CHAPTER

Two

As the Baudelaire orphans stood outside Vice Principal Nero’s door, they were reminded of something their father said to them just a few months before he died. One evening, the Baudelaire parents had gone out to hear an orchestra play, and the three children had stayed by themselves in the family mansion. The Baudelaires had something of a routine on nights like this. First, Violet and Klaus would play a few games of checkers while Sunny ripped up some old newspapers, and then the three children would read in the library until they fell asleep on comfortable sofas. When their parents came home they would wake up the sleeping children, talk to them a little about the evening, and send them off to bed. But on this particular night, the Baudelaire parents came home early and the children were still up reading—or, in Sunny’s case, looking at the pictures. The siblings’ father stood in the doorway of the library and said something they never forgot. “Children,” he said, “there is no worse sound in the world than somebody who cannot play the violin who insists on doing so anyway.”

At the time, the Baudelaires had merely giggled, but as they listened outside the vice principal’s door, they realized that their father had been absolutely right. When they first approached the heavy wooden door, it sounded like a small animal was having a temper tantrum. But as they listened more closely, the children realized it was somebody who cannot play the violin insisting on doing so anyway. The sounds shrieked and hissed and scratched and moaned and made other horrible sounds that are really impossible to describe, and finally Violet could take it no longer and knocked on the door. She had to knock very hard and at length, in order to be heard over the atrocious violin recital going on inside, but at last the wooden door opened with a creak and there stood a tall man with a violin under his chin and an angry glare in his eyes.

“Who dares interrupt a genius when he is rehearsing?” he asked, in a voice so loud and booming that it was enough to make anyone shy all over again.

“The Baudelaires,” Klaus said quietly, looking at the floor. “Mr. Poe said to come right to Vice Principal Nero’s office.”

“Mr. Poe said to come right to Vice Principal Nero’s office,” the man mimicked in a high, shrieky voice. “Well, come in, come in, I don’t have all afternoon.”

The children stepped into the office and got a better look at the man who had mocked them. He was dressed in a rumpled brown suit that had something sticky on its jacket, and he was wearing a tie decorated with pictures of snails. His nose was very small and very red, as if somebody had stuck a cherry tomato in the middle of his splotchy face. He was almost completely bald, but he had four tufts of hair, which he had tied into little pigtails with some old rubber bands. The Baudelaires had never seen anybody who looked like him before and they weren’t particularly interested in looking at him any further, but his office was so small and bare that it was difficult to look at anything else. There was a small metal desk with a small metal chair behind it and a small metal lamp to one side. The office had one window, decorated with curtains that matched the man’s tie. The only other object in the room was a shiny computer, which sat in a corner of the room like a toad. The computer had a blank gray screen and several buttons as red as the pigtailed man’s nose.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the man announced in a loud voice, “Vice Principal Nero!”

There was a pause, and the three children looked all around the tiny room, wondering where Nero had been hiding all this time. Then they looked back at the man with the pigtails, who was holding both hands up in the air, his violin and bow almost touching the ceiling, and they realized that the man he had just introduced so grandly was himself. Nero paused for a moment and looked down at the Baudelaires.

“It is traditional,” he said sternly, “to applaud when a genius has been introduced.”

Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course. Piracy, for example, is a tradition that has been carried on for hundreds of years, but that doesn’t mean we should all attack ships and steal their gold. But Vice Principal Nero looked so ferocious that the children felt this was a time to honor tradition, so they began clapping their hands and didn’t stop until Nero took several bows and sat down in his chair.

“Thank you very much, and welcome to Prufrock Preparatory School, blah blah blah,” he said, using the word “blah” to mean that he was too bored to finish his sentence properly. “I’m certainly doing Mr. Poe a favor in taking on three orphans at such short notice. He assured me that you won’t cause any trouble, but I did a little research of my own. You’ve been sent to legal guardian after legal guardian, and adversity has always followed. ‘Adversity’ means ‘trouble,’ by the way.”

“In our case,” Klaus said, not pointing out that he already knew what the word “adversity” meant, “‘adversity’ means Count Olaf. He was the cause of all the trouble with our guardians.”

“He was the cause of all the trouble with our guardians,” Nero said in his nasty, mimicking way. “I’m not interested in your problems, quite frankly. I am a genius and have no time for anything other than playing the violin. It’s depressing enough that I had to take this job as vice principal because not a single orchestra appreciates my genius. I’m not going to depress myself further by listening to the problems of three bratty children. Anyway, here at Prufrock Prep there’ll be no blaming your own weaknesses on this Count Olaf person. Look at this.”

Vice Principal Nero walked over to the computer and pressed two buttons over and over again. The screen lit up with a light green glow, as if it were seasick. “This is an advanced computer,” Nero said. “Mr. Poe gave me all the necessary information about the man you call Count Olaf, and I programmed it into the computer. See?” Nero pressed another button, and a small picture of Count Olaf appeared on the computer screen. “Now that the advanced computer knows about him, you don’t have to worry.”

“But how can a computer keep Count Olaf away?” Klaus asked. “He could still show up and cause trouble, no matter what appears on a computer screen.”

“I shouldn’t have bothered trying to explain this to you,” Vice Principal Nero said. “There’s no way uneducated people like yourself can understand a genius like me. Well, Prufrock Prep will take care of that. You’ll get an education here if we have to break both your arms to do it. Speaking of which, I’d better show you around. Come here to the window.”

The Baudelaire orphans walked to the window and looked down at the brown lawn. From the ninth floor, all the children running around looked like tiny ants, and the sidewalk looked like a ribbon somebody had thrown away. Nero stood behind the siblings and pointed at things with his violin.

“Now, this building you’re in is the administrative building. It is completely off-limits to students. Today is your first day, so I’ll forgive you, but if I see you here again, you will not be allowed to use silverware at any of your meals. That gray building over there contains the classrooms. Violet, you will be studying with Mr. Remora in Room One, and Klaus, you will be studying with Mrs. Bass in Room Two. Can you remember that, Room One and Room Two? If you don’t think you can remember, I have a felt-tipped marker, and I will write ‘Room One’ and ‘Room Two’ on your hands in permanent ink.”

“We can remember,” Violet said quickly. “But which classroom is Sunny’s?”

Vice Principal Nero drew himself up to his full height, which in his case was five feet, ten inches. “Prufrock Preparatory School is a serious academy, not a nursery school. I told Mr. Poe that we would have room for the baby here, but we do not have a classroom for her. Sunny will be employed as my secretary.”

“Aregg?” Sunny asked incredulously. “Incredulously” is a word which here means “not being able to believe it,” and “Aregg” is a word which here means “What? I can’t believe it.”

“But Sunny’s a baby,” Klaus said. “Babies aren’t supposed to have jobs.”

“Babies aren’t supposed to have jobs,” Nero mimicked again, and then continued. “Well, babies aren’t supposed to be at boarding schools, either,” Nero pointed out. “Nobody can teach a baby anything, so she’ll work for me. All she has to do is answer the phone and take care of paperwork. It’s not very difficult, and it’s an honor to work for a genius, of course. Now, if either of you are late for class, or Sunny is late for work, your hands will be tied behind your back during meals. You’ll have to lean down and eat your food like a dog. Of course, Sunny will always have her silverware taken away, because she will work in the administrative building, where she’s not allowed.”

“That’s not fair!” Violet cried.

“That’s not fair!” the vice principal squealed back at her. “The stone building over there contains the cafeteria. Meals are served promptly at breakfast time, lunchtime, and dinnertime. If you’re late we take away your cups and glasses, and your beverages will be served to you in large puddles. That rectangular building over there, with the rounded top, is the auditorium. Every night I give a violin recital for six hours, and attendance is mandatory. The word ‘mandatory’ means that if you don’t show up, you have to buy me a large bag of candy and watch me eat it. The lawn serves as our sports facility. Our regular gym teacher, Miss Tench, accidentally fell out of a third-story window a few days ago, but we have a replacement, who should arrive shortly. In the meantime, I’ve instructed the children just to run around as fast as they can during gym time. I think that just about covers everything. Are there any questions?”

“Could anything be worse than this?” was the question Sunny had, but she was too well mannered to ask this. “Are you kidding about all these incredibly cruel punishments and rules?” was the question Klaus thought of, but he already knew that the answer was no. Only Violet thought of a question that seemed useful to ask.

“I have a question, Vice Principal Nero,” she said. “Where do we live?”

Nero’s response was so predictable that the Baudelaire orphans could have said it along with this miserable administrator. “Where do we live?” he said in his high, mocking tone, but when he was done making fun of the children he decided to answer it. “We have a magnificent dormitory here at Prufrock Prep,” he said. “You can’t miss it. It’s a gray building, entirely made of stone and shaped like a big toe. Inside is a huge living room with a brick fireplace, a game room, and a large lending library. Every student has his or her own room, with a bowl of fresh fruit placed there every Wednesday. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“Yes, it does,” Klaus admitted.

“Keeb!” Sunny shrieked, which meant something along the lines of “I like fruit!”

“I’m glad you think so,” Nero said, “although you won’t get to see much of the place. In order to live in the dormitory, you must have a permission slip with the signature of a parent or guardian. Your parents are dead, and Mr. Poe tells me that your guardians have either been killed or have fired you.”

“But surely Mr. Poe can sign our permission slip,” Violet said.

“He surely can not,” Nero replied. “He is neither your parent nor your guardian. He is a banker who is in charge of your affairs.”

“But that’s more or less the same thing,” Klaus protested.

“That’s more or less the same thing,” Nero mimicked. “Perhaps after a few semesters at Prufrock Prep, you’ll learn the difference between a parent and a banker. No, I’m afraid you’ll have to live in a small shack, made entirely of tin. Inside there is no living room, no game room, and no lending library whatsoever. You three will each have your own bale of hay to sleep on, but no fruit. It’s a dismal place, but Mr. Poe tells me that you’ve had a number of uncomfortable experiences, so I figured you’d be used to such things.”

“Couldn’t you please make an exception?” Violet asked.

“I’m a violinist!” Nero cried. “I have no time to make exceptions! I’m too busy practicing the violin. So if you will kindly leave my office, I can get back to work.”

Klaus opened his mouth to say something more, but when he looked at Nero, he knew that there was no use saying another word to such a stubborn man, and he glumly followed his sisters out of the vice principal’s office. When the office door shut behind them, however, Vice Principal Nero said another word, and he said it three times. The three children listened to these three words that he said and knew for certain that he had not been sorry at all. For as soon as the Baudelaires left the office and Nero thought he was alone, he said to himself, “Hee hee hee.”

Now, the vice principal of Prufrock Preparatory School did not actually say the syllables “hee hee hee,” of course. Whenever you see the words “hee hee hee” in a book, or “ha ha ha,” or “har har har,” or “heh heh heh,” or even “ho ho ho,” those words mean somebody was laughing. In this case, however, the words “hee hee hee” cannot really describe what Vice Principal Nero’s laugh sounded like. The laugh was squeaky, and it was wheezy, and it had a rough, crackly edge to it, as if Nero were eating tin cans as he laughed at the children. But most of all, the laugh sounded cruel. It is always cruel to laugh at people, of course, although sometimes if they are wearing an ugly hat it is hard to control yourself. But the Baudelaires were not wearing ugly hats. They were young children receiving bad news, and if Vice Principal Nero really had to laugh at them, he should have been able to control himself until the siblings were out of earshot. But Nero didn’t care about controlling himself, and as the Baudelaire orphans listened to the laugh, they realized that what their father had said to them that night when he’d come home from the symphony was wrong. There was a worse sound in the world than somebody who cannot play the violin insisting on doing so anyway. The sound of an administrator laughing a squeaky, wheezy, rough, crackly, cruel laugh at children who have to live in a shack was much, much worse. So as I hide out here in this mountain cabin and write the words “hee hee hee,” and you, wherever you are hiding out, read the words “hee hee hee,” you should know that “hee hee hee” stands for the worst sound the Baudelaires had ever heard.