Ellington turned and gave me a sad smile, and then she reached over to the bed and slipped her hand underneath the mattress to find something. She brought out an object I had seen once before. It was about the size of a deck of cards, with a tiny funnel and a small crank that she wound quickly before putting it on the pillow next to me. It played a melody I always liked to hear, whether from her phonograph or from this small thing, the music box her father had given her. “Two birds with one stone,” Ellington repeated, over the tinkly music. “My father always hated that expression. He said nobody should be throwing any stones at any birds.”
“He sounds like a very gentle person.”
“He is. He doesn’t belong in a place like this.”
“Have you seen him here?”
Ellington shook her head. “And they’ve confiscated the one hope I had of finding him. It’s gone, Snicket. The woman who runs this place took it away along with almost everything else, as soon as I arrived at the Wade Academy. It’s all I had that could lead me to my father.”
“The Bombinating Beast,” I said, and nodded grimly. We kept quiet for a minute, with only the music for company. I picked up the music box and looked at it, although it was the statue I really wanted to see. I imagined the scales carved into its slender, wooden body, and its toothy, empty grin, and the odd crinkly patch of paper that was stretched over a small hole at its base. But most of all I pictured the statue’s empty, hollow eyes. As I pictured its gaze, my fingers fumbled with the music box, and I found myself winding the crank the opposite way. The music continued, but there was another sound underneath it, a little whir of gears and then a small, bright click! as a panel on the music box opened and a small piece of paper tumbled out into my hand. I turned it over. It wasn’t a piece of paper. It was a photograph, a small one, of a man with kind eyes, frowning at me. Ellington leaned over my shoulder to see.
There’s no way to tell what will make someone break down in tears. There are some who will cry at the merest melancholy word, and there are some who need the longest, cruelest speech to even dampen one eyelash. There are those who will cry at any sad song but no sad book, and there are those who are immune to the most saddening newspaper articles but will weep for days over a terrible meal. People cry at silence or at violence, in a graveyard or a schoolyard. It is always a puzzle, and for Ellington Feint the unexpected photograph of her father made her hang her head and sob into her hands. I let her cry. She wasn’t alone. I put the damp washcloth to my forehead so she wouldn’t know I was crying too. Everyone tells you it’s all right to cry, but not enough people say it’s all right if you don’t want people to know. The rain rattled on the window like it was also crying and then finally everything fell silent.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s all right to cry.”
“There are lots of things that are all right, but I don’t like to do them in front of other people.” She held the tiny photograph in her hands. “Will I ever see him again, Snicket?”
“Anytime you open the music box,” I said.
“You know what I mean.”
“Ask me after a good night’s sleep,” I said, and rubbed the bump on my forehead.
She snapped her fingers and hurried to the sink. She turned on the water and splashed some on her face and then let it run until it began to steam. She opened a drawer of the desk and took out two white cups. She grabbed the knotted handkerchief she’d used to wake me up and then fussed with all these things in the basin of the sink and then finally handed me one steaming cup and sipped from the other one.
“It’s not the best way to make coffee,” she said, “but it’s the only way I can do it here.”
“I don’t drink coffee,” I reminded her.
“You’re going to start,” she told me. “Don’t you smell it, Snicket? That sickly sweet smell that’s everywhere?”
I nodded. “I recognize it from somewhere,” I said. “It’s on the tip of my tongue.”
“I hope not,” Ellington said. “It’s laudanum, a chemical that makes you sleepy.”
“Of course,” I said. “It’s what Dr. Flammarion used on Cleo Knight’s parents.” I did not add that I’d narrowly escaped it myself, in the city some months back and, it felt, a thousand years ago.
“It’s what Hangfire’s using on everyone,” Ellington said. “You can smell it everywhere here, and it keeps the students sleepy and confused. Coffee helps fight the effects.”
“Then I’m surprised they didn’t confiscate the coffee,” I said.
“They would have,” Ellington said, “but I hid it.”
I looked around. “Where?”
“In plain sight, Snicket. That’s not soil in that flowerpot.”
“No wonder the plant looks so miserable.”
“Drink up, Snicket.”
She handed me the mug. I didn’t want to drink up. I also didn’t want to be in this sinister place. I didn’t want my sister in prison. I didn’t want my head hurt and my clothes wet with rain. I made a whole list of things in my head that I didn’t want, and then I wondered exactly what I could do with such a list, and I closed my eyes and took a gulp of coffee. It tasted like a hot, melted tire. I was embarrassed at the noises I made when I sipped it. I opened my eyes to see if Ellington had noticed and saw she was laughing at me.
“That’s not nice,” I said.
“You’re right and I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just good to see there’s one thing I’m better at than you are.”
“I think you’re better at everything,” I said. I hoped the second sip would be better. It wasn’t. “I keep lurking around this mystery, but you walked right into the heart of it. I don’t know how you find the nerve to do the things you’ve done.”
“I only have the nerve,” she said, “because I know you’re always close behind me.”
We sipped coffee. It was still awful, but there was something wonderful about sitting together and sipping even the bitterest of beverages. You cannot wait for an untroubled world to have an untroubled moment. The terrible phone call, the rainstorm, the sinister knock on the door—they will all come. Soon enough arrive the treacherous villain and the unfair trial and the smoke and the flames of the suspicious fires to burn everything away. In the meantime, it is best to grab what wonderful moments you find lying around. Ellington and I sipped and said nothing. The music box finished its tune and the photograph sat on the blanket between us. I didn’t want to look at it any longer. The picture forced a question into my mouth that burned worse than the coffee. Don’t ask it, I told myself, as the wonderful faded and I was left with a moment that was worsening and worsening. Ask another question. Don’t ask the wrong question. “Ellington,” I said finally—
“Filene.”
“Filene—”
But there was a knock on the door. Ellington moved very quickly. She handed me her coffee and then ushered all three of us—me and the two cups—under the bed. The mattress hung low, and I had to lie very flat, with a steaming cup on each side. Something bumped against me, right at my right knee, but I didn’t have time to see what it was, as Ellington pulled the blankets down so I was completely hidden. I listened to her stand there for just a second, surveying her handiwork, and then I heard her open the door, just a crack.
“Yes?”
“It’s Sharon Haines,” a voice said, and it was. The woman who runs this place, I thought. That’s what Ellington had called her, as if she did not know the woman’s name.
“I was just about to get into bed,” Ellington said, with a fake yawn that wasn’t bad.
“Don’t sleep too long,” Sharon said. “Tomorrow is a big day.”
“I know.”
“I’m counting on you. We all are.”
“I know,” Ellington said again, in a tone I recognized. She was tired of being told the same thing over and over again. You can hear this tone all over the world.
“Nothing can go wrong, Filene.”
“People w
ho think nothing can go wrong are usually disappointed.”
“Stew tells me there’s been an intruder.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Stew knocked him unconscious, but then he disappeared.”
“Well,” Ellington said, “I’ll be on the lookout for an unconscious man wandering around the school grounds.”
“Don’t get smart,” Sharon said, but she did not say it very well. Her voice was too trembly. “The intruder had a phonograph with him. It broke to pieces.”
“You promised to take good care of that,” Ellington said quietly, and then there was a pause. Nobody said anything, for no reason I could imagine. I felt the cups warm in my hands, and tried to move my head to take a look at whatever object was bumping against my knee. It was black, or maybe it was just dark under the bed. The pause continued. Maybe you’re wrong, I told myself.
“The machine is broken,” Sharon admitted finally, “but I still did my part. And I know he expects you to do yours.”
“I will,” Ellington said quietly, and the door clattered shut. I listened to Ellington listening at the door for Sharon’s departing footsteps until it was time to say “All clear.”
“All clear,” she said, and raised the blanket like a curtain. I crawled out and gave her back her coffee and looked at her. It was simple, I thought. She was either working with Hangfire or she was pretending to. She was either helping out with a sinister scheme or just playing along to rescue her father. Now she was either going to tell me the truth or she was going to lie. There’s a knock on your bedroom window in the middle of the night, and when you look outside there’s someone just your age, or maybe a little older, who says they need your help. You either unlock the window and let them in or you don’t. It’s very simple, I thought. But the trouble is, it’s not easy.
“I have a question,” I said.
“I’m sure you have many questions,” Ellington said, “but right now you need to finish your coffee or we’ll be late.”
“Late for what?”
“I’m not the only student who doesn’t like this place,” Ellington said. “There are other people here who aren’t muddled by laudanum and a top-drawer education. We’re meeting in the library to see what can be done.”
I finished my coffee in one squirmy gulp. I felt the drink jitter its way through my system, like a secret code tapping its way down my spine. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t feel as sleepy as I had before. “The library in town?” I asked, wishing I hadn’t sent Pip and Squeak away.
“No,” Ellington said, “the school library. It’s a safe place, but it’s all the way across campus, so we’ll have to watch out for Stew or anyone else in the Inhumane Society. Take your shoes and socks off, Snicket.”
“Why?”
“Shoes make an awful racket in the hallways,” she said, “and the floors are too slippery for socks.”
“I’ll take my chances,” I said.
Ellington gave me a quizzical look as she kicked off her own shoes. Her toenails, I noticed, were painted as black as her fingernails, although they looked more startling on her slender feet. “If you attract attention, it could ruin our only chance to defeat Hangfire. Take off your shoes and socks.”
I hesitated, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Are you bashful, Snicket?”
“I’m not bashful.”
“Do you have ugly toes? I promise not to say anything about them.”
“My toes,” I said, with as much dignity as I had lying around, “are perfectly normal, thank you very much.”
“Then what is the problem?”
“There isn’t one,” I said, and I quickly pulled off my shoes. I had to lean down to do it, and I had another opportunity to look at the object under the bed as I peeled off my socks and dropped them to the floor. It felt good to get them off. They were wet from the rain. But taking my shoes and socks off left my ankles bare, and Ellington stared hard at one of them.
“Oh,” she said.
“Oh,” I agreed.
She leaned down and ran a finger along the tattoo on my ankle. To most people it looked like an eye, but hidden in the eye were three initials. They were not hidden to Ellington. She spelled them out with her fingernail on my skin.
“V.F.D.,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Volunteer Fire Department.”
“Yes.”
“That’s another secret organization, isn’t it?”
“If I told you,” I said, “it wouldn’t be a secret.”
“That’s why you’re here in town,” she said. “It’s training of some kind, isn’t it? That woman Theodora is your tutor or something.”
“Chaperone, is what they call it.”
“You’re scattered all over the place,” she said, “doing secret errands and investigations, just like the Inhumane Society.”
I shook my head. “Not like them at all.”
“What’s the difference?” Ellington asked.
I tried to think of the best way to put it. It was simple, I thought, looking at the library book, but it wasn’t easy. It’s like the difference between what happens in a book and what happens in the world. The world is swirling with so many mysteries and secrets that nobody will ever track down all of them. But with a book you can stay up very late, reading and rereading until all the secrets are clear to you. The questions of the world are hidden forever, but the answers in a book are hiding in plain sight.
“We read a lot,” I said finally, and to my surprise Ellington Feint nodded like she understood. She opened the door to see if anyone was watching us, then took another quick look at the eye on my ankle. Then she beckoned me to follow her out the door and into the hallway. It was dim and quiet, and the scent of laudanum was in the air. But the coffee was in my blood, so I didn’t feel sleepy. What I felt was curious. I was curious about what we were doing. I was curious about who we were meeting. And I was curious about the object under the bed. It wasn’t black, I’d seen. It was just a dark green, a green bag in the shape of a tube, with a long zipper running down it like an open, toothy mouth. It was a good bag to hide things in. Last I’d seen it, it was hiding the Bombinating Beast.
CHAPTER NINE
The hallways of the Wade Academy were tricky for sneaking, but I’d had a very demanding sneaking instructor. Our final exam began early in the morning, with our instructor entering a small cabin in the middle of the woods and sitting blindfolded in a folding chair. The woods were full of crackly dead leaves, and the floor of the cabin was covered in fragile glass figurines. To pass the class we had to sneak up on him by midnight. When he arrived at the cabin that morning, the entire class was waiting for him. I’d snuck into his office the night before and shared the location of the cabin with the rest of the students so we could sneak up on him before he even arrived. I received the top grade in the class and a three-month suspension.
This was harder. I didn’t know where Ellington Feint was going, or if I should have been following her to begin with. The hallways were dead empty, and if anyone happened upon us there was nowhere to hide, except perhaps by dashing through a door into possibly more dangerous circumstances. The floors were slightly sticky and slightly damp, and from the smell I gathered that they had been mopped with laudanum. At least half of the janitors you encounter in your life are working for the enemy. But there were plenty of noises to use as cover for our movements. There were thumps from below and creaks from above, as the other students at the Wade Academy moved around in their rooms. From behind the doors we heard the occasional moan, or a loud snore, or the occasional muffled bout of confused weeping. There were no schoolchildren to be seen. There was only Ellington Feint and there was only me.
Ellington was good. She led the way on tiptoe, and could flatten herself against the wall for a long time without getting fidgety or bored. Her face remained calm as she led me through a maze of hallways and staircases. The only sign she was nervous was from her slen
der fingers, which kept moving up to fiddle with one of her braids. That left the other braid for me to fiddle with, but I did not think that was appropriate.
Twice we heard footsteps. Twice the footsteps faded away. My bare feet were cold on the floor.
At long last Ellington led me to a wide glass door marked LIBRARY and ushered me inside. It was one big room, and all of it was dark. I could see tall shelves, and a few windows covered in thick shades that hid the starlight. In the middle of the room was a circular table with shadows gathered around it.
“Who wrote The Wind in the Willows?” asked one of them.
“Who plays trumpet on Out to Lunch?” shot back Ellington.
There was an awkward pause in the dark.
“It’s Kenneth Grahame,” I offered finally. “And Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, I think.”
“Who is that?” the voice asked.
Ellington sighed. “Kellar, turn on the light.”
Kellar Haines turned on the light. I should have recognized his shadow by the dynamite spike of his hair. Next to him was a girl I did not recognize, a tall girl with a cap sitting backward on her head and a small square of paper pressed flat on the table. She had a cigarette in her mouth, unlit. So did Kellar. So did Jake Hix. So did Cleo Knight. The only person at the table without a cigarette was a crumpled, half-asleep figure that it took me a moment to recognize as Moxie Mallahan.
“Don’t you have any fire?” I asked.
“Snicket!” Cleo rose and clapped me on the shoulder. “You’re here!”
“That’s a nasty lump you got yourself,” Jake said.
“It was a gift from a very adorable boy,” I told him.
Jake frowned in sympathy. “Stew’s been a brute to all of us,” he said. “He would have ripped up Moxie’s notes, if Cleo hadn’t kicked him in the shins.”
“We’re having a pretty tough time here, Snicket,” Cleo said.
“It takes a while to adjust to a new school,” I said, “but that’s no reason to take up smoking.”
“These aren’t cigarettes,” Jake said, handing me his. “Cleo rigged something up for us that fights the effect of laudanum.”