A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Ersatz Elevator (10 page)

don't think we should climb up. Then we'll just be at the penthouse." "But from the penthouse," Violet said, "we can get to Veblen Hall. We can even slide down the banisters to save time." "But at the end of the banisters," Klaus said, "is the lobby of the building, and in the lobby is a doorman with strict instructions not to let us leave." "I hadn't thought about him," Violet said. "He always follows instructions." "That's why we've got to leave 667 Dark Avenue another way," Klaus said. "Ditemu," Sunny called down, which meant something like "What other way is there?" "Down," Klaus said. "That tiny room at the bottom of the elevator shaft has a hallway leading out of it, remember? It's right next to the cage." "That's true," Violet said. "That must be how Gunther snatched the Quagmires away before we could rescue them. But who knows where it leads?" "Well, if Gunther took the Quagmires down that hallway," Klaus said, "it must lead to somewhere near Veblen Hall. And that's precisely where we want to go." "You're right," Violet said. "Sunny, forget about tying the rope to the doorknob. Someone might see it, anyway, and realize we've escaped. Just bring it down here. Do you think you can bite your way back down?" "Geronimo!" Sunny cried, which meant something like "I don't need to bite my way back down," and the youngest Baudelaire was right. She took a deep breath, and threw herself down the dark passageway, the coil of ersatz rope trailing behind her. This time, the plunge does not need to be represented by pages of darkness, because the terror of the long, dark fall was alleviated--the word "alleviated" here means "not particularly on Sunny's mind"-- because the youngest Baudelaire knew that a net, and her siblings, were waiting for her at the bottom. With a thump! Sunny landed on the net, and with a slightly smaller thump! the coil of rope landed next to her. After making sure her sister was unharmed by the fall, Violet began tying one end of their rope to one of the pegs holding the net in place. "I'll make sure this end of the rope is secured," Violet said. "Sunny, if your teeth aren't too sore from the climb, use them to cut a hole in the net, so we can climb through it." "What can I do?" Klaus asked. "You can pray this works," Violet said, but the Baudelaire sisters were so quick with their tasks that there was no time for even the shortest of religious ceremonies. In a matter of moments, Violet had attached the rope to the peg with some complicated and powerful knots, and Sunny had cut a child-sized hole in the middle of the net. Violet dangled the rope down the hole, and the three children listened until they heard the familiar clink! of their ersatz rope against the metal cage. The Baudelaire orphans paused for a moment at the hole in the net, and stared down into the blackness. "I can't believe we're climbing down this passageway again," Violet said. "I know what you mean," Klaus said. "If someone had asked me, that day at the beach, if I ever thought we'd be climbing up and down an empty elevator shaft in an attempt to rescue a pair of triplets, I would have said never in a million years. And now we're doing it for the fifth time in twenty-four hours. What happened to us? What led us to this awful place we're staring at now?" "Misfortune," Violet said quietly. "A terrible fire," Klaus said. "Olaf," Sunny said decisively, and began crawling down the rope. Klaus followed his sister down through the hole in the net, and Violet followed Klaus, and the three Baudelaires made the long trek down the bottom half of the passageway until they reached the tiny, filthy room, the empty cage, and the hallway that they hoped would lead them to the In Auction. Sunny squinted up at their rope, making sure that her siblings had safely reached the bottom. Klaus squinted at the hallway, trying to see how long it was, or if there was anybody or anything lurking in it. And Violet squinted in the corner, at the welding torches the children had thrown in the corner when the time had not been ripe to use them. "We should take these with us," she said. "But why?" Klaus asked. "They've certainly cooled off long ago." "They have," Violet said, picking one up. "And the tips are all bent from throwing them in the corner. But they still might come in handy for something. We don't know what we'll encounter in that hallway, and I don't want to come up shorthanded. Here, Klaus. Here's yours, and here's Sunny's." The younger Baudelaires took the bent, cooled fire tongs, and then, sticking close to one another, all three children took their first few steps down the hallway. In the utter darkness of this terrible place, the fire tongs seemed like long, slender extensions of the Baudelaires' hands, instead of inventions they were each holding, but this was not what Violet had meant when she said she didn't want them to be short-handed. "Shorthanded" is a word which here means "unprepared," and Violet was thinking that three children alone in a dark hallway holding fire tongs were perhaps a bit more prepared than three children alone in a dark hallway holding nothing at all. And I'm sorry to tell you that the eldest Baudelaire was absolutely right. The three children couldn't afford to be shorthanded at all, not with the unfair advantage that was lurking at the end of their walk. As they took one cautious step after another, the Baudelaire orphans needed to be as longhanded as possible for the element of surprise that was waiting for them when the dark hallway came to an end.

Chapter Eleven

The French expression "cul-de-sac" describes what the Baudelaire orphans found when they reached the end of the dark hallway, and like all French expressions, it is most easily understood when you translate each French word into English. The word "de," for instance, is a very common French word, so even if I didn't know a word of French, I would be certain that "de" means "of." The word "sac" is less common, but I am fairly certain that it means something like "mysterious circumstances." And the word "cul" is such a rare French word that I am forced to guess at its translation, and my guess is that in this case it would mean "At the end of the dark hallway, the Baudelaire children found an assortment," so that the expression "cul-de-sac" here means "At the end of the dark hallway, the Baudelaire children found an assortment of mysterious circumstances." If the Baudelaires had been able to choose a French expression that would be waiting for them at the end of the hallway, they might have chosen one that meant "By the time the three children rounded the last dark corner of the corridor, the police had captured Gunther and rescued the Quagmire triplets," or at least "The Baudelaires were delighted to see that the hallway led straight to Veblen Hall, where the In Auction was taking place." But the end of the hallway proved to be as mysterious and worrisome as the rest of it. The entire length of the hallway was very dark, and it had so many twists and turns that the three children frequently found themselves bumping into the walls. The ceiling of the hallway was very low-- Gunther must have had to crouch when he used it for his treacherous plans--and over their heads the three children could hear a variety of noises that told them where the hallway was probably taking them. After the first few curves, they heard the muted voice of the doorman, and his footsteps as he walked overhead, and the Baudelaires realized that they must be underneath the lobby of the Squalors' apartment building. After a few more curves, they heard two men discussing ocean decorations, and they realized they must be walking beneath Dark Avenue. And after a few more curves, they heard the rickety rattle of an old trolley that was passing over their heads, and the children knew that the hallway was leading them underneath one of the city's trolley stations. On and on the hallway curved, and the Baudelaires heard a variety of city sounds--the clopping of horses' hooves, the grinding of factory equipment, the tolling of church bells and the clatter of people dropping things--but when they finally reached the corridor's end, there was no sound over their heads at all. The Baudelaires stood still and tried to imagine a place in the city where it was absolutely silent. "Where do you think we are?" Violet asked, straining her ears to listen even more closely. "It's as silent as a tomb up there." "That's not what I'm worried about," Klaus answered, poking the wall with his fire tong. "I can't find which way the hallway curves. I think we might be at a dead end." "A dead end!" Violet said, and poked the opposite wall with her tong. "It can't be a dead end. Nobody builds a hallway that goes nowhere." "Pratjic," Sunny said, which meant "Gunther must have ended up somewhere if he took this passageway." "I'm poking every inch of these walls," Klaus said grimly, "and there's no door or stairway or curve or anything. It's a dead end, all right. There's no other word for it. Actually, there's a French expression for 'dead end,' but I can't remember what is." "I guess we have to retrace our steps," Violet said miserably. "I guess we have to turn around, and make our way back down the corridor, and climb up to the net, and have Sunny teeth her way to the penthouse and find some more materials to make an ersatz rope, and climb all the way up to the top floor, and slide down the banisters to the lobby, and sneak past the doorman and run to Veblen Hall." "Pyetian," Sunny said, which meant something like "We'll never make it there in time to expose Gunther and save the Quagmires." "I know," Violet sighed. "But I don't know what else we can do. It looks like we're shorthanded, even with these tongs." "If we had some shovels," Klaus said, "we could try to dig our way out of the hallway, but we can't use the tongs as shovels." "Tend," Sunny said, which meant "If we had some dynamite, we could blast our way out of the hallway, but we can't use the tongs as dynamite." "But we might be able to use them as noise-makers," Violet said suddenly. "Let's bang on the ceiling with our tongs, and see if we can attract the attention of someone who is passing by." "It doesn't sound like anyone is passing by," Klaus said, "but it's worth a try. Here, Sunny, I'll pick you up so your tong can reach the ceiling, too." Klaus picked his sister up, and the three children began to bang on the ceiling, planning to make a racket that would last for several minutes. But as soon as the their tongs first hit the ceiling, the Baudelaires were showered with black dust. It rained down on them like a dry, filthy storm, and the children had to cut short their banging to cough and rub their eyes and spit out the dust that had fallen into their mouths. "Ugh!" Violet spat. "This tastes terrible." "It tastes like burned toast," Klaus said. "Peflob!" Sunny shrieked. At that, Violet stopped coughing, and licked the tip of her finger in thought. "It's ashes," she said. "Maybe we're below a fireplace." "I don't think so," Klaus said. "Look up." The Baudelaires looked up, and saw that the black dust had uncovered a very small stripe of light, barely as wide as a pencil. The children gazed up into it, and could see the morning sun gazing right back at them. "Tisdu?" Sunny said, which meant "Where in the city can you find ashes outdoors?" "Maybe we're below a barbeque pit," Klaus said. "Well, we'll find out soon enough," Violet replied, and began to sweep more dust away from the ceiling. As it fell on the children in a thick, dark cloud, the skinny stripe of light became four skinny stripes, like a drawing of a square on the ceiling. By the light of the square, the Baudelaires could see a pair of hinges. "Look," Violet said, "it's a trapdoor. We couldn't see it in the darkness of the hallway, but there it is." Klaus pressed his tong against the trapdoor to try to open it, but it didn't budge. "It's locked, of course," he said. "I bet Gunther locked it behind him when he took the Quagmires away." Violet looked up at the trapdoor, and the other children could see, by the light of the sun streaming in, that she was tying her hair up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. "A lock isn't going to stop us," she said. "Not when we've come all this way. I think the time is finally ripe for these tongs--not as welding torches, and not as noisemakers." She smiled, and turned her attention to her siblings. "We can use them as crowbars," she said excitedly. "Herdiset?" Sunny asked. "A crowbar is a sort of portable lever," Violet said, "and these tongs will work perfectly. We'll stick the bent end into the part where the light is shining through, and then push the rest of the tong sharply down. It should bring the trapdoor down with it. Understand?" "I think so," Klaus said. "Let's try." The Baudelaires tried. Carefully, they stuck the part of the tongs that had been heated in the oven into one side of the square of light. And then, grunting with the effort, they pushed the straight end of the tongs down as sharply as they could, and I'm happy to report that the crowbars worked perfectly. With a tremendous crackling sound and another cloud of ashes, the trapdoor bent on its hinges and opened toward the children, who had to duck as it swung over their heads. Sunlight streamed into the hallway, and the Baudelaires saw that they had finally come to the end of their long, dark journey. "It worked!" Violet cried. "It really worked!" "The time was ripe for your inventing skills!" Klaus cried. "The solution was right on the tip of our tongs!" "Up!" Sunny shrieked, and the children agreed. By standing on tiptoe, the Baudelaires could grab ahold of the hinges and pull themselves out of the hallway, leaving behind their crowbars, and in a moment the three children were squinting in the sunlight. One of my most prized possessions is a small wooden box with a special lock on it that is more than five hundred years old and works according to a secret code that my grandfather taught me. My grandfather learned it from his grandfather, and his grandfather learned it from his grandfather, and I would teach it to my grandchild if I thought that I would ever have a family of my own instead of living out the remainder of my days all alone in this world. The small wooden box is one of my most prized possessions, because when the lock is opened according to the code, a small silver key may be found inside, and this key fits the lock on one of my other most prized possessions, which is a slightly larger wooden box given to me by a woman whom my grandfather always refused to speak about. Inside this slightly larger wooden box is a roll of parchment, a word which here means "some very old paper printed with a map of the city at the time when the Baudelaire orphans lived in it." The map has every single detail of the city written down in dark blue ink, with measurements of buildings and sketches of costumes and charts of changes in the weather all added in the margins by the map's twelve previous owners, all of whom are now dead. I have spent more hours than I can ever count going over every inch of this map as carefully as possible, so that everything that can be learned from it can be copied into my files and then into books such as this one, in the hopes that the general public will finally learn every detail of the treacherous conspiracy I have spent my life trying to escape. The map contains thousands of fascinating things that have been discovered by all sorts of explorers, criminal investigators, and circus performers over the years, but the most fascinating thing that the map contains was discovered just at this moment by the three Baudelaire children. Sometimes, in the dead of night when I cannot sleep, I rise from my bed and work the code on the small wooden box to retrieve the silver key that opens the slightly larger wooden box so I can sit at my desk and look once again, by candlelight, at the two dotted lines indicating the underground hallway that begins at the bottom of the elevator shaft at 667 Dark Avenue and ends at the trapdoor that the Baudelaires managed to open with their ersatz crowbars. I stare and stare at the part of the city where the orphans climbed out of that ghastly corridor, but no matter how much I stare I can scarcely believe my own eyes, any more than the youngsters could believe theirs. The siblings had been in darkness for so long that their eyes took a long time to get used to properly lit surroundings, and they stood for a moment, rubbing their eyes and trying to see exactly where the trapdoor had led them. But in the sudden brightness of the morning sun, the only thing the children could see was the chubby shadow of a man standing near them. "Excuse me," Violet called, while her eyes were still adjusting. "We need to get to Veblen Hall. It's an emergency. Could you tell me where it is?" "Ju-just two blo-blocks that way," the shadow stuttered, and the children gradually realized that it was a slightly overweight mailman, pointing down the street and looking at the children fearfully. "Please don't hurt me," the mailman added, stepping away from the youngsters. "We're not going to hurt you," Klaus said, wiping ashes off his glasses. "Ghosts always say that," the mailman said, "but then they hurt you anyway." "But we're not ghosts," Violet said. "Don't tell me you're not ghosts," the mailman replied. "I saw you rise out of the ashes myself, as if you had come from the center of the earth. People have always said it's haunted here on the empty lot where the Baudelaire mansion burned down, and now I know it's true." The mailman ran away before the Baudelaires could reply, but the three children were too amazed by his words to speak to him anyway. They blinked and blinked in the morning sun, and finally their eyes adjusted enough to see that the mailman was right. It was true. It was not true that the three children were ghosts, of course. They were not spooky creatures who had risen from the center of the earth, but three orphans who had hoisted themselves out of the hallway. But the mailman had spoken the truth when he had told them where they were. The Baudelaire orphans looked around them, and huddled together as if they were still in a dark hallway instead of outdoors in broad daylight, standing amid the ashy ruins of their destroyed home.