Lemony Snicket by A Series of Unfortunate Events 4 - The Miserable Mill

Author:A Series of Unfortunate Events 4 - The Miserable Mill
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-06-05T04:00:00+00:00

C H A P T E R

Eight

The Baudelaire orphans stood outside the gates of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill and looked at an ambulance rushing past them as it took Phil to the hospital. They looked at the chewed-up gum letters of the lumbermill sign. And they looked down at the cracked pavement of Paltry-ville's street. In short, they looked everywhere but at the eye-shaped building.

“We don't have to go,” Violet said. “We could run away. We could hide until the next train arrived, and take it as far as possible. We know how to work in a lumbermill now, so we could get jobs in some other town.”

“But what if he found us?” Klaus said, squinting at his sister. “Who would protect us from Count Olaf, if we were all by ourselves?”

“We could protect ourselves,” Violet replied.

“How can we protect ourselves,” Klaus asked, “when one of us is a baby and another one can barely see?”

“We've protected ourselves before,” Violet said.

“Just barely,” Klaus replied. “We've just barely escaped from Count Olaf each time. We can't run away and try to get along by ourselves, without glasses. We have to go see Dr. Orwell and hope for the best.”

Sunny gave a little shriek of fear. Violet, of course, was too old to shriek except in emergency situations, but she was not too old to be frightened. “We don't know what will happen to us inside there,” she said, looking at the black door in the eye's pupil.

“Think, Klaus. Try to think. What happened to you when you went inside?”

“I don't know,” Klaus said miserably. “I remember trying to tell Charles not to take me to the eye doctor, but he kept telling me that doctors were my friends, and not to be frightened.”

“Ha!” Sunny shrieked, which meant “Ha!”

“And then what do you remember?” Violet asked.

Klaus closed his eyes in thought. “I wish I could tell you. But it's like that part of my brain has been wiped clean. It's like I was asleep from the moment I walked into that building until right there at the lumbermill.”

“But you weren't asleep,” Violet said. “You were walking around like a zombie. And then you caused that accident and hurt poor Phil.”

“But I don't remember those things,” Klaus said. “It's as if I . . .” His voice trailed off and he stared into space for a moment.

“Klaus?” Violet asked worriedly.

“. . . It's as if I were hypnotized,” Klaus finished. He looked at Violet and then at Sunny, and his sisters could see that he was figuring something out. “Of course. Hypnosis would explain everything.”

“I thought hypnosis was only in scary movies,” Violet said.

“Oh, no,” Klaus answered. “I read the Encyclopedia Hypnotica just last year. It described all these famous cases of hypnosis throughout history. There was an ancient Egyptian king who was hypnotized. All the hypnotist had to do was shout 'Ramses!' and the king would perform chicken imitations, even though he was in front of the royal court.”

“That's very interesting,” Violet said, “but—”

“A Chinese merchant who lived during the Ling Dynasty was hypnotized.

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