Helquist, Brett, ill. Series: Snicket, Lemony. Series of unfortunate events ; bk. Why does Lemony Snicket spend his time researching and writing distressing books concerning the Baudelaire orphans? Why do all of Lemony Snicket's books concerning a sad dedication to a woman named Beatrice? And what terrible things would happen in Peru? Would anybody rescue them there?
Would Stephano get his hands on the fortune? And what would happen to the three children afterward? Stephano gave a cry of surprise and turned the steering wheel this way and that, but the two vehicles were locked together and, with another thump, veered off the road into a small pile of mud. It is a rare occurrence when a car accident can be called a stroke of good fortune, but that was most certainly the case here. Stephano gave another sharp cry, this one of rage.
Klaus and Sunny got up cautiously from the jeep floor and looked out the cracked windshield. Its entire front had pleated itself together, like an accordion, and one hubcap was spinning noisily on the pavement of Lousy Lane, making blurry circles as if it were a giant coin somebody had dropped. The driver was dressed in gray and making a rough hacking sound as he opened the crumpled door of the car and struggled his way out.
He made the hacking sound again, and then reached into a pocket of his suit and pulled out a white handkerchief. It was Mr. Poe, coughing away as usual, and the children were so delighted to see him that they found themselves smiling despite their horrible circumstances. Stephano reached out an arm and grabbed her sore shoulder, turning his head slowly so that each child saw his shiny eyes. The three of you will be back in this car with me and heading toward Hazy Harbor in time to catch the Prospero, I promise you.
Klaus opened his door and followed her, carrying Sunny. Poe asked. Is that you? You ran into me. He stomped over to where Mr. Poe was standing, but halfway there the children saw his face change from one of pure rage to one of brummagem confusion and sadness. Luckily, it looks like nobody was hurt. I wish the same could be said for my car. But who are you and what are you doing with the Baudelaire children?
Poe asked sternly. Facing away from Mr. Poe, he gave the orphans a big wink before continuing. Montgomery is dead.
What has happened? The children seemed too upset to be left alone. Montgomery is really dead, the expedition is canceled. Clearly, a doctor needs to be called. Here, children, get back in the jeep, and Mr.
Poe will follow us. All other discussions will have to be put aside. Poe nodded, and walked back to his car. The engine made a rough, wet noise—it sounded quite a bit like Mr. Poe frowned. Poe smiled. She had been waiting for the proper moment to make her case. Poe asked Stephano. Poe looked Stephano up and down, and then shook his head.
Count Olaf is a terrible man who tried to steal their money, and the youngsters are very frightened of him. Anyone can see that. Look at the tattoo! Poe looked at Stephano, and shrugged apologetically. Would you mind showing me your ankle? Looking at the Baudelaire orphans with his shiny, shiny eyes, he began to raise the leg of his stained striped pants. Violet, Klaus, Sunny, and Mr. The pant leg went up, like a curtain rising to begin a play. But there was no tattoo of an eye to be seen.
It is very unnerving to be proven wrong, particularly when you are really right and the person who is really wrong is the one who is proving you wrong and proving himself, wrongly, right. Anyway, even if by some chance this Stephano wishes you harm, you have nothing to fear. It is quite shocking that Dr. Poe when he had made up his mind. Violet was about to try reasoning with him one more time when a horn honked behind them. The Baudelaires and Mr. Poe got out of the way of the approaching automobile, a small gray car with a very skinny driver.
The car stopped in front of the house and the skinny person got out, a tall man in a white coat. Poe called, as he and the children approached. Lucafont said. Poe said quickly. Lucafont asked, walking toward the door.
Poe said, opening the door of the house. Stephano was waiting in the entryway, holding a coffeepot. Montgomery first? Lucafont said, opening the door of the Reptile Room with an oddly stiff hand. Stephano led Mr. Poe into the kitchen, and the Baudelaires glumly followed.
As Stephano brewed coffee for the adults, the three children sat down at the kitchen table where they had first had coconut cake with Uncle Monty just a short time ago, and Violet, Klaus, and Sunny felt like fifth, sixth, and seventh wheels on a car that was going the wrong direction—toward Hazy Harbor, and the departing Prospero.
When he is done with his medical examination, he will drive you into town to get a mechanic and I will stay here with the orphans. Poe smiled as Stephano poured him a cup of coffee, and looked sternly at Klaus.
Please apologize to him at once. She turned to Stephano and tried to look as if she were merely politely curious, instead of enraged. Poe said, sipping from his cup. Lucafont and me if they feel more comfortable that way. But if the orphans would rather, they could come with me in the jeep and we could follow you and Dr.
Lucafont to the mechanic. Their situation seemed like a game, although this game had desperately high stakes. The object of the game was not to end up alone with Stephano, for when they did, he would whisk them away on the Prospero.
What would happen then, when they were alone in Peru with such a greedy and despicable person, they did not want to think about. It seemed incredible that their very lives hinged on a carpooling conversation, but in life it is often the tiny details that end up being the most important.
Poe can ride with Stephano? Lucafont said from the doorway, surprising everyone. I have placed Dr. Is there any coffee left for me? Lucafont said quizzically. Montgomery died of snakebite? It must have gotten out, bitten Dr. Montgomery, and locked itself up again. A snake cannot operate a lock by itself.
Lucafont said calmly, sipping his coffee. I had to rush over here without my breakfast. He looked questioningly at Dr. Lucafont, who was opening a cupboard and peering inside. He never would have kept a poisonous snake in a cage it could open itself. Montgomery seemed like an appropriate guardian for you. He pointed at Dr.
Lucafont, who had taken a can out of the cupboard. With one of his oddly solid hands, he held up a can of peaches Uncle Monty had bought only yesterday. Poe said gently to Dr. We have much to discuss, and you are obviously too overwrought to participate. Now, Dr. You have room for three passengers, including Dr. And you, Stephano, have room for three passengers as well.
Klaus and Sunny looked up at their older sister, and saw that something about her had changed. But in this respect Violet was luckier than her brother. For unlike Klaus, who was so surprised when he first recognized Stephano that the moment to act passed him by, Violet realized, as she heard the adults drone on and on, that the time to act was now.
I cannot say that Violet, years later, slept easily when she looked back on her life—there were too many miserable times for any of the Baudelaires to be peaceful sleepers—but she was always a bit proud of herself that she realized she and her siblings should in fact excuse themselves from the kitchen and move to a more helpful location.
Even though Dr. What happens in a certain place can stain your feelings for that location, just as ink can stain a white sheet. Poe should be doing, but as usual, he is well intentioned but of no real help. Poe had taken over their affairs. We have to prove him wrong on both counts. She looked around at the Reptile Room, which Monty had worked on his whole life.
Let me know when you find anything. Here, you take this book. Sunny, watch the door and bite anybody who tries to get in. Klaus sighed, and opened a book, and as at so many other times when the middle Baudelaire child did not want to think about his circumstances, he began to read.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Violet went to listen at the kitchen door, trying to catch what the adults were saying. When she reached the door of the kitchen, she took her hair ribbon out of her pocket and dropped it on the floor, so if anyone opened the door she could claim that she was kneeling down to pick it up, rather than to eavesdrop.
Poe, if Stephano rides with me in my car, and you drive Dr. Lucafont can go with you and Dr. Montgomery in Dr. Lucafont said gravely. When she reached his door, Violet stopped. It was amazing, she thought, how everything having to do with Count Olaf was frightening. He was such a terrible person that merely the sight of his bedroom door could get her heart pounding.
But then Violet thought of her own safety, and the safety of her two siblings. Her shoulder still aching from the car collision, Violet turned the brass handle of the door and walked inside. The room, as Violet suspected, was a dirty mess. The bed was unmade and had cracker crumbs and bits of hair all over it. On top of the dresser was a small assortment of half-empty wine bottles. The closet door was open, revealing a bunch of rusty wire coathangers that shivered in the drafty room.
The curtains over the windows were all bunched up and encrusted with something flaky, and as Violet drew closer she realized with faint horror that Stephano had blown his nose on them. But although it was disgusting, hardened phlegm was not the sort of evidence Violet was hoping for. The eldest Baudelaire orphan stood in the center of the room and surveyed the sticky disorder of the bedroom.
Everything was horrendous, nothing was helpful. Violet rubbed her sore shoulder and remembered when she and her siblings were living with Count Olaf and found themselves locked in his tower room. Somewhere Stephano must have left a trail of evidence that Violet could find and use to convince Mr. Poe, but where was it? Poe was saying, when she stopped to listen at the kitchen door again.
There must be a way to do this. Lucafont and the corpse. What could be simpler? Poe said with a sigh, and Violet hurried into the Reptile Room. But you and I remember that it was as pale as can be.
No longer will he try to whisk us away to Peru, or threaten us with knives, or make us carry his suitcase, or anything like that. Poe as he walked in. Poe exclaimed, as Violet shook her head at her brother. Poe said, taking out a handkerchief.
The Baudelaires waited while he coughed into it before returning it to his pocket. He told us that himself.
She shook her head at him again, just slightly. It was a signal, telling him not to say anything more to Mr. He looked at his sister, and then at Mr. Poe, and shut his mouth. Poe coughed slightly into his handkerchief and looked at his wristwatch. You three are going to ride with Stephano into town, while I will ride with Dr.
Lucafont and your Uncle Monty. Stephano and Dr. Lucafont are unloading all the bags now and we will leave in a few minutes. If you will excuse me, I have to call the Herpetological Society and tell them the bad news. Poe what I read? She was looking through the glass wall of the Reptile Room, watching Dr.
Stephano opened the jeep door, and Dr. Lucafont began to carry suitcases out of the backseat in his strangely stiff hands. Lucafont was making. Surely you must have read something about creating a distraction. That was sort of a distraction.
Klaus and Sunny looked first at their sister, and then out the window of the Reptile Room in the direction she was looking. It is remarkable that different people will have different thoughts when they look at the same thing. This is an absurd moral, for you and I both know that sometimes not only is it good to lie, it is necessary to lie. For example, it was perfectly appropriate, after Violet left the Reptile Room, for Sunny to crawl over to the cage that held the Incredibly Deadly Viper, unlatch the cage, and begin screaming as loudly as she could even though nothing was really wrong.
There is another story concerning wolves that somebody has probably read to you, which is just as absurd. I am talking about Little Red Riding Hood, an extremely unpleasant little girl who, like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, insisted on intruding on the territory of dangerous animals. If you know somebody very well, like your grandmother or your baby sister, you will know when they are real and when they are fake.
This is why, as Sunny began to scream, Violet and Klaus could tell immediately that her scream was absolutely fake. Something is terribly wrong! Poe said to himself, from the kitchen where he was talking on the phone. Poe asked Stephano and Dr. Lucafont, who had finished unloading the suitcases and were entering the house. Poe said, and rushed to the enormous door of the Reptile Room. His voice became rough and low when he was trying not to laugh.
It is a very good thing that Klaus managed not to laugh as Mr. Lucafont came into the Reptile Room. It would have spoiled everything. Sunny was lying down on the marble floor, her tiny arms and legs waving wildly as if she were trying to swim.
Her facial expression was what made Klaus want to chuckle. But Klaus did know Sunny, and knew that when she was very frightened, her face grew all puckered and silent, as it did when Stephano had threatened to cut off one of her toes. To anyone but Klaus, Sunny looked as if she were very frightened, particularly because of who she was with. It was looking at Sunny with shiny green eyes, and its mouth was open as if it were about to bite her.
Poe who absolutely panicked. There are two basic types of panicking: standing still and not saying a word, and leaping all over the place babbling anything that comes into your head. Poe was the leaping-and-babbling kind. Klaus and Sunny had never seen the banker move so quickly or talk in such a high-pitched voice. Good God! Blessed Allah! Zeus and Hera! Mary and Joseph! Nathaniel Hawthorne! Grab her!
Move closer! Run away! Kill the snake! Leave it alone! Give it some food! Here, snakey! Here, snakey snakey! Poe paused to cough into his handkerchief, it leaned over and bit Sunny on the chin, right where it had bitten her when the two friends had first met.
Klaus tried not to grin, but Dr. Lucafont gasped, Stephano stared, and Mr. Poe began leaping and babbling again. It bited her! Calm down! Get moving!
Call an ambulance! Call the police! Call a scientist! Call my wife! This is terrible! This is awful! This is ghastly! This is phantasmagorical! Poe asked incredulously. Sunny gave another fake shriek of fear. Montgomery created for his own amusement. His voice got a little lower, and he moved a bit more slowly as he began to calm down. Stephano smiled, and continued to speak to Mr. Poe, eager to show off.
I read up on the Incredibly Deadly Viper, and many other snakes, in the library section of the Reptile Room as well as Dr. Lucafont cleared his throat. I looked carefully at sketches and charts. I took careful notes and looked them over each night before I went to sleep. If I may say so, I consider myself to be quite the expert on snakes. Poe cried. The Incredibly Deadly Viper blinked its green eyes triumphantly. Poe looked at Klaus, puzzled.
Klaus sighed. He felt, sometimes, as if he had spent half his life explaining things to Mr. She took a deep breath, and then tied her hair in a ribbon, to keep it out of her eyes.
As you and I and everyone who is familiar with Violet know, when she ties her hair back like that, it is because she needs to think up an invention. And right now she needed to think of one quickly. I would have sunk to the floor of the bedroom and pounded my fists against the carpet wondering why in the world life was so unfair and filled with inconveniences. Violet longed for a good room in which to invent things, filled with wires and gears and all of the necessary equipment to invent really top-notch devices.
The trouble had begun so quickly that Violet had only a few scribblings on one of the sheets, which she had written by the light of a floorlamp on her first night here.
Never: There are two reasons for this. One is that you can get electrocuted, which is not only deadly but very unpleasant, and the other is that you are not Violet Baudelaire, one of the few people in the world who know how to handle such things. And even Violet was very careful and nervous as she unplugged the lamp and took a long look at the plug itself.
It might work. Published in September 30th the book become immediate popular and critical acclaim in fiction, childrens books. One of the Best Works of Lemony Snicket. Please note that the characters, names or techniques listed in The Bad Beginning is a work of fiction and is meant for entertainment purposes only, except for biography and other cases.
DMCA and Copyright : Dear all, most of the website is community built, users are uploading hundred of books everyday, which makes really hard for us to identify copyrighted material, please contact us if you want any material removed.
0コメント