Lemony Snicket - The Grim Grotto

"That was my mother's," Fiona said quietly.

"She would have wanted me to have it Esmé said quickly. "We were close friends at school."

"I want the necklace!" Carmelita demanded. "It goes perfectly with my veterinarian stethoscope! Give it to me, Countie!"

"I wish we had those carnival freaks with us," the hook-handed man said. "They could help carry some of these uniforms."

"We'll see them at the Hotel Denouement," said Count Olaf, "along with the rest of my comrades. Well, let's get out of here! We have lots to do before we arrive! Triangle Eyes, take the orphans to the brig! Ha ha hula dance!"

Humming a ridiculous tune, the villain performed a few dance steps of triumph, only to stumble over the diving helmet on the floor.

Carmelita giggled nastily as Olaf reached down and rubbed his tattooed ankle. "Ha, ha Countie!" cried Carmelita. "My dance recital was better than yours!"

"Get this hat out of here, Triangle Eyes," Count Olaf snarled. He bent down, picked up the helmet, and started to hand it to Fiona, but the hook-handed man stopped him.

"I think you'll want that helmet for Yourself, boss," the henchman said.

"I prefer a smaller, lighter hat," Count Olaf said, "but I appreciate the gesture."

"What my brother means," Fiona explained, "is that inside this helmet is the Medusoid Mycelium ."

The Baudelaires gasped and looked at one another in horror, as Count Olaf peered through the helmet's tiny window, his eyes wide beneath his eyebrow. "The Medusoid Mycelium ," he murmured, and ran his tongue thoughtfully along his teeth. "Could it be?"

"Impossible," Esmé. Squalor said. "That fungus was destroyed long ago."

"They brought it with them," the hook-handed man said. "That's why the baby was so sick."

"This is marvelous," Olaf said, his voice as raspy and wheezy as if he were poisoned himself. "As soon as you Baudelaires are in the brig, I'm going to open this helmet and toss it inside! You'll suffer as I've always wanted you to suffer."

"That's not what we should do!" Fiona cried. "That's a very valuable specimen!"

Esmé stepped forward and draped two of her tentacles around Olaf's neck. "Triangle Eyes is right," she said. "You don't want to waste the fungus on the orphans. Besides, you need one of them alive to get the fortune."

"That's true," Olaf agreed, "but the idea of those orphans not being able to breathe is awfully attractive."

"But think of the fortunes we can steal!" Esmé said. "Think of the people we can boss around! With the Medusoid Mycelium in our grasp, who can stop us now?"

"No one!" Count Olaf cackled in triumph. "Ha hunan chicken! Ha ha hamantaschen! Ha ha hors d'oeuvres! Ha ha h –"

But the Baudelaire children never learned what ridiculous word Olaf was going to utter, as he interrupted himself to point across the Main Hall at a screen on the wall. The screen looked like a piece of graph paper, lit up in green light, and at the center were both a glowing letter Q, representing the Queequeg , and a glowing eye, representing the terrible octopus submarine that had devoured them. But at the top of the screen was another shape – one they had almost forgotten about. It was a long curved tube, with a small circle at the end of it, slithering slowly down the screen like a snake, or an enormous question mark, or some terrible evil the children could not even imagine.

"What's that cakesniffing shape?" asked Carmelita Spats. "It looks like a big comma."

"Shh!" Count Olaf hissed, putting his filthy hand over Carmelita's mouth. "Silence, everyone!"

"We have to get out of here," Esmé murmured. "This octopus is no match for that thing."

"You're right," Olaf muttered. "Esmé, go whip our rowers so they'll go faster! Hooky, store those uniforms! Triangle Eyes, take the orphans to the brig!"

"What about me?" Carmelita asked. "I'm the cutest, so I should get to do something."

"I guess you'd better come with me," the count said wearily. "But no tap-dancing! We don't want to show up on their sonar!"

"Ta ta, cakesniffers!" Carmelita said, waving her pink wand at the three siblings.

"You're so stylish, darling," Esmé said. "It's like I always say: You can't be too rich or too in !" The two wicked females jumped through the broken porthole and out of the Queequeg , followed by the hook-handed man, who gave the Baudelaires an awkward wave.

But before Count Olaf exited, he paused, standing on the wooden table, and drew his long, sharp sword to point at the children. "Your luck is over at last," he said, in a terrible voice. "For far too long, you keep defeating my plans and escaping from my clutches – a happy cycle for you orphans and an unprofitable one for me. But now the tables have turned, Baudelaires. You've finally run out of places to run. And as soon as we get away from that" – he pointed at the sonar screen with a flick of his sword, and raised his eyebrow menacingly – "you'll see that this cycle has finally been broken. You should have given up a long time ago, orphans. I triumphed the moment you lost your family."

"We didn't lose our family," Violet said. "Only our parents."

"You'll lose everything, orphans," Count Olaf replied. "Wait and see." Without another word, he leaped out of the porthole and disappeared into his ghastly mechanical octopus, leaving the Baudelaires alone with Fiona.

"Are you going to take us to the brig?" Klaus asked.

"No," Fiona said. "Aye! I'll let you escape – if you can. You'd better hurry."

"I can set a course," Violet said, "and Klaus can read the tidal charts."

"Serve cake," Sunny said.

Fiona smiled, and looked around the Main Hall sadly. "Take good care of the Queequeg ," she said. "I'll miss it. Aye!"

"I'll miss you," Klaus said. "Won't you come with us, Fiona? Now that Olaf has the Medusoid Mycelium , we'll need all the help we can get. Don't you want to finish the submarine's mission? We never found the sugar bowl. We never found your stepfather. We never even finished that code we were going to invent."

Fiona nodded sadly, and walked to the wooden table. She picked up Mushroom Minutiae , and then acted contrary to her personal philosophy, a phrase which here means "hesitated for a moment, and faced the middle Baudelaire."

"When you think of me," she said quietly, "think of a food you love very much." She leaned forward, kissed Klaus gently on the mouth, and disappeared through the porthole without so much as an "Aye!"

The three Baudelaires listened to the mycologist's footsteps as she joined Count Olaf and his comrades, and left them behind. "She's gone," Klaus said, as if he could hardly believe it himself. He lifted one trembling hand to his face, as if Fiona had given him a slap instead of a kiss. "How could she leave?" he asked. "She betrayed me. She betrayed all of us. How could someone so wonderful do something so terrible?"

"I guess her brother was right," Violet said, putting her arm around her brother. "People aren't either wicked or noble."

"Correctiona," Sunny said, which meant "Fiona was right, too – we'd better hurry if we want to escape from the Carmelita before Olaf notices we're not in the brig."

"I'll set a course for Briny Beach," Violet said.

Klaus took one last look at the porthole where Fiona had disappeared, and nodded. "I'll look at the tidal charts," he said.

"Amnesi!" Sunny cried. She meant something along the lines of, "You're forgetting something!" and pointed one small finger at the circle of glass on the floor.

"Sunny's right," Klaus said. "We can't launch the submarine without repairing that porthole, or we'll drown."

But Violet was already halfway up the rope ladder that led to the Queequeg's controls. "You'll have to repair that yourself, Sunny," she called down.