looked so shivery in the distance, but it certainly didn't make the Baudelaires feel any better, and they stood together in silence for quite some time, trying to find the courage to walk among all the fluttering black birds.
'I've read three books on crows,' Klaus said. 'They're perfectly harmless.'
'Yes, I know,' Violet said. 'It's unusual to see so many crows in one place, but they're nothing to worry about. It's small potatoes.'
'Zimuster,' Sunny agreed, but the three children still did not take a step closer to the crow-covered town. Despite what they had said to one another — that the crows were harmless birds, that they had nothing to worry about, and 'Zimuster,' which meant something along the lines of 'It would be silly to be afraid of a bunch of birds' — the Baudelaires felt they were encountering some very large potatoes indeed.
If I had been one of the Baudelaires myself, I would have stood at the edge of town for the rest of my life, whimpering with fear, rather than take even one step into the crow-covered streets, but it only took the Baudelaires a few minutes to work up the courage to walk through all of the muttering, scuffling birds to Town Hall.
'This isn't as difficult as I thought it might be,' Violet said, in a quiet voice so as not to disturb the crows closest to her. 'It's not exactly small potatoes, but there's enough space between the groups of crows to step.'
'That's true,' Klaus said, his eyes on the sidewalk to avoid stepping on any crow tails. 'And they tend to move aside, just a little bit, as we walk by.'
'Racah,' Sunny said, crawling as carefully as she could. She meant something along the lines of 'It's almost like walking through a quiet, but polite, crowd of very short people,' and her siblings smiled in agreement. Before too long, they had walked the entire block of the crow-lined street, and there at the far corner was a tall, impressive building that appeared to be made of white marble — at least, as far as the Baudelaires could tell, because it was as covered with crows as the rest of the neighborhood. Even the sign reading 'Town Hall' looked like it read 'wn Ha,' because three enormous crows were perched on it, gazing at the Baudelaires with their tiny beady eyes. Violet raised her hand as if to knock on the door, but then paused.
'What's the matter?' Klaus said.
'Nothing,' Violet replied, but her hand still hung in the air. 'I guess I'm just a little skittish. After all, this is the Town Hall of V.F.D. For all we know, behind this door may be the secret we've been looking for since the Quagmires were first kidnapped.'
'Maybe we shouldn't get our hopes up,' Klaus said. 'Remember, when we lived with the Squalors, we thought we had solved the V.F.D. mystery, but we were wrong. We could be wrong this time, too.'
'But we could be right,' Violet said, 'and if we're right, we should be prepared for whatever terrible thing is behind this door.'
'Unless we're wrong,' Klaus pointed out. 'Then we have nothing to be prepared for.'
'Gaksoo!' Sunny said. She meant something along the lines of 'There's no point in arguing, because we'll never know whether we're right or wrong until we knock on the door,' and before her siblings could answer her she crawled around Klaus's legs and took the plunge, a phrase which here means 'knocked firmly on the door with her tiny knuckles.'
'Come in!' called a very grand voice, and the Baudelaires opened the door and found themselves in a large room with a very high ceiling, a very shiny floor, and a very long bench, with very detailed portraits of crows hanging on the walls. In front of the bench was a small platform where a woman in a motorcycle helmet was standing, and behind the platform were perhaps one hundred folding chairs, most of which had a person sitting on them who was staring at the Baudelaire orphans. But the Baudelaire orphans were not staring back. The three children were staring so hard at the people sitting on the bench that they scarcely glanced at the folding chairs at all.
On the bench, sitting stiffly side by side, were twenty-five people who had two things in common. The first thing was that they were all quite old — the youngest person on the bench, a woman sitting on the far end, looked about eighty-one years of age, and everyone else looked quite a bit older. But the second thing they had in common was far more interesting. At first glance it looked like a few crows had flown in from the streets and roosted on the bench-sitters' heads, but as the Baudelaires looked more closely, they saw that the crows did not blink their eyes, or flutter their wings or move at all in any way, and the children realized that they were nothing more than black hats, made in such a way as to resemble actual crows. It was such a strange kind of hat to be wearing that the children found themselves staring for quite a few minutes without noticing anything else.
'Are you the Baudelaire orphans?' asked one of the old men who was sitting on the bench, in a gravelly voice. As he talked, his crow head flapped slightly, which only made it look more ridiculous. 'We've been expecting you, although I wasn't told you would look so terrible. You three are the most windswept, dusty, and sunburned children I have ever seen. Are you sure you're the children we've been waiting for?'
'Yes,' Violet replied. 'I'm Violet Baudelaire, and this is my brother, Klaus, and my sister, Sunny, and the reason why we — '
'Shush,' one of the other old men said. 'We're not discussing you right now. Rule #492 clearly states that the Council of Elders will only discuss things that are on the platform. Right now we are discussing our new Chief of Police. Are there any questions from the townspeople regarding Officer Luciana?'
'Yes, I have a question,' called out a man in plaid pants. 'I want to know what happened to our previous Chief of Police. I liked that guy.'
The woman on the platform held up a white-gloved hand, and the Baudelaires turned to look at her for the first time. Officer Luciana was a very tall woman wearing big black boots, a blue coat with a shiny badge, and a motorcycle helmet with the visor pulled down to cover her eyes. The Baudelaires could see her mouth, below the edge of the visor, covered in bright red lipstick. 'The previous Chief of Police has a sore throat,' she said, turning her helmet to the man who had asked the question. 'He accidentally swallowed a box of thumbtacks. But let's not waste time talking about him. I am your new Chief of Police, and I will make sure that any rulebreakers in town are punished properly. I can't see how there's anything more to discuss.'
'I quite agree with you,' said the first Elder who had spoken, as the people in folding chairs nodded. 'The Council of Elders hereby ends the discussion of Officer Luciana. Hector, please bring the orphans to the platform for discussion.'
A tall skinny man in rumpled overalls stood up from one of the folding chairs as the Chief of Police stepped off the platform with a lipsticked smile on. His eyes on the floor, the man walked over to the Baudelaires and pointed first at the Council of Elders sitting on the bench and then at the empty platform. Although they would have preferred a more polite method of communication, the children understood at once, and Violet and Klaus stepped up onto the platform and then lifted Sunny up to join them.
One of the women in the Council of Elders spoke up. 'We are now discussing the guardianship of the Baudelaire orphans. Under the new government program, the entire town of V.F.D. will act as guardian over these three children because it takes a village to raise a child. Are there any questions?'
'Are these the same Baudelaires,' came a voice from the back of the room, 'who are involved in the kidnapping of the Quagmire twins by Count Omar?'
The Baudelaires turned around to see a woman dressed in a bright pink bathrobe and holding up a copy of
'We've taken care of that matter, Mrs. Morrow,' replied another member of the Council soothingly. 'We'll explain in a moment. Now, when children have a guardian, the guardian makes them do chores, so it follows that you Baudelaires will do all the chores for the entire village. Beginning tomorrow, you three children will be responsible for anything that anyone asks you to do.'
The children looked at each other in disbelief. 'Begging your pardon,' Klaus said timidly, 'but there are only twenty-four hours in a day, and there appear to be several hundred townspeople. How will we find the time to do everyone's chores?'
'Hush!' several members of the Council said in unison, and then the youngest-looking woman spoke up. 'Rule #920 clearly states that no one may talk while on the platform unless you are a police officer. You're orphans, not police officers, so shut up. Now, due to the V.F.D. crows, you will have to arrange your chore schedule as follows: In the morning, the crows roost uptown, so that's when you will do all the downtown chores, so the crows don't get in your way. In the afternoon, as you can see, the crows roost downtown, so you will do the uptown chores then. Please pay particular attention to our new fountain, which was just installed this morning. It's very beautiful, and needs to be kept as clean as possible. At night, the crows roost in Nevermore Tree, which is on the
