A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Slippery Slope by Lemony Snicket

headquarters, so it couldn't be seen through the blanket of mist." The Baudelaires walked to where the scout was standing, and looked into the frozen pool at the bottom of the waterfall. The pool branched off into two tributaries, a word which here means "divisions of a river or stream, each twisting off in a different direction past the ruins of the headquarters, and curving around the Mortmain Mountains until they disappeared from view." Violet and Klaus gazed sadly at the icy swirls of black and gray they had noticed when they were walking alongside the Stricken Stream. "It was ashes" Klaus said quietly. "Ashes from the fire fell into the pool at the bottom of the waterfall, and the stream carried them down the river." Violet found that it was easier to discuss a small, specific matter than think about her immense disappointment. "But the pool is frozen solid," she said. "The stream couldn't have carried the ashes anywhere." "It wouldn't have been frozen when it happened," Klaus replied. "The heat from the fire would have thawed the pool." "It must have been awful to see," the sweatered scout said. Violet and Klaus stood with him, imagining the inferno, a word which here means "enormous fire that destroyed a secret headquarters high in the mountains." They could almost hear the shattering of glass as the windows fell away, and the crackle of the fire as it consumed everything it could. They could almost smell the thick smoke as it floated upward and blackened the sky, and they could almost see the books in the library, falling from the burning shelves and tumbling into ashes The only thing they could not picture was who might have been at the headquarters when the fire began, running out into the freezing cold to avoid the flames. "Do you think," Violet said, "any of the volunteers..." "There's no sign that anyone was here," the scout said quickly. "But how can we know for sure?" Klaus asked. "There could be a survivor someplace right now." "Hello?" Violet called, looking around her at the rubble. "Hello?" She found that her eyes were filling with tears, as she called out for the people she knew in her heart were nowhere nearby. The eldest Baudelaire felt as if she had been calling for these people since that terrible day on the beach, and that if she called them enough they might appear before her. She thought of all the times she had called them, back when she lived with her siblings in the Baudelaire mansion. Sometimes she called them when she wanted them to see something she had invented. Sometimes she called them when she wanted them to know she had arrived home. And sometimes she called them just because she wanted to know where they were. Sometimes Violet just wanted to see them, and feel that she was safe as long as they were around. "Mother!" Violet Baudelaire called. "Father!" There was no answer. "Mom!" Klaus called. "Dad!" The Baudelaires heard nothing but the rush of all four of the valley's drafts, and a long creak as the Vernacularly Fastened Door blew shut. They saw that the door had been made to look just like the side of the mountain, so that they could scarcely see where they had come from, or the way to get back. Now they were truly alone. "I know we were all hoping to find people at the headquarters," the sweatered scout said gently, "but I don't think anyone is here. I think we're all by ourselves." "That's impossible!" Klaus cried, and Violet could hear that he was crying. He reached through his layers of clothing until he found his pocket, and pulled out page thirteen from the Snicket file, which he had been carrying with him since the Baudelaires had found it at Heimlich Hospital. The page had a photograph of their parents, standing with Jacques Snicket and another man the Baudelaires had been unable to identify, and above the photograph was a sentence Klaus had memorized from reading it so many times. '"Because of the evidence discussed on page nine,'" he recited tearfully, "'experts