Author's Note
I do not own A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Kyra had found a rock bigger than both her hands put together. She tottered back to the automobile with it and heaved it over her head with all her tiny might, throwing it at one of the windows. It clattered from the glass and bounced to the ground.
"Again Kyra!" Elias shouted. "Again!"
The car telephone began to ring, making them all jump. Klaus picked it up with a shaking hand, fearful it would be Count Olaf calling to gloat in their last moments.
"Count Olaf?" said a very familiar voice. "Hello? Poe, I'm calling you back about that inheritance question you raised."
"Mr. Poe!"
"Yes!" shouted Loki. That had to be the first bit of good luck they had had in weeks.
"Who is this?" asked Mr. Poe, sounding very confused indeed.
"It's Klaus Baudelaire; we're in Count Olaf's car!"
"Oh." Mr. Poe did not sound very happy or impressed about that fact. "Well, where's Count Olaf?"
"He's not here right now, but-"
"You're driving the car alone?"
"No!" Klaus snapped, trying to work out how to explain. "No; the car is on the train tracks and the train is coming."
There was a deafeningly loud noise in the background of the call, like a screeching sort of whistle.
"I'm sorry Klaus, I can't hear a thing! I'm driving next to a train!"
Finn leant over Klaus's shoulder. "Drive faster!"
"What's that now?"
"Drive faster! We're going to be hit by a train!"
The noise in the background of the call was nearly drowning Mr. Poe out now, an unbearable sort of din.
"Klaus, I can't hear because of the train!"
"No-"
"I'll see you at the performance this afternoon! Goodbye!"
The call cut out.
The four boys sat in silence. Kyra threw the rock at the window again. It clattered off a fifth time.
"She's not strong enough," Loki said sadly.
"Klaus, you must have read about trains," Finn said. "What do we do?"
Violet and Indigo had been manhandled to a taxi rank. Violet felt filthy with Count Olaf's hand in her shoulder, and the hook of the Hook-Handed man was digging into Indigo's wounded shoulder so much it was drawing blood through Sofia's bandage.
"Where's the third one, and those awful biting brats?" he asked the henchperson of indeterminable gender, who had returned alone.
"Couldn't find her Boss."
"Couldn't- ugh. Never mind." He leered a terrible smile at Violet, and then Indigo. "I've got all that I need."
"Boss? What do you want me to do with the dog?" asked the Hook-Handed man.
Count Olaf glared at Dog, who was still following at Indigo's heels and trying to bite the heels of the Hook-Handed man.
"Leave it. Filthy mutt."
"He is not!" Indigo protested weakly, before noticing something she was more interested in. Count Olaf opened the door of one of the taxis.
The henchperson of indeterminable gender got in first, and then Count Olaf spread an arm for Violet and Indigo.
"In you get."
Violet put her right hand out to steady herself as she climbed into the taxi. Damien would have been able to run further, she thought bitterly, but her overall plan had worked.
Then she looked at her right hand again as she sat down, and thought very, very hard.
Indigo climbed in at her side, and the Hook-Handed man on her other side, and the two Women after him. Violet and Indigo pressed very tight together as the door closed and Dog was left barking outside.
Indigo leant in to Violet's shoulder. "Where's Sunny?"
Violet shook her head, daring not to speak for fear one of them might hear her and circle round to pick up Sunny from where she had abandoned her.
Instead, she looked at her right hand and thought, harder than she had in her entire life.
Sunny, meanwhile, had sat in the clothing display for a very long time.
Violet never came back, and nor did Indigo or Sofia come to find her.
Sunny wasn't sure what time it was, but she was sure it had been ages and ages, so she crawled out from the display and looked about herself. She could see no landmarks she knew, in fact, she could see very little past the legs of those walking up and down the street.
But Violet, she remembered, had said she must get to the police, so she began to crawl towards the end of the street. Perhaps then she could see where she was and find a landmark to find someone or something that had helped. She remembered her trip to the banking district, but somehow she didn't think Mr. Poe would be much help.
She needed to find help though, and it didn't look like any of these shopowners were going to provide it, so she made herself keep going even though it was slow and tedious, and she ached from being wrapped in ropes.
Finally she reached the end of the street, and stopped to try and catch her bearings. A woman in a long dark dress stepped over her head and another steered a large pram around her, clicking her tongue in disapproval. Sunny was very tempted to stop and cry, but she didn't see how that would help anything, so she continued to crawl until at last something she did recognise came into sight.
The bookshop owner ended up helping Sofia out from under the table and sitting her down in a big comfortable armchair while he fetched a mug of cocoa for her. Sofia held Noah there on her lap and stared at the door as though Count Olaf might walk in at any moment – which, she thought bitterly, he might.
Should she go out there, she wondered, and look for Violet and Indigo? What if they had been captured? What should she do then? But what if they hadn't, and they were out there looking for her?
The shopowner returned with a soft purple mug of rich looking cocoa and a plastic sippy cup of milk, both of which he set down on the small table beside her. "There we go. Cocoa for you, and milk for the little one. Do have a drink, you'll feel much better, and I'll see about finding out who your parents are."
"My parents are dead," Sofia said without thinking about it, and then froze.
Her parents were dead.
She said the words.
She made it real.
She held Noah close and shook, rocking herself slowly.
"Oh. Oh dear. Well, who do I call?"
"I don't know," Sofia whispered, and it was true, because she couldn't exactly say Count Olaf, could she? And Mr. Poe wouldn't help her and she didn't suppose the police would either, because Count Olaf was her legal guardian and therefore she would be classed as a runaway.
"That person works for my new guardian. He's a terrible man."
"Oh dear," said the shopowner again, with the barest hint of concern in his voice.
"He's going to marry my sister so he can steal our fortune."
The shopkeeper pulled another chair – had that been there before? – over. "Tell you what. Why don't we both drink some cocoa, and you can tell me about it. What are your names?"
Damien and Lavender had been walking for what felt like hours, with Damien now taking his turn to carry Phoebe when they saw it in the distance down the road.
"What's that?" Lavender asked a little fearfully.
Damien shifted Phoebe against him and lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. "I think it's a van."
Lavender smiled very, very widely, and all three of them stepped into the road, their hearts pounding with the hope of rescue – or, at least a short ride.
Anything, they thought, would be better than this endless desert.