Chapter Two Summary

Mr. Poe drops the Baudelaire children off at the bus stop and they make their own way to the V.F.D. to meet their new caretakers. During the long bus ride, the children contemplate what the village's initials might stand for, and how the name might lead them to find the Quagmire triplets. When they finally arrive at the village, the Baudelaire children are sorely disappointed. The village is flat and dusty, covered in a strange black haze, like moving shadows. The bus driver unceremoniously kicks the children off the bus, forcing them to carry their own suitcases in the beating sun to the village entrance miles away.

When the children finally arrive at the V.F.D., they are terribly sunburned, windblown, and dusty. The closer they get to the village, they realize that the moving haze is not...