After dinner, the Quohog set course for Gargoyle Grotto. Jack-Jack and Phil went to sleep early. Violet continued her lessons with Captain Widdershins on how the ship worked. Dash and Fiona watched out the porthole as they passed schools of fish.
"I'm sorry my stepfather embarrassed you like that, Dash," said Fiona.
"It's ok," Dash said.
"Sometimes I think about it... When a super marries a super, their children are supers, like your folks and you. But since the Relocation it's been much harder for supers to find each other."
"Fiona, could we talk about something else? What was it like to fight crime in the golden age?" Dash asked.
"It wasn't all crime-fighting," Fiona said. "Sometimes I volunteered to help at the zoo with the birds. But there was the time I caught a gang of robbers by flying in one window of their hideout and out the other, punching them all out on the way..."
"Quiet!" called Captain Widdershins. "There's something on the sonar."
He shut off the engines and the Quohog drifted silently. Outside the porthole, Fiona and Dash saw an enormous submarine, much bigger than theirs, shaped like a many-legged octopus. In the dome of the head there were two portholes, and the legs twirled round and round, propelling it through the water. Everyone held still, hardly daring to breathe. The octopus-ship kept getting closer and closer until they were afraid one of its legs would crush them by accident.
Captain Widdershins pointed to another, even larger shape on the sonar screen. It was like a slithering, coiling question mark. The legs of the octopus sub began to spin furiously as it rushed away from the question mark and away from them. The question mark followed, and soon both were gone.
"What was that huge question-mark shape?" Violet asked.
"Something very bad," Widdershins said. "Evil that you cannot imagine."
"How do you know about it?" Dash asked.
"Some the fishes told me, some I worked out for myself," said Widdershins. "And that's all I'm saying. Aye. Like I told you before, there are secrets too terrible for young people to know."
"You talk to fishes, and Fiona talks to birds?" Violet said. "It's a regular Dr. Dolittle ship."
After that, the two older Parr children turned in for the night. It seemed that they had hardly slept at all when Captain Widdershins shook them awake.
"We're as close to the Grotto as we can get in the sub. Aye! Time to draw straws and see which child will go in for the sugar bowl," said Widdershins.
"If there are enough diving suits, we all should go," said Violet.
"I agree," Fiona said. "We may need all our powers in case something goes wrong."
"There's something you should know about Gargoyle Grotto," Widdershins warned them. "Aye! Above it is the ruins of Anwhistle Aquatics, which caught fire right before I went into hiding. Aye. It was run by a V.F.D. scientist named Gregor Anwhistle."
"Why is that a problem?" Dash asked.
"In the Grotto there was once a batch of deadly experimental mushrooms he developed. They're probably all gone now, but just in case..."
"Just in case, what should we do?" Fiona asked.
"Don't get close to them. They're so poisonous that if you breathe in even one of their spores it could kill you within an hour."
"Yikes!" said Dash. "Do we really need to do this?"
"Aye! We have to have the sugar bowl. He who hesitates is lost!" said Widdershins.
"Or she," added Fiona.
The three Parrs and Fiona all got diving suits. Jack-Jack got only a sealed helmet since that was all that would fit him. Swimming to the Grotto was easy because the currents carried them there. Getting back would not be so easy.
It was very dark and they had no lights. If they had, they might have noticed the woman swimming above them in the other direction, toward the Quohog.
The grotto itself was artificially lit, by lamps on stands marked "V.F.D.". They saw no sign of mushrooms as they entered. All four began to comb the sand, which was full of all sorts of flotsam -- a word which here means combs, bottles, finger puppets, a tin of wasabi, and miscellaneous items carried in by the current.
Violet found an old newspaper article which she put away in a waterproof pocket to read later. Dash found an old notebook and also kept it just in case. Jack-Jack examined the tin of wasabi, but he decided to drop it because he didn't know how to cook with it. They looked and looked, but there was no sign of a sugar bowl.
Suddenly Fiona gasped and pointed in the direction they had come. A thick crop of mushrooms was sprouting, blocking their way!
"What'll we do?" asked Violet. "We can't go back through those or we'll be poisoned."
"A force-field ball?" suggested Dash.
"There's not enough room to make one that will fit all of us," Violet said. "Not with all the mushrooms filling the path."
"Ginzu!" exclaimed Jack-Jack. He opened his helmet and morphed into a metal baby with knife-blade hands. He rushed into the mushroom patch, hacked out a path, and then returned to the diving helmet and morphed back to normal.
Violet formed a force-field ball around them. Fiona used her flight and strength to hover at the top of it, carrying Violet and Jack-Jack so Dash had room to run at the bottom. Dash ran them out to the safety of the water.
Violet hugged Jack-Jack's diving helmet. "That was very brave, but very dangerous, Jack-Jack. If any spores got on you..."
There was a sick cough from inside the diving helmet.