The Grim Grotto (A Series of Unfortunate Events 11)

Klaus looked at his commonplace book, and then at Mushroom Minutiae. "Horseradish," he said quietly. "The road smelled like horseradish! 'Root of horse'! Horseradish is the antidote!"

Violet was already striding to the kitchen. "Let's hope Phil likes to cook with horseradish," she said, and pushed open

the door.

Klaus picked up the wheezing helmet and followed her into the tiny kitchen. There was scarcely enough room for the children to stand in the small space between the stove, the refrigerator, and two wooden cabinets. "The cabinets must serve as a pantry," Klaus said, using a word which here means "place where antidotes are hopefully stored." "Horseradish should be there – if he has it."

The elder Baudelaires shuddered, not wanting to think about what would happen to Sunny if horseradish were not found on the shelves. Within moments, however, Violet and Klaus had to consider that very thing. Violet opened one cupboard, and Klaus opened another, but the children saw immediately that there was no horseradish.

"Gum," Violet said faintly. "Boxes and boxes of gum Phil brought from the lumbermill, and nothing else. Did you find anything, Klaus?"

Klaus pointed to a pair of small cans on one shelf of his cupboard, and held up a small paper bag. "Two cans of water chestnuts," he said, "and a small bag of sesame seeds." His fist closed tightly around the bag, and he blinked back tears behind his glasses. "What are we going to do?"

Sunny wheezed once more, a frantic whistle that reminded her siblings of a train's lonely noise as it disappears into a tunnel.

"Let's check the refrigerator," Violet said. "Maybe there's horseradish in there."

Klaus nodded, and opened the kitchen's refrigerator, which was almost as bare as the pantry. On the top shelf were six small bottles of lemon-lime soda, which Phil had offered the children on their first night aboard the Queequeg. On the middle shelf was a small piece of white, soft cheese, wrapped up in a bit of wax paper. And on the bottom shelf was a large plate, on which was something that made the two siblings begin to cry.

"I forgot," Violet said, tears running down her face.

"Me too," Klaus said, taking the plate out of the refrigerator.

Phil had used the last of the kitchen's provisions – a word which here means "cooking supplies" – to prepare a cake. It looked like a coconut cream cake, like Dr. Montgomery used to make, and the two siblings wondered if Sunny, even as a baby, had noticed enough about cooking to help Phil concoct such a dessert. The cake was heavily frosted, with bits of coconut mixed into the thick, creamy frosting, and spelled out in blue frosting on the top, in Phil's perky, optimistic handwriting, were three words. "Violet's Fifteenth Date," Klaus said numbly. "That's what the balloons were for."

"It was my fifteenth birthday," Violet said. "I turned fifteen sometime when we were in the grotto, and I forgot all about it."

"Sunny didn't forget," Klaus said. "She said she was planning a surprise, remember? We were going to return from our mission in the cave, and celebrate your birthday."

Violet slunk to the floor, and lay her head against Sunny's diving helmet. "What are we going to do?" she sobbed. "We can't lose Sunny. We can't lose her!"

"There must be something we can use," Klaus said, "as a substitute for horseradish. What could it be?"

"I don't know!" Violet cried. "I don't know anything about cooking!"

"Neither do I!" Klaus said, crying as hard as his sister. "Sunny's the one who knows!"

The two weeping Baudelaires looked at one another, and then steeled themselves, a phrase which here means "summoned up as much strength as they could." Then, without another word, they opened the tiny door of Sunnv's helmet and quickly dragged their sister out, quickly shutting the door behind her so the fungus would not spread. At first, their sister looked completely unchanged, but when the wheezing young girl opened her mouth, they could see several gray stalks and caps of this horrible mushroom, splotched with black as if someone had poured ink into Sunny's mouth. Wheezing horribly, Sunny reached out her tiny arms to each of her siblings and grabbed their hands. She did not have to utter a word. Violet and Klaus knew she was begging for help, but there was nothing they could do except ask her one desperate question.

"Sunny," Violet said, "we've researched an antidote. Only horseradish can save you. But there's no horseradish in the kitchen."

"Sunny," Klaus said, "is there a culinary equivalent of horseradish?"

Sunny opened her mouth as if trying to say something, but the elder Baudelaires only heard the hoarse, whistling sound of air trying to make its way past the mushrooms. Her tiny hands curled into fists, and her body twisted back and forth in pain and fear. Finally, she managed to utter one word – a word that many might not have understood. Some might have thought it was part of Sunny's personal vocabulary – perhaps her way of saying "I love you," or even "Farewell, siblings." Some might have thought it was pure nonsense, just the noises one might make when a deadly fungus has defeated you. But there are many others who would have understood it immediately. A person from Japan would have known she was talking about a condiment often served with raw fish and pickled ginger. A chef would have known that Sunny was referring to a strong, green root, widely considered the culinary equivalent of horseradish. And Violet and Klaus knew that their sister was naming her salvation, a phrase which here means "something that would save her life," or "something that would rescue her from the Medusoid Mycelium," or, most importantly, "an item the eldest Baudelaire still had in the waterproof pocket of her uniform, scaled in a tin Sunny had found in an underwater cavern."

"Wasabi," Sunny said, in a hoarse, mushroom-choked whisper, and she did not have to say anything more.

Chapter Twelve

The expression "the tables have turned" is not one the Baudelaire orphans had much occasion to use, as it refers to a situation that has suddenly been reversed, so that those who were previously in a powerless position could suddenly find themselves in a powerful one, and vice versa. For the Baudelaires, the tables had turned at Briny Beach, when they received news of the terrible fire, and Count Olaf suddenly became a powerful and terrifying figure in their lives. As time went on, the siblings waited and waited for the tables to turn back, so that Olaf might be defeated once and for all and they could find themselves free of the sinister and mysterious forces that threatened to engulf them, but the tables of the Baudelaires' lives seemed stuck, with the children always in a position of misery and sorrow while wickedness seemed to triumph all around them. But as Violet hurriedly opened the tin of wasabi she had been keeping in her pocket, and spooned the green, spicy mixture into Sunny's wheezing mouth, it seemed like the tables might turn after all. Sunny gasped when the wasabi hit her tongue, and the stalks and caps of the Medusoid Mycelium shivered, and seemed to shrink back from the powerful Japanese condiment. In moments, the fungus began to wither and fade away, and Sunny's wheezing faded into coughing, and her coughing faded into deep breaths as the youngest Baudelaire rallied, a word which here means "regained her strength, and ability to breathe." The youngest Baudelaire hung on tight to her siblings' hands, and her eyes filled with tears, but Violet and Klaus could see that the Medusoid Mycelium would not triumph over their sister.

"It's working," Violet said. "Sunny's breathing is getting stronger.

"Yes," Klaus said. "We've turned the tables on that ghastly fungus."

"Water," Sunny said, and her brother stood up from the kitchen floor and quickly got his sister a glass of water. Weakly, the youngest Baudelaire sat up and drank deeply from the glass, and then hugged both her siblings as tightly as she could. "Thank you," she said. "Saved me."

"You saved yourself," Violet pointed out. "We had the wasabi this whole time, but we didn't think of giving it to you until you told us."

Sunny coughed again, and lay back down on the floor. "Tuckered," she murmured.

"I'm not surprised you're exhausted," Violet said. "You've been through quite an ordeal. Shall we carry you to the barracks so you can rest?"

"Rest here," Sunny said, curling up at the foot of the stove.

"Will you really be comfortable on the kitchen floor?" Klaus asked.

Sunny opened one exhausted eye and smiled at her siblings. "Near you," she said.

"All right, Sunny," Violet said, grabbing a dish towel from the kitchen

counter, and folding it into a pillow for her sister. "We'll be in the Main Hall if you need us."

"What next?" she murmured.

"Shh," Klaus said, putting another dish towel on top of her. "Don't worry, Sunny. We'll figure out what to do next."

The Baudelaires tiptoed out of the kitchen, carrying the tin of wasabi. "Do you think she'll be all right?" Violet asked.

"I'm sure she will," Klaus said. "After a nap she'll be as good as new. But we should eat some of that wasabi ourselves. When we opened the diving helmet, we were exposed to the Medusoid Mycelium, and we'll need all of our strength to get away from Olaf."

Violet nodded, and put a spoonful of wasabi into her mouth, shuddering violently as the condiment hit her tongue. "There's one last spoonful," Violet said, handing the tin to her brother. "We'd better make sure that diving helmet stays closed until we get our hands on some horseradish and destroy that fungus for good."

Klaus nodded in agreement, closed his eyes, and ate the last of the Japanese condiment. "If we ever invent that food code we talked about with Fiona," he said, "the word 'wasabi' should mean 'powerful.' No wonder this cured our sister."

"But now that we've cured her," Violet said, remembering Sunny's question as she fell asleep, "what next?"

"Olaf is next," Klaus said firmly. "He said he has everything he needs to defeat V.F.D. forever – except the sugar bowl."