A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Ersatz Elevator by Lemony Snicket

plot, spending one of the least somniferous nights of their young lives.
    Chapter Six
    Morning is one of the best times for thinking. When one has just woken up, but hasn't yet gotten out of bed, it is a perfect time to look up at the ceiling, consider one's life, and wonder what the future will hold. The morning I am writing this chapter, I am wondering if the future will hold something that will enable me to saw through these handcuffs and crawl out of the doublelocked window, but in the case of the Baudelaire orphans, when the morning sun shone through the eight hundred and forty-nine windows in the Squalor penthouse, they were wondering if the future would hold knowledge of the trouble they felt closing in around them. Violet watched the first few rays of sunlight brighten her sturdy, tool-free workbench, and tried to imagine what sort of evil plan Gunther had cooked up. Klaus watched the dawn's rays make shifting shapes on the wall that separated his room from the Squalor library, and racked his brain for a way Gunther could have vanished into thin air. And Sunny watched the emerging sun illuminate all of the unbiteable baby toys, and tried to figure out if they had time to discuss the matter together before the Squalors came to wake them up. This last thing was fairly easy to figure out. The littlest Baudelaire crawled out her bedroom door, fetched her brother, and opened Violet's door to find her out of bed and sitting at her wooden workbench with her hair tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. "Tageb," Sunny said. "Good morning," Violet replied. "I thought it might help me think if I tied my hair up, and sat at my workbench, as if I were inventing something. But I haven't figured out a thing." "It's terrible enough that Olaf has shown up again," Klaus said, "and that we have to call him Gunther. But we don't have the faintest clue what he's planning." "Well, he wants to get his hands on our fortune, that's for sure," Violet said. "Klofy," Sunny said, which meant "Of course. But how?" "Maybe it has something to do with the In Auction," Klaus guessed. "Why would he disguise himself as an auctioneer if it weren't part of his plan?" Sunny yawned, and Violet reached down and lifted up her sister so she could sit on her lap. "Do you think he's going to try to auction us off?" Violet asked, as Sunny leaned forward to nibble on the workbench in thought. "He could get one of those terrible assistants of his to bid higher and higher for us until he won, and then we'd be in his clutches, just like the poor Quagmires." "But Esme said it's against the law to auction off children," Klaus pointed out. Sunny stopped chewing on the workbench and looked at her siblings. "Nolano?" she asked, which meant something like "Do you think the Squalors are working together with Gunther?" "I don't think so," Violet said. "They've been very kind to us--well, Jerome has, at least--and anyway, they don't need the Baudelaire fortune. They have so much money already." "But not much common sense," Klaus said unhappily. "Gunther fooled them completely, and all it took were some black boots, a pinstripe suit, and a monocle." "Plus, he fooled them into thinking that he had left," Violet said, "but the doorman was certain that he hadn't." "Gunther's got me fooled, too," Klaus said. "How could he have left without the doorman noticing?" "I don't know," Violet said miserably. "The whole thing is like a jigsaw puzzle, but there are too many missing pieces to solve it." "Did I hear someone say 'jigsaw puzzles'?" Jerome asked. "If you're looking for some jigsaw puzzles, I think there are a few in the cabinet in one of the sitting rooms, or maybe in one of the living rooms, I can't remember which." The Baudelaires looked up and saw their guardian standing in the doorway of Violet's bedroom with a smile on his face and a silver tray in his hands. "Good morning, Jerome," Klaus said. "And thank you, but we're not looking for a jigsaw puzzle. Violet was