The Hostile Hospital (A Series of Unfortunate Events 8)

"It won't do us any good to solve the mystery of Jacques Snicket," Violet said, "if we're in jail."

"Blusin," Sunny said. She meant something along the lines of, "We don't have much choice," and in small, tottering steps she led her siblings toward the V.F.D. van.

"But how will we get on the van?" Violet asked, walking alongside her sister.

"What will we say to the volunteers?" Klaus asked, hurrying to catch up.

"Impro," Sunny said, which meant "We'll think of something," but for once the three children didn't have to think of something. As the youngsters reached the van, a friendly-looking man with a guitar in his hands and a beard on his face leaned out of one of the windows and called to them.

"We almost left you behind, brother and sisters!" he said. "We filled the van up with free gas, and now we're all set to head off to the hospital." With a smile, the man unlatched the door of the van and opened it, beckoning to the three children. "Climb aboard," he said. "We don't want our volunteers to get lost before we even sing the first verse. I heard something about murderers lurking around this area."

"Did you read it in the newspaper?" Klaus asked nervously.

The bearded man laughed, and strummed a cheerful chord on his guitar. "Oh, no," he said. "We don't re

ad the newspaper. It's too depressing. Our motto is 'No news is good news.' You must be new volunteers, not to know that. Well, hop in."

The Baudelaires hesitated. As I'm sure you know, it is rarely a good idea to get into an automobile with somebody you haven't met before, particularly if the person believes in such nonsense as "No news is good news." But it is never a good idea to stand around a flat and empty landscape while the police are closing in to arrest you for a crime you have not committed, and the three children paused for a moment to decide between doing something which is rarely a good idea, and something that is never a good idea. They looked at the bearded man with the guitar. They looked at each other. And then they looked back at the Last Chance General Store, where they saw the shopkeeper, rushing out of the front door and toward the van. "O.K.," Violet said finally. "We'll hop in." The bearded man smiled, and the children stepped into the V.F.D. van and shut the door behind them. They did not hop, even though the man had asked them to "hop in," because hopping is something done in the cheerful moments of one's life. A plumber might hop, for instance, if she finally fixed a particularly difficult leak in someone's shower. A sculptor would hop if his sculpture of four basset hounds playing cards was finally finished. And I would hop like nobody has ever hopped before, if I could somehow go back to that terrible Thursday, and stop Beatrice from attending that afternoon tea where she met Esmé Squalor for the first time. But Violet, Klaus, and Sunny did not hop, because they were not plumbers fixing leaks, or sculptors finishing works of art, or authors magically erasing a series of unfortunate events. They were three desperate children, falsely accused of murder, forced to run out of a store into a stranger's automobile to avoid capture by the police. The Baudelaires were not hopping, even as the van started its engine and began to drive away from the Last Chance General Store, ignoring the desperate signals of the shopkeeper as he ran to try to stop them. As the V.F.D. van began to drive across the lonely landscape, the Baudelaire orphans were not sure they would ever hop again.

Chapter Three

We are Volunteers Fighting Disease, And we're cheerful all day long. If someone said that we were sad, That person would be wrong. We visit people who are sick, And try to make them smile, Even if their noses bleed, Or if they cough up bile. Tra la la, Fiddle dee dee, Hope you get well soon. Ho ho ho, hee hee hee, Have a heart-shaped balloon. We visit people who are ill, And try to make them laugh, Even when the doctor says He must saw them in half. We sing and sing all night and day, And then we sing some more. We sing to boys with broken bones And girls whose throats are sore. Tra la la, Fiddle dee dee, Hope you get well soon. Ho ho ho, hee hee hee, Have a heart-shaped balloon. We sing to men with measles, And to women with the flu, And if you breathe in deadly germs, We'll probably sing to you. Tra la la, Fiddle dee dee, Hope you get well soon. Ho ho ho, hee hee hee, Have a heart-shaped balloon.

An associate of mine named William Congreve once wrote a very sad play that begins with the line "Music has charms to soothe a savage breast," a sentence which here means that if you are nervous or upset, you might listen to some music to calm you down or cheer you up. For instance, as I crouch here behind the altar of the Cathedral of the Alleged Virgin, a friend of mine is playing a sonata on the pipe organ, to calm me down and so the sounds of my typewriter will not be heard by the worshipers sitting in the pews. The mournful melody of the sonata reminds me of a tune my father used to sing when he did the dishes, and as I listen to it I can temporarily forget six or seven of my troubles.

But the soothing effect of music on a savage breast obviously depends on what kind of music is being played, and I'm sorry to say that as the Baudelaire orphans listened to the song of V.F.D., they did not feel even one bit less nervous or upset. When Violet, Klaus, and Sunny first boarded the V.F.D. van, they were so worried about avoiding capture that they scarcely took a look around them until they were quite far away from the Last Chance General Store. But when the shopkeeper was merely a speck on the flat and empty landscape, the children turned their attention to their new hiding place. There were about twenty people in the van, and every single one of them was exceedingly cheerful. There were cheerful men, cheerful women, a handful of cheerful children, and a very cheerful driver who occasionally took his eyes off the road to grin cheerfully at all his passengers. When the Baudelaires took a long trip in an automobile, they liked to pass the time reading or looking at the scenery and thinking their own private thoughts, but as soon as the van pulled away from the general store, the bearded man began playing his guitar and led all of the Volunteers Fighting Disease in a cheerful song, and each "tra la la" only made the Baudelaires more anxious than before. When the volunteers began to sing the verse about people's noses bleeding, the siblings were sure someone would stop singing and say, "Wait a minute! These three children weren't on the van before! They don't belong here!" When the singers reached the verse about the doctor sawing someone in half, the children were certain someone would stop singing and say, "Wait a minute! Those three people don't know the lyrics to the song! They don't belong here!" And when the cheerful passengers sung the section of the song discussing deadly germs, the siblings were unequivocally positive that someone would stop singing and say, "Wait a minute! Those three children are the murderers described in The Daily Punctilio! They don't belong here!"

But the Volunteers Fighting Disease were too cheerful to wait a minute. They believed so strongly that no news is good news that none of them had even glanced at The Daily Punctilio. And they were too busy singing to notice that the Baudelaires didn't belong on the van.

"Boy, do I love that song!" the bearded man said, when the last chorus had ended. "I could sing it all the way to Heimlich Hospital. But I guess we'd better save our voices for the day's work. So why don't we settle down and have cheerful conversations until we arrive?"

"That sounds super-duper!" said one of the volunteers, and everyone nodded in agreement. The bearded man put away his guitar and sat down next to the Baudelaires.

"We'd better make up false names," Violet whispered to Klaus, "so no one will learn who we are."

"But The Daily Punctilio got our names wrong," Klaus whispered back, "so maybe we should use our real names."

"Well, let's get to know each other," the bearded man said cheerfully. "I like to get to know each and every one of our volunteers."

"Well, my name is Sally," Violet began, "and-"

"No, no," the bearded man said. "We don't use names in V.F.D. We just call everybody 'sister' and 'brother,' because we believe all people are sisters and brothers."

"I'm confused," Klaus said. "I always thought that brothers and sisters are people who share the same parents."

"Not always, brother," the bearded man said. "Sometimes brothers and sisters are just people who are united for a common cause."

"Does that mean, brother," Violet said, trying this new use of the word "brother" and not liking it much, "that you don't know the names of anyone in this van?"

"That's right, sister," the bearded man said "And so you've never known the name of anyone who's been a Volunteer Fighting Disease?" Klaus asked.

"Not a single one," the bearded man said. "Why do you ask?"

"There's a person we know," Violet said carefully, "who we think might have been in V.F.D. He had one eyebrow instead of two, and a tattoo of an eye on his ankle."

The bearded man frowned. "I don't know anyone of that description," he said, "and I've been with the Volunteers Fighting Disease since the organization first started."

"Rats!" Sunny said.

"What my sister means," Klaus said, "is that we're disappointed. We were hoping to learn more about this person."

"Are you sure he was in Volunteers Fighting Disease?" the bearded man asked.

"No," Klaus admitted. "We just know he worked in the volunteer something."

"Well, there are lots of volunteer somethings," the bearded man replied. "What you kids need is some sort of Library of Records."

"A Libr

ary of Records?" Violet said.

"A Library of Records is a place where official information is stored," the bearded man said. "In a Library of Records, you could find a list of every single volunteer organization in the world. Or you could look up this person and see if there's a file on him. Perhaps that would tell you where he worked."

"Or how he knew our parents," Klaus said, speaking out loud without thinking.

"Your parents?" the bearded man said, looking around the van. "Are they here, too?"

The Baudelaires looked at one another, wishing that their parents were there on the van, even though it would be awkward to call their father "brother" and their mother "sister." Sometimes it seemed to the children that it had been hundreds and hundreds of years since that terrible day at the beach when Mr. Poe brought them the dreadful news, but just as often it seemed as if it had been only minutes. Violet could picture her father, sitting next to her, perhaps pointing out something interesting he had seen through the window. Klaus could picture his mother, smiling and shaking her head in amusement at the ridiculous lyrics of the V.F.D. song. And Sunny could picture all five Baudelaires, together again, with nobody fleeing from the police, or accused of murder, or trying desperately to solve mysteries, or worst of all, gone forever in a terrible fire. But just because you can picture something does not make it so. The Baudelaire parents were not in the van, and the children looked at the bearded man and shook their heads sadly.

"My, you look glum," the bearded man said. "Well, don't worry. I'm sure wherever your parents are, they're having a good time, so let's not see any frowny faces. Being cheerful is the whole point of Volunteers Fighting Disease."

"What exactly will we be doing at the hospital?" Violet asked, eager to change the subject.

"Just what V.F.D. says," the bearded man replied. "We're volunteers, and we'll be fighting diseases."