Speeding down the Stricken Stream, soaking wet and clutching each other and their toboggan for dear life, Violet, Klaus and Sunny find themselves suddenly in front of a submarine’s eye and on its deck. Knocking frantically to be let in, Violet gives the password “the world is quiet here,” a phrase that her mother used to sing to her when she was little. The door opens and the Baudelaires are rushed inside the submarine as it descends again underwater.
As it turns
out the submarine is part of VFD, and the good part that wants to help the
children and stop Count Olaf and his dastardly deeds. The ship is run by
Captain Widdershins, his stepdaughter Fiona, and Phil who once worked at the
Lucky Smells Lumbermill. While the crew of the Queequeg seems to be on their
side, Captain Widdershins refuses to tell the Baudelaires anything, saying
there will be time later. This is seems to be a running problem for the
Baudelaires, anytime they meet someone who knows information they never are
able to hear it.
Captain
Widdershins, his crew of two, and the Baudelaire children travel from the
Stricken Stream and into the sea, following maps and tidal charts hoping to
find an elusive sugar bowl that Count Olaf and all members of VFD seem to think
holds all the answers, and the key to taking over the world. While studying the
map, Klaus notices that one of the underwater research facilities of VFD was
named after Aunt Josephine’s family, making him realize that maybe her crazy
and irrational fears were based on things she actually did and saw while in the
employment of VFD. Next to the research facility, Klaus notices a small oval
with the initials G.G. that he believes to be the location of the sugar bowl.
As it turns
out, Fiona knows all about GG, or the Gorgonian Grotto that houses the
deadliest mushroom and fungus spores in the world. No one has ever carried the
spores back to shore, as the grotto is contained and acts like a natural
quarantine, but Captain Widdershins insists on going into the grotto to look
for the bowl, and even worse, insists that Sunny should go as she is the
smallest and will be able to fit in any tiny holes or passage to look for the
sugar bowl.
Not wanting
to be separated, because we all know how much worst things get when that
happens, Violet and Klaus (along with Fiona) don air helmets as well to follow
Sunny into the dark grotto. After getting through the grotto’s current, the
four children find themselves in a room with no water. This kind of thing often
happens in underwater caves and caverns, parts of it have air pockets allowing
for those unfortunate enough to be forced to enter a chance to breath. Looking
around the wet and dark room the children find all sorts of interesting items,
but no sugar bowl. What they did find was the Medusoid Mycelium mushroom
sprouting everywhere, trapping them in the underwater grotto.
While
trapped, waiting for the Medusoid Mycelium to wane so they can swim back to the
submarine, the four children begin digging through all the items that had
washed into the grotto. While digging around, they find papers, maps and
decoders from VFD. One of the papers that Violet reads has to do with Fiona’s
brother Ferdinand, who Violet realizes is actually the hook-handed man in Count
Olaf’s employ. Violet attempts to keep the information to herself not wanting
to alarm and distress Fiona. When the mushrooms wane enough for the four to
swim back to the submarine, Violet tucks the paper clipping into her wetsuit to
discuss with her siblings later. Unfortunately, while swimming back to the
submarine, Sunny’s helmet becomes infested with mushroom spores that begin
growing their poison in her helmet.
Things
continue to get worse for the Baudelaire children and Fiona when they reach the
submarine. Not only is Sunny’s helmet infected, but also Phil and Captain
Widdershins are no longer there, they seem to have disappeared without a trace.
It is then that Fiona sees what is growing in Sunny’s helmet and insists that
Sunny stay in the helmet as opening it would infect the rest of the submarine.
Fiona takes her research and books on mushrooms into her private rooms to
research a possible antidote while Violet and Klaus stay with their sister
trying to reassure her of their love and that she will be okay. That does
little good however, as Count Olaf’s giant octopus looking submarine traps the
Queequeg and forces them aboard.
Once on Count Olaf’s submarine,
called the Carmelita after the now adopted daughter of Olaf and Esme, the four
children are thrown into the brig where Olaf sends one of his associates to
torcher information out of them. As it happens, it is the hook-handed man who
is sent, and when he sees his sister Fiona, Ferdinand agrees to help them,
vowing to put his villainy and allegiance to Count Olaf in his past and to be
on the good side of VFD. Fiona and Ferdinand distract Esme and Carmelita while
the Baudelaires get back to the Queequeg to find Sunny’s cure. While looking
through the books and notes from Klaus’ commonplace notebook they discover that
the antidote was discovered by Uncle Monty’s house, horseradish!
While no horseradish is found in
the submarine, the two eldest Baudelaires manage to find wasabi at Sunny’s direction,
which they believe will work just as well. It does, they open the helmet and
give Sunny a spoonful of wasabi before she falls asleep, exhausted from her
ordeal. While Sunny sleeps, Violet and Klaus finish the last of the wasabi,
making sure that any spores released into the air don’t infect them.
Thanks to Violet’s inventive
skills, earlier in the novel she fixed the telegram. While Sunny napped, a
telegram from Quigley Quagmire arrived requesting the Baudelaires meet him and
the other volunteers at a secret location to be decoded in the poems below.
After much research and debate Klaus decodes the message to meet Quigley at Briny
Beach, the place where the Baudelaires first learned of their parents death.
To quote the author, here the
tables turn again. While reading, Count Olaf storms aboard the Queequeg, with
Fiona dressed his the uniform of the associates. She had flipped sides to join
Olaf with her brother. Luckily, she still has at least some of her former
thoughts and feelings, allowing the Baudelaire children to sneak past her and
escape from the submarine while Count Olaf fights off another submarine ship
that is attacking him.
Taking the submarine to Briny Beach
was not as difficult as one might suspect. When the three reached the beach,
Mr. Poe was their waiting, but Quigley’s note had said not to go with him, but
to get in the taxi that would be waiting. Leaving Mr. Poe screaming after them
on the beach, Violet opened to the door of the taxi to find a woman in the
drivers seat. Her name was Kit Snicket.
I love this series so much, and I
love how after ten novels all of the things no matter how small in the previous
books are coming together.
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