"Sunny!" Violet cried.
"Sssh!" Sunny said.
"What is going on?" Quigley asked, several forksteps behind Violet.
"It's Sunny," Violet said, and hoisted herself onto the peak to see her baby sister, standing next to Count Olaf's car and grinning from ear to ear. Without another word, the two Baudelaire sisters hugged fiercely, Violet taking care not to poke Sunny with one of the forks she was holding. By the time Quigley reached the top of the peak and pulled himself up to lean against one of the car's tires, the two Baudelaires were smiling at each other with tears in their eyes.
"I knew we'd see you again, Sunny," Violet said. "I just knew it."
"Klaus?" Sunny asked.
"He's safe and nearby," Violet said. "He knew we could find you, too."
"Set," Sunny agreed, but then she noticed Quigley and her eyes grew wide. "Quagmire?" she asked in amazement.
"Yes," Violet said. "This is Quigley Quagmire, Sunny. He survived the fire after all." Sunny walked unsteadily over to Quigley and shook his hand. "He led us to the headquarters, Sunny, with a map he drew himself."
"Arigato," Sunny said, which meant something like, "I appreciate your help, Quigley."
"Was it you who signaled us?" Quigley asked.
"Yep," Sunny said. "Lox."
"Count Olaf's been making you do the cooking?" Violet asked in amazement.
"Vaccurum," Sunny said.
"Olaf even made her clean crumbs out of the car," Violet translated to Quigley, "by blowing as hard as she could."
"That's ridiculous!" Quigley said.
"Cinderella," Sunny said. She meant something along the lines of, "I've had to do all of the chores, while being humiliated at every turn," but Violet had no time to translate over the sound of Count Olaf's scratchy voice.
"Where are you, Babylaire?" he asked, adding an absurd nickname to his list of insults. "I've thought of more tasks for you to perform."
The three children looked at one another in panic. "Hide," Sunny whispered, and there was no need for translation. Violet and Quigley looked around the desolate landscape of the peak for a place to hide, but there was only one place to go.
"Under the car," Violet said, and she and Quigley wriggled underneath the long, black automobile, which was as dirty and smelly as its owner. As an inventor, the eldest Baudelaire had stared closely at automotive machinery plenty of times, but she had never seen such an extreme state of disrepair, a phrase which here means "an underside of an automobile in such bad shape that it was dripping oil on her and her companion." But Violet and Quigley didn't have a moment to waste thinking of their discomfort. They had no sooner moved their fork-assisted climbing shoes out of view when Count Olaf and his companions arrived. From underneath he car, the two volunteers could see only the villain's tattoo on the filthy ankle above his left shoe and a pair of very stylish pumps, decorated with glitter and tiny paintings of eyes, that could only belong to Esm Squalor.
"All we've had to eat all day is that smoked salmon, and it's almost dinnertime," Count Olaf said. "You'd better get cooking, orphan."
"Tomorrow is False Spring," Esm said, "and it would be very in to have a False Spring dinner."
"Did you hear that, toothy?" Olaf asked. "My girlfriend wants a stylish dinner. Get to work."
"Olaf, we need you," said a very deep voice, and Violet and Quigley saw two pairs of sinister black shoes appear behind the villain and his girlfriend, whose shoes twitched nervously at the sight of them. All of a sudden, it seemed much colder underneath the car, and Violet had to push her legs against the tires, so they would not shiver against the mechanics of the underside and be heard.
"Yes, Olaf," agreed the hoarse voice of the man with a beard but no hair, although Violet and Quigley could not see him. "Our recruitment plan will happen first thing in the morning so we need you to help spread the net out on the ground."
"Can't you ask one of our employees?" asked Esm. "There's the hook-handed man the two white-faced women, and the three freaks we picked up at the carnival. That's eight people, if you include yourselves, to spread out the net. Why should we do it?"
The four black shoes stepped toward Esm's stylish pumps and Olaf's tattoo. "You'll do it," said the woman with hair but no beard, "because I say so."
There was a long, ominous pause, and then Count Olaf gave a little high-pitched laugh. "That's a good point," he said. "Come on, Esm. We've bossed around the baby, so there's nothing else to do around here anyway."
"That's true," Esm agreed. "In fact, I was thinking about taking up smoking again, because I'm bored. Do you have any more of those green cigarettes?"
"I'm afraid not," replied the man with a beard but no hair, leading the villains away from the car. "That's the only one I found."
"That's too bad," Esm said. "I don't like the taste or the smell, and they're very bad for you, but cigarettes are very in and I'd like to smoke another one."
"Maybe there's another one in the ruins of headquarters," said the woman with hair but no beard. "It's hard to find everything in all those ashes. We searched for days and couldn't find the sugar bowl."
"Not in front of the baby," Olaf said quickly, and the four pairs of shoes walked away. Violet and Quigley stayed underneath the car until Sunny said "Coastkleer," which meant something like, "It's safe to come out now."
"Those were terrible people," Quigley said with a shudder, brushing oil and grime off his coat. "They made me feel cold all over."
"They certainly had an aura of menace " Violet agreed in a whisper. "The feet with the tattoo were Count Olaf, and those glittery shoes were Esm Squalor, but who were the other two, Sunny?"
"Unno Narsonist," Sunny murmured. She meant something along the lines of "I don't know, but they burned down V.F.D. headquarters," and Violet was quick to explain this to Quigley.
"Klaus has found an important message that survived the fire," Violet said. "By the time we take you down the waterfall, I'm sure he'll have decoded the message. Come on."
"Nogo," Sunny said, which meant "I don't think I ought to accompany you."
"Why on earth not?" Violet asked.
"Unasanc," Sunny said.
"Sunny says that the villains have mentioned one more safe place for volunteers to gather," Violet explained to Quigley.
"Do you know where it is?" Quigley asked.
Sunny shook her head. "Olafile," she said.
"But if Count Olaf has the Snicket file," Violet said, "how are you going to find out where this safe place is?"
"Matahari," she said, which meant something like, "If I stay, I can spy on them and find out."
"Absolutely not," Violet said, after she had translated. "It's not safe for you to stay here, Sunny. It's bad enough that Olaf has made you do the cooking."
"Lox," Sunny pointed out.
"But what are you going to make for a False Spring dinner?" Violet asked.
Sunny gave her sister a smile, and walked over to the trunk of the car. Violet and Quigley heard her rummaging around among the remaining groceries, but stayed put so Olaf or any of his associates wouldn't spot them. When Sunny returned, she had a triumphant smile on her face, and the frozen hunk of spinach, the large bag of mushrooms, the can of water chestnuts, and the enormous eggplant in her arms. "False spring rolls!" she said, which meant something like, "An assortment of vegetables wrapped in spinach leaves, prepared in honor of False Spring."