The Slippery Slope Read online

  Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant, filled with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like. When the Baudelaires were very young, they would have guessed that their fate was to grow up in happiness and contentment with their parents in the Baudelaire mansion, but now both the mansion and their parents were gone. When they were attending Prufrock Preparatory School, they had thought that their fate was to graduate alongside their friends the Quagmires, but they hadn't seen the academy or the two triplets in a very long time. And just moments ago, it had looked like Violet and Klaus's fate had been to fall off a peak or into a stream, but now they were alive and well, but far away from their sister and without a vehicle to help them find her again.

  Violet and Klaus moved closer to one another, and felt the icy winds of the Mortmain Mountains blow down the road less traveled and give them goosebumps. They looked at the dark and swirling waters of the Stricken Stream, and they looked down from the edge of the peak into the mist, and then looked at one another and shivered, not only at the fates they had avoided, but at all the mysterious fates that lay ahead.

  Chapter Two

  Violet took one last look over the misty peak, and then reached down to put on one of the heavy coats she had taken from the caravan. "Take one of these coats," she said to her brother. "It's cold out here, and it's likely to get even colder. The headquarters are supposed to be very high up in the mountains. By the time we get there, we'll probably be wearing every stitch of this clothing."

  "But how are we going to get there?" Klaus said. "We're nowhere near the Valley of Four Drafts, and the caravan is destroyed."

  "Let's take a moment to see what we have," Violet said. "I might be able to construct something from the items we managed to take."

  "I hope so," Klaus said. "Sunny is getting farther and farther away. We'll never catch up with her without some sort of vehicle."

  Klaus spread out the items from the caravan, and put on one of the coats while Violet picked through her pile, but instantly the two Baudelaires saw that a vehicle was not in the realm of possibility, a phrase which here means "could not be made from a few small objects and some articles of clothing previously belonging to carnival employees." Violet tied her hair up in a ribbon again and frowned down on the few items they had managed to save. In Klaus's pile there was the pitcher, still sticky from the substance he had used to slow down the caravan wheels, as well as Colette's hand mirror, a wool poncho, and a sweatshirt that read CALlGARl CARNIVAL. In Violet's pile was the large bread knife, the ukulele, and one more coat. Even Klaus, who was not as mechanically minded as his sister, knew that the materials gathered on the ground were not enough to make something that could take the two children through the Mortmain Mountains.

  "I suppose I could make a spark by rubbing two rocks together," Violet said, looking around the misty countryside for additional inventing materials, "or we could play the ukulele and bang on the pitcher. A loud noise might attract some help."

  "But who would hear it?" Klaus said, gazing at the gloomy mist. "We didn't see a sign of anyone else when we were in the caravan. The way through the Mortmain Mountains is like a poem I read once, about the road less traveled."

  "Did the poem have a happy ending?" Violet asked.

  "It was neither happy nor unhappy," Klaus said. "It was ambiguous. Well, let's gather up these materials and take them with us."

  "Take them with us?" Violet said. "We don't know where to go, and we don't know how to get there."

  "Sure we do," Klaus said. "The Stricken Stream starts at a source high in the mountains, and winds its way down through the Valley of Four Drafts, where the headquarters are. It's probably not the quickest or easiest way to get there, but if we follow the stream up the mountains, it'll take us where we want to go."

  "But that could take days," Violet said. "We don't have a map, or any food or water for the journey, or tents or sleeping bags or any other camping equipment."

  "We can use all this clothing as blankets," Klaus said, "and we can sleep in any shelter we find. There were quite a few caves on the map that animals use for hibernation."

  The two Baudelaires looked at one another and shivered in the chilly breeze. The idea of hiking for hours in the mountains, only to sleep wrapped in someone else's clothing in a cave that might contain hibernating animals, was not a pleasant one, and the siblings wished they did not have to take the road less traveled, but instead could travel in a swift, well-heated vehicle and reach their sister in mere moments. But wishing, like sipping a glass of punch, or pulling aside a bearskin rug in order to access a hidden trapdoor in the floor, is merely a quiet way to spend one's time before the candles are extinguished on one's birthday cake, and the Baudelaires knew that it would be best to stop wishing and start their journey. Klaus put the hand mirror and the ukulele in his coat pockets and picked up the poncho and the pitcher, while Violet put the bread knife in her pocket and picked up the sweatshirt and the last coat, and then, with one last look at the tracks the caravan left behind as it toppled over the peak, the two children began to follow the Stricken Stream.

  If you have ever traveled a long distance with a family member, then you know that there are times when you feel like talking and times when you feel like being quiet. This was one of the quiet times. Violet and Klaus walked up the slopes of the mountain toward the headquarters they hoped to reach, and they heard the sound of the mountain winds, a low, tuneless moan like someone blowing across the top of an empty bottle, and the odd, rough sound of the stream's fish as they stuck their heads out of the dark, thick waters of the stream, but both travelers were in a quiet mood and did not say a word to one another, each lost in their own thoughts.

  Violet let her mind wander to the time she had spent with her siblings in the Village of Fowl Devotees, when a mysterious man named Jacques Snicket was murdered, and the children were blamed for the crime. They had managed to escape from prison and rescue their friends Duncan and Isadora Quagmire from Count Olaf's clutches, but then had been separated at the last moment from the two triplets, who sailed away in a self-sustaining hot air mobile home built by a man named Hector. None of the Baudelaires had seen Hector or the two Quagmires since, and Violet wondered if they were safe and if they had managed to contact a secret organization they'd discovered. The organization was called V.F.D., and the Baudelaires had not yet learned exactly what the organization did, or even what all the letters stood for. The children thought that the headquarters at the Valley of Four Drafts might prove to be helpful, but now, as the eldest Baudelaire trudged alongside the Stricken Stream, she wondered if she would ever find the answers she was looking for.

  Klaus was also thinking about the Quagmires, although he was thinking about when the Baudelaires first met them, at Prufrock Preparatory School. Many of the students at the school had been quite mean to the three siblings — particularly a very nasty girl named Carmelita Spats — but Isadora and Duncan had been very kind, and soon the Baudelaires and the Quagmires had become inseparable, a word which here means "close friends." One reason for their friendship had been that both sets of children had lost people who were close to them. The Baudelaires had lost their parents, of course, and the Quagmires had lost not only their parents but their brother, the third Quagmire triplet, whose name was Quigley. Klaus thought about the Quagmires' tragedy, and felt a little guilty that one of his own parents might be alive after all. A document the Baudelaires had found contained a picture of their parents standing with Jacques Snicket and another man, with a caption reading "Because of the evidence discussed on page nine, experts now suspect that there may in fact be one survivor of the fire, but the survivor's whereabouts are unknown." Klaus had this document in his pocket right now, along with a few scraps of the Quagmires' notebooks that they had managed to give him. Klaus walked beside his older sister, thinking of the puzzle of V.F.D. and how kindly the Quagmires had tried to help them solve the mystery that surrounded them all. He was thinking so ha
rd about these things that when Violet finally broke the silence, it was as if he were waking up from a long, confusing dream.

  "Klaus," she said, "when we were in the caravan, you said you wanted to tell me something before we tried the invention, but I didn't let you. What was it?"

  "I don't know," Klaus admitted. "I just wanted to say something, in case — well, in case the invention didn't work." He sighed, and looked up at the darkening sky. "I don't remember the last thing I said to Sunny," he said quietly. "It must have been when we were in Madame Lulu's tent, or maybe outside, just before we stepped into the caravan. Had I known that Count Olaf was going to take her away, I would have tried to say something special. I could have complimented her on the hot chocolate she made, or told her how skillful she was at staying in disguise."

  "You can tell her those things," Violet said, "when we see her again."

  "I hope so," Klaus said glumly, "but we're so far behind Olaf and his troupe."

  "But we know where they're going," Violet said, "and we know that he won't harm a hair on her head. Count Olaf thinks we perished in the caravan, so he needs Sunny to get his hands on the fortune."

  "She's probably unharmed," Klaus agreed, "but I'm sure she's very frightened. I just hope she knows we're coming after her."

  "Me, too," Violet said, and walked in a silence for a while, interrupted only by the wind and the odd, gurgling noise of the fish.

  "I think those fish are having trouble breathing," Klaus said, pointing into the stream. "Something in the water is making them cough."

  "Maybe the Stricken Stream isn't always that ugly color," Violet said. "What would turn normal water into grayish black slime?"

  "Iron ore," Klaus said thoughtfully, trying to remember a book on high-altitude environmentalism he had read when he was ten. "Or perhaps a clay deposit, loosened by an earthquake or another geological event, or some sort of pollution. There might be an ink or licorice factory nearby."

  "Maybe V.F.D. will tell us," Violet said, "when we reach the headquarters."

  "Maybe one of our parents will tell us," Klaus said quietly.

  "We shouldn't get our hopes up," Violet said. "Even if one of our parents really did survive the fire, and the V.F.D. headquarters really are at the Valley of Four Drafts, we still don't know that we will see them when we arrive."

  "I don't see the harm in getting our hopes up," Klaus said. "We're walking along a damaged stream, toward a vicious villain, in an attempt to rescue our sister and find the headquarters of a secret organization. I could use a little bit of hope right now."

  Violet stopped in her path. "I could use another layer of clothing," she said. "It's getting colder."

  Klaus nodded in agreement, and held up the garment he was carrying. "Do you want the poncho," he asked, "or the sweatshirt?"

  "The poncho, if you don't mind," Violet said. "After my experience in the House of Freaks, I don't wish to advertise the Caligari Carnival."

  "Me neither," Klaus said, taking the lettered sweatshirt from his sister. "I think I'll wear it inside out."

  Rather than take off their coats and expose themselves to the icy winds of the Mortmain Mountains, Klaus put on the inside-out sweatshirt over his coat, and Violet wore the poncho outside hers, where it hung awkwardly around her. The two elder Baudelaires looked at one another and had to smile at their ridiculous appearance.

  "These are worse than the pinstripe suits Esmé Squalor gave us," Violet said.

  "Or those itchy sweaters we wore when we stayed with Mr. Poe," Klaus said, referring to a banker who was in charge of the Baudelaire fortune, with whom they had lost touch. "But at least we'll keep warm. If it gets even colder, we can take turns wearing the extra coat."

  "If one of our parents is at the headquarters," Violet said, "he or she might not recognize us underneath all this clothing. We'll look like two large lumps."

  The two Baudelaires looked up at the snow-covered peaks above them and felt a bit dizzy, not only from the height of the Mortmain Mountains but from all the questions buzzing around their heads. Could they really reach the Valley of Four Drafts all by themselves? What would the headquarters look like? Would V.F.D. be expecting the Baudelaires? Would Count Olaf have reached the headquarters ahead of them? Would they find Sunny? Would they find one of their parents? Violet and Klaus looked at one another in silence and shivered in their strange clothes, until finally Klaus broke the silence with one more question, which seemed the dizziest one of all.

  "Which parent," he said, "do you think is the survivor?"

  Violet opened her mouth to answer, but at that moment another question immediately occupied the minds of the elder Baudelaires. It is a dreadful question, and nearly everyone who has found themselves asking it has ended up wishing that they'd never brought up the subject. My brother asked the question once, and had nightmares about it for weeks. An associate of mine asked the question, and found himself falling through the air before he could hear the answer. It is a question I asked once, a very long time ago and in a very timid voice, and a woman replied by quickly putting a motorcycle helmet on her head and wrapping her body in a red silk cape. The question is, "What in the world is that ominous-looking cloud of tiny, white buzzing objects coming toward us?" and I'm sorry to tell you that the answer is "A swarm of well-organized, ill-tempered insects known as snow gnats, who live in cold mountain areas and enjoy stinging people for no reason whatsoever."

  "What in the world," Violet said, "is that ominous-looking cloud of tiny, white buzzing objects coming toward us?"

  Klaus looked in the direction his sister was pointing and frowned. "I remember reading something in a book on mountainous insect life," he said, "but I can't quite recall the details."

  "Try to remember," Violet said, looking nervously at the approaching swarm. The ominous-looking cloud of tiny, white buzzing objects had appeared from around a rocky corner, and from a distance it looked a bit like the beginnings of a snowfall. But now the snowfall was organizing itself into the shape of an arrow, and moving toward the two children, buzzing louder and louder as if it were annoyed. "I think they might be snow gnats," Klaus said. "Snow gnats live in cold mountain areas and have been known to group themselves into well-defined shapes."

  Violet looked from the approaching arrow to the waters of the stream and the steep edge of the mountain peak. "I'm glad gnats are harmless," she said. "It doesn't look like there's any way to avoid them."

  "There's something else about snow gnats," Klaus said, "that I'm not quite remembering."

  The swarm drew quite close, with the tip of the fluttering white arrow just a few inches from the Baudelaires' noses, and then stopped in its path, buzzing angrily. The two siblings stood face-to-face with the snow gnats for a long, tense second, and the gnat at the very, very tip of the arrow flew daintily forward and stung Violet on the nose.

  "Ow!" Violet said. The snow gnat flew back to its place, and the eldest Baudelaire was left rubbing a tiny red mark on her nose. "That hurt," she said. "It feels like a pin stuck me."

  "I remember now," Klaus said. "Snow gnats are ill-tempered and enjoy stinging people for no reason whatso — "

  But Klaus did not get to finish his sentence, because the snow gnats interrupted and gave a ghastly demonstration of just what he was talking about. Curling lazily in the mountain winds, the arrow twisted and became a large buzzing circle, and the gnats began to spin around and around the two Baudelaires like a well-organized and ill-tempered hula hoop. Each gnat was so tiny that the children could not see any of its features, but they felt as if the insects were smiling nastily.

  "Are the stings poisonous?" Violet asked.

  "Mildly," Klaus said. "We'll be all right if we get stung a few times, but many stings could make us very ill. Ow!"

  One of the gnats had flown up and stung Klaus on the cheek, as if it were seeing if the middle Baudelaire was fun to hurt. "People always say that if you don't bother stinging insects, they won't bother you," Violet said nervousl
y. "Ow!"

  "That's scarcely ever true," Klaus said, "and it's certainly not true with snow gnats. Ow! Ow! Ow!"

  "What should we — Ow!" Violet half asked.

  "I don't — Ow!" Klaus half answered, but in moments the Baudelaires did not have time for even half a conversation. The circle of snow gnats began spinning faster and faster, and the insects spread themselves out so it looked as if the two siblings were in the middle of a tiny, white tornado. Then, in a series of maneuvers that must have taken a great deal of rehearsal, the gnats began stinging the Baudelaires, first on one side and then on the other. Violet shrieked as several gnats stung her chin. Klaus shouted as a handful of gnats stung his left ear. And both Baudelaires cried out as they tried to wave the gnats away only to feel the stingers all over their waving hands. The snow gnats stung to the left, and stung to the right. They approached the Baudelaires from above, making the children duck, and then from below, making the children stand on tiptoe in an effort to avoid them. And all the while, the swarm buzzed louder and louder, as if wishing to remind the Baudelaires how much fun the insects were having. Violet and Klaus closed their eyes and stood together, too scared to walk blindly and find themselves falling off a mountain peak or sinking into the waters of the Stricken Stream.

  "Coat!" Klaus managed to shout, then spit out a gnat that had flown into his open mouth in the hopes of stinging his tongue. Violet understood at once, and grabbed the extra coat in her hands and draped it over Klaus and herself like a large, limp umbrella of cloth. The snow gnats buzzed furiously, trying to get inside to continue stinging them, but had to settle for stinging the Baudelaires' hands as they held the coat in place.