The Vile Village

and that dishonest girlfriend of his may have escaped, but you three are still criminals. We'll burn you at the stake as soon as this crow has received proper medical attention.'

The Elder ran after the crow-carrying mob, and in a few seconds the children were alone on the flat landscape with only the shuffling papers of the Quagmire notebooks for company. 'Let's gather these up,' Klaus said, stooping down to pick up one badly ripped page. 'They're our only hope of discovering the secret of V.F.D.'

'And of defeating Count Olaf,' Violet agreed, walking over to where a small stack of pages had blown together.

'Phelon!' Sunny said, scrambling after one that seemed to have a map scrawled on it. She meant 'And of proving that we're not murderers!' and the children paused to look at The Daily Punctilio, which still lay on the ground. Their own faces stared back at them, below the headline 'baudelaire orphans at large!' but the children did not feel at large. The Baudelaires felt as small as could be, standing alone on the bare outskirts of V.F.D., chasing down the few pages of the Quagmire notebooks that were not gone forever. Violet managed to grab six pages, and Klaus managed to grab seven, and Sunny managed to grab nine, but many of the recovered pages were ripped, or blank, or all crumpled from the wind.

'We'll study them later,' Violet said, gathering the pages together and tying them in a bundle with her hair ribbon. 'In the meantime, we have to get out of here before the mob returns.'

'But where will we go?' Klaus asked.

'Burb,' Sunny said, which meant 'Anywhere, as long as it's out of town.'

'Who will take care of us out there?' Klaus said, looking out on the flat horizon.

'Nobody,' Violet said. 'We'll have to take care of ourselves. We'll have to be self-sustaining.'

'Like the hot air mobile home,' Klaus said, 'that could travel and survive all by itself.'

'Like me,' Sunny said, and abruptly stood up. Violet and Klaus gasped in surprise as their baby sister took her first wobbly steps, and then walked closely beside her, ready to catch her if she fell.

But she didn't fall. Sunny took a few more self-sustaining steps, and then the three Baudelaires stood together, casting long shadows across the horizon in the dying light of the sunset. They looked up to see a tiny dot in the sky, far far away, where the Quagmire triplets would live in safety with Hector. They looked out at the landscape, where Count Olaf had ridden off with Esmé Squalor, to find his associates and cook up another scheme. They looked back at Nevermore Tree, where the V.F.D. crows were muttering together for their evening roost, and then they looked out at the world, where families everywhere would soon be reading all about the three siblings in the special edition of The Daily Punctilio. It seemed to the Baudelaires that every creature in the world was being taken care of by others — every creature except for themselves.

But the children, of course, could care for one another, as they had been caring for one another since that terrible day at the beach. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny looked at one another and took a deep breath, gathering up all their courage to face all the bolts from the blue that they guessed — and, I'm sorry to say, guessed correctly — lay ahead of them, and then the self-sustaining Baudelaire orphans took their first steps away from town and toward the last few rays of the setting sun.

About the Author

LEMONY SNICKET is the author of quite a few books, all dreadful, and has been accused of many crimes, all falsely. Until recently, he was living someplace else.

BRETT HELQUIST was born in Ganado, Arizona, grew up in Orem, Utah, and now lives in New York City. He earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts from Brigham Young University and has been illustrating ever since. His art has appeared in many publications, including Cricket magazine and The New York Times.

TO MY KIND EDITOR,

PLEASE EXCUSE THE WORD STOP AT THE END OF EVERY SENTENCE STOP. TELEGRAMS ARE THE QUICKEST WAY TO DELIVER A MESSAGE FROM LAST CHANCE GENERAL STORE, AND IN A TELEGRAM, STOP IS THE WAY TO SIGNAL WHEN A SENTENCE STOPS STOP.

THE NEXT TIME YOU ARE INVITED TO A PARTY, WEAR YOUR THIRD NICEST SUIT AND PRETEND TO NOTICE A SPOT STOP THE NEXT DAY, TAKE THE SUIT TO THE DRY CLEANERS FOR CLEANING STOP. WHEN YOU COME TO PICK IT UP, YOU WILL RECEIVE INSTEAD A SHOPPING BAG CONTAINING MY ENTIRE ACCOUNT OF THE BAUDELAIRE CHILDREN'S EXPERIENCES IN THIS AREA ENTITLED 'THE HOSTILE HOSPITAL' ALONG WITH AN INTERCOM SPEAKER, ONE OF THE LAMPS MISTAKENLY DELIVERED TO HAL, AND A HEART-SHAPED BALLOON THAT HAS POPPED STOP. I WILL ALSO INCLUDE A SKETCH OF THE KEY TO THE LIBRARY OF RECORDS, SO THAT MR. HELQUIST CAN ILLUSTRATE IT PROPERLY STOP REMEMBER, YOU ABE MY LAST HOPE THAT THE TALES OF THE BAUDELAIRE ORPHANS CAN FINALLY BE TOLD TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC STOP.

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, LEMONY SNICKET PS YOUR SUIT WILL BE MAILED TO YOU LATER STOP.