Free The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events) by Lemony Snicket Page A

will go fetch our facilitator."
    "And some more coconut cordial," said Madame Nordoff. "I'm thirsty and my seashell is almost empty."
    There was a murmur of agreement from the islanders, and they began to make their way back toward the island, still carrying all of the items they had found while scavenging. In a few minutes, the colonists were nothing more than faint shapes on the misty horizon, and the Baudelaires were alone with Count Olaf and with Friday, who took a big sip from her seashell and then smiled at the children.
    "Don't worry, Baudelaires," the girl said, holding one hand over the bulge in her robe.
    "We'll sort this out. I promise you that this terrible man will be abandoned once and for all."
    "I'm not a man," Olaf insisted in his disguised voice. "I'm a lady with a baby inside her."
    "Pellucid theatrics," Sunny said.
    "My sister's right," Violet said. "Your disguise isn't working."
    "Oh, I don't think you'd want me to stop pretending," the villain said. He was still talking in his ridiculous high-pitched voice, but his eyes shone brightly from behind his seaweed bangs. He reached behind him and revealed the harpoon gun, with its bright red trigger and one last harpoon ready to be fired. "If I were to say that I was Count Olaf, instead of Kit Snicket, I might begin behaving like a villain, rather than a noble person."
    "You've never behaved like a noble person," Klaus said, "no matter what name you've been using. And that weapon doesn't scare us. You only have one harpoon, and this island is full of people who know how wicked and unkind you are."
    "Klaus is right," Friday said. "You might as well put your weapon down. It's useless in a place like this."
    Count Olaf looked first at Friday, and then at the three Baudelaires, and he opened his mouth as if to say another treacherous thing in his disguised voice. But then he shut his mouth again, and glared down at the puddles of the coastal shelf. "I'm tired of wandering around here," he muttered. "There's nothing to eat but seaweed and raw fish, and everything valuable has been taken by all those fools in robes."
    "If you didn't behave so horridly," Friday said, "you could live on the island."
    The Baudelaires looked at one another nervously. Although it seemed a bit cruel to abandon Olaf on the shelf, they did not like the idea that he might be welcomed into the colony. Friday, of course, did not know the whole story of Count Olaf, and had only experienced his unkindness once, on the day she first encountered him, but the Baudelaires could not tell Friday the whole story of Olaf without telling the whole story of themselves, and they did not know what Friday would think of their own unkindnesses and treachery.
    Count Olaf looked at Friday as if thinking something over. Then, with a suspicious smile, he turned to the Baudelaires and held out the harpoon gun. "I suppose you're right," he said.
    "The harpoon gun is useless in a place like this." He was still talking in his disguised voice, and his hand caressed his false pregnancy as if there were actually a baby growing inside him.
    The Baudelaires looked at Olaf and then at the weapon. The last time the children had touched the harpoon gun, the penultimate harpoon had fired and a noble man by the name of Dewey had been killed. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny would never forget the sight of Dewey sinking into the waters of the pond as he died, and looking at the villain offering them the weapon only reminded them of how dangerous and terrible the weapon was.
    "We don't want that," Violet said.
    "Obviously this is some trick of yours," Klaus said.
    "It's no trick," Olaf said in his high-pitched voice. "I'm giving up my villainous ways, and I want to live with you on the island. I'm sorry to hear that you don't believe me."
    His face was very serious, as if he were very sorry to hear that, but his eyes were shiny and bright, the way they are when someone is telling a joke. "Fibber," Sunny said.
    "You insult me, madam,"