The Grim Grotto

emerging from the kitchen carrying a small plate.

'Sunny!' Violet cried. 'We thought you were asleep.'

'Rekoop,' the youngest Baudelaire said, which meant something along the lines of, 'I had a brief nap, and when I woke up I felt well enough to cook something.'

'I am a bit hungry,' Klaus admitted. 'What did you make us?'

'Amuse bouche,' Sunny said, which meant something like, 'Tiny water chestnut sandwiches, with a spread of cheese and sesame seeds.'

'They're quite tasty,' Violet said, and the three children shared the plate of amuse bouche as the elder Baudelaires brought Sunny up to speed, a phrase which here means 'told their sister what had happened while she was suffering inside the diving helmet.' They told her about the terrible villain they encountered inside. They described the hideous circumstances in which the Snow Scouts found themselves, and the hideous clothing worn by Esmй Squalor and Carmelita Spats. They told her about the Volunteer Factual Dispatch, and the Verse Fluctuation Declarations they were trying to decode. And, finally, they told her about the hook-handed man being Fiona's long- lost brother, and the possibility that he might join them aboard the Queequeg. 'Perifido,' Sunny said, which meant 'It would be foolish to trust one of Olaf's henchmen.'

'We don't trust him,' Klaus said. 'Not really. But Fiona trusts him, and we trust Fiona.'

'Volatile,' Sunny said.

'Yes,' Violet admitted, 'but we don't have much choice. We're in the middle of the ocean –'

'And we need to get to the beach,' Klaus said, and held up the book of Lewis Carroll's poetry. 'I think I've solved part of the Verse Fluctuation Declaration. Lewis Carroll has a poem called 'The Walrus and the Carpenter.' '

'There was something about a walrus in the telegram,' Violet said.

'Yes,' Klaus said. 'It took me a while to find the specific stanza, but here it is. Quigley wrote:

'O Oysters, come and walk with us!' The Walrus did beseech. 'A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, Along the movie theater.' '

'Yes,' Violet said. 'But what does the actual poem say?'

Klaus read,

''O Oysters, come and walk with us!' The Walrus did beseech. 'A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, Along the briny beach.' '

Klaus closed the book and looked up at his sisters. 'Quigley wants us to meet him tomorrow,' he said, 'at Briny Beach.'

'Briny Beach,' Violet repeated quietly. The eldest Baudelaire did not have to remind her siblings, of course, of the last time they were at Briny Beach, learning from Mr. Poe that the tables of their lives had turned. The three siblings sat and thought of that terrible day, which felt as blurred and faded as the photograph of Fiona's family – or the photograph of their own parents, pasted into Klaus's commonplace book. Returning to Briny Beach after all this time felt to the Baudelaires like an enormous step backward, as if they would lose their parents and their home again, and Mr. Poe would take them once more to Count Olaf's house, and all the unfortunate events would crash over them once more, like the waves of the ocean crashing on the tidepools of Briny Beach and the tiny, passive creatures who lived inside them.

'How would we get there?' Klaus asked.

'In the Queequeg,' Violet said. 'This submarine should have a location device, and once we know where we are, I think I could set a course for Briny Beach.'

'Distance?' Sunny asked.

'It shouldn't be far,' Klaus said. 'I'd have to check the charts. But what would we do when we got there?'

'I think I have the answer to that,' Violet said, turning to her book of T. S. Eliot poems. 'Quigley used lines from a very long poem in this book called The Waste Land.'

'I tried to read that,' Klaus said, 'but I found T. S. Eliot too opaque. I scarcely understood a word.'

'Maybe it's all in code,' Violet said. 'Listen to this. Quigley wrote:

'At the pink hour when the eyes and back Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a pony throbbing party.'

'But the real poem reads:

'At the violet hour when the eyes and back Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a –'

'Blah blah blah ha ha ha!' interrupted a cruel, mocking voice. 'Ha blah ha blah ha blah! Tee hee snaggle sniggle tee hee hee! Hubba hubba giggle diddle denouement!'

The Baudelaires looked up from their books to face Count Olaf, who was already stepping through the porthole and onto the wooden table. Behind him was Esmй Squalor, sneering beneath the hood of her octopus outfit, and the children could hear the unpleasant slapping footsteps of the horrid pink shoes of Carmelita Spats, who peeked her heart-decorated face into the submarine and giggled nastily.

'I'm happier than a pig eating bacon!' Count Olaf cried. 'I'm tickled pinker than a sunburned Caucasian! I'm in higher spirits than a brand-new graveyard! I'm so happy-go-lucky that lucky and happy people are going to heat me with sticks out of pure, unbridled jealousy! Ha ha jicama! When I stopped by the brig to see how my associate was progressing, and found that you orphans had flown the coop, I was afraid you were escaping, or sabotaging my submarine, or even sending a telegram asking for help! But I should have known you were too dim-witted to do anything useful! Look at yourselves, orphans, snacking and reading poetry, while the powerful and good-looking people of the world cackle in triumph! Cackle cackle cutthroat!'

'In just a few minutes,' Esmй bragged, 'we will arrive at the Hotel Denouement, thanks to our bratty rowing crew. Tee hee triumphant! V.F.D.'s last safe place will soon be in ashes – just like your home, Baudelaires!'

'I'm going to do a special tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian dance recital,' Carmelita bragged, 'on the graves of all those volunteers!' Carmelita leaped through the porthole, her pink tutu fluttering as if it were trying to escape, and joined Olaf on the table to begin a dance of triumph. 'C is for 'cute!', ' Carmelita sang, 'A is for 'adorable'! R is for 'ravishing'! M is for 'gor–' '

'Now, now, Carmelita,' Count Olaf said, giving the tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian a tense smile. 'Why don't you save your dance recital for later? I'll buy you all the dance costumes in the world. With V.F.D. out of the way, all the fortunes of the world can be mine – the Baudelaire fortune, the Quagmire fortune, the Widdershins fortune, the –'

'Where is Fiona?' Klaus asked, interrupting the villain. 'What have you done with her? If you've hurt her –'

'Hurt her?' Count Olaf asked, his eyes shining bright beneath his one scraggly eyebrow. 'Hurt Triangle Eyes? Why would I hurt a clever girl like that? Tee hee troupe member!' With one of his tiresome dramatic gestures, Count Olaf pointed behind him, and Esmй clapped the tentacles of her outfit as two people appeared in the porthole. One was the hook-handed man, who looked as wicked as he ever had. And the other was Fiona, who looked slightly different. One difference was the expression on her face, which looked resigned, a word which here means 'as if the mycologist had given up entirely on defeating Count Olaf.' But the other difference was printed on the slippery-looking uniform she was wearing, right in the center.

'No,' Klaus said quietly, as he stared at his friend.

'No,' Violet said firmly, and looked at Klaus.

'No!' Sunny said angrily, and bared her teeth as Fiona stepped through the porthole and stood beside Count Olaf on the wooden table.

Her boot brushed against the poetry books Violet and Klaus had taken from the sideboard, including books by Lewis Carroll and T. S. Eliot. There are some who say that the poetry of Lewis Carroll is too whimsical, a word which here means 'full of comic nonsense,' and other people complain that T. S. Eliot's poetry is too opaque, which refers to something that is unnecessarily complicated. But while everyone may not agree on the poets represented on the wooden table, every noble reader in the world agrees that the poet represented on Fiona's uniform was a writer of limited skill, who wrote awkward, tedious poetry on hopelessly sentimental topics.

'Yes,' Fiona said quietly, and the Baudelaire orphans looked up at the portrait of Edgar Guest, smiling on the front of her uniform, and felt the tables turn once more.