"Stepfather?" Fiona called again, but they heard only the movement of the water as it settled into a large puddle on the floor. Without bothering to take off their helmets, the four children splashed through the water and hurried down the hallway, past the plaque with the captain's personal philosophy engraved on it, until they reached the Main Hall.
The room was just as enormous as ever, of course, with all of the bewildering pipes, panels, and warning signs, although it seemed as if the place had been tidied up a bit, and there was now a tiny hit of decoration near the wooden table where the Baudelaires had eaten Sonny's chowder and planned their journey through the Gorgonian Grotto. Tied to three chairs were small blue balloons that hovered in the air, and each balloon had a letter printed on its surface in thick, black ink. The first balloon read "V," the second read "F," and only someone as dim as an underwater cave would be surprised to hear that the third read "D."
"V.F.D.," Violet said. "Do you think it's a code?"
"I'm not interested in codes at the moment," Fiona said, her voice tense and echoey inside her helmet. "I want to find my crewmates. Look around, everyone."
The Baudelaires looked around the room, but it seemed as empty and lonely as the grotto. Without the enormous presence of Captain Widdershins – "enormous presence" is a phrase which here means "large physical size, combined with a vibrant personality and loud voice" – the Main Hall seemed utterly deserted.
"Maybe they're in the kitchen," Klaus said, although it sounded like he didn't believe it himself, "or napping in the barracks."
"They wouldn't have napped," Violet said. "They said they'd be watching us the entire time."
Fiona took a step toward the door to the kitchen, but then stopped and looked at the wooden table. "Their helmets are gone," she said. "Both Phil and my stepfather were keeping their diving helmets on the table, in case of an emergency." She ran her hand along the table, as if she could make the helmets reappear. "They're gone," she said. "They've left the Queequeg."
"I can't believe that," Klaus said, shaking his head. "They knew we were traveling through the grotto. They wouldn't abandon their fellow volunteers."
"Maybe they thought we weren't coming back," Fiona said.
"No," Violet said, pointing to a panel on the wall. "They could see us. We were tiny green dots on the sonar detector."
The children looked at the sonar panel, hoping to see dots that might represent their missing crewmates.
"They must have had a very good reason to leave," Fiona said.
"What reason could there be?" Klaus said. "No matter what occurred, they would have waited for us."
"No," Fiona said. Sadly, she removed her diving helmet, and the middle Baudelaire saw she had tears in her eves. "No matter what occurred," she said, "my stepfather wouldn't have hesitated. He or she who hesitates is..."
"Lost," Klaus finished for her, and put his hand on her shoulder. "Maybe they didn't go of their own volition," Violet said, using a phrase which here means "by choice."
"Maybe somebody took them."
"Took the crew away," Klaus said, "and left behind three balloons?"
"It's a mystery," Violet said, "but I'm sure it's one we can solve. Let's just take off our helmets, and we can get to work."
Klaus nodded, and removed his diving helmet, putting it down on the floor next to Fiona's. Violet removed hers, and then went to open the tiny door of Sunny's helmet, so the youngest Baudelaire could uncurl herself from the small, enclosed space and join her siblings. But Fiona grabbed Violet's hand before it reached the helmet, and stopped her, pointing through the small round window in Sunny's helmet.
There are many things in this world that are difficult to see. An ice cube in a glass of water, for instance, might pass unnoticed, particularly if the ice cube is small, and the glass of water is ten miles in diameter. A short woman might be difficult to see on a crowded city street, particularly if she has disguised herself as a mailbox, and people keep putting letters in her mouth. And a small, ceramic bowl, with a tight-fitting lid to keep something important inside, might be difficult to find in the laundry room of an enormous hotel, particularly if there were a terrible villain nearby, making you feel nervous and distracted. But there are also things that are difficult to see not because of the size of their surroundings, or a clever disguise, or a treacherous person with a book of matches in his pocket and a fiendish plot in his brain, but because the things are so upsetting to look at, so distressing to believe, that it is as if your eyes refuse to see what is right in front of them. You can glance into a mirror, and not see how old you are growing, or how unattractive your hairstyle has become, until someone kindly points those things out to you. You can gaze upon a place you once lived, and not see how sinister the neighborhood has become, until you walk a few paces to an ice-cream store and notice that your favorite flavor has been discontinued. And you can stare into the small, round window of a diving helmet, as Violet and Klaus did at that moment, and not see the stalks and caps of a terrible gray fungus growing poisonously on the glass, until someone utters its scientific name in a horrified whisper.
"It's the Medusoid Mycelium," Fiona said, and the two elder Baudelaires blinked and saw that it was so.
"Oh no," Violet murmured. "Oh no!"
"Get her out!" Klaus cried. "Get Sunny out at once, or she'll be poisoned!"
"No!" Fiona said, and snatched the helmet away from the siblings. She put it down on the table as if it were a tureen, a word which here means "a wide, deep dish used for serving stew or soup, instead of a small, terrified girl curled up in a piece of deep-sea equipment."
"The diving helmet can serve as quarantine. If we open it, the fungus will spread. The entire submarine could become a field of mushrooms."
"We can't leave our sister in there!" Violet cried. "The spores will poison her!"
"She's probably been poisoned already," Fiona said quietly. "In a small, enclosed space like that helmet, there's no way she could escape."
"That can't be true," Klaus said, taking off his glasses as if refusing to see the horror of their situation. But at that moment their predicament became perfectly clear, as the children heard a small, eerie sound come from the helmet. It reminded Violet and Klaus of the fish of the Stricken Stream, struggling to breathe in the ashy, black waters. Sunny was coughing. "Sunny!" Klaus shouted into the helmet.
"Malady," Sunny said, which meant "I'm beginning to feel unwell."
"Don't talk, Sunny!" Fiona called through the tiny window of the helmet, and turned to the elder Baudelaires. "The mycelium has destructive respiratory capabilities," the mycologist explained, walking over to the sideboard. "That's what it said in that letter. Your sister should save her breath. The spores will make it more and more difficult for Sunny to talk, and she'll probably start coughing as the fungus grows inside her. In an hour's time, she won't be able to breathe. It would be fascinating if it weren't so horrible."
"Fascinating?" Violet covered her mouth with her hands and shut her eyes, trying not to imagine what her terrified sister was feeling. "What can we do?" she asked.
"We can make an antidote," Fiona said. "There must be some useful information in my mycological library."
"I'll help," Klaus said. "I'm sure I'll find the books difficult to read, but –"
"No," Fiona said. "I need to be alone to do my research. You and Violet should climb that rope ladder and fire up the engines so we can get out of this cave."
"But we should all do the research!" Violet cried. "We only have one hour, or maybe even less! If the mushrooms grew while we swam back to the Queequeg, then –"
"Then we certainly don't have time to argue," Fiona finished, opening the cabinet and removing a large pile of books. "I order you to leave me alone, so I can do this research and save your sister!"
The elder Baudelaires looked at one another, and then at the diving helmet on the table. "You order us?" Klaus asked.
"Aye!" Fiona cried, and the children realized it wa
s the first time the mycologist had uttered that word. "I'm in charge here! With my stepfather gone, I am the captain of the Queequeg! Aye!"
"It doesn't matter who the captain is!" Violet said. "The important thing is to save my sister!"
"Climb up that rope ladder!" Fiona cried. "Aye! Fire up those engines! Aye! We're going to save Sunny! Aye! And find my stepfather! Aye! And retrieve the sugar bowl! Aye! And it's no time to hesitate! She who hesitates is lost! That's my personal philosophy!"
"That's the captain's personal philosophy," Klaus said, "not yours."
"I am the captain!" Fiona said fiercely. The middle Baudelaire could see that behind her triangular glasses, the mycologist was crying. "Go and do what I say."
Klaus opened his mouth to say something more, but found that he, too, was crying, and without another word turned from his friend and walked over to the rope ladder, with Violet following behind. "She's wrong!" the eldest Baudelaire whispered furiously. "You know she's wrong, Klaus. What are we going to do?"
"We're going to fire up the engines," Klaus said, "and steer the Queequeg out of this cave."
"But that won't save Sunny," Violet said. "Don't you remember the description of the Medusoid Mycelium?"
" 'A single spore has such grim power,' " Klaus recited, " 'that you may, die within the hour.' Of course I remember."
"I hour?" Sunny said fearfully from inside her helmet. "Shush," Violet said. "Save your breath, Sunny. We'll find a way to cure you right away."
"Not right away," Klaus corrected sadly. "Fiona is the captain now, and she ordered us –"
"I don't care about Fiona's orders," Violet said. "She's too volatile to get us out of this situation – just like her stepfather, and just like her brother!" The eldest Baudelaire reached into the pocket of her uniform and drew out the newspaper clipping she had taken from the grotto. Her hand brushed against the tin of wasabi, and she shivered, hoping that her sister would recuperate and live to use the Japanese condiment in one of her recipes. "Listen to this, Klaus!"
"I don't want to listen!" Klaus said in an angry whisper. "Maybe Fiona is right! Maybe we shouldn't hesitate, particularly at a time like this! If we don't get an antidote to our sister, she might perish! Hesitating will only make things worse!"
"Firing up the engines, instead of helping Fiona with her research, will only make things worse!" Violet said.
At that moment, however, both Violet and Klaus saw something that made things worse, and they realized that they both had been wrong. The two Baudelaires shouldn't have been firing up the engines of the Queequeg, and they shouldn't have been helping Fiona with her research, and they shouldn't have been arguing with one another. The Baudelaires, and Fiona, too, should have been standing very still, trying not to make even the smallest noise, and instead of looking at the diving helmet, where their sister was suffering under the poison of the Medusoid Mycelium, they should have been looking at the submarine's sonar detector, or out of the porthole over the table, which looked out into the dark depths of the cave.
On the green panel was the glowing Q, representing the Queequeg, but this was another thing in the world that was difficult to see, because another glowing green symbol was occupying the very same space. And outside the porthole was a mass of small metal tubes, circling in the gloomy water and making thousands and thousands of bubbles, and in the middle of all those tubes was a large, open space, like a gigantic hungry mouth – the mouth of an octopus, about to devour the Queequeg and all its remaining crew. The image on the sonar detector, of course, was an eye, and the view from the porthole was of a submarine, but either way the children knew it was Count Olaf, and that made things much, much worse indeed.
Chapter Nine
If you are considering a life of villainy – and I certainly hope that you are not – there are a few things that appear to be necessary to every villain 's success. One thing is a villainous disregard for other people, so that a villain may talk to his or her victims impolitely, ignore their pleas for mercy, and even behave violently toward them if the villain is in the mood of thing. Another thing villains require is a villainous imagination, so that they might spend their free time dreaming up treacherous schemes in order to further their villainous careers. Villains require a small group of villainous cohorts, who can be persuaded to serve the villain in a henchpersonal capacity. And villains need to develop a villainous laugh, so that they may simultaneously celebrate their villainous deeds and frighten whatever nonvillainous people happen to be nearby. A successful villain should have all of these things at his or her villainous fingertips, or else give up villainy altogether and try to lead a life of decency, integrity, and kindness, which is much more challenging and noble, if not always quite as exciting.
Count Olaf, of course, was an excellent villain, a phrase which here means "someone particularly skilled at villainy" rather than "a villain with several desirable qualities," and the Baudelaire orphans had known this soon after that terrible day at Briny Beach, when the children learned of the terrible fire that began so many of the unfortunate events in their lives. But as the Queequeg tumbled into the mouth of his dreadful octopus submarine, it seemed to the orphans that the villain had become even more villainous during his brief absence from their lives.
Olaf had proven his villainous disregard for other people over and over, from his vicious murder of the children's guardians to his affinity for arson, a phrase which here means "enthusiasm for burning down buildings, no matter how many people were inside," but the children realized that Olaf's disregard had become even more dreadful, as the Queequeg passed through the gaping mouth and was roughly tossed from side to side in a mechanical imitation of swallowing, forcing Violet and Klaus – and Fiona, too, of course – to hang on for dear life as the Main Hall rolled this way and that, spinning Sunny in her helmet like a watermelon in a washing machine.
The count had displayed his villainous imagination on a number of occasions, from his dastardly schemes to steal the Baudelaire fortune to his nefarious plots to kidnap Duncan and Isadora Quagmire, but the siblings gazed out of the porthole and saw that Olaf's infernal imagination had run utterly wild in decorating this terrible submarine, for the Queequeg rolled along a rumbling tunnel that was almost as dark and threatening as the Gorgonian Grotto, with every inch of its metallic walls covered in eerie glowing eyes.
The count always had an assortment of cohorts, from his original theatrical troupe – many of whom were no longer with him – to some former employees of Caligari Carnival, but the orphans saw that he had lured many others to join him when the tunnel rounded a corner and the elder Baudelaires had a brief glimpse of an enormous room full of people rowing long, metal oars, activating the terrible metal arms of the octopus. And, perhaps worst of all, when the Queequeg finally came to a shuddering stop and Violet and Klaus looked out of the porthole, they learned that the villain had clearly been rehearsing his villainous laugh until it was extra wicked and more theatrical than ever.
Count Olaf was standing on a small, metal platform with a triumphant grin on his face, dressed in a familiar suit made of slippery-looking material, but with a portrait of another author whom only a very devoted reader would recognize, and when he peered through the porthole and spied the frightened children, he opened his mouth and began his new villainous laugh, which included new wheezes, bonus snarls, and an assortment of strange syllables the Baudelaires had never heard.
"Ha ha ha heepa-heepa ho!" he cried. "Tee hee tort tort tort! Hot cha ha ha! Sniggle hee! Ha, if I do say so myself!"
With a boastful gesture, he hopped off the platform, drew a long, sharp sword, and quickly traced a circle on the glass of the porthole. Violet and Klaus covered their ears as the sword shrieked its way around the window. Then, with one flick of his sword, Olaf sent the glass circle tumbling into the Main Hall, where it lay unbroken on the floor, and leaped through the porthole onto the large, wooden table to laugh at them further.
"I'm splitting my sides!" he crie
d. "I'm rolling in the aisles! I'm nauseous with mirth! I'm rattling with glee! I'm seriously considering compiling a joke book from all of the hilarious things bouncing around my brain! Hup hup ha ha hammy hee hee!"
Violet dashed forward and grabbed the helmet in which Sunny was still curled, so Olaf would not kick it as he pranced triumphantly on top of the table. She could not bear to think of her sister, who was inhaling the poison of the Medusoid Mycelium as Olaf wasted precious minutes performing his tiresome new laugh.
"Stop laughing, Count Olaf," she said. "'There's nothing funny about villainy."
"Sure there is!" Olaf crowed. "Ha ha hat rack! Just think of it! I made my way down the mountain and found pieces of your toboggan scattered all over some very sharp rocks! Tee hee torpid sniggle! I thought you had drowned in the Stricken Stream and were swimming with all those coughing fishes! Ho ho hagfish! I was brokenhearted!"
"You weren't brokenhearted," Klaus said. "You've tried to destroy us plenty of times."
"That's why I was brokenhearted!" Olaf cried. "Ho ho sniggle! I personally planned to slaughter you Baudelaires myself, after I had your fortune of course, and pry the sugar bowl out of your dead fingers or toes!"
Violet and Klaus looked at one another hurriedly. They had almost forgotten telling Olaf that they knew the location of the sugar bowl, even though they of course had no idea of its whereabouts.
"To cheer myself up," the villain continued, "I met my associates at the Hotel Denouement, where they where they were cooking up a little scheme of their own, and convinced them to lend me a handful of our new recruits."
The elder Baudelaires knew that the associates were the man with a beard and no hair, and the woman with hair but no beard, two people so sinister that even Olaf seemed to find them a bit frightening, and that the new recruits were a group of Snow Scouts that these villains had recently kidnapped.
"Tee hee turncoat! Thanks to their generosity, I was able to get this submarine working again! Sniggle ha ho ho! Of course, I need to be back at the Hotel Denouement before Thursday, but in the meantime I had a few days to kill, so I thought I'd kill some of my old enemies! Tee hee halbert sniggle! So I began roaming around the sea, looking for Captain Widdershins and his idiotic submarine on my sonar detector! Tee hee telotaxis! But now that I've captured the Queequeg, I find you Baudelaires aboard! It's hilarious! It's humorous! It's droll! It's relatively amusing!"
The Grim Grotto Page 9