Two
"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" is an old saying that one of my good friends used to tell me every Decision Day before the vaporetto floated away and although I was too young to understand what he meant at the time,
I later discovered that this phrase not only had a connection to the secret organization we both had ties to; but could be used to tell people how they should rest quite frequently because you got a lot of sleep then it was possible that you would be healthy, wealthy and wise.
Presuming that this was the case for many years I followed his words to the letter, a phrase which here means "I chose to go to bed early each night and rise early the next morning, missing out on classes, masquerade balls and fishing tourneys and instead sleeping before these activities took place and then getting up early presuming that this would be me dashing good looks, a vast fortune and insurmountable knowledge" but sadly not a single one of the things that I wished to obtain was given to me because of my sleep schedule,
so if I were ever to meet my colleague again I would inform him that he was wrong and that I had been fooled, but sadly he is dead now so I don't see that happening anytime soon. In fact, the phrase "early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" is entirely wrong because no exact schedule will ever be able to be set for your sleeping methods because circumstances; such as being stuck on a train, change that schedule each day.
And the reason that I opening this chapter with this old saying is because the Baudelaires might've felt that they had gone to bed early and they had risen early the next morning; but they certainly didn't feel healthier, wealthier or wiser, but still felt rather sick, poor and lacking the funds that they needed in order to make a proper investigation of V.F.D. and the many secrets the organization held.
Klaus was the first to wake up and stretched and felt his stomach churn, reminding him that it had been quite some time since either he or his siblings had had a decent meal so whenever Violet and his younger siblings rose and stretched he commented, "Do you suppose that the In-Finite Express has a dining car?"
"I don't know," Sunny admitted as she yawned and helped Beatrice out of bed before commenting, "I bet that one of those attendants might know something about that Klaus." "I'll go ask him about it," the middle Baudelaire decided; taking the key from off of one of the small stands where Violet had laid it some hours earlier and heading into the corridor.
It is here that the middle orphan made a serious mistake, as I'm sure you'll recognize whenever he comes across someone that he wasn't expecting to see onboard the train and I would say had Klaus know he would make such an error he might've chosen to stay in his room beside his siblings and might've even wanted to lock the door.
But sadly, he foolishly chose to venture to the boarding car where his siblings had entered the In-Finite Express and noted that no one was there, so he opened the door to the car in front of him and nearly bumped into a shorter woman with frilly hair, hoop earrings, clean blond eyebrows and dark brown eyes, who was also wearing the same uniform the attendant the Baudelaires had met previously.
"I'm so sorry," Klaus offered as the attendant pushed the cart thru the narrow corridor into the open car and commented, "Where are you heading to?" "I was trying to find the dining car," he explained. She smiled knowingly and replied, "It is almost time for brunch isn't it?"
"I suppose, but I don't really know what time it is," he admitted, to which the attendant replied, "Not knowing what time it is can be a serious problem. But maybe I can help you by giving you a tour of our fine locomotive?" Klaus wondered how viewing the rest of the In-Finite Express would help him determine what the hour was, but kept these thoughts to himself as he nodded and stated, "Thank you very much."
"It's no problem whatsoever, by the way my name is Monday," she explained and Klaus answered, "My name is-" But then stopped before he made yet another grave mistake, because he remembered that to most of the world he and his siblings were considered fugitives and were even now on the run from both enemies and authorities who wished to do them harm and incarcerate them.
He stood there in the silence of the passenger car, unsure what to tell the train attendant; but thankfully the silence was broken as Monday exclaimed, "Oh dear me, are you another one of those fanatics?" Klaus wasn't sure what she meant but before he got a chance to ask she muttered, "I'm sorry where are my manners? I was going to give you a tour of this terrific train wasn't I?"
He nodded toward the frilly haired woman and said, "Yes, but I was more interested in finding the dining car." "Don't you worry, we'll arrive there soon enough, but there are several other interesting features of the In-Finite Express that I'm sure will interest a well-read person such as yourself," she stated, which made him wonder how it was the shorter lanky woman knew he enjoyed reading and became more nervous as he followed her thru yet another passenger car and they came to a wider car which was apparently being used as some sort of school, and there were several desks which didn't seem to be fastened to the floor and the attendant explained, "This is where Neophytes go to study for classes onboard the train whenever their parents are tending to other business."
Klaus wondered if there were any children his age and thought back to their good friends the Quagmires who were currently missing in action a phrase which here means "Neither Klaus nor his sisters had heard from Isadora, Duncan or Quigley in quite some time".
"Are there any students onboard this train?" he asked as they wandered into the next train car, which seemed to be made into a makeshift manicure parlor, and Monday answered, "I'm not sure, there are probably quite a few but you'd have to ask Donald or maybe one of the other older attendants. I'm new to this job and still learning the ropes."
Several passengers were sitting in barber chairs getting their nails trimmed and their hair cut, a practice I would recommend you never attempt to do whenever you are onboard a moving vehicle such as the one Klaus and the other Baudelaires currently were and the middle Baudelaire wondered how many of the patrons would complain about the miserable job the cosmetologists were doing not because they weren't trained properly but because they were onboard a train and therefore doing a good job was downright impossible.
As they moved into the next car, Klaus asked, "How much farther until we reach the dining car?"
"Oh quite some ways I am afraid; we've just made it to one of the larger cars; the lounge and I'm afraid we are nowhere near the dining car… you see the In-Finite Express pays homage to the alphabet, each of the twenty seven cars serves a practical person relating to a letter in the alphabet."
"But there are only twenty six letters in the alphabet," Klaus pointed out. "Precisely," Monday said with a smile as if this made perfect sense to her. "The first is the Administrative car, where our conductor and the others who run the train stay, followed by the Burning room where the lumber we use is burned so that we continue to go all speed ahead, the third is the Conductor's chamber where our conductor sleeps and the main intercom is at. The fourth chamber is the dining room, the one that you are very interested in getting to and as I mentioned before since we are only now at the lounge; there are still quite a few cars to go thru," Monday explained.
"E, F, G, H, I, J and K," Klaus said thoughtfully and then answered, "That's only seven cars; how long could that take?" Monday paused as they reached the middle of the lounge and said, "I'm not really sure, I've never really gone this way, and besides which passengers aren't allowed past the fifth car."
"But why is that?" the middle Baudelaire wondered.
"It's for Employees only," the train attendant responded
. "But how else am I supposed to obtain a meal for me and my sisters?" Klaus asked. "Well I'm pretty sure that you can find something at the restaurant which is located in the nineteenth car," Monday said with a smile
. "That would be back the way we have come," the middle orphan realized to which the attendant nodded and said, "Well you did say that you wanted to go to the dining room." "I need to go to somewhere where I can get a decent breakfast for me and my siblings," Klaus answered. "Seeing as you are currently staying in the quiet car, it won't be far for you to get there at all," Monday observed and then added, "I'm glad I could be of help to you, but now I must go about my other activities."
Even though the train attendant hadn't been much help at all to him, Klaus said thank you to the frilly haired woman and then left the lounge and walked thru the manicure passenger car, careful not to get in the way of the barbers or the cosmetologists who were working on the passengers there.
The fifteen year old briefly wondered about the odd system that the train used for its cars and also wondered what they used for the letters X and Y and Z, but decided for now the most important task for him would be to get breakfast for him, Beatrice, Sunny and Violet.
So as he walked into the car that was the nineteenth out of the twenty-seven cars of the In-Finite Express, Klaus wasn't particularly interested in listening to a show tune or to a song of any sort, but this was precisely what he was met with whenever a bearded man with a banjo strapped around his should moved in front of the middle Baudelaire and began singing joyfully, saying,
We are Volunteers Fighting Disease,
And we're cheerful all day long.
If someone said that we are sad,
That person would be wrong.
We visit people who are sick,
And try to make them smile,
Even if their noses bleed,
Or if they cough up bile.
Tra la la, Fiddle dee dee,
Hope you get well soon.
Ho ho ho, hee hee hee,
Have a heart-shaped balloon.
We visit people who are ill,
And try to make them laugh.
Even if the doctor says
He must saw them in half.
We sing and sing all night and day,
And then we sing some more.
We sing to boys with broken bones
And girls whose throats are sore.
Tra la la, Fiddle dee dee,
Hope you get well soon.
Ho ho ho, hee hee hee,
Have a heart shaped balloon.
We sing to men with measles,
And to women with the flu,
And if you breathe in deadly germs,
We'll probably sing to you.
Tra la la, Fiddle dee dee,
Hope you get well soon.
Ho ho ho, hee hee hee,
Have a heart shaped balloon.
As the bearded man with the banjo strapped over his shoulder finished singing his song, he passed a heart shaped balloon to Klaus and the middle orphan reluctantly took it and smiled slightly at the volunteer.
It would be hard to say how shocked Klaus was to see this volunteer fighting disease onboard the In-Finite Express since I myself didn't get to board the train, but he definitely felt that seeing this bearded man from the Heimlich Hospital was odd and Klaus also probably felt that in all of his days he never thought he would live to see the day that he would meet the V.F.D. group they'd met days and days ago until that awful day that the Heimlich Hospital burnt down and they'd not seen the Volunteers Fighting Disease since and had probably hoped that they never would.
"Are you sick?" the volunteer asked as he continued to strum his banjo cheerfully and Klaus replied, "Not really, I'm actually hungry."
"Well you came to the right car onboard this magnificent train, car nineteen; the restaurant; otherwise known as the Bistro Smelt," the bearded volunteer said and then frowned and asked, "You mean you don't have the measles or the flu or some other illness?"
"Well no, why would I?" Klaus Baudelaire wondered, to which the singing man replied, "I'm sorry but the heart shaped balloons I pass out are only for sick people and I don't normally ask this, but can you give it back?"
The middle orphan did so without question, choosing not to tell this volunteer fighting disease that he wasn't particularly interested in having a heart shaped balloon in the first place but would rather prefer a warm hearty meal.
As he passed it back to the banjo playing volunteer, Klaus walked thru the wide restaurant onboard the In-Finite Express and noticed that other members of V.F.D. were busy singing their hearts out to passengers of the In-Finite Express who were dining at the Bistro Smelt, and Klaus wondered if there was a particular car onboard the train specifically meant for these volunteers.
As he approached the counter in the center of the passenger car, Klaus got onto one of the barstools and waited for the attendant who was busy serving a drink to another passenger. Once he had finished pouring the ginger ale, the oddly dressed train attendant stood in front of Klaus silently. The middle orphan noted that he was wearing a costume that was supposed to make him look like the fish that the restaurant was named after, thus making his mouth obscured and impossible to talk; so Klaus said, "Hello, is there a menu I can look at?"
The attendant nodded and passed him one and as Klaus looked it over, there was a sound of laughter from the left side of the chamber; one that the well-read orphan immediately recognized. At first, Klaus was hesitant to turn and to confirm his suspicions as to the sound of the cackling and the chortling because he knew that it might be far better if he simply waited to place an order with the attendant, obtain his food and return to the Quiet Car where Beatrice, Sunny and Violet were waiting expectantly.
And he didn't want to turn around and confirm his suspicions because as you may have already guessed, the suspicions that the middle Baudelaire weren't good because usually that is how suspicions are and I suspect that Klaus didn't want to turn around because he didn't want these suspicions confirmed.
But as the laughter grew louder, the middle Baudelaire couldn't help but turn his head in surprise toward the origin of such a noise and then behind his glasses the orphan's eyes widened in surprise as he saw three individuals walk in from the other side of the Restaurant Car and quickly arrive at a booth.
The first on the left had a thick black moustache as if someone had chopped off a gorilla's thumb and put it on his lip, and in his left hand he held a banana and was currently chomping on it as he wiped some of it off of his moustache,
and the second was a tall woman who had long black hair that was incredibly dirty and she was holding a plastic bag in her right hand and her eyes were shifting about the room as if she was looking for someone or something,
and the third was perhaps the most recognizable of all; wearing a rumpled brown suit that had a few stains on it and he was wearing a tie that had pictures of snails on it and a small red nose that almost looked like a tomato was in splotched onto his face and was almost completely bald except for four tufts of hair which he had tied up with rubber bands and thus they looked like pigtails.
And if you recognize these descriptions of these terrible fiends that the Baudelaires hadn't seen since the fire at the Hotel Denouement and you recall what wicked deeds they did in presenting evidence against the children and even before that how they had mistreated them during the Baudelaire's stay at the boring boarding school known as Prufrock Preparatory School when they'd been stuck in the Orphan's Shack then you'll understand completely why Klaus' face turned pale with horror as he looked at Mrs. Bass, Mr. Remora and Vice Principal Nero and knew that their trip would now be anything but pleasant.
Read and review please!