Esmй took a step outside, and it was so dark that Olaf's girlfriend looked like a ghost in a long, white gown and a fake extra head. 'But if you don't join us, where can you possibly go?' she asked. The Baudelaire orphans had no answer for Esmй Squalor's terrible question, but Esmй answered it herself, with a long, wicked laugh. 'If you don't choose the wicked thing what in the world will you do?' she asked, and disappeared into the night.
Chapter Nine
The curious thing about being told to sleep on it — a phrase which here means, as I'm sure you know, 'to go to bed thinking about something and reach a conclusion in the morning' — is that you usually can't. If you are thinking over a dilemma, you are likely to toss and turn all night long, thinking over terrible things that can happen and trying to imagine what in the world you can do about it, and these circumstances are unlikely to result in any sleeping at all. Just last night, I was troubled by a decision involving an eyedropper, a greedy night watchman, and a tray of individual custards, and this morning I am so tired that I can scarcely type these words. And so it was with the Baudelaire orphans that night, after Esmй Squalor had told them to sleep on it, and decide the next morning whether or not to throw Madame Lulu to the lions and join Count Olaf's troupe. The children, of course, had no intention of becoming part of a band of villains, or tossing anyone into a deadly pit. But Esmй had also asked them what in the world they would do if they decided not to join Olaf, and this was the question that kept them tossing and turning in their hammocks, which are particularly uncomfortable places to toss and turn. The Baudelaires hoped that instead of joining Count Olaf, they would travel through the hinterlands in a motorized roller-coaster cart of Violet's invention, accompanied by Madame Lulu, in her undisguised identity of Olivia, along with the archival library from underneath the table of the fortune-telling tent, in the hopes of finding one of the Baudelaire parents alive and well at the V.F.D. headquarters in the Mortmain Mountains. But this plan seemed so complicated that the children worried over all that could go wrong and spoil the whole thing. Violet thought about the lightning device that she planned to turn into a fan belt, and worried that there wouldn't be sufficient torque to make the carts move the way they needed to. Klaus worried that the archival library wouldn't contain specific directions to the headquarters, and they would get lost in the mountains, which were rumored to be enormous, confusing, and filled with wild animals. Sunny worried that they might not find enough to eat in the hinterlands. And all three Baudelaires worried that Madame Lulu would not keep her promise, and would reveal the orphans' disguise when Count Olaf asked about them the next morning. The siblings worried about these things all night, and although in my case the dessert chef managed to find my hotel room and knock on my window just before dawn, the Baudelaire orphans found that when morning came and they were done sleeping on it, they hadn't reached any other conclusion but that their plan was risky, and the only one they could think of.
As the first rays of the sun shone through the window onto the potted plants, the Baudelaires quietly lowered themselves out of their hammocks. Hugo, Colette, and Kevin had announced that they were ready to join Count Olaf's troupe and didn't need to sleep on it, and as so often happens with people who have nothing to sleep on, the children's coworkers were sleeping soundly and did not awaken as the siblings left the caravan to get to work on their plan.
Count Olaf and his troupe had dug the lions' pit alongside the ruined roller coaster, so close that the children had to walk along its edge to reach the ivy-covered carts. The pit was not very deep, although its walls were just high enough that nobody could climb out if they were thrown inside, and it was not very large, so all the lions were as crowded together as they had been in the trailer. Like the Baudelaires' coworkers, the lions must not have had much to sleep on, and they were still dozing in the morning sun. Sound asleep, the lions did not look particularly ferocious. Some of their manes were all tangled, as if no one had brushed them for a long time, and sometimes one of their legs twitched, as if they were dreaming of better days. On their backs and bellies were several nasty scars from the whippings Count Olaf had given them, which made the Baudelaires sore just looking at them, and most of the lions were very, very thin, as if they had not eaten a good meal in quite some time.
'I feel sorry for them,' Violet said, looking at one lion who was so skinny that all of its ribs were visible. 'If Madame Lulu was right, these lions were once noble creatures, and now look how miserably Count Olaf has treated them.'
'They look lonely,' Klaus said, squinting down into the pit with a sad frown. 'Maybe they're orphans, too.'
'But maybe they have a surviving parent,' Violet said, 'somewhere in the Mortmain Mountains.'
'Edasurc,' Sunny said, which meant something like, 'Maybe someday we can rescue these lions.'
'For now, let's rescue ourselves,' Violet said with a sigh. 'Klaus, let's see if we can untangle the ivy from this cart in front. We'll probably need two carts, one for passengers and one for the archival library, so Sunny, see if you can get the ivy off that other one.'
'Easy,' said Sunny, pointing to her teeth.
'All the caravans are on wheels,' Klaus said. 'Would it be easier to hitch up one of the caravans to the lightning device?'
'A caravan is too big,' Violet replied. 'If you wanted to move a caravan, you'd have to attach it to an automobile, or several horses.
We'll be lucky if I can rebuild the carts' engines. Madame Lulu said that they were rusted away.'
'It seems like we're hitching our hopes to a risky plan,' Klaus said, tearing away at a few strands of ivy with the one arm he could use. 'But I suppose it's no more risky than plenty of other things we've done, like stealing a sailboat.'
'Or climbing up an elevator shaft,' Violet said.
'Whaque,' Sunny said, with her mouth full of plants, and her siblings knew she meant something along the lines of, 'Or pretending to be surgeons.'
'Actually,' Violet said, 'maybe this plan isn't so risky after all. Look at the axles on this cart.'
'Axles?' Klaus asked.
'The rods that hold the wheels in place,' she explained, pointing to the bottom of the cart. 'They're in perfect condition. That's good news, because we need these wheels to carry us a long way.' The eldest Baudelaire looked up from her work and gazed out at the horizon. To the east, the sun was rising, and soon its rays would reflect off the mirrors positioned in the fortune-telling tent, but to the north, she could see the Mortmain Mountains rising up in odd square shapes, more like a staircase than a mountain range, with patches of snow on the higher places, and the top steps covered in a thick, gray fog. 'It'll take a long time to get up there,' she said, 'and it doesn't look like there are a lot of repair shops on the way.'
'I wonder what we'll find up there,' Klaus said. 'I've never been to the headquarters of something.'
'Neither have I,' Violet said. 'Here, Klaus, lean down with me so I can look at the engine of this cart.'
'If we knew more about V.F.D.,' Klaus said, 'we might know what to expect. How does the engine look?'
'Not too bad,' Violet said. 'Some of these pistons are completely rusted away, but I think I can replace them with these latches on the sides of the cart, and the lightning device will provide a fan belt. But we'll need something else — something like twine, or wire, to help connect the two carts.'
'Ivy?' Sunny asked.
'Good idea, Sunny,' Violet said. 'The stems of the ivy feel solid enough. If you'll pluck the leaves off a few strands, you'd be a big help.'
'What can I do?' Klaus asked.
'Help me turn the cart over,' Violet said, 'but watch where you put your feet. We don't want you falling into the pit.'
'I don't want
'Not if we get this done in time,' Violet said grimly. 'See if you can help me bend the latch so it fits into that notch, Klaus. No, no — the
'She probably will,' Klaus said, struggling with the latch. 'I can't understand why Hugo, Colette, and Kevin want to join up with people who do such things.'
