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

toward me.
    “There are burglary clothes in your suitcase,”she hissed. “Why aren’t you wearing them? We don’t want to attract attention.”
    “Perhaps you should have parked someplace else,” I said, pointing to the roadster.
    “Keep your voice down,” she said. “We’ll wake people up.”
    One way to keep one’s voice down is to stop talking altogether, which is also one way not to argue with somebody. I beckoned to Theodora, and we slipped into the house and made our way up the spiral staircase, Theodora pressing herself against the walls of the lighthouse and swiveling her head this way and that, and me walking like a normal person. I led her into the newsroom, removed the sheet, and pointed to the statue of the Bombinating Beast. She gestured to me that I should be the one to take it. I gestured back that she was the chaperone and the leader of this caper. She gestured to me that I shouldn’t argue with her. I gestured to her that I was the one who had gotten us into the house in the firstplace. She gestured to me that my predecessor knew that the apprentice should never argue with the chaperone or complain and that I might model my own behavior after his. I gestured to her asking what the S stood for in her name, and she replied with a very rude gesture, and I grabbed the statue and tucked it into my vest. It was lighter than I thought it would be, and I felt less like a burglar and more like someone who was simply carrying an object from one place to another.



I opened the window and reached a hand down into the darkness until I could feel the hawser rough and cold against my palm. This made me feel more like a burglar. I held it steady for Theodora to grab with both hands, and then I lowered myself after her. I couldn’t reach to shut the window, but I figured Moxie would do it once she came out of hiding. I wondered if she could see us now as we began to climb, hand over hand, along the hawser toward the Sallismansion at the bottom of the hill. We must have been strange shadows against the round, white moon. The rustling of the Clusterous Forest grew softer as we got farther and farther away, and the still night air filled my throat. I was not as high up as I thought I would be, and the hawser stayed steady as we continued our descent. In the moonlight I could see the trees below us, the thin branches all folded together like laced-up shoes, and the leaves looking lonely and uncomfortable. I could see the small white cottage, with something glinting in one of its windows—some small object that was reflecting the light of the moon. What I did not see was a candle, as Theodora had told me there would be, to signal that all was clear.
    “Snicket,” Theodora said, “this would be a good time to ask me a question.”
    “Why?” I tried.
    “Because I am somewhat afraid of heights,” she answered, “and answering an apprentice’squestions would be a good way to distract me.”
    “OK,” I said, and thought for a moment. “Do you think this is the way the statue was stolen?”
    “Absolutely,” Theodora said. “The Mallahans must have climbed down the hawser, grabbed the statue, and gone back out the way they came.”
    “I thought you said they came in from the parlor,” I said, “by sawing a hole in the ceiling and letting gravity do the rest.”
    “That was an early theory of mine, yes,” Theodora said, “but at least I was half-right: Gravity is involved. This would be a much harder climb if we were going up this hill instead of down.”
    What Theodora said was true—it would have been much harder to move hand over hand up the cable—but she had also said the thieves had gone back out the way they had come. Arguing with my chaperone, however, probably would not have distracted her from her condition. There was a word for a fear of heights, I knew, but I couldn’t thinkof it. Something-phobia. “How do you think the thieves got into the Sallis mansion?” I asked.
    “Through one