properly, and as Klaus and Sunny tried to find the Surgical Ward they saw all sorts of hospital employees and devices hurrying through the halls. There were physicians carrying stethoscopes, hurrying to listen to people's heartbeats, and there were obstetricians carrying babies, hurrying to deliver people's children. There were radiologists carrying X-ray machines, hurrying to view people's insides, and there were optic surgeons carrying laser-driven technology hurrying to get inside people's views. There were nurses carrying hypodermic needles, hurrying to give people shots, and there were administrators carrying clipboards, hurrying to catch up on important paperwork. But no matter where the Baudelaires looked, they couldn't see anyone who seemed to be hurrying to the Surgical Ward.
'I don't see any surgeons,' Klaus said in desperation.
'Peipix,' Sunny said, which meant 'Me neither.'
'Out of my way, everybody!' demanded a voice at the end of the hallway. 'I'm a surgical assistant, carrying equipment for Dr. Flacutono!'
The other employees of the hospital stopped and cleared the way for the person who had spoken, a tall person dressed in a white lab coat and a surgical mask who was coming down the hallway in odd, tottering steps.
'I've got to get to the Surgical Ward right away!' the person called, walking past the Baudelaires without even glancing at them. But Klaus and Sunny glanced at this person. They saw, beneath the bottom hem of the white coat, the pair of shoes with stiletto heels that this person was wearing, and they saw the handbag in the shape of an eye that the person was holding in one hand. The children saw the black veil of the person's hat, which was hanging in front of the surgical mask, and they saw blotches of lipstick, which had soaked through from the person's lips and were staining the bottom of the mask.
The person, of course, was pretending to be a surgical assistant, and she was carrying something that was pretending to be a piece of surgical equipment, but the children did not need more than a glance to see through both of these spurious disguises. As they watched the person tottering down the hallway, the two Baudelaires knew at once that she was really Esmé Squalor, the villainous girlfriend of Count Olaf. And as they looked at the thing she was carrying, glinting in the light of the hospital hallway, the two Baudelaires knew that it was nothing more than a large rusty knife, with a long row of jagged teeth, just perfect for a cranioectomy.
Chapter Ten
At this point in the dreadful story I am writing, I must interrupt for a moment and describe something that happened to a good friend of mine named Mr. Sirin. Mr. Sirin was a lepidopterist, a word which usually means 'a person who studies butterflies.'
In this case, however, the word 'lepidopterist' means 'a man who was being pursued by angry government officials,' and on the night I am telling you about they were right on his heels. Mr. Sirin looked back to see how close they were--four officers in their bright-pink uniforms, with small flashlights in their left hands and large nets in their right--and realized that in a moment they would catch up, and arrest him and his six favorite butterflies, which were frantically flapping alongside him. Mr. Sirin did not care much if he was captured--he had been in prison four and a half times over the course of his long and complicated life--but he cared very much about the butterflies. He realized that these six delicate insects would undoubtedly perish in bug prison, where poisonous spiders, stinging bees, and other criminals would rip them to shreds. So, as the secret police closed in, Mr. Sirin opened his mouth as wide as he could and swallowed all six butterflies whole, quickly placing them in the dark but safe confines of his empty stomach. It was not a pleasant feeling to have these six insects living inside him, but Mr. Sirin kept them there for three years, eating only the lightest foods served in prison so as not to crush the insects with a clump of broccoli or a baked potato. When his prison sentence was over, Mr. Sirin burped up the grateful butterflies and resumed his lepidoptery work in a community that was much more friendly to scientists and their specimens. I am telling you this story not just to reveal the courage and imagination of one of my dearest friends, but to help you imagine how Klaus and Sunny felt as they watched Esmé Squalor, disguised as an associate of Dr. Flacutono, walk down the hallway of Heimlich Hospital carrying the long, rusty knife disguised as a surgical tool to be used on Violet. The two youngsters realized that their only chance of finding the Surgical Ward and rescuing their sister was to try and fool this greedy and stiletto-heeled villain, but as they approached her, like Mr. Sirin during his fifth and final prison sentence, the two Baudelaires felt the unpleasant fluttering of butterflies in their stomachs.
'Excuse me, ma'am,' Klaus said, trying to sound less like a thirteen-year-old boy and more like someone who had graduated from medical school. 'Did you say you were an associate of Dr. Flacutono?'
'If you're someone with a hearing problem,' Esmé said rudely, 'don't bother me. Go to the Ear Ward.'
'I'm not someone with a hearing problem,' Klaus said. 'This woman and I are associates of Dr. Flacutono.'
Esmé stopped in the middle of stabbing the floor, and stared down at the two siblings. Klaus and Sunny could see her eyes shining behind the veil of her fashionable hat as she regarded the children before replying.
'I was just wondering where you were,' she said. 'Come along with me, and I'll take you to the patient.'
'Patsy,' Sunny said.
'What she is saying,' Klaus said quickly, 'is that we're very concerned about Laura V. Bleediotie.'
'Well, you won't be concerned for long,' Esmé replied, leading the children around a corner to another hallway. 'Here, you carry the knife.'
The evil girlfriend handed Klaus the rusty blade, and leaned in closely to talk with him. 'I'm glad you two are here,' she whispered. 'The brat's little brother and sister haven't been captured yet, and we still don't have the file on the Snicket fires. The authorities removed it for their investigation. The boss says we might have to torch the place.'
'Torch?' Sunny asked.
'Mattathias will take care of that part,' Esmé said, looking around the hallway to make sure no one could hear them. 'All you have to do is assist with the surgery. Let's hurry up.'
Esmé walked up a stairway as fast as her shoes could carry her, and the children followed nervously behind her, Klaus holding the rusty, jagged knife. With every door they opened, every hallway they walked down, and every staircase they ascended, the youngsters were afraid that at any moment Esmé would see through their disguises and realize who they were. But the greedy woman was too busy pausing to yank the blades of the stiletto heels out of the floor to notice that the two additional associates of Dr. Flacutono bore a very strong resemblance to the children she was trying to capture. Finally, Esmé led the Baudelaires to a door marked 'Surgical Ward,' which was being guarded by someone the children recognized at once. The guard was wearing a coat which read 'Heimlich Hospital' and a cap that had the word 'GUARD' printed on it in big black print, but Klaus and Sunny could see that this was another spurious disguise. The siblings had seen this person at Damocles Dock, when poor Aunt Josephine had been their guardian, and they'd had to cook for this person when they'd been living with Count Olaf. The spurious guard was an enormous person who looked like neither a man nor a woman, and who had been assisting Count Olaf with his nefarious schemes for as long as the Baudelaires had been escaping from them. The person looked at the children, and the children look back at him or her, certain that they would be recognized. But Olaf's assistant merely nodded and opened the door.
'They've already anesthetized the bratty orphan,' Esmé said, 'so you ladies merely need to go to her room and bring her to the operating theater. I'm going to try to find that sniveling bookworm and that stupid baby with the oversized teeth. Mattathias says I get to choose which one to keep alive in order to force Mr. Poe to give us the fortune, and which one I get to rip to shreds.'
'Good,' Klaus said, trying to sound fierce and villainous. 'I'm so tired of chasing those kids around.'
'Me, too,' Esmé said, and the enormous assistant nodded in agreement. 'But I'm sure this will be the last time. Once we've destroyed the file, nobody can accuse us of any crimes, and once we murder the orphans, the fortune will be ours.'
The villainous woman paused and looked around her to make sure no one was listening, and then, satisfied that no one could hear her, she laughed wildly in triumph. The enormous assistant laughed, too, an odd laugh that
