"Hee hee-" Nero stopped giggling and became very serious himself. "Oh, Coach Genghis," he said, "we wouldn't ask you to violate your religious beliefs, and I certainly don't want your feet stinking up my office."
Violet struggled to reach the turban and Klaus struggled to remove one of the evil coach's shoes, but Genghis held them both tight.
"Drat!" Sunny shrieked.
"Joke time is over!" Nero announced. "Thank you for brightening up my morning, children. Good-bye, and enjoy your breakfast without silverware! Now, Coach Genghis, what can I do for you?"
"Well, Nero," Genghis said, "I just wanted to give you this rose-a small gift of congratulations for the wonderful concert you gave us last night!"
"Oh, thank you," Nero said, taking the rose out of Genghis's hand and giving it a good smell. "I was wonderful, wasn't I?"
"You were perfection!" Genghis said. "The first time you played your sonata, I was deeply moved. The second time, I had tears in my eyes. The third time, I was sobbing. The fourth time, I had an uncontrollable emotional attack. The fifth time-"
The Baudelaires did not hear about the fifth time because Nero's door swung shut behind them. They looked at one another in dismay. The Baudelaires had come very close to revealing Coach Genghis's disguise, but close was not enough. They trudged silently out of the administrative building and over to the cafe-teria. Evidently, Nero had already called the metal-masked cafeteria workers, because when Violet and Klaus reached the end of the line, the workers refused to hand them any silverware. Prufrock Prep was not serving oatmeal for breakfast, but Violet and Klaus knew that eating scrambled eggs with their hands was not going to be very pleasant.
"Oh, don't worry about that," Isadora said when the children slid glumly into seats beside the Quagmires. "Here, Klaus and I will take turns with my silverware, and you can share with Duncan, Violet. Tell us how everything went in Nero's office."
"Not very well," Violet admitted. "Coach Genghis got there right after we did, and we didn't want him to see that we knew who he really was."
Isadora pulled her notebook out of her pocket and read out loud to her friends.
"It would be a stroke of luck
if Coach Genghis were hit by a truck,"
she read. "That's my latest poem. I know it's not that helpful, but I thought you might like to hear it anyway."
"I did like hearing it," Klaus said. "And it certainly would be a stroke of luck if that happened. But I wouldn't bet on it."
"Well, we'll think of another plan," Duncan said, handing Violet his fork.
"I hope so," Violet said. "Count Olaf doesn't usually wait very long to put his evil schemes into action."
"Kosbal!" Sunny shrieked.
"Does Sunny mean 'I have a plan'?" Isadora asked. "I'm trying to get the hang of her way of talking."
"I think she means something more like 'Here comes Carmelita Spats,'" Klaus said, pointing across the cafeteria. Sure enough, Carmelita Spats was walking toward their table with a big, smug smile on her face.
"Hello, you cakesniffers," she said. "I have a message for you from Coach Genghis. I get to be his Special Messenger because I'm the cutest, prettiest, nicest girl in the whole school."
"Oh, stop bragging, Carmelita," Duncan said.
"You're just jealous," Carmelita replied, "because Coach Genghis likes me best instead of you."
"I couldn't care less about Coach Genghis," Duncan said. "Just deliver your message and leave us alone."
"The message is this," Carmelita said. "The three Baudelaire orphans are to report to the front lawn tonight, immediately after dinner."
"After dinner?" Violet said. "But after dinner we're supposed to go to Nero's violin recital."
"That's the message," Carmelita insisted.
"He said that if you don't show up you'll be in big trouble, so if I were you, Violet-"
"You aren't Violet, thank goodness," Duncan interrupted. It is not very polite to interrupt a person, of course, but sometimes if the person is very unpleasant you can hardly stop yourself. "Thank you for your message. Good-bye."
"It is traditional," Carmelita said, "to give a Special Messenger a tip after she has delivered a message."
"If you don't leave us alone," Isadora said, "you're going to get a headful of scrambled eggs as a tip."
"You're just a jealous cakesniffer," Carmelita sneered, but she left the Baudelaires and Quagmires alone.
"Don't worry," Duncan said when he was sure Carmelita couldn't hear him. "It's still morning. We have all day to figure out what to do. Here, have another spoonful of eggs, Violet."
"No, thank you," Violet said. "I don't have much of an appetite." And it was true. None of the Baudelaires had an appetite. Scrambled eggs had never been the siblings' favorite dish, particularly Sunny, who much preferred food she could really sink her teeth into, but their lack of appetite had nothing to do with the eggs. It had to do with Coach Genghis, of course, and the message that he had sent to them. It had to do with the thought of meeting him on the lawn, after dinner, all alone. Duncan was right that it was still morning, and that they had all day to figure out what to do. But it did not feel like morning. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny sat in the cafeteria, not taking another bite of their break-fast, and it felt like the sun had already set. It felt like night had already fallen, and that Coach Genghis was already waiting for them. It was only morning, and the Baudelaire orphans already felt like they were in his clutches.
CHAPTER Seven
The Baudelaire orphans' schoolday was particularly austere, a word which here means that Mr. Remora's stories were particularly boring, Mrs. Bass's obsession with the metric system was particularly irritating, and Nero's administrative demands were particularly difficult, but Violet, Klaus, and Sunny did not really notice. Violet sat at her schooldesk, and anybody who did not know Violet would have thought that she was paying close attention, because her hair was tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. But Violet's thoughts were far, far away from the dull tales Mr. Remora was telling. She had tied her hair up, of course, to help focus her keen inventing brain on the problem that was facing the Baudelaires, and she didn't want to waste an ounce of her attention on the rambling, banana-eating man.in the front of the room.
Mrs. Bass had brought in a box of pencils for her class and was having them figure out if one of them was any longer or shorter than the rest. And if Mrs. Bass weren't so busy pacing around the room shouting "Measure!" she might have looked at Klaus and thought that perhaps he shared her obsession with measurement, because his eyes were sharply focused as if he were concentrating. But Klaus was spending the morning on autopilot, a word which here means "measuring pencils without really thinking about them." As he placed pencil after pencil next to his ruler, he was thinking of books he had read that might be helpful for their situation.
And if Vice Principal Nero had stopped practicing his violin and looked in on his infant secretary, he would have guessed that Sunny was working very hard, mailing letters he had dictated to various candy companies complaining about their candy quality. But even though Sunny was typing, stapling, and stamping as quickly as she could, her mind was not on secretarial supplies but on the appointment she and her siblings had with Coach Genghis that evening, and what they could do about it.
The Quagmires were curiously absent from lunch, so the Baudelaires were really forced to cat with their hands this time, but as they picked up handfuls of spaghetti and tried to eat them as neatly as possible the three children were thinking so hard that they barely spoke. They knew, almost without discussing the matter, that none of them had been able to guess Coach Genghis's plan, and that they hadn't figured out a way to avoid their appointment with
him on the lawn, an appointment that drew closer and closer with every handful of lunch. The Baudelaires passed the afternoon in more or less the same way, ignoring Mr. Remora's stories, Mrs. Bass's pencils, and the diminishing supply of staples, and even during gym period-one of Carmelita's bratty friends informed them that Genghis would start teaching the next day, but in the meantime they were to run around as usual-the three children raced around the lawn in utter silence, devoting all of their brainpower to thinking about their situation.
The Baudelaires had been so very quiet, and thinking so very hard, that when the Quagmires sat down across from them at dinnertime and said in unison, "We've solved your problem," it was more of a startle than a relief.
"Goodness," Violet said. "You startled me."
"I thought you'd be relieved," Duncan said. "Didn't you hear us? We said we've solved your problem."
"We're startled and relieved," Klaus said. "What do you mean, you've solved our problem? My sisters and I have been thinking about it all day, and we've gotten nowhere. We don't know what Coach Genghis is up to, although we're sure he's up to something. And we don't know how we can avoid meeting him after dinner, although we're sure that he'll do something terrible if we do."
"At first I thought he might simply be planning to kidnap us," Violet said, "but he wouldn't have to be in disguise to do that."
"And at first I thought we should call Mr. Poe after all," Klaus said, "and tell him what's going on. But if Count Olaf can fool an advanced computer, he'll surely be able to fool an average banker."
"Toricia!" Sunny said in agreement.