The Wide Window (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #3)

by Lemony Snicket

But of course you would be dead wrong. For although Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire were about to experience events that would be both exciting and memorable, they would not be exciting and memorable like having your fortune told or going to a rodeo. Their adventure would be exciting and memorable like being chased by a werewolf through a field of thorny bushes at midnight with nobody around to help you.

“This is the radiator,” Aunt Josephine said, pointing to a radiator with a pale and skinny finger. “Please don’t ever touch it. You may find yourself very cold here in my home. I never turn on the radiator, because I am frightened that it might explode, so it often gets chilly in the evenings.” Violet and Klaus looked at one another briefly, and Sunny looked at both of them. Aunt Josephine was giving them a tour of their new home and so far appeared to be afraid of everything in it, from the welcome mat—which, Aunt Josephine explained, could cause someone to trip and break their neck—to the sofa in the living room, which she said could fall over at any time and crush them flat.

“Aunt Josephine,” Klaus asked, “what are these cans for?” “Those cans? For burglars, naturally,” Aunt Josephine said, patting the bun of hair on top of her head. “You must be as frightened of burglars as I am. So every night, simply place these tin cans right by the door, so that when burglars come in, they’ll trip over the cans and you’ll wake up.” “But what will we do then, when we’re awake in a room with an angry burglar?” Violet asked. “I would prefer to sleep through a burglary.” Aunt Josephine’s eyes grew wide with fear. “Angry burglars?” she repeated. “Angry burglars? Why are you talking about angry burglars? Are you trying to make us all even more frightened than we already are?” “Of course not,” Violet stuttered, not pointing out that Aunt Josephine was the one who had brought up the subject. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“Aunt Josephine,” she said timidly, “have you thought of moving someplace else? Perhaps if you lived somewhere far from Lake Lachrymose, you might feel better.” “We’d go with you,” Klaus piped up. “Oh, I could never sell this house,” Aunt Josephine said. “I’m terrified of realtors.” The three Baudelaire youngsters looked at one another surreptitiously, a word which here means “while Aunt Josephine wasn’t looking.” None of them had ever heard of a person who was frightened of realtors.

There are two kinds of fears: rational and irrational—or, in simpler terms, fears that make sense and fears that don’t. For instance, the Baudelaire orphans have a fear of Count Olaf, which makes perfect sense, because he is an evil man who wants to destroy them. But if they were afraid of lemon meringue pie, this would be an irrational fear, because lemon meringue pie is delicious and has never hurt a soul. Being afraid of a monster under the bed is perfectly rational, because there may in fact be a monster under your bed at any time, ready to eat you all up, but a fear of realtors is an irrational fear. Realtors, as I’m sure you know, are people who assist in the buying and selling of houses. Besides occasionally wearing an ugly yellow coat, the worst a realtor can do to you is show you a house that you find ugly, and so it is completely irrational to be terrified of them.

There is a way of looking at life called “keeping things in perspective.” This simply means “making yourself feel better by comparing the things that are happening to you right now against other things that have happened at a different time, or to different people.” For instance, if you were upset about an ugly pimple on the end of your nose, you might try to feel better by keeping your pimple in perspective. You might compare your pimple situation to that of someone who was being eaten by a bear, and when you looked in the mirror at your ugly pimple, you could say to yourself, “Well, at least I’m not being eaten by a bear.” You can see at once why keeping things in perspective rarely works very well, because it is hard to concentrate on somebody else being eaten by a bear when you are staring at your own ugly pimple.

Aunt Josephine shook her head. “It is my responsibility as your caretaker to cook for you, and I am eager to try this recipe for cold lime stew. Count Olaf certainly does sound evil. Imagine forcing children to stand near a stove!” “He was very cruel to us,” Klaus agreed, not adding that being forced to cook had been the least of their problems when they lived with Count Olaf.

“Mr. Poe told me to be on the watch for Count Olaf,” she said finally, “but he did also say that you children tended to see him everywhere.” “We see him everywhere,” Klaus said tiredly, “because he is everywhere.”

“Here,” Captain Sham said, pulling a small card out of his pocket and handing it to Aunt Josephine. “Take my business card, and next time you’re in town perhaps we could enjoy a cup of tea.” “That sounds delightful,” Aunt Josephine said, reading his card. “‘Captain Sham’s Sailboats. Every boat has it’s own sail.’ Oh, Captain, you have made a very serious grammatical error here.” “What?” Captain Sham said, raising his eyebrow. “This card says ‘it’s,’ with an apostrophe. I-T-apostrophe-S always means ‘it is.’ You don’t mean to say ‘Every boat has it is own sail.’ You mean simply I-T-S, ‘belonging to it.’ It’s a very common mistake, Captain Sham, but a dreadful one.” Captain Sham’s face darkened, and it looked for a minute like he was going to raise his peg leg again and kick Aunt Josephine with all his might. But then he smiled and his face cleared. “Thank you for pointing that out,” he said finally.

“I’ve had enough of this nonsense,” Aunt Josephine said. “Mr. Poe told me that Count Olaf had a tattoo on his left ankle and one eyebrow over his eyes. Captain Sham doesn’t have a left ankle and only has one eye. I can’t believe you would dare to disagree with a man who has eye problems.” “I have eye problems,” Klaus said, pointing to his glasses, “and you’re disagreeing with me.”

“I will thank you not to be impertinent,” Aunt Josephine said, using a word which here means “pointing out that I’m wrong, which annoys me.” “It is very annoying.

As the darkness of the house closed in around them, the Baudelaire youngsters felt like the fly in this situation. It was as if the disastrous fire that took the lives of their parents had been the beginning of a trap, and they hadn’t even known it.

“These are very serious accusations,” Mr. Poe said firmly. “I understand that the three of you have had some terrible experiences, and I hope you’re not letting your imagination get the best of you. Remember when you lived with Uncle Monty? You were convinced that his assistant, Stephano, was really Count Olaf in disguise.” “But Stephano was Count Olaf in disguise,” Klaus exclaimed. “That’s not the point,” Mr. Poe said.

Since Mr. Poe and the Baudelaires had arrived at the Anxious Clown, Captain Sham had been unable to conceal his excitement at having the children almost in his clutches. But now that Mr. Poe had pointed out that the occasion actually called for sadness, Captain Sham instantly began to speak in a mournful voice. “I am upset, too,” he said, brushing a tear away from beneath his eyepatch. “Josephine was one of my oldest and dearest friends.” “You met her yesterday,” Klaus said, “in the grocery store.” “It does only seem like yesterday,” Captain Sham said, “but it was really years ago. She and I met in cooking school. We were oven partners in the Advanced Baking Course.” “You weren’t oven partners,” Violet said, disgusted at Captain Sham’s lies. “Aunt Josephine was desperately afraid of turning on the oven. She never would have attended cooking school.” “We soon became friends,” Captain Sham said, going on with his story as if no one had interrupted, “and one day she said to me, ‘if I ever adopt some orphans and then meet an untimely death, promise me you will raise them for me.’ I told her I would, but of course I never thought I would have to keep my promise.”

The United States Postal Service has a motto. The motto is: “Neither rain nor sleet nor driving snow shall halt the delivery of the mails.” All this means is that even when the weather is nasty and your mailperson wants to stay inside and enjoy a cup of cocoa, he or she has to bundle up and go outside and deliver your mail anyway. The United States Postal Service does not think that icy storms should interfere with its duties. The Baudelaire orphans were distressed to learn that the Fickle Ferry had no such policy.

Violet’s face must have shown her disappointment, because as soon as she took a look Klaus asked, “What’s wrong? I mean, besides Hurricane Herman, and Aunt Josephine faking her own death, and Captain Sham coming after us and everything.” “One of Count Olaf’s comrades is in the shack,” Violet said. “Which one?” Klaus asked. “The one who looks like neither a man nor a woman,” Violet replied. Klaus shuddered. “That’s the scariest one.”

“I’m happy to see you, and you are welcome to share this cave with me. I don’t think Captain Sham will ever find us here.” “We’re not staying here,” Violet said impatiently. “We’re sailing back to town, and we’re taking you with us.” “No way, José,” Aunt Josephine said, using an expression which means “No way” and has nothing to do with José, whoever he is. “I’m too frightened of Captain Sham to face him. After all he’s done to you I would think that you would be frightened of him, too.” “We are frightened of him,” Klaus said, “but if we prove that he’s really Count Olaf he will go to jail. You are the proof. If you tell Mr. Poe what happened, then Count Olaf will be locked away and we will be safe.” “You can tell him, if you want to,” Aunt Josephine said. “I’m staying here.” “He won’t believe us unless you come with us and prove that you’re alive,” Violet said. “No, no, no,” Aunt Josephine said. “I’m too afraid.” Violet took a deep breath and faced her frightened guardian. “We’re all afraid,” she said firmly. “We were afraid when we met Captain Sham in the grocery store. We were afraid when we thought that you had jumped out the window. We were afraid to give ourselves allergic reactions, and we were afraid to steal a sailboat and we were afraid to make our way across this lake in the middle of a hurricane. But that didn’t stop us.” Aunt Josephine’s eyes filled up with tears. “I can’t help it that you’re braver than I,” she said. “I’m not sailing across that lake. I’m not...

The boat rocked back and forth, and water poured through the cracks, and Violet cried because it looked like they would never get to safety. Her shoulders shaking with sobs, she held the spying glass up to her eye to see if, by any chance, there was a boat nearby, or if the tide had happened to carry the sailboat to shore, but all she could see was the moonlight reflecting on the rippling waters of the lake. And this was a lucky thing. Because as soon as Violet saw the flickering reflection, she remembered the scientific principles of the convergence and refraction of light. The scientific principles of the convergence and refraction of light are very confusing, and quite frankly I can’t make head or tail of them, even when my friend Dr. Lorenz explains them to me. But they made perfect sense to Violet. Instantly, she thought of a story her father had told her, long ago, when she was just beginning to be interested in science. When her father was a boy, he’d had a dreadful cousin who liked to burn ants, starting a fire by focusing the light of the sun with her magnifying glass. Burning ants, of course, is an abhorrent hobby—the word “abhorrent” here means “what Count Olaf used to do when he was about your age”—but remembering the story made Violet see that she could use the lens of the spying glass to focus the light of the moon and make a fire. Without wasting another moment, she grabbed the spying glass and removed the lens, and then, looking up at the moon, tilted the l...

“Mr. Poe won’t believe you,” Captain Sham said, chuckling. “Why should he believe three runaway pipsqueaks who go around stealing boats?” “Because we’re telling the truth!” Klaus cried. “Truth, schmuth,” Captain Sham said. If you don’t care about something, one way to demonstrate your feelings is to say the word and then repeat the word with the letters S-C-H-M replacing the real first letters. Somebody who didn’t care about dentists, for instance, could say “Dentists, schmentists.” But only a despicable person like Captain Sham wouldn’t care about the truth. “Truth, schmuth,” he said again.

It may surprise you to learn that at this moment, Sunny resembled the famous Greek conqueror Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great lived more than two thousand years ago, and his last name was not actually “The Great.” “The Great” was something that he forced people to call him, by bringing a bunch of soldiers into their land and proclaiming himself king. Besides invading other people’s countries and forcing them to do whatever he said, Alexander the Great was famous for something called the Gordian Knot. The Gordian Knot was a fancy knot tied in a piece of rope by a king named Gordius. Gordius said that if Alexander could untie it, he could rule the whole kingdom. But Alexander, who was too busy conquering places to learn how to untie knots, simply drew his sword and cut the Gordian Knot in two. This was cheating, of course, but Alexander had too many soldiers for Gordius to argue, and soon everybody in Gordium had to bow down to You-Know-Who the Great. Ever since then, a difficult problem can be called a Gordian Knot, and if you solve the problem in a simple way—even if the way is rude—you are cutting the Gordian Knot.

As all the taller people argued and paid no attention to Sunny, the littlest Baudelaire crawled as close as she could to the peg leg, opened her mouth and bit down as hard as she could. Luckily for the Baudelaires, Sunny’s teeth were as sharp as the sword of Alexander the Great, and Captain Sham’s peg leg split right in half with a crack! that made everybody look down. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, the peg leg was fake, and it split open to reveal Captain Sham’s real leg, pale and sweaty from knee to toes. But it was neither the knee nor the toes that interested everyone. It was the ankle. For there on the pale and sweaty skin of Captain Sham was the solution to their problem. By biting the peg leg, Sunny had cut the Gordian Knot, for as the wooden pieces of fake peg leg fell to the floor of Damocles Dock, everyone could see a tattoo of an eye.

In most stories, as you know, the villain would be defeated, there would be a happy ending, and everybody would go home knowing the moral of the story. But in the case of the Baudelaires everything was wrong. Count Olaf, the villain, had not succeeded with his evil plan, but he certainly hadn’t been defeated, either. You certainly couldn’t say that there was a happy ending. And the Baudelaires could not go home knowing the moral of the story, for the simple reason that they could not go home at all. Not only had Aunt Josephine’s house fallen into the lake, but the Baudelaires’ real home—the house where they had lived with their parents—was just a pile of ashes in a vacant lot, and they couldn’t go back there no matter how much they wanted to.

They leaned up against one another appreciatively, and small smiles appeared on their damp and anxious faces. They had each other. I’m not sure that “The Baudelaires had each other” is the moral of this story, but to the three siblings it was enough. To have each other in the midst of their unfortunate lives felt like having a sailboat in the middle of a hurricane, and to the Baudelaire orphans this felt very fortunate indeed.