Series of Unfortunate Events: The Grim Grotto (8 page)

Chapter Eight 

The water cycle consists of three phenomena: evaporation, precipitation, and collection, three phenomena known collectively as the three phenomena of what is referred to as "the water cycle." The second of these phenomena, precipitation, is the process by which vapor turns into water and falls as rain, something you might notice during a rainfall or by going outdoors on a rainy morning, afternoon, evening, or night. This falling water you notice is known as "rain," which is the result of the phenomenon of precipitation, one of the three phenomena that comprise the water cycle. Of these three phenomena, precipitation is regarded as the second one, particularly if a list of the three phenomena places precipitation in the middle, or second, spot on the list. "Precipitation" is quite simply a term for the transformation of vapor into water, which then falls as rain, something you might encounter if you were to step outside during a rainstorm. Rain consists of water, which was formerly vapor but underwent the process known as "precipitation," one of the three phenomena in the water cycle, and by now this tedious description must have put you back to sleep, so you may avoid the gruesome details of my account of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire as they made their way through the Gorgonian Grotto back to the Queequeg. The Baudelaire orphans knew that something was wrong the moment they arrived at the submarine, knocked on the metal hatch, and heard no answer from the captain inside. It had been a dark and cold journey back through the cave, made all the more difficult by the fact that they were swimming against the tide, rather than letting the current carry them along. Klaus, who was leading the way, swept one arm in front of him from side to side, fearful that he would miss the Queequeg altogether, or brush his hand against something sinister lurking in the cavern. Fiona trembled throughout the entire journey, and Violet could feel her nervous fingers twitching as she held her hand. And Sunny tried not to panic inside her diving helmet, as her siblings' swim made her bounce up and down in the blackness. The youngest Baudelaire could not see a single light through the small round window in her helmet, but as with all of the Baudelaires, she concentrated on arriving safely, and the thought of returning to the Queequeg felt like a small light glowing in the gloom of the grotto. Soon, the Baudelaires thought, they would hear the booming "Aye!" of Captain Widdershins as he welcomed them back from their mission. Perhaps Phil would have cooked them a nice hot meal, even without the culinary assistance of Sunny. And perhaps the telegram device would have received another Volunteer Factual Dispatch, one that might help them find the sugar bowl so their entire journey would not have been a fool's errand. But when Klaus led them to the hatch, they found no sign that anyone aboard the Queequeg was welcoming them. After knocking for several minutes, the worried children had to open the hatch by themselves, a difficult task in the dark, and enter the passageway, quickly closing the hatch behind them. They grew more worried as they discovered that nobody had activated the hatch, so quite a bit of water flowed into the passageway and poured down to the room in which the Baudelaires had first met Captain Widdershins. They could hear the water splashing on the submarine floor as they began their climb down, and strained to hear the captain shouting "Aye! What a mess!" or "Aye! The valve is broken!" or even something optimistic from Phil, like "Look on the bright side, it's like having a wading pool!" "Captain Widdershins?" Violet called, her voice muffled through her helmet. "Stepfather?" Fiona called, her voice muffled through hers. "Phil?" Klaus called. "Crew?" Sunny called. Nobody answered these calls, and nobody commented on the water from the passageway, and when the volunteers reached the end of the passageway and lowered themselves into the small, dim room, they found nobody there to meet them. "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 was 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.