The Austere Academy (A Series of Unfortunate Events 5)

"That's true," Klaus said. "I assume if they'd been caught we would have heard by now."

"I'd make the same assumption," Violet said.

"I'd make the same assumption," came a nasty, mimicking voice, and the children were startled to see Vice Principal Nero standing behind them holding a huge stack of papers. In addition to the assumptions they had made out loud, the Baudelaires had made the assumption that they were alone, and they were surprised to find not only Vice Principal Nero but also Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass waiting in the doorway of the Orphans Shack. "I hope you've been studying all evening," Nero said, "because I told your teachers to make these exams extra-challenging, and the pieces of paper that the baby has to staple are very thick. Well, let's get started. Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass will take turns asking you questions until one of you gets an answer wrong, and then you flunk. Sunny will sit in the back and staple these papers into booklets of five papers each, and if your homemade staples don't work perfectly, then you flunk. Well, a musical genius like myself doesn't have all day to oversee exams. I've missed too much practice time as it is. Let's begin!"

Nero threw the papers into a big heap on one of the bales of hay, and the stapler right after it. Sunny crawled over as quickly as she could and began inserting the staples into the stapler, and Klaus stood up, still clutching the Quagmire notebooks. Violet put her noisy shoes back on her feet, and Mr. Remora swallowed a bite of banana and asked his first question.

"In my story about the donkey," he said, "how many miles did the donkey run?"

"Six," Violet said promptly.

"Six," Nero mimicked. "That can't be correct, can it, Mr. Remora?"

"Um, yes, actually," Mr. Remora said, taking another bite of banana.

"How wide," Mrs. Bass said to Klaus, "was the book with the yellow cover?"

"Nineteen centimeters," Klaus said immediately.

"Nineteen centimeters," Nero mocked. "That's wrong, isn't it, Mrs. Bass?"

"No," Mrs. Bass admitted. "That's the right answer."

"Well, try another question, Mr. Remora," Nero said.

"In my story about the mushroom," Mr. Remora asked Violet, "what was the name of the chef?"

"Maurice," Violet answered.

"Maurice," Nero mimicked.

"Correct," Mr. Remora said.

"How long was chicken breast number seven?" Mrs. Bass asked.

"Fourteen centimeters and five millimeters," Klaus said.

"Fourteen centimeters and five millimeters, Nero mimicked.

"That's right," Mrs. Bass said. "You're actually both very good students, even if you've been sleeping through class lately."

"Stop all this chitchat and flunk them," Nero said. "I've never gotten to expel any students, and I'm really looking forward to it."

"In my story about the dump truck," Mr. Remora said, as Sunny began to staple the pile of thick papers into booklets, "what color were the rocks that it carried?"

"Gray and brown."

"Gray and brown."

"Correct."

"How deep was my mother's casserole dish?"

"Six centimeters."

"Six centimeters."

"Correct."

"In my story about the weasel, what was its favorite color?"

The comprehensive exams went on and on, and if I were to repeat all of the tiresome and pointless questions that Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass asked, you might become so bored that you might go to sleep right here, using this book as a pillow instead of as an entertaining and instructive tale to benefit young minds. Indeed, the exams were so boring that the Baudelaire orphans might normally have dozed through the test themselves. But they dared not doze. One wrong answer or unstapled piece of paper, and Nero would expel them from Prufrock Preparatory School and send them into the waiting clutches of Coach Genghis, so the three children worked as hard as they could. Violet tried to remember each detail Klaus had taught her, Klaus tried to remember every measurement he had taught himself, and Sunny stapled like mad, a phrase which here means "quickly and accurately." Finally, Mr. Remora stopped in the middle of his eighth banana and turned to Vice Principal Nero.

"Nero," he said, "there's no use continuing these exams. Violet is a very fine student, and has obviously studied very hard."

Mrs. Bass nodded her head in agreement. "In all my years of teaching, I've never

encountered a more metric-wise boy than Klaus, here. And it looks like Sunny is a fine secretary as well. Look at these booklets! They're gorgeous."

"Pilso!" Sunny shrieked.

"My sister means 'Thank you very much,'" Violet said, although Sunny really meant something more like "My stapling hand is sore." "Does this mean we get to stay at Prufrock Prep?"

"Oh, let them stay, Nero," Mr. Remora said. "Why don't you expel that Carmelita Spats? She never studies, and she's an awful person besides."

"Oh yes," Mrs. Bass said. "Let's give her an extra-challenging examination."

"I can't flunk Carmelita Spats," Nero said impatiently. "She's Coach Genghis's Special Messenger."

"Who?" Mr. Remora asked.

"You know," Mrs. Bass explained, "Coach Genghis, the new gym teacher."

"Oh yes," Mr. Remora said. "I've heard about him, but never met him. What is he like?"

"He's the finest gym teacher the world has ever seen," Vice Principal Nero said, shaking his four pigtails in amazement. "But you don't have to take my word for it. You can see for yourself. Here he comes now."

Nero pointed one of his hairy hands out of the Orphans Shack, and the Baudelaire orphans saw with horror that the vice principal was speaking the truth. Whistling an irritating tune to himself, Coach Genghis was walking straight toward them, and the children could see at once how incorrect one of their assumptions had been. It was not the assumption that Sunny would not lose her job, although that assumption, too, would turn out to be incorrect. And it was not the assumption that Violet and Klaus would not be expelled, although that, too, was a wrong one. It was the assumption about the Quagmire triplets and their part of the plan going well. As Coach Genghis walked closer and closer, the Baudelaires saw that he was holding Violet's hair ribbon in one of his scraggly hands and Klaus's glasses in the other, and with every step of his expensive running shoes, the coach raised a small white cloud, which the children realized must be flour from the snitched sack. But more than the ribbon, or the glasses, or the small clouds of flour was the look in Genghis's eyes. As Coach Genghis reached the Orphans Shack, his eyes were shining bright with triumph, as if he had finally won a game that he had been playing for a long, long time, and the Baudelaire orphans realized that the assumption about the Quagmire triplets had been very, very wrong indeed.