“Before I make the first incision,” Klaus said, using a fancy word for “cut” in order to sound more like a medical professional, “I think Nurse Flo and I should talk a little bit about the equipment we’re using.”
Sunny looked at her brother quizzically. “Knife?” she asked.
“That’s right,” Klaus said. “It’s a knife, and—”
“We all know it’s a knife, Dr. Tocuna,” the hook-handed man said, smiling at the audience, as the bald man leaned in to whisper to Klaus.
“What are you doing?” he hissed. “Just saw off the brat’s head and we’ll be done.”
“A real doctor would never perform a new operation without explaining everything,” Klaus whispered back. “We have to keep talking, or we’ll never fool them.”
Olaf’s associates looked at Klaus and Sunny for a moment, and the two Baudelaires got ready to run, dragging Violet’s gurney with them, if they were recognized at last. But after a moment’s hesitation, the two disguised men looked at each other and nodded.
“I suppose you’re right,” the hook-handed man said, and then turned to the audience. “Sorry for the delay, folks. As you know, we’re real doctors, so that’s why we’re explaining everything. Carry on, Dr. Tocuna.”
“The cranioectomy will be performed with a knife,” Klaus said, “which is the oldest surgical tool in the world.” He was remembering the section on knives in A Complete History of Surgical Tools, which he had read when he was eleven. “Early knives have been found in Egyptian tombs and Mayan temples, where they were used for ceremonial purposes, and mostly fashioned out of stone. Gradually bronze and iron became the essential materials in knives, although some cultures fashioned them out of the incisors of slain animals.”
“Teeth,” Sunny explained.
“There are a number of different types of knives,” Klaus continued, “including the pocketknife, the penknife, and the drawing knife, but the one required for this cranioectomy is a Bowie knife, named after Colonel James Bowie, who lived in Texas.”
“Wasn’t that a magnificient explanation, ladies and gentlemen?” the hook-handed man said.
“It sure was,” one of the reporters agreed. She was a woman wearing a gray suit and chewing gum as she spoke into a small microphone. “I can see the headline now: ‘DOCTOR AND NURSE EXPLAIN HISTORY OF KNIFE.’ Wait until the readers of The Daily Punctilio see that!”
The audience applauded in agreement, and as the operating theater filled with the sound of cheers and clapping, Violet moved on her gurney, ever so slightly. Her mouth opened a little wider, and one of her limp hands stirred briefly. The motions were so small that only Klaus and Sunny noticed them, and they looked at one another hopefully. Could they keep stalling until the anesthesia completely wore off?
“Enough talk,” the bald man whispered to the children. “It’s lots of fun fooling innocent people, but we’d better get on with the operation before the orphan wakes up.”
“Before I make the first incision,” Klaus said again, continuing to address the audience as if the bald man hadn’t spoken, “I would like to say a few words concerning rust.” He paused for a moment and tried to remember what he had learned from a book entitled What Happens to Wet Metal, which he had received as a gift from his mother. “Rust is a reddish-brown coating that forms on certain metals when they oxidize, which is a scientific term for a chemical reaction occurring when iron or steel comes into contact with moisture.” He held up the rusty knife for the audience to see, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Violet’s hand move again, just barely. “The oxidation process is integral to a cranioectomy due to the oxidative processes of cellular mitochondria and cosmetic demystification,” he continued, trying to use as many complicated words as he could think of.
“Clap!” Sunny cried, and the audience applauded once more, although not as loudly this time.
“Very impressive,” the bald associate said, glaring at Klaus over his surgical mask. “But I think these lovely people will understand the process better once the head has actually been removed.”
“Of course,” Klaus replied. “But first, we need to tenderize the vertebrae, so we can make a clean cut. Nurse Flo, will you please nibble on Viol—I mean, on Laura V. Bleediotie’s neck?”
“Yes,” Sunny said with a smile, knowing just what Klaus was up to. Standing on tiptoe, the youngest Baudelaire gave her sister a few small nibbles on the neck, hoping that it would wake Violet up. As Sunny’s teeth scraped against her skin, Violet twitched, and shut her mouth, but nothing more.
“What are you doing?” the hook-handed man demanded in a furious whisper. “Perform the operation at once, or Mattathias will be furious!”
“Isn’t Nurse Flo wonderful?” Klaus asked the audience, but only a few members of the crowd clapped, and there was not a single cheer. The people in the operating theater were clearly eager to see some surgery rather than hear any more explanations.
“I believe you’ve bitten her neck enough,” the bald man said. His voice was friendly and professional, but his eyes were gazing at the children suspiciously. “Let’s get on with the cranioectomy.”
Klaus nodded, and clasped the knife in both hands, holding it up over his helpless sister. He looked at Violet’s sleeping figure and wondered if he could made a very small cut on Violet’s neck, one that could wake her up but wouldn’t injure her. He looked at the rusty blade, which was shaking up and down as his hands trembled in fear. And then he looked at Sunny, who had stopped nibbling on Violet’s neck and was looking up at him with wide, wide eyes.
“I can’t do it,” he whispered, and looked up at the ceiling. High above them was a square intercom speaker that he had not noticed before, and the sight of the speaker made him think of something. “I can’t do it,” he announced, and there was a gasp from the crowd.
The hook-handed man took a step toward the gurney, and pointed his limp, curved glove at Klaus. The middle Baudelaire could see the sharp tip of his hook, poking through the finger of the glove like a sea creature emerging from the water. “Why not?” the hook-handed man asked quietly.
Klaus swallowed, hoping he still sounded like a medical professional instead of a scared child. “Before I make the first incision, there’s one more thing that has to be done—the most important thing we do here at Heimlich Hospital.”
“And what is that?” the bald man asked. His surgical mask curled down as he gave the children a sinister frown, but Sunny’s mask began to curl in the opposite direction as she realized what Klaus was talking about, and began to smile.
“Paperwork!” she said, and to the Baudelaires’ delight, the audience began to applaud once more.
“Hooray!” called a member of V.F.D. from the back of the operating theater, as the cheering continued. “Hooray for paperwork!”
Olaf’s two associates looked at one another in frustration as the Baudelaires looked at one another in relief. “Hooray for paperwork indeed!” Klaus cried. “We can’t operate on a patient until her file is absolutely complete!”
“I can’t believe we forgot about it, even for a moment!” a nurse cried. “Paperwork is the most important thing we do at this hospital!”
“I can see the headline now,” said the reporter who had spoken earlier. “‘HEIMLICH HOSPITAL ALMOST FORGETS PAPERWORK!’ Wait until the readers of The Daily Punctilio see that!”
“Somebody call Hal,” suggested a doctor. “He’s in charge of the Library of Records, so he can solve this paperwork problem.”
“I’ll call Hal right now!” announced a nurse, walking out of the operating theater, and the crowd clapped in support of her decision.
“There’s no need to call Hal,” said the hook-handed man, holding up his hooked gloves to try to calm the crowd. “The paperwork has been taken care of, I promise you.”
“But all surgical paperwork has to be verified by Hal,” Klaus said. “That’s the policy of Heimlich Hospital.”
The bald man glared down at the chi
ldren and spoke to them in a frightening whisper. “What in the world are you doing?” he asked them. “You’re going to ruin everything!”
“I think Dr. Tocuna is right,” another doctor said. “That’s the policy here.”
The crowd applauded again, and Klaus and Sunny looked at one another. The two Baudelaires, of course, had no idea what the hospital’s policy was concerning surgical paperwork, but they were beginning to see that the crowd would believe just about anything if they thought it was being said by a medical professional.
“Hal is on his way,” the nurse announced, reentering the room. “There’s apparently been some problem at the Library of Records, but he’ll come as quickly as he can and settle this matter once and for all.”
“We don’t need Hal to settle this matter once and for all,” a voice said from the far end of the theater, and the Baudelaires turned to see the slender, tottering figure of Esmé Squalor, walking straight toward them in her stiletto-heeled shoes, with two people trailing dutifully behind her. These two people were both dressed in medical coats and surgical masks just like the Baudelaires’. Klaus and Sunny could see just a bit of their pale faces above the masks and knew at once that they were the two powder-faced assistants of Olaf.
“This is the real Dr. Tocuna,” Esmé said, pointing to one of the women, “and this is the real Nurse Flo. The two people up on this stage are impostors.”
“No we’re not,” the hook-handed man said angrily.
“Not you two,” Esmé said impatiently, glaring over her surgical mask at the two henchmen. “I mean the other two people on the stage. They fooled everyone. They fooled doctors, nurses, volunteers, reporters, and even me—until I found the real associates of Dr. Flacutono, that is.”
“In my medical opinion,” Klaus said, “I believe this woman has lost her mind.”
“I haven’t lost my mind,” Esmé said with a snarl, “but you’re about to lose your heads, Baudelaires.”
“Baudelaires?” the reporter from The Daily Punctilio asked. “The same Baudelaires who murdered Count Omar?”
“Olaf,” the bald man corrected.
“I’m confused,” whined a volunteer. “There are too many people pretending to be other people.”
“Allow me to explain,” Esmé said, stepping up on the stage. “I am a medical professional, just like Dr. Flacutono, Dr. O. Lucafont, Dr. Tocuna, and Nurse Flo. You can see that from our medical coats and surgical masks.”
“Us, too!” Sunny cried.
Esmé’s surgical mask curled up in a wicked smile. “Not for long,” she said, and in one swift gesture she ripped the masks off the Baudelaires’ faces. The crowd gasped as the masks fluttered to the ground, and the two children saw the doctors, nurses, reporters, and regular people in the crowd look at them in horror. Only the Volunteers Fighting Disease, who believed that no news was good news, did not recognize the youngsters.
“They are the Baudelaires!” a nurse exclaimed in astonishment. “I read about them in The Daily Punctilio!”
“Me, too!” cried a doctor.
“It’s always a pleasure to hear from our readers,” the reporter said modestly.
“But there were supposed to be three murderous orphans, not two!” another doctor said. “Where’s the oldest one?”
The hook-handed man hurriedly stepped in front of the gurney, shielding Violet from view. “She’s already in jail,” he said quickly.
“She is not!” Klaus said, and brushed Violet’s hair out of her eyes so that everyone could see she was not Laura V. Bleediotie. “These terrible people disguised her as a patient, so they could cut her head off!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Esmé said. “You’re the one who was trying to cut her head off. Look, you’re still holding the knife.”
“That’s true!” the reporter cried. “I can see the headline now: ‘MURDERER ATTEMPTS TO MURDER MURDERER.’ Wait until the readers of The Daily Punctilio see this!”
“Tweem!” Sunny shrieked.
“We’re not murderers!” Klaus translated frantically.
“If you’re not murderers,” the reporter said, holding out her microphone, “then why have you sneaked into a hospital in disguise?”
“I think I can explain that,” said another familiar voice, and everyone turned to see Hal enter the operating theater. In one hand he was clutching the ring of keys the Baudelaires had made from paper clips and Violet’s hair ribbon, and with the other hand he was pointing angrily at the children.
“Those three Baudelaire murderers,” he said, “pretended to be volunteers in order to come to work in the Library of Records.”
“They did?” a nurse said, as the audience gasped. “You mean they’re murderers and phony volunteers?”
“No wonder they didn’t know the words to the song!” a volunteer cried.
“Taking advantage of my poor eyesight,” Hal continued, pointing at his glasses, “they made these fake keys and switched it with the real one, so they could sneak into the library and destroy the files about their crimes!”
“We didn’t want to destroy the file,” Klaus said, “we wanted to clear our names. I’m sorry we tricked you, Hal, and I’m sorry that some of the file cabinets were knocked over, but—”
“Knocked over?” Hal repeated. “You did more than knock over cabinets.” He looked at the children and sighed wearily, and then turned to face the audience. “These children committed arson,” he said. “The Library of Records is burning as we speak.”
CHAPTER
Twelve
I am alone this evening, and I am alone because of a cruel twist of fate, a phrase which here means that nothing has happened the way I thought it would. Once I was a content man, with a comfortable home, a successful career, a person I loved very much, and an extremely reliable typewriter, but all of those things have been taken away from me, and now the only trace I have of those happy days is the tattoo on my left ankle. As I sit in this very tiny room, printing these words with this very large pencil, I feel as if my whole life has been nothing but a dismal play, presented just for someone else’s amusement, and that the playwright who invented my cruel twist of fate is somewhere far above me, laughing and laughing at his creation.
It is not pleasant to feel this way, and it is doubly unpleasant if the cruel twist of fate happens to you when you are actually standing on a stage and there is actually someone, far above you, laughing and laughing, as it was with the Baudelaire children in the operating theater of Heimlich Hospital. The children had scarcely heard Hal’s accusation that they had burned down the Library of Records when they heard rough and familiar laughter coming out of the intercom speaker above them. The siblings had heard this laughter when Mattathias had first captured the Quagmire triplets, and when he had trapped the Baudelaires in a locked Deluxe Cell. It was the triumphant laughter of someone who has cooked up a fiendish plot and succeeded, although it always sounded like the laughter of someone who has just told an excellent joke. Because he was laughing over the scratchy intercom, Mattathias sounded as if he had a piece of aluminum foil over his mouth, but the laughter was still loud enough to help wear off the anesthesia, and Violet murmured something and moved her arms.
“Oops,” Mattathias said, interrupting his laughter as he realized the intercom was on. “This is Mattathias, the Head of Human Resources, with an important announcement. There is a terrible fire in Heimlich Hospital. The fire was set in the Library of Records by the Baudelaire murderers, and has spread to the Sore Throat Ward, the Stubbed Toe Ward, and the Accidentally Swallowed Something You Shouldn’t Have Ward. The orphans are still at large, so do everything you can to find them. After the murdering arsonists have been captured, you might want to rescue some of the patients who are trapped in the fire. That is all.”
“I can see the headline now,” the reporter said. “‘BAUDELAIRE MURDERERS TORCH PAPERWORK.’ Wait until the readers of The Daily Punctilio see this!”
“Somebody tell Mattathias we’ve cap
tured the children,” a nurse cried in triumph. “You three brats are in big trouble. You’re murderers, arsonists, and spurious doctors.”
“That’s not true,” Klaus said, but as he looked around he feared that no one would believe him. He looked at the spurious key ring in Hal’s hands, that he and his siblings had used to sneak into the Library of Records. He looked at his medical coat, which he had used to disguise himself as a doctor. And he looked at the rusty blade in his own hands, which he had just been holding over his sister. Klaus remembered when he and his sisters were living with Uncle Monty, and brought several objects to Mr. Poe as evidence of Olaf’s treacherous plot. Because of these small objects, Olaf was placed under arrest, and now Klaus was afraid that the same thing would happen to the Baudelaires.
“Surround them!” the hook-handed man called, pointing at the children with one curved glove. “But be careful. The bookworm still has the knife!” Olaf’s associates spread out in a circle and slowly began walking toward the youngsters at all angles. Sunny whimpered in fright, and Klaus picked her up and put her on the gurney.
“Arrest the Baudelaires!” a doctor cried.
“That’s what we’re doing, you fool!” Esmé replied impatiently, but when she turned her head to the Baudelaires they saw her wink above her surgical mask.
“We’re going to capture only one of you,” she said, in a quiet voice so the audience wouldn’t hear her. With two long fingernailed hands she reached down to her stiletto heels. “This in footwear isn’t just useful for making me look glamorous and feminine,” she said, removing the shoes and pointing them at the children. “These stilettos are perfect for slitting children’s throats. Two bratty little Baudelaires will be killed while trying to escape from justice, leaving one bratty little Baudelaire to give us the fortune.”
A Series of Unfortunate Events Box: The Complete Wreck Page 83
