The Grim Grotto

'Tidal charts!' the captain cried. 'We have to figure out the exact course of the predominant tides at the point where the Stricken Stream meets the sea! Klaus, I want you to find a uniform and then get to work immediately! Aye!'

'Aye!' Klaus said, trying to get into the spirit of the Queequeg.

'Aye!' the captain answered in a happy roar.

'I?' Sunny asked.

'Aye!' the captain said. 'I haven't forgotten about you, Sunny! I'd never forget Sunny! Never in a million years! Not that I will live that long! Particularly because I don't exercise very much! But I don't like exercising, so it's worth it! Why, I remember when they wouldn't let me go mountain climbing because I hadn't trained properly, and –'

'Perhaps you should tell Sunny what you have in mind for her to do,' Fiona said gently.

'Of course!' the captain roared. 'Naturally! Our other crewman has been in charge of cooking, but all he does is make these terrible damp casseroles! I'm tired of them! I'm hoping your cooking skills might improve our meal situation!'

'Sous,' Sunny said modestly, which meant something like, 'I haven't been cooking for very long,' and her siblings were quick to translate.

'Well, we're in a hurry!' the captain replied, walking over to a far door marked KITCHEN. 'We can't wait for Sunny to become an expert chef before getting to work! He or she who hesitates is lost!' He opened the door and called inside. 'Cookie! Get out here and meet the Baudelaires!'

The children heard some quiet, uneven footsteps, as if the cook had something wrong with one leg, and then a man limped through the door, wearing the same uniform as the captain and a wide smile on his face.

'Baudelaires!' he said. 'I always believed I would see you again someday!'

The three siblings looked at the man and then at one another in stupefaction, a word which here means 'amazement at seeing a man for the first time since their stay at Lucky Smells Lumbermill, when his kindness toward them had been one of the few positive aspects of that otherwise miserable chapter in their lives.' 'Phil!' Violet cried. 'What on earth are you doing here?'

'He's the second of our crew of two!' the captain cried. 'Aye! The original second in the crew of two was Fiona's mother, but she died in a manatee accident quite a few years ago.'

'I'm not so sure it was an accident,' Fiona said.

'Then we had Jacques!' the captain continued. 'Aye, and then what's-his-name, Jacques's brother, and then a dreadful woman who turned out to be a spy, and finally we have Phil! Although I like to call him Cookie! I don't know why!'

'I was tired of working in the lumber industry,' Phil said. 'I was sure I could find a better job, and look at me now – cook on a dilapidated submarine. Life keeps on getting better and better.'

'You always were an optimist,' Klaus said.

'We don't need an optimist!' Captain Widdershins said. 'We need a cook! Get to work, Baudelaires! All of you! Aye! We have no time to waste! He who hesitates is lost!'

'Or she,' Fiona reminded her stepfather. 'And do we really have to start right this minute? I'm sure the Baudelaires are exhausted from their journey. We could spend a nice quiet evening playing board games –'

'Board games?' the captain said in astonishment. 'Amusements? Entertainments? We don't have time for such things! Aye! Today's Saturday, which means we only have five days left! Thursday is the V.F.D. gathering, and I don't want anyone at the Hotel Denouement to say that the Queequeg hasn't performed its mission!'

'Mission?' Sunny asked.

'Aye!' Captain Widdershins said. 'We mustn't hesitate! We must act! We must hurry! We must move! We must search! We must investigate! We must hunt! We must pursue! We must stop occasionally for a brief snack! We must find that sugar bowl before Count Olaf does! Aye!'

Chapter Three

The expression 'Shiver me timbers!' comes from the society of pirates, who enjoy using interesting expressions almost as much as jumping aboard other people's ships and stealing their valuables. It is an expression of extreme amazement, used in circumstances when one feels as if one's very bones, or timbers, are shivering. I have not used the expression since one rainy night when it was necessary to pose as a pirate experiencing amazement, but when Captain Widdershins told the Baudelaire orphans where the Queequeg was going and what it was searching for, there was a perfect opportunity to utter these words.

'Shiver me timbers!' Sunny cried.

'Your timbers!' the captain cried back. 'Are the Baudelaires practicing piracy? Aye! My heavens! If your parents knew that you were stealing the treasures of others –'

'We're not pirates, Captain Widdershins,' Violet said hastily. 'Sunny is just using an expression she learned from an old movie. She just means that we're surprised.'

'Surprised?' The captain paced up and down in front of them, his waterproof suit crinkling with every step. 'Do you think the Queequeg made its difficult way up the Stricken Stream just for my own personal amusement? Aye? Do you think I would risk such terrible danger simply because I had no other plans for the afternoon? Aye? Do you think it was a crazy coincidence that you ran into our periscope? Aye? Do you think this uniform makes me look fat? Aye? Do you think members of V.F.D. would just sit and twiddle their thumbs while fount Olaf's treachery covers the land like crust covers the filling of a pie? Aye?'

'You were looking for us?' Klaus asked in amazement. He was tempted to cry 'Shiver me timbers!' like his sister, but he did not want to alarm Captain Widdershins any further.

'For you!' the captain cried. 'Aye! For the sugar bowl! Aye! For justice! Aye! And liberty! Aye! For an opportunity to make the world quiet! Aye! And safe! Aye! And we may only have until Thursday! Aye! We're in terrible danger! Aye! So get to work!'

'Bamboozle!' Sunny cried.

'My sister is confused,' Violet said, 'and so are we, Captain Widdershins. If we could just stop for a moment, and hear your story from the beginning –'

'Stop for a moment?' the captain repeated in astonishment. 'I've just explained our desperate circumstances, and you're asking me to hesitate? My dear girl, remember my personal philosophy! Aye! 'He or she who hesitates is lost'! Now let's get moving!'

The children looked at one another in frustration. They did not want to get moving. It felt to the Baudelaire orphans that they had been moving almost constantly since that terrible day at the beach when their lives had been turned upside down. They had moved into Count Olaf's home, and then into the homes of various guardians. They had moved away from a village intent on burning them at the stake, and they had moved into a hospital that had burst into flames around them. They had moved to the hinterlands in the trunk of Count Olaf's car, and they had moved away from the hinterlands in disguise. They had moved up the Mortmain Mountains hoping to find one of their parents, and they had moved down the Mortmain Mountains thinking they would never see their parents again, and now, in a tiny submarine in the Stricken Stream, they wanted to stop moving, just for a little while, and receive some answers to questions they had been asking themselves since all this moving began.

'Stepfather,' Fiona said gently, 'why don't you start up the Queegueg's engines, and I'll show the Baudelaires where our spare uniforms are?'

'I'm the captain!' the captain announced. 'Ave! I'll give the orders around here!' Then he shrugged, and squinted up toward the ceiling. The Baudelaires noticed for the first time a ladder of rope running up the side of wall. It led up to a small shelf, where the children could see a large wheel, probably for steering, and a few rusty levers and switches that were Byzantine in their design, a phrase which here means 'so complicated that perhaps even Violet Baudelaire would have trouble working them.' 'I order myself to go up the ladder,' the captain continued a bit sheepishly, 'and start the engines of the Queequeg.'' With one last 'Aye!' the captain began hoisting himself toward the ceiling, and the Baudelaires were left alone with Fiona and Phil.