Author's Note: The enthusiasm of Tabithatibi's comment has convinced me to officially start the presses again. I'm going to try my best to finish it this time.
Disclaimer: You know the drill. Well, this disclaimer actually has nothing to do with a rotating implement that should never ever ever ever ever be in the reach of children. Rather, I am using a phrase which here describes how I am once again stating that I do not own 'A Series of Unfortunate Events'.
There is very little that can cheer you up when you've been thrown into the brig of a giant submarine by a man who has hooks instead of hands. One thing that can cheer you up in this situation is the news that a certain sugar bowl has been retrieved. Another is the news that your favourite book has survived the fire that destroyed your entire home. Another is a book called 'the Littlest Elf', which may be boring, but can always cheer one up. I suggest you go and read a fan-fiction of that book instead, because though the Baudelaires found something that cheered them up, their happiness won't last long. They didn't find a sugar bowl or a good book or a mischievous elf. They found their friends. Just being near their good friends made the brig feel like a sanctuary, rather than a dirty, cramped cell.
"Quigley!" shouted Violet.
"Klaus!" shouted Fiona.
"Violet!" shouted Quigley Quagmire.
"Fiona!" shouted Klaus.
"Aye!" shouted Captain Widdershins.
"Quagmires!" shouted Sunny.
"Sunny!" shouted Duncan Quagmire.
"Klaus!" shouted Isadora Quagmire.
"Aye!" shouted Captain Widdershins.
"Baudelaires!" shouted Phil.
"Phil!" shouted Sunny.
"Baudelaires!" shouted Hector.
"Hector!" shouted Violet.
"Aye!" shouted Captain Widdershins.
"Captain Widdershins!" shouted Klaus.
"Aye!" shouted Captain Widdershins.
Even if it was only for a moment, the Baudelaires forgot that they were prisoners of two not-very-well-read people who were once associates of Count Olaf. They forgot that the baby whom they were caring for was still unconscious. They were just happy to see their friends again and so was everyone else in the small, cramped jail cell. Violet felt delighted and Klaus felt overjoyed and Sunny felt ecstatic and Fiona felt jubilant and Captain Widdershins felt like he wanted to randomly shout "Aye!" and Quigley felt blissful and Duncan felt joyful and Isadora felt thrilled and Beatrice felt unconscious and Hector felt satisfied and Phil felt over the moon and Fernald, who was still outside the cell, felt annoyed.
"I can't believe you're all here." Violet said delightfully. She turned to Quigley. "I missed you."
Quigley ran up to Violet and embraced her. Nobody was able to see it, but Violet was quietly crying.
"What happened?" asked Klaus inquisitively, a word which here means that Klaus was curious about what happened to all of his old friends.
"We were captured by the Great Unknown then... Fernald... betrayed us", answered Fiona, struggling to let the last two words out. One tear fell down her cheek as she finished the sentence. Klaus, noting her emotional pain, took a step towards her and put his hand on her shoulder. This made Isadora Quagmire cringe, for reasons which I have been unsuccessful at identifying.
"I didn't betray you", said an irritated Fernald. 'Irritated' is a word which here means that he was annoyed that Fiona told the Baudelaires that he betrayed them. "I just came back to the winning team."
"But that can mean the same thing", said Klaus. It is not grammatically correct to start a sentence with a conjunction such as 'but'. But Klaus didn't care about grammar at this point as he was overwhelmed by the situation and of course, by Fiona's pain..
"Shut up!" Fernald ordered Klaus, "They're not the same thing and I suggest you stay on my good side, or else I'll to get the tagliatelle grande! I heard that being hit with it is an unpleasant and somewhat sticky experience. Joining the crew of this submarine was the right decision. Now, Olaf might take me back into his troupe when he finds me."
"Olaf is dead!", Sunny blurted to the hook-handed man.
"No. He can't be. You're a liar. Because of that, I'm getting the tagliatelle grande. I hope you're happy!"
Obviously, Fernald was simply using a phrase and actually hoped that Sunny was very unhappy. As Fernald left, the Baudelaires began to tell their story to their cellmates, a term which here means 'mates who were in the cell'. Violet cried when she explained what happened when Kit Snicket brought them to Hotel Denouement. Klaus weeped when he explained what happened when they were castaways on the island. Sunny sobbed as she explained what happened when they left the island with Beatrice. By the end of the story, not only the Baudelaires, but everyone in the cell was upset, with the sole exception of Phil. This was not the only miserable story to be told in this cell. Quigley began to explain what led them to be in the brig of this gigantic submarine.
"After I was separated from you", Quigley began, "I was helped out of Stricken Stream by Kit Snicket. She brought me to her brother's house. Since her brother was missing, she let me stay there while she went to Hotel Denouement. She told me that you were on the Queequeg and asked me to send you a Volunteer Factual Dispatch while she was on her way to Briny Beech to collect you. I didn't want the telegram to fall into the wrong hands, so I sent you the poems. I hoped that you knew about Verse Fluctuation Declaration so that it would work."
"It worked perfectly, Quigley", said Violet with a smile.
"I know. Kit told me when she returned. She also told me that my the self-sustaining hot air balloon was about to pass the Mortmain Mountains, so we went to the top of Mount Fraught. The mountain was so high that we were able to reach the balloon."
Duncan was quick to interrupt Quigley, "We were shocked when we saw Quigley, we thought that we were imagining it. We thought for all that time that he died in the fire that killed our parents and destroyed our homes, yet there he was. Completely alive."
"Olaf's tents were still up from when I was there with you", Quigley continued, "Once on the balloon, we went back towards the hotel to get you. We were going to lower a ladder so that we could drop down from the balloon to the salon on the roof of the Hotel Denouement, but when we saw that it was on fire, we simply went past it. Later, when we were over the sea we were attacked by eagles."
Hector continued with the story. "We defended ourself with large nets, but it wasn't enough. The eagles popped every balloon."
It was Fiona who spoke next. "The self-sustaining hot air balloon hit the Queequeg as it well. We received a Volunteer Factual Dispatch from Kit Snicket, or as it turned out, somebody pretending to be Kit Snicket. We were told that the sugar bowl was in that precise location. I suppose whoever sent the message knew that the hot air balloon was going to be attacked over us at the time. It was a trap."
"I assume the sugar bowl wasn't actually there then?", asked Violet.
"Aye... I mean no... I mean, aye... I mean, it was there. Aye, we found the sugar bowl!"
Fiona opened her hands and shown the Baudelaires a small, white bowl with a handle on top to remove the lid. She slowly pulled on the handle, but it didn't open.
"It looks like an ordinary kitchen item, but it's more complicated than that. There's a small keyhole at the top. Even if we could escape, we have no idea whatsoever where the key is. We tried smashing it open, but we haven't even scratched it. We have managed to hide it from Fernald and those two terrible people all this time. When the balloon hit us, the entire Queequeg fell into this submarine and we were thrown in the brig. We've been in here for a year... For a whole year, they've been torturing us and feeding us nothing but bread and water. It's horrible, Klaus. It's so horrible, but not as horrible as the fact that I never got to apologise to you." Fiona began to sob. Klaus stepped forward and gave her a hug.
"I forgive you", Klaus whispered.
"Aw, how lovely. You're really lucky to be seeing each other again." Phil said, but nobody listened to him as can be expected in such a situation.
"We thought of a plan to escape and it almost worked", Duncan explained, "We got Fernald to pretend to betray us and work for those people who we don't know the names of. The bald one with the beard and the woman with hair. He double-crossed us and actually joined him for real. They whipped us all with that giant noodle. It was more of a miserable and somewhat sticky experience than I ever expected. Now, he's going to get it again. There's nothing we can do."
Isadora put her hand on her brother's shoulder and everyone began to hear footsteps coming from outside the brig. It was Fernald the hook-handed man. He didn't bring the tagliatelle grande with him. On the contrary, a term which here means, despite the fact that he said that he was going to bring it back with him, he had a key. It wasn't the key that the Baudelaire so desperately wanted, that being the key to the sugar bowl, but it was still a key that was of great assistance. I won't explain the details of how Fernald managed to insert the key into the lock and turn it without using any hands, but the point is that the door of the cell opened. He then said two words, that everyone in the cell would remember for the rest of their lives...
"You're free."