The Grim Grotto

'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