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Chapter One
Sometime during your life - in
fact, very soon - you may find yourself
reading a book, and you may notice that a
book's first sentence can often tell you
what sort of story your book contains. For
instance, a book that began with the
sentence "Once upon a time there was a
family of cunning little chipmunks who
lived in a hollow tree" would probably
contain a story full of talking animals
who get into all sorts of mischief. A book
that began with the sentence "Emily sat
down and looked at the stack of blueberry
pancakes her mother had prepared for her,
but she was too nervous about Camp
Timbertops to eat a bite" would probably
contain a story full of giggly girls who
have a grand old time. And a book that
began with the sentence "Gary smelled the
leather of his brand-new catcher's mitt
and waited impatiently for his best friend
Larry to come around the corner" would
probably contain a story full of sweaty
boys who win some sort of trophy. And if
you liked mischief, a grand old time, or
trophies, you would know which book to
read, and you could throw the rest of them
away.
But this book begins with the sentence
"The Baudelaire orphans looked out the
grimy window of the train and gazed at the
gloomy blackness of the Finite Forest,
wondering if their lives would ever get
any better," and you should be able to
tell that the story that follows will be
very different from the story of Gary or
Emily or the family of cunning little
chipmunks. And this is for the simple
reason that the lives of Violet, Klaus,
and Sunny Baudelaire are very different
from most people's lives, with the main
difference being the amount of
unhappiness, horror, and despair. The
three children have no time to get into
all sorts of mischief, because misery
follows them wherever they go. They have
not had a grand old time since their
parents died in a terrible fire. And the
only trophy they would win would be some
sort of First Prize for Wretchedness. It
is atrociously unfair, of course, that the
Baudelaires have so many troubles, but
that is the way the story goes. So now
that I've told you that the first sentence
will be "The Baudelaire orphans looked out
the grimy window of the train and gazed at
the gloomy blackness of the Finite Forest,
wondering if their lives would ever get
any better," if you wish to avoid an
unpleasant story you had best put this
book down.
The Baudelaire orphans looked out the
grimy window of the train and gazed at the
gloomy blackness of the Finite Forest,
wondering if their lives would ever get
any better. An announcement over a crackly
loudspeaker had just told them that in a
few minutes they would arrive in the town
of Paltryville, where their new caretaker
lived, and they couldn't help wondering
who in the world would want to live in
such dark and eerie countryside. Violet,
who was fourteen and the eldest
Baudelaire, looked out at the trees of the
forest, which were very tall and had
practically no branches, so they looked
almost like metal pipes instead of trees.
Violet was an inventor, and was always
designing machines and devices in her
head, with her hair tied up in a ribbon to
help her think, and as she gazed out at
the trees she began work on a mechanism
that would allow you to climb to the top
of any tree, even if it were completely
bare. Klaus, who was twelve, looked down
at the forest floor, which was covered in
brown, patchy moss. Klaus liked to read
more than anything else, and he tried to
remember what he had read about
Paltryville mosses and whether any of them
were edible. And Sunny, who was just an
infant, looked out at the smoky gray sky
that hung over the forest like a damp
sweater. Sunny had four sharp teeth, and
biting things with them was what
interested her most, and she was eager to
see what there was available to bite in
the area. But even as Violet began
planning her invention, and Klaus thought
of his moss research, and Sunny opened and
closed her mouth as a prebiting exercise,
the Finite Forest looked so uninspiring
that they couldn't help wondering if their
new home would really be a pleasant
one.
"What a lovely forest!" Mr. Poe
remarked, and coughed into a white
handkerchief. Mr. Poe was a banker who had
been in charge of managing the Baudelaire
affairs since the fire, and I must tell
you that he was not doing a very good job.
His two main duties were finding the
orphans a good home and protecting the
enormous fortune that the children's
parents had left behind, and so far each
home had been a catastrophe, a word which
here means "an utter disaster involving
tragedy, deception, and Count Olaf." Count
Olaf was a terrible man who wanted the
Baudelaire fortune for himself, and tried
every disgusting scheme he could think of
to steal it. Time after time he had come
very close to succeeding, and time after
time the Baudelaire orphans had revealed
his plan, and time after time he had
escaped�and all Mr. Poe had ever done was
cough. Now he was accompanying the
children to Paltryville, and it pains me
to tell you that once again Count Olaf
would appear with yet another disgusting
scheme, and that Mr. Poe would once again
fail to do anything even remotely helpful.
"What a lovely forest!" Mr. Poe said
again, when he was done coughing. "I think
you children will have a good home here. I
hope you do, anyway, because I've just
received a promotion at Mulctuary Money
Management. I'm now the Vice President in
Charge of Coins, and from now on I will be
busier than ever. If anything goes wrong
with you here, I will have to send you to
boarding school until I have time to find
you another home, so please be on your
best behavior."
"Of course, Mr. Poe," Violet said, not
adding that she and her siblings had
always been on their best behavior but
that it hadn't done them any good.
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