The Bad Beginning Read Free Page A

bowl of apple cores which sat on a small wooden table.
         Klaus willed himself not to cry as he looked around.
         “This room looks like it needs a little work,” Mr. Poe said, peering around in the gloom.
         “I realize that my humble home isn't as fancy as the Baudelaire mansion,” Count Olaf said, “but perhaps with a bit of your money we could fix it up a little nicer.”
         Mr. Poe's eyes widened in surprise, and his coughs echoed in the dark room before he spoke. “The Baudelaire fortune,” he said sternly, “will not be used for such matters. In fact, it will not be used at all, until Violet is of age.”
         Count Olaf turned to Mr. Poe with a glint in his eye like an angry dog. For a moment Violet thought he was going to strike Mr. Poe across the face. But then he swallowed— the children could see his Adam's apple bob in his skinny throat—and shrugged his patchy shoulders.
         “All right then,” he said. “It's the same to me. Thank you very much, Mr. Poe, for bringing them here. Children, I will now show you to your room.”
         “Good-bye, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny,” Me. Poe said, stepping back through the frontdoor. “I hope you will be very happy here. I will continue to see you occasionally, and you can always contact me at the bank if you have any questions.”
         “But we don't even know where the bank is,” Klaus said.
         “I have a map of the city,” Count Olaf said. “Good-bye, Mr. Poe.”
         He leaned forward to shut the door, and the Baudelaire orphans were too overcome with despair to get a last glimpse of Mr. Poe. They now wished they could all stay at the Poe household, even though it smelled. Rather than looking at the door, then, the orphans looked down, and saw that although Count Olaf was wearing shoes, he wasn't wearing any socks. They could see, in the space of pale skin between his tattered trouser cuff and his black shoe, that Count Olaf had an image of an eye tattooed on his ankle, matching the eye on his front door. They wondered how many other eyes were in Count Olaf's house, and whether, for the rest of their lives, they would always feel as though Count Olaf were watching them even when he wasn't nearby.
     
     
     
    C H A P T E R
    Three
    I
    
    
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    know if you've ever noticed this, but first impressions are often entirely wrong. You can look at a painting for the first time, for example, and not like it at all, but after looking at it a little longer you may find it very pleasing. The first time you try Gorgonzola cheese you may find it too strong, but when you are older you may want to eat nothing but Gorgonzola cheese. Klaus, when Sunny was born, did not like her at all, but by the time she was six weeks old the two of them were thick as thieves. Your initial opinion on just about anything may change over time.
         I wish I could tell you that the Baudelaires first impressions of Count Olaf and his house were incorrect, as first impressions so often are. But these impressions—that Count Olaf was a horrible person, and his house a depressing pigsty—were absolutely correct. During the first few days after
    
    
    the orphans' arrival at Count Olaf's, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny attempted to make themselves feel at home, but it was really no use. Even though Count Olaf's house was quite large, the three children were placed together in one filthy bedroom that had only one small bed in it. Violet and Klaus took turns sleeping in it, so that every other night one of them was in the bed and the other was sleeping on the hard wooden floor, and the bed's mattress was so lumpy it was difficult to say who was more uncomfortable. To make a bed for Sunny, Violet removed the dusty curtains from the curtain rod that hung over the bedroom's one window and bunched them together to form a sort of cushion, just big enough for her sister. However, without curtains over the cracked glass, the sun streamed