El ascensor artificioso / The Ersatz Elevator (Una serie de catastroficas desdichas / A Series of Unfortunate Events)

For the Baudelaire orphans, hope is a fragile thing, perpetually overshadowed by misfortune. Their latest home is a rickety house clinging to the edge of a cliff, overlooking the murky, forbidding waters of Lake Lachrymose. Their new guardian, Aunt Josephine, is a woman consumed by fear; she is afraid of realtors, doorknobs, and the stove, but most of all she is terrified of the lake below. Her only solace is in the study of grammar, a passion that offers little protection against the dangers gathering around her and the three children in her care.

The Baudelaires' brief respite from their troubles ends with the arrival of the charming Captain Sham, a man with a wooden leg and an unnerving familiarity. Despite the children's warnings, Aunt Josephine is taken in by his flattery, a mistake that culminates in the sound of shattering glass and a cryptic, grammatically incorrect farewell note. Left alone in a house teetering on the brink of collapse with a hurricane approaching, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny must decipher the clues their aunt left behind. They must face hungry leeches, a treacherous storm, and a villain who is closer than ever to seizing their fortune.