"Words fail me," Sunny said in a hushed whisper.
"Me, too," Klaus agreed. "I can't believe what we're seeing. The islanders told us that everything eventually washes up on these shores, but I never imagined the arboretum would hold so many things."
Violet picked up an item that lay at her feet—a pink ribbon decorated with plastic daisies—and began to wind it around her hair. To those who hadn't been around Violet long, nothing would have seemed unusual, but those who knew her well knew that when she tied her hair up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes, it meant that the gears and levers of her inventing brain were whirring at top speed. "Think of what I could build here," she said. "I could build splints for Kit's feet, a boat to take us off the island, a filtration system so we could drink fresh water. " Her voice trailed off, and she stared up at the branches of the tree. "I could invent anything and everything."
Klaus picked up the object at his feet—a cape made of scarlet silk—and held it in his hands. "There must be countless secrets in a place like this," he said. "Even without a book, I could investigate anything and everything."
Sunny looked around her. "Service a la Russe," she said, which meant something like, "Even with the simplest of ingredients, I could prepare an extremely elaborate meal."
"I don't know where to begin," Violet said, running a hand along a pile of broken white wood that looked like it had once been part of a gazebo.
"We begin with weapons," Klaus said grimly. "That's why we're here. Erewhon and Finn are waiting for us to help them mutiny against Ishmael."
The oldest Baudelaire shook her head. "It doesn't seem right," she said. "We can't use a place like this to start a schism."
"Maybe a schism is necessary," Klaus said. "There are millions of items here that could help the colony, but thanks to Ishmael, they've all been abandoned here."
"No one forced anyone to abandon anything," Violet said.
"Peer pressure," Sunny pointed out.
"We can try a little peer pressure of our own," Violet said firmly. "We've defeated worse people than Ishmael with far fewer materials."
"But do we really want to defeat Ishmael?" Klaus asked. "He's made the island a safe place, even if it is a little boring, and he kept Count Olaf away, even if he is a little cruel. He has feet of clay, but I'm not sure he's the root of the problem."
"What is the root of the problem?" Violet asked.
"Ink," Sunny said, but when her siblings turned to give her a quizzical look, they saw that the youngest Baudelaire was not answering their question, but pointing at the Incredibly Deadly Viper, who was slithering hurriedly away from the children with its eyes darting this way and that and its tongue extended to sniff the air.
"It appears to know where it's going," Violet said.
"Maybe it's been here before," Klaus said.
" Taylit," Sunny said, which meant "Let's follow the reptile and see where it heads." Without waiting to see whether her siblings agreed, she hurried after the snake, and Violet and Klaus hurried after her. The viper's path was as curved and twisted as the snake itself, and the Baudelaires found themselves scrambling over all sorts of discarded items, from a cardboard box, soaked through from the storm, that was full of something white and lacy, to a painted backdrop of a sunset, such as might be used in the performance of an opera. The children could tell that the path had been traveled before, as the ground was covered in footprints. The snake was slithering so quickly that the Baudelaires could not keep up, but they could follow the footprints, which were dusted around the edges in white powder. It was dried clay, of course, and in moments the children reached the end of the path, following in Ishmael's footsteps, and they arrived at the base of the apple tree just in time to see the tail of the snake disappear into a gap in the tree's roots. If you've ever stood at the base of an old tree, then you know the roots are often close to the surface of the earth, and the curved angles of the roots can create a hollow space in the tree's trunk. It was into this hollow space that the Incredibly Deadly Viper disappeared, and after the tiniest of pauses, it was into this space that the Baudelaire orphans followed, wondering what secrets they would find at the root of the tree that sheltered such a mysterious place. First Violet, and then Klaus, and then Sunny stepped down through the gap into the secret space. It was dark underneath the roots of the tree, and for a moment the Baudelaires tried to adjust to the gloom and figure out what this place was, but then the middle Baudelaire remembered the flashlight, and turned it on so he and his siblings would no longer be in the dark in the dark.