"It is," Friday said. "Of course, people rarely leave this island. No one has left since before I was born, so each year we simply light the outrigger on fire, and push it out to sea. Watching a burning outrigger slowly vanish on the horizon is a beautiful sight."
"It sounds beautiful," Klaus said, although the middle Baudelaire thought it sounded more creepy than beautiful, "but it seems a waste to build a canoe every year only to burn it up."
"It gives us something to do," Friday said with a shrug. "Besides building the outrigger, there's not much to occupy us on the island. We catch fish, and cook meals, and do the laundry, but that still leaves much of the day unoccupied."
"Cook?" Sunny asked eagerly.
"My sister is something of a chef," Klaus said. "I'm sure she'd be happy to help with the cooking."
Friday smiled, and put her hands in the deep pockets of her robe. "I'll keep that in mind," she said. "Are you sure you don't want another sip of cordial?"
All three Baudelaires shook their heads. "No, thank you," Violet said, "but it's kind of you to offer."
"Ishmael says that everyone should be treated with kindness," Friday said, "unless they are unkind themselves. That's why I left that horrible man Count Olaf behind. Were you traveling with him?"
The Baudelaires looked at one another, unsure of how to answer this question. On one hand, Friday seemed very cordial, but like the cordial she offered, there was something else besides sweetness in her description of the island. The colony's customs sounded very strict, and although the siblings were relieved to be out of Count Olaf's company, there seemed something cruel about abandoning Olaf on the coastal shelf, even though he certainly would have done the same to the orphans if he'd had the opportunity. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny were not sure how Friday would react if they admitted being in the villain's company, and they did not reply for a moment, until the middle Baudelaire remembered an expression he had read in a novel about people who were very, very polite.
"It depends on how you look at it," Klaus said, using a phrase which sounds like an answer but scarcely means anything at all. Friday gave him a curious look, but the children had reached the end of the coastal shelf and were standing at the edge of the island. It was a sloping beach with sand so white that Friday's white robe looked almost invisible, and at the top of the slope was an outrigger, fashioned from wild grasses and the limbs of trees, which looked nearly finished, as if Decision Day was arriving soon. Past the outrigger was an enormous white tent, as long as a school bus. The Baudelaires followed Friday inside the tent, and found to their surprise that it was filled with sheep, who all lay dozing on the ground. The sheep appeared to be tied together with thick, frayed rope, and towering over the sheep was an old man smiling at the Baudelaires through a beard as thick and wild as the sheep's woolly coats. He sat in an enormous chair that looked as if it were fashioned out of white clay, and two more piles of clay rose up where his feet should have been. He was wearing a robe like Friday's and had a similar seashell hanging from his belt, and his voice was as cordial as Friday's as he smiled down at the three siblings.
"What have we here?" he said.
"I found three castaways on the coastal shelf," Friday said proudly.
"Welcome, castaways," Ishmael said. "Forgive me for remaining seated, but my feet are quite sore today, so I'm making use of our healing clay. It's very nice to meet you."
"It's nice to meet you, Ishmael," said Violet, who thought healing clay was of dubious scientific efficacy, a phrase which here means "unlikely to heal sore feet."
"Call me Ish," said Ishmael, leaning down to scratch the heads of one of the sheep. "And what shall I call you?"
"Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire," Friday chimed in, before the siblings could introduce themselves.
"Baudelaire?" Ishmael repeated, and raised his eyebrows. He gazed at the three children in silence as he took a long sip of cordial from his seashell, and for just one moment his smile seemed to disappear. But then he gazed down at the siblings and grinned heartily. "We haven't had new islanders in quite some time. You're welcome to stay as long as you'd like, unless you're unkind, of course."
"Thank you," Klaus said, as kindly as he could. "Friday has told us a few things about the island. It sounds quite interesting."
"It depends on how you look at it," Ishmael said. "Even if you want to leave, you'll only have the opportunity once a year. In the meantime, Friday, why don't you show them to a tent, so they can change their clothes? We should have some new woolen robes that fit you nicely."
"We would appreciate that," Violet said. "Our concierge uniforms are quite soaked from the storm."
"I'm sure they are," Ishmael said, twisting a strand of beard in his fingers. "Besides, our custom is to wear nothing but white, to match the sand of the islands, the healing clay of the pool, and the wool of the wild sheep. Friday, I'm surprised you are choosing to break with tradition."
Friday blushed, and her hand rose to the sunglasses she was wearing. "I found these in the wreckage," she said. "The sun is so bright on the island, I thought they might come in handy."
"I won't force you," Ishmael said calmly, "but it seems to me you might prefer to dress according to custom, rather than showing off your new eyewear."
"You're right, Ishmael," Friday said quietly, and removed her sunglasses with one hand while the other hand darted into one of her robe's deep pockets.
"That's better," Ishmael said, and smiled at the Baudelaires. "I hope you will enjoy living on this island," he said. "We're all castaways here, from one storm or another, and rather than trying to return to the world, we've built a colony safe from the world's treachery."
"There was a treacherous person with them," Friday piped up eagerly. "His name was Count Olaf, but he was so nasty that I didn't let him come with us."
"Olaf?" Ishmael said, and his eyebrows raised again. "Is this man a friend of yours?"
"Fat chance," Sunny said.
"No, he isn't," Violet translated quickly. "To tell you the truth, we've been trying to escape from Count Olaf for quite some time."
"He's a dreadful man," Klaus said.
"Same boat," Sunny said.
"Hmmm," Ishmael said thoughtfully. "Is that the whole story, Baudelaires?"
The children looked at one another. Of course, the few sentences they'd uttered were not the whole story. There was much, much more to the story of the Baudelaires and Count Olaf, and if the children had recited all of it Ishmael probably would have wept until the tears melted away the clay so his feet were bare and he had nothing to sit on. The Baudelaires could have told the island's facilitator about all of Count Olaf's schemes, from his vicious murder of Uncle Monty to his betrayal of Madame Lulu at the Caligari Carnival. They could have told him about his disguises, from his false peg leg when he was pretending to be Captain Sham, to his running shoes and turban when he was calling himself Coach Genghis. They could have told Ishmael about Olaf's many comrades, from his girlfriend Esmé Squalor to the two white-faced women who had disappeared in the Mortmain Mountains, and they could have told Ishmael about all of the unsolved mysteries that still kept the Baudelaires awake at night, from the disappearance of Captain Widdershins from an underwater cavern to the strange taxi driver who had approached the children outside the Hotel Denouement, and of course they could have told Ishmael about that ghastly day at Briny Beach, when they first heard the news of their parents' deaths. But if the Baudelaires had told Ishmael the whole
story, they would have had to tell the parts that put the Baudelaires in an unfavorable light, a phrase which here means "the things the Baudelaires had done that were perhaps as treacherous as Olaf." They would have talked about their own schemes, from digging a pit to trap Esmé to starting the fire that destroyed the Hotel Denouement. They would have mentioned their own disguises, from Sunny pretending to be Chabo the Wolf Baby to Violet and Klaus pretending to be Snow Scouts, and their own comrades, from Justice Strauss, who turned out to be more useful than they had first thought, to Fiona, who turned out to be more treacherous than they had imagined. If the Baudelaire orphans had told Ishmael the whole story, they might have looked as villainous as Count Olaf. The Baudelaires did not want to find themselves back on the coastal shelf, with all the detritus of the storm. They wanted to be safe from treachery and harm, even if the customs of the island colony were not exactly to their liking, and so, rather than telling Ishmael the whole story, the Baudelaires merely nodded, and said the safest thing they could think of.
"It depends on how you look at it," Violet said, and her siblings nodded in agreement.
"Very well," Ishmael said. "Run along and find your robes, and once you've changed, please give all of your old things to Friday and we'll haul them off to the arboretum."
"Everything?" Klaus said.
Ishmael nodded. "That's our custom."
" Occulaklaus?" Sunny asked, and her siblings quickly explained that she meant something like, "What about Klaus's glasses?"
"He can scarcely read without them," Violet added.
Ishmael raised his eyebrows again. "Well, there's no library here," he said quickly, with a nervous glance at Friday, "but I suppose your eyeglasses are of some use. Now, hurry along, Baudelaires, unless you'd like a sip of cordial before you go."
"No, thank you," Klaus said, wondering how many times he and his siblings would be offered this strange, sweet beverage. "My siblings and I tried some, and didn't care much for the taste."