The Miserable Mill (A Series of Unfortunate Events 4)

Violet and Sunny walked to the eye-shaped building and helped their brother up the steps to the door, but before they could open it, the pupil swung open to reveal a person in a long white coat with a name tag reading "Dr. Orwell." Dr. Orwell was a tall woman with blond hair pulled back from her head and fashioned into a tight, tight bun. She had big black boots on her feet, and was holding a long black cane with a shiny red jewel on the top.

"Why hello, Klaus," Dr. Orwell said, nodding formally at the Baudelaires. "I didn't expect to see you back so soon. Don't tell me you broke your glasses again."

"Unfortunately, yes," Klaus said.

"That's too bad," Dr. Orwell said. "But you're in luck. We have very few appointments today, so come on in and I'll do all the necessary tests."

The Baudelaire orphans looked at one another nervously. This wasn't what they had expected at all. They expected Dr. Orwell to be a much more sinister figure-Counf Olaf in disguise, for instance, or one of his terrifying associates. They expected that they would be snatched inside the eye-shaped building, and perhaps never return. Instead Dr. Orwell was a professional-looking woman who was politely inviting them inside.

"Come on," she said, showing the way with her black cane. "Shirley, my receptionist, made some cookies that you girls can eat in the waiting room while I make Klaus's glasses. It won't take nearly as long as it did yesterday."

"Will Klaus be hypnotized?" Violet demanded.

"Hypnotized?" Dr. Orwell repeated, smiling. "Goodness, no. Hypnosis is only in scary movies."

The children, of course, knew this was not true, but they figured if Dr. Orwell thought it was true then she probably wasn't a hypnotist. Cautiously, they stepped inside the eye-shaped building and followed Dr. Orwell down a hallway decorated with medical certificates.

"This way to the office," she said. "Klaus tells me he's quite a reader. Do you two read as well?"

"Oh yes," Violet said. She was beginning to relax. "We read whenever we can."

"Have you ever encountered," Dr. Orwell said, "in your reading, the expression 'You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar'?"

"Tuzmo," Sunny replied, which meant something along the lines of "I don't believe so."

"I haven't read too many books about flies," Violet admitted.

"Well, the expression doesn't really have to do with flies," Dr. Orwell explained. "It's just a fancy way of saying that you're more likely to get what you want by acting in a sweet way, like honey, rather than in a distasteful way, like vinegar."

"That's interesting," Klaus said, wondering why Dr. Orwell was bringing it up.

"I suppose you're wondering why I'm bringing it up," Dr. Orwell said, pausing in front of a door marked "Waiting Room." "But I think all will be clear to you in just a moment. Now, Klaus, follow me to the office, and you girls can wait in the waiting room through this door."

The children hesitated.

"It will just be a few moments," Dr. Orwell said, and patted Sunny on the head.

"Well, all right," Violet said, and gave her brother a wave as he followed the optometrist farther down the hallway. Violet and Sunny gave the door a push and went inside the waiting room, and saw in an instant that Dr. Orwell was right. All was clear to them in a moment. The waiting room was a small one, and it looked like most waiting rooms. It had a sofa and a few chairs and a small table with old magazines stacked on it, and a receptionist sitting at a desk, just like waiting rooms that you or I have been in. But when Violet and Sunny looked at the receptionist, they saw something that I hope you have never seen in a waiting room. A nameplate on the desk read "Shirley," but this was no Shirley, even though the receptionist was wearing a pale-brown dress and sensible beige shoes. For above the pale lipstick on Shirley's face, and below the blond wig on Shirley's head, was a pair of shiny, shiny eyes that the two children recognized at once. Dr. Orwell, in behaving politely, had been the honey, instead of the vinegar. The children, unfortunately, were the flies. And Count Olaf, sitting at the receptionist's desk with an evil smile, had caught them at last.

CHAPTER Nine

Oftentimes, when children are in trouble, you will hear people say that it is all because of low self-esteem. "Low self-esteem" is a phrase which here describes children who do not think much of themselves. They might think that they are ugly, or boring, or unable to do anything correctly, or some combination of these things, and whether or not they are right, you can see why those sorts of feelings might lead one into trouble. In the vast majority of cases, however, getting into trouble has nothing to do with one's self-esteem. It usually has much more to do with whatever is causing the trouble-a monster, a bus driver, a banana peel, killer bees, the school principal-than what you think of yourself.

And so it was as Violet and Sunny Baudelaire stared at Count Olaf-or, as the nameplate on his desk said, Shirley. Violet and Sunny had a very healthy amount of self-esteem. Violet knew she could do things correctly, because she had invented many devices that worked perfectly. Sunny knew she wasn't boring, because her siblings always took an interest in what she had to say. And both Baudelaire sisters knew that they weren't ugly, because they could see their pleasant facial features reflected back at them, in the middle of Count Olaf's shiny, shiny eyes. But it did not matter that they thought these things, because they were trapped.

"Why, hello there, little girls," Count Olaf said in a ridiculously high voice, as if he were really a receptionist named Shirley instead of an evil man after the Baudelaire fortune. "What are your names?"

"You know our names," Violet said curtly, a word which here means "tired of Count Olaf's nonsense." "That wig and that lipstick don't fool us any more than your pale-brown dress and sensible beige shoes. You're Count Olaf."

"I'm afraid you're mistaken," Count Olaf said. "I'm Shirley. See this nameplate?"

"Fiti!" Sunny shrieked, which meant "That nameplate doesn't prove anything, of course!"

"Sunny's right," Violet said. "You're not Shirley just because you have a small piece of wood with your name on it."

"I'll tell you why I'm Shirley," Count Olaf said. "I'm Shirley because I would like to be called Shirley, and it is impolite not to do so."

"I don't care if we're impolite," Violet said, "to such a disgusting person as yourself."

Count Olaf shook his head. "But if you do something impolite to me" he said, "then I might do something impolite to you, like for instance tearing your hair out with my bare hands."

Violet and Sunny looked at Count Olaf's hands. They noticed for the first time that he had grown his fingernails very long, and painted them bright pink as part of his disguise. The Baudelaire sisters looked at one another. Count Olaf's nails looked very sharp indeed.

"O.K., Shirley," Violet said. "You've been lurking around Paltryville since we arrived, haven't you?"

Shirley lifted a hand to pat her wig into place. "Maybe," she said, still in her foolish high voice.

"And you've been hiding out in the eye-shaped building this whole time, haven't you?" Violet said.

Shirley batted her eyes, and Violet and Sunny noticed that beneath her one long eyebrow- another identifying mark of Count Olaf-she was wearing long false eyelashes. "Perhaps," she said.

"And you're in cahoots with Dr. Orwell!" Violet said, using a phrase which here means "working with, in order to capture the Baudelaire fortune." "Aren't you?"

"Possibly," Shirley said, crossing her legs and revealing long white stockings imprinted with the pattern of an eye.

"Popinsh!" Sunny shrieked.

"Sunny means," Violet said, "that Dr. Orwell hypnotized Klaus and caused that terrible accident, didn't she?"

"Conceivably," Shirley said.

"And he's being hypnotized again, right now, isn't he?" Violet asked.

"It's within the bounds of the imagination," Shirley said.

Violet and Sunny looked at one another, their hearts pounding. Violet took her sister's hand and took a step backward, toward the door. "And now," she

said, "you're going to try to whisk us away, aren't you?"

"Of course not," Shirley said. "I'm going to offer you a cookie, like a good little receptionist."

"You're not a receptionist!" Violet cried.

"I certainly am," Shirley said. "I'm a poor receptionist who lives all by herself, and who wants very much to raise children of her own. Three children, in fact: a smartypants little girl, a hypnotized little boy, and a buck-toothed baby."

"Well, you can't raise us," Violet said. "We're already being raised by Sir."

"Oh, he'll hand you over to me soon enough," Shirley said, her eyes shining brightly.

"Don't be ab-" Violet said, but she stopped herself before she could say "surd." She wanted to say "surd." She wanted to say "Sir wouldn't do a thing like that," but inside she wasn't so sure. Sir had already made the three Baudelaires sleep in one small bunk bed. He had already made them work in a lumbermill. And he had already only fed them gum for lunch. And as much as she wanted to believe that it was absurd to think that he would simply hand the Baudelaire orphans over to Shirley, Violet was not certain. She was only half sure, and so she stopped herself after half a word.

"Ab?" said a voice behind her. "What in the world does the word 'ab' mean?"

Violet and Sunny turned around and saw Dr. Orwell leading Klaus into the waiting room. He was wearing another new pair of glasses and was looking confused.