"The Miserable Mill": after Aunt Josephine's untimely death, Mr. Poe places the Baudelaire orphans in the care of Sir, who runs the Lucky Smells Lumber Mill. It's a pretty miserable place: the workers are paid in coupons and only given gum for lunch. The machines are dangerous, and when Klaus breaks his glasses he is sent to see the mill's optometrist, Dr. Orwell. He comes back acting very strangely. Turns out he's been hypnotized. Violet inadvertently says the correct word necessary to snap him out of it, but the foreman trips Klaus again, sending him back to Dr. Orwell. Where is Count Olaf in all this? Disguised as Dr. Orwell's secretary, Shirley, who is just dying to take in three orphans. Sir tells them one more accident and he's going to give them to Shirley. Luckily the kids are able to foil the plot but now they are being shipped off to a boarding school.
"The Austere Academy" finds the three Baudelaire orphans in a horrid boarding school. They do meet some new friends: Isadora and Duncan, who also lost their parents and their triplet brother in a fire and are heirs to a fortune. Count Olaf shows up, disguised as a gym teacher, and spends his nights running the Baudelaires ragged so they don't get any sleep and flunk their classes. Guess who has generously offered to take the orphans in if they get expelled from school? The night before their big tests, Isadora and Duncan offer to take the Baudelaires place and run so they can rest and study for their exams. Count Olaf ends up kidnapping them instead and the poor Baudelaires are once again homeless, only now they are worried for their friends.
Book six of the "Series of Unfortunate Events", "The Ersatz Elevator", finds the Baudelaire orphans living with new guardians, Jerome and Esme, in a penthouse in a fancy building. Apparently Jerome knew the Baudelaire parents and wanted to take the children in right off the bat, but Esme wouldn't let him because orphans weren't "in" at the time. Esme is obsessed with whatever is currently "in" fashion, and now that orphans are "in", she allows Jerome to take them in. The kids seems safe enough, until Gunther, the auctioneer, shows up. Of course--Count Olaf in disguise. They find their kidnapped friends, Isadora and Duncan, but sadly, before they can rescue them, Olaf and Esme, who was a student of his, whisk them away. The Baudelaires are determined to save their friends, even though the adults in their lives are fairly useless to help. ( )