"Perhaps we could discuss such things later," Violet said. "I don't think now is a good time to hesitate."
"Aye!" Fiona said. "She who hesitates is lost!"
"Or he," Klaus reminded her. "We've got to get to the Queequeg right away."
The hook-handed man opened the door of the brig and looked up and down the corridor. "This will be tricky," he said, beckoning to the children with one of his hooks. "The only way back to the Queequeg is through the rowing room, but that room is filled with children we've kidnapped. Esm took my tagliatelle grande and is whipping them so they'll row faster."
The elder Baudelaires did not bother to point out that the hook-handed man had threatened the Baudelaires with the very same noodle, when the children had worked at Caligari Carnival, along with a few other individuals who had ended up joining Olaf's troupe.
"Is there any way to sneak past them?" Violet asked.
"We'll see," Olaf's henchman said. "Follow me." The hook-handed man strode quickly down the empty corridor, with Fiona behind him and the two Baudelaires behind her, carrying the diving helmet in which Sunny still coughed. Violet and Klaus purposefully lagged behind so they might have a word with the mycologist.
"Fiona, are you sure you want to take him with us?" Klaus asked, leaning in close to murmur in her ear. "He's a very dangerous and volatile man."
"He's my brother," Fiona replied in a fierce whisper, "and I'm your captain. Aye! I'm in charge of the Queequeg. So I get to choose its crew.
"We know that," Violet said, "but we just thought you might want to reconsider."
"Never," Fiona said firmly. "With my stepfather gone, Fernald may be the only person I have left in my family. Would you ask me to abandon my own sibling?"
As if replying, Sunny coughed desperately from inside her helmet, and the elder Baudelaires knew that Fiona was right. "Of course we wouldn't," Klaus said.
"Stop muttering back there," the hook-handed man ordered, as he led the children around another twist in the corridor. "We're approaching the rowing room, and we don't want anyone to hear us."
The children stopped talking, but as the henchman stopped at the door to the rowing room, and held his hook over an eye on the wall which would open the door, Violet and Klaus could hear that there was no reason to be quiet. Even through the thick metal of the rowing room entrance, they could hear the loud, piercing voice of Carmelita Spats.
"For my third dance," she was saying, "I will twirl around and around while all of you clap as hard as you can. It is a dance of celebration, in honor of the most adorable tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian in the world!"
"Please, Carmelita," begged the voice of a child. "We've been rowing for hours. Our hands are too sore to clap." There was a faint, damp sound, like someone dropping a washcloth, and the elder Baudelaires realized that Esm was whipping the children with her enormous noodle.
"You will participate in Carmelita's recital," the treacherous girlfriend announced, "or you will suffer the sting of my tagliatelle grande! Ha ha hoity-toity!"
"It's not really a sting," said one brave child. "It's more of a mild, wet slap."
"Shut up, cakesniffer!" Carmelita ordered, and the children heard the rustle of her pink tutu as she began to twirl. "Start clapping!" she shrieked, and then the children heard a sound they had never heard before.
There is nothing wicked about having a dreadful singing voice, any more than there is something wicked about having dreadful posture, dreadful cousins, or a dreadful pair of pants. Many noble and pleasant people have any number of these things, and there are even one or two kind individuals who have them all. But if you have something dreadful, and you force it upon someone else, then you have done something quite wicked indeed. If you force your wicked posture on someone, for instance, by leaning so far back that they are forced to carry you down the street, then you have wickedly ruined their afternoon walk, and if you force your dreadful cousins on someone, by dropping them off to play at their house so you can escape from their dreadful presences and spend some time alone, then you have wickedly ruined their entire day, and only a very wicked person indeed would force a dreadful pair of pants on the legs and lower torso of somebody else. But to force your dreadful singing voice on somebody, or even a crowd of people, is one of the world's most wicked crimes, and at that moment Carmelita Spats opened her mouth and afflicted the crew of the Carmelita with her wickedness. Carmelita's singing voice was loud, like a siren, and high-pitched, like a squeaky door, and extremely off-pitch, as if all of the notes in the musical scale were pushing up against one another, all trying to sound at the same time. Her singing voice was mushy, as if someone had filled her mouth with mashed potatoes before she sang, and filled with vibrato, which is the Italian term for a voice that wavers as it sings, as if someone were shaking Carmelita very vigorously as she began her song. Even the most dreadful of voices can be tolerated if it is performing a good song, but I'm sad to say that Carmelita Spats had written the song herself and that it was just as dreadful as her singing voice.
Violet and Klaus were reminded of Prufrock Preparatory School, where they had first met Carmelita. The vice principal of the school, a tedious man named Nero, forced his students to listen to him play the violin for hours, and they realized this administrator must have had a powerful influence on Carmelita's creativity.
"C is for 'cute,' " Carmelita sang, "A is for 'adorable'! R is for 'ravishing'! M is for 'gorgeous'! E is for 'excellent'! L is for 'lovable'! I is for 'I'm the best'! T is for 'talented'! and A is for 'a tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian'! Now let's begin my whole wonderful song all over again!" The song was so irritating, and sting so poorly, that Violet and Klaus almost felt as if they were being tortured after all, particularly as Carmelita kept on singing it, over and over and over.
"I can't stand her voice," Violet said. "It reminds me of the cawing of the V.F.D. crows."
"I can't stand the lyrics," Klaus said. "Someone needs to tell her that 'gorgeous' does not begin with the letter M."
"I can't stand the brat," the hook-handed man said bitterly. "She's one of the reasons I'd like to leave. But this sounds like as good a time as any to try to sneak through this room. There are plenty of pillars to hide behind, and if we walk around the very edge, where each oar sticks through the wall into the tentacles of the octopus, we should be able to get to the other door assuming everybody is watching Carmelita 's tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian dance recital."
"That seems like a very risky plan," Violet said.
"This is no time to be a coward," the hook-handed man growled. "My sister is not a coward," Klaus said. "She's just being cautious."
"There's no time to be cautious!" Fiona said. "Aye! She who hesitates is lost! Aye! Or he! Let's go!"
Without another word, the hook-handed man poked the eye on the wall, and the door slid open to reveal the enormous room. As Olaf's comrade had predicted, the rowing children were all facing Carmelita, who was prancing and singing on one side of the room while Esm watched with a proud smile on her face and a large noodle in one of her tentacles. With the hook-handed man and Fiona in the lead, the three Baudelaires Sunny still in the diving helmet, of course made their careful way around the outside of the room as Carmelita twirled around singing her absurd song.
When Carmelita announced what C was for, the children ducked behind one of the pillars. When she told her listeners the meaning of A and R, the children crept past the moving oars, taking care not to trip. When she insisted that "gorgeous " began with M, Count Olaf's henchman pointed one of his hooks at a far door, and when Carmelita reached E and L, the children ducked behind another pillar, hoping the dim light of the lanterns would not give them away. When Carmelita announced that she was the best, and bragged about being talented, Esm Squalor frowned and turned around, blinking underneath the fake eyes of her octopus outfit, and the children had to flatten themselves on the floor so the villainous girlfriend would not spot them, and when the tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian found it necessary to remind her audience that she was, in fact, a tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian, the two elder Baudelaires found themselves ahead of Fiona and the hook-handed man, hiding behind a pillar that was just a few feet from their destination.