The Slippery Slope
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The Slippery Slope is the tenth novel of the A Series of Unfortunate Events series by Lemony Snicket.
Plot
The book starts where The Carnivorous Carnival left off. Klaus and Violet are rolling down a steep mountainside in an out-of control caravan, while Sunny is in the clutches of Count Olaf and his henchmen. Violet manages to devise a method to slow and eventually stop the caravan by using the hammocks as a drag chute and spreading sticky stuff on the wheels, saving her brother's life and her own. They get supplies and after they get out the caravan tips over the mountainside. The two siblings travel up the mountain and are attacked by snow gnats. They find shelter from vicious snow gnats in a cave, which is also being occupied by a group of children called Snow Scouts. Carmelita Spats, the snotty little girl from The Austere Academy, is one of the Snow Scouts,along with her uncle Bruce and a boy wearing a sweater.The boy seems to know about V.F.D. and gives hints. At night, he gets them and takes them up the chimney of the fire (also known as Vertical Flame Diversion) to the V.F.D. headquarters.
During this time, on the peak of a Mount Fraught (the tallest mountain in the region), Sunny is bossed around by Olaf. He makes her sleep out in the cold. The next morning,he forces her to cook breakfast. She makes a delicious meal, but Olaf thinks it's disgusting and tells the Hook-Handed Man to fech salmon from the water fall. Two people described as having "an aura of menace", and who are also of acquaintance to Olaf arrive and have announced that they have successfully burned down the headquarters. One is a woman with hair but no beard and the other is a man with a beard but no hair. They also give Count Olaf the rest of the Snicket file. The man gives Esmé a green cigarette which is actually a Verdant Flammable Device. Sunny sees Esmé's Verdant Flammable Device and has the idea to use one under the pretext of cooking lox, or smoked salmon, for Olaf and his henchman, but really in order to signal her siblings.
Meanwhile, down below, the siblings and the boy come to the V.F.D. headquarters and find it burnt. The boy reveals himself to be Quigley Quagmire. Violet, Klaus, and Quigley see the plume of green smoke rising from the cliff. But it goes out, because way above Count Olaf puts it out. Violet invents a device for her and Quigley to climb up the steep cliff to find out who signaled them. During a rest on a ledge of the cliff, Violet and Quigley appear to express romantic interest in each other. At this point, Lemony Snicket explains to the reader that the Baudelaires have had little privacy in their life, and that he will allow Violet to keep some things to herself. He resumes the book when Quigley and Violet finish their climb and meet Sunny at the top. Violet wants Sunny to return with them, but she refuses, telling her sister that she can spy on Olaf and learn useful information. Violet reluctantly agrees, realizing that Sunny is no longer a baby.
Upon meeting again, Violet, Quigley and Klaus hatch a plan to lure Esmé to them, trap her, and use her to bait Olaf into giving Sunny back. They dig a pit and light a Verdant Flammable Device next to it. Esmé sees some green smoke at the bottom of the slope. She goes down it, thinking the smoke is coming from the "in" cigarettes that she has now run out of. When she reaches the bottom, she runs into three masked strangers, and they help her climb back up the slope, hoping to get Sunny as their reward.
As they reach the top, the Snow Scouts reach the same peak of the same slope. However, there is a trap that can put all of the scouts in a huge net. Klaus, Violet, and Quigley take off their masks to convince the scouts to run. Olaf orders the two white faced women to grab them, but they leave, quitting the troupe. The Baudelaires and Quigley are too late as the scouts (except Carmelita) are taken up into the net (including the freaks and the hook-handed man) carried by eagles. As Carmelita is convinced to join Olaf and Esmé in their evil schemes, The Baudelaires and Quigley grab a sled and slide down the slope, but when they reach the bottom, the entire side of the slope breaks open, causing a waterfall. The Baudelaires and Quigley are separated. Quigley tries to tell them to meet him somewhere, but can't be heard over the rush of water. This ends the book.
Note: The man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard may have been at Heimlich Hospital because on page 137 of the Hostile Hospital there is a man and a woman who have voices like them.
Cover images
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