“You must have been proud of your handiwork,” Fiona said bitterly.
“Proud?” the hook-handed man said. “It was the worst day of my life. That plume of smoke was the saddest thing I ever saw.” He speared the newspaper with his other hook and ripped the article into shreds. “The Punctilio got everything wrong,” he said. “Captain Widdershins isn’t my father. Widdershins isn’t my last name. And there’s much more to the fire than that. You should know that the Daily Punctilio doesn’t tell the whole story, Baudelaires. Just as the poison of a deadly fungus can be the source of some wonderful medicines, someone like Jacques Snicket can do something villainous, and someone like Count Olaf can do something noble. Even your parents—”
“Our stepfather knew Jacques Snicket,” Fiona said. “He was a good man, but Count Olaf murdered him. Are you a murderer, too? Did you kill Gregor Anwhistle?”
In grim silence, the hook-handed man held his hooks in front of the children. “The last time you saw me,” he said to Fiona, “I had two hands, instead of hooks. Our stepfather probably didn’t tell you what happened to me—he always said there were secrets in this world too terrible for young people to know. What a fool!”
“Our stepfather isn’t a fool,” Fiona said. “He’s a noble man. Aye!”
“People aren’t either wicked or noble,” the hook-handed man said. “They’re like chef’s salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.” He turned to the two elder Baudelaires and pointed at them with his hooks. “Look at yourselves, Baudelaires. Do you really think we’re so different? When those eagles carried me away from the mountains in that net, I saw the ruins of that fire in the hinterlands—a fire we started together. You’ve burned things down, and so have I. You joined the crew of the Queequeg, and I joined the crew of the Carmelita. Our captains are both volatile people, and we’re both trying to get to the Hotel Denouement before Thursday. The only difference between us is the portraits on our uniforms.”
“We’re wearing Herman Melville,” Klaus said. “He was a writer of enormous talent who dramatized the plight of overlooked people, such as poor sailors or exploited youngsters, through his strange, often experimental philosophical prose. I’m proud to display his portrait. But you’re wearing Edgar Guest. He was a writer of limited skill, who wrote awkward, tedious poetry on hopelessly sentimental topics. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“Edgar Guest isn’t my favorite poet,” the hook-handed man admitted. “Before I joined up with Count Olaf, I was studying poetry with my stepfather. We used to read to one another in the Main Hall of the Queequeg. But it’s too late now. I can’t return to my old life.”
“Maybe not,” Klaus said. “But you can return us to the Queequeg, so we can save Sunny.”
“Please,” the children heard Sunny say, from inside the helmet, although her voice was quite hoarse, as if she would not be able to speak for much longer, and for a moment the only sound in the brig was Sunny’s desperate coughing as the minutes in her crucial hour ticked away, and the muttering of the hook-handed man as he paced back and forth, twiddling his hooks in thought. Violet and Klaus watched his hooks, and thought of all the times he had used them to threaten the siblings. It is one thing to believe that people have both good and bad inside them, mixed together like ingredients in a salad bowl. But it is quite another to look at a cohort of a despicable villain, who has tried again and again to cause so much harm, and try to see where the good parts are buried, when all you can remember is the pain and suffering he has caused. As the hook-handed man circled the brig, it was as if the Baudelaires were picking through a chef’s salad consisting mostly of dreadful—and perhaps even poisonous—ingredients, trying desperately to find the one noble crouton that might save their sister, just as I, between paragraphs, am picking through this salad in front of me, hoping that my waiter is more noble than wicked, and that my sister, Kit, might be saved by the small, herbed piece of toast I hope to retrieve from my bowl. After much hemming and hawing, however—a phrase which here means “muttering, and clearing of one’s throat, used to avoid making a quick decision”—Count Olaf’s henchman stopped in front of the children, put his hooks on his hips, and offered them a Hobson’s choice.
“I’ll return you to the Queequeg,” he said, “if you take me with you.”
CHAPTER
Eleven
“Aye!” Fiona said. “Aye! Aye! Aye! We’ll take you with us, Fernald! Aye!”
Violet and Klaus looked at one another. They were grateful, of course, that the hook-handed man was letting them save Sunny from the Medusoid Mycelium, but they couldn’t help but wish Fiona had uttered fewer “Aye!” s. Inviting Count Olaf’s henchman to join them on the Queequeg, even if he was Fiona’s long-lost brother, seemed like a decision they might regret.
“I’m so glad,” the hook-handed man said, giving the two siblings a smile they found inscrutable, a word which here means “either pleasant or nasty, but it was hard to tell.” “I have lots of ideas about where we could go after we get off the Carmelita.”
“Well, I’d certainly like to hear them,” Fiona said. “Aye!”
“Perhaps we could discuss such things later,” Violet said. “I don’t think now is a good time to hesitate.”
“Aye!” Fiona said. “She who hesitates is lost!”
“Or he,” Klaus reminded her. “We’ve got to get to the Queequeg right away.”
The hook-handed man opened the door of the brig and looked up and down the corridor. “This will be tricky,” he said, beckoning to the children with one of his hooks. “The only way back to the Queequeg is through the rowing room, but that room is filled with children we’ve kidnapped. Esmé took my tagliatelle grande and is whipping them so they’ll row faster.”
The elder Baudelaires did not bother to point out that the hook-handed man had threatened the Baudelaires with the very same noodle, when the children had worked at Caligari Carnival, along with a few other individuals who had ended up joining Olaf’s troupe. “Is there any way to sneak past them?” Violet asked.
“We’ll see,” Olaf’s henchman said. “Follow me.”
The hook-handed man strode quickly down the empty corridor, with Fiona behind him and the two Baudelaires behind her, carrying the diving helmet in which Sunny still coughed. Violet and Klaus purposefully lagged behind so they might have a word with the mycologist.
“Fiona, are you sure you want to take him with us?” Klaus asked, leaning in close to murmur in her ear. “He’s a very dangerous and volatile man.”
“He’s my brother,” Fiona replied in a fierce whisper, “and I’m your captain. Aye! I’m in charge of the Queequeg, so I get to choose its crew.”
“We know that,” Violet said, “but we just thought you might want to reconsider.”
“Never,” Fiona said firmly. “With my stepfather gone, Fernald may be the only person I have left in my family. Would you ask me to abandon my own sibling?”
As if replying, Sunny coughed desperately from inside her helmet, and the elder Baudelaires knew that Fiona was right. “Of course we wouldn’t,” Klaus said.
“Stop muttering back there,” the hook-handed man ordered, as he led the children around another twist in the corridor. “We’re approaching the rowing room, and we don’t want anyone to hear us.”
The children stopped talking, but as the henchman stopped at the door to the rowing room, and held his hook over an eye on the wall which would open the door, Violet and Klaus could hear that there was no reason to be quiet. Even through the thick metal of the rowing room entrance, they could hear the loud, piercing voice of Carmelita Spats.
“For my third dance,” she was saying, “I will twirl around and around while all of you clap as hard as you can. It is a dance of celebration, in honor of the most adorable tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian in the world!”
“Please, Carmelita,” begged the voice of a child. “We’ve been
rowing for hours. Our hands are too sore to clap.”
There was a faint, damp sound, like someone dropping a washcloth, and the elder Baudelaires realized that Esmé was whipping the children with her enormous noodle. “You will participate in Carmelita’s recital,” the treacherous girlfriend announced, “or you will suffer the sting of my tagliatelle grande! Ha ha hoity-toity!”
“It’s not really a sting,” said one brave child. “It’s more of a mild, wet slap.”
“Shut up, cakesniffer!” Carmelita ordered, and the children heard the rustle of her pink tutu as she began to twirl. “Start clapping!” she shrieked, and then the children heard a sound they had never heard before.
There is nothing wicked about having a dreadful singing voice, any more than there is something wicked about having dreadful posture, dreadful cousins, or a dreadful pair of pants. Many noble and pleasant people have any number of these things, and there are even one or two kind individuals who have them all. But if you have something dreadful, and you force it upon someone else, then you have done something quite wicked indeed. If you force your wicked posture on someone, for instance, by leaning so far back that they are forced to carry you down the street, then you have wickedly ruined their afternoon walk, and if you force your dreadful cousins on someone, by dropping them off to play at their house so you can escape from their dreadful presences and spend some time alone, then you have wickedly ruined their entire day, and only a very wicked person indeed would force a dreadful pair of pants on the legs and lower torso of somebody else. But to force your dreadful singing voice on somebody, or even a crowd of people, is one of the world’s most wicked crimes, and at that moment Carmelita Spats opened her mouth and afflicted the crew of the Carmelita with her wickedness. Carmelita’s singing voice was loud, like a siren, and high-pitched, like a squeaky door, and extremely off-pitch, as if all of the notes in the musical scale were pushing up against one another, all trying to sound at the same time. Her singing voice was mushy, as if someone had filled her mouth with mashed potatoes before she sang, and filled with vibrato, which is the Italian term for a voice that wavers as it sings, as if someone were shaking Carmelita very vigorously as she began her song. Even the most dreadful of voices can be tolerated if it is performing a good song, but I’m sad to say that Carmelita Spats had written the song herself and that it was just as dreadful as her singing voice. Violet and Klaus were reminded of Prufrock Preparatory School, where they had first met Carmelita. The vice principal of the school, a tedious man named Nero, forced his students to listen to him play the violin for hours, and they realized this administrator must have had a powerful influence on Carmelita’s creativity.
“C is for ‘cute,’” Carmelita sang,
“A is for ‘adorable’!
R is for ‘ravishing’!
M is for ‘gorgeous’!
E is for ‘excellent’!
L is for ‘lovable’!
I is for ‘I’m the best’!
T is for ‘talented’!
and A is for ‘a tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian’!
Now let’s begin my whole wonderful song all over again!”
The song was so irritating, and sung so poorly, that Violet and Klaus almost felt as if they were being tortured after all, particularly as Carmelita kept on singing it, over and over and over.
“I can’t stand her voice,” Violet said. “It reminds me of the cawing of the V.F.D. crows.”
“I can’t stand the lyrics,” Klaus said. “Someone needs to tell her that ‘gorgeous’ does not begin with the letter M.”
“I can’t stand the brat,” the hook-handed man said bitterly. “She’s one of the reasons I’d like to leave. But this sounds like as good a time as any to try to sneak through this room. There are plenty of pillars to hide behind, and if we walk around the very edge, where each oar sticks through the wall into the tentacles of the octopus, we should be able to get to the other door—assuming everybody is watching Carmelita’s tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian dance recital.”
“That seems like a very risky plan,” Violet said.
“This is no time to be a coward,” the hook-handed man growled.
“My sister is not a coward,” Klaus said. “She’s just being cautious.”
“There’s no time to be cautious!” Fiona said. “Aye! She who hesitates is lost! Aye! Or he! Let’s go!”
Without another word, the hook-handed man poked the eye on the wall, and the door slid open to reveal the enormous room. As Olaf’s comrade had predicted, the rowing children were all facing Carmelita, who was prancing and singing on one side of the room while Esmé watched with a proud smile on her face and a large noodle in one of her tentacles. With the hook-handed man and Fiona in the lead, the three Baudelaires—Sunny still in the diving helmet, of course—made their careful way around the outside of the room as Carmelita twirled around singing her absurd song. When Carmelita announced what C was for, the children ducked behind one of the pillars. When she told her listeners the meaning of A and R, the children crept past the moving oars, taking care not to trip. When she insisted that “gorgeous” began with M, Count Olaf’s henchman pointed one of his hooks at a far door, and when Carmelita reached E and L, the children ducked behind another pillar, hoping the dim light of the lanterns would not give them away. When Carmelita announced that she was the best, and bragged about being talented, Esmé Squalor frowned and turned around, blinking underneath the fake eyes of her octopus outfit, and the children had to flatten themselves on the floor so the villainous girlfriend would not spot them, and when the tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian found it necessary to remind her audience that she was, in fact, a tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian, the two elder Baudelaires found themselves ahead of Fiona and the hook-handed man, hiding behind a pillar that was just a few feet from their destination. They were just about to inch their way toward the door when Carmelita began belting out the last line of her song—“belting out” is a phrase which here means “singing in a particularly loud and particularly irritating voice”—only to stop herself just as she was about to begin her whole wonderful song all over again.
“C is for—cakesniffers!” she shouted. “What are you doing here?”
Violet and Klaus froze, and then saw with relief that the terrible little girl was pointing scornfully at Fiona and the hook-handed man, who were standing awkwardly between two oars.
“How dare you, Hooky?” Esmé said, fingering her large noodle as if she wanted to strike him with it. “You’re interrupting a very in recital by an unspeakably darling little girl!”
“I’m very sorry, your Esméness,” the hook-handed man said, stepping forward to elaborately bow in front of the wicked girlfriend. “I would sooner lose both hands all over again than interrupt Carmelita when she’s dancing.”
“But you did interrupt me, you handicapped cakesniffer!” Carmelita pouted. “Now I have to start the entire recital all over again!”
“No!” cried one of the rowing children. “Anything but that! It’s torture!”
“Speaking of torture,” the hook-handed man said quickly, “I stopped by to see if I could borrow your tagliatelle grande. It’ll help me get the Baudelaires to reveal the location of the sugar bowl.”
Esmé frowned, and fingered the noodle with one tentacle. “I don’t really like to lend things,” she said. “It usually leads to people messing up my stuff.”
“Please, ma’am,” Fiona said. “We’re so close to learning the location of the sugar bowl. Aye! We just need to borrow your noodle, so we can return to the brig.”
“Why are you helping Hooky?” Esmé said. “I thought you were another goody-goody orphan.”
“Certainly not,” the hook-handed man said. “This is my sister, Fiona, and she’s joining the crew of the Carmelita.”
“Fiona isn’t a very in name,” Esmé said. “I think I’ll call her Triangle Eyes. Are you really willing to jo
in us, Triangle Eyes?”
“Aye!” Fiona said. “Those Baudelaires are nothing but trouble.”
“Why are you still talking?” demanded Carmelita. “This is supposed to be my special tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian dance recital time!”
“Sorry, darling,” Esmé said. “Hooky and Triangle Eyes, take this noodle and scram!”
The hook-handed man and his sister walked to the center of the room and stood directly in front of Esmé and Carmelita, offering a perfect opportunity for the elder Baudelaires to scram, a rude word which here means “slip out of the room unnoticed and walk down the shadowy hallway Olaf had led them down just a little while earlier.”
“Do you think Fiona will join us?” Violet asked.
“I don’t think so,” Klaus said. “They told Esmé they’d return to the brig, so they’ll have to go back the way we came.”
“You don’t think she’s really joining Olaf’s troupe, do you?” Violet said.
“Of course not,” Klaus said. “That was just to give us an opportunity to get out of the room. Fiona may be volatile, but she’s not that volatile.”
“Of course not,” Violet said, though she didn’t sound very sure.
“Of course not,” Klaus repeated, as another ragged cough came from inside the diving helmet. “Hang on, Sunny,” he called to his sister. “You’ll be cured in no time!” Although he tried to sound as confident as he could, the middle Baudelaire had no way of knowing if his words were true—although, I’m happy to say, they were.
“How are you going to cure Sunny,” Violet said, “without Fiona?”
242
“We’ll have to research it ourselves,” Klaus said firmly.
“We’ll never read her entire mycological library in time to make an antidote,” Violet said.
“We don’t have to read the entire library,” Klaus said, as they reached the door to the Queequeg’s brig. “I know just where to look.”