“We know what a commonplace book is,” Klaus said, and removed his dark blue notebook from his pocket. “I’ve been keeping one myself.”
Fiona smiled, and drummed her gloved fingers on the cover of Klaus’s book. “I should have known,” she said. “If your sisters want to start books themselves, we should have a few spares. Everything’s in our supply room.”
“So are we going up to the ruins of the headquarters,” Violet asked, “to get the sugar bowl? We didn’t see it there.”
“We think someone threw it out the window,” Fiona answered, “when the fire began. If they threw the sugar bowl from the kitchen, it would have landed in the Stricken Stream and been carried by the water cycle all the way down the mountains. We were seeing if it could be found at the bottom of the stream when we happened upon you three.”
“The stream probably carried it much further than this,” Klaus said thoughtfully.
“I think so too,” Fiona agreed. “I’m hoping that you can discover its location by studying my stepfather’s tidal charts. I can’t make head or tail of them.”
“I’ll show you how to read them,” Klaus said. “It’s not difficult.”
“That’s what frightens me,” Fiona said. “If those charts aren’t difficult to read, then Count Olaf might have a chance of finding the sugar bowl before we do. My stepfather says that if the sugar bowl falls into his hands, then all of the efforts of all of the volunteers will be for naught.”
The Baudelaires nodded, and the four children made their way down the corridor in silence. The phrase “for naught” is simply a fancy way of saying “for nothing,” and it doesn’t matter which phrase you use, for they are both equally difficult to admit. Later this afternoon, for instance, I will enter a large room full of sand, and if I do not find the test tube I am looking for, it will be difficult to admit that I have sifted through all that sand for nothing. If you insist on finishing this book, you will find it difficult to admit, between bouts of weeping, that you have read this story for naught, and that it would have been better to page through tedious descriptions of the water cycle. And the Baudelaires did not want to find themselves admitting that all of their troubles had been for naught, that all their adventures meant nothing, and that their entire lives were naught and nothing, if Count Olaf managed to find this crucial sugar bowl before they did. The three siblings followed Fiona down the dim corridor and hoped that their time aboard the Queequeg would not be another terrifying journey ending in more disappointment, disillusionment, and despair.
For the moment, however, their journey ended at a small door where Fiona stopped and turned to face the Baudelaires. “This is our supply room,” she said. “Inside you’ll find uniforms for the three of you, although even our smallest size might be too big for Sunny.”
“Pinstripe,” Sunny said. She meant something like, “Don’t worry—I’m used to ill-fitting clothing,” and her siblings were quick to translate.
“You’ll need diving helmets, too,” Fiona said. “This is an old submarine, and it could spring a leak. If the leak is serious, the pressure of the water could cause the walls of the Queequeg to collapse, filling all these rooms and corridors with water. The oxygen systems contained in the diving helmets enable you to breathe underwater—for a short time, anyway.”
“Your stepfather said that the helmets would be too big for Sunny, and that she’d have to curl up inside one,” Violet said. “Is that safe?”
“Safe but uncomfortable,” Fiona said, “like everything else on the Queequeg. This submarine used to be in wonderful shape, but without anyone who knows about mechanics, it’s not quite up to its former glory. Many of the rooms have flooded, so I’m sorry to say that we’ll be sleeping in very tight quarters. I hope you like bunk beds.”
“We’ve slept on worse,” Klaus said.
“So I hear,” Fiona replied. “I read a description of the Orphans Shack at Prufrock Preparatory School. That sounded terrible.”
“So you knew about us, even then?” Violet asked. “Why didn’t you find us sooner?”
Fiona sighed. “We knew about you,” she said. “Every day I would read terrible stories in the newspaper, but my stepfather said we couldn’t do anything about all the treachery those stories contained.”
“Why not?” Klaus asked.
“He said your troubles were too enormous,” she replied.
“I don’t understand,” Violet said.
“I don’t really understand, either,” Fiona admitted. “My stepfather said that the amount of treachery in this world is enormous, and that the best we could do was one small noble thing. That’s why we’re looking for the sugar bowl. You’d think that accomplishing such a small task would be easy, but we’ve been looking for ages and still haven’t found it.”
“But what’s so important about the sugar bowl?” Klaus asked.
Fiona sighed again, and blinked several times behind her triangular glasses. She looked so sad that the middle Baudelaire almost wished he hadn’t asked. “I don’t know,” she said. “He won’t tell me.”
“Whyno?” Sunny asked.
“He said it was better I didn’t know,” Fiona said. “I guess that’s enormous, too—an enormous secret. He said people had been destroyed for knowing such enormous secrets, and that he didn’t want me in that sort of danger.”
“But you’re already in danger,” Klaus said. “We’re all in danger. We’re on board an unstable submarine, trying to find a tiny, important object before a nefarious villain gets his hands on it.”
Fiona turned the handle of the door, which opened with a long, loud creak that made the Baudelaires shiver. The room was very small and very dim, lit only by one small green light, and for a moment, it looked like the room was full of people staring silently at the children in the corridor. But then the siblings saw it was just a row of uniforms, hanging limply from hooks along the wall. “I guess there are worse dangers,” Fiona said quietly. “I guess there are dangers we simply can’t imagine.”
The Baudelaires looked at their companion and then at the eerie row of empty uniforms. On a shelf above the waterproof suits was a row of large diving helmets, round spheres of metal with small circular windows in the middle so the children would be able to see out when they put them on. In the dim green light, the helmets looked a bit like eyes, glaring at the Baudelaires from the supply room just as the eye on Count Olaf’s ankle had glared at them so many times before. Although they still weren’t pirates, the siblings were tempted to say “shiver me timbers” once again as they stepped inside the small, cramped room, and felt themselves shiver down to their bones. They did not like to think about the Queequeg springing a leak or collapsing, or to imagine themselves frantically attaching the diving helmets to their heads—or, in Sunny’s case, frantically stuffing herself inside. They did not like to think about where Count Olaf might be, or imagine what would happen if he found the sugar bowl before they did. But most of all, the Baudelaire orphans did not like to think about the dangers Fiona had mentioned—dangers worse than the ones they faced, or dangers they simply couldn’t imagine.
CHAPTER
Four
The expression “fits like a glove” is an odd one, because there are many different types of gloves and only a few of them are going to fit the situation you are in. If you need to keep your hands warm in a cold environment, then you’ll need a fitted pair of insulated gloves, and a glove made to fit in the bureau of a dollhouse will be of no help whatsoever. If you need to sneak into a restaurant in the middle of the night and steal a pair of chopsticks without being discovered, then you’ll need a sheer pair of gloves that leave no marks, and a glove decorated with loud bells simply will not do. And if you need to pass unnoticed in a shrubbery-covered landscape, then you’ll need a very, very large glove made of green and leafy fabric, and an elegant pair of silk gloves will be entirely useless.
Nevertheless, the expression “fits like a glove” simply means that something is very su
itable, the way a custard is suitable for dessert, or a pair of chopsticks is a suitable tool to remove papers from an open briefcase, and when the Baudelaire orphans put on the uniforms of the Queequeg they found that they fitted the children like a glove, despite the fact that they did not actually fit that well. Violet was so pleased that the uniforms had several loops around the waist, just perfect for holding tools, that she didn’t care that her sleeves bagged at the elbows. Klaus was happy that there was a waterproof pocket for his commonplace book, and didn’t care that his boots were a bit too tight. And Sunny was reassured that the shiny material was sturdy enough to resist cooking spills as well as water, and didn’t mind rolling up the legs of the suit almost all the way so she could walk. But it was more than the individual features of the uniforms that felt fitting—it was the place and the people they represented. For a long time the Baudelaires had felt as if their lives were a damaged Frisbee, tossed from person to person and from place to place without ever really being appreciated or fitting in. But as they zipped up their uniforms and smoothed out the portraits of Herman Melville, the children felt as if the Frisbee of their lives just might be repaired. In wearing the uniform of the Queequeg, the siblings felt a part of something—not a family, exactly, but a gathering of people who had all volunteered for the same mission. To think that their skills in inventing, research, and cooking would be appreciated was something they had not thought in a long time, and as they stood in the supply room and regarded one another, this feeling fit them like a glove.
“Shall we go back to the Main Hall?” Violet asked. “I’m ready to take a look at the telegram device.”
“Let me just loosen the buckles on these boots,” Klaus said, “and I’ll be ready to tackle those tidal charts.”
“Cuisi—” Sunny said. By “Cuisi,” she meant something like, “I’m looking forward to examining the kitch—” but a loud scraping sound from overhead stopped the youngest Baudelaire from finishing her sentence. The entire submarine seemed to shake, and a few drops of water fell from the ceiling onto the Baudelaires’ heads.
“What was that?” Violet asked, picking up a diving helmet. “Do you think the Queequeg has sprung a leak?”
“I don’t know,” Klaus said, picking up one helmet for himself and another for Sunny. “Let’s go find out.”
The three Baudelaires hurried back down the corridor to the Main Hall as the horrid scraping sound continued. If you have ever heard the sound of fingernails against a chalkboard, then you know how unnerving a scraping sound can be, and to the children it sounded as if the largest fingernails in the world had mistaken the submarine for a piece of educational equipment.
“Captain Widdershins!” Violet cried over the scraping sound as the Baudelaires entered the hall. The captain was still at the top of the ladder, grasping the steering wheel in his gloved hand. “What’s going on?”
“This darned steering mechanism is a disgrace!” the captain cried in disgust. “Aye! The Queequeg just bumped against a rock formation on the side of the stream. If I hadn’t managed to get the sub back in control, the Submarine Q and Its Crew of Two would be sleeping with the fishes! Aye!”
“Perhaps I should examine the steering mechanism first,” Violet said, “and fix the telegram device later.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” the captain said. “If we can’t receive any Volunteer Factual Dispatches, we might as well be wandering around with our eyes closed! We must find the sugar bowl before Count Olaf! Aye! Our personal safety isn’t nearly as important! Now hurry up! Aye! Get a move on! Aye! Get cracking! Aye! Get a glass of water if you’re thirsty! Aye! He or she who hesitates is lost!”
Violet didn’t bother to point out that finding the sugar bowl would be impossible if the submarine was destroyed, and she knew better than to argue with the captain’s personal philosophy. “It’s worth a try,” she said, and walked over to the small wheeled platform. “Do you mind if I use this?” she asked Fiona. “It’ll help me get a good look at the device’s machinery.”
“Be my guest,” Fiona said. “Klaus, let’s get to work on the tidal charts. We can study them at the table, and keep an eye out for glimpses of the sugar bowl through the porthole. I don’t think we’ll see it, but it’s worth taking a look.”
“Fiona,” Violet said hesitantly, “could you also take a look for our friend, Quigley Quagmire? He was carried away by the stream’s other tributary, and we haven’t seen him since.”
“Quigley Quagmire?” Fiona asked. “The cartographer?”
“He’s a friend of ours,” Klaus said. “Do you know him?”
“Only by reputation,” Fiona said, using a phrase which here means “I don’t know him personally but I’ve heard of the work he does.” “The volunteers lost track of him a long time ago, along with Hector and the other Quagmire triplets.”
“The Quagmires haven’t been as lucky as we have,” Violet said, tying her hair up in a ribbon to help her focus on repairing the telegram device. “I’m hoping you’ll spot him with the periscope.”
“It’s worth a try,” Fiona said, as Phil walked through the kitchen doors, wearing an apron over his uniform.
“Sunny?” he asked. “I heard you were going to help me in the kitchen. We’re a bit low on supplies, I’m afraid. Using the Queequeg nets I managed to catch a few cod, and we have half a sack of potatoes, but not much else. Do you have any ideas about what to make for dinner?”
“Chowda?” Sunny asked.
“It’s worth a try,” Phil said, and for the next few hours, all three Baudelaires tried to see if their tasks were worth a try. Violet wheeled herself underneath several pipes to get a good look at the telegram device, and frowned as she twisted wires and tightened a few screws with a screwdriver she found lying around. Klaus sat at the table and looked over the tidal charts, using a pencil to trace possible paths the sugar bowl might have taken as the water cycle sent it tumbling down the Stricken Stream. And Sunny worked with Phil, standing on a large soup pot so she could reach the counter of the small, grimy kitchen, boiling potatoes and picking tiny bones out of the cod. And as the afternoon turned to evening, and the waters of the Stricken Stream grew even darker in the porthole, the Main Hall of the Queequeg was quiet as all the volunteers worked on the tasks at hand. But even when Captain Widdershins climbed down from the ladder, retrieved a small bell from a pocket of his uniform, and filled the room with the echoes of its loud, metallic ring, the Baudelaires could not be certain if all their efforts had been worth a try at all.
“Attention!” the captain said. “Aye! I want the entire crew of the Queequeg to report on their progress! Gather ’round the table and tell me what’s going on!”
Violet wheeled herself out from under the telegram device, and joined her brother and Fiona at the table, while Sunny and Phil emerged from the kitchen.
“I’ll report first!” the captain said. “Aye! Because I’m the captain! Not because I’m showing off! Aye! I try not to show off very much! Aye! Because it’s rude! Aye! I’ve managed to steer us further down the Stricken Stream without bumping into anything else! Aye! Which is much harder than it sounds! Aye! We’ve reached the sea! Aye! Now it should be easier not to run into anything! Aye! Violet, what about you?”
“Well, I thoroughly examined the telegram device,” Violet said. “I made a few minor repairs, but I found nothing that would interfere with receiving a telegram.”
“You’re saying that the device isn’t broken, aye?” the captain demanded.
“Aye,” Violet said, growing more comfortable with the captain’s speech. “I think there must be a problem at the other end.”
“Procto?” Sunny asked, which meant “The other end?”
“A telegram requires two devices,” Violet said. “One to send the message and the other to receive it. I think you haven’t been receiving Volunteer Factual Dispatches because whoever sends the messages is having a problem with their machine.”
“But all sorts of volunteers
send us messages,” Fiona said.
“Aye!” the captain said. “We’ve received dispatches from more than twenty-five agents!”
“Then many machines must be damaged,” Violet replied.
“Sabotage,” Klaus said.
“It does sound like the damage has been done on purpose,” Violet agreed. “Remember when we sent a telegram to Mr. Poe, from the Last Chance General Store?”
“Silencio,” Sunny said, which meant “We never heard a reply.”
“They’re closing in,” the captain said darkly. “Our enemies are preventing us from communicating.”
“I don’t see how Count Olaf would have time to destroy all those machines,” Klaus said.
“Many telegrams travel through telephone lines,” Fiona said. “It wouldn’t be difficult.”
“Besides, Olaf isn’t the only enemy,” Violet said, thinking of two other villains the Baudelaires had encountered on Mount Fraught.
“Aye!” the captain said. “That’s for certain. There is evil out there you cannot even imagine. Klaus, have you made any progress on the tidal charts?”
Klaus spread out a chart on the table so everyone could see. The chart was really more of a map, showing the Stricken Stream winding through the mountains before reaching the sea, with tiny arrows and notations describing the way the water was moving. The arrows and notes were in several different colors of ink, as if the chart had been passed from researcher to researcher, each adding notes as he or she discovered more information about the area. “It’s more complicated than I thought,” the middle Baudelaire said, “and much more dull. These charts note every single detail concerning the water cycle.”
“Dull?” the captain roared. “Aye? We’re in the middle of a desperate mission and all you can think of is your own entertainment? Aye? Do you want us to hesitate? Stop our activities and put on a puppet show just so you won’t find this submarine dull?”