The Wide Window

The Wide Window is the third novel in a series by Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Plot

The Wide Window begins with the three Baudelaire children, Sunny, Klaus and Violet sitting at Damocles Dock. They are at Lake Lachrymose, and Mr. Poe, the manager of their estate, has just arranged for a taxi to drive them to the top of the hill, the site of their new hometown. They are brought to a house that is right on the edge of the cliff, held up by wooden stilts.

Inside, they find their next guardian, Aunt Josephine Anwhistle. She is a timid woman, who is frightened of everything (especially realtors) ever since her husband Ike died at the hands of the carnivorous Lachrymose Leeches; she won't touch the phone, the radiator, the doorknobs or the oven. Aunt Josephine loves grammar, and possesses an enormous library on the subject. Within the library there is an enormous window (for which The Wide Window is named), which overlooks the lake.

Hurricane Herman is coming, so the children and their new guardian head down to town to buy supplies. There they meet "Captain Sham", who is actually Count Olaf in disguise. The children try and warn Aunt Josephine, but they cannot prove Sham's disguise, since he has a wooden leg where the ankle bearing his tattoo of an eye should be. Furthermore, Aunt Josephine finds Captain Sham charming and won't listen to the Baudelaires anyway.

Later that night, Captain Sham calls Aunt Josephine, who sends the children away when they try once more to warn her. The children are awaken later by a loud crash, and they rush to the library to find the Wide Window broken, and their Aunt's suicide note.

The three siblings are shocked but suspicious, because the note says that the children's new guardian will be Captain Sham, and is filled with more spelling and grammar errors than they would have expected of Aunt Josephine. They reason that Olaf is behind it, and call Mr. Poe. They cannot prove their suspicions, but while Mr. Poe and Olaf are discussing things, Klaus discovers a code in the suicide note. All the spelling and grammar mistakes in the note form the words "'Curdled Cave".

The children hurry down to the docks, steal a ship from Captain Sham's company, and sail out to Curdled Cave, where they find their Aunt hiding. She claims that Olaf made her write the note, but she threw a chair through the window, and went into hiding, leaving only the spelling code behind.

The Baudelaires convince her to join them, and they sail back across the Lake, when they are attacked by the Lachrymose Leeches. The children are sure that the Leeches won't attack, since they haven't consumed any food within the last hour (the Leeches are blind and attack only if they smell food). However, Aunt Josephine admits to having eaten a banana shortly before the Baudelaires arrive. The Leeches ram the ship and are in the act of destroying it when Captain Sham rescues them in another boat. Olaf throws Aunt Josephine into the water, where she is devoured by the leeches, and takes the children with him.

Back at the docks, Mr. Poe is about to hand the children over to Sham, when Sunny bites into Sham's fake wooden leg, revealing his real leg and the tattoo of an eye on his ankle. Olaf is once more discovered and flees, leaving the children miserable and cold, in search of another new guardian and [MRSPOE] at the gates

Note

• Larry the Waiter may be a memeber of VFD, seeing as how he says "I didn't know this was a sad accasion."

Cover images

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  US cover
• UK cover
  UK cover