"We journeyed all the way down here to find a crucial item, and instead it seems like we're finding nothing but junk. It's a waste of time."
"Not necessarily," Klaus said, eating a cracker and looking at the items he had found. "We may not have found the sugar bowl, but I think we did find some crucial information."
"What do you mean?" Violet said.
"Look at this," Klaus said, and held up a book he had taken from the sand. "It's a collection of poetry, and most of it is too damp to read. But look at the title page." The middle Baudelaire held open the book so the other volunteers could see.
"Versed Furtive Disclosure," Violet read out loud.
"V.F.D.," Sunny said.
"Yes," Klaus said. " 'Furtive' means 'secretive,' and 'disclosure' means 'to reveal something.' I think V.F.D. may have hidden things here – not just the sugar bowl, but other secrets."
"That would make sense," Violet said. "This grotto is a bit like a secret passageway – like the one we found underneath our home, or the one Quigley found underneath his."
Fiona nodded, and began to search through a pile of items she had taken from the sand. "I found an envelope earlier," she said, "but I didn't think to open it. I was too busy concentrating on the sugar bowl."
"Punctilio," Sunny said, holding up a torn and tattered sheet of newspaper. The children could see the letters "V.F.D." circled in a headline.
"I'm too exhausted to dig anymore," Violet said. "Let's spend some time reading instead. Klaus, you can examine that poetry book. Fiona, you can see if there's anything worthwhile in that envelope. And I'll take a look at the clipping Sunny found."
"Me?" asked Sunny, whose reading skills were still developing.
"Why don't you cook us something, Sunny," Klaus suggested with a smile. "Those crackers just whetted my appetite."
"Pronto," the youngest Baudelaire promised, looking at the foodstuffs she had found in the sand, most of which were sealed up tight.
The phrase "whet my appetite," as you probably know, refers to one's hunger being awakened, and usually it refers to food. The Baudelaires had lost track of time while searching through the sand of the grotto, and the snack Sunny prepared made them realize just how long it had been since they had eaten. But another appetite had been whetted for the Baudelaires as well – a hunger for secrets, and for information that might help them.
As Sunny began to prepare a meal for her fellow volunteers, Violet and Klaus looked over the materials they had found, devouring whatever information seemed important, and Fiona did the same thing, leaning up against the tiled wall of the cavern as she examined the contents of the envelope she had found.
The volunteers' hunger for information was almost as fierce as their hunger for food, and after a lengthy period of studying and note taking, whisking and mixing, the four children could not say whether they were more eager to hear about the others' research or to eat the meal Sunny had prepared.
"What is this?" Violet asked her sister, peering into the fishbowl Sunny was using as a serving dish.
"Pesto lo mein," Sunny explained.
"What my sister means," Klaus said, "is that she found a package of soft Chinese noodles, which she tossed with an Italian basil sauce she got out of a jar."
"That's quite an international combination," Fiona said.
"Hobson," Sunny said, which meant "I didn't have much choice, given our surroundings," and then held up another item she had found. "Wasabi?"
"What's wasabi?" Violet asked.
"It's a Japanese condiment," Klaus said. "It's very spicy, and often served with fish."
"Why don't we save the wasabi, Sunny," Violet said, taking the tin of wasabi and putting it in the pocket of her uniform. "We'll take it back to the Queequeg and you can use it in a seafood recipe."
Sunny nodded in agreement, and passed the fishbowl to her siblings. "Utensi," she said.
"We can use these swizzle sticks as chopsticks," Klaus said. "We'll have to take turns, and whoever isn't eating can tell us what they've discovered. Here, Fiona, why don't you go first?"
"Thanks," Fiona said, taking the swizzle sticks gratefully. "I'm quite hungry. Did you learn anything from that poetry book?"
"Not as much as I would have liked," Klaus said. "Most of the pages were soaked from their journey, and so I couldn't read much. But I believe I've learned a new code: Verse Fluctuation Declaration. It's a way to communicate by substituting words in poems."
"I don't understand," Violet said. "It's a bit tricky," Klaus said, opening his commonplace book, in which he'd copied the information. "The book uses a poem called 'My Last Duchess,' by Robert Browning, as an example."
"I've read that," Fiona said, twirling a few noodles around a swizzle stick to get them into her mouth. "It's a very creepy story about a man who murders his wife."
"Right," Klaus said. "But if a volunteer used the name of the poem in a coded communication, the title might be 'My Last Wife' instead of 'My Last Duchess,' by the poet 'Obert Browning' instead of Robert Browning."
"What purpose would that serve?" Violet said. "The volunteer reading it would notice the mistake," Klaus said. "The changing of certain words or letters is a kind of fluctuation. If you fixed the fluctuations in the poem, you'd receive the message."
"Duchess R?" Fiona asked. "What kind of message is that?"
"I'm not sure," Klaus admitted. "The next page in the book is missing."
"Do you think the missing page is a code, too?" Violet asked.
Klaus shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "Codes are nothing more than a way of talking so that some people understand and other people don't. Remember when we talked to Quigley in the cave, with all the other Snow Scouts listening?"
"Yes," Violet said. "We used words that began with V, F, and D, so that we knew we were all on the same side." "Maybe we should have a code ourselves," Fiona said, "so that we can communicate if we run into trouble."
"That's a good idea," Klaus said. "What should we use as code words?"
"Food," Sunny suggested.
"Perfect," Violet said. "We'll draw up a list of foods and what they mean in our code. We'll bring them up in conversation, and our enemies will never suspect that we're actually communicating."
"And our enemies could be around any corner," Fiona said, handing the fishbowl of lo mein to Violet and picking up the envelope she had found. "Inside this envelope was a letter. Normally I don't like to read other people's mail, but it seems unlikely that this letter will ever reach Gregor Anwhistle."
"Gregor Anwhistle?" Violet asked. "He's the man who founded the research center. Who was writing to him?"
"A woman named Kit," Fiona said. "I think it's Kit Snicker – Jacques's sister."
"Of course," Klaus said. "Your stepfather said she was a noble woman who helped build the Queequeg."
"According to her letter," Fiona said, "Gregor Anwhistle was involved in something called a 'schism.' What's that?"
"It was a big conflict within V.F.D.," Klaus said. "Quigley told us a little bit about it."
"Everybody chose sides," Violet recalled, "and now the organization is in chaos. Which side was Gregor on?"
"I don't know," Fiona said, frowning. "Some of this letter is in code, and some of it was in water. I can't understand all of it, but it sounds like Gregor was involved with something called Volatile Fungus Deportation."
" 'Volatile' means 'unstable,' or 'likely to cause trouble,' " Klaus said. " 'Fungus,' of course, means 'mushrooms,' and 'deportation' means 'moving something from one place to another.' Who was moving unstable mushrooms?"
"V.F.D.," Fiona replied. "During the schism, Gregor thought the Medusoid Mycelium might be useful."
"The Medusoid Mycelium?" Violet said, looking nervously at the silent, gray mushrooms that still lined the entrance to the small, tiled room, their black splotches looking particularly eerie in the dim light. "I can't imagine thinking that such deadly things could be useful."
"Listen to what Kit wr
ote about it," Fiona said. " 'The poisonous fungus you insist on cultivating in the grotto will bring grim consequences for all of us. Our factory at Lousy Lane can provide some dilution of the mycelium's destructive respiratory capabilities, and you assure me that the mycelium grows best in small, enclosed spaces, but this is of little comfort. One mistake, Gregor, and your entire facility would have to be abandoned. Please, do not become the thing you dread most by adopting the destructive tactic of our most villainous enemies: playing with fire."
Klaus was busily copying Kit Snicket's letter into his commonplace book. "Gregor was growing those mushrooms," he said, "to use on enemies of V.F.D."
"He was going to poison people?" Violet asked.
"Villainous people," Fiona replied, "but Kit Snicket thought that using poisonous mushrooms was equally villainous. They were working on a way to weaken the poison, in a factory on Lousy Lane. But the writer of this letter still thought that Volatile Fungus Deportation was too dangerous, and she warned Gregor that if he wasn't careful, the mycelium would poison the entire research center."
"And now the center is gone," Violet said, "and the mycelium remains. Something went very wrong, right here where we're sitting."
"I still don't understand it," Klaus said. "Was Gregor a villain?"
"I think he was volatile," Fiona said, "like the Medusoid Mycelium. And the writer of this letter says that if you cultivate something volatile, then you're playing with fire."
Violet shuddered, stopped eating her pesto lo mein, and put down the fishbowl.
"Playing with fire," of course, is an expression that refers to any dangerous or risky activity, such as writing a letter to a volatile person, or journeying through a dark cave filled with a poisonous fungus in order to search for an object that was taken away quite some time before, and the Baudelaires did not like to think about the fire they were playing with, or the fires that had already been played with in this damp and mysterious room. For a moment, nobody spoke, and the Baudelaires gazed at the stalks and caps of the deadly mushrooms, wondering what had gone wrong with Anwhistle Aquatics. They wondered how the schism began. And they wondered about all of the mysterious and villainous things that seemed to surround the three orphans, drawing closer and closer as their woeful lives went on and on, and if such mysteries would ever be solved and if such villains ever defeated.
"Wane," Sunny said suddenly, and the children saw it was true.
The crowd of mushrooms seemed to be just a bit smaller, and here and there they saw a stalk and cap disappear back into the sand, as if the poisonous fungus had decided to implement an alternate strategy, a phrase which here means "would terrorize the Baudelaires in another way."
"Sunny's right," Klaus said with relief. "The Medusoid Mycelium is waning. Soon it'll be safe enough to return to the Queequeg."
"It must be a fairly short cycle," Fiona said, making a note in her commonplace book. "How long do you think we've been here?"
"All night, at least," Violet said, unfolding the sheet of newspaper Sunny had found. "It's lucky we found all these materials, otherwise we would have been quite bored."
"My brother always had a deck of cards with him," Fiona remembered, "in case he was stuck in a boring situation. He invented this card game called Fernald's Folly, and we used to play it together whenever we had a long wait."
"Fernald?" Violet asked. "Was that your brother's name?"
"Yes," Fiona said. "Why do you ask?"
"I was just curious," she said, hurriedly tucking the newspaper into the pocket of her uniform. There was just enough room to slip it next to the tin of wasabi.
"Aren't you going to tell us what was in the newspaper?" Klaus asked. "I saw the headline said V.F.D."
"I didn't learn anything," Violet said. "The article was too blurred to read."
"Hmmm," Sunny said, and gave her sister a sly look. The youngest Baudelaire had known Violet since she was born, of course, and found it quite easy to tell when she was lying.
Violet looked back at Sunny, and then at Klaus, and shook her head, very, very slightly. "Why don't we get ready to go?" the eldest Baudelaire suggested. "By the time we pack up these documents and put on our diving helmets, the fungus will have waned completely."
"You're right," Fiona said. "Here, Sunny, I'll help you get into your helmet. It's the least I can do after you cooked such a delicious meal."
"Shivalrush," Sunny said, which meant "'That's very kind of you," and although Fiona had not known Sunny very long, she understood what the youngest Baudelaire had said, more or less, and smiled at all three of the Baudelaire siblings.
As the four volunteers suited up – a phrase which here means "prepared their helmets for an underwater journey" – the Baudelaire children felt as if Fiona fit them like a glove – as a friend, or possibly something more. It felt as if Fiona and the Baudelaires were part of the same team, or the same organization, trying to solve the same mysteries and defeat the sane villains. It felt that way to the two younger Baudelaires, anyway. Only Violet felt as if their friendship were more volatile, as if Fiona fit her like the wrong glove, or as if their friendship had a tiny flaw – a flaw that might turn into a schism.
As Violet put the diving helmet over her head, and made sure that the zipper of the uniform was zipped tight over the portrait of Herman Melville, she heard the slight rustle of the newspaper clipping in her pocket and frowned. She kept frowning as the last of the mushrooms disappeared into the sand, and the four children stepped carefully back into the icy dark water. Because they were traveling against the tide, the volunteers had decided to hold hands, so they would not lose track of one another as they returned to the Queequeg, and as their dark journey began, Violet thought of the dangerous and risky secret concealed in her pocket and realized, as Klaus led the way back to the submarine, with Fiona holding Klaus's hand, and Violet holding Fiona's, and Sunny, curled in her helmet, tucked tightly under Violet's arm, that even while swimming in the icy depths of the ocean, the Baudelaires were playing with fire.
The sinister information in the newspaper clipping was like a tiny spore, blossoming in the small, enclosed space of Violet's pocket – like a spore of the deadly Medusoid Mycelium, which at that very moment was blossoming in the small, enclosed space of a diving helmet worn by one of the Baudelaire orphans.
Chapter Eight
The water cycle consists of three phenomena: evaporation, precipitation, and collection, three phenomena known collectively as the three phenomena of what is referred to as "the water cycle." The second of these phenomena – precipitation – is the process by which vapor turns into water and falls as rain, something you might notice during a rainfall or by going outdoors on a rainy morning, afternoon, evening, or night. This falling water you notice is known as "rain," which is the result of the phenomenon of precipitation, one of the three phenomena that comprise the water cycle. Of these three phenomena, precipitation is regarded as the second one, particularly if a list of the three phenomena places precipitation in the middle, or second, spot on the list. "Precipitation" is quite simply a term for the transformation of vapor into water, which then falls as rain – something you might encounter if you were to step outside during a rainstorm. Rain consists of water, which was formerly vapor but underwent the process known as "precipitation," one of the three phenomena in the water cycle, and by now this tedious description must have put you back to sleep, so you may avoid the gruesome details of my account of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire as they made their way through the Gorgonian Grotto back to the Queequeg.
The Baudelaire orphans knew that something was wrong the moment they arrived at the submarine, knocked on the metal hatch, and heard no answer from the captain inside. It had been a dark and cold journey back through the cave, made all the more difficult by the fact that they were swimming against the tide, rather than letting the current carry them along.
Klaus, who was leading the way, swept one arm in front of him from side to side, fearful that he w
ould miss the Queequeg altogether, or brush his hand against something sinister lurking in the cavern. Fiona trembled throughout the entire journey, and Violet could feel her nervous fingers twitching as she held her hand. And Sunny tried not to panic inside her diving helmet, as her siblings' swim made her bounce up and down in the blackness. The youngest Baudelaire could not see a single light through the small round window in her helmet, but as with all of the Baudelaires, she concentrated on arriving safely, and the thought of returning to the Queequeg felt like a small light glowing in the gloom of the grotto.
Soon, the Baudelaires thought, they would hear the booming "Aye!" of Captain Widdershins as he welcomed them back from their mission. Perhaps Phil would have cooked them a nice hot meal, even without the culinary assistance of Sunny. And perhaps the telegram device would have received another Volunteer Factual Dispatch, one that might help them find the sugar bowl so their entire journey would not have been a fool's errand.
But when Klaus led them to the hatch, they found no sign that anyone aboard the Queequeg was welcoming them. After knocking for several minutes, the worried children had to open the hatch by themselves, a difficult task in the dark, and enter the passageway, quickly closing the hatch behind them. They grew more worried as they discovered that nobody had activated the hatch, so quite a bit of water flowed into the passageway and poured down to the room in which the Baudelaires had first met Captain Widdershins. They could hear the water splashing on the submarine floor as they began their climb down, and strained to hear the captain shouting "Aye! What a mess!" or "Aye! The valve is broken!" or even something optimistic from Phil, like "Look on the bright side – it's like having a wading pool!"
"Captain Widdershins?" Violet called, her voice muffled through her helmet.
"Stepfather?" Fiona called, her voice muffled through hers.
"Phil?" Klaus called.
"Crew?" Sunny called.
Nobody answered these calls, and nobody commented on the water from the passageway, and when the volunteers reached the end of the passageway and lowered themselves into the small, dim room, they found nobody there to meet them.