"If it makes you feel more comfortable," Violet said, wiping her mouth with her napkin, "I will answer the phone." Violet stood up and walked to the phone in time to answer it on the third ring.
"Hello?" she asked.
"Is this Mrs. Anwhistle?" a wheezy voice asked.
"No," Violet replied. "This is Violet Baudelaire. May I help you?"
"Put the old woman on the phone, orphan," the voice said, and Violet froze, realizing it was Captain Sham. Quickly, she stole a glance at Aunt Josephine, who was now watching Violet nervously.
"I'm sorry," Violet said into the phone. "You must have the wrong number."
"Don't play with me, you wretched girl-" Captain Sham started to say, but Violet hung up the phone, her heart pounding, and turned to Aunt Josephine.
"Someone was asking for the Hopalong Dancing School," she said, lying quickly. "I told them they had the wrong number."
"What a brave girl you are," Aunt Josephine murmured. "Picking up the phone like that."
"It's actually very safe," Violet said.
"Haven't you ever answered the phone, Aunt Josephine?" Klaus asked.
"Ike almost always answered it," Aunt Josephine said, "and he used a special glove for safety. But now that I've seen you answer it, maybe I'll give it a try next time somebody calls."
The phone rang, and Aunt Josephine jumped again. "Goodness," she said, "I didn't think it would ring again so soon. What an adventurous evening!"
Violet stared at the phone, knowing it was Captain Sham calling back. "Would you like me to answer it again?" she asked.
"No, no," Aunt Josephine said, walking toward the small ringing phone as if it were a big barking dog. "I said I'd try it, and I will." She took a deep breath, reached out a nervous hand, and picked up the phone.
"Hello?" she said. "Yes, this is she. Oh, hello, Captain Sham. How lovely to hear your voice." Aunt Josephine listened for a moment, and then blushed bright red. "Well, that's very nice of you to say, Captain Sham, but-what? Oh, all right. That's very nice of you to say, Julio. What?
What? Oh, what a lovely idea. But please hold on one moment."
Aunt Josephine held a hand over the receiver and faced the three children. "Violet, Klaus, Sunny, please go to your room," she said. "Captain Sham-I mean Julio, he asked me to call him by his first name-is planning a surprise for you children, and he wants to discuss it with me."
"We don't want a surprise," Klaus said.
"Of course you do," Aunt Josephine said. "Now run along so I can discuss it without your eavesdropping."
"We're not eavesdropping," Violet said, "but I think it would be better if we stayed here."
"Perhaps you are confused about the meaning of the word 'eavesdropping,'" Aunt Josephine said. "It means 'listening in.' If you stay here, you will be eavesdropping. Please go to your room."
"We know what eavesdropping means," Klaus said, but he followed his sisters down the hallway to their room. Once inside, they looked at one another in silent frustration. Violet put aside pieces of the toy caboose that she had planned to examine that evening to make room on her bed for the three of them to lie beside one another and frown at the ceiling.
"I thought we'd be safe here," Violet said glumly. "I thought that anybody who was frightened of realtors would never be friendly to Count Olaf, no matter how he was disguised."
"Do you think that he actually let leeches chew off his leg," Klaus wondered, shuddering, "just to hide his tattoo?"
"Choin!" Sunny shrieked, which probably meant "That seems a little drastic, even for Count Olaf."
"I agree with Sunny," Violet said. "I think he told that tale about leeches just to make Aunt Josephine feel sorry for him."
"And it sure worked," Klaus said, sighing. "After he told her that sob story, she fell for his disguise hook, line, and sinker."
"At least she isn't as trusting as Uncle Monty," Violet pointed out. "He let Count Olaf move right into the house."
"At least then we could keep an eye on him," Klaus replied.
"Ober!" Sunny remarked, which meant something along the lines of "Although we still didn't save Uncle Monty."
"What do you think he's up to this time?" Violet asked. "Maybe he plans to take us out in one of his boats and drown us in the lake."
"Maybe he wants to push this whole house off the mountain," Klaus said, "and blame it on Hurricane Herman."
"Haftu!" Sunny said glumly, which probably meant something like "Maybe he wants to put the Lachrymose Leeches in our beds."
"Maybe, maybe, maybe," Violet said. "All these maybes won't get us anywhere."
"We could call Mr. Poe and tell him Count
Olaf is here," Klaus said. "Maybe he could come and fetch us."
"That's the biggest maybe of them all," Violet said. "It's always impossible to convince Mr. Poe of anything, and Aunt Josephine doesn't believe us even though she saw Count Olaf with her own eyes."
"She doesn't even think she saw Count Olaf," Klaus agreed sadly. "She thinks she saw Captain Sham."
Sunny nibbled halfheartedly on Pretty Penny's head and muttered "P
och!" which probably meant "You mean Julio."
"Then I don't see what we can do," Klaus said, "except keep our eyes and ears open."
"Doma," Sunny agreed.
"You're both right," Violet said. "We'll just have to keep a very careful watch."
The Baudelaire orphans nodded solemnly, but the cold pit in their stomachs had not gone away. They all felt that keeping watch wasn't really much of a plan for defending themselves from Captain Sham, and as it grew later and later it worried them more and more. Violet tied her hair up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes, as if she were inventing something, but she thought and thought for hours and hours and was unable to invent another plan. Klaus stared at the ceiling with the utmost concentration, as if something very interesting were written on it, but nothing helpful occurred to him as the hour grew later and later. And Sunny bit Pretty Penny's head over and over, but no matter how long she bit it she couldn't think of anything to ease the Baudelaires' worries.
I have a friend named Gina-Sue who is socialist, and Gina-Sue has a favorite saying: "You can't lock up the barn after the horses are gone." It means simply that sometimes even the best of plans will occur to you when it is too late. This, I'm sorry to say, is the case with the Baudelaire orphans and their plan to keep a close watch on Captain Sham, for after hours and hours of worrying they heard an enormous crash of shattering glass, and knew at once that keeping watch hadn't been a good enough plan.
"What was that noise?" Violet said, getting up off the bed.
"It sounded like breaking glass," Klaus said worriedly, walking toward the bedroom door.
"Vestu!" Sunny shrieked, but her siblings did not have time to figure out what she meant as they all hurried down the hallway.
"Aunt Josephine! Aunt Josephine!" Violet called, but there was no answer. She peered up and down the hallway, but everything was quiet. "Aunt Josephine!" she called again. Violet led the way as the three orphans ran into the dining room, but their guardian wasn't there either. The candles on the table were still lit, casting a flickering glow on the business card and the bowls of cold lime stew.