The Bad Beginning (3 page)

     “What sort of case was it?” Klaus asked. Having been deprived of reading, he was hungry for new information.

     “I can't really discuss it,” Justice Strauss said, “because it's official business. But I can tell you it concerns a poisonous plant and illegal use of someone's credit card.”

    
“Yeeka!” Sunny shrieked, which appeared to mean “How interesting!” although of course there is no way that Sunny could understand what was being said.

     Justice Strauss looked down at Sunny and laughed. “Yeeka indeed,” she said, and reached down to par the child on the head. Sunny took Justice Strauss's hand and bit it, gently.

“That means she likes you,” Violet explained. “She bites very, very hard if she doesn't like you, or if you want to give her a bath.”

     “I see,” Justice Strauss said. “Now then, how are you children getting on? Is there anything you desire?”

     The children looked at one another, thinking of all the things they desired. Another bed, for example.
A proper crib for Sunny.
Curtains for the window in their room.
A closet instead of a cardboard box. But what they desired most of all, of course, was not to be associated with Count Olaf in any way whatsoever. What they desired most was to be with their parents again, in their true home, but that, of course, was impossible. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny all looked down at the floor unhappily as they considered the question. Finally, Klaus spoke.

     “Could we perhaps borrow a cookbook?” he said. “Count Olaf has instructed us to make dinner for his theater troupe tonight, and we can't find a cookbook in the house.”

     “Goodness,” Justice Strauss said. “Cooking dinner for an entire theater troupe seems like a lot to ask of children.”

     “Count Olaf gives us a lot of responsibility,” Violet said. What she wanted to say was, “Count Olaf is an evil man,” but she was well mannered.

     “Well, why don't you come next door to my house,” Justice Strauss said, “and find a cookbook that pleases you?”

     The youngsters agreed, and followed Justice Strauss out the door and over to her well-kept house. She led them through an elegant hallway smelling of flowers into an enormous room, and when they saw what was inside, they nearly fainted from delight, Klaus especially.

     The room was a library. Not a public library, but a private library; that is, a large collection of books belonging to Justice Strauss. There were shelves and shelves of them, on every wall from the floor to the ceiling, and separate shelves and shelves of them in the middle of the room. The only place there weren't books was in one comer, where there were some large, comfortable-looking chairs and a wooden table with lamps hanging over them, perfect for reading. Although it was not as big as their parents' library, it was as cozy, and the Baudelaire children were thrilled.

    
“My word!” Violet said. “This is a wonderful library!”

     “Thank you very much,” Justice Strauss said. “I've been collecting books for years, and I'm very proud of my collection. As long as you keep them in good condition, you are welcome to use any of my books, at any time. Now, the cook-books are over here on the eastern wall. Shall we have a look at them?”

     “Yes,” Violet said, “and then, if you don't mind, I should lave to look at any of your books concerning mechanical engineering. Inventing things is a great interest of mine.”

     “And I would like to look at books on wolves,” Klaus said. “Recently I have been fascinated by the subject of wild animals of North America.”

    
“Book!” Sunny shrieked, which meant “Please don't forget to pick out a picture book for me.”

     Justice Strauss smiled. “It is a pleasure to see young people interested in books,” she said. “But first I think we'd better find a good recipe, don't you?”

     The children agreed, and for thirty minutes or so they perused several cookbooks that Justice Strauss recommended. To tell you the truth, the three orphans were so excited to be out of Count Olaf's house, and in this pleasant library, that they were a little distracted and unable to concentrate on cooking. But finally Klaus found a dish that sounded delicious, and easy to make.

     “Listen to this,” he said. “'Puttanesca.' It's an Italian sauce for pasta. All we need to do is sauté olives, capers, anchovies, garlic, chopped parsley, and tomatoes together in a pot, and prepare spaghetti to go with it.”

     “That sounds easy,” Violet agreed, and the Baudelaire orphans looked at one another. Perhaps, with the kind Justice Strauss and her library right next door, the children could prepare pleasant lives for themselves as easily as making puttanesca sauce for Count Olaf.

varieties
and choosing their favorites. At a pasta store they selected interestingly shaped noodles and asked the woman running the store the proper amount for thirteen people— the ten people Count Olaf mentioned, and the three of them. Then, at the supermarket, they purchased garlic, which is a sharp-tasting bulbous plant; anchovies, which are small salty fish; capers, which are flower buds of a small shrub and taste marvelous; and tomatoes, which are actually fruits and not vegetables as most people believe. They thought it would be proper to serve dessert, and bought several envelopes of pudding mix. Perhaps, the orphans thought, if they made a delicious meal, Count Olaf might be a bit kinder to them.

     “Thank you so much for helping us out today,” Violet said, as she and her siblings walked home with Justice Strauss. “I don't know what we would have done without you.”

     “You seem like very intelligent people,” Justice Strauss said. “I daresay you would have thought of something. But it continues to strike me as odd that Count Olaf has asked you to prepare such an enormous meal. Well, here we are. I must go inside and put my own groceries away. I hope you children will come over soon and borrow books from my library.”

    
“Tomorrow?” Klaus said quickly. “Could we come over tomorrow?”

     “I don't see why not,” Justice Strauss said, smiling.

     “I can't tell you how much we appreciate this,” Violet said, carefully. With their kind parents dead and Count Olaf treating them so abominably, the three children were not used to kindness from adults, and weren't sure if they were expected to do anything back. “Tomorrow, before we use your library again, Klaus and I would be more than happy to do household chores for you. Sunny isn't really old enough to work, but I'm sure we could find some way she could help you.”

     Justice Strauss smiled at the three children, but her eyes were sad. She reached out a hand and put it on Violet's hair, and Violet felt more comforted than she had in some time. “That won't be necessary,” Justice Strauss said. “You are always welcome in my home.” Then she turned and went into her home, and after a moment of staring after her, the Baudelaire orphans went into theirs.

For most of the afternoon, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny cooked the puttanesca sauce according to the recipe. Violet roasted the garlic and washed and chopped the anchovies. Klaus peeled the tomatoes and pitted the olives. Sunny banged on a pot with a wooden spoon, singing a rather repetitive song she had written herself. And all three of the children felt less miserable than they had since their arrival at Count Olaf's. The smell of cooking food is often a calming one, and the kitchen grew cozy as the sauce simmered, a culinary term which means “cooked over low heat.” The three orphans spoke of pleasant memories of their parents and about Justice Strauss, who they agreed was a wonderful neighbor and in whose library they planned to spend a great deal of time. As they talked, they mixed and tasted the chocolate pudding.

     Just as they were placing the pudding in the refrigerator to cool, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny heard a loud, booming sound as the front door was flung open, and I'm sure I don't have to tell you who was home.

    
“Orphans?” Count Olaf called out in his scratchy voice. “Where are you, orphans?”

     “In the kitchen, Count Olaf,” Klaus called. “We're just finishing dinner.”

     “You'd better be,” Count Olaf said, and strode into the kitchen. He gazed at all three Baudelaire children with his shiny, shiny eyes. “My troupe is right behind me and they are very hungry. Where is the roast beef?”

     “We didn't make roast beef,” Violet said. “We made puttanesca sauce.”

     “What?” Count Olaf asked. “No roast beef?”

     “You didn't tell us you wanted roast beef,” Klaus said.

     Count Olaf slid toward the children so that he looked even taller than he was. His eyes grew even brighter, and his one eyebrow raised in anger. “In agreeing to adopt you,” he said, “I have become your father, and as your father I am not someone to be trifled with. I demand that you serve roast beef to myself and my guests. ”

     “We don't have any!” Violet cried. “We made puttanesca sauce!”

     “No! No! No!” Sunny shouted.

     Count Olaf looked down at Sunny, who had spoken so suddenly. With an inhuman roar he picked her up in one scraggly hand and raised her so she was staring at him in the eye. Needless to say, Sunny was very frightened and began crying immediately, too scared to even try to bite the hand that held her.

     “Put her down immediately, you beast!” Klaus shouted. He jumped up, trying to rescue Sunny from the grasp of the Count, but he was holding her too high to reach. Count Olaf looked down at Klaus and smiled a terrible, toothy grin, raising the wailing Sunny up even higher in the air. He seemed about to drop her to the floor when there was a large burst of laughter in the next room.

     “Olaf! Where's Olaf?” voices called out Count Olaf paused, still holding the wailing Sunny up in the air, as members of his theater troupe walked into the kitchen. Soon they were crowding the room—an assortment of strange-looking characters of all shapes and sizes. There was a bald man with a very long nose, dressed in a long black robe. There were two women who had bright white powder all over their faces, making them look like ghosts. Behind the women was a man with very long and skinny arms, at the end of which were two hooks instead of hands. There was a person who was extremely fat, and who looked like neither a man nor a woman. And behind this person, standing in the doorway, were an assortment of people the children could not see but who promised tobe just as frightening.

     “Here you are, Olaf,” said one of the white faced women. “What in the world are you doing?”

     “I'm just disciplining these orphans,” Count Olaf said. “I asked them to make dinner, and all they have made is some disgusting sauce.”

     “You can't go easy on children,” the man with the hook-hands said. “They must be taught to obey their elders.”

     The tall, bald man peered at the youngsters. “Are these,” he said to Count Olaf, “those wealthy children you were telling me about?”

     “Yes,” Count Olaf said. “They are so awful I can scarcely stand to touch them.” With that, he lowered Sunny, who was still wailing, to the floor. Violet and Klaus breathed a sigh of relief that he had not dropped her from that great height.

     “I don't blame you,” said someone in the doorway.

     Count Olaf rubbed his hands together as if he had been holding something revolting instead of an infant. “Well, enough talk,” he said. “I suppose we will eat their dinner, even though it is all wrong. Everyone, follow me to the dining room and I will pour us some wine. Perhaps by the time these brats serve us, we will be too drunk to care if it is roast beef or not.”

     “Hurrah!” cried several members of the troupe, and they marched through the kitchen, following Count Olaf into the dining room.

     Nobody paid a bit of attention to the children, except for the bald man, who stopped and stared Violet in the eye.

     “You're a pretty one,” he said, taking her face in his rough hands. “If I were you I would try not to anger Count Olaf, or he might wreck that pretty little face of yours.” Violet shuddered, and the bald man gave a high-pitched giggle and left the room.

     The Baudelaire children, alone in the kitchen, found themselves breathing heavily, as if they had just run a long distance. Sunny continued to wail, and Klaus found that his eyes were wet with tears as well. Only Violet didn't cry, but merely trembled with fear and revulsion, a word which here means “an unpleasant mixture of horror and disgust.” For several moments none of them could speak.

     “This is terrible, terrible,” Klaus said finally. “Violet, what can we do?”

     “I don't know,” she said “I'm afraid.”

     “Me too,” Klaus said.

    
“Hux!” Sunny said, as she stopped crying.

     “Let's have some dinner!” someone shouted from the dining room, and the theater troupe began pounding on the table in strict rhythm, which is an exceedingly rude thing to do.

     “We'd better serve the puttanesca,” Klaus said, “or who knows what Count Olaf will do to us.”

     Violet thought of what the bald man had said, about wrecking her face, and nodded. The two of them looked at the pot of bubbling sauce, which had seemed so cozy while they were making it and now looked like a vat of blood. Then, leaving Sunny behind in the kitchen, they walked into the dining room, Klaus carrying a bowl of the interestingly shaped noodles and Violet carrying the pot of puttanesca sauce and a large ladle with which to serve it. The theater troupe was talking and cackling, drinking again and again from their wine cups and paying no attention to the Baudelaire orphans as they circled the table serving everyone dinner. Violet's right hand ached from holding the heavy ladle. She thought of switching to her left hand, but because she was right-handed she was afraid she might spill the sauce with her left hand, which could enrage Count Olaf again. She stared miserably at Olaf's plate of food and found herself wishing she had bought poison at the market and put it in the puttanesca sauce. Finally, they were through serving, and Klaus and Violet slipped back into the kitchen. They listened to the wild, rough laughter of Count Olaf and his theater troupe, and they picked at their own portions of food, too miserable to eat. Before long, Olaf's friends were pounding on the table in strict rhythm again, and the orphans went out to the dining room to clear the table, and then again to serve the chocolate pudding. By now it was obvious that Count Olaf and his associates had drunk a great deal of wine, and they slouched at the table and spoke much less. Finally, they roused themselves, and trooped back through the kitchen, scarcely glancing at the children on their way out of the house. Count Olaf looked around the room, which was filled with dirty dishes.