Violet and Klaus looked at one another dimly underneath the coat, wincing as their fingers were stung, and tried to keep walking.
"We'll never reach the Valley of Four Drafts like this," Violet said, speaking louder than usual over the buzzing of the gnats. "How can we stop them, Klaus?"
"Fire drives them away," Klaus said. "In the book I read, the author said that even the smell of smoke can keep a whole swarm at bay. But we can't start a fire underneath a coat."
"Ow!" A snow gnat stung Violet's thumb on a spot that had already been stung, just as the Baudelaires rounded the rocky corner where the swarm had first appeared. Through a worn spot in the fabric, the Baudelaires could just make out a dark, circular hole in the side of the mountain.
"That must be an entrance to one of the caves," Klaus said. "Could we start a fire in there?"
"Maybe," Violet said. "And maybe we'd annoy a hibernating animal."
"We've already managed to annoy thousands of animals," Klaus said, almost dropping the pitcher as a gnat stung his wrist. "I don't think we have much choice. I think, we have to head into the cave and take our chances."
Violet nodded in agreement, but looked nervously at the entrance to the cave. Taking one's chances is like taking a bath, because sometimes you end up feeling comfortable and warm, and sometimes there is something terrible lurking around that you cannot see until it is too late and you can do nothing else but scream and cling to a plastic duck. The two Baudelaires walked carefully toward the dark, circular hole, making sure to stay clear of the nearby edge of the peak and pulling the coat tightly around them so the snow gnats could not find a way inside, but what worried them most was not the height of the peak or the stingers of the gnats but the chances they were taking as they ducked inside the gloomy entrance of the cave.
The two Baudelaires had never been in this cave before, of course, and as far as I have been able to ascertain, they were never in it again, even on their way back down the mountain, after they had been reunited with their baby sister and learned the secret of Verbal Fridge Dialogue. And yet, as Violet and Klaus took their chances and walked inside, they found two things with which they were familiar. The first was fire. As they stood inside the entrance to the cave, the siblings realized at once that there was no need to worry about the snow gnats any longer, because they could smell nearby smoke, and even see, at a great distance, small orange flames toward the back of the cave. Fire, of course, was very familiar to the children, from the ashen smell of the remains of the Baudelaire mansion to the scent of the flames that destroyed Caligari Carnival. But as the snow gnats formed an arrow and darted away from the cave and the Baudelaires took another step inside, Violet and Klaus found another familiar thing — a familiar person, to be exact, who they had thought they would never see again.
"Hey you cakesniffers!" said a voice from the back of the cave, and the sound was almost enough to make the two Baudelaires wish they had taken their chances someplace else.
Chapter Three
You may well wonder why there is no account of Sunny Baudelaire in the first two chapters of this book, but there are several reasons why this is so. For one thing, Sunny's journey in Count Olaf's car was much more difficult to research. The tracks made by the tires of the car have vanished long ago, and so many blizzards and avalanches have occurred in the Mortmain Mountains that even the road itself has largely disappeared. The few witnesses to Olaf's journey have mostly died under mysterious circumstances, or were too frightened to answer the letters, telegrams, and greeting cards I sent them requesting an interview. And even the litter that was thrown out the window of Olaf's car — the clearest sign that evil people have driven by — was picked up off the road long before my work began. The missing litter is a good sign, as it indicates that certain animals of the Mortmain Mountains have returned to their posts and are rebuilding their nests, but it has made it very hard for me to write a complete account of Sunny's travels.
But if you are interested in knowing how Sunny Baudelaire spent her time while her siblings stopped the caravan, followed the path of the Stricken Stream, and struggled against the snow gnats, there is another story you might read that describes more or less the same situation. The story concerns a person named Cinderella. Cinderella was a young person who was placed in the care of various wicked people who teased her and forced her to do all the chores. Eventually Cinderella was rescued by her fairy godmother, who magically created a special outfit for Cinderella to wear to a ball where she met a handsome prince, married him soon afterward, and lived happily ever after in a castle. If you substitute the name "Cinderella" with the name "Sunny Baudelaire," and eliminate the fairy godmother, the special outfit, the ball, the handsome prince, the marriage, and living happily ever after in a castle, you will have a clear idea of Sunny's predicament.
"I wish the baby orphan would stop that irritating crying," Count Olaf said, wrinkling his one eyebrow as the car made another violent turn. "Nothing spoils a nice car trip like a whiny kidnapping victim."
"I'm pinching her as often as I can," Esmé Squalor said, and gave Sunny another pinch with her stylish fingernails, "but she still won't shut up."
"Listen, toothy," Olaf said, taking his eyes off the road to glare at Sunny. "If you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about."
Sunny gave a little whimper of annoyance, and wiped her eyes with her tiny hands. It was true that she had been crying for most of the day, thoroughout a long drive that even the most dedicated of researchers would be unable to trace, and now as the sun set, she still had not been able to stop herself. But at Count Olaf's words, she was almost more irritated than frightened. It is always tedious when someone says that if you don't stop crying, they will give you something to cry about, because if you are crying than you already have something to cry about, and so there is no reason for them to give you anything additional to cry about, thank you very much. Sunny Baudelaire certainly felt she had sufficient reason to weep. She was worried about her siblings, and wondered how they were going to stop the runaway caravan from hurtling them to their doom. She was frightened for herself, now that Count Olaf had discovered her disguise, torn off her beard, and trapped her on Esmé's lap. And she was in pain, from the constant pinching of the villain's girlfriend. "No pinch," she said to Esmé, but the wicked and stylish woman just frowned as if Sunny had spoken nonsense.
"When she's not crying," Esmé said, "the baby talks in some foreign language. I can't understand a thing she's saying."
"Kidnapped children are never any fun," said the hook-handed man, who was perhaps Sunny's least favorite of Olaf's troupe. "Remember when we had the Quagmires in our clutches, boss? They did nothing but complain. They complained when we put them in a cage. They complained when we trapped them inside a fountain. Complain, complain, complain — I was so sick of them I was almost glad when they escaped from our clutches."
"Glad?" Count Olaf said with a snarl. "We worked hard to steal the Quagmire fortune, and we didn't get a single sapphire. That was a real waste of time."
"Don't blame yourself, Olaf," said one of the white-faced women from the back seat. "Everybody makes mistakes."
"Not this time," Olaf said. "With the two orphans squashed someplace underneath a crashed caravan and the baby orphan on your lap, the Baudelaire fortune is mine. And once we reach the Valley of Four Drafts and find the headquarters, all our worries will be over."
"Why?" asked Hugo, the hunchbacked man who had previously been employed at the carnival.
"Yes, please explain," said Kevin, another former carnival worker. At Caligari Carnival, Kevin had been embarrassed to be ambidextrous, but Esmé had lured him into joining Olaf's troupe by tying Kevin's right hand behind his back, so no one would know it was as strong as his left. "Remember, boss, we're new to the troupe, so we don't always know what's going on."
"I remember when I first joined Olaf's troupe," the other white-faced woman said. "I'd never even heard of the Snicket file."
/> "Working for me is a hands-on learning experience," Olaf said. "You can't rely on me to explain everything to you. I'm a very busy man."
"I'll explain it, boss," said the hook-handed man. "Count Olaf, like any good businessman, has committed a wide variety of crimes."
"But these stupid volunteers have gathered all sorts of evidence and filed it away," Esmé said. "I tried to explain that crime is very in right now, but apparently they weren't interested."
Sunny wiped another tear from her eye and sighed. The youngest Baudelaire thought she'd almost rather be pinched again than hear any more of Esmé Squalor's nonsense about what was in — the word that Esmé used for "fashionable" — and what was out.
"We need to destroy those files, or Count Olaf could be arrested," the hook-handed man said. "We have reason to believe that some of the files are at V.F.D. headquarters."
"What does V.F.D. stand for?" The voice of Colette came from the floor of the automobile.
Count Olaf had ordered her to use her skills as a carnival contortionist to curl up at the feet of the other members of the troupe.
"That's top-secret information!" Olaf growled, to Sunny's disappointment. "I used to be a member of the organization myself, but I found it was more fun to be an individual practitioner."
"What does that mean?" asked the hook-handed man.
"It means a life of crime," Esmé replied. "It's very in right now."
"Wrong def." Sunny could not help speaking through her tears. By "wrong def she meant something along the lines of, "An individual practitioner means someone who works alone, instead of with a group, and it has nothing to do with a life of crime," and it made her sad that there was no one around who could understand her.
"There you go, babbling away," Esmé said. "This is why I never want to have children.