tasks for you to perform.'
The three children looked at one another in panic. 'Hide,' Sunny whispered, and there was no need for translation. Violet and Quigley looked around the desolate landscape of the peak for a place to hide, but there was only one place to go.
'Under the car,' Violet said, and she and Quigley wriggled underneath the long, black automobile, which was as dirty and smelly as its owner. As an inventor, the eldest Baudelaire had stared closely at automotive machinery plenty of times, but she had never seen such an extreme state of disrepair, a phrase which here means 'an underside of an automobile in such bad shape that it was dripping oil on her and her companion.' But Violet and Quigley didn't have a moment to waste thinking of their discomfort. They had no sooner moved their fork-assisted climbing shoes out of view when Count Olaf and his companions arrived. From underneath he car, the two volunteers could see only the villain's tattoo on the filthy ankle above his left shoe and a pair of very stylish pumps, decorated with glitter and tiny paintings of eyes, that could only belong to Esmй Squalor.
'All we've had to eat all day is that smoked salmon, and it's almost dinnertime,' Count Olaf said. 'You'd better get cooking, orphan.'
'Tomorrow is False Spring,' Esmй said, 'and it would be very in to have a False Spring dinner.'
'Did you hear that, toothy?' Olaf asked. 'My girlfriend wants a stylish dinner. Get to work.'
'Olaf, we need you,' said a very deep voice, and Violet and Quigley saw two pairs of sinister black shoes appear behind the villain and his girlfriend, whose shoes twitched nervously at the sight of them. All of a sudden, it seemed much colder underneath the car, and Violet had to push her legs against the tires, so they would not shiver against the mechanics of the underside and be heard.
'Yes, Olaf,' agreed the hoarse voice of the man with a beard but no hair, although Violet and Quigley could not see him. 'Our recruitment plan will happen first thing in the morning so we need you to help spread the net out on the ground.'
'Can't you ask one of our employees?' asked Esmй. 'There's the hook-handed man the two white-faced women, and the three freaks we picked up at the carnival. That's eight people, if you include yourselves, to spread out the net. Why should we do it?'
The four black shoes stepped toward Esmй's stylish pumps and Olaf's tattoo. 'You'll do it,' said the woman with hair but no beard, 'because I say so.'
There was a long, ominous pause, and then Count Olaf gave a little high-pitched laugh. 'That's a good point,' he said. 'Come on, Esmй. We've bossed around the baby, so there's nothing else to do around here anyway.'
'That's true,' Esmй agreed. 'In fact, I was thinking about taking up smoking again, because I'm bored. Do you have any more of those green cigarettes?'
'I'm afraid not,' replied the man with a beard but no hair, leading the villains away from the car. 'That's the only one I found.'
'That's too bad,' Esmй said. 'I don't like the taste or the smell, and they're very bad for you, but cigarettes are very in and I'd like to smoke another one.'
'Maybe there's another one in the ruins of headquarters,' said the woman with hair but no beard. 'It's hard to find everything in all those ashes. We searched for days and couldn't find the sugar bowl.'
'Not in front of the baby,' Olaf said quickly, and the four pairs of shoes walked away. Violet and Quigley stayed underneath the car until Sunny said 'Coastkleer,' which meant something like, 'It's safe to come out now.'
'Those were terrible people,' Quigley said with a shudder, brushing oil and grime off his coat. 'They made me feel cold all over.'
'They certainly had an aura of menace ' Violet agreed in a whisper. 'The feet with the tattoo were Count Olaf, and those glittery shoes were Esmй Squalor, but who were the other two, Sunny?'
'Unno Narsonist,' Sunny murmured. She meant something along the lines of 'I don't know, but they burned down V.F.D. headquarters,' and Violet was quick to explain this to Quigley.
'Klaus has found an important message that survived the fire,' Violet said. 'By the time we take you down the waterfall, I'm sure he'll have decoded the message. Come on.'
'Nogo,' Sunny said, which meant 'I don't think I ought to accompany you.'
'Why on earth not?' Violet asked.
'Unasanc,' Sunny said.
'Sunny says that the villains have mentioned one more safe place for volunteers to gather,' Violet explained to Quigley.
'Do you know where it is?' Quigley asked.
Sunny shook her head. 'Olafile,' she said.
'But if Count Olaf has the Snicket file,' Violet said, 'how are you going to find out where this safe place is?'
'Matahari,' she said, which meant something like, 'If I stay, I can spy on them and find out.'
'Absolutely not,' Violet said, after she had translated. 'It's not safe for you to stay here, Sunny. It's bad enough that Olaf has made you do the cooking.'
'Lox,' Sunny pointed out.
'But what are you going to make for a False Spring dinner?' Violet asked.
Sunny gave her sister a smile, and walked over to the trunk of the car. Violet and Quigley heard her rummaging around among the remaining groceries, but stayed put so Olaf or any of his associates wouldn't spot them. When Sunny returned, she had a triumphant smile on her face, and the frozen hunk of spinach, the large bag of mushrooms, the can of water chestnuts, and the enormous eggplant in her arms. 'False spring rolls!' she said, which meant something like, 'An assortment of vegetables wrapped in spinach leaves, prepared in honor of False Spring.'
'I'm surprised you can even carry that eggplant, let alone prepare it,' Violet said. 'It must weigh as much as you do.'
'Suppertunity,' Sunny said. She meant something like, 'Serving the troupe dinner will be a perfect chance to listen to their conversation,' and Violet reluctantly translated.
'It sounds dangerous,' Quigley said.
'Of course it's dangerous,' Violet said. 'If she's caught spying, who knows what they'll do?'
'Ga ga goo goo,' Sunny said, which meant 'I won't be caught, because they think I'm only a helpless baby.'
'I think your sister is right,' Quigley said. 'It wouldn't be safe to carry her down the waterfall, anyway. We need our hands and feet for the climb. Let Sunny investigate the mystery she's most likely to solve, while we work on an escape plan.'
Violet shook her head. 'I don't want to leave my sister behind,' she said. 'The Baudelaires should never be separated.'
'Separate Klaus,' Sunny pointed out.
'If there's another place where volunteers are gathering,' Quigley said, 'we need to know where it is. Sunny can find out for us, but only if she stays here.'
'I'm not going to leave my baby sister on top of a mountain,' Violet said.
Sunny dropped her vegetables on the ground and walked over to her sister and smiled. 'I'm not a baby,' Sunny said, and hugged her. It was the longest sentence the youngest Baudelaire had ever said, and as Violet looked down at her sister, she saw how true it was. Sunny was not really a baby, not anymore. She was a young girl with unusually sharp teeth, some impressive cooking skills, and an opportunity to spy on a group of villains and discover a piece of crucial information. Sometime, during the unfortunate events that had befallen the three orphans, Sunny had grown out of her babyhood, and although it made Violet a bit sad to think about it, it made her proud, too, and she gave her sister a smile.
'I guess you're right,' Violet said. 'You're not a baby. But be careful, Sunny. You're a young girl, but it's still quite dangerous for a young girl to spy on villains. And remember, we're right at the bottom of the slope, Sunny. If you need us, just signal again.'
Sunny opened her mouth to reply, but before she could utter a sound, the three children heard a long, lazy hissing noise from underneath Olaf's car, as if one of Dr. Montgomery's snakes were hiding there. The car shifted lightly, and Violet pointed to one of Olaf's tires, which had gone flat. 'I must have punctured it,' Violet said, 'with
