Twelve
It is my sad duty to report to you that you are nearing the end of the beginning of the first part of another series of unfortunate events and it I'm sure as you must've realized by now there is yet another definition of a popular phrase I used a few chapters prior, that being "the light at the end of the tunnel."
For the Baudelaires, their hopes had been dashed to pieces as soon as they left the island they had known to be their home for the past twelve months and they returned to the world in general to brave the mysteries that still were unanswered.
Yet here, they stood before the council of V.F.D. the mysterious organization that had caused them more than enough trouble in the past, and in front of them stood three individuals they knew little or nothing about and sadly, none of these were willing to share even an inkling of an answer to the Baudelaires, except perhaps the one on the right because he was the most wicked of all, but even such an answer would not be the conclusion to the Baudelaires story, but merely a new beginning.
For as we close on the book on this moment in the children's very unfortunate lives I'm sorry to say that few of the things they hoped to have an answer to will be resolved.
The children will NOT find out any clues as regards their many companions whom they missed terribly since the awful fire at the Hotel Denouement, which they were partly responsible for.
And the orphans will NOT learn of how the schism occurred here at the Very Fine Dwelling ages ago and how the members of V.F.D. became both villains and volunteers.
And the Baudelaires will NOT discover what was written on the back of the photo they found at their old home in a half destroyed album.
And most importantly, perhaps, Violet, Klaus, Sunny and Beatrice would NOT get any closer to being free of the wicked ways of the world just as it would be impossible to escape a vicious swarm of honey bees by hiding behind a tree.
So now that you are aware of the fact that nothing good will befall the children during this chapter or the concluding one, I heartily encourage you once more to drop this story back into the garage and quickly dump other refuse on top of it so that no one will make the same mistake you obviously did and pick it up and read about the many bitter trials the Baudelaires have endured in their efforts to find out more about their parents and V.F.D. and the schism, and their friends and whether or not nobility or wickedness would triumph in the end.
If you should choose to continue to read this awful tale, I assure you that the only thing you will find at the end of it is more bitter tears and an unfortunate fire that would cause the orphans to once more have to flee.
The mob that had formed to push the children outside was now dispersed due to the decision that Mister Dominic had shockingly made and Falo was smiling in delight that the children were now members of V.F.D. even if Violet, Klaus, Sunny and Beatrice had no idea what that particularly involved.
As the members of the Very Fine Dwelling returned to their usual assignments, the evil twin of Count Olaf declared, "This is simply marvelous. We must celebrate! Professor Edwick! Prepare the Baudelaires a scrumptious feast in honor of their being inducted as members of our organization."
The older gentlemen nodded and then left the room without a word, leaving the orphans alone with the two people at the schoolhouse they were most uncertain of. "You look surprised, orphans," Mister Dominic said with a smile and then added, "Perhaps you were expecting a different result."
"We weren't sure what to expect," Violet admitted.
"But that certainly wasn't going to be our guess," Klaus stated.
"So now that we are members of V.F.D. what does that mean?" Sunny wondered.
"Why you have access to the archives, and to the kitchen and to the gardens of course," Falo explained as if it were obvious. At hearing this, the Baudelaires exchanged hopeful glances at one another, perhaps feeling now that they were finally getting somewhere in their quest for answers.
Or perhaps they were eager for the food to arrive as they smelled it and watched Professor Edwick and several other members bring it into the oval room.
Since it had been several days and they hadn't ate anything since Mister Dominic attempted to make them sick due to their highly allergic reaction to peppermints which hopefully you didn't read about, the Baudelaires were starving and cared little about what the food was. It is here, that I am happy to say that the children did get one thing and that was a good and healthy meal.
Beatrice got small bits of corn and some apple sauce, along with some milk, while Sunny drank orange juice and had slices of ham and turkey and Klaus had grape juice and ate corn on the cob and some chicken with barbeque sauce whereas Violet drank lemonade and had some sandwiches with olives in them and peaches as a side dish.
There was plenty of food this time for everyone to eat, and no one attempted to poison or taint the food that the children were eating and for the moment, all did seem right with the world. Let me remind you again however, that as this story draws to a close further horrible and unfortunate events will befall the Baudelaires they will be fighting for their lives again.
For as the volunteers finished their feast, and the food was rolled away, Falo yawned widely and remarked, "I suppose this is the end of a good day, children. I trust you'll be eager to start new assignments as noble volunteers in the morning."
The evil twin of Count Olaf drank one last sip of his tea and then departed thru the other exit and the Baudelaires were alone once again with the enigmatic Mister Dominic a word which here means "Violet, Klaus, Sunny and Beatrice weren't sure whether or not the tall well dressed man was a villain or a volunteer" and their instructor turned to them and stated, "I cannot say how thrilled I am also to see you are progressing quite well, orphans. Did you find what you were looking for in the passageways?"
"We found enough and almost died in the process," Violet declared.
"If Falo wasn't close by we might've drowned," Klaus remarked.
"I bet you had something to do with the sewers clogging," Sunny stated.
"My we are quick to accuse aren't we? I believe I just did you all a favor. You are now members of V.F.D. so you can freely discover the truth behind their ways and find out for yourself why they are hiding so much from you," their villainous instructor remarked and then added, "I'm sure there is a treasure trove of information in the archives waiting to be unearthed."
"How can we be certain that you aren't trying to trick us again?" Violet asked.
"Why would I do anything of the sort? You have nothing of importance to me," Mister Dominic pointed out and then added, "Falo is quite correct about one matter, the hour has grown late and I do believe it is time for sleep. I trust you know your own way back to the parking lot?"
"I thought we were just made members of V.F.D.," Sunny said in confusion and then added, "Why are we still being forced to sleep in those rundown buses?"
"I didn't say you were being forced to do anything, children. You are free to roam the schoolhouse now, and do what you please," the wicked man stated and then left the orphans to once again consider his mysterious words.
"I think we should head to the archives right away and find out what is going on here," Klaus stated.
"Maybe there are records on the schism," Sunny commented.
"Or we'll found out what happened to Hector, and the Quagmires, and Jerome," Violet suggested.
"Mister Dominic stated there was a bountiful amount of information stored there, we should go right away," the middle Baudelaire suggested as he picked up Beatrice and the four siblings left the room together.
The journey to the library was quick and once they arrived, the children were quite surprised to find it was unguarded. Instead as they opened the door to the dimly lit interior, they found that the archives were severely lacking in an abundance of things.
First off, and most importantly I might add, there was no organization to the piles of clutter that filled the archives of V.F.D. and even though I am quite certain that the four children knew a great deal about such matters, it would have taken all of their lifetimes to search thru the mess.
Not to mention that most of the articles were not even printed in books, instead piles of paper, half finished notes, ripped magazines and other documents that either looked completely destroyed or nearing such a state.
So the task in front of the children was definitely not a pleasant one, even if they did have all of their lifetimes combined there would probably still be little chance for them to find anything useful.
As I write this, I consider all of the things that might've been in this archive and how close the Baudelaires came to uncovering something truly remarkable, seeing as this library is long gone.
But as I write this, I am also aware of what they did find as you soon will be for despite the sheer impossibility of the task in front of them Violet, Klaus and Sunny each began to search thru the piles.
"How do we know what we're searching for?" Klaus asked.
"I suppose we'll know whenever we see it," Sunny remarked.
"There could be thousands of articles in here," Violet lamented.
"Mister Dominic knew that this wouldn't help us any, that's why he didn't care whether or not we became volunteers," the middle Baudelaire growled.
"Let's not despair yet, there could prove to be valuable information somewhere here and all we have to do is work together to find it," the eldest orphan suggested.
"I suppose that makes sense, Violet," her younger sister agreed and Beatrice said "Rawakan" which I'm sure was her way of agreeing with the suggestion that her adopted older sister had just made.
So each of the children took to a particular pile of articles and began sorting them, Klaus decided to go to the southeast corner of the library and started there, looking thru magazines on cooking, and painting, fencing and diving, hunting and falling, building and whales, and occasionally a few on kittens, although those were of little interest to the middle Baudelaire even if they were quite pleasant to read.
I'm sure if I had the time I would've stopped there with those particular documents, but the children didn't have the time, because as I have aforementioned, their time was running out.
So, Klaus merely skimmed thru the mess and hoped to find anything of interest regarding the schism or perhaps V.F.D. itself. Sunny and Beatrice on the other hand went to the western part of the archives and started digging thru piles of books and old volumes on water and dancing, quilts and voles, windmills and ravens, forests and trees, spiders and scales, drawings and waves, sun and moon, and all sorts of other topics of every variety that would take ages to list, and since none of these things had to with something that the Baudelaires were searching for, the two youngest orphans simply tossed aside what they didn't need and continued to dig.
Violet went to the other corner and started filing articles on dogs and airplanes, history and igloos, thunder and lightning, swords and dolphins, mushrooms and chemists, puzzles and indexes and on occasion looked thru them for any reference to any book or volume or article that might be of some interest to their cause a phrase which here means "Violet hoped to find a secret of some sort within these volumes that would help her and her siblings uncover what V.F.D. was up to, and more importantly, what Mister Dominic was plotting."
After about an hour and a half of useless searching, the Baudelaires sat in the middle of the archives and brought what little they had found that they each had thought might help.
"I found this map of the Very Fine Dwelling which was created years ago, it shows what this schoolhouse was like whenever it was first built," Klaus said and then pointed to the underside of the map and added, "I found these water stain marks on the back and I'm assuming there is a secret map of some sort here."
"Even if there is such a map, I doubt we could use it since that design was made ages ago," Violet said but then added, "I suppose its better than what I found. I only managed to scrounge up some old indexes which had references to the formation of V.F.D. unfortunately its just an index, so it wouldn't be as useful as the real article."
"But it was good thinking for you to look thru those indexes, it gave us an idea of what else might be hidden in this mess," Sunny commented and then added, "Those were both better than what we found. Just old newspaper articles by someone named L.S. who worked at the Daily Punctilio."
"Edesti," Beatrice stated, which probably meant "They're not all by someone L.S. one or two are by someone named D" or perhaps, "I thought these articles were pointless and told you they weren't important."
Violet and Klaus exchanged a glance and then the middle Baudelaire asked, "Can we see it Sunny?"
"Did I actually find something?" the youngest orphan asked as she passed the newspaper articles to her older siblings and they examined them.
"Possibly, after all Mister Dominic's first initial is D," Klaus explained. "But how can we be sure that he is the person who wrote these articles?" Violet wondered.
"This one's title is rather odd," her brother remarked and showed it to his other siblings who also agreed at the peculiar nature of the article.
" 'Why Starting Fires Is Better Than Stopping Them by D,'" Violet said reading aloud the title of the article and noting that most of the rest of the newspaper had been mired by time.
"What do you suppose this means?" Klaus wondered.
"Well, if the title is any indication… it could mean something quite shocking," his older sister commented.
"What would that be Violet? Please tell us what you're thinking," Sunny implored the eldest Baudelaire.
"Well, the title " 'Why Starting Fires Is Better Than Stopping Them' seems to tell us that Mister Dominic was writing about the advantages of being wicked rather than noble, but it would also tell us… that perhaps at one time he thought the opposite," Violet replied.
At this point, I must use a phrase that is so perfectly fitting that it requires very little definition because the phrase is actually quite literal in this sense for the next thirty seconds.
The phrase is "couldn't hear a pin drop" and that is to say that the library became so silent at what Violet had just proclaimed that if someone had chosen to drop a pencil or pin onto the floor then it is quite likely that no one would hear it due to the fact that the orphans had become silent to contemplate this unexpected revelation.
In fact, the only thing that broke the silence was the arrival of another person to the archives, and so at this point a pin was dropped and the children turned to hear the soft footsteps approaching and felt their hearts drop as they saw Mister Dominic standing in the doorway of the library.
Their wicked instructor stared at them ominously as he entered the archives and then muttered, "Baudelaires, I see you decided to come here after all, did you find what you were looking for?"
"Not really," Klaus said as he rolled up the map.
"Let me see that," the well groomed man suggested as he snatched the map from the middle orphan's hand and then smiled before remarking, "I remember when your father created this map, he was so proud of the secret map of the passageways he'd made on the back that he made the foolish mistake of showing another volunteer who actually turned out to be a villain and well, that was that…"
Then he turned to Violet and asked, "And what did you chance upon?"
"Nothing of importance," the eldest Baudelaire answered, but already Mister Dominic was glancing thru the indexes and muttering, "I remember whenever my good friend Jacques wrote this index in an attempt to chronicle everything V.F.D. had done yet instead allowed the villains to uncover secrets we'd been successfully hiding until then… and that was that."
Mister Dominic then turned his attention to the youngest orphans and snatched the articles from the Daily Punctilio away from Beatrice and Sunny and then frowned and the children all waited to see what the reaction would be of their wicked adversary.
Once again no one could hear a pin drop as Mister Dominic folded the article up and then remarked, "So I see you have found a snippet of information that has proved useful to you…"
The orphans all looked at one another unsure of what to say and then Violet asked, "Did you write this article?"
"I did," Mister Dominic answered.
"Were you telling of the advantages of being wicked rather than noble?" Klaus asked.
"I was," Mister Dominic stated as he watched the children's expressions and then Sunny asked, "Were you once a noble person yourself?"
At this, the wicked instructor smiled and said, "I see at last you have come to realize what I wanted to teach you all along. And now that you have, you must follow me."
Immediately, Mister Dominic turned and left the archives and uncertainly, the Baudelaires followed. He walked straight thru the halls to the parking lot beyond and once they arrived there, he closed the door and remarked, "Noble people can become wicked, children; just as wicked people can also become noble. You assumed when you met me that I was a wicked individual, yet now you know this was not always the case… and yet you still assume that your parents were always noble people… and never did anything wicked."
"I suppose there is a lot that we are uncertain of," Klaus admitted.
"You are too trusting as well," their wicked instructor remarked as he turned to them with the usual evil smile they had become used to seeing and he added, "For example, you unwisely chose to follow me out here alone to the parking lot… instead of doing the proper thing and warning Falo and V.F.D. that there is a villain in their midst."
He took a step closer to the children and added, "And now children, I believe I will employ the very axiom you discovered."
What happened next was so unexpected and sudden that Violet, Klaus and Sunny and Beatrice had no time whatsoever to react as Mister Dominic grabbed all four of the children in his arms and then rushed toward the dilapidated bus they had been staying in and quickly tossed the children inside.
As Violet and her siblings hit the hard floor, they turned to try to confront the wicked instructor, only to find he had shut the driver's door and then Mister Dominic broke the handle off.
"What're you doing?" Klaus cried out in surprise.
"I think its high time you children were out of the picture, after all how else are my plans supposed to work if you continue to interfere?" Mister Dominic countered and then reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a box of matches.
"Now I can show you firsthand why it is better to start fires then to stop them," he remarked as he lit several matches and then tossed them onto the tires of the bus. Immediately the front tires became scorched and Mister Dominic ran his fingers thru his shiny combed hair and remarked, "So sorry, orphans, but it looks like all your hopes have just gone up in smoke."