The Baudelaires tossed and turned, and wondered about all these things, and as it grew later and later they felt less and less like logs and more and more like children in a sinister and mysterious plot, spending one of the least somniferous nights of their young lives.
CHAPTER
Six
Morning is one of the best times for thinking. When one has just woken up, but hasn't yet gotten out of bed, it is a perfect time to look up at the ceiling, consider one's life, and wonder what the future will hold. The morning I am writing this chapter, I am wondering if the future will hold something that will enable me to saw through these handcuffs and crawl out of the double-locked window, but in the case of the Baudelaire orphans, when the morning sun shone through the eight hundred and forty-nine windows in the Squalor penthouse, they were wondering if the future would hold knowledge of the trouble they felt closing in around them.
Violet watched the first few rays of sunlight brighten her sturdy, tool-free workbench, and tried to imagine what sort of evil plan Gunther had cooked up. Klaus watched the dawn's rays make shifting shapes on the wall that separated his room from the Squalor library, and racked his brain for a way Gunther could have vanished into thin air. And Sunny watched the emerging sun illuminate all of the unbiteable baby toys, and tried to figure out if they had time to discuss the matter together before the Squalors came to wake them up.
This last thing was fairly easy to figure out. The littlest Baudelaire crawled out her bedroom door, fetched her brother, and opened Violet's door to find her out of bed and sitting at her wooden workbench with her hair tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. "Tageb," Sunny said.
"Good morning," Violet replied. "I thought it might help me think if I tied my hair up, and sat at my workbench, as if I were inventing something. But I haven't figured out a thing."
"It's terrible enough that Olaf has shown up again," Klaus said, "and that we have to call him Gunther. But we don't have the faintest clue what he's planning."
"Well, he wants to get his hands on our fortune, that's for sure," Violet said.
"Klofy," Sunny said, which meant "Of course. But how?"
"Maybe it has something to do with the In Auction," Klaus guessed. "Why would he disguise himself as an auctioneer if it weren't part of his plan?"
Sunny yawned, and Violet reached down and lifted up her sister so she could sit on her lap. "Do you think he's going to try to auction us off?" Violet asked, as Sunny leaned forward to nibble on the workbench in thought. "He could get one of those terrible assistants of his to bid higher and higher for us until he won, and then we'd be in his clutches, just like the poor Quagmires."
"But Esmé said it's against the law to auction off children," Klaus pointed out.
Sunny stopped chewing on the workbench and looked at her siblings. "Nolano?" she asked, which meant something like "Do you think the Squalors are working together with Gunther?"
"I don't think so," Violet said. "They've been very kind to us--well, Jerome has, at least--and anyway, they don't need the Baudelaire fortune. They have so much money already."
"But not much common sense," Klaus said unhappily. "Gunther fooled them completely, and all it took were some black boots, a pinstripe suit, and a monocle."
"Plus, he fooled them into thinking that he had left," Violet said, "but the doorman was certain that he hadn't."
"Gunther's got me fooled, too," Klaus said. "How could he have left without the doorman noticing?"
"I don't know," Violet said miserably. "The whole thing is like a jigsaw puzzle, but there are too many missing pieces to solve it."
"Did I hear someone say 'jigsaw puzzles'?" Jerome asked. "If you're looking for some jigsaw puzzles, I think there are a few in the cabinet in one of the sitting rooms, or maybe in one of the living rooms, I can't remember which."
The Baudelaires looked up and saw their guardian standing in the doorway of Violet's bedroom with a smile on his face and a silver tray in his hands.
"Good morning, Jerome," Klaus said. "And thank you, but we're not looking for a jigsaw puzzle. Violet was just using an expression. We're trying to figure something out."
"Well, you'll never figure anything out on an empty stomach," Jerome replied. "I have some breakfast here for you: three poached eggs and some nice whole wheat toast."
"Thank you," Violet said. "It's very nice of you to fix us breakfast."
"You're very welcome," Jerome replied. "Esmé has an important meeting with the King of Arizona today, so we have the whole day to ourselves. I thought we could walk across town to the Clothing District, and take your pinstripe suits to a good tailor. There's no use having those suits if they don't fit you properly."
"Knilliu!" Sunny shrieked, which meant "That's very considerate of you."
"I don't know what 'Knilliu!' means," Esmé said, walking into the bedroom, "and I don't care, but neither will you when you hear the fantastic news I just received on the phone! Aqueous martinis are out, and parsley soda is in!"
"Parsley soda?" Jerome said, frowning. "That sounds terrible. I think I'll stick to aqueous martinis."
"You're not listening," Esmé said. "Parsley soda is in now. You'll have to go out right now and buy a few crates of it."
"But I was going to take the children's suits to the tailor today," Jerome said.
"Then you'll have to change your plans," Esmé said impatiently. "The children already have clothing, but we don't have any parsley soda."
"Well, I don't want to argue," Jerome said.
"Then don't argue," Esmé replied. "And don't take the children with you, either. The Beverage District is no place for young people. Well, we'd better go, Jerome. I don't want to be late for His Arizona Highness."
"But don't you want to spend some time with the Baudelaires before the work day begins?" Jerome asked.
"Not particularly," Esmé said, and looked briefly at her watch. "I'll just say good morning to them. Good morning. Well, let's go, Jerome."
Jerome opened his mouth as if he had something else to say, but Esmé was already marching out of the bedroom, so he just shrugged. "Have a good day," he said to the children. "There's food in all of our kitchens, so you can make yourselves lunch. I'm sorry that our plans didn't work out after all."
"Hurry up!" Esmé called, from down the hallway, and Jerome ran out of the room. The children heard their guardians' footsteps grow fainter and fainter as they made their way to the front door.
"Well," Klaus said, when they couldn't hear them anymore, "what shall we do today?"
"Vinfrey," Sunny said.
"Sunny's right," Violet said. "We'd better spend the day figuring out what Gunther's up to."
"How can we know what he's up to," Klaus said, "when we don't even know where he is?"
"Well, we'd better find out," Violet said. "He already had the unfair advantage of the element of surprise, and we don't want him to have the unfair advantage of a good hiding place."
"This penthouse has lots of good hiding places," Klaus said. "There are so many rooms."
"Koundix," Sunny said, which meant something like "But he can't be in the penthouse. Esmé saw him leave."
"Well, maybe he sneaked back in," Violet said, "and is lurking around right now."
The Baudelaires looked at one another, and then at Violet's doorway, half expecting to see Gunther standing there looking at them with his shiny, shiny eyes.
"If he was lurking around here," Klaus said, "wouldn't he have grabbed us the instant the Squalors went out?"
"Maybe," Violet said. "If that was his plan."
The Baudelaires looked at the empty doorway again.
"I'm scared," Klaus said.
"Ecrif!" Sunny agreed.