The Miserable Mill

"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, Su

"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!" Su

"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 Su

"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!" Su

"Oh yes we can!" Dr. Orwell said, and reached down to grab the youngest Baudelaire. But Su

"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 a

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. Su

"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 a

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 Su