Lemony Snicket - The Grim Grotto

"My brother used to get angry, too," Fiona said. "Before he disappeared, he would have awful fights with my stepfather – late at night, when they thought I was asleep."

"Your stepfather didn't mention that," Violet said. "He said your brother was a charming man."

"Maybe he only remembers the charming parts," Fiona replied. "Maybe he doesn't want to remember everything. Maybe he wants to keep those parts secret."

"Do you think your stepfather knew about this place?" Klaus asked, looking around the eerie room. "He mentioned that we might find a place to take off our diving helmets, remember? It seemed strange at the time."

"I don't know," Fiona said. "Maybe that's another secret he was keeping."

"Like the sugar bowl," Violet said.

"Speaking which," Sunny said.

"Sunny's right," Klaus said. "We should keep looking for the sugar bowl."

"It must be here someplace," Fiona agreed, "and besides, we need some way to pass the time until the fungus wanes. Everyone should spread out, and give a shout if you find the sugar bowl."

The Baudelaires nodded in agreement, and the four volunteers took distant positions on the sand, taking care not to step any closer to the Medusoid Mycelium . For the next few hours, they dug through the sand floor of the grotto and examined what they found by the light of the two floorlamps. Each layer of sand uncovered several items of interest, but no matter how many objects the children encountered, no one gave a shout.

Violet found a butter dish, a length of electrical wire, and an odd, square stone with messages carved in three languages, but not what she was looking for, and so the eldest Baudelaire remained silent. Klaus found a box of toothpicks, a small hand puppet, and a ring made of dull metal, but not what he had come to the cave to find, and so the middle Baudelaire merely sighed. And Sunny found two cloth napkins, a broken telephone receiver, and a fancy wineglass filled with holes, but when she finally opened her mouth to speak, the youngest Baudelaire merely said, "Snack!" which meant something like, "Why don't we stop for a bite to eat?" and quickly opened the crackers and peanut butter she had found.

"Thanks, Sunny," Fiona said, taking a cracker spread with peanut butter. "I must say, Baudelaires, I'm getting frustrated. My hands ache from all that digging, but there's no sign of the sugar bowl."

"I'm beginning to think this is a fool's errand," Violet said, using a phrase which here means "errand performed by a fool."

"We journeyed all the way down here to find a crucial item, and instead it seems like we're finding nothing but junk. It's a waste of time."

"Not necessarily," Klaus said, eating a cracker and looking at the items he had found. "We may not have found the sugar bowl, but I think we did find some crucial information."

"What do you mean?" Violet said.

"Look at this," Klaus said, and held up a book he had taken from the sand. "It's a collection of poetry, and most of it is too damp to read. But look at the title page." The middle Baudelaire held open the book so the other volunteers could see.

"Versed Furtive Disclosure," Violet read out loud.

"V.F.D.," Sunny said.

"Yes," Klaus said. " 'Furtive' means 'secretive,' and 'disclosure' means 'to reveal something.' I think V.F.D. may have hidden things here – not just the sugar bowl, but other secrets."

"That would make sense," Violet said. "This grotto is a bit like a secret passageway – like the one we found underneath our home, or the one Quigley found underneath his."

Fiona nodded, and began to search through a pile of items she had taken from the sand. "I found an envelope earlier," she said, "but I didn't think to open it. I was too busy concentrating on the sugar bowl."

"Punctilio," Sunny said, holding up a torn and tattered sheet of newspaper. The children could see the letters "V.F.D." circled in a headline.

"I'm too exhausted to dig anymore," Violet said. "Let's spend some time reading instead. Klaus, you can examine that poetry book. Fiona, you can see if there's anything worthwhile in that envelope. And I'll take a look at the clipping Sunny found."

"Me?" asked Sunny, whose reading skills were still developing.

"Why don't you cook us something, Sunny," Klaus suggested with a smile. "Those crackers just whetted my appetite."

"Pronto," the youngest Baudelaire promised, looking at the foodstuffs she had found in the sand, most of which were sealed up tight.

The phrase "whet my appetite," as you probably know, refers to one's hunger being awakened, and usually it refers to food. The Baudelaires had lost track of time while searching through the sand of the grotto, and the snack Sunny prepared made them realize just how long it had been since they had eaten. But another appetite had been whetted for the Baudelaires as well – a hunger for secrets, and for information that might help them.

As Sunny began to prepare a meal for her fellow volunteers, Violet and Klaus looked over the materials they had found, devouring whatever information seemed important, and Fiona did the same thing, leaning up against the tiled wall of the cavern as she examined the contents of the envelope she had found.

The volunteers' hunger for information was almost as fierce as their hunger for food, and after a lengthy period of studying and note taking, whisking and mixing, the four children could not say whether they were more eager to hear about the others' research or to eat the meal Sunny had prepared.

"What is this?" Violet asked her sister, peering into the fishbowl Sunny was using as a serving dish.

"Pesto lo mein," Sunny explained.

"What my sister means," Klaus said, "is that she found a package of soft Chinese noodles, which she tossed with an Italian basil sauce she got out of a jar."

"That's quite an international combination," Fiona said.

"Hobson," Sunny said, which meant "I didn't have much choice, given our surroundings," and then held up another item she had found. "Wasabi?"

"What's wasabi?" Violet asked.

"It's a Japanese condiment," Klaus said. "It's very spicy, and often served with fish."

"Why don't we save the wasabi, Sunny," Violet said, taking the tin of wasabi and putting it in the pocket of her uniform. "We'll take it back to the Queequeg and you can use it in a seafood recipe."

Sunny nodded in agreement, and passed the fishbowl to her siblings. "Utensi," she said.

"We can use these swizzle sticks as chopsticks," Klaus said. "We'll have to take turns, and whoever isn't eating can tell us what they've discovered. Here, Fiona, why don't you go first?"

"Thanks," Fiona said, taking the swizzle sticks gratefully. "I'm quite hungry. Did you learn anything from that poetry book?"

"Not as much as I would have liked," Klaus said. "Most of the pages were soaked from their journey, and so I couldn't read much. But I believe I've learned a new code: Verse Fluctuation Declaration. It's a way to communicate by substituting words in poems."

"I don't understand," Violet said. "It's a bit tricky," Klaus said, opening his commonplace book, in which he'd copied the information. "The book uses a poem called 'My Last Duchess,' by Robert Browning, as an example."

"I've read that," Fiona said, twirling a few noodles around a swizzle stick to get them into her mouth. "It's a very creepy story about a man who murders his wife."

"Right," Klaus said. "But if a volunteer used the name of the poem in a coded communication, the title might be 'My Last Wife' instead of 'My Last Duchess,' by the poet 'Obert Browning' instead of Robert Browning."

"What purpose would that serve?" Violet said. "The volunteer reading it would notice the mistake," Klaus said. "The changing of certain words or letters is a kind of fluctuation. If you fixed the fluctuations in the poem, you'd receive the message."