It was true. The Baudelaires hadn't noticed, when they stepped out of Town Hall, that the afternoon light had slipped away and that the sun was now just beginning to dip below the horizon. "It's lovely," Violet said politely, although she had never understood all the fuss about standing around admiring sunsets.
"Shh," Hector said. "Who cares about the sunset? Just be quiet for a minute, and watch the crows. It should happen any second now."
"What should happen?" Klaus said.
"Shh," Hector said again, and then it began to happen. The Council of Elders had already told the Baudelaires about the roosting habits of the crows, but the three children hadn't really given the matter a second thought, a phrase which here means "considered, even for a second, what it would look like when thousands of crows would fly together to a new location." One of the largest crows, sitting on top of the mailbox, was the first to fly up in the air, and with a rustle of wings he — or she; it was hard to tell from so far away — began to fly in a large circle over the children's heads. Then a crow from one of Town Hall's windowsills flew up to join the first crow, and then one from a nearby bush, and then three from the street, and then hundreds of crows began to rise up at once and circle in the air, and it was as if an enormous shadow was being lifted from the town. The Baudelaires could finally see what all the streets looked like, and they could gaze at each detail of the buildings as more and more crows left their afternoon roosts. But the children scarcely looked at the town. Instead they looked straight up, at the mysterious and beautiful sight of all those birds making a huge circle in the sky.
"Isn't it marvelous?" Hector cried. His long skinny arms were outstretched, and he had to raise his voice over the sound of all the fluttering wings. "Isn't it marvelous?"
Violet, Klaus, and Sunny nodded in agreement, and stared at the thousands of crows circling and circling above them like a mass of fluttering smoke or like black, fresh ink — such as the ink I am using now, to write down these events — that somehow had found its way to the heavens. The sound of the wings sounded like a million pages being flipped, and the wind from all that fluttering blew in their grinning faces. For a moment, with all that air rushing toward them, the Baudelaire orphans felt as if they too could fly up into the air, away from Count Olaf and all their troubles, and join the circle of crows in the evening sky.
Chapter Three
"Wasn't that marvelous?" Hector said, as the crows stopped circling and began to fly, like an enormous black cloud, over the buildings and away from the Baudelaire orphans. "Wasn't that just marvelous? Wasn't that absolutely superlative? That means the same thing as 'marvelous', by the way."
"It certainly was," Klaus agreed, not adding that he had known the word "superlative" since he was eleven. "I see that just about every evening," Hector said, "and it always impresses me. It always makes me hungry, too. What shall we eat this evening? How about chicken enchiladas? That's a Mexican dish consisting of corn tortillas rolled around a chicken filling, covered with melted cheese and a special sauce I learned from my second-grade teacher. How does that sound?"
"That sounds delicious," Violet said.
"Oh, good," Hector said. "I despise picky eaters. Well, it's a pretty long walk to my house, so let's talk as we go. Here, I'll carry your suitcases and you two can carry your sister. I know you had to walk from the bus stop, so she's had more than enough exercise for a baby."
Hector grabbed the Baudelaires' bags and led the way down the street, which was now empty except for a few stray crow feathers. High above their heads, the crows were taking a sharp left-hand turn, and Hector raised Klaus's suitcase to point at them. "I don't know if you're familiar with the expression 'as the crow flies,'" Hector said, "but it means 'the most direct route.' If something is a mile away as the crow flies, that means it's the shortest way to get there. It usually has nothing to do with actual crows, but in this case it does. We're about a mile away from my home as the crow flies — as all those crows fly, as a matter of fact. At night, they roost in Nevermore Tree, which is in my backyard. But it takes us longer to get there, of course, because we have to walk through V.F.D. instead of flying up in the air."
"Hector," Violet said timidly, "we were wondering exactly what V.F.D. stands for."
"Oh yes," Klaus said. "Please tell us."
"Of course I'll tell you," Hector said, "but I don't know why you're so excited about it. It's just more nonsense from the Council of Elders."
The Baudelaires looked at one another uncertainly. "What do you mean?" Klaus asked.
"Well, about three hundred and six years ago," Hector said, "a group of explorers discovered the murder of crows that we just saw."
"Sturo?" Sunny asked.
"We didn't see any crows get killed," Violet said.
"'Murder' is the word for a group of crows, like a flock of geese or a herd of cows or a convention of orthodontists. Anyway, the explorers were impressed with their patterns of migration — you know, they always fly uptown in the morning, downtown in the afternoon and over to Nevermore Tree in the evening. It's a very unusual pattern, and the explorers were so excited by it that they decided to live here. Before too long, a town sprung up, and so they named it V.F.D."
"But what does V.F.D. stand for?" Violet asked.
"The Village of Fowl Devotees," Hector said. "'Devotees' is a word for people who are devoted to something, and 'fowl' — "
" — means 'bird,'" Klaus finished. "That's the secret of V.F.D.? Village of Fowl Devotees?"
"What do you mean, secret?" Hector asked. "It's not a secret. Everyone knows what those letters mean."
The Baudelaires sighed with confusion and dismay, which is not a pleasant combination. "What my brother means," Violet explained, "is that we chose V.F.D. to become our new guardian because we'd been told of a terrible secret — a secret with the initials V.F.D."
"Who told you about this secret?" Hector asked.
"Some very dear friends of ours," Violet replied. "Duncan and Isadora Quagmire. They discovered something about Count Olaf, but before they could tell us anything more — "
"Hold on a minute," Hector said. "Who's Count Olaf? Mrs. Morrow was talking about Count Omar. Is Olaf his brother?"
"No," Klaus said, shuddering at the very thought of Olaf having a brother. "I'm afraid The Daily Punctilio got many of the facts wrong."
"Well, why don't we get them right," Hector said, turning a corner. "Suppose you tell me exactly what happened."
"It's sort of a long story," Violet said.
"Well," Hector said, with a slight smile, "we have sort of a long walk. Why don't you begin at the beginning?"
The Baudelaires looked up at Hector, sighed, and began at the beginning, which seemed such a long way off that they were surprised they could remember it so clearly. Violet told Hector about the dreadful day at the beach when she and her siblings learned from Mr. Poe that their parents had been killed in the fire that had destroyed their home, and Klaus told Hector about the days they spent in Count Olaf's care. Sunny — with some help from Klaus and Violet, who translated for her — told him about poor Uncle Monty, and about the terrible things that had happened to Aunt Josephine. Violet told Hector about working at Lucky Smells Lumbermill, and Klaus told him about enrolling at Prufrock Preparatory School, and Sunny related the dismal time they had living with Jerome and Esmé Squalor at 667 Dark Avenue. Violet told Hector all about Count Olaf's various disguises, and about each and every one of his nefarious associates, including the hook-handed man, the two powder-faced women, the bald man with the long nose, and the one who looked like neither a man nor a woman, of whom the Baudelaires had been reminded when Hector had been so silent. Klaus told Hector all about the Quagmire triplets, and about the mysterious underground passageway that had led back to their home, and about the shadow of misfortune that had seemed to hang over them nearly every moment since that day at the beach. And as the Baudelaires told Hector their long story, they began to feel as if the handyman was carrying more than their suitcases. They felt as if he was carrying each word they said, as if each unfortunate event was a burden that Hector was helping them with. The story of their lives was so miserable that I cannot say they felt happy when they were through telling it, but by the time Sunny concluded the whole long story, the Baudelaires felt as if they were carrying much less.