A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Hostile Hospital Read Online Free PDF Page A

the van and onto the lawn in front of the prettier half of the hospital. The members of V.F.D. were stretching their arms and legs after the long drive, and helping the bearded man remove a big bunch of heart-shaped balloons from the back of the van, but the children merely stood around anxiously and tried to figure out what to do next. "Where should we go?" Violet asked. "If we walk around the hallways of the hospital singing to people, someone will recognize us." "That's true," Klaus said. "The doctors, nurses, administrators, and patients can't all believe that no news is good news. I'm sure some of them have read this morning's Daily Punctilio. " "Aronec," Sunny said, which meant "And we're not getting any closer to learning anything about V.F.D., or Jacques Snicket." "That's true," Violet agreed. "Maybe we need to find a Library of Records, like the bearded man said." "But where can we find one?" Klaus asked. "We're in the middle of nowhere." "No walk!" Sunny said. "I don't want to start all that walking again either," Violet said, "but I don't see what else we can do." "O.K., volunteers!" the bearded man said. He took his guitar out of the van and began playing some cheerful and familiar chords. "Everyone take a heart-shaped balloon and start singing! "We are Volunteers Fighting Disease, And we 're cheerful all day long, If someone said that we were sad, That person would be--" "Attention!" interrupted a voice that seemed to come from the sky. The voice was female but very scratchy and faint, as if the voice were that of a woman talking with a piece of aluminum foil over her mouth. "Your attention please!" "Shh, everybody!" the bearded man said, stopping the song. "That's Babs, the Head of Human Resources at the hospital. She must have an important announcement." "Attention!" the voice said. "This is Babs Head of Human Resources. I have an important announcement." "Where is she?" Klaus asked him, worried that she might recognize the three accused murderers hiding in V.F.D. "In the hospital someplace," the bearded man replied. "She prefers communicating over the intercom." The word "intercom" here refers to someone talking into a microphone someplace and having their voice come out of speakers someplace else, and sure enough the children noticed a small row of square speakers placed on the finished half of the building, just above the doctor portraits. "Attention!" the voice said again, and it became even scratchier and fainter, as if the woman with the piece of aluminum foil over her mouth had fallen into a swimming pool filled with fizzy soda. This is not a pleasant way to hear someone talk, and yet as soon as Babs made her announcement, the savage breasts of the Baudelaire orphans were instantly soothed, as if the scratchy and faint voice were a calming piece of music. But the Baudelaires did not feel better because of the way Babs's voice sounded. The announcement soothed the children's savage breasts because of what it said. "I need three members of the Volunteers Fighting Disease who are willing to be given a new assignment," said the voice. "Those three volunteers should report immediately to my office, which is the seventeenth door on the left as you enter the finished half of the building. Instead of walking around the hallways of the hospital singing to people, these three volunteers will be working in the Library of Records here at Heimlich Hospital."
    Chapter Four
    Whether you have been sent to see the principal of your school for throwing wet paper towels at the ceiling to see if they stick, or taken to the dentist to plead with him to hollow out one of your teeth so you can smuggle a single page of your latest book past the guards at the airport, it is never a pleasant feeling to stand outside the door of an office, and as the Baudelaire orphans stood at the door reading "Office of the Head of Human Resources" they were reminded of all the unpleasant offices they had recently visited On their very first day