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

guardian. "You're right," he said, stopping at a door which read "Library of Records." "The unfinished wing of the hospital can't be that bad." The Baudelaires knocked on the door, which opened almost immediately to reveal one of the oldest men they had ever met, wearing one of the tiniest pairs of glasses they had ever seen. Each lens was scarcely bigger than a green pea, and the man had to squint in order to look at them. "My eyesight isn't what it used to be," he said, "but you appear to be children. And you're very familiar children, too. I'm certain I've seen your faces somewhere before." The Baudelaires looked at one another in panic, not knowing whether to dash out of the room or to try to convince the man he was mistaken. "We're new volunteers," Violet said. "I don't think we've ever met before." "Babs assigned us to work in the Library of Records," Klaus said. "Well, you've come to the right place," the old man said with a wrinkled smile. "My name is Hal, and I've worked here in the Library of Records for more years than I'd like to count. I'm afraid my eyesight isn't what it used to be, so I asked Babs if some volunteers could help me." "Wolick," Sunny said. "My sister says we're very happy to be of assistance," Violet said, "and we are." "Well, I'm glad to hear that," Hal said. "Because there's a lot of work to be done. Come on in and I'll explain what you have to do." The Baudelaires walked through the door and found themselves in a small room with nothing much in it but a small table that held a bowl of fresh fruit. "This is the library?" Klaus said "Oh no," the man said. "This is just an antechamber, a small room I'm using to store my fruit. If you get hungry during the day, you may help yourself to something out of that bowl Also, this is where the intercom is, so we'll have to report here whenever Babs makes an announcement." He led them across the room to a small door and took a loop of string out of the pocket of his coat. On the loop of string were hundreds of keys, which made tiny clanging noises as they jostled one another. Hal quickly found the right key to unlock the door. "This," he said with a small smile, "is the Library of Records." Hal ushered the children inside a dim room with very low ceilings--so low that Hal's gray hair almost brushed against the top. But although the room was not very tall, it was enormous. The Library of Records stretched out so far in front of the Baudelaires that they could scarcely see the opposite wall, or, as the children looked from side to side, the right and left walls. All they could see were big metal file cabinets, with neatly labeled drawers describing the files contained inside. The file cabinets were placed in row after row, as far as the eye could see. The rows were placed very close together, so that the siblings had to walk behind Hal in single file as he gave them the tour of the room. "I've organized everything myself," he explained. "The Library of Records contains information not only from Heimlich Hospital, but from all over the area. There's information about everything from poetry to pills, from picture frames to pyramids, and from pudding to psychology--and that's just in the P aisle, which we're walking down right now." "What an amazing place," Klaus said. "Just think of everything we can learn from reading all these files." "No, no, no," Hal said, shaking his head sternly. "We're supposed to file this information, not read it. I don't want to see you touching any of these files except when you're working with them. That's why I keep all these file cabinets locked up tight. Now, let me show you exactly where you'll be working." Hal led them to the far wall and pointed out a small rectangular hole, just wide enough for Sunny or maybe Klaus to crawl through. Beside the hole was a basket with a large stack of paper in it, and a bowl filled with paper clips. "Authorities deposit information into the information chute, which begins outside the hospital