conversation and learn the location of the last safe place where V.F.D. would be gathering, or learn any more about the dreadful recruitment scheme planned by the man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard. When the troupe gathered around the flat rock for dinner, they discussed these things, but every time Sunny tried to get close enough to hear what they were saying, they glared at her and quickly changed the subject. It seemed to Sunny that the only thing she had accomplished all evening was preparing a meal that the troupe enjoyed. When she had presented her platter of False Spring Rolls, no one had complained, and every single villainous person had taken second helpings.
But something crucial had escaped the attention of Count Olaf and his comrades during the meal, and for that Sunny was very grateful. As she had told her siblings, the youngest Baudelaire had prepared an assortment of vegetables wrapped in spinach leaves, in honor of False Spring. Her recipe had required the bag of mushrooms, the can of water chestnuts, and the frozen hunk of spinach, which she had thawed by holding it underneath her shirt, as she had when preparing toast tartar. But Sunny had decided at the last minute that she would not use the enormous eggplant. When Violet mentioned that the eggplant must weigh as much as Sunny did, the youngest Baudelaire had an idea, and rather than chopping the eggplant into small strips with her teeth, she hid it behind the flat tire of Count Olaf's car, and now, as the sun rose and the group of villains began their usual morning bickering, she was retrieving the eggplant and rolling it to the casserole dish. As she rolled it past the automobile, Sunny looked down at the frozen waterfall, which was looking less and less frozen in the morning sun. She knew her siblings were at the bottom with Quigley, and although she couldn't see them, it made her feel better knowing they were relatively nearby and that, if her plan worked out, she would soon be joining them.
'What are you doing, baby?' Sunny had just slipped the eggplant under the cover of the casserole dish when she heard the voice of one of Olaf's comrades. The two white-faced women were standing just outside their tent and stretching in the morning sun.
'Aubergine,' Sunny replied, which meant 'I've concocted a plan involving this eggplant, and it doesn't matter if I tell you about it because you never understand a single word I say.'
'More babytalk,' said the other white-faced woman with a sigh. 'I'm beginning to think that Sunny is only a helpless baby, and not a spy.'
'Goo goo ga — ' Sunny began, but the flap of Count Olaf's tent opened before she could utter the last 'ga.' The villain and his girlfriend stood in the morning sun, and it was clear that they expected the new day — Saturday — to be an important one, because they were dressed for the occasion, a phrase which here means 'wearing such strange clothing that the youngest Baudelaire was too surprised to say the final 'ga' she had been planning.' Amazingly, it appeared that Count Olaf had washed his face, and he was wearing a brand-new suit made out of material that at first seemed to be covered in tiny polka dots. But when Sunny took a closer look, she saw that each dot was a small eye, matching Olaf's tattoo and the V.F.D. insignia and all of the other eyes that had plagued the Baudelaires since that terrible day on the beach, so that looking at Count Olaf in his new suit felt like looking at a crowd of villains, all staring at Sunny Baudelaire. But no matter how unnerving Olaf's fashion choice was, Esmй Squalor's outfit was worse to behold. Sunny could not remember when she had ever seen a dress so enormous, and was surprised that such an article of clothing could have fit in the tent and still leave room for villains to sleep. The dress was made of layers upon layers of shiny cloth, in different shades of yellow, orange, and red, all cut in fierce triangular shapes so that each layer seemed to cut into the next, and rising from the shoulders of the dress were enormous piles of black lace, sticking up into the air in strange curves. For a moment, the dress was so huge and odd that Sunny could not imagine why anyone would wear it, but as the wicked girlfriend stepped farther out of the tent, it became horribly clear. Esmй Squalor was dressed to look like an enormous fire.
'What a wonderful morning!' Count Olaf crowed. 'Just think, by the end of the day I'll have more new members of my troupe than ever before!'
'And we'll need them,' Esmй agreed 'We're all going to have to work together for the greater good — burning down the last safe place!'
'Just the idea of the Hotel Denouement in flames makes me so excited, I'm going to open a bottle of wine!' Count Olaf announced, and Sunny covered her mouth with her hands so the villains would not hear her gasp. The Hotel Denouement, she realized, must be the last safe place for volunteers to gather, and Olaf was so excited that he had uttered the name inadvertently, a word which here means 'where the youngest Baudelaire could hear it.'
'The idea of all those eagles filling the sky makes me so excited, I'm going to smoke one of those in green cigarettes!' Esmй announced, and then frowned. 'Except I don't have one. Drat.'
'Beg your pardon, your Esmйship,' said one of the white-faced women, 'but I see some of that green smoke down at the bottom of the waterfall.'
'Really?' Esmй asked eagerly, and looked in the direction Olaf's employee was pointing. Sunny looked, too, and saw a familiar plume of green smoke at the very bottom of the slope, getting bigger and bigger as the sun continued to rise. The youngest Baudelaire wondered why her siblings were signaling her, and what they were trying to say.
'That's strange,' Olaf said. 'You'd think there'd be nothing left of the headquarters to burn.'
'Look how much smoke there is,' Esmй said greedily. 'There must be a whole pack of cigarettes down there. This day is getting even better!'
Count Olaf smiled, and then looked away from the waterfall and noticed Sunny for the first time. 'I'll have the baby go down and get them for you,' Count Olaf said.
'Yessir!' Sunny said eagerly.
'The baby would probably steal all the cigarettes for herself,' Esmй said, glaring at the young girl. 'I'll go.'
'But climbing down there will take hours ' Olaf said. 'Don't you want to be here for the recruitment scheme? I just love springing traps on people.'
'Me, too,' Esmй agreed, 'but don't worry, Olaf. I'll be back in moments. I'm not going to climb. I'll take one of the toboggans and sled down the waterfall before anyone else even notices I'm gone.'
'Drat!' Sunny couldn't help saying. She meant something along the lines of, 'That is exactly what I was planning on doing,' but once again no one understood.
'Shut up, toothy,' Esmй said, 'and get out of my way.' She flounced past the youngest Baudelaire, and Sunny realized that there was something sewn to the bottom of the dress that made it make a crackling noise as she walked, so that the wicked girlfriend sounded as much like a fire as she looked like one. Blowing a kiss to Count Olaf, she grabbed the toboggan belonging to the sinister villains.
'I'll be right back, darling,' Esmй said. 'Tell that baby to take a nap so she won't see what we're up to.'
'Esmй's right,' Olaf said, giving Sunny a cruel smile. 'Get in the casserole dish. You're such an ugly, helpless creature, I can scarcely stand to look at you.'
'You said it, handsome,' Esmй said, and chuckled meanly as she sat at the top of the waterfall. The two white-faced women scurried to help, and gave the toboggan a big push as Sunny did as she was told, and disappeared from Olaf's sight.
As you may imagine, the sight of a grown woman in an enormous flame-imitating dress tobogganing down from the source of the Stricken Stream to the two tributaries and the half-frozen pool at the bottom of the waterfall is not the sort of thing to pass unnoticed, even from far away. Violet was the first to see the colorful blur heading quickly down the slope, and she lowered Colette's hand mirror, which she had used once again to catch the rays of the rising sun and reflect them onto the Verdant Flammable Devices, which she had put in a pile in front of the pit. Wrinkling her nose from the bitter smell of the smoke, she turned to Klaus and Quigley, who were putting one last piece of weakened wood across the pit, so their trap would be hidden from view.
'Look,' Violet said, and pointed to the descending shape.
'Do you think it's Esmй?' Klaus asked.
Violet squinted up at the tobogganing figure. 'I think so,' she said. 'Nobody but Esmй Squalor would wear an outfit like that.'
'We'd better hide behind the archway,' Quigley said, 'before she spots us.'
The two Baudelaires nodded in agreement, and walked carefully to the library entrance, making sure to step around the hole they had dug.
'I'm happy that we can't see the pit anymore,' Klaus said. 'Looking into that blackness reminded me of that
