The siblings were not sure if digging a deep pit to trap someone, in order to trade prisoners with a villain, was something that their parents or any other volunteers would do, but with so many of the V.F.D. secrets lost in the ashes, it was impossible to know for sure, and this uncertainty haunted them with every pitcherful of dirt, and every climb up the rope, and every piece of weakened wood they laid on top of the pit to hide it from view.
As the first rays of the morning sun appeared on the misty horizon, the elder Baudelaires gazed up at the waterfall. At the summit of the Mortmain Mountains, they knew, was a group of villains, from whom Sunny was hopefully learning the location of the last safe place. But as Violet and Klaus lowered their gaze to their own handiwork, and looked at the dark, deep pit Quigley had helped them dig, they could not help wondering if there were also a group of villains at the bottom of the slippery slope. As they looked at the villainous thing they had made, the three volunteers could not help wondering if they were villains, too, and this was the least pleasant feeling in the world.
Chapter Twelve
Not too long ago, in the Swedish city of Stockholm, a group of bank robbers took a few prisoners during the course of their work. For several days, the bank robbers and the prisoners lived together in close proximity, a word which here means "while the police gathered outside and eventually managed to arrest the robbers and take them to jail." When the prisoners were finally freed, however, the authorities discovered that they had become friends with the bank robbers, and since that time the expression "Stockholm Syndrome" has been used to describe a situation in which someone becomes friendly with the people who are holding them prisoner.
There is another expression, however, which describes a situation that is far more common, when a prisoner does not become friends with such people, but instead regards them as villains, and despises them more and more with each passing moment, waiting desperately for an opportunity to escape. The expression is "Mount Fraught Syndrome," and Sunny Baudelaire was experiencing it as she stood at the top of Mount Fraught, gazing down at the frozen waterfall and thinking about her circumstances.
The young girl had spent another sleepless night in the covered casserole dish, after washing the salmon out of it with a few handfuls of melted snow. It was chilly, of course, with the winds of the Mortmain Mountains blowing through the holes in the lid, and it was painful, because once again her teeth were chattering in the cold and giving her tiny cuts on her lips, but there was another reason Sunny did not sleep well, which is that she was frustrated. Despite her best spying attempts, the youngest Baudelaire had been unable to eavesdrop on the villains' conversation and learn the location of the last safe place where V.F.D. would be gathering, or learn any more about the dreadful recruitment scheme planned by the man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard. When the troupe gathered around the flat rock for dinner, they discussed these things, but every time Sunny tried to get close enough to hear what they were saying, they glared at her and quickly changed the subject. It seemed to Sunny that the only thing she had accomplished all evening was preparing a meal that the troupe enjoyed. When she had presented her platter of False Spring Rolls, no one had complained, and every single villainous person had taken second helpings.
But something crucial had escaped the attention of Count Olaf and his comrades during the meal, and for that Sunny was very grateful. As she had told her siblings, the youngest Baudelaire had prepared an assortment of vegetables wrapped in spinach leaves, in honor of False Spring. Her recipe had required the bag of mushrooms, the can of water chestnuts, and the frozen hunk of spinach, which she had thawed by holding it underneath her shirt, as she had when preparing toast tartar. But Sunny had decided at the last minute that she would not use the enormous eggplant. When Violet mentioned that the eggplant must weigh as much as Sunny did, the youngest Baudelaire had an idea, and rather than chopping the eggplant into small strips with her teeth, she hid it behind the flat tire of Count Olaf's car, and now, as the sun rose and the group of villains began their usual morning bickering, she was retrieving the eggplant and rolling it to the casserole dish. As she rolled it past the automobile, Sunny looked down at the frozen waterfall, which was looking less and less frozen in the morning sun. She knew her siblings were at the bottom with Quigley, and although she couldn't see them, it made her feel better knowing they were relatively nearby and that, if her plan worked out, she would soon be joining them.
"What are you doing, baby?" Sunny had just slipped the eggplant under the cover of the casserole dish when she heard the voice of one of Olaf's comrades. The two white-faced women were standing just outside their tent and stretching in the morning sun.
"Aubergine," Sunny replied, which meant "I've concocted a plan involving this eggplant, and it doesn't matter if I tell you about it because you never understand a single word I say."
"More babytalk," said the other white-faced woman with a sigh. "I'm beginning to think that Sunny is only a helpless baby, and not a spy."
"Goo goo ga " Sunny began, but the flap of Count Olaf's tent opened before she could utter the last "ga." The villain and his girlfriend stood in the morning sun, and it was clear that they expected the new day Saturday to be an important one, because they were dressed for the occasion, a phrase which here means "wearing such strange clothing that the youngest Baudelaire was too surprised to say the final 'ga' she had been planning." Amazingly, it appeared that Count Olaf had washed his face, and he was wearing a brand-new suit made out of material that at first seemed to be covered in tiny polka dots. But when Sunny took a closer look, she saw that each dot was a small eye, matching Olaf's tattoo and the V.F.D. insignia and all of the other eyes that had plagued the Baudelaires since that terrible day on the beach, so that looking at Count Olaf in his new suit felt like looking at a crowd of villains, all staring at Sunny Baudelaire. But no matter how unnerving Olaf's fashion choice was, Esm Squalor's outfit was worse to behold. Sunny could not remember when she had ever seen a dress so enormous, and was surprised that such an article of clothing could have fit in the tent and still leave room for villains to sleep. The dress was made of layers upon layers of shiny cloth, in different shades of yellow, orange, and red, all cut in fierce triangular shapes so that each layer seemed to cut into the next, and rising from the shoulders of the dress were enormous piles of black lace, sticking up into the air in strange curves. For a moment, the dress was so huge and odd that Sunny could not imagine why anyone would wear it, but as the wicked girlfriend stepped farther out of the tent, it became horribly clear. Esm Squalor was dressed to look like an enormous fire.