"I don't have time to put my head together," Esmé said. "The In Auction is coming up, and I have to devote all of my energy to making sure it's a success."
"The In Auction?" Klaus asked.
"An auction," Jerome explained, "is a sort of sale. Everyone gets together in a large room, and an auctioneer shows off a bunch of things that are available for purchase. If you see something you like, you call out how much you'd be willing to pay for it. That's called a bid. Then somebody else might call out a bid, and somebody else, and whoever calls out the highest price wins the auction and buys the item in question. It's terribly exciting. Your mother used to love them! I remember one time--"
"You forgot the most important part," Esmé interrupted. "It's called the In Auction because we're selling only things that are in. I always organize it, and it's one of the most smashing events of the year!"
"Smashi?" Sunny asked.
"In this case," Klaus explained to his younger sister, "the word 'smashing' doesn't mean that things got smashed up. It just means 'fabulous.'"
"And it is fabulous," Esmé said, finishing her aqueous martini. "We hold the auction at Veblen Hall, and we auction off only the innest things we can find, and best of all, all the money goes to a good cause."
"Which good cause?" Violet asked. Esmé clapped her long-nailed hands together with glee. "Me! Every last bit of money that people pay at the auction goes right to me! Isn't that smashing?"
"Actually, dear," Jerome said, "I was thinking that this year, perhaps we should give the money to another good cause. For instance, I was just reading about this family of seven. The mother and father lost their jobs, and now they're so poor that they can't even afford to live in a one-room apartment. We might send some of the auction money to people like them."
"Don't talk nonsense," Esmé said crossly. "If we give money to poor people, then they won't be poor anymore. Besides, this year we're going to make heaps of money. I had lunch with twelve millionaires this morning, and eleven of them said they were definitely going to attend the In Auction. The twelfth one has to go to a birthday party. Just think of the money I'll make, Jerome! Maybe we could move to a bigger apartment!"
"But we just moved in a few weeks ago," Jerome said. "I'd rather spend some money on putting the elevator back in use. It's very tiring to climb all the way up to the penthouse."
"There you go, talking nonsense again," Esmé said. "If I'm not listening to my orphans babble about their kidnapped friends, I'm listening to you talk about out things like elevators. Well, we have no more time for chitchat in any case. Gunther is stopping by tonight, and I want you, Jerome, to take the children out for dinner."
"Who is Gunther?" Jerome asked.
"Gunther is the auctioneer, of course," Esmé replied. "He's supposed to be the innest auctioneer in town, and he's going to help me organize the auction. He's coming over tonight to discuss the auction catalog, and we don't want to be disturbed. That's why I want you to go out to dinner, and give us a little privacy."
"But I was going to teach the children how to play chess tonight," Jerome said.
"No, no, no," Esmé said. "You're going out to dinner. It's all arranged. I made a reservation at Café Salmonella for seven o'clock. It's six o'clock now, so you should get moving. You want to allow plenty of time to walk down all those stairs. But before you leave, children, I have a present for each of you."
At this, the Baudelaire children were taken aback, a phrase which here means "surprised that someone who was so selfish had purchased gifts for them," but sure enough, Esmé reached behind the dark red sofa she was sitting on, and brought out three shopping bags that had the words "In Boutique" written on them in fancy, curly script. With an elegant gesture, Esmé handed a bag to each Baudelaire.
"I thought if I bought you something you really wanted," she said, "you might stop all this chatter about the Quagmires."
"What Esmé means," Jerome added hurriedly, "is that we want you to be happy here in our home, even when you're worried about your friends."
"That's not what I mean at all," Esmé said, "but never mind. Open the bags, kids."
The Baudelaires opened their presents, and I'm sorry to say that the shopping bags were mixed bags as well. There are many, many things that are difficult in this life, but one thing that isn't difficult at all is figuring out whether someone is excited or not when they open a present. If someone is excited, they will often put exclamation points at the ends of their sentences to indicate their excited tone of voice. If they say "Oh!" for instance, the exclamation point would indicate that the person is saying "Oh!" in an excited way, rather than simply saying "Oh," with a comma after it, which would indicate that the present is somewhat disappointing.
"Oh," Violet said, as she opened her present.
"Oh," Klaus said, as he opened his.
"Oh," Sunny said, as she tore open her shopping bag with her teeth.
"Pinstripe suits! I knew you'd be excited!" Esmé said. "You must have been mortified the last few days, walking around the city without wearing any pinstripes! Pinstripes are in, and orphans are in, so just imagine how in you'll be when you orphans are wearing pinstripes! No wonder you're so excited!"
"They didn't sound excited when they opened the presents," Jerome said, "and I don't blame them. Esmé, I thought we said that we'd buy Violet a tool kit. She's very enthusiastic about inventing, and I thought we'd support that enthusiasm."
"But I'm enthusiastic about pinstripe suits, too," Violet said, knowing that you should always say that you are delighted with a present even when you don't like it at all. "Thank you very much."
"And Klaus was supposed to get a good almanac," Jerome continued. "I told you about his interest in the International Date Line, and an almanac is the perfect book to learn all about that."
"But I'm very interested in pinstripes," said Klaus, who could lie as well as his sister, when the need arose. "I really appreciate this gift."
"And Sunny," Jerome said, "was going to be given a large square made of bronze. It would have been attractive, and easily bitable."
"Ayjim," Sunny said. She meant something along the lines of "I love my suit. Thank you very much," even though she didn't mean it one bit.
"I know we discussed buying those silly items," Esmé said, with a wave of her long-nailed hand, "but tools have been out for weeks, almanacs have been out for months, and I received a phone call this afternoon informing me that large bronze squares are not expected to be in for at least another year. What's in now is pinstripes, Jerome, and I don't appreciate your trying to teach my new children that they should ignore what's in and what's out. Don't you want what's best for the orphans?"
"Of course," Jerome sighed. "I hadn't thought of it that way, Esmé. Well, children, I do hope you like your gifts, even though they don't exactly match up with your interests. Why don't you go change into your new suits, and we'll wear them to dinner?"
"Oh, yes!" Esmé said. "Café Salmonella is one of the innest restaurants. In fact, I think they don't even let you eat there if you're not wearing pinstripes, so go change. But hurry up! Gunther is due to arrive any minute."
"We'll hurry," Klaus promised, "and thank you again for our gifts."
"You're very welcome," Jerome said with a smile, and the children smiled back at him, walked out of the living room, down a long hallway, across a kitchen, through another living room, past four bathrooms, and so on and so on and so on, eventually finding their way to their bedrooms. They stood together for a minute outside the three bedroom doors, looking sadly into their shopping bags.
"I don't know how we're going to wear these things," Violet said.
"I don't either," Klaus said. "And it's all the worse knowing that we almost got presents we really want."
"Puictiw," Sunny agreed glumly.
"Listen to us," Violet said. "We sound hopelessly spoiled. We're living in an enormous apartment. We each have our own room. The doorman has promised to watch out for Count Olaf,