Vice Principal Nero tells them about the school's odd rules: They are to sleep in a crab-infested, fungus-dripping shack because they have no living guardian to sign a permission slip for them.

He demands that Violet and Klaus pass comprehensive exams set by their teachers the following morning, while Sunny must prepare homemade staples to use on Nero's paperwork, or they will be expelled and fired respectively, in which case Genghis will become the children's guardian.

The Baudelaires must also give Carmelita earrings for each delivered message, and present Nero with candy for missing his concerts while doing S.O.R.E.

Duncan and Isadora disguise themselves as Violet and Klaus and steal a bag of flour from the cafeteria to pose as Sunny for the S.O.R.E.

The Baudelaires insist that Genghis remove his shoes and turban, to expose Olaf's distinctive eye tattoo and monobrow, and he chooses instead to run away.

They discover that two members of his troupe, the white-faced women, were cafeteria workers and that Olaf has captured the Quagmires.

The last picture of The Austere Academy shows the Quagmires being shoved into a car with a fish on the license plate, which is a reference to the ocean-themed décor in The Ersatz Elevator.

[1] was set to be a paperback release of The Austere Academy, designed to mimic Victorian penny dreadfuls.

The book was set to include approximately seven new illustrations, and the fifth part of a serial supplement entitled The Cornucopian Cavalcade, which was to include a 13-part comic by Michael Kupperman entitled The Spoily Brats, and an advice column written by Lemony Snicket, along with other additions.

It was the last audio book that was read by the author, Daniel Handler, under the pseudonym of Lemony Snicket.