The five children got moving. With the Quagmire triplets in the lead, the group of youngsters peered down one street after another until they found one without a sign of anyone coming, and hurried out of the courtyard.
"Olaf smuggled us away in that item from the In Auction with the help of Esmé Squalor," Duncan began, referring to the last time the Baudelaires had seen him and his sister. "And he hid us for a while in the tower room of his terrible house."
Violet shuddered. "I haven't thought of that room in quite some time," she said. "It's hard to believe that we used to live with such a vile man."
Klaus pointed to the distant figure who was walking toward them, and the five children turned onto another empty street. "This street doesn't lead to Hector's house," he said, we'll try to double back. Go on, Duncan."
"Olaf learned that you three would be living with Hector at the outskirts of this town " Duncan continued, "and he had his associates build that hideous fountain."
"Then he placed us inside," Isadora said "and had us installed in the uptown courtyard so he could keep an eye on us while he tried to hunt you down. We knew that you were our only chance of escaping."
The children reached a corner and stopped, while Duncan peeked around it to make sure no one was approaching. He signaled that it was safe, and continued the story. "We needed to send you a message, but we were afraid it would fall into the wrong hands. Isadora had the idea of writing in couplets, with our location hidden in the first letter of each line."
"And Duncan figured out how to get them to Hector's house," Isadora said. "He'd done some research about migration patterns in large black birds, so he knew that the crows would roost every night in Nevermore Tree — right next to Hector's house. Every morning, I would write a couplet, and the two of us would reach up through the fountain's beak."
"There was always a crow roosting on the very top of the fountain," Duncan said, "so we would wrap the scrap of paper around its leg. The paper was all wet from the fountain, so it would stick easily."
"And Duncan's research was absolutely right. The paper dried off, and fell at night." Isadora recited.
"That was a risky plan," Violet said.
"No riskier than breaking out of jail, and putting your lives in danger to rescue us," Duncan said, and looked at the Baudelaires in gratitude. "You saved our lives — again."
"We wouldn't leave you behind," Klaus said. "We refused to entertain the notion."
Isadora smiled, and patted Klaus's hand. "Meanwhile," she said, "while we were trying to contact you, Olaf hatched a plan to steal your fortune — and get rid of an old enemy at the same time."
"You mean Jacques," Violet said. "When we saw him with the Council of Elders, he was trying to tell us something. Why does he have the same tattoo as Olaf? Who is he?"
"His full name," Duncan said, flipping through his notebook, "is Jacques Snicket."
"That sounds familiar," Violet said.
"I'm not surprised," Duncan said. "Jacques Snicket is the brother of a man who — "
"There they are!" a voice cried, and in an instant the children realized they had neglected to look in back of them, as well as in front of them and around each corner. About two blocks behind them was Mr. Lesko, leading a small group of torch-carrying citizens straight up the street. The day was getting later, and the torches left long, skinny shadows on the sidewalk as if the mob were being led by slithering black serpents, instead of a man in plaid pants. "There are the orphans!" Mr. Lesko cried triumphantly. "After them, citizens!"
"Who are those other two?" asked an Elder in the crowd.
"Who cares?" said Mrs. Morrow, and waved her torch. "They're probably more accomplices! Let's burn them at the stake, too!"
"Why not?" said another Elder. "We already have torches and kindling, and I don't have anything else to do right now."
Mr. Lesko stopped at a corner and called down a street the children couldn't see. "Hey, everyone!" he shouted. "They're over here!"
The five children had been staring at the group of citizens, too terrified to get moving again. Sunny was the first to recover. "Lililk!" she shouted, and began crawling down the street as fast as she could. She meant something like "Let's go! Don't look behind you! Let's just try to get to Hector and his self-sustaining hot air mobile home before the mob catches up with us and burns us at the stake!" but her companions didn't need any encouragement. Down the street they raced, paying no attention to the footsteps and shouts behind them, which seemed to be growing in number as more and more people heard the news that V.F.D.'s prisoners were escaping. The children ran down narrow alleys and wide main streets, across parks and bridges that were all covered in black feathers. Occasionally they had to retrace their steps, a phrase which here means "turn around and run the other way when they saw townspeople approaching," and often they had to duck into doorways or hide behind shrubbery while angry citizens ran by, as if the children were playing a game of hide-and-go-seek instead of running for their lives. The afternoon wore on, and the shadows on V.F.D.'s streets grew longer and longer, and still the sidewalks echoed with the sounds of the mob's cries and the windows of the buildings reflected the flames from the torches the townspeople were carrying. Finally, the five children reached the outskirts of town, and stared at the flat, bare landscape. The Baudelaires searched desperately for a sign of the handyman and his invention, but only the shapes of Hector's house, the barn, and Nevermore Tree were visible on the horizon.
"Where's Hector?" Isadora asked frantically.
"I don't know," Violet said. "He said he'd be at the barn, but I don't see him."
"Where can we go?" Duncan cried. "We can't hide anywhere around here. The citizens will spot us in a second."
"We're trapped," Klaus said, his voice hoarse with panic.
"Vireo!" Sunny cried, which meant "Let's run — or, in my case, crawl — as fast as we can!"
"We'll never run fast enough," Violet said, pointing behind them. "Look."
The youngsters turned around, and saw the entire Village of Fowl Devotees, marching together in a huge group. They had rounded the last corner and were now heading straight toward the five children, their footsteps as loud as a roll of thunder. But the youngsters did not feel as if it was thunder that was rolling toward them. As hundreds of fierce and angry citizens approached, it felt more like the rolling of an enormous root vegetable. It felt like a root vegetable that could crush all of the reptiles in Uncle Monty's collection in five seconds flat, or one that could soak up every drop of water of Lake Lachrymose in an instant. The approaching crowd felt like a root vegetable that made every tree in the Finite Forest look like a tiny twig, made the huge lasagna served at the Prufrock Preparatory School cafeteria look like a light snack, and made the skyscraper at 667 Dark Avenue look like a dollhouse made for midget children to play with, a root vegetable so tremendous in size that it would win every first-place ribbon in every starchy farm crop competition in every state and county fair in the entire world from now until the end of time. The march of the torch-wielding mob, eager to capture Violet and Klaus and Sunny and Duncan and Isadora and burn each one of them at the stake, felt like the largest potato the Baudelaire orphans and the Quagmire triplets had ever encountered.
Chapter Thirteen
The Baudelaires looked at the Quagmires, and the Quagmires looked at the Baudelaires, and then all five children looked at the mob. All the members of the Council of Elders were walking together, their crow-shaped hats bobbing in unison. Mrs. Morrow was leading a chant of "Burn the orphans! Burn the orphans!" which the Verhoogen family was taking up with spirit, and Mr. Lesko's eyes were shining as brightly as his torch. The only person missing from the mob was Detective Dupin, who the children would have expected to be leading the crowd. Instead, Officer Luciana walked in front, A scowling below the visor of her helmet as she led the way in her shiny black boots. In one white-gloved hand she was clutching something covered in a blanket, and with the other hand she was pointing at
the terrified children.
"There they are!" Officer Luciana cried, pointing her white-gloved finger at the five terrified children. "They have nowhere else to go!"
"She's right!" Klaus cried. "There's no way to escape!"
"Machina!" Sunny shrieked.
"There's no sign of deus ex machina, Sunny," Violet said, her eyes filling with tears. "I don't think anything helpful will arrive unexpectedly."