"I have a plan," Count Olaf said. "Let me out and I'll tell you what it is."
Although Olaf was no longer using his high-pitched voice, he still sounded muffled from within the cage, and when the Baudelaires turned to look at him it was as if he were in one of his disguises. The yellow and orange dress he had been wearing covered most of him up, and the children could not see the curve of his false pregnancy or the tattoo of an eye he had on his ankle. Only a few toes and fingers extended from between the bird cage's bars, and if the siblings peered closely they could see the wet curve of his mouth, and one blinking eye staring out from his captivity.
"We're not letting you out," Violet said. "We have enough trouble without you wandering around loose."
"Suit yourself," Olaf said, and his dress rustled as he attempted to shrug. "But you'll drown as surely as I will when the coastal shelf floods. You can't build a boat, because the islanders have scavenged everything from the storm. And you can't live on the island, because the colonists have abandoned you. Even though we're shipwrecked, we're still in the same boat."
"We don't need your help, Olaf," Klaus said. "If it weren't for you, we wouldn't be here in the first place."
"Don't be so sure of that," Count Olaf said, and his mouth curled into a smile. "Everything eventually washes up on these shores, to be judged by that idiot in the robe. Do you think you're the first Baudelaires to find yourselves here?"
"What you mean?" Sunny demanded.
"Let me out," Olaf said, with a muffled chuckle, "and I'll tell you."
The Baudelaires looked at one another doubtfully. "You're trying to trick us," Violet said.
"Of course I'm trying to trick you!" Olaf cried. "That's the way of the world, Baudelaires. Everybody runs around with their secrets and their schemes, trying to outwit everyone else. Ishmael outwitted me, and put me in this cage. But I know how to outwit him and all his islander friends. If you let me out, I can be king of Olaf-Land, and you three can be my new henchfolk."
"We don't want to be your henchfolk," Klaus said. "We just want to be safe."
"Nowhere in the world is safe," Count Olaf said.
"Not with you around," Violet agreed.
"I'm no worse than anyone else," Count Olaf said. "Ishmael is just as treacherous as I am."
" Fustianed," Sunny said.
"It's true!" Olaf insisted, although he probably did not understand what Sunny had said. "Look at me! I'm stuffed into a cage for no good reason! Does that sound familiar, you stupid baby?"
"My sister is not a baby," Violet said firmly, "and Ishmael is not treacherous. He may be misguided, but he's only trying to make the island a safe place."
"Is that so?" Olaf said, and the cage shook as he chuckled. "Why don't you reach into that pool, and see what Ishmael dropped into the puddle?"
The Baudelaires looked at one another. They had almost forgotten about the object that had rolled out of the facilitator's sleeve. The three children stared down into the water, but it was the Incredibly Deadly Viper who wriggled into the murky depths of the puddle and came back with a small object in its mouth, which it deposited into Sunny's waiting hand.
" Takk," Sunny said, thanking the snake by scratching it on the head.
"What is it?" Violet said, leaning in to look at what the viper had retrieved.
"It's an apple core," Klaus said, and his sisters saw that it was so. Sunny was holding the core of an apple, which had been so thoroughly nibbled that scarcely anything remained.
"You see?" Olaf asked. "While the other islanders have to do all the work, Ishmael sneaks off to the arboretum on his perfectly healthy feet and eats all the apples for himself! Your beloved facilitator not only has clay on his feet, he has feet of clay!"
The bird cage shook with laughter, and the Baudelaire orphans looked first at the apple core and then at one another. "Feet of clay" is an expression which refers to a person who appears to be honest and true, but who turns out to have a hidden weakness or a treacherous secret. If someone turns out to have feet of clay, your opinion of them may topple, just as a statue will topple if its base turns out to be badly constructed. The Baudelaires had thought Ishmael was wrong to abandon them on the coastal shelf, of course, but they believed he had done it to keep the other islanders out of harm's way, just as Mrs. Caliban had not wanted Friday to upset herself by learning to read, and although they did not agree with much of the facilitator's philosophy, they at least respected the fact that he was trying to do the same thing the Baudelaires had been trying to do since that terrible day on the beach when they had first become orphans: to find or build a safe place to call home. But now, looking at the apple core, they realized what Count Olaf said was true. Ishmael had feet of clay. He was lying about his injuries, and he was selfish about the apples in the arboretum, and he was treacherous in pressuring everyone else on the island to do all the work. Gazing at the treacherous teeth marks the facilitator had left behind, they remembered his claim that he predicted the weather by magic, and the strange look in his eye when he insisted that the island had no library, and the Baudelaires wondered what other secrets the bearded facilitator was hiding. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny sank to a mound of damp sand, as if they had feet of clay themselves, and leaned against the cube of books, wondering how they could have traveled so far from the world only to find the same dishonesty and treachery they always had.
"What is your plan?" Violet asked Count Olaf, after a long silence.
"Let me out of this cage," Olaf said, "and I'll tell you."
"Tell us first," Klaus said, "and perhaps we'll let you out."
"Let me out first," Olaf insisted.
"Tell us first," Sunny insisted, just as firmly.
"I can argue with you all day," the villain growled. "Let me out, I tell you, or I'll take my plan to my grave!"
"We can think of a plan without you," Violet said, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. "We've managed to escape plenty of difficult situations without your help."
"I have the only weapon that can threaten Ishmael and his supporters," Count Olaf said.
"The harpoon gun?" Klaus said. " Omeros took that away."
"Not the harpoon gun, you scholarly moron," Count Olaf said contemptuously, a word which here means "while trying to scratch his nose within the confines of the bird cage." "I'm talking about the Medusoid Mycelium!"
"Fungus!" Sunny cried. Her siblings gasped, and even the Incredibly Deadly Viper looked astonished in its reptilian way as the villain told them what you may have already guessed.
"I'm not really pregnant," he confessed with a caged grin. "The diving helmet containing the spores of the Medusoid Mycelium is hidden in this dress I'm wearing. If you let me out, I can threaten the entire colony with these deadly mushrooms. All those robed fools will be my slaves!"
"What if they refuse?" Violet asked.
"Then I'll smash the helmet open," Olaf crowed, "and this whole island will be destroyed."
"But we'll be destroyed, too," Klaus said. "The spores will infect us, the same as everyone else."
" Yomhashoah," Sunny said, which meant "Never again." The youngest Baudelaire had already been infected by the Medusoid Mycelium not long ago, and the children did not like to think about what would have happened if they hadn't found some wasabi to dilute the poison.
"We'll escape on the outrigger, you fool," Olaf said. "The island imbeciles have been building it all year. It's perfect for leaving this place behind and heading back to where the action is."