"That sounds familiar," Klaus said.
"It should," the scout replied. "I borrowed it from Dr. Montgomery's library."
Dr. Montgomery was one of the Baudelaires' first guardians, and at the mention of his name Violet and Klaus found they had several more questions they wanted to ask.
"When " Violet started.
"Why " Klaus started.
"Carm " Another voice startled the Baudelaires and the scout the voice of Bruce, waking up halfway at the sound of the conversation. All three children froze for a moment, as Bruce turned over on his blanket, and with a long sigh, went back to sleep.
"We'll talk when we reach the headquarters " the scout whispered. "The Vertical Flame Diversion is very echoey, so we'll have to be absolutely silent as we climb, or the echoing noise will alert Bruce and the Snow Scouts. It'll be very dark inside, so you'll have to feel against the wall for the footholds, and the air will be smoky, but if you keep your masks on they'll filter the air and make it easier to breathe. I'll go first and lead the way. Are you ready?"
Violet and Klaus turned toward one another. Even though they could not see each other's faces through the masks, both siblings knew that they were not at all ready. Following a complete stranger into a secret passageway through the center of the mountains, toward a headquarters they could not even be sure existed, did not seem like a very safe thing to do. The last time they had agreed to take a risky journey, their baby sister had been snatched away from them. What would happen this time, when they were all alone with a mysterious masked figure in a dark and smoky hole?
"I know it must be hard to trust me, Baudelaires," said the sweatered scout, "after so many people have done you wrong."
"Can you give us a reason to trust you?" Violet said.
The scout looked down for a moment, and then turned his mask to face both Baudelaires. "One of you mentioned the word 'xenial,'" he said, "when you were talking with Bruce about that silly pledge. 'Xenial' is a word which refers to the giving of gifts to a stranger."
"He's right," Klaus murmured to his sister.
"I know that having a good vocabulary doesn't guarantee that I'm a good person," the boy said. "But it does mean I've read a great deal. And in my experience, well-read people are less likely to be evil."
Violet and Klaus looked at one another through their masks. Neither of them were entirely convinced by what the masked scout had said. There are, of course, plenty of evil people who have read a great many books, and plenty of very kind people who seem to have found some other method of spending their time. But the Baudelaires knew that there was a kind of truth to the boy's statement, and they had to admit that they preferred to take their chances with a stranger who knew what the word "xenial" meant, rather than exiting the cave and trying to find the headquarters all by themselves. So the siblings turned back to the scout, nodded their masks, and followed him to the footholds in the wall, making sure they still had all the items from the caravan with them. The footholds were surprisingly easy to use, and in a short time the Baudelaires were following the mysterious scout into the dark and smoky entrance of the passageway.
The Vertical Flame Diversion that connected the Mortmain Mountain headquarters to this particular Volunteer Feline Detectives cave was once one of the most heavily guarded secrets in the world. Anyone who wanted to use it had to correctly answer a series of questions concerning the force of gravity, the habits of carnivorous beasts, and the central themes of Russian novels, so very few people even knew the passageway's exact whereabouts. Until the two Baudelaires' journey, the passageway had not been used for many years, ever since one of my comrades removed the pole in order to use it in the construction of a submarine. So it would be accurate to say that the Vertical Flame Diversion was a road less traveled even less traveled than the path through the Mortmain Mountains on which this book began.
While the elder Baudelaires had a very good reason to be on the road less traveled, as they were in a great hurry to reach the headquarters and rescue their sister from the clutches of Count Olaf, there is no reason whatsoever why you should be on the road less traveled and choose to read the rest of this woeful chapter, which describes their dark and smoky journey.
The ashen air from the Snow Scouts' fire was difficult to breathe, even through the masks, and Violet and Klaus had to struggle not to cough, knowing that the coughing sound would echo down the passageway and wake up Bruce, but there is no reason for you to struggle through my dismal description of this problem. A number of spiders had noticed the footholds were not being used lately, and had moved in and converted them into spider condominiums, but you are under no obligation to read what happens when spiders are suddenly woken up by the sudden appearance of a climbing foot in their new homes. And as the Baudelaires followed the scout farther and farther up, the strong freezing winds from the top of the mountain would rush through the passageway, and all three youngsters would cling to the footholds with their very lives, hoping that the wind would not blow them back down to the cave floor, but although the Baudelaires found it necessary to keep climbing through the rest of the dark day so they could reach the headquarters as quickly as possible, and I find it necessary to finish describing it, so my account of the Baudelaire case is as accurate and as complete as possible, it is not necessary for you to finish reading the rest of this chapter, so you can be as miserable as possible. My description of the Baudelaires' journey up through the road less traveled begins on the next page, but I beg you not to travel along with them. Instead, you may take a page from Bruce's book, and skip ahead to Chapter Six, and find my report on Sunny Baudelaire's tribulations a word which here means "opportunities to eavesdrop while cooking for a theater troupe" with Count Olaf, or you may skip ahead to Chapter Seven, when the elder Baudelaires arrive at the site of the V.F.D. headquarters and unmask the stranger who led them there, or you may take the road very frequently traveled and skip away from this book altogether, and find something better to do with your time besides finishing this unhappy tale and becoming a weary, weeping, and well-read person.
The Baudelaires' journey up the Vertical Flame Diversion was so dark and treacherous that it is not enough to write "The Baudelaires' journey up the Vertical Flame Diversion was so dark and treacherous that it is not enough to write 'The Baudelaires' journey up the Vertical Flame Diversion was so dark and treacherous that it is not enough to write "The Baudelaires' journey up the Vertical Flame Diversion was so dark and treacherous that it is not enough to write 'The Baudelaires' journey up the Vertical Flame Diversion was so dark and treacherous that it is not enough to write "My dear sister, I am taking a great risk in hiding a letter to you inside one of my books, but I am certain that even the most melancholy and well-read people in the world have found my account of the lives of the three Baudelaire children even more wretched than I had promised, and so this book will stay on the shelves of libraries, utterly ignored, waiting for you to open it and find this message. As an additional precaution, I placed a warning that the rest of this chapter contains a description of the Baudelaires' miserable journey up the Vertical Flame Diversion, so anyone who has the courage to read such a description is probably brave enough to read my letter to you. I have at last learned the whereabouts of the evidence that will exonerate me, a phrase which here means "prove to the authorities that it is Count Olaf, and not me, who has started so many fires." Your suggestion, so many years ago at that picnic, that a tea set would be a handy place to hide anything important and small in the event of a dark day, has turned out to be correct. (Incidentally, your other picnic suggestion, that a simple combination of sliced mango, black beans, and chopped celery mixed with black pepper, lime juice, and olive oil would make a delicious chilled salad also turned out to be correct.)