A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Penultimate Peril by Lemony Snicket Page B

frog lamp back on, making them both blink behind their sunglasses. "What's it?" Violet said. "I thought we were going to sleep." "How can we sleep," Klaus asked, "when the sugar bowl is being delivered to the hotel this very night?" "What?" Sunny asked. "How?" Klaus pulled his commonplace book out of his pocket and flipped to the notes he had taken on what the Baudelaires had observed. "By crow," he said. "Crow?" Violet said. "It wouldn't be the first time crows have carried something important," Klaus said, reminding his sisters of the crows in the Village of Fowl Devotees, who had brought the Baudelaires messages from the Quagmires. "That's what Esme Squalor has been watching for with her Vision Furthering Device." "J. S. too," Sunny said, remembering what either Frank or Ernest had said about watching the skies. "And that's why Carmelita Spats had me fetch a harpoon gun," Violet said thoughtfully. "To shoot down the crows, so V.F.D. can never get the sugar bowl." "And that's why either Frank or Ernest had me hang birdpaper outside the window of the sauna," Klaus said. "If the crows are hit with the harpoon gun, they'll fall onto the birdpaper, and he'll know that the delivery had been unsuccessful." "But was it Frank who had you lay out the birdpaper," Violet asked, "or Ernest? If it was Frank, then the birdpaper will serve as a signal to volunteers that they have been defeated. And if it was Ernest, then the birdpaper will serve as a signal to villains that they have triumphed." "And what about the sugar bowl?" Klaus asked. "The crows will drop the sugar bowl if the harpoon hits them." He frowned at a page of his commonplace book. "If the crows drop a heavy object like that," he said, "it will fall straight down into the pond." "Maybe no," Sunny said. "Where else could it land?" Violet said. "Spynsickle," Sunny said, which was her way of saying "laundry room." "How would it get into the laundry room?" Klaus asked. "The funnel," Sunny said. "Frank said. Or Ernest." "So they had you place a lock on the laundry room door," Violet said, "so that nobody could get to the sugar bowl." "But did Frank have Sunny activate the lock," Klaus asked, "or Ernest? If it was Frank, then the sugar bowl is locked away from any villains who want to get their hands on it. But if it was Ernest, then the sugar bowl is locked away from any volunteers who ought to get their hands on it." "J. S.," Sunny said. "J. S. is the key to the entire mystery," Violet agreed. "Esme Squalor thinks J. S. is spoiling the party. Sir thinks J. S. is hosting the party. Hal thinks J. S. might be here to help. Kit thinks J. S. might be an enemy. And we still don't even know if J. S. is a man or a woman!" "Like blind men," Sunny said, "with elephant." "We have to find J. S.," Klaus agreed, "but how? Trying to locate one guest in an enormous hotel is like finding one book in a library." "A library without a catalog," Violet said quietly, and the three Baudelaires exchanged sad glances by the light of the frog-shaped lamp. The children had uncovered countless secrets in libraries under the most desperate of circumstances. They had decoded a message in a library while a hurricane raged outside, and had found important information while a sinister person chased them around a library in wicked shoes. They had discovered crucial facts in a library that held only three books, and obtained a vital map in a library that was only a pile of papers hidden underneath a table. The Baudelaires had even found the answers they were looking for in a library that had burned down, leaving only a few scraps of paper and a motto etched on an iron archway. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny stood for a moment at the concierge desk and thought of all the libraries they had seen, and wondered if any of the secrets they had uncovered would help them find what they were looking for in the perplexing library of the Hotel Denouement. "The world is quiet here," Sunny said, reciting the