"I know," Klaus said glumly. "Myths are often entertaining, but they're never very helpful. Maybe the time is ripe for one of Violet's inventions."
"But I don't have any materials to work with," Violet said, reaching out her hand to feel the edges of the net. "I can't use this net for an invention, because if I start to tear it up, we'll fall. The net seems to be attached to the walls with little metal pegs that stick into the walls, but I can't pull those out and use them, either."
"Gyzan?" Sunny asked.
"Yes," Violet replied, "pegs. Feel right here, Sunny. Gunther probably stood on a long ladder to drive these pegs into the walls of the passageway, and then strung the net across the pegs. I guess the walls of the elevator shaft are soft enough that small sharp objects can be stuck into them."
"Thole?" Sunny asked, which meant "Like teeth?" and instantly her siblings knew what she was thinking.
"No, Sunny," Violet said. "You can't climb up the elevator shaft by using your teeth. It's too dangerous."
"Yoigt," Sunny pointed out, which meant something like "But if I fall, I'll just fall back into the net."
"But what if you get stuck halfway up?" Klaus asked. "Or what if you lose a tooth?"
"Vasta," Sunny said, which meant "I'll just have to risk it--it's our only hope," and her siblings reluctantly agreed. They did not like the idea of their baby sister climbing up to the sliding doors of the ersatz elevator, using only her teeth, but they could think of no other way to escape in time to foil Gunther's plan. The time wasn't ripe for Violet's inventing skills, or for the knowledge Klaus had from his reading, but the time was ripe for Sunny's sharp teeth, and the youngest Baudelaire tilted her head back and then swung forward, sticking one of her teeth into the wall with a rough sound that would make any dentist weep for hours. But the Baudelaires were not dentists, and the three children listened closely in the darkness to hear if Sunny's tooth would stick as firmly as the net pegs. To their delight they heard nothing--no scraping or sliding or cracking or anything that would indicate that Sunny's teeth wouldn't hold. Sunny even shook her head a little bit to see if that would easily dislodge her tooth from the wall, but it remained a firm toothhold. Sunny swung her head slightly, and embedded another tooth, slightly above the first one. The second tooth stuck, so Sunny carefully eased out the first tooth and inserted it once more in the wall, slightly above the second tooth. By spacing her teeth slightly apart, Sunny had moved a few inches up the wall, and by the time she stuck her first tooth above the second one again, her little body was no longer touching the net.
"Good luck, Sunny," Violet said.
"We're rooting for you, Sunny," Klaus said.
Sunny did not reply, but her siblings were not alarmed because they imagined it was difficult to say much when you had a mouthful of wall. So Violet and Klaus merely sat on their net and continued to call up encouragement to their baby sister. Had Sunny been able to climb and speak at the same time, she might have said "Soried," which meant something like "So far so good," or "Yaff," which meant "I think I've reached the halfway point," but the two older Baudelaires heard nothing but the sound of her teeth inserting and detaching themselves in the dark until Sunny triumphantly called down the word "Top!"
"Oh, Sunny!" Klaus cried. "You did it!"
"Way to go!" Violet called up. "Now, go get our makeshift rope from under the bed, and we'll climb up and join you."
"Ganba," Sunny called back, and crawled off. The two older siblings sat and waited in the darkness for a while, marveling at their sister's skills.
"I couldn't have climbed all the way up this passageway," Violet said, "not when I was Sunny's age."
"Me neither," Klaus said, "although we both have regular-sized teeth."
"It's not just the size of her teeth," Violet said, "it's the size of her courage, and the size of her concern for her siblings."
"And the size of the trouble we're in," Klaus added, "and the size of our guardian's treachery. I can't believe Esmé was scheming together with Gunther the entire time. She's as ersatz as her elevator."
"Esmé's a pretty good actress," Violet said comfortingly, "even though she's a terrible person. She had us completely fooled that Gunther had her completely fooled. But what was she talking about when she said--"
"Tada!" Sunny called down from the sliding doors.
"She has the rope," Violet said excitedly. "Tie it to the doorknob, Sunny, using the Devil's Tongue."
"No," Klaus said, "I have a better idea."
"A better idea than climbing out of here?" Violet asked.
"I want to climb out of here," Klaus said, "but I don't think we should climb up. Then we'll just be at the penthouse."
"But from the penthouse," Violet said, "we can get to Veblen Hall. We can even slide down the banisters to save time."
"But at the end of the banisters," Klaus said, "is the lobby of the building, and in the lobby is a doorman with strict instructions not to let us leave."
"I hadn't thought about him," Violet said. "He always follows instructions."
"That's why we've got to leave 667 Dark Avenue another way," Klaus said.
"Ditemu," Sunny called down, which meant something like "What other way is there?"
"Down," Klaus said. "That tiny room at the bottom of the elevator shaft has a hallway leading out of it, remember? It's right next to the cage."
"That's true," Violet said. "That must be how Gunther snatched the Quagmires away before we could rescue them. But who knows where it leads?"
"Well, if Gunther took the Quagmires down that hallway," Klaus said, "it must lead to somewhere near Veblen Hall. And that's precisely where we want to go."
"You're right," Violet said. "Sunny, forget about tying the rope to the doorknob. Someone might see it, anyway, and realize we've escaped. Just bring it down here. Do you think you can bite your way back down?"
"Geronimo!" Sunny cried, which meant something like "I don't need to bite my way back down," and the youngest Baudelaire was right. She took a deep breath, and threw herself down the dark passageway, the coil of ersatz rope trailing behind her. This time, the plunge doe
s not need to be represented by pages of darkness, because the terror of the long, dark fall was alleviated--the word "alleviated" here means "not particularly on Sunny's mind"-- because the youngest Baudelaire knew that a net, and her siblings, were waiting for her at the bottom. With a thump! Sunny landed on the net, and with a slightly smaller thump! the coil of rope landed next to her. After making sure her sister was unharmed by the fall, Violet began tying one end of their rope to one of the pegs holding the net in place.
"I'll make sure this end of the rope is secured," Violet said. "Sunny, if your teeth aren't too sore from the climb, use them to cut a hole in the net, so we can climb through it."
"What can I do?" Klaus asked.
"You can pray this works," Violet said, but the Baudelaire sisters were so quick with their tasks that there was no time for even the shortest of religious ceremonies. In a matter of moments, Violet had attached the rope to the peg with some complicated and powerful knots, and Sunny had cut a child-sized hole in the middle of the net. Violet dangled the rope down the hole, and the three children listened until they heard the familiar clink! of their ersatz rope against the metal cage. The Baudelaire orphans paused for a moment at the hole in the net, and stared down into the blackness.
"I can't believe we're climbing down this passageway again," Violet said.
"I know what you mean," Klaus said. "If someone had asked me, that day at the beach, if I ever thought we'd be climbing up and down an empty elevator shaft in an attempt to rescue a pair of triplets, I would have said never in a million years. And now we're doing it for the fifth time in twenty-four hours. What happened to us? What led us to this awful place we're staring at now?"