A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Slippery Slope (7 page)

Chapter Eight

If is one of the peculiar truths of life that people often say things that they know full well are ridiculous. If someone asks you how you are, for example, you might automatically say "Fine, thank you," when in fact you have just failed an examination or been trampled by an ox. A friend might tell you, "I've looked everywhere in the world for my keys," when you know that they have actually only looked in a few places in the immediate area. Once I said to a woman I loved very much, "I'm sure that this trouble will end soon, and you and I will spend the rest of our lives together in happiness and bliss," when I actually suspected that things were about to get much worse. And so it was with the two elder Baudelaires, when they stood face-to-face with Quigley Quagmire and found themselves to be saying things they knew were absurd. "You're dead," Violet said, and took off her mask to make sure she was seeing things clearly. But there was no mistaking Quigley, even though the Baudelaires had never seen him before. He looked so much like Duncan and Isadora that he could only be the third Quagmire triplet. "You perished in a fire along with your parents," Klaus said, but as he took off his mask he knew this wasn't so. Quigley was even giving the two Baudelaires a small smile that looked exactly like his siblings'. "No," Quigley said. "I survived, and I've been looking for my siblings ever since." "But how did you survive?" Violet asked. "Duncan and Isadora said that the house burned to the ground." "It did," Quigley said sadly. He looked out at the frozen waterfall and sighed deeply. "I suppose I should start at the beginning. I was in my family's library, studying a map of the Finite Forest, when I heard a shattering of glass, and people shouting. My mother ran into the room and said there was a fire. We tried to go out the front door but the main hall was filled with smoke, so she took me back into the library and lifted a corner of the rug. There was a secret door underneath. She told me to wait down below while she fetched my siblings, and she left me there in the dark. I remember hearing the house falling to pieces above me, and the sound of frantic footsteps, and my siblings screaming." Quigley put his mask down on the ground and looked at the two Baudelaires. "But she never came back," he said. "Nobody came back, and when I tried to open the door, something had fallen on top of it and it wouldn't budge." "How did you get out?" Klaus asked. "I walked," Quigley said. "When it became clear that no one was going to rescue me, I felt around in the dark and realized I was in a sort of passageway. There was nowhere else to go so I started walking. I've never been so frightened in my life, walking alone in some dark passageway my parents had kept secret. I couldn't imagine where it would lead." The two Baudelaires looked at one another. They were thinking about the secret passageway they had discovered underneath their home, which they had discovered when they were under the care of Esme Squalor and her husband. "And where did it lead?" Violet said. "To the house of a herpetologist," Quigley said. "At the end of the passageway was a secret door that opened into an enormous room, made entirely of glass. The room was filled with empty cages, but it was clear that the room had once housed an enormous collection of reptiles." "We've been there!" Klaus cried in amazement. "That's Uncle Monty's house! He was our guardian until Count Olaf arrived, disguised as... " "As a lab assistant," Quigley finished. "I know. His suitcase was still there." "There was a secret passageway under our house, too," Violet said, "but we didn't discover it until we lived with Esme Squalor." "There are secrets everywhere," Quigley said. "I think everyone's parents have secrets. You just have to know where to look for them." "But why would our parents, and yours, have tunnels underneath their homes leading to a fancy apartment building and a herpetologist's home?" Klaus said. "It doesn't make any sense." Quigley sighed, and put his backpack on the ashen ground, next to his mask. "There's a lot that doesn't make sense," he said. "I was hoping to find the answers here, but now I don't know if I'll ever find them." He took out his purple notebook and opened it to the first page. "All I can tell you is what I have here in this commonplace book." Klaus gave Quigley a small smile, and reached into his pockets to retrieve all of the papers he had stored there. "You tell us what you know," he said, "and we'll tell you what we know. Perhaps together we can answer our own questions." Quigley nodded in agreement, and the three children sat in a circle on what was once the kitchen floor. Quigley opened his backpack and took out a bag of salted almonds, which he passed around. "You must be hungry from the climb up the Vertical Flame Diversion," he said. "I know I am. Let's see, where was I?" "In the Reptile Room," Violet said, "at the end of the passageway." "Well, nothing happened for a while," Quigley said. "On the doorstep of the house was a copy of The Daily Punctilio, which had an article about the fire. That's how I learned that my parents were dead. I spent days and days there, all by myself. I was so sad, and so scared, and I didn't know what else to do. I suppose I was waiting for the herpetologist to show up for work, and see if he was a friend of my parents and might be of some assistance. The kitchen was filled with food, so I had enough to eat, and every night I slept at the bottom of the stairs, so I could hear if anyone came in." The Baudelaires nodded sympathetically, and Violet put a comforting hand on Quigley's shoulder. "We were the same way," Violet said, "right when we heard the news about our parents. I scarcely remember what we did and what we said." "But didn't anyone come looking for you?" Klaus asked. "'The Daily Punctilio said that I died in the fire, too," Quigley said. "The article said that my sister and brother were sent off to Prufrock Preparatory School, and that my parents' estate was under the care of the city's sixth most important financial advisor." "Esme Squalor" Violet and Klaus said simultaneously, a word which here means "in a disgusted voice, and at the exact same time." "Right," Quigley said, "but I wasn't interested in that part of the story. I was determined to go to the school and find my siblings again. I found an atlas in Dr. Montgomery's library, and studied it until I found Prufrock Preparatory School. It wasn't too far, so I started to gather whatever supplies I could find around his house." "Didn't you think of calling the authorities?" Klaus asked. "I guess I wasn't thinking very clearly," Quigley admitted. "All I could think of was finding my siblings." "Of course," Violet said. "So what happened then?" "I was interrupted," Quigley said. "Someone walked in just as I was putting the atlas in a totebag I found. It was Jacques Snicket, although I didn't know who he was, of course. But he knew who I was, and was overjoyed that I was alive after all." "How did you know you could trust him?" Klaus asked. "Well, he knew about the secret passageway," Quigley said. In fact, he knew quite a bit about my family, even though he hadn't seen my parents in years. And..." "And?" Violet said. Quigley gave her a small smile. "And he was very well-read," he said. "In fact, he was at Dr. Montgomery's house to do a bit more reading. He said there was an important file that was hidden someplace on the premises, and he had to stay for a few days to try and complete his investigation." "So he didn't take you to the school?" Violet asked. "He said it wasn't safe for me to be seen," Quigley said. "He explained that he was part of a secret organization, and that my parents had been a part of it, too." "V.F.D.," Klaus said, and Quigley nodded in agreement. "Duncan and Isadora tried to tell us about V.F.D.," Violet said, "but they never got the chance. We don't even know what it stands for." "It seems to stand for many things," Quigley said, flipping pages in his notebook. "Nearly everything the organization uses, from the Volunteer Feline Detectives to the Vernacularly Fastened Door, has the same initials." "But what is the organization?" Violet asked. "What is V.F.D.?" "Jacques wouldn't tell me," Quigley said, "but I think the letters stand for Volunteer Fire Department." "Volunteer Fire Department," Violet repeated, and looked at her brother. "What does that mean?" "In some communities," Klaus said, "there's no official fire department, and so they rely on volunteers to extinguish fires." "I know that," Violet said, "but what does that have to do with our parents, or Count Olaf, or anything that has happened to us? I always thought that knowing what the letters stood for would solve the mystery, but I'm as mystified as I ever was." "Do you think our parents were secretly fighting fires?" Klaus asked. "But why would they keep it a secret?" Violet asked. "And why would they have a secret passageway underneath the house?" "Jacques said that the passageways were built by members of the organization," Quigley said. "In the case of an emergency, they could escape to a safe place." "But the tunnel we found connects our house to the home of Esme Squalor," Klaus said. "That's not a safe place." "Something happened," Quigley said. "Something that changed everything." He flipped through a few pages of his commonplace book until he found what he was looking for. "Jacques Snicket called it a 'schism,'" he said, "but I don't know what that word means." "A schism," Klaus said, "is a division of a previously united group of people into two or more oppositional parties. It's like a big argument, with everybody choosing sides." "That makes sense," Quigley said. "The way Jacques talked, it sounded like the entire organization was in chaos. Volunteers who were once working together are now enemies. Places that were once safe are now dangerous. Both sides are using the same codes, and the same disguises. Even the V.F.D. insignia used to represent the noble ideals everyone shared, but now it's all gone up in smoke." "But how did the schism start?" Violet asked. "What was everyone fighting over?" "I don't know," Quigley said. "Jacques didn't have much time to explain things to me." "What was he doing?" Klaus asked. "He was looking for you," Quigley replied. "He showed me a picture of all three of you, waiting at the dock on some lake, and asked me if I'd seen you anywhere. He knew that you'd been placed in Count Olaf's care, and all the terrible things that had happened there. He knew that you had gone to live with Dr. Montgomery. He even knew about some of the inventions you made, Violet, and the research you did, Klaus, and some of Sunny's tooth-related exploits. He wanted to find you before it was too late." "Too late for what?" Violet said. "I don't know," Quigley said with a sigh. "Jacques spent a long time at Dr. Montgomery's house, but he was too busy conducting his investigation to explain everything to me. He would stay up all night reading and copying information into his notebook, and then sleep all day, or disappear for hours at a time. And then one day, he said he had to go interview someone in the town of Paltryville, but he never came back. I waited weeks and weeks for him to return. I read books in Dr. Montgomery's library, and started a commonplace book of my own. At first it was difficult to find any information on V.F.D., but I took notes on anything I could find. I must have read hundreds of books, but Jacques never returned. Finally, one morning, two things happened that made me decide not to wait any longer. The first was an article in The Daily Punctilio saying that my siblings had been kidnapped from the school. I knew I had to do something. I couldn't wait for Jacques Snicket or for anyone else." The Baudelaires nodded in solemn agreement. "What was the second thing?" Violet asked. Quigley was silent for a moment, and he reached down to the ground and scooped up a handful of ashes, letting them fall from his gloved hands. "I smelled smoke," he said, "and when I opened the door of the Reptile Room, I saw that someone had thrown a torch through the glass of the ceiling, starting a fire in the library. Within minutes, the entire house was in flames." "Oh," Violet said quietly. "Oh" is a word which usually means something along the lines of, "I heard you, and I'm not particularly interested," but in this case, of course, the eldest Baudelaire meant something entirely different, and it is something that is difficult to define. She meant "I am sad to hear that Uncle Monty's house burned down," but that is not all. By "Oh," Violet was also trying to describe her sadness about all of the fires that had brought Quigley and Klaus and herself here to the Mortmain Mountains, to huddle in a circle and try to solve the mystery that surrounded them. When Violet said "Oh," she was not only thinking of the fire in the Reptile Room, but the fires that had destroyed the Baudelaire home, and the Quagmire home, and Heimlich Hospital, and Caligari Carnival, and the V.F.D. headquarters, where the smell of smoke still lingered around where the children were sitting. Thinking of all those fires made Violet feel as if the entire world were going up in flames, and that she and her siblings and all the other decent people in the world might never find a place that was truly safe. "Another fire," Klaus murmured, and Violet knew he was thinking the same thing. "Where could you go, Quigley?" "The only place I could think of was Paltryville," Quigley said. "The last time I saw Jacques he'd said he was going there. I thought if I went there I might find him again, and see if he could help me rescue Duncan and Isadora. Dr. Montgomery's atlas showed me how to get there, but I had to go on foot, because I was afraid that anyone who might offer me a ride would be an enemy. It was a long time before I finally arrived, but as soon as I stepped into town I saw a large building that matched the tattoo on Jacques Snicket's ankle. I thought it might be a safe place to go." "Dr. Orwell's office!" Klaus cried. "That's not a safe place to go!" "Klaus was hypnotized there," Violet explained, "and Count Olaf was disguised as... " "As a receptionist," Quigley finished. "I know. His fake nameplate was still on the desk. The office was deserted, but I could tell that Jacques had been there, because there were some notes in his handwriting that he'd left on the desk. With those notes, and the information I'd read in Dr. Montgomery's library, I learned about the V.F.D. headquarters. So instead of waiting for Jacques again, I set out to find the organization. I thought they were my best hope of rescuing my siblings." "So you set off to the Mortmain Mountains by yourself?" Violet asked. "Not quite by myself," Quigley said.
"I had this backpack that Jacques left behind, with the Verdant Flammable Devices and a few other items, and I had my commonplace book. And eventually, I ran into the Snow Scouts, and realized that hiding among them would be the quickest way to reach Mount Fraught." He turned a page in his commonplace book and examined his notes. "Remarkable Phenomena of the Mortmain Mountains, which I read in Dr Montgomery's library, had a hidden chapter that told me all about the Vertical Flame Diversion and the Vernacularly Fastened Door." Klaus looked over Quigley's shoulder to read his notes. "I should have read that book when I had the chance," he said, shaking his head. "If we had known about V.F.D. when we were living with Uncle Monty, we might have avoided all the trouble that followed." "When we were living with Uncle Monty," Violet reminded him, "we were too busy trying to escape Count Olaf's clutches to do any additional research." "I've had plenty of time to do research," Quigley said, "but I still haven't found all the answers I'm looking for. I still haven't found Duncan and Isadora, and I still don't know where Jacques Snicket is." "He's dead," Klaus said, very quietly. "Count Olaf murdered him." "I thought you might say that," Quigley said. "I knew something was very wrong when he didn't return. But what about my siblings? Do you know what happened to them?" "They're safe, Quigley," Violet said. "We think they're safe. We rescued them from Olaf's clutches, and they escaped with a man named Hector." "Escaped?" Quigley repeated. "Where did they go?" "We don't know," Klaus admitted. "Hector built a self-sustaining hot air mobile home. It was like a flying house, kept in the air by a bunch of balloons, and Hector said it could stay up in the sky forever." "We tried to climb aboard," Violet said, "but Count Olaf managed to stop us." "So you don't know where they are?" Quigley asked. "I'm afraid not," Violet said, and patted his hand. "But Duncan and Isadora are intrepid people, Quigley. They survived for quite some time in Olaf's clutches, taking notes on his schemes and trying to pass on the information to us." "Violet's right," Klaus said. "I'm sure that wherever they are, they're continuing their research. Eventually, they'll find out you're alive, and they'll come looking for you, just like you went looking for them." The two Baudelaires looked at one another and shivered. They had been talking about Quigley's family, of course, but they felt as if they were talking about their own. "I'm sure that if your parents are alive, they're looking for you, too," Quigley said, as if he'd read their minds. "And Sunny, too. Do you know where she is?" "Someplace nearby," Violet said. "She's with Count Olaf, and Olaf wanted to find the headquarters, too." "Maybe Olaf has already been here," Quigley said, looking around at the wreckage. "Maybe he's the one who burned this place down." "I don't think so," Klaus said. "He wouldn't have had time to burn this whole place down. We were right on his trail. Plus, I don't think this place burned down all at once." "Why not?" Quigley said. "It's too big," Klaus replied. "If the whole headquarters were burning, the sky would be covered in smoke." "That's true," Violet said. "That much smoke would arouse too much suspicion." "Where there's smoke," Quigley said, "there's fire." Violet and Klaus turned to their friend to agree, but Quigley was not looking at the two Baudelaires. He was looking past them, toward the frozen pool and the two frozen tributaries, where the enormous windows of the V.F.D. kitchen had once stood, and where I once chopped broccoli while the woman I loved mixed up a spicy peanut sauce to go with it, and he was pointing up toward the sky, where my associates and I used to watch the volunteer eagles who could spot smoke from a very great distance. That afternoon, there were no eagles in the skies over the Mortmain Mountains, but as Violet and Klaus stood up and looked in the direction Quigley was pointing, there was something in the sky that caught their attention. Because when Quigley Quagmire said, "Where there's smoke, there's fire," he was not referring to Klaus's theory about the destruction of V.F.D. headquarters. He was talking about the sight of green smoke, wafting up into the sky from the peak of Mount Fraught, at the top of the slippery slope.