The Hostile Hospital (A Series of Unfortunate Events 8)

The hook-handed man took a step toward the gurney, and pointed his limp, curved glove at Klaus. The middle Baudelaire could see the sharp tip of his hook, poking through the finger of the glove like a sea creature emerging from the water. "Why not?" the hook-handed man asked quietly.

Klaus swallowed, hoping he still sounded like a medical professional instead of a scared child. "Before I make the first incision, there's one more thing that has to be done--the most important thing we do here at Heimlich Hospital."

"And what is that?" the bald man asked. His surgical mask curled down as he gave the children a sinister frown, but Sunny's mask began to curl in the opposite direction as she realized what Klaus was talking about, and began to smile.

"Paperwork!" she said, and to the Baudelaires' delight, the audience began to applaud once more.

"Hooray!" called a member of V.F.D. from the back of the operating theater, as the cheering continued. "Hooray for paperwork!"

Olaf's two associates looked at one another in frustration as the Baudelaires looked at one another in relief. "Hooray for paperwork indeed!" Klaus cried. "We can't operate on a patient until her file is absolutely complete!"

"I can't believe we forgot about it, even for a moment!" a nurse cried. "Paperwork is the most important thing we do at this hospital!"

"I can see the headline now," said the reporter who had spoken earlier. "'HEIMLICH HOSPITAL ALMOST FORGETS PAPERWORK!' Wait until the readers of The Daily Punctilio see that!"

"Somebody call Hal," suggested a doctor. "He's in charge of the Library of Records, so he can solve this paperwork problem."

"I'll call Hal right now!" announced a nurse, walking out of the operating theater, and the crowd clapped in support of her decision.

"There's no need to call Hal," said the hook-handed man, holding up his hooked gloves to try to calm the crowd. "The paperwork has been taken care of, I promise you."

"But all surgical paperwork has to be verified by Hal," Klaus said. "That's the policy of Heimlich Hospital."

The bald man glared down at the children and spoke to them in a frightening whisper. "What in the world are you doing?" he asked them. "You're going to ruin everything!"

"I think Dr. Tocuna is right," another doctor said. "That's the policy here."

The crowd applauded again, and Klaus and Sunny looked at one another. The two Baudelaires, of course, had no idea what the hospital's policy was concerning surgical paperwork, but they were beginning to see that the crowd would believe just about anything if they thought it was being said by a medical professional.

"Hal is on his way," the nurse announced, reentering the room. "There's apparently been some problem at the Library of Records, but he'll come as quickly as he can and settle this matter once and for all."

"We don't need Hal to settle this matter once and for all," a voice said from the far end of the theater, and the Baudelaires turned to see the slender, tottering figure of Esmé Squalor, walking straight toward them in her stiletto-heeled shoes, with two people trailing dutifully behind her. These two people were both dressed in medical coats and surgical masks just like the Baudelaires'. Klaus and Sunny could see just a bit of their pale faces above the masks and knew at once that they were the two powder-faced assistants of Olaf.

"This is the real Dr. Tocuna," Esmé said, pointing to one of the women, "and this is the real Nurse Flo. The two people up on this stage are impostors."

"No we're not," the hook-handed man said angrily.

"Not you two," Esmé said impatiently, glaring over her surgical mask at the two henchmen. "I mean the other two people on the stage. They fooled everyone. They fooled doctors, nurses, volunteers, reporters, and even me-- until I found the real associates of Dr. Flacutono, that is."

"In my medical opinion," Klaus said, "I believe this woman has lost her mind."

"I haven't lost my mind," Esmé said with a snarl, "but you're about to lose your heads, Baudelaires."

"Baudelaires?" the reporter from The Daily Punctilio asked. "The same Baudelaires who murdered Count Omar?"

"Olaf," the bald man corrected.

"I'm confused," whined a volunteer. "There are too many people pretending to be other people."

"Allow me to explain," Esmé said, stepping up on the stage. "I am a medical professional, just like Dr. Flacutono, Dr. O. Lucafont, Dr. Tocuna, and Nurse Flo. You can see that from our medical coats and surgical masks."

"Us, too!" Sunny cried.

Esmé's surgical mask curled up in a wicked smile. "Not for long," she said, and in one swift gesture she ripped the masks off the Baudelaires' faces. The crowd gasped as the masks fluttered to the ground, and the two children saw the doctors, nurses, reporters, and regular people in the crowd look at them in horror. Only the Volunteers Fighting Disease, who believed that no news was good news, did not recognize the youngsters.

"They are the Baudelaires!" a nurse exclaimed in astonishment. "I read about them in The Daily Punctilio!"

"Me, too!" cried a doctor.

"It's always a pleasure to hear from our readers," the reporter said modestly.

"But there were supposed to be three murderous orphans, not two!" another doctor said. "Where's the oldest one?"

The hook-handed man hurriedly stepped in front of the gurney, shielding Violet from view. "She's already in jail," he said quickly.

"She is not!" Klaus said, and brushed Violet's hair out of her eyes so that everyone could see she was not Laura V. Bleediotie. "These terrible people disguised her as a patient, so they could cut her head off!"

"Don't be ridiculous," Esmé said. "You're the one who was trying to cut her head off. Look, you're still holding the knife."

"That's true!" the reporter cried. "I can see the headline now: 'murderer attempts to murder murderer.' Wait until the readers of The Daily Punctilio see this!"

"Tweem!" Sunny shrieked.

"We're nor murderers!" Klaus translated frantically.

"If you're not murderers," the reporter said, holding out her microphone, "then why have you sneaked into a hospital in disguise?"

"I think I can explain that," said another familiar voice, and everyone turned to see Hal enter the operating theater. In one hand he was clutching the ring of keys the Baudelaires had made from paper clips and Violet's hair ribbon, and with the other hand he was pointing angrily at the children.

"Those three Baudelaire murderers," he said, "pretended to be volunteers in order to come to work in the Library of Records."

"They did?" a nurse said, as the audience gasped. "You mean they're murderers and phony volunteers?"

"No wonder they didn't know the words to the song!" a volunteer cried.

"Taking advantage of my poor eyesight," Hal continued, pointing at his glasses, "they made these fake keys and switched it with the real one, so they could sneak into the library and destroy the files about their crimes!"

"We didn't want to destroy the file," Klaus said, "we wanted to clear our names. I'm sorry we tricked you, Hal, and I'm sorry that some of the file cabinets were knocked over, but--"

"Knocked over?" Hal repeated. "You did more than knock over cabinets." He looked at the children and sighed wearily, and then turned to face the audience. "These children committed arson," he said. "The Library of Records is burning as we speak."

Chapter Twelve