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graduated you hope never to see them again. The two elder Baudelaires had enough troubles in the Mortmain Mountains without running into this unpleasant person, and at the sound of her voice they almost turned around and took their chances once more with the snow gnats swarming outside. "Two shadows?" asked the second voice. "Identify yourselves, please." "We're mountain travelers," Violet called from the entrance. "We lost our way and ran into a swarm of snow gnats. Please let us rest here for a moment, while the smell of smoke scares them away, and then we'll be on our way." "Absolutely not!" replied Carmelita, who sounded even nastier than usual. "This is where the Snow Scouts are camping, on their way to celebrate False Spring and crown me queen. We don't want any cakesniffers spoiling our fun." "Now, now, Carmelita," said the voice of the grown man. "Snow Scouts are supposed to be accommodating, remember? It's part of the Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge. And it would be very accommodating of us to offer these strangers the shelter of our cave." "I don't want to be accommodating," Carmelita said. "I'm the False Spring Queen, so I get to do whatever I want." "You're not the False Spring Queen yet, Carmelita," came the patient voice of a young boy. "Not until we dance around the Spring-pole. Do come in, travelers, and sit by the fire. We're happy to accommodate you." "That's the spirit, kid," said the voice of the grown man. "Come on, Snow Scouts, let's all say the Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge together." Instantly the cave echoed with the sound of many voices speaking in perfect unison, a phrase which here means "reciting a list of very odd words at the very same time." "Snow Scouts," recited the Snow Scouts, "are accommodating, basic, calm, darling, emblematic, frisky, grinning, human, innocent, jumping, kept, limited, meek, nap-loving, official, pretty, quarantined, recent, scheduled, tidy, understandable, victorious, wholesome, xylophone, young, and zippered, every morning, every afternoon, every night, and all day long!" The two Baudelaires looked at one another in confusion. Like many pledges, the Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge had not made much sense, and Violet and Klaus tried to imagine how a scout could be "calm" and "meek" at the same time as being "frisky" and "jumping," or how all these children could avoid being "young" or "human," even if they wanted to. They couldn't figure out why the pledge suggested being all these things "every morning," "every afternoon," and "every night," and then added "all day long," or why the word "xylophone" appeared in the pledge at all. But they did not have much time to wonder, because when the pledge was over, the Snow Scouts all took a big breath and made a long, airy sound, as if they were imitating the wind outside, and this seemed even more strange. "That's my favorite part," said the voice of the grown man, when the sound faded away. "There's nothing like ending the Snow Scout Alphabet Pledge with a snowy sound. Now approach, travelers, so we can get a look at you." "Let's keep the coat over our faces," Klaus whispered to his sister. "Carmelita might recognize us." "And the other scouts have probably seen our pictures in The Daily Punctilio" Violet said, and ducked her head underneath the coat. The Daily Punctilio was a newspaper that had published a story blaming the three Baudelaires for Jacques Snicket's murder. The story was utter nonsense, of course, but it seemed that everyone in the world had believed it and was searching for the Baudelaires to put them in jail. As the two siblings walked toward the voices of the Snow Scouts, however, they realized that they weren't the only ones concealing their faces. The back of the cave was like a large, circular room, with very high ceilings and craggy walls of rock that flickered in the orange light of the flames. Seated in a circle around the fire were fifteen or twenty people, all looking up at the two Baudelaires. Through