The Slippery Slope

by Lemony Snicket

  "Of course," Esmé said with a nervous snicker. "We'll have the Spats fortune, the Kornbluth fortune, the Winnipeg fortune, and many others. I'll be able to afford the penthouse apartment of every single building that isn't on fire!"

  "Once you tell us where the sugar bowl is," said the man with a beard but no hair, "you can leave, volunteers, and take your baby friend with you. But wouldn't you rather join us?"

  "No, thank you," Quigley said. "We're not interested."

  "It doesn't matter if you're interested or not," said the woman with hair but no beard. "Look around you. You're hopelessly outnumbered. Wherever we go, we find new comrades who are eager to assist us in our work."

  "We have comrades, too," Violet said bravely. "As soon as we rescue Sunny, we're going to meet up with the other volunteers at the last safe place, and tell them about your terrible scheme!"

  "It's too late for that, volunteers," said Count Olaf in triumph. "Here come my new recruits!"

  With a horrible laugh, the villain pointed in the direction of the rocky path, and the elder Baudelaires could see, past the covered casserole dish still held by the white-faced women, the arrival of the uniformed Snow Scouts, walking in two neat lines, more like eggs in a carton than young people on a hike. Apparently, the scouts had realized that the snow gnats were absent from this part of the Mortmain Mountains and had removed their masks, so Violet and Klaus could instantly spot Carmelita Spats, standing at the front of one of the lines with a tiara on her head — "tiara" is a word which here means "small crown given to a nasty little girl for no good reason"

  — and a large smirk on her face. Beside her, at the head of the other line, stood Bruce, holding the Springpole in one hand and a big cigar in the other. There was something about his face that Violet and Klaus found familiar, but they were too concerned about the villainous recruitment plan to give it much thought.

  "What are all you cakesniffers doing here?" demanded Carmelita, in an obnoxious voice the two siblings found equally familiar. "I'm the False Spring Queen, and I order you to go away!"

  "Now, now, Carmelita," Bruce said. "I'm sure these people are here to help celebrate your special day. Let's try to be accommodating. In fact we should try to be accommodating, basic, calm, darling — "

  The scouts had begun to say the ridiculous pledge along with Bruce, but the two Baudelaires knew they could not wait for the entire alphabetical list to be recited. "Bruce," Violet interrupted quickly, "these people are not here to help you celebrate False Spring. They're here to kidnap all of the Snow Scouts."

  "What?" Bruce asked with a smile, as if the eldest Baudelaire might have been joking.

  "It's a trap," Klaus said. "Please, turn around and lead the scouts away from here."

  "Pay no attention to these three masked idiots," Count Olaf said quickly. "The mountain air has gone to their heads. Just take a few steps closer and we'll all join in a special celebration."

  "We're happy to accommodate," Bruce said. "After all, we're accommodating, basic — "

  "No!" Violet cried. "Don't you see the net on the ground? Don't you see the eagles in the sky?"

  "The net is decoration," Esmé said, with a smile as false as the Spring, "and the eagles are wildlife."

  "Please listen to us!" Klaus said. "You're in terrible danger!"

  Carmelita glared at the two Baudelaires, and adjusted her tiara. "Why should I listen to cakesniffing strangers like you?" she asked. "You're so stupid that you've still got your masks on, even though there aren't any snow gnats around here."

  Violet and Klaus looked at one another through their masks. Carmelita's response had been quite rude, but the two siblings had to admit she had a point. The Baudelaires were unlikely to convince anyone that they were telling the truth while their faces were unnecessarily covered. They did not want to sacrifice their disguises and reveal their true identities to Count Olaf and his troupe, but they couldn't risk the kidnapping of all the Snow Scouts, even to save their sister. The two Baudelaires nodded at one another, and then turned to see that Quigley was nodding, too, and the three children reached up and took off their masks for the greater good.

  Count Olaf's mouth dropped open in surprise. "You're dead!" he said to the eldest Baudelaire, saying something that he knew full well was ridiculous. "You perished in the caravan, along with Klaus!"

  Esmé stared at Klaus, looking just as astonished as her boyfriend. "You're dead, too!" she cried. "You fell off a mountain!"

  "And you're one of those twins!" Olaf said to Quigley. "You died a long time ago!"

  "I'm not a twin," Quigley said, "and I'm not dead."

  "And," Count Olaf said with a sneer, "you're not a volunteer. None of you are members of V.F.D. You're just a bunch of orphan brats."

  "In that case," said the woman with hair but no beard, in her deep, deep voice, "there's no reason to worry about that stupid baby any longer."

  "That's true," Olaf said, and turned to the white-faced women. "Throw the baby off the mountain!" he ordered.

  Violet and Klaus cried out in horror, but the two white-faced women merely looked at the covered casserole dish they were holding, and then at one another. Then, slowly, they looked at Count Olaf, but neither of them moved an inch.

  "Didn't you hear me?" Olaf asked. "Throw that baby off this mountain!"

  "No," said one of the white-faced women, and the two Baudelaires turned to them in relief.

  "No?" asked Esmé Squalor in an astonished voice. "What do you mean, no?"

  "We mean no," said the white-faced woman, and her companion nodded. Together they put the covered casserole dish down on the ground in front of them. Violet and Klaus were surprised to see that the dish did not move, and assumed that their sister must have been too scared to come out.

  "We don't want to participate in your schemes anymore," said the other white-faced woman, and sighed. "For a while, it was fun to fight fire with fire, but we've seen enough flames and smoke to last our whole lives."

  "We don't think that it was a coincidence that our home burned to the ground," said the first woman. "We lost a sibling in that fire, Olaf."

  Count Olaf pointed at the two women with a long, bony finger. "Obey my orders this instant!" he screamed, but his two former accomplices merely shook their heads, turned away from the villain, and began to walk away. Everyone on the square peak watched in silence as the two white-faced women walked past Count Olaf, past Esmé Squalor, past the two sinister villains with eagles on their shoulders, past the two Baudelaires and Quigley Quagmire, past the hook-handed man and the former employees of the carnival, and finally past Bruce and Carmelita Spats and the rest of the Snow Scouts, until they reached the rocky path and began to walk away from Mount Fraught altogether.

  Count Olaf opened his mouth and let out a terrible roar, and jumped up and down on the net. "You can't walk away from me, you pasty-faced women!" he cried. "I'll find you and destroy you myself! In fact, I can do anything myself! I'm an individual practitioner, and I don't need anybody's help to throw this baby off the mountain!" With a nasty chuckle, he picked up the covered casserole dish, staggering slightly, and walked to the edge of the half-frozen waterfall.

  "No!" Violet cried.

  "Sunny!" Klaus screamed.

  "Say good-bye to your baby sister, Baudelaires!" Count Olaf said, with a triumphant smile that showed all of his filthy teeth.

  "I'm not a baby!" cried a familiar voice from under the villain's long, black automobile, and the two elder Baudelaires watched with pride and relief as Sunny emerged from behind the tire Violet had punctured, and ran to hug her siblings. Klaus had to take his glasses off to wipe the tears from his eyes as he was finally reunited with the young girl who was his sister. "I'm not a baby!" Sunny said again, turning to Olaf in triumph.

  "How could this be?" Count Olaf said, but when he removed the cover from the casserole dish, he saw how this could be, because the object inside, which was about the same size and weight as the youngest Baudelaire, wasn't
a baby either.

  "Babganoush!" Sunny cried, which meant something along the lines of, "I concocted an escape plan with the eggplant that turned out to be even handier than I thought," but there was no need for anyone to translate, as the large vegetable slid out of the casserole dish and landed with a plop! at Olaf's feet.

  "Nothing is going right for me today!" cried the villain. "I'm beginning to think that washing my face was a complete waste of time!"

  "Don't upset yourself, boss," said Colette, contorting herself in concern. "I'm sure that Sunny will cook us something delicious with the eggplant."

  "That's true," the hook-handed man said. "She's becoming quite a cook. The False Spring Rolls were quite tasty, and the lox was delicious."

  "It could have used a little dill, in my opinion," Hugo said, but the three reunited Baudelaires turned away from this ridiculous conversation to face the Snow Scouts.

  "Now do you believe us?" Violet asked Bruce. "Can't you see that this man is a terrible villain who is trying to do you harm?"

  "Don't you remember us?" Klaus asked Carmelita Spats. "Count Olaf had a terrible scheme at Prufrock Prep, and he has a terrible scheme now!"

  "Of course I remember you," Carmelita said. "You're those cakesniffing orphans who caused Vice Principal Nero all that trouble. And now you're trying to ruin my very special day! Give me that Springpole, Uncle Bruce!"

  "Now, now, Carmelita," Bruce said, but Carmelita had already grabbed the long pole from Bruce's hands and was marching across the net toward the source of the Stricken Stream. The man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard clasped their wicked whips and raised their shiny whistles to their sinister mouths, but the Baudelaires could see they were waiting to spring their trap until the rest of the scouts stepped forward, so they would be inside the net when the eagles lifted it from the ground.

  "I crown myself False Spring Queen!" Carmelita announced, when she reached the very edge of Mount Fraught. With a nasty laugh of triumph, she elbowed the Baudelaires aside and drove the Springpole into the half-frozen top of the waterfall.

  There was a slow, loud shattering sound, and the Baudelaires looked down the slope and saw that an enormous crack was slowly making its way down the center of the waterfall, toward the pool and the two tributaries of the Stricken Stream. The Baudelaires gasped in horror. Although it was only the ice that was cracking, it looked as if the mountain were beginning to split in half, and that soon an enormous schism would divide the entire world.

  "What are you looking at?" Carmelita asked scornfully. "Everybody's supposed to be doing a dance in my honor."

  "That's right," Count Olaf said, "why doesn't everybody step forward and do a dance in honor of this darling little girl?"

  "Sounds good to me," Kevin said, leading his fellow employees onto the net. "After all, I have two equally strong feet."

  "And we should try to be accommodating," the hook-handed man said. "Isn't that what you said, Uncle Bruce?"

  "Absolutely," Bruce agreed, with a puff on his cigar. He looked a bit relieved that all the arguing had ceased, and that the scouts finally had an opportunity to do the same thing they did every year. "Come on, Snow Scouts, let's recite the Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge as we dance around the Springpole."

  The scouts cheered and followed Bruce onto the net. "Snow Scouts," the Snow Scouts said, "are accommodating, basic, calm, darling, emblematic, frisky, grinning, human, innocent, jumping, kept, limited, meek, nap-loving, official, pretty, quarantined, recent, scheduled, tidy, understandable, victorious, wholesome, xylophone, young, and zippered, every morning, every afternoon, every night, and all day long!"

  There is nothing wrong, of course, with having a pledge, and putting into words what you might feel is important in your life as a reminder to yourself as you make your way in the world. If you feel, for instance, that well-read people are less likely to be evil, and a world full of people sitting quietly with good books in their hands is preferable to a world filled with schisms and sirens and other noisy and troublesome things, then every time you enter a library you might say to yourself, "The world is quiet here," as a sort of pledge proclaiming reading to be the greater good. If you feel that well-read people ought to be lit on fire and their fortunes stolen, you might adopt the saying "Fight fire with fire!" as your pledge, whenever you ordered one of your comrades around. But whatever words you might choose to describe your own life, there are two basic guidelines for composing a good pledge. One guideline is that the pledge make good sense, so that if your pledge contains the word "xylophone," for example, you mean that a percussion instrument played with mallets is very important to you, and not that you simply couldn't think of a good word that begins with the letter X. The other guideline is that the pledge be relatively short, so if a group of villains is luring you into a trap with a net and a group of exhausted trained eagles, you'll have more time to escape.

  The Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge, sadly, did not follow either of these guidelines. As the Snow Scouts promised to be "xylophone," the man with a beard but no hair cracked his whip in the air, and the eagles sitting on both villains' shoulders began to flap their wings and, digging their claws into the thick pads, lifted the two sinister people high in the air, and when the pledge neared its end, and the Snow Scouts were all taking a big breath to make the snowy sound, the woman with hair but no beard blew her whistle, making a loud shriek the Baudelaires remembered from running laps as part of Olaf's scheme at Prufrock Prep. The three siblings stood with Quigley and watched as the rest of the eagles quickly dove to the ground, picked up the net, and, their wings trembling with the effort, lifted everyone who was standing on it into the air, the way you might remove all the dinner dishes from the table by lifting all the corners of the tablecloth. If you were to try such an unusual method of clearing the table, you would likely be sent to your room or chased out of the restaurant, and the results on Mount Fraught were equally disastrous. In moments, all of the Snow Scouts and Olaf's henchfolk were in an aerial heap, struggling together inside the net that the eagles were holding. The only person who escaped recruitment — besides the Baudelaires and Quigley Quagmire, of course — was Carmelita Spats, standing next to Count Olaf and his girlfriend.

  "What's going on?" Bruce asked Count Olaf from inside the net. "What have you done?"

  "I've triumphed," Count Olaf said, "again. A long time ago, I tricked you out of a reptile collection that I needed for my own use." The Baudelaires looked at one another in astonishment, suddenly realizing when they had met Bruce before. "And now, I've tricked you out of a collection of children!"

  "What's going to happen to us?" asked one of the Snow Scouts fearfully.

  "I don't care," said another Snow Scout, who seemed to be afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome already. "Every year we hike up to Mount Fraught and do the same thing. At least this year is a little different!"

  "Why are you recruiting me, too?" asked the hook-handed man, and the Baudelaires could see one of his hooks frantically sticking out of the net. "I already work for you."

  "Don't worry, hooky," Esmé replied mockingly. "It's all for the greater good!"

  "Mush!" cried the man with a beard but no hair, cracking his whip in the air. Squawking in fear, the eagles began to drag the net across the sky, away from Mount Fraught.

  "You get the sugar bowl from those bratty orphans, Olaf," ordered the woman with hair but no beard, "and we'll all meet up at the last safe place!"

  "With these eagles at our disposal," the sinister man said in his hoarse voice, "we can finally catch up to that self-sustaining hot air mobile home and destroy those volunteers!"

  The Baudelaires gasped, and shared an astonished look with Quigley. The villain was surely talking about the device that Hector had built at the Village of Fowl Devotees, in which Duncan and Isadora had escaped.

  "We'll fight fire with fire!" the woman with hair but no beard cried in triumph, and the eagles carried her away. Count Olaf muttered something to hims
elf and then turned and began creeping toward the Baudelaires. "I only need one of you to learn where the sugar bowl is," he said, his eyes shining brightly, "and to get my hands on the fortune. But which one should it be?"

  "That's a difficult decision," Esmé said. "On one hand, it's been enjoyable having an infant servant. But it would be a lot of fun to smash Klaus's glasses and watch him bump into things."

  "But Violet has the longest hair," Carmelita volunteered, as the Baudelaires backed toward the cracked waterfall with Quigley right behind them. "You could yank on it all the time, and tie it to things when you were bored."

  "Those are both excellent ideas," Count Olaf said. "I'd forgotten what an adorable little girl you are. Why don't you join us?"

  "Join you?" Carmelita asked.

  "Look at my stylish dress," Esmé said to Carmelita. "If you joined us, I'd buy you all sorts of in outfits."

  Carmelita looked thoughtful, gazing first at the children, and then at the two villains standing next to her and smiling. The three Baudelaires shared a look of horrified disappointment with Quigley. The siblings remembered how monstrous Carmelita had been at school, but it had never occurred to them that she would be interested in joining up with even more monstrous people.

  "Don't believe them, Carmelita," Quigley said, and took his purple notebook out of his pocket. "They'll burn your parents' house down. I have the evidence right here, in my commonplace book."

  "What are you going to believe, Carmelita?" Count Olaf asked. "A silly book, or something an adult tells you?"

  "Look at us, you adorable little girl," Esmé said, her yellow, orange, and red dress crackling on the ground. "Do we look like the sort of people who like to burn down houses?"

  "Carmelita!" Violet cried. "Don't listen to them!"

  "Carmelita!" Klaus cried. "Don't join them!"

  "Carmelita!" Sunny cried, which meant something like, "You're making a monstrous decision!"

  "Carmelita," Count Olaf said, in a sickeningly sweet voice. "Why don't you choose one orphan to live, and push the others off the cliff, and then we'll all go to a nice hotel together."