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"I'm not so sure it was an accident," Fiona said.
"Then we had Jacques!" the captain continued. "Aye, and then what's-his-name, Jacques's brother, and then a dreadful woman who turned out to be a spy, and finally we have Phil! Although I like to call him Cookie! I don't know why!"
"I was tired of working in the lumber industry," Phil said. "I was sure I could find a better job, and look at me now – cook on a dilapidated submarine. Life keeps on getting better and better."
"You always were an optimist," Klaus said.
"We don't need an optimist!" Captain Widdershins said. "We need a cook! Get to work, Baudelaires! All of you! Aye! We have no time to waste! He who hesitates is lost!"
"Or she," Fiona reminded her stepfather. "And do we really have to start right this minute? I'm sure the Baudelaires are exhausted from their journey. We could spend a nice quiet evening playing board games –"
"Board games?" the captain said in astonishment. "Amusements? Entertainments? We don't have time for such things! Aye! Today's Saturday, which means we only have five days left! Thursday is the V.F.D. gathering, and I don't want anyone at the Hotel Denouement to say that the Queequeg hasn't performed its mission!"
"Mission?" Sunny asked.
"Aye!" Captain Widdershins said. "We mustn't hesitate! We must act! We must hurry! We must move! We must search! We must investigate! We must hunt! We must pursue! We must stop occasionally for a brief snack! We must find that sugar bowl before Count Olaf does! Aye!"
Chapter Three
The expression "Shiver me timbers!" comes from the society of pirates, who enjoy using interesting expressions almost as much as jumping aboard other people's ships and stealing their valuables. It is an expression of extreme amazement, used in circumstances when one feels as if one's very bones, or timbers, are shivering. I have not used the expression since one rainy night when it was necessary to pose as a pirate experiencing amazement, but when Captain Widdershins told the Baudelaire orphans where the Queequeg was going and what it was searching for, there was a perfect opportunity to utter these words.
"Shiver me timbers!" Sunny cried.
"Your timbers!" the captain cried back. "Are the Baudelaires practicing piracy? Aye! My heavens! If your parents knew that you were stealing the treasures of others –"
"We're not pirates, Captain Widdershins," Violet said hastily. "Sunny is just using an expression she learned from an old movie. She just means that we're surprised.'
"Surprised?" The captain paced up and down in front of them, his waterproof suit crinkling with every step. "Do you think the Queequeg made its difficult way up the Stricken Stream just for my own personal amusement? Aye? Do you think I would risk such terrible danger simply because I had no other plans for the afternoon? Aye? Do you think it was a crazy coincidence that you ran into our periscope? Aye? Do you think this uniform makes me look fat? Aye? Do you think members of V.F.D. would just sit and twiddle their thumbs while fount Olaf's treachery covers the land like crust covers the filling of a pie? Aye?"
"You were looking for us?" Klaus asked in amazement. He was tempted to cry "Shiver me timbers!" like his sister, but he did not want to alarm Captain Widdershins any further.
"For you!" the captain cried. "Aye! For the sugar bowl! Aye! For justice! Aye! And liberty! Aye! For an opportunity to make the world quiet! Aye! And safe! Aye! And we may only have until Thursday! Aye! We're in terrible danger! Aye! So get to work!"
"Bamboozle!" Sunny cried.
"My sister is confused," Violet said, "and so are we, Captain Widdershins. If we could just stop for a moment, and hear your story from the beginning –"
"Stop for a moment?" the captain repeated in astonishment. "I've just explained our desperate circumstances, and you're asking me to hesitate? My dear girl, remember my personal philosophy! Aye! 'He or she who hesitates is lost'! Now let's get moving!"
The children looked at one another in frustration. They did not want to get moving. It felt to the Baudelaire orphans that they had been moving almost constantly since that terrible day at the beach when their lives had been turned upside down. They had moved into Count Olaf's home, and then into the homes of various guardians. They had moved away from a village intent on burning them at the stake, and they had moved into a hospital that had burst into flames around them. They had moved to the hinterlands in the trunk of Count Olaf's car, and they had moved away from the hinterlands in disguise. They had moved up the Mortmain Mountains hoping to find one of their parents, and they had moved down the Mortmain Mountains thinking they would never see their parents again, and now, in a tiny submarine in the Stricken Stream, they wanted to stop moving, just for a little while, and receive some answers to questions they had been asking themselves since all this moving began.
"Stepfather," Fiona said gently, "why don't you start up the Queegueg's engines, and I'll show the Baudelaires where our spare uniforms are?"
"I'm the captain!" the captain announced. "Ave! I'll give the orders around here!" Then he shrugged, and squinted up toward the ceiling. The Baudelaires noticed for the first time a ladder of rope running up the side of wall. It led up to a small shelf, where the children could see a large wheel, probably for steering, and a few rusty levers and switches that were Byzantine in their design, a phrase which here means "so complicated that perhaps even Violet Baudelaire would have trouble working them." "I order myself to go up the ladder," the captain continued a bit sheepishly, "and start the engines of the Queequeg.'" With one last "Aye!" the captain began hoisting himself toward the ceiling, and the Baudelaires were left alone with Fiona and Phil.
"You must be overwhelmed, Baudelaire '-• Phil said. "I remember my first day aboard the Queequeg – it made Lucky Smells Lumbermill seem calm and quiet!"
"Phil, why don't you get the Baudelaires some soda, while I find them some uniforms?" Fiona said.
"Soda?" Phil said, with a nervous glance at the captain, who was already halfway up the ladder. "We're supposed to save the soda for a special occasion."
"It is a special occasion," Fiona said. "We're welcoming three more volunteers on board. What kind of soda do you prefer, Baudelaires?"
"Anything but parsley," Violet said, referring to a beverage enjoyed by Esmé Squalor.
"I'll bring you some lemon-lime," Phil said. "Sailors should always make sure there's plenty of citrus in their system. I'm so glad to see you, children. You know, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. I was so horrified after what happened in Paltryville that I couldn't stay at Lucky Smells and since then my life has been one big adventure!"
"I'm sorry that your leg never healed," Klaus said, referring to Phil's limp. "I didn't realize the accident with the stamping machine was so serious,"
"That's not why I'm limping," Phil said. "I was bitten by a shark last week. It was very painful, but I'm quite lucky. Most people never get an opportunity to get so close to such a deadly animal!"
The Baudelaires watched him as he limped back through the kitchen door, whistling a bouncy tune. "Was Phil always optimistic when you knew him?" Fiona asked.
"Always," Violet said, and her siblings nodded in agreement. "We've never known anyone who could remain so cheerful, no matter what terrible things occurred,"
"To tell you the truth, I sometimes find it a bit tiresome," Fiona said, adjusting her triangular glasses, "Shall we find you some uniforms?"
The Baudelaires nodded, and followed Fiona out of the Main Hall and back into the narrow corridor. "I know you have a lot of questions," she said, "so Ill try to tell you everything I know. My stepfather believes that he or she who hesitates is lost, but I have a more cautious personal philosophy."
"We'd be very grateful if you might tell us a few things," Klaus said. "First, how do you know who we are? Why were you looking for us? How did you know how to find us?"
"That's a lot of firsts," Fiona said with a smile. "I think you Baudelaires are forgetting that your exploits haven't exactly been a secret. Nearly every day ther
e's been a story about you in one of the most popular newspapers."
"The Daily Punctilio?" Violet asked.' "I hope you haven't been believing the dreadful lies they've been printing about us."
"Of course not," Fiona said. "But even the most ridiculous of stories can contain a grain of truth. The Daily Punctilio said that you'd murdered a man in the Village of Fowl Devotees, and set fires at Heimlich Hospital and Caligari Carnival. We knew, of course, that you hadn't committed these crimes, but we could tell that you had been there. My stepfather and I figured that you'd found the secret stain on Madame Lulu's map, and were headed for the V.F.D. headquarters."
Klaus gasped. "You know about Madame Lulu," he said, "and the coded stain?"
