The Slippery Slope

The Slippery Slope is the tenth novel of the A Series of Unfortunate Events series by Lemony Snicket.

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  UK cover

Plot

Template:Spoiler 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 cluches of Count Olaf and his henchmen. Violet manages to devise a method to slow and eventually stop the caravan, saving her brother's life and her own. The two siblings travel up the mountain and 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 bratty girl from The Austere Academy, is one of the Snow Scouts, but, more importantly, so is Quigley Quagmire, the third Quagmire triplet, who had long been thought dead by his sister and brother, Duncan and Isadora Quagmire. Quigley leads them to an overhead path that leads straight to the headquarters of V.F.D, but are suprised to see that the headquarters is not the headquarters anymore.

During this time, on the peak of a mountain, Sunny is bossed around by Olaf, forced to cook, set up tents, and sleep in the cold. His girfriend, Esmé Squalor, spends her time smoking what she believes to be cigarettes, saying that they are "in". However, her "cigarettes" are actually Verdant Flammable Devices, used by V.F.D. members to signal each other. Later on two people descibed as having "an aura of menace", and who are also of aquaintance to Olaf arrive and have announced that they have successfully burned down the headquarters. 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. Her plan works, and Violet, Klaus, and Quigley see the plume of green smoke rising from the cliff. 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.