wherever they went, no matter where they lived or who tried to protect them, and even though the children had heard this voice so many times before, they had never gotten used to its sneering tone, as if the person talking were telling a joke with a horrible and violent punch line. 'Attention!' the voice said again, but the orphans did not have to be told to pay attention to the terrible voice of Count Olaf.
'Babs has resigned from Heimlich Hospital,' said the voice, and the siblings felt as if they could see the cruel smile Olaf always had on his face when he was telling lies. 'She decided to pursue a career as a stuntwoman, and has begun throwing herself off buildings immediately. My name is Mattathias, and I am the new Head of Human Resources. I will be conducting a complete inspection of every single employee here at Heimlich Hospital, beginning immediately. That is all.'
'An inspection,' Hal repeated, finishing his plum. 'What nonsense. They should finish the other half of this hospital, instead of wasting time inspecting everything.'
'What happens during an inspection?' Violet asked.
'Oh, they just come and look you over,' Hal said carelessly, and began walking back to the Library of Records. 'We'd better get back to work. There is a lot more information to file.'
'We'll be along in a moment,' Klaus promised. 'I'm not quite done with my fruit.'
'Well, hurry up,' Hal said, and left the anteroom. The Baudelaires looked at one another in worry and dismay.
'He's found us again,' Violet said, talking quietly so Hal could not hear them. She could barely hear her own voice over the sound of her heart pounding with fear.
'He must know we're here,' Klaus agreed. 'That's why he's doing the inspection--so he can find us and snatch us away.'
'Tell!' Sunny said.
'Who can we tell?' Klaus asked. 'Everyone thinks Count Olaf is dead. They won't believe three children if we say that he's disguised himself as Mattathias, the new Head of Human Resources.'
'Particularly three children who are on the front page of
'But files aren't allowed out of the Library of Records,' Klaus said.
'Then we'll have to read them right here,' Violet said.
'That's easier said than done,' Klaus pointed out. 'We don't even know what letter to look under, and Hal will be right in the room with us all day long.'
'Night!' Sunny said.
'You're right, Sunny,' Violet said. 'Hal is here all day long, but he goes home at night. When it gets dark, we'll sneak back over here from the half-finished wing. It's the only way we'll be able to find the file.'
'You're forgetting something,' Klaus said. 'The Library of Records will be locked up tight. Hal locks all of the file cabinets, remember?'
'I hadn't thought of that,' Violet admitted. 'I can invent one lockpick, but I'm not sure I'll have time to invent enough lockpicks to work on all those file cabinets.'
'Deashew!' Sunny said, which meant something like 'And it takes me several hours to open one cabinet with my teeth!'
'Without the keys, we'll never get the file,' Klaus said, 'and without the file, we'll never defeat Count Olaf. What can we do?'
The children sighed, and thought as hard as they could, staring in front of them as they did so, and as soon as they stared in front of them they saw something that gave them an idea. The thing they saw was small, and round, and had colorful and shiny skin, and the youngsters could see that it was a persimmon. But the Baudelaires knew that if someone's eyesight wasn't what it used to be, it might look like a plum. The Baudelaire orphans sat and stared at the persimmon, and began to think how they might fool someone into thinking one thing was really another.
Chapter Six
This is not a tale of Lemony Snicket. It is useless to tell the Snicket story, because it happened so very long ago, and because there is nothing anybody can do about the way it has turned out, so the only reason I could possibly have for jotting it down in the margins of these pages would be to make this book even more unpleasant, unnerving, and unbelievable than it already is. This is a story about Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire, and how they discovered something in the Library of Records of Heimlich Hospital that changed their lives forever and still gives me the heebie-jeebies whenever I am alone at night STOP. But if this were a book about me, instead of about the three children who would soon run into someone they had hoped never to see again, I might pause for a moment and tell you about something I did many years ago that still troubles me. It was a necessary thing to do, but it was not a nice thing, and even now, I get a small quiver of shame in my stomach whenever I remember it. I might be doing something I enjoy--walking along the promenade deck of a ship, or looking through a telescope at the aurora borealis, or wandering into a bookstore and placing my books on the highest place in the shelf, so that no one will be tempted to buy and read them--when I will suddenly remember this thing I did, and think to myself,
The Baudelaire orphans were experiencing similar quivers that afternoon, as they finished up the day's work in the Library of Records. Every time Violet put a file in its proper place, she would feel her hair ribbon in her pocket, and get a quiver in her stomach as she thought about what she and her siblings were up to. Klaus would take a stack of papers from the basket in front of the deposit chute, and instead of placing the paper clips in the small bowl, he would keep them hidden in his hand, feeling a quiver in his stomach as he thought about the trick he and his sisters were going to play. And whenever Hal turned his back, and Klaus passed the paper clips to Sunny, the youngest Baudelaire felt a quiver in her stomach as she thought about the sneaky way they were going to return to the Library of Records that night. By the time Hal was locking up the file cabinets for the day with his long loop of keys, the three Baudelaire children had enough quivers in their stomach to attend a Quivery Stomach Festival, if there had been one in the area that afternoon.
'Is it absolutely necessary to do this?' Violet murmured to Klaus, as the three children followed Hal out of the library into the anteroom. She took her hair ribbon out of her pocket and smoothed it out, making sure it didn't have any tangles. 'It's not a nice thing to do.'
'I know,' Klaus answered, holding his hand out so Sunny could hand back the paper clips. 'I have a quiver in my stomach just thinking about it. But it's the only way we can get our hands on that file.'
'Olaf,' Sunny said grimly. She meant 'Before Mattathias gets his hands on us,' and as soon as she was finished with her sentence, Mattathias's scratchy voice came over the intercom.
'Attention! Attention!' the voice said, as Hal and the Baudelaires looked up at the square speaker. 'This is Mattathias, the new Head of Human Resources. Inspections are over for the day but will continue tomorrow.'
'What nonsense,' Hal muttered, putting the loop of keys down on the table. The Baudelaires looked at one another, and then at the keys, as Mattathias continued his announcement.
'Also,' the speaker said, 'if anyone in the hospital has any valuables of any kind, please bring them to the Human Resources office for safekeeping. Thank you.'
'My eyeglasses are somewhat valuable,' Hal said, taking them off, 'but I'm not going to bring them to the Human Resources office. I might not ever see them again.'
'That's probably true,' Violet said, shaking her head at Mattathias's audacity, a word which here means 'attempt to steal valuables from hospital employees, in addition to snatching the Baudelaire fortune.'
'Besides,' Hal said, smiling at the children and reaching for his coat, 'nobody's going to steal anything from me. You three are the only people I see at the hospital, and I trust you absolutely. Now, where did I put my keys?'
'Here they are,' Violet said, and the quiver in her stomach got worse. She held up her hair ribbon, which had been tied into a circle to look like a loop of string. Hanging from the ribbon was a long row of paper clips, which
