Lemony Snicket - The Grim Grotto

The children looked very weary, quite hungry, and more than a little bored as they worked the metal oars back and forth. In the very center of the room appeared to be another octopus – this one made of slippery cloth. Six of the octopus's arms hung limply at its sides, but two of them were waving high in the air, one of them clutching what looked like a long, damp noodle.

"Row faster, you stupid brats!" the octopus cried in a familiar, wicked voice. "We have to get back to the hotel Denouement before Thursday, and it's Monday already! If you don't hurry up I'm going to hit you with this tagliatelle grande! I warn you, being struck with a large piece of pasta is an unpleasant and somewhat sticky experience! Ho ho sniggle!"

"Hee hee snaggic!" Olaf cried in agreement, and the octopus whirled around.

"Darling!" it cried, and the siblings were not surprised to see that it was Esmé Squalor, Count Olaf's treacherous girlfriend, in another one of her absurd, stylish outfits.

Using the slippery cloth of the submarine's uniforms, the villainous girlfriend had fashioned an octopus dress, with two large plastic eyes, six extra sleeves, and suction cups stuck all over her boots, just as real octopi have on their tentacles to help them move around. Esmé took a few sticky steps toward Olaf and then peered at the children beneath the slippery hood of the dress.

"Are these the Baudelaires?" she asked in astonishment. "How can that be? We already celebrated their deaths!"

"It turns out they survived," Count Olaf said, "but their good luck is about to come to an end. I'm taking them to the brig!"

"The baby certainly has grown," Esmé said, peering at Fiona. "But she's just as ugly as she ever was.

"No, no," Olaf said. "The baby's locked up in that helmet, coughing her little lungs out. This is Fiona, Captain Widdershin's stepdaughter. The captain abandoned her!"

"Abandoned her?" Esmé repeated. "How in ! How stylish! How marvelous! This calls for more of our new laughter! Ha ha hedgehog!"

"Tee hee tempeh!" Olaf cackled. "Life keeps getting better and better!"

"Sniggle ho ho!" Esmé shrieked. "Our triumph is just around the corner!"

"Ha ha hepplewhite!" Olaf crowed. V.F.D. will be reduced to ashes forever!"

"Giggle giggle glandular problems!" Esmé cried. "We are going to be painfully wealthy!"

"Heepa deepa ho ho ha!" Olaf shouted. "The world will always remember the name of this wonderful submarine!"

"What is the name of this submarine?" Fiona asked, and to the children's relief the villains stopped their irritating laughter.

Olaf glared at the mycologist and then looked at the ground. "The Carmelita " he admitted quietly. "I wanted to call it the Olaf, but somebody made me change it."

"The Olaf is a cakesniffing name!" cried a rude voice the siblings had hoped never to hear again, and I'm sorry to say that Carmelita Spats skipped into the room, sneering at the Baudelaires as she did so.

Carmelita had always been the sort of unpleasant person who believed that she was prettier and smarter than everybody else, and Violet and Klaus saw instantly that she had become even more spoiled under the care of Olaf and Esmé. She was dressed in an outfit perhaps even more absurd than Esmé Squalor's, in different shades of pink so blinding that Violet and Klaus had to squint in order to look at her. Around her waist was a wide, frilly tutu, which is a skirt used during ballet performances, and on her head was an enormous pink crown decorated with light pink ribbons and dark pink flowers. She had two pink wings taped to her back, two pink hearts drawn on her cheeks, and two different pink shoes on each foot that made unpleasant slapping sounds as she walked. Around her neck was a stethoscope, such as doctors use, with pink puffballs pasted all over it, and in one hand she had a long pink wand with a bright pink star at the end of it.

"Stop looking at my outfit!" she commanded the Baudelaires scornfully. "You're just jealous of me because I'm a tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian!"

"You look adorable, darling," purred Esmé, patting her on the crown. "Doesn't she look adorable, Olaf?"

"I suppose so," Count Olaf muttered. "I wish you would ask me before taking disguises from my trunk."

"But Countie, I needed your disguises," Carmelita whined, batting her eyelashes, which were covered in pink glitter. "I needed a special outfit for my special tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian dance recital!"

Several of the children groaned at their oars.

"Please, no!" cried one of the Snow Scouts. "Her dance recitals last for hours!"

"Have mercy on us!" cried another child.

"Carmelita Spats is the most talented dancer in the entire universe!" Esmé growled, snapping the noodle over the rower's heads. "You brats should be grateful that she is performing for you! It'll help you row!"

"Ugh," Sunny could not help saying from inside her helmet, as if the idea of Carmelita's dance recital were making her even sicker.

The elder Baudelaires looked at one another and tried to imagine how they could help their young sibling.

"I think we have a pink cape aboard the Queequeg ," Klaus said hurriedly. "It would look perfect on Carmelita. I'll just run back to the submarine, and –"

"I don't want your old clothes, you cakesniffer!" Carmelita said scornfully. "A tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian doesn't wear hand-me-downs!"

"Isn't she precious" Esmé cooed. "She's like the adopted child I never had – except for you Baudelaires, of course. But I never liked you much."

"Are you going to stay and watch me, Countie?" Carmelita asked. "This is going to be the most special dance recital in the whole wide world!"

"There's too much work to do," Count Olaf said hastily. "I have to throw these children in the brig, so my associate can force them to reveal the location of the sugar bowl."

"You like that sugar bowl more than me," Carmelita pouted.

"Of course we don't, darling," Esmé said. "Olaf, tell her that sugar bowl doesn't mean a thing to you! Tell her she's like a wonderful marshmallow in the middle of our lives!"

"You're a marshmallow, Carmelita," Olaf said, and pushed the children out of the enormous room. "I'll see you later."

"Tell Hooky to be extra vicious with those brats!" Esmé cried, whipping the tagliatelle grande over her fake octopus head. "And now, on with the show!"

Count Olaf ushered the children out of the room as Carmelita Spats began tapping and twirling in front of the rowers. The elder Baudelaires were almost grateful to go to the brig, rather than being forced to watch a tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian dance recital. Olaf dragged them down another hallway that twisted every which way, curving to the right and to the left as if it were a snake the mechanical octopus had eaten, and finally stopped in front of a small door, with a metal eye where the metal eye where the doorknob ought to have been.

"This is the brig!" Count Olaf cried. "Ha ha haberdasher!"

Sunny coughed once more from inside her helmet – a rough, loud cough that sounded worse than before. The Medusoid Micelium was clearly continuing its ghastly growth, and Violet tried one more time to convince the villain to let them help her.

"Please let us go back to the Queequeg ," she said. "Can't you hear her coughing?"

"Yes," Count Olaf said, "but I don't care."

"Please!" Klaus cried. "This is a matter of life and death!"

"It certainly is," Olaf sneered, turning the knob. "My associate will make you reveal the location of the sugar bowl if he has to tear you apart to do it!"

"Listen to my friends!" Fiona said. "Aye! We're in a terrible situation!"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Count Olaf said, with a wicked smile, as the door creaked open to reveal a small, bare room. There was nothing in it but a small stool, at which a man sat, shuffling a deck of cards with quite a bit of difficulty. "How can a family reunion be a terrible situation?" Olaf said, and shoved the children inside the room, slamming the door behind them.