The Slippery Slope

by Lemony Snicket

  Violet and Klaus looked at one another dimly underneath the coat, wincing as their fingers were stung, and tried to keep walking.

  "We'll never reach the Valley of Four Drafts like this," Violet said, speaking louder than usual over the buzzing of the gnats. "How can we stop them, Klaus?"

  "Fire drives them away," Klaus said. "In the book I read, the author said that even the smell of smoke can keep a whole swarm at bay. But we can't start a fire underneath a coat."

  "Ow!" A snow gnat stung Violet's thumb on a spot that had already been stung, just as the Baudelaires rounded the rocky corner where the swarm had first appeared. Through a worn spot in the fabric, the Baudelaires could just make out a dark, circular hole in the side of the mountain.

  "That must be an entrance to one of the caves," Klaus said. "Could we start a fire in there?"

  "Maybe," Violet said. "And maybe we'd annoy a hibernating animal."

  "We've already managed to annoy thousands of animals," Klaus said, almost dropping the pitcher as a gnat stung his wrist. "I don't think we have much choice. I think, we have to head into the cave and take our chances."

  Violet nodded in agreement, but looked nervously at the entrance to the cave. Taking one's chances is like taking a bath, because sometimes you end up feeling comfortable and warm, and sometimes there is something terrible lurking around that you cannot see until it is too late and you can do nothing else but scream and cling to a plastic duck. The two Baudelaires walked carefully toward the dark, circular hole, making sure to stay clear of the nearby edge of the peak and pulling the coat tightly around them so the snow gnats could not find a way inside, but what worried them most was not the height of the peak or the stingers of the gnats but the chances they were taking as they ducked inside the gloomy entrance of the cave.

  The two Baudelaires had never been in this cave before, of course, and as far as I have been able to ascertain, they were never in it again, even on their way back down the mountain, after they had been reunited with their baby sister and learned the secret of Verbal Fridge Dialogue. And yet, as Violet and Klaus took their chances and walked inside, they found two things with which they were familiar. The first was fire. As they stood inside the entrance to the cave, the siblings realized at once that there was no need to worry about the snow gnats any longer, because they could smell nearby smoke, and even see, at a great distance, small orange flames toward the back of the cave. Fire, of course, was very familiar to the children, from the ashen smell of the remains of the Baudelaire mansion to the scent of the flames that destroyed Caligari Carnival. But as the snow gnats formed an arrow and darted away from the cave and the Baudelaires took another step inside, Violet and Klaus found another familiar thing — a familiar person, to be exact, who they had thought they would never see again.

  "Hey you cakesniffers!" said a voice from the back of the cave, and the sound was almost enough to make the two Baudelaires wish they had taken their chances someplace else.

  Chapter Three

  You may well wonder why there is no account of Sunny Baudelaire in the first two chapters of this book, but there are several reasons why this is so. For one thing, Sunny's journey in Count Olaf's car was much more difficult to research. The tracks made by the tires of the car have vanished long ago, and so many blizzards and avalanches have occurred in the Mortmain Mountains that even the road itself has largely disappeared. The few witnesses to Olaf's journey have mostly died under mysterious circumstances, or were too frightened to answer the letters, telegrams, and greeting cards I sent them requesting an interview. And even the litter that was thrown out the window of Olaf's car — the clearest sign that evil people have driven by — was picked up off the road long before my work began. The missing litter is a good sign, as it indicates that certain animals of the Mortmain Mountains have returned to their posts and are rebuilding their nests, but it has made it very hard for me to write a complete account of Sunny's travels.

  But if you are interested in knowing how Sunny Baudelaire spent her time while her siblings stopped the caravan, followed the path of the Stricken Stream, and struggled against the snow gnats, there is another story you might read that describes more or less the same situation. The story concerns a person named Cinderella. Cinderella was a young person who was placed in the care of various wicked people who teased her and forced her to do all the chores. Eventually Cinderella was rescued by her fairy godmother, who magically created a special outfit for Cinderella to wear to a ball where she met a handsome prince, married him soon afterward, and lived happily ever after in a castle. If you substitute the name "Cinderella" with the name "Sunny Baudelaire," and eliminate the fairy godmother, the special outfit, the ball, the handsome prince, the marriage, and living happily ever after in a castle, you will have a clear idea of Sunny's predicament.

  "I wish the baby orphan would stop that irritating crying," Count Olaf said, wrinkling his one eyebrow as the car made another violent turn. "Nothing spoils a nice car trip like a whiny kidnapping victim."

  "I'm pinching her as often as I can," Esmé Squalor said, and gave Sunny another pinch with her stylish fingernails, "but she still won't shut up."

  "Listen, toothy," Olaf said, taking his eyes off the road to glare at Sunny. "If you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about."

  Sunny gave a little whimper of annoyance, and wiped her eyes with her tiny hands. It was true that she had been crying for most of the day, thoroughout a long drive that even the most dedicated of researchers would be unable to trace, and now as the sun set, she still had not been able to stop herself. But at Count Olaf's words, she was almost more irritated than frightened. It is always tedious when someone says that if you don't stop crying, they will give you something to cry about, because if you are crying than you already have something to cry about, and so there is no reason for them to give you anything additional to cry about, thank you very much. Sunny Baudelaire certainly felt she had sufficient reason to weep. She was worried about her siblings, and wondered how they were going to stop the runaway caravan from hurtling them to their doom. She was frightened for herself, now that Count Olaf had discovered her disguise, torn off her beard, and trapped her on Esmé's lap. And she was in pain, from the constant pinching of the villain's girlfriend. "No pinch," she said to Esmé, but the wicked and stylish woman just frowned as if Sunny had spoken nonsense.

  "When she's not crying," Esmé said, "the baby talks in some foreign language. I can't understand a thing she's saying."

  "Kidnapped children are never any fun," said the hook-handed man, who was perhaps Sunny's least favorite of Olaf's troupe. "Remember when we had the Quagmires in our clutches, boss? They did nothing but complain. They complained when we put them in a cage. They complained when we trapped them inside a fountain. Complain, complain, complain — I was so sick of them I was almost glad when they escaped from our clutches."

  "Glad?" Count Olaf said with a snarl. "We worked hard to steal the Quagmire fortune, and we didn't get a single sapphire. That was a real waste of time."

  "Don't blame yourself, Olaf," said one of the white-faced women from the back seat. "Everybody makes mistakes."

  "Not this time," Olaf said. "With the two orphans squashed someplace underneath a crashed caravan and the baby orphan on your lap, the Baudelaire fortune is mine. And once we reach the Valley of Four Drafts and find the headquarters, all our worries will be over."

  "Why?" asked Hugo, the hunchbacked man who had previously been employed at the carnival.

  "Yes, please explain," said Kevin, another former carnival worker. At Caligari Carnival, Kevin had been embarrassed to be ambidextrous, but Esmé had lured him into joining Olaf's troupe by tying Kevin's right hand behind his back, so no one would know it was as strong as his left. "Remember, boss, we're new to the troupe, so we don't always know what's going on."

  "I remember when I first joined Olaf's troupe," the other white-faced woman said. "I'd never even heard of the Snicket file."

/>   "Working for me is a hands-on learning experience," Olaf said. "You can't rely on me to explain everything to you. I'm a very busy man."

  "I'll explain it, boss," said the hook-handed man. "Count Olaf, like any good businessman, has committed a wide variety of crimes."

  "But these stupid volunteers have gathered all sorts of evidence and filed it away," Esmé said. "I tried to explain that crime is very in right now, but apparently they weren't interested."

  Sunny wiped another tear from her eye and sighed. The youngest Baudelaire thought she'd almost rather be pinched again than hear any more of Esmé Squalor's nonsense about what was in — the word that Esmé used for "fashionable" — and what was out.

  "We need to destroy those files, or Count Olaf could be arrested," the hook-handed man said. "We have reason to believe that some of the files are at V.F.D. headquarters."

  "What does V.F.D. stand for?" The voice of Colette came from the floor of the automobile.

  Count Olaf had ordered her to use her skills as a carnival contortionist to curl up at the feet of the other members of the troupe.

  "That's top-secret information!" Olaf growled, to Sunny's disappointment. "I used to be a member of the organization myself, but I found it was more fun to be an individual practitioner."

  "What does that mean?" asked the hook-handed man.

  "It means a life of crime," Esmé replied. "It's very in right now."

  "Wrong def." Sunny could not help speaking through her tears. By "wrong def she meant something along the lines of, "An individual practitioner means someone who works alone, instead of with a group, and it has nothing to do with a life of crime," and it made her sad that there was no one around who could understand her.

  "There you go, babbling away," Esmé said. "This is why I never want to have children.

  Except as servants, of course."

  "This journey is easier than I thought," Olaf said. "The map says we just have to pass a few more caves."

  "Is there an in hotel near the headquarters?" Esmé asked.

  "I'm afraid not, sweetheart," the villain replied, "but I have two tents in the trunk of the car. We'll be camping on Mount Fraught, the summit of the Mortmain Mountains."

  "The summit?" Esmé said. "It'll be cold at the highest peak."

  "It's true," Olaf admitted, "but False Spring is on its way, so before long it'll be a bit warmer."

  "But what about tonight?" Esmé Squalor said. "It is definitely not in for me to set up tents in the freezing cold."

  Count Olaf looked at his girlfriend and began to laugh, and Sunny could smell the foul breath of his nasty giggles. "Don't be silly," the villain said finally. "You're not going to set up the tents, Esmé. You're going to stay nice and toasty in the car. The bucktoothed baby will set up the tents for us."

  Now Olaf's entire troupe laughed, and the car filled with the stench of so many villains' bad breath. Sunny felt a few more tears roll down her face, and turned to the window so no one would see. The car's windows were very dirty, but the youngest Baudelaire could see the strange, square peaks of the Mortmain Mountains and the dark waters of the Stricken Stream. By now the car had driven so high up in the mountains that the stream was mostly ice, and Sunny looked at the wide stripe of frozen blackness and wondered where her siblings were, and if they were coming to rescue her. She remembered the other time she had been in Count Olaf's clutches, when the villain had tied her up, locked her in a cage and dangled her outside his tower room as part of one of his schemes. It had been an absolutely terrifying experience for the youngest Baudelaire, and she often still had nightmares about the creaking of he cage and the distant sight of her two siblings looking up at her from Count Olaf's backyard. But Violet had built a grappling hook to rescue her, and Klaus had done some important legal research to defeat Olaf's scheme. As the car took Sunny farther and farther away from her siblings, and she stared out at the lonesome terrain, she knew that they could save her again.

  "How long will we stay on Mount Fraught?" Hugo asked.

  "Until I say so, of course," Count Olaf replied.

  "You'll soon find out that much of this job involves a lot of waiting around," the hook-handed man said. "I usually keep something around to help pass the time, like a deck of cards or a large rock."

  "It can be dull," admitted one of the white-faced women, "and it can be dangerous. Several of our comrades have recently suffered terrible fates."

  "It was worth it," Count Olaf said nonchalantly, a word which here means "in a tone of voice that indicated he didn't care one bit about his deceased employees." "Sometimes a few people need to die in fires or get eaten by lions, if it's all for the greater good."

  "What's the greater good?" asked Colette.

  "Money!" Esmé cried in greedy glee. "Money and personal satisfaction, and we're going to get both of those things out of this whimpering baby on my lap! Once we have our hands on the Baudelaire fortune, we'll have enough money to live a life of luxury and plan several more treacherous schemes!"

  The entire troupe cheered, and Count Olaf gave Sunny a filthy grin, but did not say anything more as the car raced up a steep, bumpy hill, and at last screeched to a halt, just as the last rays of the sun faded into the evening sky. "We're here at last," Count Olaf said, and handed the car keys to Sunny. "Get out, baby orphan. Unload everything from the trunk and set up the tents."

  "And bring us some potato chips," Esmé said, "so we'll have something in to eat while we wait."

  Esmé opened the door of the car, placed Sunny on the frozen ground, and slammed the door shut again. Instantly, the chilly mountain air surrounded the youngest Baudelaire and made her shiver. It was so bitterly cold at the highest peak of the Mortmain Mountains that her tears froze in their tracks, forming a tiny mask of ice all over her face. Unsteadily, Sunny rose to her feet and walked to the back of the car. She was tempted to keep walking, and escape from Olaf while he waited in the car with his troupe. But where could she go? Sunny looked around at her surroundings and could not see a place where a baby would be safe by herself.

  The summit of Mount Fraught was a small, flat square, and as Sunny walked to the trunk of the car, she gazed off each edge of the square, feeling a bit dizzy from the great height. From three of the edges, she could see the square and misty peaks of some of the other mountains, most of which were covered in snow, and twisting through the peaks were the strange, black waters of the Stricken Stream, and the rocky path that the car had driven along. But from the fourth side of the square peak, Sunny saw something so strange it took her a moment to figure out what it was.

  Extending from the highest peak in the Mortmain Mountains was a glittering white strip, like an enormous piece of shiny paper folded downward, or the wing of some tremendous bird. Sunny watched the very last rays of the sunset reflect off this enormous surface and slowly realized what it was: the source of the Stricken Stream. Like many streams, the Stricken Stream originated within the rocks of the mountains, and in the warmer season, Sunny could see that it cascaded down from the highest peak in an enormous waterfall. But this was not a warm time of year, and just as Sunny's tears had frozen on her face, the waterfall had frozen solid, into a long, slippery slope that disappeared into the darkness below. It was such an eerie sight that it took Sunny a moment to wonder why the ice was white, instead of black like the waters of the Stricken Stream.

  Honk! A loud blast from Count Olaf's horn made Sunny remember what she was supposed to be doing, and she hurriedly opened the trunk and found a bag of potato chips, which she brought back to the car. "That took a very long time, orphan," said Olaf, rather than "Thank you." "Now go set up the tents, one for Esmé and me and one for my troupe, so we can get some sleep."

  "Where is the baby going to stay?" asked the hook-handed man. "I don't want her in my tent. I hear that babies can creep up and steal your breath while you're sleeping."

  "Well, she's certainly not sleeping with me," Esmé said. "It's not in to have a baby in your tent."r />
  "She's not going to sleep in either tent," Olaf decided. "There's a large covered casserole dish in the trunk. She can sleep in there."

  "Will she be safe in a casserole dish?" Esmé said. "Remember, Olaf honey, if she dies then we can't get our hands on the fortune."

  "There are a few holes in the top so she can breathe," Olaf said, "and the cover will protect her from the snow gnats."

  "Snow gnats?" asked Hugo.

  "Snow gnats are well-organized, ill-tempered insects," Count Olaf explained, "who live in cold mountain areas and enjoy stinging people for no reason whatsoever. I've always been fond of them."

  "Nonat," Sunny said, which meant "I didn't notice any such insects outside," but no one paid any attention.

  "Won't she run away if no one's watching her?" asked Kevin.

  "She wouldn't dare," Count Olaf said, "and even if she tried to survive in the mountains by herself, we could see where she went. That's why we're staying here at the summit. We'll know if the brat escapes, or if anyone's coming after us, because we can see everything and everyone for miles and miles."

  "Eureka," Sunny said, before she could stop herself. She meant something along the lines of, "I've just realized something," but she had not meant to say it out loud.

  "Stop your babbling and get busy, you fanged brat!" Esmé Squalor said, and slammed the car door shut. Sunny could hear the laughing of the troupe and the crunching of potato chips as she walked slowly back to the trunk to find the tents.

  It is often quite frustrating to arrange all of the cloth and the poles so that a tent works correctly, which is why I have always preferred to stay in hotels or rented castles, which also have the added attractions of solid walls and maid service. Sunny, of course, had the extra disadvantages of trying to do it herself, in the dark, when she was still fairly new at walking and was worried about her siblings. But the youngest Baudelaire had a history of performing Herculean tasks, a phrase which here means "managing to do incredibly difficult things." As I'm sure you know, if you are ever forced to do something very difficult, it often helps to think of something inspiring to keep you going. When Sunny had engaged in a sword-and-tooth fight at Lucky Smells Lumbermill, for instance, she thought of how much she cared for her siblings, and it helped her defeat the evil Dr. Orwell. When Sunny climbed up an elevator shaft at 667 Dark Avenue, she had concentrated on her friends the Quagmires, and how much she wanted to rescue them, and before too long she had reached the penthouse apartment. So, as Sunny dug a hole in the frozen ground with her teeth so the tent poles would stay in place, she thought of something that inspired her, and oddly enough it was something that Count Olaf had said, about being able to see everything and everyone for miles and miles. As Sunny assembled the tents, and gazed down every so often at the slippery slope of the frozen waterfall, she decided that she would not try to sneak away from Olaf and his troupe. She would not to try to sneak anywhere. Because if you could see everything and everyone from Mount Fraught, that also meant everything and everyone, including Violet and Klaus Baudelaire, would be able to see her.