Chapter Nine
Violet and Sunny ran and ran until they could run no more. They had reached a small warehouse and had just enough time to slip inside without being caught. Inside were many shelves lined along the walls and on the shelves rested hundreds of thousands of boxes.
"Wow." said Sunny quietly.
"Shh." said Violet. Violet heard voices. She inched her way closer and closer until the voices were loud enough that they could hear what they were saying.
"You children were wrong to try and escape, and that is why you are here now. You are not to try and escape here, or we will be forced to kill you."
Violet peered from behind the wall into the big room that the voice was coming from. She saw a room full of young children, and amidst the crowd she spotted someone very familiar.
"Klaus!" she said quietly. Then she turned back to Sunny. "Klaus is in there with other kids. We need to get them out of there!" she said. Sunny nodded.
Violet pulled out her hair ribbon and tied her hair back so it wouldn't get into her eyes. Sunny knew she was thinking of an invention.
"If we had something to pull down all of these shelves at the same time…" she said. "Then all the boxes would fall, and that would cause a commotion, and everyone would head over here to… Sunny, bite me off a piece of cardboard, and look for a writing utensil lying around."
"Okay." said Sunny, and she set off to work. Violet looked on the ground and in the boxes for anything that could be used to write with, and she found this old fashioned pen.
"This'll do." she said. "Sunny, you have that cardboard ready?"
"Check!" said Sunny.
Violet took the cardboard from her sister's tiny hand and began to write: Shh. This is not a trick. We are going to start a distraction. Get out when everyone's heads are turned. Violet looked at them and a few of them nodded.
"Some of them got it. Now onto the next step." She sat down and thought. "I have an idea, but we need the exact things if it's going to work. Look for rope, a piece of leather, a sharp hook, a bowling ball, and some kind of shooting device."
"Okay!" said Sunny. The two of them got to work, Violet found rope, a bowling ball, and Sunny found a rigid hook and an old shot gun.
"Now all we need is the leather…" said Violet. The searched but found nothing. "I guess we could use one of these boxes." she said. "Sunny, I'll do this part, I just need you to climb all the way to the top of those shelves. Can you do that?"
"Si!" said Sunny, and she started climbing. Meanwhile, Violet, who was busy at work, managed to put the rope in the hook, tie the rope to the lids of the box, and fit the hook into the shot gun. Then she found a bunch of pillows and placed them in a pile next to her.
"Let's hope this works!" she said. She aimed the gun at the ceiling and fired. Just as she predicted, the hook went straight up in the ceiling with the rope in it. On one side of the rope the box was tied, and on the other there was a hanging rope that Violet could use for bringing the box up and down. She brought it down, and carefully placed the bowling ball inside.
"You up there Sunny?" she called quietly.
"Yes." said Sunny.
"Ok. I'm going to pull this up, and I want you to place it directly over the top shelf, and make sure it stays! Then jump down onto the pillows. Ok?"
"Okay!" said Sunny. Sunny did her job well, until she had to jump.
"Scary!" she said.
"Sunny, you'll be fine! Hurry up, I think the box is ripping!" And she was right. Just as Sunny jumped off, the bowling ball fell out of the box onto the first shelf, which broke and hit the next one, which broke, and caused a chain reaction.
"Yes!" said Violet. She picked up her sister out of the pillow pile and ran for the exit. She waited for the other children outside, and they soon began to show up.
"Violet!" said Klaus as he hugged his sister.
"Oh Klaus!" said Violet.
"Klaus!" said Sunny, not wanting to be left out.
"I was so worried about you two!" said Klaus.
"Well, we're glad everyone's safe. Let's go before they come out."
"Come on everyone, follow me!" said Violet, leading all the children into the depths of the forest.
In the miserable, unfortunate lives of the Baudelaires, this was one time where they were all safe and sound, and for that, they were very fortunate indeed.