Olaf frowned at the orphans, and then looked this way and that as if he expected to see someone hiding behind the snake-shaped hedges. “Who is Count Olaf?” he asked quizzically. “My name is Stephano. I am here to assist Montgomery Montgomery with his upcoming expedition to Peru. I assume you three are midgets who work as servants in the Montgomery home.”

“We are not midgets,” Klaus said sternly.

“We are children. And you are not Stephano.

You are Count Olaf. You may have grown a beard and shaved your eyebrow, but you are still the same despicable person and we will not let you in this house.”

“Futa!” Sunny shrieked, which probably meant something like “I agree!”

Count Olaf looked at each of the

Baudelaire orphans, his eyes shining brightly as if he were telling a joke. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, “but if I did, and I were this Count Olaf you speak of, I would think that you were being very rude. And if I thought you were rude, I might get angry. And if I got angry, who knows what I would do?”

The children watched as Count Olaf raised his scrawny arms in a sort of shrug. It probably isn’t necessary to remind you just how violent he could be, but it certainly wasn’t necessary at all to remind the Baudelaires. Klaus could still feel the bruise on his face from the time Count Olaf had struck him, when they were living in his house. Sunny still ached from being stuffed into a birdcage and dangled from the tower where he made his evil plans.

And while Violet had not been the victim of any physical violence from this terrible man, she had almost been forced to marry him, and that was enough to make her pick up his suitcase and drag it slowly toward the door to the house.

“Higher,” Olaf said. “Lift it higher. I don’t want it dragged along the ground like that.”

Klaus and Sunny hurried to help Violet with the suitcase, but even with the three of them carrying it the weight made them stag-ger. It was misery enough that Count Olaf had reappeared in their lives, just when they were feeling so comfortable and safe with Uncle Monty. But to actually be helping this awful person enter their home was almost more than they could bear. Olaf followed closely behind them and the three children could smell his stale breath as they brought the suitcase indoors and set it on the carpet beneath the painting of the entwined snakes.

“Thank you, orphans,” Olaf said, shutting the front door behind him. “Now, Dr. Montgomery said my room would be waiting upstairs. I suppose I can carry my luggage from here. Now run along. We’ll have lots of time to get to know one another later.”

“We already know you, Count Olaf,” Violet said. “You obviously haven’t changed a bit.”