sorrows and woes - klaus baudelaire

the slippery slope

FOR BEATRICE

WHEN WE MET, YOU WERE PRETTY, AND I WAS LONELY

NOW, I AM PRETTY LONELY

••••••••••••

NATALIA SAT IN THE BACKSEAT OF COUNT OLAF'S CAR AND CONTINUED TO WEEP. She occasionally glanced back, expecting to see the gift caravan trailing behind them, but it wasn't there. Kevin, Colette, and Hugo had cut the rope and sent Violet and Klaus rolling to their doom. Natalia just hoped that they escaped before the caravan fell off the cliff.

"Ow!" Esmé shouted in pain as Sunny sat on her lap. "Ow, this baby keeps biting me!"

"Put her in the glove compartment," Count Olaf ordered his girlfriend.

Sunny gave Natalia a scared look as Esmé began to shove her in the glove compartment. Natalia gave the youngest Baudelaire a small smile. There was nothing she could do until they reached the secret mountain headquarters. When they reached the headquarters, Natalia and Sunny could try to get away from Count Olaf and his terrifying troupe and get help from the volunteers.

"Do you smell that, Esmé?" Count Olaf asked as he took a deep breath. "That's the fresh mountain scent of T-R-Y-M-F!"

"What, darling?" Esmé furrowed her eyebrows at her boyfriend's spelling.

"Triumph!"

"That's not how you spell-" Natalia began to tell the Count but he interrupted her and continued on with his speech.

"For years, I have pursued the Lexington goldmine and the Baudelaire fortune via a wide variety of brilliant, only partially successful schemes. But now, finally, I'm on the right path!"

"That way!" Esmé shouted and pointed at a fork in the road. Count Olaf took a sharp turn to the left, making everyone in the backseat smash into each other. Natalia groaned as she rammed into one of the hook-handed man's hooks.

"Now, I'm finally on the right path. Two out of the three Baudelaire orphans have tumbled off a cliff and been smashed flat." Count Olaf pulled out a bottle of alcohol and took a sip of it. "Ugh! Flat!" His face scrunched in disgust as he tasted it. He twisted the cap back on and threw it out the window, making Natalia grateful that he wasn't going to drink and drive. "We are en roo-tay to the secret VFD headquarters to destroy our enemies once and for all, including whichever Baudelaire parent survived the fire."

"Probably the mom," One of the white-faced women commented.

"Women are more resilient," The other white-faced woman added on.

"And best of all, the Baudelaire fortune is in my hands, or at least this infant is. Now, all I need to do is find the Lexington goldmine and I'll be rich!" Count Olaf said and ignored his henchwomen. "I haven't felt this sharp and focused since I first smelled kerosene. My only regret is that I wasn't able to hear the splat, or whatever sound a caravan makes when it falls off a cliff and squashes rich kids."

"That's your only regret?" Esmé asked in disbelief.

"What about your tattoos?" The hook-handed man questioned. "Everyone regrets their tattoos."

"We regret ours," The white-faced women spoke in unison.

"Not me," The bald man shook his head and held out his fist to show that he had gotten 'ESME' tattooed across his knuckles.

"I don't think we can be sure that Violet and Klaus are dead," The henchperson of the indeterminate gender said.

"Exactly. We've outsmarted you and gotten ourselves out of a number of dangerous situations. I'm sure Violet and Klaus escaped and are already on their way to find Sunny and me," Natalia said in a confident tone, although she wasn't too sure about Violet and Klaus being alive.