it's much larger. Instead of one large basket, there are twelve baskets, all tied together below several hot air balloons. Each basket serves as a different room, so it's like having an entire flying house. It's completely self- sustaining — once you get up in it, you never have to go back down. In fact, if my new engine works properly, it will be impossible to get back down. The engine should last for more than one hundred years, and there's a huge storage basket that I'm filling with food, beverages, clothing, and books. Once it's completed, I'll be able to fly away from V.F.D. and the Council of Elders and everything else that makes me skittish, and live forever in the air.'
'It sounds like a marvelous invention,' Violet said. 'How in the world have you been able to get the engine to be self-sustaining, too?'
'That's giving me something of a problem,' Hector admitted, 'but maybe if you three took a look at it, we could fix the engine together.'
'I'm sure Violet could be of help,' Klaus said, 'but I'm not much of an inventor. I'm more interested in reading. Does V.F.D. have a good library?'
'Unfortunately, no,' Hector said. 'Rule #108 clearly states that the V.F.D. library cannot contain any books that break any of the other rules. If someone in a book uses a mechanical device, for instance, that book is not allowed in the library.'
'But there are so many rules,' Klaus said. 'What kind of books could possibly be allowed?'
'Not very many,' Hector said, 'and nearly all of them are dull. There's one called
'That's too bad,' Klaus said glumly. 'I was hoping that I could do a little research into V.F.D. — the secret, that is, not the village — in my spare time.'
Hector stopped walking again, and looked once more around the empty streets. 'Can you keep another secret?' he asked, and the Baudelaires nodded. 'The Council of Elders told me to burn all of the books that broke Rule #108,' he said in a quiet voice, 'but I brought them to my barn instead. I have sort of a secret library there, as well as a secret inventing studio.'
'Wow,' Klaus said. 'I've seen public libraries, private libraries, school libraries, legal libraries, reptile libraries, and grammatical libraries, but never a secret library. It sounds exciting.'
'It's a bit exciting,' Hector agreed, 'but it also makes me very skittish. The Council of Elders gets very, very angry when people break the rules. I hate to think what they'd do to me if they found out I was secretly using mechanical devices and reading interesting books.'
'Azzator!' Sunny said, which meant 'Don't worry — your secret is safe with us!'
Hector looked down at her quizzically. 'I don't know what 'azzator' means, Sunny,' he said, 'but I would guess it means 'Don't forget about me!' Violet will use the studio, and Klaus will use the library, but what can we do for you? What do you like to do best?'
'Bite!' Sunny responded at once, but Hector frowned and took another look around him.
'Don't say that so loudly, Sunny!' he whispered. 'Rule #4,561 clearly states that citizens are not allowed to use their mouths for recreation. If the Council of Elders knew that you liked to bite things for your own enjoyment, I can't imagine what they'd do. I'm sure we can find you some things to bite, but you'll have to do it in secret. Well, here we are.'
Hector led the Baudelaires around one last corner, and the children got their first glimpse of where they would be living. The street they had been walking on simply ended at the turn of the corner, leading them to a place as wide and as flat as the countryside they had crossed that afternoon, with just three shapes standing out on the flat horizon. The first was a large, sturdy-looking house, with a pointed roof and a front porch big enough to contain a picnic table and four wooden chairs. The second was an enormous barn, right next to the house, that hid the studio and library Hector had been talking about. But it was the third shape that caused the Baudelaires to stare.
The third shape on the horizon was Nevermore Tree, but to simply say it was a tree would be like saying the Pacific Ocean was a body of water, or that Count Olaf was a grumpy person or that the story of Beatrice and myself was just a little bit sad. Nevermore Tree was gargantuan, a word which here means 'having attained an inordinate amount of botanical volume,' a phrase which here means 'it was the biggest tree the Baudelaires had ever seen.' Its trunk was so wide that the Baudelaires could have stood behind it, along with an elephant, three horses, and an opera singer, and not have been seen from the other side. Its branches spread out in every direction, like a fan that was taller than the house and wider than the barn, and the tree was made even taller and wider by what was sitting in it. Every last V.F.D. crow was roosting in its branches, adding a thick layer of muttering black shapes to the immense silhouette of the tree. Because the crows had gotten to Hector's house as the crow flies, instead of walking, the birds had arrived long before the Baudelaires, and the air was filled with the quiet rustling sounds of the birds settling in for the evening. A few of the birds had already fallen asleep, and the children could hear a few crow snores as they approached their new home.
'What do you think?' Hector asked.
'It's marvelous,' Violet said.
'It's superlative,' Klaus said.
'Ogufod!' Sunny said, which meant 'What a lot of crows!'
'The noises of the crows might sound strange at first,' Hector said, leading the way up the steps of the house, 'but you'll get used to them before long. I always leave the windows open when I go to bed. The sounds of the crows remind me of the ocean, and I find it very peaceful to listen to them as I drift off to sleep. Speaking of bed, I'm sure you must be very tired. I've prepared three rooms for you upstairs, but if you don't like them you can choose other ones. There's plenty of room in the house. There's even room for the Quagmires to live here, when we find them. It sounds like the five of you would be happy living together, even if you had to do the chores of an entire town.'
'That sounds delightful,' Violet said, smiling at Hector. It made the children happy just to think of the two triplets being safe and sound, instead of in Count Olaf's clutches. 'Duncan is a journalist, so maybe he could start a newspaper — then V.F.D. wouldn't have to read all of the mistakes in
'And Isadora is a poet,' Klaus said. 'She could write a book of poetry for the library — as long as she didn't write poetry about things that were against the rules.'
Hector started to open the door of his house, but then paused and gave the Baudelaires a strange look. 'A poet?' he asked. 'What kind of poetry does she write?'
'Couplets,' Violet replied.
Hector gave the children a look that was even stranger. He put down the Baudelaires' suitcases and reached into the pocket of his overalls. 'Couplets?' he asked.
'Yes,' Klaus said. 'She likes to write rhyming poems that are two lines long.'
Hector gave the youngsters a look that was one of the strangest they had ever seen, and took his hand out of his pocket to show them a scrap of paper rolled into a tiny scroll. 'Like this?' he asked, and unrolled the paper. The Baudelaire orphans had to squint to read it in the dying light of the sunset, and when they read it once they had to read it again, to make sure that the light wasn't playing tricks on them and that they had read what was really there on the scrap of paper, in shaky but familiar handwriting:
Chapter Four
The Baudelaire orphans stared at the scrap of paper, and then at Hector, and then at the scrap of paper again. Then they stared at Hector again, and then at the scrap of paper once more and then at Hector once more and then at the scrap of paper once again, and then at Hector once again and then at the scrap of paper one more time. Their mouths were open as if they were about to speak, but the three children could not find the words they wanted to say.
