Series of Unfortunate Events: The Grim Grotto by Lemony Snicket

the octopus began whirring even more furiously, and the strange submarine began to recede from view, a phrase which here means "disappear from the porthole as it hurried away from the Queequeg." The Baudelaires looked at the sonar screen, and watched the question mark follow the glowing green eye in silence until both shapes disappeared from the sonar detector and the Queequeg was alone. The six passengers waited a moment and then sighed with relief. "It's gone," Violet said. "Count Olaf didn't find us." "I knew we'd be safe," Phil said, optimistic as usual. "Olaf is probably in a good mood anyway." The Baudelaires did not bother to say that their enemy was only in a good mood when one of his treacherous plans was succeeding, or when the enormous fortune, left behind by the Baudelaire parents, appeared to be falling into his grubby hands. "What was that, Stepfather?" Fiona said. "Why did he leave?" "What was that third shape?" Violet asked. The captain shook his head again. "Something very bad," he said. "Even worse than Olaf, probably. I told you Baudelaires that there is evil you cannot even imagine." "We don't have to imagine it," Klaus said. "We saw it there on the screen." "That screen is nothing," the captain said. "It's just a piece of equipment, aye? There was a philosopher who said that all of life is just shadows. He said that people were just sitting in a cave, watching shadows on the cave wall. Aye, shadows of something much bigger and grander than themselves. Well, that sonar detector is like our cave wall, showing us the shape of things much more powerful and terrifying." "I don't understand," Fiona said. "I don't want you to understand," the captain said, putting his arm around her. "That's why I haven't told you why the sugar bowl is so very crucial. There are secrets in this world too terrible for young people to know, even as those secrets get closer and closer. Aye! In any case, I'm hungry. Aye! Shall we eat?" The captain rang his bell again, and the Baudelaires felt as if they had awoken from a deep sleep. "I'll serve the chowder," Phil said. "Come on, Sunny, why don't you help me?" "I'll turn the engines back on," Fiona said, and began climbing the rope ladder. "Violet, there's a drawer in the table full of silverware. Perhaps you and your brother could set the table." "Of course," Violet said, but then frowned as she turned to her brother. The middle Baudelaire was staring at the tidal chart with a look of utter concentration. His eyes were so bright behind his glasses that they looked a bit like the glowing symbols on the sonar detector. "Klaus?" she said. Klaus didn't answer his sister, but turned his gaze from the chart to Captain Widdershins. "I may not know why the sugar bowl's important," he said, "but I've just figured out where it is."
    Chapter Five
    When you are invited to dine, particularly with people you do not know very well, it always helps to have a conversational opener, a phrase which here means "an interesting sentence to say out loud in order to get people talking." Although lately it has become more and more difficult to attend dinner parties without the evening ending in gunfire or tapioca, I keep a list of good and had conversational openers in my commonplace book in order to avoid awkward pauses at the dinner table. "Who would like to see an assortment of photographs taken while I was on vacation?" for instance, is a very poor conversational opener, because it is likely to make your fellow diners shudder instead of talk, whereas good conversational openers are sentences such as "What would drive a man to commit arson?", "Why do so many stories of true love end in tragedy and despair?" and "Madame diLustro, I believe I've discovered your true identity!", all of which are likely to provoke discussions, arguments, and accusations, thus making the dinner party much more entertaining. When Klaus Baudelaire announced that he'd discovered the location of the sugar bowl, it