Chapter 5
It is never a good idea to drink poison. Literally, we all know that this phrase advises us never to reach into a medicine cabinet, pull out a bottle marked poison, and drink it. Sometimes the bottle is not labeled, and it is up to you to figure out exactly what it is before you drink it. If you have ever read the childhood story Alice in Wonderland, then you will probably understand this explanation just a little better.
However, this phrase can be used metaphorically, which then means that it is never a good idea to do something you might regret later on. I, for instance, did a great many things that I came to regret later on, especially when reminders like electronic dartboards and sugar-flavored foods werre delivered to whatever abandoned facility I am staying in. When you do something that you think is necessary at a particular moment, but it turns out to be something that you came to regret later on, then you will know precisely how this works.
At this particular moment, the Baudelaires, having been reunited with all three of the Quagmire triplets, did a great many things that they came to regret later. The first thing they did was to walk slowly out of the hot air mobile home, which they came to regret when they later realized what Count Olaf was doing in the meanwhile. They also looked down at the ground as they walked from the opening of the mobile home to the deck of the boat, which they also came to regret when they later realized who Count Olaf was signaling high up in the air. And finally, the Baudelaires and the Quagmires sat in the boat kitchen, which they also came to regret when they later realized who was watching them.
But to them, none of these regrets were happening. Right now, their mixed feelings of joy and sadness kept them from speaking to each other. Finally, Sunny broke the silence by saying, "Hi."
The remaining children pulled themselves together, a phrase which here means, "wiped the tears off their faces and composed themselves," and started to talk to one another.
"What happened to you three?" asked Violet, her curiosity now overwhelming her sadness. "We thought we'd never see you again. After all, noble people have been killed left and right nowadays. It's a miracle that you're safe."
The three Quagmire triplets looked at one another. "It's a miracle that you're safe too, but I'm afraid it's a rather long story," Duncan said.
"Go ahead, we really want to hear it," said Klaus.
"Okay," said Isadora, taking a deep breath to relax herself. "Well, after we had seen the last of the Village of Fowl Devotees, Duncan, Hector, and I were doing everything we could to figure out a way to land back on the ground so we could find you three again. Unfortunately, the way Hector designed it made it impossible to do such a thing, and so we were trapped in the air, helpless, with nothing to help us descend."
"Meanwhile," continued Duncan, "Hector kept preoccupying himself with some very secretive notes that we were never able to see. He asked us multiple times, without telling us why, to be looking for signs of smoke. As you can very well imagine, one day we saw smoke coming from the hinterlands, only the strange thing was that it was coming from two different places at once: a place we learned to be the Caligari Carnival, and a secret headquarters in the Mortmain Mountains."
"Both!" Sunny cried, meaning something along the lines of "We were in both those places!"
Quigley nodded. "We know." He continued, "Meanwhile, after I had been separated from you three through the fork in the Stricken Stream, I mysteriously ended up in a large lake. I swam up to the dock and found a suitable taxi driver to take me where I needed to go. However, as soon as I got in the car, she looked back at me and said, 'You're Quigley Quagmire, right?' I was shocked that she knew my name, but what shocked me even more was that she revealed to me that she was Jacques Snicket's sister."
"Kit," said Violet. "We saw her at the Hotel Denouement, and she told us you were busy going to save your siblings. What happened?"
Quigley continued, "Well, she told me of the great peril that my siblings and of course, you Baudelaires, were in, so I knew something had to be done. Thankfully, Kit happened to know how to send a message to the submarine you were on, as she told me she used to work on it. She also knew of the hidden books on board, so she was able to help me send the messages from the poems. Once that was done, I was able to commandeer a helicopter and try to find my siblings."
"As you can imagine," said Isadora, "we were in grave peril on that self-sustaining hot air mobile home. Many villains knew we were still alive, and so we were soon faced with a pack of eagles led by that despicable associate of Olaf's."
"Which one? He has many associates," Klaus asked, thinking in his mind just who this possible associate might be.
"The hook-handed man."
In an instant, the Baudelaires suddenly remembered the hook-handed villain who helped Olaf with his nefarious schemes time and time again. They all thought of Fernald, his given name, and remembered vaguely wondering what he was doing with his sister Fiona while they were at the Hotel Denouement. When the hook-handed man was in the brig of the octopus-shaped submarine with them, he had been of some help to them by helping them escape, but he also ratted them out to Count Olaf in the end.
"By the way," Duncan mentioned, "I don't suppose you know how the hook-handed man fits in to the submarine catastrophe. My siblings and I tried putting our heads together, but we're at a loss."
"Widdershins son," Sunny whispered, but she spoke loudly enough so that the rest of the people at the table could hear her.
It is a funny feeling to have a sudden revelation, a phrase which here means, "suddenly figuring out something that you couldn't figure out before." For instance, if you had no idea why your cellmate was busy trying to pour water down the stone wall of the prison, suck it up with bread, and then repeat the process, but then you were to suddenly receive a bit of miscellaneous information about the strength of water and the tedious process of erosion, then you would have a sudden revelation as to just exactly why he was doing it.
At this point in the story, all three Quagmires had a sudden revelation at the same time. They had many pieces of the puzzle, but this piece of information that the hook-handed man was the son of Captain Wallace Widdershins was enough to cinch their long-standing theory.
"Of course!" Quigley cried. "This makes perfect sense! That would explain why he burnt down the rhetorical advice center!"
"Not to mention," Isadora added, "why he has hooks instead of hands!"
"And," Duncan finished, "why he was able to blackmail Mr. Poe!"
"Why would the hook-handed man want to blackmail Mr. Poe?" asked Klaus, expecting an answer that he could deal with.
Duncan replied, "Because Captain Widdershins, in case you don't already know, is merely Fernald and Fiona's stepfather. You see, the truth is that the hook-handed man, had it not been for the volunteers that snatched him away in his youth, would have been referred to as Fernald Poe."
"What?" asked all three Baudelaires simultaneously and with amazing astonishment. When you hear something you can't believe, you tend to react with normal astonishment, but when the Baudelaires heard from Duncan that the coughing unhelpful banker that used to handle their affairs was the son of a notorious villain who threatened them on many occasions was more than they could bear, so they reacted with amazing astonishment instead of normal astonishment.
"I'm sorry," Violet said. "I think I misheard you. Did you say that the hook-handed man is Mr. Poe's son?"
"Wait!" Klaus cried. "That would mean that Fiona is…"
"Mm-hmm!" Sunny shouted, nodding.
"Doesn't this make sense to you, Baudelaires? Wouldn't this explain a lot?"
It was at this point that Violet, Klaus, and Sunny had sudden revelations of their own, and they immediately realized how perfectly it worked.
"Of course!" Violet cried. "This explains why Mr. Poe was so unhelpful!"
"Not to mention," Klaus added, "why he said something about his sister being kidnapped!"
"And," Sunny finished, "why he bring us to Olaf in first place!"
"Exactly," Isadora said, smiling. "We'll tell you what we found out about Mr. Poe later. In the meantime, we have to figure out a way to foil Count Olaf's plan…"
"What was that, orphan?"
The Baudelaires and Quagmires looked at the doorway, and standing there was Count Olaf. The orphans had been so wrapped up in their sudden revelations, they had not heard the count walk over to the area and listen in on their conversation.
"So you've finally figured out why that idiotic banker was so unhelpful. He was blackmailed. Having his first son be a part of our team proved to be a tremendous asset. He was able to provide us with enough information to threaten that idiot banker and his family. As it was, he hid his family away somewhere, so I used that stupid reporter to kidnap his sister. When I found him, Fernald Poe Widdershins was a nobody, but thanks to me, he became a somebody."
"Wait," said Violet. "Why are you telling us all this?"
Olaf grinned, as if Violet had seen right through him. "Oh, I don't think it hurts to share a few secrets with the deceased."
Instantly, the hearts of all three children stopped, as if they had frozen when Count Olaf said the word "deceased." The word "deceased," of course, means "dead." The six children, like most normal people, were terrified of the thought of Count Olaf brutally murdering them without anyone knowing, let alone caring. As far as the general public was concerned, the Baudelaires dead would be a great miracle to them.
"You wouldn't kill us," Klaus said, although his facial expressions showed an entirely different reaction.
"Really?" the count sneered. "Let's see exactly how remorseful I've been. I killed Uncle Monty, his ridiculous assistant, Aunt Josephine, the former lumbermill foreman, the former Prufrock Prep gym teacher, Jacques Snicket, Babs, and even your par…"
Everyone stopped. Olaf stopped because he just let his worst possible secret slip. The Quagmires stopped because they were taken aback by this startling piece of news. The Baudelaires stopped because their eyes were filling with tears. They had always known that their home had been destroyed by an awful fire, and they had also always known that Count Olaf was a horrible arsonist, but they had always thought that the fire had been the result of something else. They never wanted to bring their minds across the possibility that Count Olaf set their house in flames and killed their parents, and whoever else was in there. Now, knowing that this despicable villain set fire to their house and killed their parents, the Baudelaire orphans let out their anger in the most furious way possible.
"Murderer!" screamed Sunny, getting on the table and walking across to try and bite the count's nose off.
"Arsonist!" screamed Violet, running over to Olaf to try and pull his arm off.
"Villain!" screamed Klaus, walking over to Olaf to try and kick him in the shin.
The count looked outraged and threw the orphans off of him so that they got thrown to the ground. "How dare you! How dare you try and attack me! You ungrateful little brats! If it wasn't for me, you would have never met your dear, sweet Uncle Monty. If it wasn't for me, you would be swimming with the leeches. If it wasn't for me, you never would have even known about VFD. And, if it wasn't for me, you wouldn't be here now!"
"We'd rather be anywhere else than here!" screamed Violet.
Olaf roared back, "What about your friends? If it wasn't for me, you would have never known them!"
"It's because of you they got involved!" Klaus cried.
"Wretch!" yelled Sunny.
In a rage of fury, the count grabbed Sunny and lifted her up as high as he could. "If you even dare talk back to me again," he shouted, "I swear I will bring her up to the deck and throw her into the ocean, and believe me, I will not feel remorseful in the slightest."
Their hearts pounding, Violet and Klaus sat back down, and slowly Olaf set Sunny back down on the table. They saw the Quagmires looking just as astonished as they, but they were trying to hold back their fury. The Baudelaires knew that temper tantrums, however fun they may be to throw, rarely solve whatever problem is causing them. The orphans admired how well the Quagmires were able to control themselves, but at the same time, they felt like they were ready to burst with emotion. Obviously, Count Olaf was referring to the Quagmire parents, as well as their own, but the Quagmires had known better than to let out a temper tantrum.
"Now then," said Count Olaf, "I must take care of a few things, and then we will be flying along. And when we do…" The count made a slicing motion on his neck, a motion which only has one meaning: deceased. He walked off, mumbling to himself.
"What are we going to do?" Isadora said, breaking the silence like a knife. "If we sit around here and do nothing, Count Olaf will succeed, VFD will be crushed like a grape, and we'll be dead."
Despite the sadness the Baudelaires were feeling, they knew that it was not the right time to be sitting around and weeping. They pulled themselves together yet again, and got right back to their normal selves.
"Let's go," Sunny said, wiping her teeth with her fingernails.
"What are we going to do?" Duncan asked. "We can't very well run away."
Violet grinned, despite the circumstances. "But we can fly away."
In one instant, all six children ran outside of the boat. They didn't care if Olaf saw them, for they were making a run for it, a phrase which here means, "going to board the self-sustaining hot air mobile home."
They ran through the ship without bothering to stop for anything they might need. Both the Quagmires and the Baudelaires knew that the mobile home should have enough food left to supply them until they figured out a way to get down.
"Head for the entrance!" Klaus yelled as they exited the boat and ran down the beach at top speed.
Quigley, being in front, yelled, "Count Olaf got there already!"
The count, naturally, heard all of this shouting, and looked up. Even more naturally, he looked positively shocked at the swarm of children coming towards him. Instinctively, he got out of their way, but then realized just exactly what he was doing. Fortunately for the children, Sunny had been smart enough to bite the rope just near the tip of the harpoon gun, so the hot air mobile home would be airborne by the time they got on it.
Olaf jumped and grabbed the side of one of the baskets. The Baudelaires and Quagmires felt him climbing aboard, so they continued to run. The various baskets were excellent hiding places, for Count Olaf was too big to fit through all of the narrow walkways in between.
"If we make it to the basket with the excess food," Duncan explained, "we can easily detach it from the rest of the baskets and get it to take off on its own."
"You mean, like a hot air balloon," Violet added.
"Correct," Duncan replied.
"Let's go!" Sunny cried, and the orphans continued to run.
Meanwhile, the count was forcing his way through the walkways. "Where are you children? You should not have tried to run! When I find you, I will kill you right here and now!"
The screaming of the count only made the children run faster from him. At last, the orphans made it to the basket containing crates that were labeled things like "APPLES," "BREAD," and "CUCUMBERS." The Baudelaires and the Quagmires squeezed themselves inside the basket, and then Violet took out her ribbon.
She tied her hair up, as she always did when trying to think, so that she could try and figure out how they could detach the basket from the rest of the self-sustaining hot air mobile home. In a few seconds, Violet had the idea brilliantly in her head. She opened the crates of bread, and sure enough, she found exactly what she was looking for: a very stale piece. She took the bread and used it to separate the straw connecting the two baskets.
"Hurry up, Violet!" Klaus said in desperation, watching Count Olaf tear his way through the other baskets towards them.
"You foul, vile children!" screamed the count. "You'll not escape from my clutches again! Not when you're so close!"
At last, Violet had managed to tear the straw apart, and held on to Sunny tight as their basket drifted away from the count.
"Look!" Duncan cried, pointing to Count Olaf.
The children turned and looked, and saw, to their astonishment, Count Olaf looking down at the ground with a feeling of fear in his eyes. He hadn't exactly been paying attention to the increasing elevation of the mobile home, and now, seeing how high up he was, the count looked positively terrified.
"Help?" asked Sunny.
The rest of the orphans looked at one another. They knew it was always a noble deed to help someone in need, but this was a man who had, himself, murdered countless people, along with their parents, and continuously threatened them with death. Had the children been older, like other volunteers that would have known better, they would have at least figured out some way of helping Count Olaf get to the ground, rather than watching a man die because of their misdeeds. But the orphans were too filled with grief to care. As the self-sustaining hot air mobile home sailed away, they couldn't help but bring their minds back to the conversation that they were having before the villain interrupted.
"I suppose we should tell you what happened," Isadora said. "Well, once Quigley had finally managed to arrive at our location, the hook-handed villain was attacking us. You may have noticed that the balloons that are holding this basket up have minor bandages on them."
"Unfortunately," Quigley continued, "Hector would not give up his life and the secrets he held aboard without a fight, so he tried defending himself. Naturally, the hook-handed man drew in closer to him, and the two of them had it out. Punches were thrown, lips were bleeding, and eventually, the worst happened."
The Baudelaires all tensed up when Quigley said "the worst," for they knew exactly what was about to be said.
"Hector slipped over the side of the basket," Duncan continued. "In desperation, he grabbed onto the hooks of the hook-handed man as he dangled above the water. The hook-handed man, riding one of the eagles, tried to shake Hector off, until finally, we heard the whooshing of air. My siblings and I peeked over the side, and what we found was Hector falling into the sinister waves of the ocean, with the hook-handed man falling just above him."
Violet, Klaus, and Sunny were unsure of how to react. On one hand, a horrendous villain who had threatened them time and time again was dead, but then again, so was a man who had been somewhat of a friend to them at a time when no one else was there. The children knew that the right thing to do was to mourn the loss of a fellow volunteer, and so that is what they did.
"I feel so awful," Violet said. "We could have avoided all of our misfortunes just by getting on board with you, and maybe none of these awful things would have happened."
"It's not your fault, Baudelaires," Quigley said. "We had no idea all of this was going to happen. No one can predict the future."
The Baudelaires knew that Quigley spoke the truth. It is impossible to actually predict the future, unless of course you happen to be a historical person of great significance who is best known for wearing a multicolored coat. The Baudelaires, of course, do not, and probably will never, have no historical significance, and to the extent of my knowledge, none of them owned coats of multiple colors. However, throughout my dismal stories of the suffering and misery of the Baudelaire orphans, there have been times when they have made conjectures, a word which here means "guesses," about what was to lie ahead for them. In most of these cases, they were correct.
Now the Baudelaires made another one of their conjectures. They had a strange feeling that this hot air balloon trip that they were taking would only lead to disaster. Sure, they were with their friends, away from the horrible villain that had accidentally admitted that he had killed their parents and burnt their home to the ground, but they had experienced too much misfortune in their lives to regard the rest of their lives as fortunate. Lots of people have unfortunate events in their lives that are usually balanced out by equally fortunate events. The Baudelaires, as you well know, are not these people.
Many, many, many years ago, the poet known as Aesop wrote a fable entitled "The Bear and Two Travelers." In this story, two unknowing volunteers are walking down a lone path, when suddenly a bear comes out of nowhere. The first man quickly scampered up the tree and hid from the bear. The other one lay still on the ground, hoping the bear wouldn't eat him. Fortunately for him, the bear passed him by, but not before whispering something in his ear. The first man climbed down from the tree and said, "What did that bear say?" The second man replied, "He told me not to trust someone as a friend who abandons you in times of peril."
I regretfully regret to say that the moral of this story applies readily to the Baudelaires and the Quagmires in the chapters to come. The moral, written by Aesop, was "Misfortune trusts the sincerity of friends." Sometimes, in order to avoid trouble, people save themselves and leave their friends in the middle of a troublesome situation. But before I conclude this chapter, I have a question for you to ponder, dear reader, as you finish off this story: When the bear of misfortune interferes with the long and winding road that the orphans are traveling on, who will be the ones climbing up the tree, the Quagmires or the Baudelaires?