"This isn't fair," Klaus said finally, but he said it so quietly that the departing islanders probably did not hear. Only his sisters heard him, and the snake the Baudelaires thought they would never see again, and of course Count Olaf, who was huddled in the large, ornate bird cage like an imprisoned beast, and who was the only person to answer him.
"Life isn't fair," he said, in his undisguised voice, and for once the Baudelaire orphans agreed with every word the man said.
Chapter Seven
The predicament of the Baudelaire orphans as they sat abandoned on the coastal shelf, with Kit Snicket unconscious at the top of the cube of books above them, Count Olaf locked in a cage alongside them, and the Incredibly Deadly Viper curled at their feet, is an excellent opportunity to use the phrase "under a cloud." The three children were certainly under a cloud that afternoon, and not just because one lone mass of condensed water vapor, which Klaus was able to identify as being of the cumulus variety, was hanging over them in the sky like another castaway from the previous night's storm. The expression "under a cloud" refers to people who are out of favor in a particular community, the way most classrooms have at least one child who is quite unpopular, or most secret organizations have at least one rhetorical analyst who is under suspicion. The island's only community had certainly placed Violet, Klaus, and Sunny under a cloud, and even in the blazing afternoon sun the children felt the chill of the colony's suspicion and disapproval.
"I can't believe it," Violet said. "I can't believe we've been abandoned."
"We thought we could cast away everything that happened to us before we arrived here," Klaus said, "but this place is no safer than anywhere else we've been."
"But what to do?" Sunny asked.
Violet looked around the coastal shelf. "I suppose we can catch fish and harvest seaweed to eat," she said. "Our meals won't be much different from those on the island."
"If fire," Sunny said thoughtfully, "then salt bake carp."
"We can't live here," Klaus pointed out. "Decision Day is approaching, and the coastal shelf will be underwater. We either have to live on the island, or figure out a way to get back to where we came from."
"We'll never survive a journey at sea without a boat," Violet said, wishing she had her ribbon back so she could tie up her hair.
"Kit did," Sunny pointed out.
"The library must have served as a sort of raft," Klaus said, running his hand along the books, "but she couldn't have come far on a boat of paper."
"I hope she met up with the Quagmires," Violet said.
"I hope she'll wake up and tell us what happened," Klaus said.
"Do you think she's seriously hurt?" Violet asked.
"There's no way to tell without a complete medical examination," Klaus said, "but except for her ankle, she looks all right. She's probably just exhausted from the storm."
"Worried," Sunny said sadly, wishing there was a dry, warm blanket on the coastal shelf that the Baudelaires might have used to cover their unconscious friend.
"We can't just worry about Kit," Klaus said. "We need to worry about ourselves."
"We have to think of a plan," Violet said wearily, and all three Baudelaires sighed. Even the Incredibly Deadly Viper seemed to sigh, and laid its head sympathetically on Sunny's foot. The Baudelaires stood on the coastal shelf and thought of all their previous predicaments, and all the plans they'd thought up to make themselves safe, only to end up in the midst of another unfortunate event. The cloud they were under seemed to get bigger and darker, and the children might have sat there for quite some time had not the silence been broken by the voice of the man who was locked in a bird cage.
"I have a plan," Count Olaf said. "Let me out and I'll tell you what it is."
Although Olaf was no longer using his high-pitched voice, he still sounded muffled from within the cage, and when the Baudelaires turned to look at him it was as if he were in one of his disguises. The yellow and orange dress he had been wearing covered most of him up, and the children could not see the curve of his false pregnancy or the tattoo of an eye he had on his ankle. Only a few toes and fingers extended from between the bird cage's bars, and if the siblings peered closely they could see the wet curve of his mouth, and one blinking eye staring out from his captivity.
"We're not letting you out," Violet said. "We have enough trouble without you wandering around loose."
"Suit yourself," Olaf said, and his dress rustled as he attempted to shrug. "But you'll drown as surely as I will when the coastal shelf floods. You can't build a boat, because the islanders have scavenged everything from the storm. And you can't live on the island, because the colonists have abandoned you. Even though we're shipwrecked, we're still in the same boat."
"We don't need your help, Olaf," Klaus said. "If it weren't for you, we wouldn't be here in the first place."
"Don't be so sure of that," Count Olaf said, and his mouth curled into a smile. "Everything eventually washes up on these shores, to be judged by that idiot in the robe. Do you think you're the first Baudelaires to find yourselves here?"
"What you mean?" Sunny demanded.
"Let me out," Olaf said, with a muffled chuckle, "and I'll tell you."
The Baudelaires looked at one
another doubtfully. "You're trying to trick us," Violet said.
"Of course I'm trying to trick you!" Olaf cried. "That's the way of the world, Baudelaires. Everybody runs around with their secrets and their schemes, trying to outwit everyone else. Ishmael outwitted me, and put me in this cage. But I know how to outwit him and all his islander friends. If you let me out, I can be king of Olaf-Land, and you three can be my new henchfolk."
"We don't want to be your henchfolk," Klaus said. "We just want to be safe."
"Nowhere in the world is safe," Count Olaf said.
"Not with you around," Violet agreed.
"I'm no worse than anyone else," Count Olaf said. "Ishmael is just as treacherous as I am."
" Fustianed," Sunny said.
"It's true!" Olaf insisted, although he probably did not understand what Sunny had said. "Look at me! I'm stuffed into a cage for no good reason! Does that sound familiar, you stupid baby?"
"My sister is not a baby," Violet said firmly, "and Ishmael is not treacherous. He may be misguided, but he's only trying to make the island a safe place."
"Is that so?" Olaf said, and the cage shook as he chuckled. "Why don't you reach into that pool, and see what Ishmael dropped into the puddle?"
The Baudelaires looked at one another. They had almost forgotten about the object that had rolled out of the facilitator's sleeve. The three children stared down into the water, but it was the Incredibly Deadly Viper who wriggled into the murky depths of the puddle and came back with a small object in its mouth, which it deposited into Sunny's waiting hand.
" Takk," Sunny said, thanking the snake by scratching it on the head.
"What is it?" Violet said, leaning in to look at what the viper had retrieved.
"It's an apple core," Klaus said, and his sisters saw that it was so. Sunny was holding the core of an apple, which had been so thoroughly nibbled that scarcely anything remained.
"You see?" Olaf asked. "While the other islanders have to do all the work, Ishmael sneaks off to the arboretum on his perfectly healthy feet and eats all the apples for himself! Your beloved facilitator not only has clay on his feet, he has feet of clay!"