"Who Could That Be at This Hour?" (All the Wrong Questions) by Lemony Snicket Read Free Book Online

send requests for books from the library close to where you live.”
    “You mean, my library in the city can send books here that I can check out?”
    “No,” Qwerty said, “but you could fill out the paperwork here, and the book would be waiting for you in the city.”
    “I don’t know when I’ll be back there,” I said. The city, and the people I liked best in it, seemed even farther away than they were.
    Qwerty reached into a pocket of his jacketand pulled out a blank card. “You see, how it works is that you write down your name and the title of the book, and the person working at the research desk sees what book you are requesting.”
    I thought quickly. “So the person at the research desk sees the title of the book I want?”
    “Yes.”
    “Or their apprentice?”
    “I suppose so,” Qwerty said. “Have you changed your mind?”
    “Yes,” I said. “I’d like to request a book from the Fourier Branch.”
    “The Fourier Branch?” Qwerty repeated, taking a pencil from behind his ear. “Isn’t that near where they’re building that new statue?”
    “I’m not sure,” I said, perfectly sure.
    “And what is your name?” he asked me.
    I told him, and told him it was spelled like it sounded. He wrote it down in careful block letters and then paused with his pencil in the air.
    “And the author of the book you’re looking for?”
    I was blank for a moment. “Sorry,” I said.
    “Sorry is the author’s name?”
    “Yes,” I stammered. “I believe she’s Belgian.”
    “Belgian,” he said, and looked at me and wrote it down and looked at me again. “And the title of the book?” he said, and it was a perfectly reasonable question. I hoped my answer sounded reasonable, too.
    “ But I Cannot Meet You at the Fountain .”
    Qwerty looked at me, his face as blank as one of those extra pages tucked in the back of a book for notes or secrets. “So your complete request,” he said, “is ‘Sorry, But I Cannot Meet You at the Fountain .’”
    “That’s right,” and Qwerty looked at me just for a second before slowly writing it down.



CHAPTER FIVE
    I walked back to the Lost Arms feeling much lighter than I had all day. The library had been restorative, a word an associate of mine used to describe activities that clear the brain and make the heart happy. A root beer float is restorative, as is managing to open a locked door. Hopefully, I thought, this associate of mine would soon receive my request at the Fourier Branch of the library and save herself some trouble.
    It was trouble that was waiting for me atthe Lost Arms, and one could spot it half a block away, as there was a car parked out front with a red light on top. It looked like a police car, but when I got closer, I saw it was a run-down station wagon with a flashlight taped to its roof. Nevertheless, there were two adults in uniform standing at the steps of the Lost Arms, where Theodora was sitting. She had to look up to speak to them, and her eyes looked serious and worried beneath her hair. As part of my education, I’d learned that one should never have a serious conversation in a position in which one has to look up at the other person. I’d thought this was a ridiculous thing to teach children, who tend to be shorter than anyone else, and said so. As punishment for speaking out in class, I had to sit in the corner. The teacher looked even taller from there.
    “Snicket,” Theodora said as I reached our hotel. “These are the Officers Mitchum.”
    The two officers turned to look at me, andI found myself facing a man and a woman who looked so much alike they could only be twins or two people who had been married for a very long time. They both had pear-shaped bodies, with short, thick legs and grumpy-looking arms, and it looked like they had both tried on heads that were too small for them and were about to ask the head clerk for a larger size.
    “My wife and I have questions for you,” said the first Officer Mitchum, rather