The Hostile Hospital

this is the real Nurse Flo. The two people up on this stage are impostors.'

'No we're not,' the hook-handed man said angrily.

'Not you two,' Esmé said impatiently, glaring over her surgical mask at the two henchmen. 'I mean the other two people on the stage. They fooled everyone. They fooled doctors, nurses, volunteers, reporters, and even me-- until I found the real associates of Dr. Flacutono, that is.'

'In my medical opinion,' Klaus said, 'I believe this woman has lost her mind.'

'I haven't lost my mind,' Esmé said with a snarl, 'but you're about to lose your heads, Baudelaires.'

'Baudelaires?' the reporter from The Daily Punctilio asked. 'The same Baudelaires who murdered Count Omar?'

'Olaf,' the bald man corrected.

'I'm confused,' whined a volunteer. 'There are too many people pretending to be other people.'

'Allow me to explain,' Esmé said, stepping up on the stage. 'I am a medical professional, just like Dr. Flacutono, Dr. O. Lucafont, Dr. Tocuna, and Nurse Flo. You can see that from our medical coats and surgical masks.'

'Us, too!' Sunny cried.

Esmé's surgical mask curled up in a wicked smile. 'Not for long,' she said, and in one swift gesture she ripped the masks off the Baudelaires' faces. The crowd gasped as the masks fluttered to the ground, and the two children saw the doctors, nurses, reporters, and regular people in the crowd look at them in horror. Only the Volunteers Fighting Disease, who believed that no news was good news, did not recognize the youngsters.

'They are the Baudelaires!' a nurse exclaimed in astonishment. 'I read about them in The Daily Punctilio!'

'Me, too!' cried a doctor.

'It's always a pleasure to hear from our readers,' the reporter said modestly.

'But there were supposed to be three murderous orphans, not two!' another doctor said. 'Where's the oldest one?'

The hook-handed man hurriedly stepped in front of the gurney, shielding Violet from view. 'She's already in jail,' he said quickly.

'She is not!' Klaus said, and brushed Violet's hair out of her eyes so that everyone could see she was not Laura V. Bleediotie. 'These terrible people disguised her as a patient, so they could cut her head off!'

'Don't be ridiculous,' Esmé said. 'You're the one who was trying to cut her head off. Look, you're still holding the knife.'

'That's true!' the reporter cried. 'I can see the headline now: 'murderer attempts to murder murderer.' Wait until the readers of The Daily Punctilio see this!'

'Tweem!' Sunny shrieked.

'We're nor murderers!' Klaus translated frantically.

'If you're not murderers,' the reporter said, holding out her microphone, 'then why have you sneaked into a hospital in disguise?'

'I think I can explain that,' said another familiar voice, and everyone turned to see Hal enter the operating theater. In one hand he was clutching the ring of keys the Baudelaires had made from paper clips and Violet's hair ribbon, and with the other hand he was pointing angrily at the children.

'Those three Baudelaire murderers,' he said, 'pretended to be volunteers in order to come to work in the Library of Records.'

'They did?' a nurse said, as the audience gasped. 'You mean they're murderers and phony volunteers?'

'No wonder they didn't know the words to the song!' a volunteer cried.

'Taking advantage of my poor eyesight,' Hal continued, pointing at his glasses, 'they made these fake keys and switched it with the real one, so they could sneak into the library and destroy the files about their crimes!'

'We didn't want to destroy the file,' Klaus said, 'we wanted to clear our names. I'm sorry we tricked you, Hal, and I'm sorry that some of the file cabinets were knocked over, but--'

'Knocked over?' Hal repeated. 'You did more than knock over cabinets.' He looked at the children and sighed wearily, and then turned to face the audience. 'These children committed arson,' he said. 'The Library of Records is burning as we speak.'

Chapter Twelve

I am alone this evening, and I am alone because of a cruel twist of fate, a phrase which here means that nothing has happened the way I thought it would. Once I was a content man, with a comfortable home, a successful career, a person I loved very much, and an extremely reliable typewriter, but all of those things have been taken away from me, and now the only trace I have of those happy days is the tattoo on my left ankle. As I sit in this very tiny room, printing these words with this very large pencil, I feel as if my whole life has been nothing but a dismal play, presented just for someone else's amusement, and that the playwright who invented my cruel twist of fate is somewhere far above me, laughing and laughing at his creation. It is not pleasant to feel this way, and it is doubly unpleasant if the cruel twist of fate happens to you when you are actually standing on a stage and there is actually someone, far above you, laughing and laughing, as it was with the Baudelaire children in the operating theater of Heimlich Hospital. The children had scarcely heard Hal's accusation that they had burned down the Library of Records when they heard rough and familiar laughter coming out of the intercom speaker above them. The siblings had heard this laughter when Mattathias had first captured the Quagmire triplets, and when he had trapped the Baudelaires in a locked Deluxe Cell. It was the triumphant laughter of someone who has cooked up a fiendish plot and succeeded, although it always sounded like the laughter of someone who has just told an excellent joke. Because he was laughing over the scratchy intercom, Mattathias sounded as if he had a piece of aluminum foil over his mouth, but the laughter was still loud enough to help wear off the anesthesia, and Violet murmured something and moved her arms.

'Oops,' Mattathias said, interrupting his laughter as he realized the intercom was on. 'This is Mattathias, the Head of Human Resources, with an important announcement. There is a terrible fire in Heimlich Hospital. The fire was set in the Library of Records by the Baudelaire murderers, and has spread to the Sore Throat Ward, the Stubbed Toe Ward, and the Accidentally Swallowed Something You Shouldn't Have Ward. The orphans are still at large, so do everything you can to find them. After the murdering arsonists have been captured, you might want to rescue some of the patients who are trapped in the fire. That is all.'

'I can see the headline now,' the reporter said. ''baudelaire murderers torch paperwork.' Wait until the readers of The Daily Punctilio see this!'

'Somebody tell Mattathias we've captured the children,' a nurse cried in triumph. 'You three brats are in big trouble. You're murderers, arsonists, and spurious doctors.'

'That's not true,' Klaus said, but as he looked around he feared that no one would believe him. He looked at the spurious key ring in Hal's hands, that he and his siblings had used to sneak into the Library of Records. He looked at his medical coat, which he had used to disguise himself as a doctor. And he looked at the rusty blade in his own hands, which he had just been holding over his sister. Klaus remembered when he and his sisters were living with Uncle Monty, and brought several objects to Mr. Poe as evidence of Olaf's treacherous plot. Because of these small objects, Olaf was placed under arrest, and now Klaus was afraid that the same thing would happen to the Baudelaires.

'Surround them!' the hook-handed man called, pointing at the children with one curved glove. 'But be careful. The bookworm still has the knife!' Olaf's associates spread out in a circle and slowly began walking toward the youngsters at all angles. Sunny whimpered in fright, and Klaus picked her up and put her on the gurney.

'Arrest the Baudelaires!' a doctor cried.

'That's what we're doing, you fool!' Esmé replied impatiently, but when she turned her head to the Baudelaires they saw her wink above her surgical mask.

'We're going to capture only one of you,' she said, in a quiet voice so the audience wouldn't hear her. With