A Series of Unfortunate Events Box: The Complete Wreck by Lemony Snicket
“This isn’t our destiny,” Klaus said, but he did not sound very sure, and Mr. Poe merely gave him a sad, stern look, and kept pushing. If someone taller than you has ever reached down to push you by the shoulder, then you know this is not a pleasant way to travel, but the Baudelaires were too upset and confused to care. Up the stairs they went, the banker plodding behind them in his ugly pajamas, and only when they reached the cloud of steam that still wafted across the entrance did they think to look back at the mysterious man who had offered them a ride. By then the man was already back inside the taxi and was driving slowly away from the Hotel Denouement, and just as the children had no way of knowing if he was a good person or not, they had no way of knowing if they were sad or relieved to see him go, and even after months of research, and many sleepless nights, and many dreary afternoons spent in front of an enormous pond, throwing stones in the hopes that someone would notice the ripples I was making, I have no way of knowing if the Baudelaires should have been sad or relieved to see him go either. I do know who the man was, and I do know where he went afterward, and I do know the name of the woman who was hiding in the trunk, and the type of musical instrument that was laid carefully in the back seat, and the ingredients of the sandwich tucked into the glove compartment, and even the small item that sat on the passenger seat, still damp from its hiding place, but I cannot tell you if the Baudelaires would have been happier in this man’s company, or if it was better that he drove away from the three siblings, looking back at them through the rearview mirror and clutching a monogrammed napkin in his trembling hand. I do know that if they had gotten into his taxi, their troubles at the Hotel Denouement would not have been their penultimate peril, and they would have had quite a few more woeful events in their lives that would likely take thirteen more books to describe, but I have no way of knowing if it would have been better for the orphans, any more than I know if it would have been better for me had I decided to continue my life’s work rather than researching the Baudelaires’ story, or if it would have been better for my sister had she decided to join the children at the Hotel Denouement instead of waterskiing toward Captain Widdershins, and, later, waterskiing away from him, or if it would have been better for you to step into that taxicab you saw not so long ago and embark on your own series of events, rather than continuing with the life you have for yourself. There is no way of knowing. When there is no way of knowing, one can only imagine, and I imagine that the Baudelaire orphans were quite frightened indeed when they walked through the entrance to the hotel and saw the crowd of people waiting for them in the lobby.
“There they are!” roared someone from the back of the room. The children could not see who it was, because the lobby was as crowded as it had been when they first set foot in the perplexing hotel. It had been strange to walk through the enormous, domed room that morning, passing unnoticed in their concierge disguises, but this time every person in the lobby was looking directly at them. The children were amazed to see countless familiar faces from every chapter of their lives, and saw many, many people they could not be sure if they recognized or not. Everyone was wearing pajamas, nightgowns, or other sleepwear, and was glaring at the Baudelaires through eyes squinty from being awakened in the middle of the night. It is always interesting to observe what people are wearing in the middle of the night, although there are more pleasant ways to make such observations without being accused of murder. “Those are the murderers!”
“They’re no ordinary murderers!” cried Geraldine Julienne, who was wearing a bright yellow nightshirt and had a shower cap over her hair. “They’re the Baudelaire orphans!”
A ripple of astonishment went through the pajamaed crowd, and the children wished they had thought to put their sunglasses back on. “The Baudelaire orphans?” cried Sir, whose pajamas had the initials L. S. stenciled over the pocket, presumably for “Lucky Smells.” “I remember them! They caused accidents in my lumbermill!”
“The accidents weren’t their fault!” Charles said, whose pajamas matched his partner’s. “They were the fault of Count Olaf!”
“Count Olaf is another one of their victims!” cried a woman dressed in a bright pink bathrobe. The Baudelaires recognized her as Mrs. Morrow, one of the citizens of the Village of Fowl Devotees. “He was murdered right in my hometown!”
“That was Count Omar,” said another citizen of the town, a man named Mr. Lesko who apparently slept in the same plaid pants he wore during the day.
“I’m sure the Baudelaires aren’t murderers,” said Jerome Squalor. “I was their guardian, and I always found them to be polite and kind.”
“They were pretty good students, if I remember correctly,” said Mr. Remora, who was wearing a nightcap shaped like a banana.
“They were pretty good students, if I remember correctly,” Vice Principal Nero mimicked. “They were nothing of the sort. Violet and Klaus flunked all sorts of tests, and Sunny was the worst administrative assistant I’ve ever seen!”
“I say they’re criminals,” Mrs. Bass said, adjusting her wig, “and criminals ought to be punished.”
“Yes!” said Hugo. “Criminals are too freakish to be running around loose!”
“They’re not criminals,” Hal said firmly, “and I should know.”
“So should I,” retorted Esmé Squalor, “and I say they’re guilty as sin.” Her long, silver fingernails rested on the shoulder of Carmelita Spats, who was glaring at the siblings as Mr. Poe pushed them past.
“I think they’re guiltier than that!” said one of the hotel bellboys.
“I think they’re even guiltier than you think they are!” cried another.
“I think they look like nice kids!” said someone the children did not recognize.
“I think they look like vicious criminals!” said another person.
“I think they look like noble volunteers!” said another.
“I think they look like treacherous villains!”
“I think they look like concierges!”
“One of them looks a bit like my mother!”
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! The lobby seemed to shake as the clock struck three in the morning. By now, Mr. Poe had escorted the Baudelaires to a far corner of the lobby, where either Frank or Ernest was waiting next to the door marked 121 with a grim expression on his face as the last Wrong! echoed in the enormous room.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” The children turned to see Justice Strauss, who was standing on one of the wooden benches so she could be seen and clapping her hands for attention. “Please settle down! The matter of the Baudelaires’ guilt or innocence is not for you to decide.”
“That doesn’t seem fair,” remarked a man in pajamas with a pattern of salmon swimming upstream. “After all, they woke us up in the middle of the night.”
“The case is a matter for the High Court,” Justice Strauss said. “The authorities have been notified, and the other judges of the court are on their way. We will be able to begin the trial in a matter of hours.”
“I thought the trial was on Thursday,” said a woman in a nightgown emblazoned with dancing clowns.
“Showing up early is one of the signs of a noble person,” Justice Strauss said. “Once the other noble judges have arrived, we will decide on this matter—and other equally important matters—once and for all.”
There was a murmur of discussion in the crowd. “I suppose that’s all right,” grumbled someone.
“All right?” Geraldine Julienne said. “It’s wonderful! I can see the headline now: ‘HIGH COURT FINDS BAUDELAIRES GUILTY!’”
“No one is guilty until the trial is over,” Justice Strauss said, and for the first time the judge gazed down at the children and gave them a gentle smile. It was a small mercy, that smile, and the frightened Baudelaires smiled back. Justice Strauss stepped off the bench and walked through the murmuring crowd, followed by Jerome Squalor.
“Don’t worry, children,” Jerome said. “It looks like you won’t have to wait until tomorrow for ju
“I hope so,” Violet said.
“I thought judges weren’t allowed to reach verdicts on people they know,” Klaus said.
“Normally that’s true,” Justice Strauss said. “The law should be impartial and fair. But I think I can be fair where Count Olaf is concerned.”
“Besides,” Jerome said, “there are two other judges on the High Court. Justice Strauss’s opinion is not the only one that matters.”
“I trust my fellow judges,” Justice Strauss said. “I’ve known them for years, and they’ve always been concerned whenever I’ve reported on your case. While we wait for them to arrive, however, I’ve asked the managers of the hotel to put you in Room 121, to keep you away from this angry crowd.”
Without a word, Frank or Ernest unlocked the door and revealed the small, bare closet where Violet had found the harpoon gun. “We’ll be locked up?” Klaus said nervously.
“Just to keep you safe,” Justice Strauss said, “until the trial begins.”
“Yes!” cried a voice the children would never forget. The crowd parted to reveal Count Olaf, who walked toward the Baudelaires with a triumphant gleam in his eyes. “Lock them up!” he said. “We can’t have treacherous people running around the hotel! There are noble, decent people here.”
“Really?” asked Colette.
“Ha!” Count Olaf said. “I mean, of course! The High Court will decide who’s noble and who’s wicked. In the meantime, the orphans should be locked in a closet.”
“Hear hear!” Kevin said, raising one arm and then the other in an ambidextrous salute.
“They’re not the only ones,” Justice Strauss said sternly. “You, sir, have also been accused of a great deal of treachery, and the High Court is very interested in your case as well. You will be locked in Room 165 until the trial begins.”
The man who was not Frank but Ernest, or vice versa, stepped sternly out of the crowd and took Olaf’s arm.
“Fair enough,” said Olaf. “I’m happy to wait for the verdict of the High Court. Ha!”
The three siblings looked at one another, and then around the lobby, where the crowd was looking fiercely back at them. They did not want to be locked in a small room, no matter what the reason, and they could not understand why the idea of the High Court reaching a verdict on Count Olaf made him laugh. However, they knew that arguing with the crowd would be bootless, a word which here means “likely to get the siblings in even more trouble,” and so without another word, the three Baudelaires stepped inside the closet. Jerome and Justice Strauss gave them a little wave, and Mr. Poe gave them a little cough, and either Frank or Ernest stepped forward to shut the door. At the sight of the manager, the children suddenly thought not of Dewey, but of the family left behind, just as Violet, Klaus, and Sunny were all left behind after that first day at Briny Beach, and the dreadful news they received there.
“We’re sorry,” Sunny said, and the manager looked down at the youngest Baudelaire and blinked. Perhaps he was Frank, and thought the Baudelaires had done something wicked, or perhaps he was Ernest, and thought the Baudelaires had done something noble, but in either case the manager looked surprised that the children were sorry. For a moment, he paused, and gave them a tiny nod, but then he shut the door and the Baudelaire children were alone. The door of Room 121 was surprisingly thick, and although the light of the lobby shone clearly through the gap at the bottom of the door, the noise of the crowd was nothing but a faint buzzing, like a swarm of bees or the workings of a machine. The orphans sank to the floor, exhausted from their busy day and their terrible, terrible night. They took off their shoes and leaned against one another in the cramped surroundings, trying to find a comfortable position and listening to the buzz of the arguing crowd in the lobby.
“What will happen to us?” Violet asked.
“I don’t know,” Klaus said.
“Perhaps we should have run,” Violet said, “like you suggested, Klaus.”
“Perhaps at a trial,” the middle Baudelaire said, “the villains at last will be brought to justice.”
“Olaf,” Sunny asked, “or us?”
What Sunny asked, of course, was whether Count Olaf was the villain who would be brought to justice, or if it would be the three Baudelaires, but her siblings had no answer for her. Instead, the eldest Baudelaire leaned down and kissed the top of her sister’s head, and Klaus leaned up to kiss Violet’s, and Sunny moved her head first to the right and then to the left, to kiss both of them. If you had been in the lobby of the Hotel Denouement, you would not have heard anything from behind the thick door of Room 121, as the Baudelaires ended their conversation with a great, shuddering sigh, and nestled close to one another in the small space. You would have had to be on the other side of the door, leaning against the children yourself, to hear the tiny, quiet sounds as the Baudelaire orphans cried themselves to sleep, unable to answer Sunny’s question.
CHAPTER
Eleven
An old expression, used even before the schism, says that people should not see the creation of laws or sausages. This makes sense, as the creation of sausages involves taking various parts of different animals and shaping them until they are presentable at breakfast, and the creation of laws involves taking various parts of different ideas and shaping them until they are presentable at breakfast, and most people prefer to spend their breakfasts eating food and reading the newspaper without being exposed to creation of any sort whatsoever.
The High Court, like most courts, was not involved in the creation of laws, but it was involved in the interpretation of laws, which is as perplexing and unfathomable as their creation, and like the interpretation of sausages is something that also should not be seen. If you were to put this book down, and travel to the pond that now reflects nothing but a few burnt scraps of wood and the empty skies, and if you were to find the hidden passageway that leads to the underwater catalog that has remained secret and safe for all these years, you could read an account of an interpretation of sausages that went horribly wrong and led to the destruction of a very important bathyscaphe, all because I mistakenly thought the sausages were arranged in the shape of a K when actually the waiter had been trying to make an R, and an account of an interpretation of the law that went horribly wrong, although it would hardly be worth the trip as that account is also contained in the remaining chapters of this book, but if you were at all sensible you would shield your eyes from such interpretations, as they are too dreadful to read. As Violet, Klaus, and Sunny caught a few winks—a phrase which here means “slept fitfully in the closet-sized Room 121”—arrangements were made for the trial, during which the three judges of the High Court would interpret the laws and decide on the nobility and treachery of Count Olaf and the Baudelaires, but the children were surprised to learn, when a sharp knock on the door awakened them, that they would not see this interpretation themselves.
“Here are your blindfolds,” said one of the managers, opening the door and handing the children three pieces of black cloth. The Baudelaires suspected he was Ernest, as he hadn’t bothered to say “Hello.”
“Blindfolds?” Violet asked.
“Everyone wears blindfolds at a High Court trial,” the manager replied, “except the judges, of course. Haven’t you heard the expression ‘Justice is blind’?”
“Yes,” Klaus said, “but I always thought it meant that justice should be fair and unprejudiced.”
“The verdict of the High Court was to take the expression literally,” said the manager, “so everyone except the judges must cover their eyes before the trial can begin.”
“Scalia,” Sunny said. She meant something like, “It doesn’t seem like the literal interpretation makes any sense,” but her siblings did not think it was wise to translate.
“I also brought you some tea,” he said, revealing a tray containing a teapot and three cups. “I thought it might fortify you for the trial.”
By “fortify,” the manager meant that a few si
“I’m sorry there’s no sugar,” he said.
“That’s quite all right,” Klaus said, and then hurriedly flipped to a page in his commonplace book until he found his notes on the children’s conversation with Kit Snicket. “‘Tea should be bitter as wormwood,’” he read, “‘and as sharp as a two-edged sword.’”
The manager gave Klaus a small, unfathomable smile. “Drink your tea,” he said. “I’ll knock in a few minutes to bring you to trial.”
Frank, unless it was Ernest, shut the door, and left the Baudelaires alone.
“Why did you say that about the tea?” Violet asked.
“I thought he might be talking to us in code,” Klaus said. “I thought if we gave the proper reply, something might happen.”
“Unfathomable,” Sunny said.
“Everything seems unfathomable,” Violet said with a sigh, pouring tea for her siblings. “It’s getting so that I can’t tell a noble person from a wicked one.”
“Kit said that the only way to tell a villain from a volunteer is to observe everyone, and make such judgements ourselves,” Klaus said, “but that hasn’t helped us at all.”
“Today the High Court will do the judging for us,” Violet said. “Maybe they’ll prove to be helpful.”
“Or fail us,” Sunny said.
The eldest Baudelaire smiled, and reached to help her sister put on her shoes. “I wish our parents could see how much you’ve grown,” she said. “Mother always said that as soon as you learned to walk, Sunny, you’d be going places.”
“I doubt a closet in the Hotel Denouement was what she had in mind,” Klaus said, blowing on his tea to cool it.
“Who knows what they had in mind?” Violet asked. “That’s one more mystery we’ll probably never solve.”