The Grim Grotto (A Series of Unfortunate Events 11)

"I guess her brother was right," Violet said, putting her arm around her brother. "People aren't either wicked or noble."

"Correctiona," Sunny said, which meant "Fiona was right, too – we'd better hurry if we want to escape from the Carmelita before Olaf notices we're not in the brig."

"I'll set a course for Briny Beach," Violet said.

Klaus took one last look at the porthole where Fiona had disappeared, and nodded. "I'll look at the tidal charts," he said.

"Amnesi!" Sunny cried. She meant something along the lines of, "You're forgetting something!" and pointed one small finger at the circle of glass on the floor.

"Sunny's right," Klaus said. "We can't launch the submarine without repairing that porthole, or we'll drown."

But Violet was already halfway up the rope ladder that led to the Queequeg's controls. "You'll have to repair that yourself, Sunny," she called down.

"Cook," Sunny replied. "Cook and teeth."

"We don't have time to argue," Klaus said grimly, pointing at the sonar screen. The question mark was inching closer and closer to the glowing Q.

"Aye," Sunny said, and hurried to the glass circle on the floor. It was still intact, but the youngest Baudelaire could think of nothing that could reattach the circle to the wall of the submarine.

"I think I've found the location device," Violet called down from the Queequeg's controls. Quickly she flipped a switch, and waited impatiently as a screen came to life. "It looks like we're fourteen nautical miles southeast of the Gorgonian Grotto. Does that help?"

"Aye," Klaus said, running his finger over one of the charts. "We need to travel straight north to Briny Beach. It shouldn't be far. But how are we going to get out of the Carmelite?"

"I guess we'll just fire up the engines," Violet said, "and I'll try to steer us back through the tunnel."

"Have you ever steered a submarine before?" Klaus asked nervously.

"Of course not," Violet said. "We're in uncharted waters, aye."

"Aye," Klaus said, and looked proudly up at his sister. The two Baudelaires could not help grinning for a moment before Violet pulled a large lever, and the familiar, whirring sound of the Queequeg's engines filled the Main Hall.

"Gangway!" Sunny cried, squeezing past Klaus as she raced toward the kitchen. Violet and Klaus heard their sister fumbling around for a moment, and then the youngest Baudelaire returned, carrying two boxes the siblings recognized from their time in the town of Paltryville. "Gum!" she cried triumphantly, already ripping the wrappers off several pieces and sticking them into her mouth.

"Good idea, Sunny," Violet called. "The gum can act as an adhesive, and stick the porthole back together."

"That thing is getting closer," Klaus said, pointing to the sonar screen. "We'd better get the submarine moving. Sunny can do the repair work while we move through the tunnel."

"I'll need your help, Klaus," Violet said. "Stand at the porthole and let me know which way to turn. Aye?"

"Aye!" Klaus replied.

"Aye!" Sunny cried, her mouth full of gum.

The elder Baudelaires remembered that their sibling had been too young for gum when the children were working at the lumbermill, and they could hardly believe she had grown up enough to be stuffing handfuls of the sticky substance into her mouth.

"Which way do I go?" Violet called from the controls.

Klaus peered out of the porthole. "Right!" he called back, and the Queequeg lurched to the right, traveling with difficulty in the little water at the bottom of the tunnel. There was an enormous scraping sound, and the Baudelaires heard a loud splashing from inside one of the pipes. "I mean, left!" Klaus said quickly. "You and I are facing opposite directions! Left!"

"Aye!" Violet cried, and the submarine lurched in the opposite direction. Through the porthole, the Baudelaires could see that they were moving away from the platform where Olaf had first greeted them. Sunny spat a huge wad of gum onto the glass circle, and spread it around with her hands on the circle's edge.

"Right!" Klaus cried, and Violet turned the Queequeg again, narrowly missing a turn in the passageway. The eldest Baudelaire looked nervously at the sonar screen, where the sinister shape was moving closer and closer to them. "Left!" Klaus cried. "Left and down!"

The submarine lurched and sank, and through the porthole the middle Baudelaire caught a brief glimpse of the rowing room, with Esmé holding the tagliatelle grande threateningly in one fake tentacle. Sunny hurriedly stuffed more gum into her mouth, moving her enormous teeth furiously to soften the candy. "Left again!" Klaus cried. "And then a very sharp right when I say 'Now'!"

"Now?" Violet called back.

"No," Klaus said, and held up one hand as Sunny spit more gum onto the glass circle. "NOW!"

The submarine lurched violently to the right, sending several objects tumbling from the wooden table. Sunny ducked to avoid being knocked on the head by the poetry of T.S. Eliot.

"Sorry for the bumps," Violet called, from the top of the rope ladder. "I'm still getting the hang of these controls. What's next?"

Klaus peered out of the porthole. "Keep going straight," he said, "and we should exit the octopus."

"Help!" Sunny cried, spreading the rest of the gum on the edge of the circle.

Klaus hurried to her side, and Violet raced down the rope ladder to help, leaving the submarine's controls alone so the Queequeg would travel in a straight line. Together, the three Baudelaires picked up the glass circle and climbed onto the wooden table so they could put the porthole back together.

"I hope it holds," Violet said. "If it doesn't," Klaus said, "we'll know soon enough."

"On three," Sunny said, which meant something like, "After I say one and two."

"One! Due!"

"Three!" the Baudelaire orphans said in unison, and pressed the glass circle against the hole Olaf had cut, smoothing the gum over the crack so that it might hold firm, just as the Queequeg tumbled out of the mechanical octopus into the chilly waters of the ocean.

The Baudelaires pushed against the porthole together, their arms stretched out against the glass as if they were trying to keep someone from coming in a door. A few rivulets – a word which here means "tiny streams of water" – dripped through the gum, but Sunny hurriedly patted the sticky substance into place to stop the leaks. Her tiny hands smoothed the gum over the edge of the circle, making sure her handiwork was strong enough that the children wouldn't drown, but when she heard her siblings gasp she looked up from her work, looked through the repaired porthole, and stared in amazement at what she saw.

In the final analysis – a phrase which here means "after much thought, and some debate with my colleagues" – Captain Widdershins was wrong about a great many things. He was wrong about his personal philosophy, because there are plenty of times when one should hesitate. He was wrong about his wife's death, because as Fiona suspected, Mrs. Widdershins did not die in a manatee accident. He was wrong to call Phil "Cookie" when it is more polite to call someone by their proper name, and he was wrong to abandon the Queequeg, no matter what he heard from the woman who came to fetch him. Captain Widdershins was wrong to trust his stepson for so many years, and wrong to participate in the destruction of Anwhistle Aquatics, and he was wrong to insist, as he did so many years ago, that a story in The Daily Punctilio was completely true, and to show this article to so many volunteers, including the Baudelaire parents, the Snicket siblings, and the woman I happened to love. But Captain Widdershins was right about one thing. He was right to say that there are secrets in this world too terrible for young people to know, for the simple reason that there are secrets in this world too terrible for anyone to know, whether they are as young as Sunny Baudelaire or as old as Gregor Anwhistle, secrets so terrible that they ought to be kept secret, which is probably how the secrets became secrets in the first place, and one of those secrets is the long, strange shape the Baudelaire orphans saw, first on the Queequeg's sonar, and then as they held the porthole in place and stared out int

o the waters of the sea.

Night had fallen – Monday night – so the view outside was very dark, and the Baudelaires could scarcely see this enormous and sinister shape. They could not even tell, just as I will not tell, if it was some horrifying mechanical device, such as a submarine, or some ghastly creature of the sea. They merely saw an enormous shadow, curling and uncurling in the water, as if Count Olaf's one eyebrow had grown into an enormous beast that was roaming the sea, a shadow as chilling as the villain's glare and as dark as villainy itself. The Baudelaire orphans had never seen anything so utterly eerie, and they found themselves sitting still as statues, pressing against the porthole in an utter hush. It was probably this hush that saved them, for the sinister shape curled once more, and began to fade into the blackness of the water.