Lemony Snicket - The Slippery Slope

"So you set off to the Mortmain Mountains by yourself?" Violet asked.

"Not quite by myself," Quigley said. "I had this backpack that Jacques left behind, with the Verdant Flammable Devices and a few other items, and I had my commonplace book. And eventually, I ran into the Snow Scouts, and realized that hiding among them would be the quickest way to reach Mount Fraught." He turned a page in his commonplace book and examined his notes. "Remarkable Phenomena of the Mortmain Mountains, which I read in Dr Montgomery's library, had a hidden chapter that told me all about the Vertical Flame Diversion and the Vernacularly Fastened Door."

Klaus looked over Quigley's shoulder to read his notes. "I should have read that book when I had the chance," he said, shaking his head. "If we had known about

V.F.D. when we were living with Uncle Monty, we might have avoided all the trouble that followed."

"When we were living with Uncle Monty," Violet reminded him, "we were too busy trying to escape Count Olaf's clutches to do any additional research."

"I've had plenty of time to do research," Quigley said, "but I still haven't found all the answers I'm looking for. I still haven't found Duncan and Isadora, and I still don't know where Jacques Snicket is."

"He's dead," Klaus said, very quietly. "Count Olaf murdered him."

"I thought you might say that," Quigley said. "I knew something was very wrong when he didn't return. But what about my siblings? Do you know what happened to them?"

"They're safe, Quigley," Violet said. "We think they're safe. We rescued them from Olaf's clutches, and they escaped with a man named Hector."

"Escaped?" Quigley repeated. "Where did they go?"

"We don't know," Klaus admitted. "Hector built a self-sustaining hot air mobile home. It was like a flying house, kept in the air by a bunch of balloons, and Hector said it could stay up in the sky forever."

"We tried to climb aboard," Violet said, "but Count Olaf managed to stop us."

"So you don't know where they are?" Quigley asked.

"I'm afraid not," Violet said, and patted his hand. "But Duncan and Isadora are intrepid people, Quigley. They survived for quite some time in Olaf's clutches, taking notes on his schemes and trying to pass on the information to us."

"Violet's right," Klaus said. "I'm sure that wherever they are, they're continuing their research. Eventually, they'll find out you're alive, and they'll come looking for you, just like you went looking for them."

The two Baudelaires looked at one another and shivered. They had been talking about Quigley's family, of course, but they felt as if they were talking about their own. "I'm sure that if your parents are alive, they're looking for you, too," Quigley said, as if he'd read their minds. "And Sunny, too. Do you know where she is?"

"Someplace nearby," Violet said. "She's with Count Olaf, and Olaf wanted to find the headquarters, too."

"Maybe Olaf has already been here," Quigley said, looking around at the wreckage. "Maybe he's the one who burned this place down."

"I don't think so," Klaus said. "He wouldn't have had time to burn this whole place down. We were right on his trail. Plus, I don't think this place burned down all at once."

"Why not?" Quigley said.

"It's too big," Klaus replied. "If the whole headquarters were burning, the sky would be covered in smoke."

"That's true," Violet said. "That much smoke would arouse too much suspicion."

"Where there's smoke," Quigley said, "there's fire."

Violet and Klaus turned to their friend to agree, but Quigley was not looking at the two Baudelaires. He was looking past them, toward the frozen pool and the two frozen tributaries, where the enormous windows of the V.F.D. kitchen had once stood, and where I once chopped broccoli while the woman I loved mixed up a spicy peanut sauce to go with it, and he was pointing up toward the sky, where my associates and I used to watch the volunteer eagles who could spot smoke from a very great distance.

That afternoon, there were no eagles in the skies over the Mortmain Mountains, but as Violet and Klaus stood up and looked in the direction Quigley was pointing, there was something in the sky that caught their attention. Because when Quigley Quagmire said, "Where there's smoke, there's fire," he was not referring to Klaus's theory about the destruction of V.F.D. headquarters. He was talking about the sight of green smoke, wafting up into the sky from the peak of Mount Fraught, at the top of the slippery slope.

The two elder Baudelaires stood for a moment with Quigley, gazing up at the small plume, a word which here means "mysterious cloud of green smoke." After the long, strange story he had told them about surviving the fire and what he had learned about V.F.D., they could scarcely believe that they were confronting another mystery.

"It's a Verdant Flammable Device," Quigley said. "There's someone at the top of the waterfall, sending a signal."

"Yes," Violet said, "but who?"

"Maybe it's a volunteer, who escaped from the fire," Klaus said. "They're signaling to see if there are any other volunteers nearby."

"Or it could be a trap," Quigley said. "They could be luring volunteers up to the peak in order to ambush them. Remember, the codes of V.F.D. are used by both sides of the schism."

"It hardly seems like a code," Violet said. "We know that someone is communicating, but we don't have the faintest idea who they are, or what they're saying."

"This is what it must be like," Klaus said thoughtfully, "when Sunny talks to people who don't know her very well."

At the mention of Sunny's name, the Baudelaires were reminded of how much they missed her. "Whether it's a volunteer or a trap," Violet said, "it might be our only chance to find our sister."

"Or my sister and brother," Quigley said.

"Let's signal back," Klaus said. "Do you still have those Verdant Flammable Devices, Quigley?"

"Of course," Quigley said, taking the box of green tubes out of his backpack, "but Bruce saw my matches and confiscated them, because children shouldn't play with matches."

"Confiscated them?" Klaus said. "Do you think he's an enemy of V.F.D.?"

"If everyone who said that children shouldn't play with matches was an enemy of V.F.D.," Violet said with a smile, "then we wouldn't have a chance of survival."

"But how are we going to light these without matches?" Quigley asked.

Violet reached into her pocket. It was a bit tricky to tie her hair up in a ribbon, as all four drafts in the Valley of Four Drafts were blowing hard, but at last her hair was out of her eyes, and the gears and levers of her inventing mind began to move as she gazed up at the mysterious signal.

But of course this signal was neither a volunteer nor a trap. It was a baby, with unusually large teeth and a way of talking that some people found confusing. When Sunny Baudelaire had said "lox," for example, the member of Count Olaf's troupe had assumed she was simply babbling, rather than explaining how she was going to cook the salmon that the hook-handed man had caught. "Lox" is a word which refers to smoked salmon, and it is a delicious way to enjoy freshly caught fish, particularly if one has the appropriate accoutrements, a phrase which here means "bagels, cream cheese, sliced cucumber, black pepper, and capers, which can be eaten along with the lox for an enjoyable meal." Lox also has an additional benefit of producing quite a bit of smoke as it is prepared, and this is the reason Sunny chose this method of preparing salmon, as opposed to gravlax, which is salmon marinated for several days in a mixture of spices, or sashimi, which is salmon cut into pleasing shapes and simply served raw. Remembering what Count Olaf had said about being able to see everything and everyone from the peak where he had brought her, the youngest Baudelaire realized that the phrase "where there's smoke there's fire" might be able to help her. As Violet and Klaus heard Quigley's extraordinary tale at the bottom of the frozen waterfall, Sunny hurried to prepare lox and send a signal to her siblings, who she hoped were nearby. First, she nudged the Verdant Flammable Device — which she, like everyone at the peak, believed was a cigarette — into a small patch of weeds, in order to increase the smoke. Then she dragged over the covered casserole dish that she had been using as a makeshift bed, and placed the salmon inside it. In no time at all, the fish caught by the hook-handed man were absorbing the heat and smoke from the simmering green tube, and a large plume of green smoke was floating up into the sky above Mount Fraught. Sunny gazed up at the signal she made and couldn't help smiling. The last time she had been separated from her siblings, she had simply waited in the birdcage for them to come and rescue her, but she had grown since then, and was able to take an active part in defeating Count Olaf and his troupe while still having time to prepare a seafood dish "Something smells delicious," said one of the white-faced women, walking by the casserole dish. "I must admit, I had some doubts that an infant should be in charge of the cooking, but your salmon recipe seems like it will be very tasty indeed."