The Austere Academy - Snicket Lemony. Страница 22

CHAPTER Thirteen

"Where are they?" Violet cried as Coach Genghis stepped into the shack. "What have you done with them?" Normally, of course, one should begin conversations with something more along the lines of "Hello, how are you," but the eldest Baudelaire was far too distressed to do so.

Genghis's eyes were shining as brightly as could be, but his voice was calm and pleasant. "Here they are," he said, holding up the ribbon and glasses. "I thought you might be worried about them, so I brought them over first thing

"We don't mean these them!" Klaus said, taking the items from Genghis's scraggly hands. "We mean them them!"

"I'm afraid I don't understand all those thems," Coach Genghis said, shrugging at the adults. "The orphans ran laps last night as part of my S.O.R.E. program, but they had to dash off in the morning to take their exams. In their hurry, Violet dropped her ribbon and Klaus dropped his glasses. But the baby-"

"You know very well that's not what happened," Violet interrupted. "Where are the Quagmire triplets? What have you done with our friends?"

"What have you done with our friends?" Vice Principal Nero said in his mocking tone. "Stop talking nonsense, orphans."

"I'm afraid it's not nonsense," Genghis said, shaking his turbaned head and continuing his story. "As I was saying before the little girl interrupted me, the baby didn't dash off with the other orphans. She just sat there like a sack of flour. So I walked over to her and gave her a kick to get her moving."

"Excellent idea!" Nero said. "What a wonderful story this is! And then what happened?"

"Well, at first it seemed like I'd kicked a big hole in the baby," Genghis said, his eyes shining, "which seemed lucky, because Sunny was a terrible athlete and it would have been a blessing to put her out of her misery."

Nero clapped his hands. "I know just what you mean, Genghis," he said. "She's a terrible secretary as well."

"But she did all that stapling," Mr. Remora protested.

"Shut up and let the coach finish his story," Nero said.

"But when I looked down," Genghis continued, "I saw that I hadn't kicked a hole in a baby. I'd kicked a hole in a bag of flour! I'd been tricked!"

"That's terrible!" Nero cried.

"So I ran after Violet and Klaus," Genghis continued, "and I found that they weren't Violet and Klaus after all, but those two other orphans- the twins."

"They're not twins!" Violet cried. "They're triplets!"

"They're triplets!" Nero mocked. "Don't be an idiot. Triplets are when four babies are born at the same time, and there are only two Quagmires."

"And these two Quagmires were pretending to be the Baudelaires, in order to give the Baudelaires extra time to study."

"Extra time to study?" Nero said, grinning in delight. "Hee hee hee! Why, that's cheating!"

"That's not cheating!" Mrs. Bass said.

"Skipping gym class to study is cheating," Nero insisted.

"No, it's just good time management," Mr. Remora argued. "There's nothing wrong with athletics, but they shouldn't get in the way of your schoolwork."

"Look, I'm the vice principal," the vice principal said. "I say the Baudelaires were cheating, and therefore-hooray!-I can expel them. You two are merely teachers, so if you disagree with me, I can expel you, too."

Mr. Remora looked at Mrs. Bass, and they both shrugged. "You're the boss, Nero," Mr. Remora said finally, taking another banana out of his pocket. "If you say they're expelled, they're expelled."

"Well, I say they're expelled," Nero said. "And Sunny loses her job, too."

"Rantaw!" Sunny shrieked, which meant something along the lines of "I never wanted to work as a secretary, anyway!"

"We don't care about being expelled," Violet said. "We want to know what happened to our friends."

"Well, the Quagmires had to be punished for their part in the cheating," Coach Genghis said, "so I brought them over to the cafeteria and put those two workers in charge of them. They'll be whisking eggs all day long."

"Very sensible," Nero agreed.

"That's all they're doing?" Klaus said suspiciously. "Whisking eggs?"

"That's what I said," Genghis said and leaned so close to the Baudelaires that all they could see were his shiny eyes and the crooked curve of his wicked mouth. "Those two Quagmires will whisk and whisk until they are simply whisked away."

"You're a liar," Violet said.

"Insulting your coach," Nero said, shaking his pigtailed head. "Now you're doubly expelled."

"What's this?" said a voice from the doorway. "Doubly expelled?"

The voice stopped to have a long, wet cough, so the Baudelaires knew without looking that it was Mr. Poe. He was standing at the Orphans Shack holding a large paper sack and looking busy and confused. "What are all of you doing here?" he said. "This doesn't look like a proper place to have a conversation. It's just an old shack."

"What are you doing here?" Nero asked. "We don't allow strangers to wander around Prufrock Preparatory School."

"Poe's the name," Mr. Poe said, shaking Nero's hand. "You must be Nero. We've talked on the phone. I received your telegram about the twenty-eight bags of candy and the ten pairs of earrings with precious stones. My associates at Mulctuary Money Management thought I'd better deliver them in person, so here I am. But what's this about expelled?"

"These orphans you foisted on me," Nero said, using a nasty word for "gave," "have proven to be terrible cheaters, and I'm forced to expel them."

"Cheaters?" Mr. Poe said, frowning at the three siblings. "Violet, Klaus, Sunny, I'm very disappointed in you. You promised me that you'd be excellent students."

"Well, actually, only Violet and Klaus were students," Nero said. "Sunny was an administrative assistant, but she was terrible at it as well."

Mr. Poe's eyes widened in surprise as he paused to cough into his white handkerchief. "An administrative assistant?" he repeated. "Why, Sunny's only a baby. She should be in preschool, not an office environment."

"Well, it doesn't matter now," Nero said. "They're all expelled. Give me that candy."

Klaus looked down at his hands, which were still clutching the Quagmire notebooks. He was afraid that the notebooks might be the only sign of the Quagmires he would ever see again. "We don't have any time to argue about candy!" he cried. "Count Olaf has done something terrible to our friends!"

"Count Olaf?" Mr. Poe said, handing Nero the paper sack. "Don't tell me he's found you here!"

"No, of course not," Nero said. "My advanced computer system has kept him away, of course. But the children have this bizarre notion that Coach Genghis is actually Olaf in disguise."

"Count Olaf," Genghis said slowly. "Yes,

I've heard of him. He's supposed to be the best actor in the whole world. I'm the best gym teacher in the whole world, so we couldn't possibly be the same person."

Mr. Poe looked Coach Genghis up and down, then shook his hand. "A pleasure to meet you," he said, and then turned to the Baudelaires. "Children, I'm surprised at you. Even without an advanced computer system, you should be able to tell that this man isn't Count Olaf. Olaf has only one eyebrow, and this man is wearing a turban. And Olaf has a tattoo of an eye on his ankle, and this man is wearing expensive running shoes. They are quite handsome, by the way."

"Oh, thank you," Coach Genghis said. "Unfortunately, thanks to these children, they have flour all over them, but I'm sure it'll wash off."

"If he removes his turban and his shoes," Violet said impatiently, "you will be able to see that he's Olaf."

"We've been through this before," Nero said. "He can't take off his running shoes because he's been exercising and his feet smell."