Chapter 11: Goblins
There are many dangerous things in this world, so many, in fact, that it is nearly impossibly for most people to come into contact with all of them – I say most because I myself have faced 93 per cent of all the world's known dangers except those in Brazil including, but not limited to, wild anacondas, jaguars, and Brazilians. But never – until recently due to research – have I ever come into the most prevalent danger known to mankind: drugs. I am sorry to say, Sunny was going through a terrible experience which I had never before been forced to endure in my own flight for life.
The Vials of Frog Delirium hold many unique characteristics but it also carries one distinct connection with other drugs; it takes a while to kick in. I am sure that you don't need me to tell you what happened as the individual opened the chest hood to reveal a sweating Sunny panting under several layers of her own clothing but I will anyway because some people are slower then others – a phrase here which means, "some people are teachers". Sunny's accidental intake of the Frog Delirium earlier that day kicked in and quite miraculously.
Sunny's hood lifted to reveal her savior who appeared to be none of then Mr. Poe who, for some inexplicable reason, had donned himself in white face paint and bright red clothes along with shoes too ridiculously big to possibly fit him. Mr. Poe appeared to have become a clown of sorts. This frightened Sunny to gibbering protests as he leaned over to pick her up.
It should probably be noted at this point that one of the chief side effects of the Vials of Frog Delirium are hallucinations – a word here which means "seeing Mr. Poe dressed up as a clown when he was actually dressed up like any normal banker" – and a feeling of certainty that you know what you are doing even if you have no idea.
So, Mr. Poe picked up the frightened Sunny who was flailing in an attempt to get out of his arms. It was not specifically that she was afraid of clowns or anything because that would have been an irrational fear, she was scared because Mr. Poe clearly had gone insane and decided to run off with the circus.
Mr. Poe muttered something inconsequential in an attempt to calm Sunny down to no avail. Sunny twisted and bit down on Mr. Poe's hand who immediately dropped her in shock – a word which I would use to describe my exact feelings when I figured this fact out myself; Sunny was an infant – and she quickly crawled at speeds which could have won her an award for Fastest Crawl Ever.
"Sibs!" she screamed over her shoulder to the clown and kept going full speed ahead. After much work at translating that word I have finally come to an understanding that it is far more complicated then all of her other weird phrases, this one means "I have to go save my siblings from Count Olaf because you are too busy looking like a clown to be much of any help, but if you really want to you can follow me anyway and perhaps you'll be able to do something useful unlike you normally do; it is really annoying having you around only to make a folly of everything and get everything completely wrong in the end." It is a lot for one sentence, I know, and their old Aunt Josephine would have had a fit at seeing that sentence, but that wasn't all it meant, I also believe it was a play at words because "Sibs!" also means "It's about time your looks mirror your intelligence level!"
When she reached the back door, she paused, and looked out at what greeted her eyesight in hopes of (a) finding a way to track where the elder Baudelaires were taken to and (b) not seeing any goblins. Unfortunately, one of these was not awarded to her.
She looked down to find goblins, she looked out into the woods to find goblins, and she looked behind her to see a clown chasing after her. She was off to the races once again.
"That way miss Baudelaire!" said one brown goblin who was previously pretending to be a pine cone while pointing in the appropriate direction. "You can see their foot prints in the mud without a problem." Sunny looked too closely at what he was pointing out and found the mud was made up of hundreds of tiny goblins, all grinning with more then a touch of madness. Perhaps, in retrospect, the feeling of certainty probably comes from the fact that the goblins tell you what to do. Such that even though Sunny had no idea how to track peoples footprints, she did so with utmost skill and with a pure sharp-edged confidence.
She at once crawled along on her way, much to the despair of many goblins crying out in agony as she squished them into a pulp. This was going to be a very long crawl.
Violet looked at Klaus, Klaus looked at Violet. They were both afraid and who can blame them? Not only did they believe that Olaf just went off to capture their sister but they were being held hostage themselves by an angry person who weighed too much for his own good and had the inherent looks of a villain – a phrase here which means "ugly" or "scary", for if a villain has neither of these qualities he would not be taken seriously and no one would actually be afraid of him. Without fear, a villain is worthless.
People – namely the Baudelaire orphans – were afraid of Count Olaf because he also had the trait of looking frightening even when he was gibbering with joy – although, I must admit, this is usually because he only gibbers with said joy when he has the poor unfortunate orphans in his power. Olaf, I'm afraid to say, was gibbering in joy when he arrived back from wherever it was he went off to. Making a quiet entrance was beyong Olaf who simply had to fling the double doors open – making a loud sudden screeching noise from the hinges – and walk in with a flair.
As said, villains appear to be scary because it is in their nature to be scary. Not wanting to diminish their representation, they also choose frighting-looking props to carry around to threaten their captives, hostages, or rivals with. Olaf's props were particularly scary looking, he had what appeared to be a long coil of frayed rope and a rusty old dagger that was probably left out in the rain too many – approximately 30 billion too many – times.
Olaf grinned at the children in such delight that the children quivered under his intense joy. Making people happy is usually something good people aspire to, but this wasn't exactly what the Baudelaires conceived as an appropriate subject to make happy, nor were they quite pleased about what they were going through to make him happy.
He took the rope and used the rusty dagger to cut it in half and the Baudelaires watched aptly as Olaf wound the rope into a slip knot and hung it off the arm of one of the tallest statues in the room. The Baudelaires dreaded what that was going to be used for.
He took the other piece and cut it into fourths and managed to secure them to each of the four corners of the altar using small holes, conveniently rope size as if they were built for such an occasion and left the other end of each rope leading in toward the middle.
"It has come to my attention," Olaf said fastening the final rope down, "that the law states only one of you has to be alive to receive the ransom money. I figure that, Sunny still being young, could grow to accept being my little protégé until she dies unexpectedly when she turns 18 years old and leaves all the money for me to inherit. Nice little girl aren't you, Sunny?"
"OOK!" Willis belted in belief that it was the appropriate time to shout something that sounded indignant.
"And well," continued Olaf ignoring the interruption, "I figured since we were in a temple we could perform a religious sacrifice, so to say." Cue manic grin.
"So uh," Olaf said after a brief pause to watch his grin take effect, "Why don't you tie up Klaus and I'll get Violet all nice and set up for the festivities," Olaf told the individual who looked like neither a man nor a woman.
So they did. Klaus struggled mightily to this treatment and almost broke free from the fat person but his efforts ended up useless because he still wound up tied securely to the altar with the rope cutting off some of his circulation.
Violet suffered the same fate being dragged over to where the noose was held up and was stood up on a small section of a water-logged tree-trunk then had the rope pulled over head and pulled tight enough that she could feel the bristles scratch her neck all the way around. Violet felt the log under her wobble precariously.
Willis, in the mean time, managed to scramble into a good enough position to get his teeth into the rope and start gnawing on his restraints.
It was then, with the elder Baudelaire children securely locked and restrained that a shadowy figure appeared in the entrance of the door.
Author Notes: Two more chapters remain and this one was my longest chapter yet (1600 words!). Please review! It makes all this writing worthwhile.
What kind of help will Mr. Poe lend?
Will the Baudelaires be rended before the end?