Chapter 20, Gaol
With Fiona's strength to help them fight the current, they were able to swim back to the ship very quickly. Their forlorn hope was that Captain Widdershins would help them find a cure for Jack-Jack. "Forlorn hope" here means a desperate and probably doomed enterprise, such as depending on someone who is no longer there.
They got back through the airlock without help from anyone inside.
"Captain Widdershins!" called Violet.
"Stepfather!" called Fiona.
Captain Widdershins was no longer there. Neither was Phil. Somebody had tied balloons with the letters "V", "F", and "D" to the table, but there was no note.
"What happened?" said Dash. "They wouldn't just go off and leave us!"
"If my stepfather thought there was something that needed to be done, he wouldn't hesitate," said Fiona. "In his absence, I'm the new Captain of the Quohog. Aye!"
"I don't care who's Captain. What are we going to do to save Jack-Jack?" Violet asked. She looked into the sealed helmet where mushrooms were growing. Mushrooms were also growing inside Jack-Jack's mouth and throat.
"I don't know. You and Dash look through that notebook you found in the grotto. Aye! And the books in the ship library. Maybe they have information that would help. Aye! I'm going to fire up the engine and get us out of this cave. Aye!"
"Jack-Jack, can you morph?" Violet asked.
Jack-Jack coughed and shook his head. He was too overwhelmed by the mushrooms to concentrate.
"Don't you know anything about mushrooms? You worked at a zoo!" Dash asked Fiona.
"I'm an ornithologist. Aye! I know birds, not mushrooms," said Fiona. She began working the controls to start the ship.
Dash handed the notebook to Violet, who also got out the newspaper article she had found in the grotto. She skimmed the article first, and gave a little gasp of surprise at what she read. She hurriedly put the article away before Fiona could see it. Meanwhile Dash was skimming the titles of the books on the shelves. When he found a book entitled Mushroom Minutiae he brought it to the table and began to speed-read. Violet skimmed through the notebook.
Then something happened which made them feel even more forlorn. As the Quohog emerged from the cave, it ran right into the metallic legs of the octopus submarine! It extended a huge metal tube and sucked them up into the head of octopus.
No sooner had they arrived at the top when Syndrome blasted out the glass porthole and caught Fiona, Dash, and Violet in a paralyzing zero-point beam.
"Hee hee hoo hoo!" said Syndrome. "A whole submarine full of my old enemies! I've hit the jackpot! Hee hee ho hic! Excuse me, laughing is giving me the hiccups. Hic!"
He jumped inside the sub. "I really thought you bought it when you went off that waterfall. Hee hic hee. I guessed that the hic sugar bowl must have fallen from one of your pockets into the stream, worked out hic the location from tidal charts, and hic came here to find it. Now I find you here, too! Hoo hee heh hic! Hic!"
Syndrome glanced over at the masked Fiona. "Quigley, couldn't you find a better super costume? Hic! Those triangle eyes make you look like a girl. Hee heh hic hoo."
He glanced around the room as if looking for something.
"I'll give you credit for getting here before hic me, and no doubt hiding the sugar bowl again. Never mind, ve have vays of making you talk," said Syndrome, adopting a phony German accent. "Hoo hoo heek hic!"
He used the beam to pull them along down the corridor of the octopus submarine.
They passed a room where rows of Snow Scouts were chained to oars. Standing over them was Esmé Sansweet, in a black diving suit to which she had sewed extra arms to make a "fashionable" octopus costume, and Kari Melita Spats, also in a black diving costume with a large letter "S" painted on the chest.
"You have to listen to me, since I'm the lead sidekick," Kari Melita was telling the captive scouts. "It's part of your sidekick training to row for us, so you have to get in rhythm. I've got something that will help."
Kari took a music disc out of her pocket and popped it into a boom box. "There! Mozart will inspire you to row. It makes babies smarter, you know."
Kari began dancing around, waving her arms to the music, and to the dirty looks of the Snow Scouts. "Row! Row! Row your boat!" she attempted to sing, but the words didn't fit the music and it came out a discordant cacophony -- which here means "a terrible noise to pester an audience of enslaved Snow Scouts with".
"Oh, hi Darlin'" said Esmé. "I see you've captured the Incredibles and that twin who was workin' with them."
"Yes, I'm taking them to the brig so that Hooky can get them to talk. Hee hic hoo hoo hic!" Count Buddy said.
"Is that a new 'in' laugh, Darlin'? Hee hic ho ho hic!" Esmé tried.
"No, hic, it's the hiccups," said Syndrome. "How are hic the new recruits we got from the Man with a Beard and No Hair and the Woman with Hair and No Beard shaping up?"
"Not bad," said Esmé. "I'm whippin' them with a big wet noodle when they won't row. If that doesn't work I've got a real whip, too."
"And I'm inspiring them with music!" said Kari. "Don't worry, Syndromie, I've got it all under control."
"That's nice, hic!" said Syndrome with little interest. He continued to drag his captives down the hall. Finally he came to a metal door, opened it, threw them in, and locked it.
"U. Tuncboddy!" called Count Buddy. "Interrogate these prisoners hic and find out what they did with the sugar bowl. No, hic don't go into the brig. They're too powerful. Use this valve and let in water, threaten them with drowning. Ho hoo hee hic! You can see and hear them through this porthole. Hic! I'm going to go deal with these hiccups. Hic!"
Syndrome walked away down the hall. The hook-handed guard looked in through the porthole at the captives. "You heard what he said. You'd better talk, or else..."
Fiona stared at him. "Fernald?" she asked. She took off her mask.
"Fiona?" asked the hook-handed guard.