The Slippery Slope

arms, all tied together in a mass of fabric, and Klaus looked at his sister and held up the pitcher, which was filled to the brim with a thick and colorful slime.

'When I say the word,' Violet said, 'I'm going to open the door and cast these hammocks out. I want you at the other end of the caravan, Klaus. Open that little window and pour that mixture all over the wheels. If the hammocks work as a drag chute and the sticky substance interferes with the wheels, the caravan should slow down enough to save us. I just need to tie the hammocks to the doorknob.'

'Are you using the Devil's Tongue knot?' Klaus asked.

'The Devil's Tongue hasn't brought us the best luck,' Violet said, referring to several previous rope-related escapades. 'I'm using the Sumac, a knot I invented myself. I named it after a singer I admire. There — it feels secure. Are you ready to pour that mixture onto the wheels?'

Klaus crossed to the window and opened it. The wild clattering sound of the caravan's wheels grew louder, and the Baudelaires stared for a moment at the countryside racing by. The land was jagged and twisty, and it seemed that the caravan could tumble at any moment into a hole, or off the edge of one of the mountain's square peaks. 'I guess I'm ready,' Klaus said hesitantly. 'Violet, before we try your invention, I want to tell you something.'

'If we don't try it now,' Violet said grimly, 'you won't have the chance to tell me anything.' She gave her knot one more tug and then turned back to Klaus. 'Now!' she said, and threw open the caravan door.

It is often said that if you have a room with a view, you will feel peaceful and relaxed, but if the room is a caravan hurtling down a steep and twisted road, and the view is an eerie mountain range racing backward away from you, while chilly mountain winds sting your face and toss dust into your eyes, then you will not feel one bit of peace or relaxation. Instead you will feel the horror and panic that the Baudelaires felt when Violet opened the door. For a moment they could do nothing but stand still, feeling the wild tilting of the caravan, and looking up at the odd, square peaks of the Mortmain Mountains, and hearing the grinding of the caravan's wheels as they rolled over rocks and tree stumps. But then Violet shouted 'Now!' once more, and both siblings snapped into action. Klaus leaned out the window and began to pour the mixture of blackstrap molasses, wild clover honey, corn syrup, aged balsamic vinegar, apple butter, strawberry jam, caramel sauce, maple syrup, butterscotch topping, maraschino liqueur, virgin and extra-virgin olive oil, lemon curd, dried apricots, mango chutney, crema di noci, tamarind paste, hot mustard, marshmallows, creamed corn, peanut butter, grape preserves, salt water taffy, condensed milk, pumpkin pie filling, and glue onto the closest wheels, while his sister tossed the hammocks out of the door, and if you have read anything of the Baudelaire orphans' lives — which I hope you have not — then you will not be surprised to read that Violet's invention worked perfectly. The hammocks immediately caught the rushing air and swelled out behind the caravan like enormous cloth balloons, which slowed the caravan down quite a bit, the way you would run much slower if you were dragging something behind you, like a knapsack or a sheriff. The sticky mixture fell on the spinning wheels, which immediately began to move with less ferocity, the way you would run with less ferocity if you suddenly found yourself running in quicksand or through lasagne. The caravan slowed down, and the wheels spun less wildly, and within moments the two Baudelaires were traveling at a much more comfortable pace.

'It's working!' Klaus cried.

'We're not done yet,' Violet said, and walked over to a small table that had overturned in the confusion. When the Baudelaires were living at Caligari Carnival, the table had come in handy as a place to sit and make plans, but now in the Mortmain Mountains, it would come in handy for a different reason. Violet dragged the table over to the open door. 'Now that the wheels are slowing down,' she said, 'we can use this as a brake.'

Klaus dumped the last of the mixture out of the pitcher, and turned to his sister. 'How?' he said, but Violet was already showing him how. Quickly she lay on the floor, and holding the table by its legs, dangled it out of the caravan so it dragged on the ground. Immediately there was a loud scraping sound, and the table began to shake roughly in Violet's hands. But she held fast, forcing the table to scrape against the rocky ground and slow the caravan down even more. The swaying of the caravan became gentler and gentler, and the fallen items owned by the carnival employees stopped crashing, and then with one last whine, the wheels stopped altogether, and everything was still. Violet leaned out of the door and stuck the table in front of one of the wheels so it couldn't start rolling again, and then stood up and looked at her brother.

'We did it,' Violet said.

'You did it,' Klaus said. 'The entire plan was your idea.' He put down the pitcher on the floor and wiped his hands on a fallen towel.

'Don't put down that pitcher,' Violet said, looking around the wreckage of the caravan. 'We should gather up as many useful things as possible. We'll need to get this caravan moving uphill if we want to rescue Sunny.'

'And reach the headquarters,' Klaus added. 'Count Olaf has the map we found, but I remember that the headquarters are in the Valley of Four Drafts, near the source of the Stricken Stream. It'll be very cold there.'

'Well, there is plenty of clothing,' Violet said, looking around. 'Let's grab everything we can and organize it outside.'

Klaus nodded in agreement, and picked up the pitcher again, along with several items of clothing that had fallen in a heap on top of a small hand mirror that belonged to Colette. Staggering from carrying so many things, he walked out of the caravan behind his sister, who was carrying a large bread knife, three heavy coats, and a ukulele that Hugo used to play sometimes on lazy afternoons. The floors of the caravan creaked as the Baudelaires stepped outside, into the misty and empty landscape, and realized how fortunate they had been.

The caravan had stopped right at the edge of one of the odd, square peaks of the mountain range. The Mortmain Mountains looked like a staircase, heading up into the clouds or down into a veil of thick, gray mist, and if the caravan had kept going in the same direction, the two Baudelaires would have toppled over the peak and fallen down through the mist to the next stair, far, far below. But to one side of the caravan, the children could see the waters of the Stricken Stream, which were an odd grayish black color, and moved slowly and lazily downhill like a river of spilled oil. Had the caravan swerved to one side, the children would have been dumped into the dark and filthy waters.

'It looks like the brake worked just in time,' Violet said quietly. 'No matter where the caravan would have gone, we would have been finished.'

Klaus nodded in agreement and looked around at the wilderness. 'It will be difficult to navigate the caravan out of here,' Klaus said. 'You'll have to invent a steering device.'

'And some sort of engine,' Violet said. 'That will take some time.'

'We don't have any time,' Klaus said. 'If we don't hurry, Count Olaf will be too far away and we'll never find Sunny.'

'We'll find her,' Violet said firmly, and put down the items she was carrying. 'Let's go back into the caravan, and look for — '

But before Violet could say what to look for, she was interrupted by an unpleasant crackling noise. The caravan seemed to moan, and then slowly began to roll toward the edge of the peak. The Baudelaires looked down and saw that the wheels had smashed the small table, so there was nothing to stop the caravan from moving again. Slowly and awkwardly it pitched forward, dragging the hammocks behind it as it neared the very edge of the peak. Klaus leaned down to grab hold of a hammock, but Violet stopped him. 'It's too heavy,' she said. 'We can't stop it.'

'We can't let it fall off the peak!' Klaus cried.

'We'd be dragged down, too,' Violet said.

Klaus knew his sister was right, but still he wanted to grab the drag chute Violet had constructed. It is difficult, when faced with a situation you cannot control, to admit that you can do nothing, and it was difficult for the Baudelaires to stand and watch the caravan roll over the edge of the peak. There was one last creak as the back wheels bumped against a mound of dirt, and then the caravan disappeared in absolute silence. The Baudelaires stepped forward and peered over the edge of the peak, but it was so misty that the caravan was only a ghostly rectangle, getting smaller and smaller as it faded away.

'Why isn't there a crash?' Klaus asked.

'The drag chute is slowing it down,' Violet said. 'Just wait.'

The siblings waited, and after a moment there was a muffled boom! from below as the caravan met its fate. In the mist, the children could not see a thing, but they knew that the caravan and everything inside it were gone forever, and indeed I have never been able to find its remains, even after months of