The Miserable Mill - Snicket Lemony - Страница 18

"Lucky!" he snarled. "Push the log back toward the saw, Klaus!"

"Yes, sir," Klaus muttered.

"Lucky!" Violet cried. "Push the log away!"

"Yes, sir," Klaus murmured.

"Lucky!" Foreman Flacutono barked. "Toward the saw!"

"Lucky away!"

"Lucky toward the saw!"

"Lucky away!"

"Lucky toward the saw!"

"LUCKY!" bellowed a new voice from the doorway, and everyone-including Violet, Klaus, Sunny, and Foreman Flacutono-turned around. Even Charles tried the best he could to see Dr. Orwell, who had appeared in the doorway along with Shirley, who was lurking behind the hypnotist.

"We just stopped by to make sure everything went well," Dr. Orwell said, gesturing to the saw with her black cane. "And I'm certainly glad we did. Lucky!" she shouted to Klaus. "Do not listen to your sisters!"

"What a good idea," Foreman Flacutono said the doctor. "I never thought of that."

"That's why you're only a foreman," Dr. Orwell replied snobbily. "Lucky, Klaus! Push the log in the path of the saw!"

"Yes, sir," Klaus said, and began to push the log again.

"Please, Klaus!" Violet cried. "Don't do this!"

"Gice!" Sunny shrieked, which meant "Don't hurt Charles!"

"Please, Dr. Orwell!" Violet cried. "Don't force my brother to do this terrible thing!"

"It is a terrible thing, I know," Dr. Orwell said. "But it's a terrible thing that the Baudelaire fortune goes to you three brats, instead of to me and Shirley. We're going to split the money fifty-fifty."

"After expenses, Georgina," Shirley reminded her.

"After expenses, of course," Dr. Orwell said.

The hmmm of the saw began making its louder, rougher sound as the blade started to slice the log once more. Tears appeared in Charles's eyes and began to run down the string tying him to the log. Violet looked at her brother, and then at Dr. Orwell, and dropped the heavy book on the ground in frustration. What she needed now, and most desperately, was the word that would unhypnotize her brother, but she had no idea what it could be. The command word had been used many times, and Violet had been able to figure out which word had been used over and over. But Klaus had only been unhypnotized once, after the accident that had broken Phil's leg. She and her sister had known, in the moment he started defining a word for the employees, that Klaus was back to normal, but who knew what word caused him, that afternoon, to suddenly stop following Foreman Flacutono's orders? Violet looked from Charles's tears to the ones appearing in Sunny's eyes as the fatal accident grew nearer and nearer. In a moment, it seemed, they would watch Charles die a horrible death, and then they would most certainly be placed in Shirley's care. After so many narrow escapes from Count Olaf's treachery, this seemed to be the moment of his-or in this case, her-terrible triumph. Out of all the situations, Violet thought to herself, that she and her siblings had been in, this was the most miserably irregular. It was the most miserably immoderate. It was the most miserably disorderly. It was the most miserably excessive. And as she thought all these words she thought of the one that had unhypnotized Klaus, the one that just might save all their lives.

"Inordinate!" she shouted, as loudly as she could to be heard over the terrible noise of the saw. "Inordinate! Inordinate! Inordinate!"

Klaus blinked, and then looked all around him as if somebody had just dropped him in the middle of the mill. "Where am I?" he asked.

"Oh, Klaus," Violet said in relief. "You're here with us!"

"Drat!" Dr. Orwell said. "He's unhypnotized! How in the world would a child know a complicated word like 'inordinate'?"

"These brats know lots of words," Shirley said, in her ridiculously fake high voice.

"They're book addicts. But we can still create an accident and win the fortune!"

"Oh no you can't!" Klaus cried, and stepped forward to push Charles out of the way.

"Oh yes we can!" Foreman Flacutono said, and stuck his foot out again. You would think that such a trick would only work a maximum of two times, but in this case you would be wrong, and in this case Klaus fell to the floor again, his head clanging against the pile of debarkers and tiny green boxes.

"Oh no you can't!" Violet cried, and stepped forward to push Charles out of the way herself. "Oh yes we can!" Shirley said, in her silly high voice, and grabbed Violet's arm. Foreman Flacutono quickly grabbed her other arm, and the eldest Baudelaire found herself trapped.

"Oh toonoy!" Sunny cried, and crawled toward Charles. She was not strong enough to push the log away from the saw, but she thought she could bite through his string and set him free.

"Oh yes we can!" Dr. Orwell said, and reached down to grab the youngest Baudelaire. But Sunny was ready. Quckly she opened her mouth and bit down on the hypnotist's hand as hard as she could.

"Gack!" Dr. Orwell shouted, using an expression that is in no particular language. But then she smiled and used an expression that was in French: "En garde!" "En garde!," as you may know, is an expression people use when they wish to announce the beginning of a sword-fight, and with a wicked smile, Dr. Orwell pressed the red jewel on top of her black cane, and a shiny blade emerged from the opposite end. In just one second, her cane had become a sword, which she then pointed at the youngest Baudelaire orphan. But Sunny, being only an infant, had no sword. She only had her four sharp teeth, and, looking Dr. Orwell right in the eye, she opened her mouth and pointed all four at this despicable person.

There is a loud clink! noise that a sword makes when it hits another sword-or, in this case, a tooth-and whenever I hear it I am reminded of a swordfight I was forced to have with a television repairman not long ago. Sunny, however, was only reminded of how much she did not want to be sliced to bits. Dr. Orwell swung her cane-sword at Sunny, and Sunny swung her teeth at Dr. Orwell, and soon the clink! noises were almost as loud as the sawing machine which continued to saw up the log toward Charles. Clink! Up, up, the blade inched until it was only a hair's breadth-the expression "hair's breadth" here means "a teeny-tiny measurement"-away from Charles's foot.

"Klaus!" Violet cried, struggling in the grips of Shirley and Foreman Flacutono. "Do something!"

"Your brother can't do anything!" Shirley said, giggling in a most annoying way. "He's just been unhypnotized-he's too dazed to do anything. Foreman Flacutono, let's both pull! We can make Violet's armpits sore that way!"

Shirley was right about Violet's sore armpits, but she was wrong about Klaus. He had just been unhypnotized, and he was quite dazed, but he wasn't too dazed to do anything. The trouble was, he simply couldn't think of what to do. Klaus had been thrown into the corner with the debarkers and the gum, and if he moved in the direction of Charles, or Violet, he would walk right into Sunny and Dr. Orwell's sword-fight, and as he heard another clink! from the sword hitting Sunny's tooth he knew he would be seriously wounded if he tried to walk through the dueling pair. But over the clink!s he heard an even louder and even rougher noise from the sawing machine, and Klaus saw with horror that the blade was beginning to slice through the soles of Charles's shoes. Sir's partner tried to wiggle his feet away from the blade, but they were tied too tightly, and tiny shoe-sole shavings began to fall to the floor of the mill. In a moment the blade would be finished with the sole of Charles's shoe and begin on the sole of Charles's foot. Klaus needed to invent something to stop the machine, and he needed to invent it right away.