The Grim Grotto

'There's something else confusing about it,' Klaus said, peering at the oval. There are two different arrows inside it, and each one points in a different direction.'

'It looks like the tide is going two ways at once,' Fiona said.

Violet frowned. 'That doesn't make any sense,' she said.

'I'm confused, too,' Klaus said. 'According to my calculations, the sugar bowl was probably carried right to this place on the map. But where it went from there I can't imagine.'

'I guess we should set a course for G.G., whatever it might be,' Violet said, 'and see what we can find when we get there.'

'I'm the captain!' the captain cried. 'I'll give the orders around here! Aye! And I order that we set a course for that oval, and see what we can find when we get there! But first I'm hungry! And thirsty! Aye! And my arm itches! I can scratch my own arm, but Cookie and Sunny, you are responsible for food and drink! Aye!'

'Sunny helped me make a chowder that should be ready in a few minutes,' Phil said. 'Her teeth were very handy in dicing the boiled potatoes.'

'Flush,' Sunny said, which meant 'Don't worry – I cleaned my teeth before using them as kitchen implements.'

'Chowder? Aye! Chowder sounds delicious!' the captain cried. 'And what about dessert? Aye? Dessert is the most important meal of the day! Aye! In my opinion! Even though it's not really a meal! Aye!'

'Tonight, the only dessert we have is gum,' Phil said. 'I still have some left from my days at the lumbermill.'

'I think I'll pass on dessert,' Klaus said, who'd had such a terrible time at Lucky Smells Lumbermill that he no longer had a taste for gum.

'Yomhuledet,' Sunny said. She meant 'Don't worry – Phil and I have arranged a surprise dessert for tomorrow night,' but of course only her siblings could understand the youngest Baudelaire's unusual way of talking.

Nevertheless, as soon as Sunny spoke, Captain Widdershins stood up from the table and began crying out in astonishment. 'Aye!' he cried. 'Dear God! Holy Buddha! Charles Darwin! Duke Ellington! Aye! Fiona – turn off the engines! Aye! Cookie – turn off the stove! Aye! Violet – make sure the telegram device is off! Aye! Klaus! Gather your materials together so nothing rolls around! Aye! Calm down! Work quickly! Don't panic! Help! Aye!'

'What's going on?' Phil asked.

'What is it, stepfather?' Fiona asked.

For once, the captain was silent, and merely pointed at a screen on the submarine wall. The screen looked like a piece of graph paper, lit up in green light, with a glowing letter Q in the center.

'That looks like a sonar detector,' Violet said.

'It is a sonar detector,' Fiona said. 'We can tell if any other undersea craft are approaching us by detecting the sounds they make. The Q represents the Queequeg and –'

The mycologist gasped, and the Baudelaires looked at where she was pointing. At the very top of the panel was another glowing symbol, which was moving down the screen at a fast clip, a phrase which here means 'straight toward the Queequeg.' Fiona did not say what this green symbol stood for, and the children could not bear to ask. It was an eye, staring at the frightened volunteers and wiggling its long, skinny eyelashes, which protruded from every side.

'Olaf!' Sunny said in a whisper.

'There's no way of knowing for sure,' Fiona said, 'but we'd better follow my stepfather's orders. If it's another submarine, then it has a sonar detector too. If the Queequeg is absolutely silent, they'll have no idea we're here.'

'Aye!' the captain said. 'Hurry! He who hesitates is lost!'

Nobody bothered to add 'Or she' to the captain 's personal philosophy, but instead hurried to silence the submarine. Fiona climbed up the rope ladder and turned off the whirring engine. Violet wheeled back into the machinery of the telegram device and turned it off. Phil and Sunny ran into the kitchen to turn off the stove, so even the bubbling of their homemade chowder would not give the Queequeg away. And Klaus and the captain gathered up the materials on the table so that nothing would make even the slightest rattle. Within moments the submarine was silent as a grave, and all the volunteers stood mutely at the table, looking out the porthole into the gloomy water of the sea.

As the eye on the sonar screen drew closer to the Q, they could see something emerge from the darkened waters – a strange shape that became clearer as it got closer and closer to the Queequeg. It was, indeed, another submarine, the likes of which the Baudelaires had never seen before, even in the strangest of books. It was much, much bigger than the Queequeg, and as it approached, the children had to cover their mouths so their gasps could not be heard.

The second submarine was in the shape of a giant octopus, with an enormous metal dome for a head and two wide portholes for eyes. A real octopus, of course, has eight legs, but this submarine had many more. What had appeared to be eyelashes on the sonar screen were really small metal tubes, protruding from the body of the octopus and circling in the water, making thousands of bubbles that hurried toward the surface as if they were frightened of the underwater craft.

The octopus drew closer, and all six passengers on the Queequeg stood as still as statues, hoping the submarine had not discovered them. The strange craft was so close the Baudelaires could see a shadowy figure inside one of the octopus's eyes – a tall, lean figure, and although the children could not see any further details, they were positive the figure had one eyebrow instead of two, filthy fingernails instead of good grooming habits, and a tattoo of an eye on its left ankle.

'Count Olaf,' Sunny whispered, before she could stop herself.

The figure in the porthole twitched, as if Sunny's tiny noise had caused the Queequeg to be detected. Spouting more bubbles, the octopus drew closer still, and any moment it seemed that one of the legs of the octopus would be heard scraping against the outside of the Queequeg. The three children looked down at their helmets, which they had left on the floor, and wondered if they should put them on, so they might survive if the submarine collapsed.

Fiona grabbed her stepfather 's arm, but Captain Widdershins shook his head silently, and pointed at the sonar screen again. The eye and the Q were almost on top of one another on the screen, but that was not what the captain was pointing at. There was a third shape of glowing green light, this one the biggest of all, a huge curved tube with a small circle at the end of it, slithering toward the center of the screen like a snake. But this third underwater craft didn't look like a snake. As it approached the eye and the Q, the small circle leading the enormous curved tube toward the Queequeg and its frightened volunteer crew, the shape looked more like a question mark.

The Baudelaires stared at this new, third shape approaching them in eerie silence, and felt as if they were about to be consumed by the very questions they were trying to answer. Captain Widdershins pointed at the porthole again, and the children watched the octopus stop, as if it too had detected this strange third shape. Then the legs of the octopus began whirring even more furiously, and the strange submarine began to recede from view, a phrase which here means 'disappear from the porthole as it hurried away from the Queequeg.'

The Baudelaires looked at the sonar screen, and watched the question mark follow the glowing green eye in silence until both shapes disappeared from the sonar detector and the Queequeg was alone. The six passengers waited a moment and then sighed with relief.

'It's gone,' Violet said. 'Count Olaf didn't find us.'

'I knew we'd be safe,' Phil said, optimistic as usual. 'Olaf is probably in a good mood anyway.'

The Baudelaires did not bother to say that their enemy was only in a good mood when one of his treacherous plans was succeeding, or when the enormous fortune, left behind by the Baudelaire parents, appeared to be falling into his grubby hands.

'What was that, Stepfather?' Fiona said. 'Why did he leave?'

'What was that third shape?' Violet asked. The captain shook his head again. 'Something very bad,' he said. 'Even worse than Olaf, probably. I told you Baudelaires that there is evil you cannot even imagine.'

'We don't have to imagine it,' Klaus said. 'We saw it there on the screen.'