash doesn’t write about sapphires,” said Klaus, who had received a biography of Ogden Nash for his seventh birthday. “Isadora does. When the Quagmire parents died, they left behind a fortune in sapphires. That’s what she means by ‘For sapphires we are held in here.’”
“Besides,” Violet said, “it’s Isadora’s handwriting and distinct literary style.”
“Well,” Hector said, “if you say this poem is by Isadora Quagmire, I believe you.”
“We should call Mr. Poe, and tell him,” Klaus said.
“We can’t call him,” Hector said. “There are no telephones in V.F.D., because telephones are mechanical devices. The Council of Elders can send a message to him. I’m too skittish to ask them, but you can do so if you wish.”
“Well, before we talk to the Council, we should know a bit more about the couplet,” Violet said. “Where did you get ahold of this scrap of paper?”
“I found it today,” Hector said, “beneath the branches of Nevermore Tree. I woke up this morning, and I was just leaving to walk downtown to do the morning chores when I noticed something white among all the black feathers the crows had left behind. It was this scrap of paper, all rolled up in a little scroll. I didn’t understand what was written on it, and I needed to get the chores done, so I put it in the pocket of my overalls, and I didn’t think of it again until just now, when we were talking about couplets. It’s certainly very mysterious. How in the world did one of Isadora’s poems end up in my backyard?”
“Well, poems don’t get up and walk by themselves,” Violet said. “Isadora must have put it here. She must be someplace nearby.”
Hector shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “You saw for yourself how flat it is around here. You can see everything for miles around, and the only things here on the outskirts of town are the house, the barn, and Nevermore Tree. You’re welcome to search the house, but you’re not going to find Isadora Quagmire or anyone else, and I always keep the barn locked because I don’t want the Council of Elders to find out I’m breaking the rules.”
“Maybe she’s in the tree,” Klaus said. “It’s certainly big enough that Olaf could hide her in the branches.”
“That’s true,” Violet said. “Last time Olaf was keeping them far below us. Maybe this time they’re far above us.” She shuddered, thinking of how unpleasant it would be to find yourself trapped in Nevermore Tree’s enormous branches, and she pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. “There’s only one thing to do,” she said. “We’ll have to go up and look for them.”
“You’re right,” Klaus said, and stood up beside her. “Let’s go.”
“Gerhit!” Sunny agreed.
“Hold on a minute,” Hector said. “We can’t just go climbing up Nevermore Tree.”
“Why not?” Violet said. “We’ve climbed up a tower and down an elevator shaft. Climbing a tree should be no problem.”
“I’m sure you three are fine climbers,” Hector said, “but that’s not what I mean.” He stood up and walked over to the kitchen window. “Take a look outside,” he said. “The sun has completely set. It’s not light enough to see a friend of yours up in Nevermore Tree. Besides, the tree is covered in roosting birds. You’ll never be able to climb through all of those crows—it’ll be a wild-goose chase.”
The Baudelaires looked out the window and saw that Hector was right. The tree was merely an enormous shadow, blurry around the edges where the birds were roosting. The children knew that a climb in such darkness would indeed be a wild-goose chase, a phrase which here means “unlikely to reveal the Quagmires triplets’ location.” Klaus and Sun
ny looked at their sister, hoping that she could invent a solution, and were relieved to hear she had thought of something before she could even tie her hair back in a ribbon. “We could climb with flashlights,” Violet said. “If you have some tinfoil, an old broom handle, and three rubber bands, I can make a flashlight myself in ten minutes.”
Hector shook his head. “Flashlights would only disturb the crows,” he said. “If someone woke you up in the middle of the night and shone a light in your face, you would be very annoyed, and you don’t want to be surrounded by thousands of annoyed crows. It’s better to wait until morning, when the crows have migrated uptown.”
“We can’t wait until morning,” Klaus said. “We can’t wait another second. The last time we found them, we left them alone for a few minutes, and then they were gone again.”
“Ollawmove!” Sunny shrieked, which meant “Olaf could move them at any time!”
“Well, he can’t move them now,” Hector pointed out. “It would be just as difficult for him to climb the tree.”
“We have to do something,” Violet insisted. “This poem isn’t just a couplet—it’s a cry for help. Isadora herself says ‘Only you can end our fear.’ Our friends are frightened, and it’s up to us to rescue them.”
Hector took some oven mitts out of the pocket of his overalls, and used them to take the enchiladas out of the oven. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “It’s a nice evening, and our chicken enchiladas are done. We can sit out on the porch, and eat our dinner, and keep an eye on Nevermore Tree. This area is so flat that even at night you can see for quite a distance, and if Count Olaf approaches—or anybody else, for that matter—we’ll see him coming.”
“But Count Olaf might perform his treachery after dinner,” Klaus said. “The only way to make sure that nobody approaches the tree is to watch the tree all night.”
“We can take turns sleeping,” Violet said, “so that one of us is always awake to keep watch.”
Hector started to shake his head, but then stopped and looked at the children. “Normally I don’t approve of children staying up late,” he said finally, “unless they are reading a very good book, seeing a wonderful movie, or attending a dinner party with fascinating guests. But this time I suppose we can make an exception. I’ll probably fall asleep, but you three can keep watch all night if you wish. Just please don’t try to climb Nevermore Tree in the dark. I understand how frustrated you are, and I know that the only thing we can do is wait until morning.”
The Baudelaires looked at one another and sighed. They were so anxious about the Quagmires that they wanted to run right out and climb Nevermore Tree, but they knew in their hearts that Hector was right.
“I guess you’re right, Hector,” Violet said. “We can wait until morning.”
“It’s the only thing we can do,” Klaus agreed.
“Contraire!” Sunny said, and held up her arms so that Klaus could pick her up. She meant something along the lines of “I can think of something else we can do—hold me up to the window latch!” and her brother did so. Sunny’s tiny fingers undid the latch of the window and pushed it open, letting in the cool evening air and the muttering sound of the crows. Then she leaned forward as far as she could and stuck her head out into the night. “Bark!” she cried out as loudly as she could. “Bark!”
There are many expressions to describe someone who is going about something in the wrong way. “Making a mistake” is one way to describe this situation. “Screwing up” is another, although it is a bit rude, and “Attempting to rescue Lemony Snicket by writing letters to a congressman, instead of digging an escape tunnel” is a third way, although it is a bit too specific. But Sunny calling out “Bark!” brings to mind an expression that, sadly enough, describes the situation perfectly.
By “Bark!” Sunny meant “If you’re up there, Quagmires, just hang on, and we’ll get you out first thing in the morning,” and I’m sorry to say that the expression which best describes her circumstances is “barking up the wrong tree.” It was a kind gesture of Sunny’s, to try to reassure Isadora and Duncan that the Baudelaires would help them escape from Count Olaf’s clutches, but the youngest Baudelaire was going about it the wrong way. “Bark!” she cried one more time, as Hector began to dish up the chicken enchiladas, and led the Baudelaires to the front porch so they could eat at the picnic table and keep an eye on Nevermore Tree, but Sunny was making a mistake. The Baudelaires did not realize the mistake as they finished their dinner and kept their eye on the immense, muttering tree. They did not realize the mistake as they sat on the porch for the rest of the night, taking turns at squinting at the flat horizon for any sign of someone approaching and dozing beside Hector using the picnic table as a pillow. But when the sun began to rise, and one V.F.D. crow left Nevermore Tree and began to fly in a circle, and three more crows followed, and then seven more, and then twelve more, and soon the morning sky was filled with the sound of fluttering wings as the thousands of crows circled and circled above the children’s heads as they rose from the wooden chairs and walked quickly toward the tree to look for any sign of the Quagmires, the Baudelaires saw at once how deeply mistaken they had been.
Without the murder of crows roosting in its branches, Nevermore Tree looked as bare as a skeleton. There was not a single leaf among the hundreds and hundreds of the tree’s branches. Standing on its scraggly roots and looking up into the empty branches, the Baudelaires could see every last detail of Nevermore Tree, and they could see at once that they would not find Duncan and Isadora Quagmire no matter how far they climbed. It was an enormous tree, and it was a sturdy tree, and it was apparently very comfortable to roost in, but it was the wrong tree. Klaus had been barking up the wrong tree when he’d said that their kidnapped friends were probably up there, and Violet had been barking up the wrong tree when she’d said that they should climb up and look for them, and Sunny had been barking up the wrong tree when she’d said “Bark!” The Baudelaire orphans had been barking up the wrong tree all evening, because the only thing the children found that morning was another scrap of paper, rolled into a scroll, among all the black feathers that the crows had left behind.
CHAPTER
Five
Until dawn comes we cannot speak.
No words can come from this sad beak.
“My head is spinning again,” Violet said, holding the scrap of paper so Klaus and Sunny could see what was written on it. “And my legs are all wobbly and my body is buzzing, like I’ve been struck by lightning. How in the world did Isadora get another poem here? We made sure that one of us was watching the tree at every moment.”
“Maybe it was here yesterday, but Hector didn’t see it,” Klaus said.
Violet shook her head. “A white scrap of paper is very easy to see next to all these black feathers. It must have arrived here sometime in the night. But how?”
“How it got here is the least of our questions,” Klaus said. “Where are the Quagmires? That’s the question I want answered.”
“But why doesn’t Isadora just tell us,” Violet said, rereading the couplet and frowning, “instead of leaving us mysterious poems on the ground where anyone could find them?”
“Maybe that’s why,” Klaus said slowly. “Anyone could find them here on the ground. If Isadora simply wrote out where they were, and Count Olaf found the scrap of paper, he’d move them—or worse. I’m not that experienced with reading poetry, but I bet Isadora is telling us where she and her brother are. It must be hidden somewhere in the poem.”
“It’ll be difficult to find,” Violet said, rereading the couplet. “There are so many confusing things about this poem. Why does she say ‘beak’? Isadora has a nose and mouth, not a beak.”
“Cra!” Sunny said, which meant “She probably means the beak of a V.F.D. crow.”
“You might be right,” Violet agreed. “But why does she say that no words can come from it? Of course no words can come from a beak. Birds can’t talk.”
“Actually, s
ome birds can talk,” Klaus said. “I read an ornithological encyclopedia that discussed the parrot and the myna bird, which both can imitate human speech.”
“But there aren’t any parrots or myna birds around here,” Violet said. “There are only crows, and crows certainly can’t speak.”
“And speaking of speaking,” Klaus said, “why does the poem say ‘Until dawn comes we cannot speak’?”
“Well, both these poems arrived in the morning,” Violet said. “Maybe Isadora means that she can only send us poems in the morning.”
“None of this makes any sense,” Klaus said. “Maybe Hector can help us figure out what’s going wrong.”
“Laper!” Sunny said in agreement, and the children went to wake up the handyman, who was still asleep on the front porch. Violet touched his shoulder, and as he yawned and sat up the children could see that his face had lines on it from sleeping on the picnic table.
“Good morning, Baudelaires,” he said, stretching his arms and giving them a sleepy smile. “At least, I hope it’s a good morning. Did you find any sign of the Quagmires?”
“It’s more like a strange morning,” Violet replied. “We found a sign of them, all right. Take a look.”
Violet handed Hector the second poem, and he read it and frowned. “‘Curiouser and curiouser,’” he said, quoting one of the Baudelaires’ favorite books. “This is really turning into a puzzle.”
“But a puzzle is just something you do for amusement,” Klaus said. “Duncan and Isadora are in grave danger. If we don’t figure out what these poems are trying to tell us, Count Olaf will—”
“Don’t even say it,” Violet said with a shiver. “We absolutely must solve this puzzle, and that is that.”
Hector stood up to stretch, and looked out on the flat and empty horizon surrounding his home. “Judging by the angle of the sun,” he said, “it’s just about time to leave. We don’t even have time for breakfast.”