"I'm sure you can invent a sewing machine," he said, "when we're all out of danger. Well, we'd better go, Isadora. Coach Genghis will be waiting. Good luck with studying."
"Good luck with running laps," Klaus said.
The Baudelaires took a long look at their friends. They were reminded of the last time they saw their parents, waving good-bye to them as they left for the beach. They had not known, of course, that it would be the last moment they would spend with their mother and father, and again and again, each of the Baudelaires had gone back to that day in their lives, wishing that they had said something more than a casual good-bye. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny looked at the two triplets and hoped that this was not such a time, a time when people they cared for would disappear from their lives forever. But what if it were?
"If we never see-" Violet stopped, swallowed, and began again. "If something goes wrong-"
Duncan took Violet's hands and looked right at her. Violet saw, behind Klaus's glasses, the serious look in Duncan's wide eyes. "Nothing will go wrong," he said firmly, though of course he was wrong at that very moment. "Nothing will go wrong at all. We'll see you in the morning, Baudelaires."
Isadora nodded solemnly and followed her brother and the bag of flour away from the Orphans Shack. The Baudelaire orphans watched them walk toward the front lawn until the triplets were merely two specks, dragging another speck along with them.
"You know," Klaus said, as they watched them, "from a distance, in the dim light, they look quite a bit like us."
"Abax," Sunny agreed.
"I hope so," Violet murmured. "I hope so. But in the meantime, we'd better stop thinking about them and get started on our half of the plan. Let's put our noisy shoes on and go into the shack."
"I can't imagine how you're going to make staples," Klaus said, "with only a fork, a few teaspoons of creamed spinach, and a small potato. That sounds more like the ingredients for a side dish than for a staple-making device. I hope your inventing skills haven't been dulled by a lack of sleep."
"I don't think they have," Violet said. "It's amazing how much energy you can have once you have a plan. Besides, my plan doesn't only involve the things I snitched. It involves one of the Orphan Shack crabs and our noisy shoes. Now, when we all have our shoes on, please follow my instructions."
The two younger Baudelaires were quite puzzled at this, but they had learned long ago that when it came to inventions, Violet could be trusted absolutely. In the recent past, she had invented a grappling hook, a lockpick, and a signaling device, and now, come hell or high water-an expression which here means "using a fork, a few teaspoons of creamed spinach, a small potato, a live crab, and noisy shoes"-she was going to invent a staple-making device.
The three siblings put on their shoes and, following Violet's instructions, entered the shack. As usual, the tiny crabs were lounging around, taking advantage of their time alone in the shack when they wouldn't be frightened by loud noises. On most occasions, the Baudelaires would stomp wildly on the floor when they entered the shack, and the crabs would scurry underneath the bales of hay and into other hiding places in the room. This time, however, Violet instructed her siblings to step on the floor in carefully arranged patterns, so as to herd one of the grumpiest and biggest-clawed crabs into a corner of the shack. While the other crabs scattered, this crab was trapped in a corner, afraid of the noisy shoes but with nowhere to hide from them.
"Good work!" Violet cried. "Keep him in the corner, Sunny, while I ready the potato."
"What is the potato for?" Klaus asked.
"As we know," Violet explained as Sunny tapped her little feet this way and that to keep the crab in the corner, "these crabs love to get their claws on our toes. I specifically snitched a potato that was toe-shaped. You see how it's curved in a sort of oval way, and the little bumpy part here looks like a toenail?"
"You're right," Klaus said. "The resemblance is remarkable. But what does it have to do with staples?"
"Well, the metal rods that Nero gave us are very long, and need to be cut cleanly into small, staple-sized pieces. While Sunny keeps the crab in the corner, I'm going to wave the potato at him. He-or she, come to think of it, I don't know how to tell a boy crab from a girl crab-"
"It's a boy," Klaus said. "Trust me."
"Well, he'll think it's a toe," Violet continued, "and snap at it with his claws. At that instant, I'll yank the potato away and put a rod in its place. If I do it carefully enough, the crab should do a perfect job of slicing it up."
"And then what?" Klaus asked.
"First things first," Violet replied firmly. "O.K. Sunny, keep tapping those noisy shoes. I'm ready with the potato and rod number one."
"What can I do?" Klaus asked.
"You can start studying for the comprehensive exam, of course," Violet said. "I couldn't possibly read all of Duncan's notes in just one night. While Sunny and I make the staples, you need to read Duncan's and Isadora's notebooks, memorize the measurements from Mrs. Bass's class, and teach me all of Mr. Remora's stories."
"Roger," Klaus said. As you probably know, the middle Baudelaire was not referring to anybody named Roger. He was saying a man's name to indicate that he understood what Violet had said and would act accordingly, and over the course of the next two hours, that's exactly what he did. While Sunny used her noisy shoes to keep the crab in the corner and Violet used the potato as a toe and the crab's claws as clean cutters, Klaus used the Quagmire notebooks to study for the comprehensive exams, and everything worked the way it should. Sunny tapped her shoes so noisily that the crab remained trapped. Violet was so quick with the potato and metal rods that soon they were snipped into staple-sized pieces. And Klaus-although he had to squint because Duncan was using his glasses-read Isadora's measuring notes so carefully that before long he had memorized the length, width, and depth of just about everything.
"Violet, ask me the measurements of the navy blue scarf," Klaus said, turning the notebook over so he couldn't peek.
Violet yanked the potato away just in time, and the crab snipped off another bit of the metal rods. "What are the measurements of the navy blue scarf?" she asked.
"Two decimeters long," Klaus recited, "nine centimeters wide, and four millimeters thick. It's boring, but it's correct. Sunny, ask me the measurements of the bar of deodorant soap."
The crab saw an opportunity to leave the corner, but Sunny was too quick for it. "Soap?" Sunny quizzed Klaus, tapping her tiny noisy shoes until the crab retreated.
"Eight centimeters by eight centimeters by eight centimeters," Klaus said promptly. "That one's easy. You're doing great, you two. I bet that crab's going to be almost as tired as we are."
"No," Violet said, "he's done. Let him go, Sunny. We have all the staple-sized pieces we need. I'm glad that part of the staple-making process is over. It's very nerve-wracking to tease a crab."
"What's next?" Klaus said, as the crab scurried away from the most frightening moments of his life.
"Next you teach me Mr. Remora's stories," Violet said, "while Sunny and I bend these little bits of metal into the proper shape."
"Shablo," Sunny said, which meant something like "How are we going to do that?"
"Watch," Violet said, and Sunny watched. While Klaus closed Isadora's black notebook and began paging through Duncan's dark green one, Violet took the glob of creamed spinach and mixed it with a few pieces of stray hay and dust until it was a sticky, gluey mess. Then she placed this mess on the spiky end of the fork, and stuck it to one of the bales of hay so the handle end of the fork hung over the side. She blew on the creamed-spinach-stray-hay-and-dust mixture until it hardened. "I always thought that Prufrock Prep's creamed spinach was awfully sticky," Violet explained, "and then I realized it could be used as glue. And now, we have a perfect method of making those tiny strips into staples. See, if I lay a strip across the handle of the fork, a tiny part of the strip hangs off each of the sides. Those are the parts that will go inside the paper when it's a staple. If
I take off my noisy shoes"-and here Violet paused to take off her noisy shoes-"and use the metal ends to tap on the strips, they'll bend around the handle of the fork and turn into staples. See?"
"Gyba!" Sunny shrieked. She meant "You're a genius! But what can I do to help?"
"You can keep your noisy shoes on your feet," Violet replied, "and keep the crabs away from us. And Klaus, you start summarizing stories."
"Roger," Sunny said.
"Roger," Klaus said, and once again, neither of them were referring to Roger. They meant, once again, that they understood what Violet had said, and would act accordingly, and all three Baudelaires acted accordingly for the rest of the night. Violet tapped away at the rnetal strips, and Klaus read out loud from Duncan's notebook, and Sunny stomped her noisy shoes. Soon, the Baudelaires had a pile of homemade staples on the floor, the details of Mr. Remora's stories in their brains, and not a single crab bothering them in the shack, and even with the threat of Coach Genghis hovering over them, the evening actually began to feel rather cozy. It reminded the Baudelaires of evenings they had spent when their parents were alive, in one of the living rooms in the Baudelaire mansion. Violet would often be tinkering away at some invention, while Klaus would often be reading and sharing the information he was learning, and Sunny would often be making loud noises. Of course, Violet was never tinkering frantically at an invention that would save their lives, Klaus was never reading something so boring, and Sunny was never making loud noises to scare crabs, but nevertheless as the night wore on, the Baudelaires felt almost at home in the Orphans Shack. And when the sky began to lighten with the first rays of dawn, the Baudelaires began to feel a certain thrill that was quite different from the thrill of being in disguise. It was a thrill that I have never felt in my life, and it was a thrill that the Baudelaires did not feel very often. But as the morning sun began to shine, the Baudelaire orphans felt the thrill of thinking your plan might work after all, and that perhaps they would eventually be as safe and happy as the evenings they remembered.
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 going well. As Coach Genghis walked closer and closer, the Baudelaires saw that he was holding Violet's hair ribbon in one of his scraggly hands and Klaus's glasses in the other, and with every step of his expensive running shoes, the coach raised a small white cloud, which the children realized must be flour from the snitched sack. But more than the ribbon, or the glasses, or the small clouds of flour was the look in Genghis's eyes. As Coach Genghis reached the Orphans Shack, his eyes were shining bright with triumph, as if he had finally won a game that he had been playing for a long, long time, and the Baudelaire orphans realized that the assumption about the Quagmire triplets had been very, very wrong indeed.
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