The captain fingered his mustache in astonishment. "You and your mushrooms and molds!" the captain said. "I thought I'd never live to see your mycological studies be put to good use," and I'm sorry to say he was right.
"Let's see," Fiona said, paging through a thick book entitled Mushroom Minutiae, a word which here means "obscure facts."
"It was in the table of contents that's all I've read so far. It was about halfway through." She brought the book over to the table, and ran a finger down the table of contents while the Baudelaires leaned over to see. "Chapter Thirty-Six, The Yeast of Beasts. Chapter Thirty-Seven, Morel Behavior in a Free Society. Chapter Thirty-Eight, Fungible Mold, Moldable Fungi. Chapter Thirty-Nine, Visitable Fungal Ditches. Chapter Forty, The Gorgonian Grotto there!"
"Grotto?" Sunny asked.
" 'Grotto' is another word for 'cave'," Klaus explained, as Fiona flipped ahead to Chapter Forty.
" 'The Gorgonian Grotto,' " she read, " 'located in propinquity to Anwhistle Aquatics, has appropriately wraithlike nomenclature, with roots in Grecian mythology, as this conical cavern is fecund with what is perhaps the bugaboo of the entire mycological pantheon.' "
"Aye! I told you that book was too difficult!" Captain Widdershins said. "A young child can't unlock that sort of vocabulary."
"It's a very complicated prose style," Klaus admitted, "but I think I know what it says. The Gorgonian Grotto was named after something in Greek mythology."
"A Gorgon," Violet said. "Like that woman with snakes instead of hair."
"She could turn people into stone," Fiona said.
"She was probably nice, when you got to know her," Phil said.
"Aye! I think I went to school with such a woman!" the captain said.
"I don't think she was a real person," Klaus said. "I think she was legendary. The book says it's appropriate that the grotto is named after a legendary monster, because there's a sort of monster living in a cave a bugaboo."
"Bugaboo?" Sunny asked.
"A bugaboo can be any kind of monster," Klaus said. "We could call Count Olaf a bugaboo, if we felt so inclined."
"I'd rather not speak of him at all," Violet said.
"This bugaboo is a fungus of some sort," Fiona said, and continued reading from Mushroom Minutiae. " 'The Medusoid Mycelium has a unique conducive strategy of waxing and waning: first a brief dormant cycle, in which the mycelium is nearly invisible, and then a precipitated flowering into speckled stalks and caps of such intense venom that it is fortunate the grotto serves as quarantine.' "
"I didn't understand all of that scientific terminology," Klaus said.
"I did," Fiona said. "There are three main parts to a mushroom. One is the cap, which is shaped like an umbrella, and the second is the stalk, which holds the umbrella up. Those are the parts you can see."
"There's part of a mushroom you can't see?" Violet asked.
"It's called the mycelium," Fiona replied. "It's like a bunch of thread, branching out underneath the ground. Some mushrooms have mycelia that go on for miles."
"How do you spell 'mycelium'?" Klaus asked, reaching into his waterproof pocket. "I want to write this down in my commonplace book." Fiona pointed the word out on the page.
"The Medusoid Mycelium waxes and wanes," she said, "which means that the caps and stalks spring up from the mycelium, and then wither away, and then spring up again. It sounds like you wouldn't know the mushrooms are there until they poke up out of the ground."
The Baudelaires pictured a group of mushrooms suddenly springing up under their feet, and felt a bit queasy, as if they already knew of the dreadful encounter they would soon have with this terrible fungus.
"That sounds unnerving," Violet said.
"It gets worse," Fiona said. "The mushrooms are exceedingly poisonous. Listen to this: 'As the poet says, "A single spore has such grim power / That you may die within the hour." ' A spore is like a seed if it has a place to grow, it will become another mycelium. But if someone eats it, or even breathes it in, it can cause death."
"Within the hour?" Klaus said. "That's a fast-acting poison."
"Most fungal poisons have cures," Fiona said. "The poison of a deadly fungus can be the source of some wonderful medicines. I've been working on a few myself. But this book says it's lucky the grotto acts as quarantine."
"Quarwa?" Sunny asked.
"Quarantine is when something dangerous is isolated, so the danger cannot spread," Klaus explained. "Because the Medusoid Mycelium is in uncharted waters, very few people have been poisoned. If someone brought even one spore to dry land, who knows what would happen?"
"We won't find out!" Captain Widdershins said. "We're not going to take any spores! Aye! We're just going to grab the sugar bowl and be on our way! Aye! I'll set a course right now!" The captain bounded up from the table and began climbing the rope ladder to the Queequeg's controls.
"Are you sure we should continue our mission?" Fiona asked her stepfather, shutting the book. "It sounds very dangerous."
"Dangerous? Aye! Dangerous and scary! Aye! Scary and difficult! Aye! Difficult and mysterious! Aye! Mysterious and uncomfortable! Aye! Uncomfortable and risky! Aye! Risky and noble! Aye!"
"I suppose the fungus can't hurt us if we're inside the submarine," Phil said, struggling to remain optimistic.
"Even if it could!" the captain cried, standing at the top of the rope ladder and gesturing dramatically as he delivered an impassioned oratory, a phrase which here means "emotional speech that the Baudelaires found utterly convincing, even if they did not quite agree with every word."
"The amount of treachery in this world is enormous!" he cried. "Aye! Think of the crafts we saw on the sonar screen! Think of Count Olaf's enormous submarine, and the even more enormous one that chased it away! Aye! "There's always something more enormous and more terrifying on our tails! Aye! And so many of the noble submarines are gone! Aye! You think the Herman Melville suits are the only noble uniforms in the world? There used to be volunteers with P G. Wodehouse on their uniforms, and Carl Van Vechten. There was Comyns and Cleary and Archy and Mehitabel. But now volunteers are scarce! So the best we can do is one small noble thing! Aye! Like retrieving the sugar bowl from the Gorgonian Grotto, no matter how grim it sounds! Aye! Remember my personal philosophy! He who hesitates is lost!"
"Or she!" Fiona said.
"Or she," the captain agreed. "Aye?"
"Aye!" Violet cried.
"Aye!" Klaus shouted.
"Aye!" Sunny shrieked.
"Hooray!" Phil yelled.
Captain Widdershins peered down in annoyance at Phil, whom he would have preferred say "Aye!" along with everyone else. "Cookie!" he ordered. "Do the dishes! The rest of you get some shut-eye! Aye!"
"Shut-eye?" Violet asked. "Aye! It means 'sleep'!" the captain explained.
"We know what it means," Klaus said. "We're just surprised that we're supposed to sleep through the mission."
"It'll take some time to get to the cave!" the captain said. "I want you four to be well-rested in case you're needed! Now go to your barracks! Aye!"
It is one of life's bitterest truths that bedtime so often arrives just when things are really getting interesting. The Baudelaires were not particularly in the mood to toss and turn in the Queequeg's barracks a word which here means "a type of bedroom that is usually uncomfortable" as the submarine drew closer and closer to the mysterious grotto and its indispensable item, a phrase which here means "the sugar bowl, although the children did not know why it was so important."
But as they followed Fiona out of the Main Hall and back down the corridor, past the plaque advertising the captain's personal philosophy, the door to the supply room, and an uncountable number of leaky metal pipes, the siblings felt quite tired, and by the time Fiona opened a door to reveal a small, green-lit room stacked with saggy bunk beds, the three children were already yawning.