"The Miserable Mill" by Lemony Snicket, Chapters 1–4

For instance, a book that began with the sentence “Once upon a time there was a family of cunning little chipmunks who lived in a hollow tree” would probably contain a story full of talking animals who get into all sorts of mischief.

But this book begins with the sentence “The Baudelaire orphans looked out the grimy window of the train and gazed at the gloomy blackness of the Finite Forest, wondering if their lives would ever get any better,” and you should be able to tell that the story that follows will be very different from the story of Gary or Emily or the family of cunning little chipmunks.

The three children have no time to get into all sorts of mischief, because misery follows them wherever they go. They have not had a grand old time since their parents died in a terrible fire. And the only trophy they would win would be some sort of First Prize for Wretchedness.

It is atrociously unfair, of course, that the Baudelaires have so many troubles, but that is the way the story goes.

Klaus liked to read more than anything else, and he tried to remember what he had read about Paltryville mosses and whether any of them were edible.

But even as Violet began planning her invention, and Klaus thought of his moss research, and Sunny opened and closed her mouth as a prebiting exercise, the Finite Forest looked so uninspiring that they couldn’t help wondering if their new home would really be a pleasant one.

His two main duties were finding the orphans a good home and protecting the enormous fortune that the children’s parents had left behind, and so far each home had been a catastrophe, a word which here means “an utter disaster involving tragedy, deception, and Count Olaf.”

“Here we are,” Mr. Poe said, and before the children knew it they were standing in the station, watching the train pull away into the dark trees of the Finite Forest.

If you are ever planning a vacation, you may find it useful to acquire a guidebook, which is a book listing interesting and pleasant places to visit and giving helpful hints about what to do when you arrive.

Paltryville is not listed in any guidebook, and as the Baudelaire orphans trudged down Paltryville’s one street, they instantly saw why.

The two of them stood there without speaking a word, staring hard at the building at the end of Paltryville’s one street.

Try as they might, they just couldn’t believe it was a coincidence that the town in which they were to live had a building that looked just like the tattoo of Count Olaf.

The owner of Lucky Smells Lumbermill expects you to be both assiduous and diligent.
“What do those words mean, ‘assiduous’ and ‘diligent’?” Violet asked, peering over Klaus’s shoulder.
“‘Assiduous’ and ‘diligent’ both mean the same thing,” said Klaus, who knew lots of impressive words from all the books he had read. “‘Hardworking.’”

The owner of Lucky Smells Lumbermill expects you to be both assiduous and diligent.
“What do those words mean, ‘assiduous’ and ‘diligent’?” Violet asked, peering over Klaus’s shoulder.
“‘Assiduous’ and ‘diligent’ both mean the same thing,” said Klaus, who knew lots of impressive words from all the books he had read. “‘Hardworking.’”

I know because I have been to the Lucky Smells Lumbermill, and learned of all the atrocious things that befell these poor orphans during the brief time they lived there.

And I know because I have written down all the details in order to convey to you, the reader, just how miserable their experience was.

The window drawings somehow made the room even more pathetic, a word which here means “depressing and containing no windows,” and the Baudelaire orphans felt a lump in their throats just looking at it.

“A foreman,” Klaus explained, “is somebody who supervises workers. Is he nice, Phil?”

The children could tell, from Phil’s statement about everything and everybody having a good side, that he was an optimist. “Optimist” is a word which here refers to a person, such as Phil, who thinks hopeful and pleasant thoughts about nearly everything.

For instance, if you wake up to the sound of twittering birds, and find yourself in an enormous canopy bed, with a butler standing next to you holding a breakfast of freshly made muffins and hand-squeezed orange juice on a silver tray, you will know that your day will be a splendid one.

And the Baudelaires certainly did not expect twittering birds or a butler, not after their dismaying arrival.

But never in their most uneasy dreams did they expect the cacophony—a word which here means “the sound of two metal pots being banged together by a nasty foreman standing in the doorway holding no breakfast at all”—that awoke them.

Phil had described the rigors of working in a lumbermill, and it had certainly sounded difficult.

Sunny could scarcely lift her debarker at all, and so used her teeth instead, but Violet and Klaus had teeth of only an average sharpness and so had to struggle with the debarkers.

“What about your wages?” Violet asked. “Surely you can spend some of the money you earn on sandwich ingredients.”

Klaus’s glasses were hanging askew, a phrase which here means “tilted to one side from leaning over logs the entire morning.”

For several moments, the Baudelaires stood and pondered the mysterious way their lives were going, and they were thinking so hard about it that they jumped a little when somebody spoke.

Well, I don’t understand how three people as young as yourselves were put to work in the lumbermill, but please accept my humblest apologies, and let me tell you that it will not happen again.

The library was a large room, and it was filled with elegant wooden bookshelves and comfortable-looking sofas on which to sit and read.

But just as it is difficult to believe that a man who is not a doctor wearing a surgical mask and a white wig will turn out to be a charming person, it was difficult for the children to believe that Advanced Ocular Science was going to cause them anything but trouble. The word “ocular,” you might not know, means “related to the eye,” but even if you didn’t know this you could figure it out from the cover.