A Horrible Quiz on "The Hostile Hospital"

Answer: Framed as murderers and had to run away

Count Olaf, in an attempt to steal the Baudelaires' fortune, disguised himself as Detective Dupin and framed the Baudelaire children for murder in the previous novel. They were forced to flee, as villagers in the place they were staying were going to burn them at the stake.

Answer: Volunteers Fighting Disease

The Quagmires tried to tell the Baudelaires a secret about "V.F.D." at the end of "The Austere Academy"; at the end of "The Vile Village", a man called Jacques said that he worked for a volunteer organisation. The Baudelaires climbed aboard the van just in time to avoid being arrested for murder, wondering if this group was the one they were searching for.

Unfortunately, it wasn't.

Answer: Heimlich Hospital

The Volunteers Fighting Disease attempt to help ill people by handing out heart-shaped balloons and singing at Heimlich Hospital, which Daniel Handler (the author) named after the Heimlich Maneuver.

Answer: Hal

Hal is very elderly and has quite bad eyesight. He needs the children to help him in the Library of Records, partially due to the volume of filing work and partially because he has lost some of the keys to the cabinets.

Answer: 13

The other pages of the Snicket file have been removed, but the last page (#13) was accidentally left behind. It shows a picture of the Baudelaire parents, along with Jacques Snicket and a person who it is hinted may be Lemony Snicket, with the caption "Because of the evidence discussed on page nine, experts now suspect that there may in fact be one survivor of the fire, but the survivor's whereabouts are unknown."

Answer: Violet

Klaus and Sunny are small enough to escape out of a chute in the library, but Violet is trapped after Esme knocks over many of the filing cabinets. She is given anaesthetics to make her drowsy, and taken to the operating theatre. "Cranio-" means "head", and "-ectomy" means "removal", so it is clear Olaf plans to kill her.

Answer: Count Olaf

They are anagrams of Count Olaf, as are the hook-handed man's pseudonym, Dr. O Lucafont, and the bald man's name, Flacutono. Anagrams are a big theme in "The Hostile Hospital", as Klaus and Sunny manage to find their sister because her name in a list of patients is an anagram of her real one, and many other names in the list are also anagrams. One character (Carrie E. Abelabudite) is even an anagram of "Beatrice Baudelaire", a hint to the identity of the mysterious woman the narrator (Snicket) constantly refers to.

Answer: A bungee cord

After distracting the people searching for them by telling them to go to the unfinished half of the hospital, they manage to escape from the second floor using a bungee cord made out of rubber bands.

The book ends with the Baudelaires in the trunk of Olaf's car: it was the only way, once they had escaped the hospital, to get away from the people who wanted to arrest them.

Answer: "Madam L" on an advert

The rest of the advert is not visible, but it presumably reads "Madame Lulu", one of the main characters in the next book. These clues have been dubbed by some fans as "Visual Foreshadowing Devices", and appear in every book in the series (except arguably "The End").

Answer: Ripped into many pieces

The letter has been ripped into many pieces, and only some of the pieces are shown. This was presumably done by lions, who feature prominently in "The Carnivorous Carnival".