"You're a marshmallow, Carmelita," Olaf said, and pushed the children out of the enormous room. "I'll see you later."
"Tell Hooky to be extra vicious with those brats!" Esm cried, whipping the tagliatelle grande over her fake octopus head. "And now, on with the show!"
Count Olaf ushered the children out of the room as Carmelita Spats began tapping and twirling in front of the rowers. The elder Baudelaires were almost grateful to go to the brig, rather than being forced to watch a tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian dance recital. Olaf dragged them down another hallway that twisted every which way, curving to the right and to the left as if it were a snake the mechanical octopus had eaten, and finally stopped in front of a small door, with a metal eye where the metal eye where the doorknob ought to have been.
"This is the brig!" Count Olaf cried. "Ha ha haberdasher!"
Sunny coughed once more from inside her helmet a rough, loud cough that sounded worse than before. The Medusoid Micelium was clearly continuing its ghastly growth, and Violet tried one more time to convince the villain to let them help her.
"Please let us go back to the Queequeg," she said. "Can't you hear her coughing?"
"Yes," Count Olaf said, "but I don't care."
"Please!" Klaus cried. "This is a matter of life and death!"
"It certainly is," Olaf sneered, turning the knob. "My associate will make you reveal the location of the sugar bowl if he has to tear you apart to do it!"
"Listen to my friends!" Fiona said. "Aye! We're in a terrible situation!"
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Count Olaf said, with a wicked smile, as the door creaked open to reveal a small, bare room. There was nothing in it but a small stool, at which a man sat, shuffling a deck of cards with quite a bit of difficulty. "How can a family reunion be a terrible situation?" Olaf said, and shoved the children inside the room, slamming the door behind them.
Violet and Klaus faced Olaf's associate, and turned the diving helmet so Sunny could face him, too. The siblings were not surprised, of course, that the person shuffling the cards was the hook-handed man, and they were not at all happy to see him, and they were quite scared that their time in the brig would make it impossible to save Sunny from the mushrooms growing inside her helmet. But when they looked at Fiona, they saw that the mycologist was quite surprised at who she saw in the brig, and quite happy to see the man who stood up from his stool and waved his hooks in amazement.
"Fiona!" the hook-handed man cried.
"Fernald!" Fiona said, and it seemed they just might save Sunny after all.
Chapter Ten
The way sadness works is one of the strange riddles of the world. If you are stricken with a great sadness, you may feel as if you have been set aflame, not only because of the enormous pain, but also because your sadness may spread over your life, like smoke from an enormous fire. You might find it difficult to see anything but your own sadness, the way smoke can cover a landscape so that all anyone can see is black. You may find that happy things are tainted with sadness, the way smoke leaves its ashen colors and scents on everything it touches. And you may find that if someone pours water all over you, you are damp and distracted, but not cured of your sadness, the way a fire department can douse a fire but never recover what has been burnt down.
The Baudelaire orphans, of course, had had a great sadness in their life from the moment they first heard of their parents' death, and sometimes it felt as if they had to wave smoke away from their eyes to see even the happiest of moments. As Violet and Klaus watched Fiona and the hook-handed man embrace one another, they felt as if the smoke of their own unhappiness had filled the brig. They could not bear to think that Fiona had found her long-lost brother when they themselves, in all likelihood, would never see their parents again, and might even lose their sister as the poisonous spores of the Medusoid Mycelium made her coughing sound worse and worse inside the helmet.
"Fiona!" the hook-handed man cried. "Is it really you?"
"Aye," the mycologist said, taking off her triangular glasses to wipe away her tears. "I never thought I would see you again, Fernald. What happened to your hands?"
"Never mind that," the hook-handed man said quickly. "Why are you here? Did you join Count Olaf, too?"
"Certainly not," Fiona said firmly. "He captured the Queequeg, and threw us into the brig."
"So you've joined the Baudelaire brats," the hook-handed man said. "I should have known you were a goody-goody!"
"I haven't joined the Baudelaires," Fiona said, just as firmly. "They've joined me. Aye! I'm the captain of the Queequeg now."
"You?" said Olaf's henchman. "What happened to Widdershins?"
"He disappeared from the submarine," Fiona replied. "We don't know where he is."
"I don't care where he is," the hook-handed man sneered. "I couldn't care less about that mustached fool! He's the reason I joined Count Olaf in the first place! The captain was always shouting 'Aye! Aye! Aye!' and ordering me around! So I ran away and joined Olaf's acting troupe!"
"But Count Olaf is a terrible villain!" Fiona cried. "He has no regard for other people. He dreams up treacherous schemes, and lures others into becoming his cohorts!"
"Those are just the bad aspects of him," the hook-handed man said. "There are many good parts, as well. For instance, he has a wonderful laugh."
"A wonderful laugh is no excuse for villainous behavior!" Fiona said.
"Let's just agree to disagree," the hook-handed man replied, using a tiresome expression which here means "You're probably right, but I'm too embarrassed to admit it." He waved one hook carelessly at his sister. "Step aside, Fiona. It's time for the orphans to tell me where the sugar bowl is."
Olaf's henchman scraped his hooks together to give them a quick sharpening, and took one threatening step toward the Baudelaires. Violet and Klaus looked at one another in fear, and then at the diving helmet, where they heard their sister give another shuddering cough, and knew that it was time to lay their cards on the table, a phrase which here means "reveal themselves honestly to Olaf's wicked henchman."
"We don't know where the sugar bowl is," Violet said.
"My sister is telling the truth," Klaus said.
"Do with us what you will, but we won't be able to tell you anything."
The hook-handed man glared at them, and scraped his hooks together once more.
"You're liars," he said. "Both of you are rotten orphan liars."
"It's true, Fernald," Fiona said. "Aye! Finding the sugar bowl was the Queequeg's mission, but so far we've failed."
"If you don't know where the sugar bowl is, the hook-handed man said angrily, "then putting you in the brig is completely pointless!" He turned around and kicked his small stool, toppling it over, and then kicked the wall of the brig for good measure. "What am I supposed to do now?" he sulked.
Fiona put her hand on her brother's hook. "Take us back to the Queequeg," she said. "Sunny is in that helmet, along with a growth of Medusoid Mycelium."
"Medusoid Mycelium?" Olaf's henchman repeated in horror. "That's a very dangerous fungus!"
"She's in great danger," Violet said. "If we don't find a cure very, very soon, she'll die."
The hook-handed man frowned, but then looked at the helmet and gave the children a shrug.
"Why should I care if she dies?" he asked. "She's made my life miserable from the time I met her. Every time we fail to get the Baudelaire fortune, Count Olaf yells at everyone!"
"You're the one who made the Baudelaires' lives miserable," Fiona said. "Count Olaf has performed countless treacherous schemes, and you helped him time and time again. Aye! You ought to be ashamed of yourself."