'I don't know,' Klaus admitted. 'I just wanted to say something, in case — well, in case the invention didn't work.' He sighed, and looked up at the darkening sky. 'I don't remember the last thing I said to Sunny,' he said quietly. 'It must have been when we were in Madame Lulu's tent, or maybe outside, just before we stepped into the caravan. Had I known that Count Olaf was going to take her away, I would have tried to say something special. I could have complimented her on the hot chocolate she made, or told her how skillful she was at staying in disguise.'
'You can tell her those things,' Violet said, 'when we see her again.'
'I hope so,' Klaus said glumly, 'but we're so far behind Olaf and his troupe.'
'But we know where they're going,' Violet said, 'and we know that he won't harm a hair on her head. Count Olaf thinks we perished in the caravan, so he needs Sunny to get his hands on the fortune.'
'She's probably unharmed,' Klaus agreed, 'but I'm sure she's very frightened. I just hope she knows we're coming after her.'
'Me, too,' Violet said, and walked in a silence for a while, interrupted only by the wind and the odd, gurgling noise of the fish.
'I think those fish are having trouble breathing,' Klaus said, pointing into the stream. 'Something in the water is making them cough.'
'Maybe the Stricken Stream isn't always that ugly color,' Violet said. 'What would turn normal water into grayish black slime?'
'Iron ore,' Klaus said thoughtfully, trying to remember a book on high-altitude environmentalism he had read when he was ten. 'Or perhaps a clay deposit, loosened by an earthquake or another geological event, or some sort of pollution. There might be an ink or licorice factory nearby.'
'Maybe V.F.D. will tell us,' Violet said, 'when we reach the headquarters.'
'Maybe one of our parents will tell us,' Klaus said quietly.
'We shouldn't get our hopes up,' Violet said. 'Even if one of our parents really did survive the fire, and the V.F.D. headquarters really are at the Valley of Four Drafts, we still don't know that we will see them when we arrive.'
'I don't see the harm in getting our hopes up,' Klaus said. 'We're walking along a damaged stream, toward a vicious villain, in an attempt to rescue our sister and find the headquarters of a secret organization. I could use a little bit of hope right now.'
Violet stopped in her path. 'I could use another layer of clothing,' she said. 'It's getting colder.'
Klaus nodded in agreement, and held up the garment he was carrying. 'Do you want the poncho,' he asked, 'or the sweatshirt?'
'The poncho, if you don't mind,' Violet said. 'After my experience in the House of Freaks, I don't wish to advertise the Caligari Carnival.'
'Me neither,' Klaus said, taking the lettered sweatshirt from his sister. 'I think I'll wear it inside out.'
Rather than take off their coats and expose themselves to the icy winds of the Mortmain Mountains, Klaus put on the inside-out sweatshirt over his coat, and Violet wore the poncho outside hers, where it hung awkwardly around her. The two elder Baudelaires looked at one another and had to smile at their ridiculous appearance.
'These are worse than the pinstripe suits Esmй Squalor gave us,' Violet said.
'Or those itchy sweaters we wore when we stayed with Mr. Poe,' Klaus said, referring to a banker who was in charge of the Baudelaire fortune, with whom they had lost touch. 'But at least we'll keep warm. If it gets even colder, we can take turns wearing the extra coat.'
'If one of our parents is at the headquarters,' Violet said, 'he or she might not recognize us underneath all this clothing. We'll look like two large lumps.'
The two Baudelaires looked up at the snow-covered peaks above them and felt a bit dizzy, not only from the height of the Mortmain Mountains but from all the questions buzzing around their heads. Could they really reach the Valley of Four Drafts all by themselves? What would the headquarters look like? Would V.F.D. be expecting the Baudelaires? Would Count Olaf have reached the headquarters ahead of them? Would they find Sunny? Would they find one of their parents? Violet and Klaus looked at one another in silence and shivered in their strange clothes, until finally Klaus broke the silence with one more question, which seemed the dizziest one of all.
'Which parent,' he said, 'do you think is the survivor?'
Violet opened her mouth to answer, but at that moment another question immediately occupied the minds of the elder Baudelaires. It is a dreadful question, and nearly everyone who has found themselves asking it has ended up wishing that they'd never brought up the subject. My brother asked the question once, and had nightmares about it for weeks. An associate of mine asked the question, and found himself falling through the air before he could hear the answer. It is a question I asked once, a very long time ago and in a very timid voice, and a woman replied by quickly putting a motorcycle helmet on her head and wrapping her body in a red silk cape. The question is, 'What in the world is that ominous-looking cloud of tiny, white buzzing objects coming toward us?' and I'm sorry to tell you that the answer is 'A swarm of well-organized, ill-tempered insects known as snow gnats, who live in cold mountain areas and enjoy stinging people for no reason whatsoever.'
'What in the world,' Violet said, 'is that ominous-looking cloud of tiny, white buzzing objects coming toward us?'
Klaus looked in the direction his sister was pointing and frowned. 'I remember reading something in a book on mountainous insect life,' he said, 'but I can't quite recall the details.'
'Try to remember,' Violet said, looking nervously at the approaching swarm. The ominous-looking cloud of tiny, white buzzing objects had appeared from around a rocky corner, and from a distance it looked a bit like the beginnings of a snowfall. But now the snowfall was organizing itself into the shape of an arrow, and moving toward the two children, buzzing louder and louder as if it were annoyed. 'I think they might be snow gnats,' Klaus said. 'Snow gnats live in cold mountain areas and have been known to group themselves into well-defined shapes.'
Violet looked from the approaching arrow to the waters of the stream and the steep edge of the mountain peak. 'I'm glad gnats are harmless,' she said. 'It doesn't look like there's any way to avoid them.'
'There's something else about snow gnats,' Klaus said, 'that I'm not quite remembering.'
The swarm drew quite close, with the tip of the fluttering white arrow just a few inches from the Baudelaires' noses, and then stopped in its path, buzzing angrily. The two siblings stood face-to-face with the snow gnats for a long, tense second, and the gnat at the very, very tip of the arrow flew daintily forward and stung Violet on the nose.
'Ow!' Violet said. The snow gnat flew back to its place, and the eldest Baudelaire was left rubbing a tiny red mark on her nose. 'That hurt,' she said. 'It feels like a pin stuck me.'
'I remember now,' Klaus said. 'Snow gnats are ill-tempered and enjoy stinging people for no reason whatso — '
But Klaus did not get to finish his sentence, because the snow gnats interrupted and gave a ghastly demonstration of just what he was talking about. Curling lazily in the mountain winds, the arrow twisted and became a large buzzing circle, and the gnats began to spin around and around the two Baudelaires like a well- organized and ill-tempered hula hoop. Each gnat was so tiny that the children could not see any of its features, but they felt as if the insects were smiling nastily.
'Are the stings poisonous?' Violet asked.
'Mildly,' Klaus said. 'We'll be all right if we get stung a few times, but many stings could make us very ill. Ow!'
One of the gnats had flown up and stung Klaus on the cheek, as if it were seeing if the middle Baudelaire was fun to hurt. 'People always say that if you don't bother stinging insects, they won't bother you,' Violet said nervously. 'Ow!'
'That's scarcely ever true,' Klaus said, 'and it's certainly not true with snow gnats. Ow! Ow!
'What should we —
'I don't —
