A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Miserable Mill by Lemony Snicket Page B

asked, frowning. "Why, look! I'm not wearing any shoes!" "Well, I certainly remember what happened!" Foreman Flacutono shouted, pointing at Klaus. "You smashed our machine! I will tell Sir about this right away! You've put a complete halt to the stamping process! Nobody will earn a single coupon today!" "That's not fair!" Violet said. "It was an accident. And Klaus never should have been put in charge of that machine! He didn't know how to use it!" "Well, he'd better learn," Foreman Flacu-tono said. "Now pick up my pots, Klaus!" Klaus went over to pick up the pots, but halfway there Foreman Flacutono stuck his foot out, playing the same trick he had played the previous day, and I'm sorry to tell you that it worked just as well. Again, Klaus fell right to the ground of the lumbermill, and again, his glasses fell off his face and skittered over to the bundle of boards, and worst of all, once again they became all twisted and cracked and hopelessly broken, like my friend Tatiana's sculptures. "My glasses!" Klaus cried. "My glasses are broken again!" Violet got a funny feeling in her stomach, all quivery and slithery as if she had eaten snakes, rather than gum, during the lunch break. "Are you sure?" she asked Klaus. "Are you sure you can't wear them?" "I'm sure," Klaus said miserably, holding them up for Violet to see. "Well, well, well," Foreman Flacutono said. "How careless of you. I guess you're due for another appointment with Dr. Orwell." "We don't want to bother him," Violet said quickly. "If you give me some basic supplies, I'm sure I can build some glasses myself." "No, no," the foreman said, his surgical mask curling into a frown. "You'd better leave optometry to the experts. Say good-bye to your brother." "Oh, no," Violet said, desperately. She thought again of the promise she made to her parents. "We'll take him! Sunny and I will bring him to Dr. Orwell." "Derix!" Sunny shrieked, which clearly meant something along the lines of "If we can't prevent him from going to Dr. Orwell, at least we can go with him!" "Well, all right," said Foreman Flacutono, and his beady little eyes grew even darker than usual. "That's a good idea, come to think of it. Why don't all three of you go see Dr. Orwell?"
    Chapter Eight
    The Baudelaire orphans stood outside the gates of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill and looked at an ambulance rushing past them as it took Phil to the hospital. They looked at the chewed-up gum letters of the lumbermill sign. And they looked down at the cracked pavement of Paltry-ville's street. In short, they looked everywhere but at the eye-shaped building. "We don't have to go," Violet said. "We could run away. We could hide until the next train arrived, and take it as far as possible. We know how to work in a lumbermill now, so we could get jobs in some other town." "But what if he found us?" Klaus said, squinting at his sister. "Who would protect us from Count Olaf, if we were all by ourselves?" "We could protect ourselves," Violet replied. "How can we protect ourselves," Klaus asked, "when one of us is a baby and another one can barely see?" "We've protected ourselves before," Violet said. "Just barely," Klaus replied. "We've just barely escaped from Count Olaf each time. We can't run away and try to get along by ourselves, without glasses. We have to go see Dr. Orwell and hope for the best." Sunny gave a little shriek of fear. Violet, of course, was too old to shriek except in emergency situations, but she was not too old to be frightened. "We don't know what will happen to us inside there," she said, looking at the black door in the eye's pupil. "Think, Klaus. Try to think. What happened to you when you went inside?" "I don't know," Klaus said miserably. "I remember trying to tell Charles not to take me to the eye doctor, but he kept telling me that doctors were my friends, and not to be frightened." "Ha!" Sunny shrieked, which meant "Ha!" "And then what do you remember?" Violet asked. Klaus closed his eyes in