Lemony Snicket - The Miserable Mill

Quickly, the middle Baudelaire grabbed the debarker and spat his gum onto one end of it. He was planning to use the sticky gum as a sort of fishing line and the debarker as a sort of fishing pole, in order to throw gum all the way to the saw. Klaus's invention looked more like a wad of gum at the end of a strip of metal than a real fishing pole, but Klaus didn't care how it looked. He only cared whether it could stop the saw. He took a deep breath, and cast the debarker the way his mother taught him to cast his fishing pole.

Plop! To Klaus's delight, the gum stretched over Dr. Orwell and Sunny, who were still fighting, just as fishing line will stretch out across the surface of a lake. But to Klaus's horror, the gum did not land on the saw. It landed on the string that was tying the wriggling Charles to the log. Klaus watched Charles wriggle and was once again reminded of a fish, and it occurred to him that perhaps his invention had worked after all. Gathering up all of his strength-and, after working at a lumbermill for a while, he actually had quite a bit of strength for a young boy-he grabbed his invention, and pulled. Klaus pulled on his debarker, and the debarker pulled on the gum, and the gum pulled on the log, and to the relief of all three Baudelaire orphans the log moved to one side. It did not move very far, and it did not move very quickly, and it certainly did not move very gracefully, but it moved enough. The horrible noise stopped, and the blade of the saw kept slicing, but the log was far enough out of the way that the machine was simply slicing thin air. Charles looked at Klaus, and his eyes filled with tears, and when Sunny turned to look she saw that Klaus was crying, too.

But when Sunny turned to look, Dr. Orwell saw her chance. With a swing of one of her big ugly boots, she kicked Sunny to the ground and held her in place with one foot. Then, standing over the infant, she raised her sword high in the air and began to laugh a loud, horrible snarl of a laugh. "I do believe," she said, cackling, "that there will be an accident at Lucky Smells Lumbermill after all!"

And Dr. Orwell was right. There was an accident at the lumbermill, after all, a fatal accident, which is a phrase used to describe one that kills somebody. For just as Dr. Orwell was about to bring her sword down on little Sunny's throat, the door of the lumbermill opened and Sir walked into the room. "What in the world is going on?" he barked, and Dr. Orwell turned to him, absolutely surprised. When people are absolutely surprised, they sometimes take a step backward, and taking a step backward can sometimes lead to an accident. Such was the case at this moment, for when Dr. Orwell stepped backward, she stepped into the path of the whirring saw, and there was a very ghastly accident indeed.

"Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful," Sir said, shaking the cloud of smoke that covered his head. "Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful."

"I quite agree," Mr. Poe said, coughing into his handkerchief. "When you called me this morning and described the situation, I thought it was so dreadful that I canceled several important appointments and took the first available train to Paltryville, in order to handle this matter personally."

"We appreciate it very much," Charles said.

"Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful," Sir said again.

The Baudelaire orphans sat together on the floor of Sir's office and looked up at the adults discussing the situation, wondering how in the world they could talk about it so calmly. The word "dreadful," even when used three times in a row, did not seem like a dreadful enough word to describe everything that had happened. Violet was still trembling from how Klaus had looked while hypnotized. Klaus was still shivering from how Charles had almost been sliced up. Sunny was still shaking from how she had almost been killed in the swordfight with Dr. Orwell. And, of course, all three orphans were still shuddering from how Dr. Orwell had met her demise, a phrase which here means "stepped into the path of the sawing machine." The children felt as if they could barely speak at all, let alone participate in a conversation.

"It's unbelievable," Sir said, "that Dr. Orwell was really a hypnotist, and that she hypnotized Klaus in order to get ahold of the Baudelaire fortune. Luckily, Violet figured out how to unhypnotize her brother, and he didn't cause any more accidents."

"It's unbelievable," Charles said, "that Foreman Flacutono grabbed me in the middle of the night, and tied me to that log, in order to get ahold of the Baudelaire fortune. Luckily, Klaus invented something that shoved the log out of the path of the saw just in time, and I only have a small cut on my foot."

"It's unbelievable," Mr. Poe said, after a short cough, "that Shirley was going to adopt the children, in order to get ahold of the Baudelaire fortune. Luckily, we realized her plan, and now she has to go back to being a receptionist."

At this Violet could keep quiet no longer. "Shirley is not a receptionist!" she cried. "She's not even Shirley! She's Count Olaf!"

"Now that" Sir said, "is the part of the story that is so unbelievable that I don't believe it. I met this young woman, and she isn't at all like Count Olaf! She has one eyebrow instead of two, that's true, but plenty of wonderful people have that characteristic!"

"You must forgive the children," Mr. Poe said. "They tend to see Count Olaf everywhere."

"That's because he is everywhere," Klaus said bitterly.

"Well," Sir said, "he hasn't been here in Paltryville. We've been looking out for him, remember?"

"Weleef!" Sunny cried. She meant something along the lines of "But he was in disguise, as usual!"

"Can we go see this Shirley person?" Charles asked timidly. "The children do seem fairly sure of themselves. Perhaps if Mr. Poe could see this receptionist, we could clear this matter up."

"I put Shirley and Foreman Flacutono in the library, and asked Phil to keep an eye on them," Sir said. "Charles's library turns out to be useful at last-as a substitute jail, until we clear up this matter!"

"The library was plenty useful, Sir," Violet said. "If I hadn't read up on hypnosis, your partner, Charles, would be dead."

"You certainly are a clever child," Charles said.

"Yes," Sir agreed. "You'll do wonderfully at boarding school."

"Boarding school?" Mr. Poe asked.

"Of course," Sir replied, nodding his cloud of smoke. "You don't think I would keep them now, do you, after all the trouble they've caused my lumbermill?"

"But that wasn't our fault!" Klaus cried.

"That doesn't matter," Sir said. "We made a deal. The deal was that I would try to keep Count Olaf away, and you wouldn't cause any more accidents. You didn't keep your end of the deal."

"Hech!" Sunny shrieked, which meant "But you didn't keep your end of the deal, either!" Sir paid no attention.

"Well, let's go see this woman," Mr. Poe said, "and we can settle once and for all whether or not Count Olaf was here."

The three grown-ups nodded, and the three children followed them down the hallway to the library door, where Phil was sitting on a chair with a book in his hands.

"Hello, Phil," Violet said. "How is your leg?"

"Oh, it's getting better," he said, pointing to his cast. "I've been guarding the door, Sir, and neither Shirley nor Foreman Flacutono have escaped. Oh, and by the way, I've been reading this book, The Paltryville Constitution. I don't understand all of the words, but it sounds like it's illegal to pay people only in coupons."

"We'll talk about that later," Sir said quickly. "We need to see Shirley about something."

Sir reached forward and opened the door to reveal Shirley and Foreman Flacutono sitting quietly at two tables near the window. Shirley had Dr. Orwell's book in one hand and waved at the children with the other.