A Series of Unfortunate Events Box: The Complete Wreck by Lemony Snicket
CHAPTER
Twelve
Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make—bombs, for instance, or strawberry shortcake—if you make even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in terrible trouble. Making assumptions simply means believing things are a certain way with little or no evidence that shows you are correct, and you can see at once how this can lead to terrible trouble. For instance, one morning you might wake up and make the assumption that your bed was in the same place that it always was, even though you would have no real evidence that this was so. But when you got out of your bed, you might discover that it had floated out to sea, and now you would be in terrible trouble all because of the incorrect assumption that you’d made. You can see that it is better not to make too many assumptions, particularly in the morning.
The morning of the comprehensive exams, however, the Baudelaire orphans were so tired, not only from staying up all night studying and making staples but also from nine consecutive nights of running laps, that they made plenty of assumptions, and every last one of them turned out to be incorrect.
“Well, that’s the last staple,” Violet said, stretching her tired muscles. “I think we can safely assume that Sunny won’t lose her job.”
“And you seem to know every detail of Mr. Remora’s stories as well as I know all of Mrs. Bass’s measurements,” Klaus said, rubbing his tired eyes, “so I think we can safely assume that we won’t be expelled.”
“Nilikoh,” Sunny said, yawning her tired mouth. She meant something like “And we haven’t seen either of the Quagmire triplets, so I think we can safely assume that their part of the plan went well.”
“That’s true,” Klaus said. “I assume if they’d been caught we would have heard by now.”
“I’d make the same assumption,” Violet said.
“I’d make the same assumption,” came a nasty, mimicking voice, and the children were startled to see Vice Principal Nero standing behind them holding a huge stack of papers. In addition to the assumptions they had made out loud, the Baudelaires had made the assumption that they were alone, and they were surprised to find not only Vice Principal Nero but also Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass waiting in the doorway of the Orphans Shack. “I hope you’ve been studying all evening,” Nero said, “because I told your teachers to make these exams extra-challenging, and the pieces of paper that the baby has to staple are very thick. Well, let’s get started. Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass will take turns asking you questions until one of you gets an answer wrong, and then you flunk. Sunny will sit in the back and staple these papers into booklets of five papers each, and if your homemade staples don’t work perfectly, then you flunk. Well, a musical genius like myself doesn’t have all day to oversee exams. I’ve missed too much practice time as it is. Let’s begin!”
Nero threw the papers into a big heap on one of the bales of hay, and the stapler right after it. Sunny crawled over as quickly as she could and began inserting the staples into the stapler, and Klaus stood up, still clutching the Quagmire notebooks. Violet put her noisy shoes back on her feet, and Mr. Remora swallowed a bite of banana and asked his first question.
“In my story about the donkey,” he said, “how many miles did the donkey run?”
“Six,” Violet said promptly.
“Six,” Nero mimicked. “That can’t be correct, can it, Mr. Remora?”
“Um, yes, actually,” Mr. Remora said, taking another bite of banana.
“How wide,” Mrs. Bass said to Klaus, “was the book with the yellow cover?”
“Nineteen centimeters,” Klaus said immediately.
“Nineteen centimeters,” Nero mocked. “That’s wrong, isn’t it, Mrs. Bass?”
“No,” Mrs. Bass admitted. “That’s the right answer.”
“Well, try another question, Mr. Remora,” Nero said.
“In my story about the mushroom,” Mr. Remora asked Violet, “what was the name of the chef?”
“Maurice,” Violet answered.
“Maurice,” Nero mimicked.
“Correct,” Mr. Remora said.
“How long was chicken breast number seven?” Mrs. Bass asked.
“Fourteen centimeters and five millimeters,” Klaus said.
“Fourteen centimeters and five millimeters,” Nero mimicked.
“That’s right,” Mrs. Bass said. “You’re actually both very good students, even if you’ve been sleeping through class lately.”
“Stop all this chitchat and flunk them,” Nero said. “I’ve never gotten to expel any students, and I’m really looking forward to it.”
“In my story about the dump truck,” Mr. Remora said, as Sunny began to staple the pile of thick papers into booklets, “what color were the rocks that it carried?”
“Gray and brown.”
“Gray and brown.”
“Correct.”
“How deep was my mother’s casserole dish?”
“Six centimeters.”
“Six centimeters.”
“Correct.”
“In my story about the weasel, what was its favorite color?”
The comprehensive exams went on and on, and if I were to repeat all of the tiresome and pointless questions that Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass asked, you might become so bored that you might go to sleep right here, using this book as a pillow instead of as an entertaining and instructive tale to benefit young minds. Indeed, the exams were so boring that the Baudelaire orphans might normally have dozed through the test themselves. But they dared not doze. One wrong answer or unstapled piece of paper, and Nero would expel them from Prufrock Preparatory School and send them into the waiting clutches of Coach Genghis, so the three children worked as hard as they could. Violet tried to remember each detail Klaus had taught her, Klaus tried to remember every measurement he had taught himself, and Sunny stapled like mad, a phrase which here means “quickly and accurately.” Finally, Mr. Remora stopped in the middle of his eighth banana and turned to Vice Principal Nero.
“Nero,” he said, “there’s no use continuing these exams. Violet is a very fine student, and has obviously studied very hard.”
Mrs. Bass nodded her head in agreement. “In all my years of teaching, I’ve never encountered a more metric-wise boy than Klaus, here. And it looks like Sunny is a fine secretary as well. Look at these booklets! They’re gorgeous.”
“Pilso!” Sunny shrieked.
“My sister means ‘Thank you very much,’” Violet said, although Sunny really meant something more like “My stapling hand is sore.” “Does this mean we get to stay at Prufrock Prep?”
“Oh, let them stay, Nero,” Mr. Remora said. “Why don’t you expel that Carmelita Spats? She never studies, and she’s an awful person besides.”
“Oh yes,” Mrs. Bass said. “Let’s give her an extra-challenging examination.”
“I can’t flunk Carmelita Spats,” Nero said impatiently. “She’s Coach Genghis’s Special Messenger.”
“Who?” Mr. Remora asked.
“You know,” Mrs. Bass explained, “Coach Genghis, the new gym teacher.”
“Oh yes,” Mr. Remora said. “I’ve heard about him, but never met him. What is he like?”
“He’s the finest gym teacher the world has ever seen,” Vice Principal Nero said, shaking his four pigtails in amazement. “But you don’t have to take my word for it. You can see for yourself. Here he comes now.”
Nero pointed one of his hairy hands out of the Orphans Shack, and the Baudelaire orphans saw with horror that the vice principal was speaking the truth. Whistling an irritating tune to himself, Coach Genghis was walking straight toward them, and the children could see at once how incorrect one of their assumptions had been. It was not the assumption that Sunny would not lose her job, although that assumption, too, would turn out to be incorrect. And it was not the assumption that Violet and Klaus would not be expelled, although that, too, was a wrong one. It was the assumption about the Quagmire triplets and their part of the plan g
CHAPTER
Thirteen
“Where are they?” Violet cried as Coach Genghis stepped into the shack. “What have you done with them?” Normally, of course, one should begin conversations with something more along the lines of “Hello, how are you,” but the eldest Baudelaire was far too distressed to do so.
Genghis’s eyes were shining as brightly as could be, but his voice was calm and pleasant. “Here they are,” he said, holding up the ribbon and glasses. “I thought you might be worried about them, so I brought them over first thing in the morning.”
“We don’t mean these them!” Klaus said, taking the items from Genghis’s scraggly hands. “We mean them them!”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand all those thems,” Coach Genghis said, shrugging at the adults. “The orphans ran laps last night as part of my S.O.R.E. program, but they had to dash off in the morning to take their exams. In their hurry, Violet dropped her ribbon and Klaus dropped his glasses. But the baby—”
“You know very well that’s not what happened,” Violet interrupted. “Where are the Quagmire triplets? What have you done with our friends?”
“What have you done with our friends?” Vice Principal Nero said in his mocking tone. “Stop talking nonsense, orphans.”
“I’m afraid it’s not nonsense,” Genghis said, shaking his turbaned head and continuing his story. “As I was saying before the little girl interrupted me, the baby didn’t dash off with the other orphans. She just sat there like a sack of flour. So I walked over to her and gave her a kick to get her moving.”
“Excellent idea!” Nero said. “What a wonderful story this is! And then what happened?”
“Well, at first it seemed like I’d kicked a big hole in the baby,” Genghis said, his eyes shining, “which seemed lucky, because Sunny was a terrible athlete and it would have been a blessing to put her out of her misery.”
Nero clapped his hands. “I know just what you mean, Genghis,” he said. “She’s a terrible secretary as well.”
“But she did all that stapling,” Mr. Remora protested.
“Shut up and let the coach finish his story,” Nero said.
“But when I looked down,” Genghis continued, “I saw that I hadn’t kicked a hole in a baby. I’d kicked a hole in a bag of flour! I’d been tricked!”
“That’s terrible!” Nero cried.
“So I ran after Violet and Klaus,” Genghis continued, “and I found that they weren’t Violet and Klaus after all, but those two other orphans—the twins.”
“They’re not twins!” Violet cried. “They’re triplets!”
“They’re triplets!” Nero mocked. “Don’t be an idiot. Triplets are when four babies are born at the same time, and there are only two Quagmires.”
“And these two Quagmires were pretending to be the Baudelaires, in order to give the Baudelaires extra time to study.”
“Extra time to study?” Nero said, grinning in delight. “Hee hee hee! Why, that’s cheating!”
“That’s not cheating!” Mrs. Bass said.
“Skipping gym class to study is cheating,” Nero insisted.
“No, it’s just good time management,” Mr. Remora argued. “There’s nothing wrong with athletics, but they shouldn’t get in the way of your schoolwork.”
“Look, I’m the vice principal,” the vice principal said. “I say the Baudelaires were cheating, and therefore—hooray!—I can expel them. You two are merely teachers, so if you disagree with me, I can expel you, too.”
Mr. Remora looked at Mrs. Bass, and they both shrugged. “You’re the boss, Nero,” Mr. Remora said finally, taking another banana out of his pocket. “If you say they’re expelled, they’re expelled.”
“Well, I say they’re expelled,” Nero said. “And Sunny loses her job, too.”
“Rantaw!” Sunny shrieked, which meant something along the lines of “I never wanted to work as a secretary, anyway!”
“We don’t care about being expelled,” Violet said. “We want to know what happened to our friends.”
“Well, the Quagmires had to be punished for their part in the cheating,” Coach Genghis said, “so I brought them over to the cafeteria and put those two workers in charge of them. They’ll be whisking eggs all day long.”
“Very sensible,” Nero agreed.
“That’s all they’re doing?” Klaus said suspiciously. “Whisking eggs?”
“That’s what I said,” Genghis said and leaned so close to the Baudelaires that all they could see were his shiny eyes and the crooked curve of his wicked mouth. “Those two Quagmires will whisk and whisk until they are simply whisked away.”
“You’re a liar,” Violet said.
“Insulting your coach,” Nero said, shaking his pigtailed head. “Now you’re doubly expelled.”
“What’s this?” said a voice from the doorway. “Doubly expelled?”
The voice stopped to have a long, wet cough, so the Baudelaires knew without looking that it was Mr. Poe. He was standing at the Orphans Shack holding a large paper sack and looking busy and confused. “What are all of you doing here?” he said. “This doesn’t look like a proper place to have a conversation. It’s just an old shack.”
“What are you doing here?” Nero asked. “We don’t allow strangers to wander around Prufrock Preparatory School.”
“Poe’s the name,” Mr. Poe said, shaking Nero’s hand. “You must be Nero. We’ve talked on the phone. I received your telegram about the twenty-eight bags of candy and the ten pairs of earrings with precious stones. My associates at Mulctuary Money Management thought I’d better deliver them in person, so here I am. But what’s this about expelled?”
“These orphans you foisted on me,” Nero said, using a nasty word for “gave,” “have proven to be terrible cheaters, and I’m forced to expel them.”
“Cheaters?” Mr. Poe said, frowning at the three siblings. “Violet, Klaus, Sunny, I’m very disappointed in you. You promised me that you’d be excellent students.”
“Well, actually, only Violet and Klaus were students,” Nero said. “Sunny was an administrative assistant, but she was terrible at it as well.”
Mr. Poe’s eyes widened in surprise as he paused to cough into his white handkerchief. “An administrative assistant?” he repeated. “Why, Sunny’s only a baby. She should be in preschool, not an office environment.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” Nero said. “They’re all expelled. Give me that candy.”
Klaus looked down at his hands, which were still clutching the Quagmire notebooks. He was afraid that the notebooks might be the only sign of the Quagmires he would ever see again. “We don’t have any time to argue about candy!” he cried. “Count Olaf has done something terrible to our friends!”
“Count Olaf?” Mr. Poe said, handing Nero the paper sack. “Don’t tell me he’s found you here!”
“No, of course not,” Nero said. “My advanced computer system has kept him away, of course. But the children have this bizarre notion that Coach Genghis is actually Olaf in disguise.”
“Count Olaf,” Genghis said slowly. “Yes, I’ve heard of him. He’s supposed to be the best actor in the whole world. I’m the best gym teacher in the whole world, so we couldn’t possibly be the same person.”
Mr. Poe looked Coach Genghis up and down, then shook his han
“Oh, thank you,” Coach Genghis said. “Unfortunately, thanks to these children, they have flour all over them, but I’m sure it’ll wash off.”
“If he removes his turban and his shoes,” Violet said impatiently, “you will be able to see that he’s Olaf.”
“We’ve been through this before,” Nero said. “He can’t take off his running shoes because he’s been exercising and his feet smell.”
“And I can’t take off my turban for religious reasons,” Genghis added.
“You’re not wearing a turban for religious reasons!” Klaus said in disgust, and Sunny shrieked something in agreement. “You’re wearing it as a disguise! Please, Mr. Poe, make him take it off!”
“Now, Klaus,” Mr. Poe said sternly. “You have to learn to be accepting of other cultures. I’m sorry, Coach Genghis. The children aren’t usually prejudiced.”
“That’s quite all right,” Genghis said. “I’m used to religious persecution.”
“However,” Mr. Poe continued, after a brief coughing spell, “I would ask you to remove your running shoes, if only to set the Baudelaires’ minds at ease. I think we can all stand a little smelliness if it’s in the cause of criminal justice.”