Sunny had fashioned into different shapes with her teeth when Hal wasn't looking. The result looked something like Hal's loop of keys, the way a horse looks something like a cow, or a woman in a green dress looks something like a pine tree, but there was no way anyone would look at Violet's hair ribbon full of chewed-up paper clips and think it was a ring of keys--unless, of course, their eyesight was not what it used to be. The three children waited as Hal squinted at what Violet was holding.
'Those are my keys?' Hal said doubtfully. 'I thought I put them down on the table.'
'Oh, no,' Klaus said quickly, standing in front
'Here,' Violet said, moving them back and forth so they would be even harder to squint at, 'why don't I put them in your coat pocket for you?'
'Thank you,' Hal said, as Violet dropped them into his overcoat pocket. He looked at the Baudelaires, his tiny eyes shining with gratitude. 'That's another way you three have helped me. My eyesight's not what it used to be, you know, so I'm glad I can rely on such good volunteers. Well, good night, children. I'll see you tomorrow.'
'Good night, Hal,' Klaus replied. 'We're just going to have one last piece of fruit here in the anteroom.'
'Don't spoil your dinner,' Hal said. 'It's supposed to be a very cold evening, so I bet your parents have cooked up a nice hot meal.' Hal smiled and shut the door behind him, leaving the children alone with the real keys to the Library of Records and the quivery feeling still in their stomachs.
'Someday,' Violet said quietly, 'we'll apologize to Hal for playing a trick on him, and explain why we had to break the rules. This wasn't a nice thing to do, even though it was necessary.'
'And we'll return to the Last Chance General Store,' Klaus said, 'and explain to the shopkeeper why we had to run away.'
'Twisp,' Sunny said firmly, which meant 'But not until we get ahold of the file, solve all these mysteries, and prove our innocence.'
'You're right, Sunny,' Violet said, with a sigh. 'Let's get started. Klaus, see if you can find the right key for the Library door.'
Klaus nodded, and carried Hal's keys over to the door. Not too long ago, when the Baudelaires had been staying with Aunt Josephine by the shores of Lake Lachrymose, Klaus had been in a situation in which he had to match up a key to a locked door very, very quickly, and since then he had been quite good at it. He looked at the lock of the door, which had a very short and narrow keyhole, and then looked at the loop of string, which had one very short and narrow key, and in no time at all the children were re-entering the Library of Records and looking down the dim aisles of file cabinets.
'I'm going to lock the door behind us,' Klaus said, 'so that nobody will get suspicious if they happen to walk into the anteroom.'
'Like Mattathias,' said Violet with a shudder. 'On the intercom he said that they were stopping the inspections for the day, but I bet he's really still looking.'
'Vapey,' Sunny said, which meant 'Then let's hurry.'
'Let's start with the S aisle,' Violet said. 'For Snicket.'
'Right,' Klaus said, locking the door with a rattle. The three children found the S aisle and began walking past the file cabinets, reading the labels on them to figure out which one to open.
'Sauce to Saxifrage,' Klaus read out loud. 'That means that anything that falls alphabetically between the word 'sauce' and the word 'saxifrage' will be in this cabinet. That would be fine if we wanted the Sawmill file.'
'Or the Sauna file,' Violet said. 'Let's move on.'
The children moved on, their footsteps echoing off the low ceilings of the room. 'Scarab to Scavenger,' Klaus said, reading one farther down the aisle. Sunny and Violet shook their heads, and the Baudelaires kept moving.
'Secretary to Sediment,' Violet read. 'We're still not there.'
'Kalm,' Sunny said, which meant 'I can't read very well, but I think this one says 'Sequel to Serenity.''
'You're right, Sunny,' Klaus said, smiling at his sister. 'It's the wrong one.'
'Shed to Sheepshank,' Violet read.
'Shellac to Sherbet,' Klaus read, walking farther down the aisle.
'Shipwreck to Shrimp.'
'Sicily to Sideways.'
'Skylight to Slob.'
'Sludge to Smoke.'
'Snack to Snifter.'
'Snowball to Sober.'
'Sonnet to Spackle.'
'Wait!' Klaus cried. 'Back up! Snicket is between Snack and Snifter.'
'You're right,' Violet said, stepping back to find the right cabinet. 'I was so distracted by all the strange file names that I forgot what we were looking for. Here it is, Snack to Snifter. Let's hope the file we're looking for is here.'
Klaus looked at the lock on the file cabinet, and found the right key on Hal's loop on only the third try. 'It should be in the bottom drawer,' Klaus said, 'close to Snifter. Let's look.'
The Baudelaires looked. A snifter is a type of glass, usually meant for holding brandy, although it is also the term for a strong wind. Plenty of words are close to 'snifter' in the alphabet, and the children found many of them. There was a file on sniffing, which seemed to have many photographs of noses. There was a file on Snell's Law, which states that a ray of light passing from one uniform medium to another produces an identical ratio between the sine of the angle of incidence and the sine of the angle of refraction, which Klaus already knew. There was a file on the inventor of the sneaker, whom Violet admired very much, and one on snicking, which is something Sunny had done many times with her teeth. But there was not a single scrap of paper marked Snicket. The children sighed in disappointment, and shut the drawer of the file cabinet so Klaus could lock it again.
'Let's try the J aisle, for Jacques,' Violet suggested.
'Shh,' Sunny said.
'No, Sunny,' Klaus said gently. 'I don't think the H aisle is a good bet. Why would Hal have filed it under H?'
'Shh,' Sunny insisted, pointing at the door, and her siblings knew instantly that they had misunderstood her. Usually when Sunny said 'Shh,' she meant something along the lines of 'I think the H aisle might be a good place to look for the file,' but this time she meant something more along the lines of 'Be quiet! I think I hear someone walking into the anteroom of the Library of Records.' Sure enough, when the Baudelaires listened closely, they could hear the clomping of some odd, teetering footsteps, as if someone were walking on very thin stilts. The footsteps grew closer and closer, and then stopped, and as the three children held their breath, the door to the Library rattled as someone tried to open the door.
'Maybe it's Hal,' Violet whispered, 'trying to unlock the door with a paper clip.'
'Maybe it's Mattathias,' Klaus whispered, 'looking for us.'
'Janitor,' Sunny whispered.
'Well, whoever it is,' Violet said, 'we'd better hurry to the J aisle.'
The Baudelaires tiptoed across the low-ceilinged room to the J aisle, and walked down it quickly, reading the labels of the file cabinets.
'Jabberwocky to Jackal.'
'Jacket to Jack-o'-Lanterns.'
'Nersai.'
'That's it!' Klaus whispered. 'Jacques will be in Jackline to Jacutinga.'
'We hope,' Violet said, as the door rattled again. Klaus hurried to find the right key, and the children opened the top drawer to look for Jacques. As Violet knew, jackline is a kind of rope used in sailing, and as Klaus knew, jacutinga is a sort of gold-bearing iron ore found in Brazil, and once again there were plenty of files between these two, but although the children found information on jack-o'-lanterns, Jack Russell terriers, and Jacobean drama, there was no file marked 'Jacques.'
'Fire!' Klaus whispered, shutting and locking the file cabinet. 'Let's head to the F aisle.'
'And hurry,' Violet said. 'It sounds like the person in the anteroom is picking the lock.'
It was true. The Baudelaires paused for a moment and heard a muffled scratching from behind the door, as if
