Free A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Slippery Slope by Lemony Snicket Page B

who had arrived. Having an aura of menace is like having a pet weasel, because you rarely meet someone who has one, and when you do it makes you want to hide under the coffee table. An aura of menace is simply a distinct feeling of evil that accompanies the arrival of certain people, and very few individuals are evil enough to produce an aura of menace that is very strong. Count Olaf, for example, had an aura of menace that the three Baudelaires had felt the moment they met him, but a number of other people never seemed to sense that a villain was in their midst, even when Olaf was standing right next to them with an evil gleam in his eye. But when two visitors arrived at the highest peak of the Mortmain Mountains, their aura of menace was unmistakable. Sunny gasped when she saw them. Esme Squalor shuddered in her snowsuit. The members of Olaf's troupe, all except the hook-handed man, who was busy fishing for salmon and so was lucky enough to miss the visitors' arrival, gazed down at the snowy ground rather than take a further look at them. Count Olaf himself looked a bit nervous as the man, the woman, and their aura of menace drew closer and closer. And even I, after all this time, can feel their aura of menace so strongly, just by writing about these two people, that I dare not say their names, and will instead refer to them the way everyone who dares refer to them refers to them, as "the man with a beard, but no hair" and "the woman with hair, but no beard." "It's good to see you, Olaf," continued the deep voice, and Sunny realized that the voice belonged to the sinister-looking woman. She was dressed in a suit made of a strange blue fabric that was very shiny, decorated with two large pads, one on each shoulder. She was dragging a wooden toboggan, a word which here means "a sled big enough to hold several people," which made an eerie scraping sound against the cold ground. "I was worried that the authorities might have captured you." "You look well," said the man with a beard but no hair. He was dressed identically to the woman with hair but no beard, but his voice was very hoarse, as if he had been screaming for hours and could hardly talk. "It's been a long time since we've laid eyes on one another." The man gave Olaf a grin that made it seem even colder on the mountain peak, and then stopped and helped the woman lean the toboggan against the rock where Sunny had served breakfast. The youngest Baudelaire saw that the toboggan was painted with the familiar eye insignia, and had a few long leather straps, presumably used for steering. Count Olaf coughed lightly into his hand, which is something people often do when they cannot think of what to say. "Hello," he said, a bit nervously. "Did I hear you say something about a fire?" The man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard looked at one another and shared a laugh that made Sunny cover her ears with her hands. "Haven't you noticed," the woman said, "that there are no snow gnats around?" "We had noticed that," Esme said. "I thought maybe snow gnats were no longer in." "Don't be ridiculous, Esme," said the man with a beard but no hair. He reached out and kissed Esme's hand, which Sunny could see was trembling. "The gnats aren't around because they can smell the smoke." "I don't smell anything," said Hugo. "Well, if you were a tiny insect, you'd smell something," replied the woman with hair but no beard. "If you were a snow gnat, you'd smell the smoke from the V.F.D. headquarters." "We did you a favor, Olaf," the man said. "We burned the entire place down." "No!" Sunny cried, before she could stop herself. By "No!" she meant "I certainly hope that isn't true, because my siblings and I hoped to reach V.F.D. headquarters, solve the mysteries that surround us, and perhaps find one of our parents," but she had not planned to say it out loud. The two visitors looked down at the youngest Baudelaire, casting their aura of menace in her