The Vile Village

''Murder' is the word for a group of crows, like a flock of geese or a herd of cows or a convention of orthodontists. Anyway, the explorers were impressed with their patterns of migration — you know, they always fly uptown in the morning, downtown in the afternoon and over to Nevermore Tree in the evening. It's a very unusual pattern, and the explorers were so excited by it that they decided to live here. Before too long, a town sprung up, and so they named it V.F.D.'

'But what does V.F.D. stand for?' Violet asked.

'The Village of Fowl Devotees,' Hector said. ''Devotees' is a word for people who are devoted to something, and 'fowl' — '

' — means 'bird,'' Klaus finished. 'That's the secret of V.F.D.? Village of Fowl Devotees?'

'What do you mean, secret?' Hector asked. 'It's not a secret. Everyone knows what those letters mean.'

The Baudelaires sighed with confusion and dismay, which is not a pleasant combination. 'What my brother means,' Violet explained, 'is that we chose V.F.D. to become our new guardian because we'd been told of a terrible secret — a secret with the initials V.F.D.'

'Who told you about this secret?' Hector asked.

'Some very dear friends of ours,' Violet replied. 'Duncan and Isadora Quagmire. They discovered something about Count Olaf, but before they could tell us anything more — '

'Hold on a minute,' Hector said. 'Who's Count Olaf? Mrs. Morrow was talking about Count Omar. Is Olaf his brother?'

'No,' Klaus said, shuddering at the very thought of Olaf having a brother. 'I'm afraid The Daily Punctilio got many of the facts wrong.'

'Well, why don't we get them right,' Hector said, turning a corner. 'Suppose you tell me exactly what happened.'

'It's sort of a long story,' Violet said.

'Well,' Hector said, with a slight smile, 'we have sort of a long walk. Why don't you begin at the beginning?'

The Baudelaires looked up at Hector, sighed, and began at the beginning, which seemed such a long way off that they were surprised they could remember it so clearly. Violet told Hector about the dreadful day at the beach when she and her siblings learned from Mr. Poe that their parents had been killed in the fire that had destroyed their home, and Klaus told Hector about the days they spent in Count Olaf's care. Sunny — with some help from Klaus and Violet, who translated for her — told him about poor Uncle Monty, and about the terrible things that had happened to Aunt Josephine. Violet told Hector about working at Lucky Smells Lumbermill, and Klaus told him about enrolling at Prufrock Preparatory School, and Sunny related the dismal time they had living with Jerome and Esmé Squalor at 667 Dark Avenue. Violet told Hector all about Count Olaf's various disguises, and about each and every one of his nefarious associates, including the hook-handed man, the two powder-faced women, the bald man with the long nose, and the one who looked like neither a man nor a woman, of whom the Baudelaires had been reminded when Hector had been so silent. Klaus told Hector all about the Quagmire triplets, and about the mysterious underground passageway that had led back to their home, and about the shadow of misfortune that had seemed to hang over them nearly every moment since that day at the beach. And as the Baudelaires told Hector their long story, they began to feel as if the handyman was carrying more than their suitcases. They felt as if he was carrying each word they said, as if each unfortunate event was a burden that Hector was helping them with. The story of their lives was so miserable that I cannot say they felt happy when they were through telling it, but by the time Sunny concluded the whole long story, the Baudelaires felt as if they were carrying much less.

'Kyun,' Sunny concluded, which Violet was quick to translate as 'And that's why we chose this town, in the hopes of finding the secret of V.F.D., rescuing the Quagmire triplets, and defeating Count Olaf once and for all.'

Hector sighed. 'You've certainly been through an ordeal,' he said, using a word which here means 'a heap of trouble, most of which was Count Olaf's fault.' He stopped for a second and looked at each Baudelaire. 'You've been very brave, all three of you, and I'll do my best to make sure you have a proper home with me. But I must tell you that I think you've hit a dead end.'

'What do you mean?' Klaus asked.

'Well, I hate to add some bad news to the terrible story you just told me,' Hector said, 'but I think the initials that the Quagmires told you about and the initials of this town are just a coincidence. As I said, this village has been called V.F.D. for more than three hundred years. Scarcely anything has changed since then. The crows have always roosted in the same places. The meetings of the Council of Elders have always been at the same time every day. My father was the handyman before me, and his father was the handyman before him, and so on and so on. The only new things in this town are you three children and the new Fowl Fountain uptown, which we'll be cleaning tomorrow. I don't see how this village could have anything to do with the secret the Quagmires discovered.'

The Baudelaire children looked at one another in frustration. 'Pojik?' Sunny asked in exasperation. She meant something along the lines of 'Do you mean we've come here for nothing?' but Violet translated it somewhat differently.

'What my sister means,' Violet said, 'is that it's very frustrating to find that we're in the wrong place.'

'We're very concerned for our friends,' Klaus added, 'and we don't want to give up on finding them.'

'Give up?' Hector said. 'Who said anything about giving up? Just because the name of this town isn't helpful, that doesn't mean you're in the wrong place. We obviously have a great many chores to do, but in our spare time we can try to find out the whereabouts of Duncan and Isadora. I'm a handyman, not a detective, but I'll try to help you the best I can. We'll have to be very careful, though. The Council of Elders has so many rules that you can scarcely do anything without breaking one of them.'

'Why does the Council have so many rules?' Violet asked.

'Why does anyone have a lot of rules?' Hector said with a shrug. 'So they can boss people around, I guess. Thanks to all the rules of V.F.D., the Council of Elders can tell people what to wear, how to talk, what to eat, and even what to build. Rule #67, for instance, clearly states that no citizen is allowed to build or use any mechanical devices.'

'Does that mean I can't build or use any mechanical devices?' Violet asked Hector. 'Are my siblings and I citizens of V.F.D., now that the town is our guardian?'

'I'm afraid you are,' Hector said. 'You have to follow Rule #67, along with all the other rules.'

'But Violet's an inventor!' Klaus cried. 'Mechanical devices are very important to her!'

'Is that so?' Hector said, and smiled. 'Then you can be a very big help to me, Violet.' He stopped walking, and looked around the street as if it was full of spies, instead of being completely empty. 'Can you keep a secret?' he asked.

'Yes,' Violet answered.

Hector looked around the street once more, and then leaned forward and began speaking in a very quiet voice. 'When the Council of Elders invented Rule #67,' he said, 'they instructed me to remove all the inventing materials in town.'

'What did you say?' Klaus asked.

'I didn't say anything,' Hector admitted, leading the children around another corner. 'The Council makes me too skittish to speak; you know that. But here's what I did. I took all of the materials and hid them out in my barn, which I've been using as sort of an inventing studio.'

'I've always wanted to have an inventing studio,' Violet said. Without even realizing it, she was reaching into her pocket for a ribbon, to tie her hair up and keep it out of her eyes, as if she were already inventing something instead of just talking about it. 'What have you invented so far, Hector?'

'Oh, just a few little things,' Hector said, 'but I have an enormous project that is nearing completion. I've been building a self-sustaining hot air mobile home.'

'Neebdes?' Sunny said. She meant something like, 'Could you explain that a bit more?' but Hector needed no encouragement to keep talking about his invention.

'I don't know if you've ever been up in a hot air balloon,' he said, 'but it's very exciting. You stand in a large basket, with the enormous balloon over your head, and you can gaze down at the entire countryside below you, spread out like a blanket. It's simply superlative. Well, my invention is nothing more than a hot air balloon — except