"Keep your Triangle Eyes on them, heh hee hic!" Syndrome instructed Fiona. "I'm going to search the sub for information. Hic! This sub is a great find; it's like a time capsule from fifteen years ago, before the Relocation. I may get a lead on some hidden supers. Hic!"
Syndrome began searching the room.
"Here's a fine find already! Hoo hoo hic! A helmet-full of poison mushrooms!" said Syndrome as he picked it up.
Syndrome tried to keep the zero-point beam going on the Parrs as he searched, but he had to give up on the idea when he went back to search the bedrooms.
"Fiona, how could you?" Violet asked when she could move.
"Count Buddy promised that if I'd help him, he'd help me find my stepfather," Fiona said. "Our whole family could be together again. Aye!"
"Help us escape, and stay with the V.F.D.," Violet urged.
"Geroic!" Jack-Jack agreed.
"You wouldn't abandon Jack-Jack," said Fiona. "You can't ask me to abandon my little brother. Aye!"
"Little brother?" asked Dash, "He's big and evil!"
"He's like a chef salad, some good and some evil. Like me," said Fiona.
"Stay if you must, said Violet. "But let us go."
"I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll turn my back for a moment instead of guarding you. If you can get away, so be it. But first..."
Fiona picked up Dash with one irresistibly-strong hand and kissed him on the forehead. "Remember, tweet-chirrup!"
Dash remembered what that meant: "I like you very much" in robin.
Fiona dropped Dash, turned her back, and in that instant Jack-Jack acted. He touched Dash's leg with one hand and Fiona's with the other, gaining speed, flight, and strength. He jetted back into the bedroom area and knocked Syndrome out with one punch, then zipped back and tossed both Syndrome and Fiona out the porthole into the other vessel.
"Goooh!" he shouted, and Violet ran for the controls of the ship. Her lessons with Captain Widdershins had stuck and she was able to start the Quohog.
They headed down the tube to the exit, and suddenly Violet gasped, "The porthole glass is broken! We can't submerge without fixing it!"
Jack-Jack flew up to the porthole, touched a bit of the broken glass still remaining, and morphed into a new porthole window.
Violet was barely comfortable with the controls, but she managed to navigate the submarine out of the tube and into open water.
Then there was a noise that made Violet jump. Had she broken something?
It turned out to be a Volunteer Factual Dispatch coming in on the telegram machine. Dash tore it off and read it aloud.
Dash read:
"From Quigley to the Quohog,
We understand you have three volunteers aboard STOP.
We need them for an urgent mission STOP.
Please deliver on Tuesday to the location coded in the words below STOP.
A clever head is a real turn-on
You bright, you purple amazons.
(From 'Smart Girls', by Brian Wilson of the Octopus Boys).
At the pink hour; when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the deck, when the human engine waits
Like a pony throbbing party...
(From 'The Waste Land' by T.S. Eliot).
CC:JS"
"What is that supposed to mean?" asked Violet.
"I have no idea. It suddenly goes into poetry," said Dash.
"I think I know that first song," said Violet. "It should say 'You bright, you brainy amazons.' And it's by one of the Beach Boys, not the Octopus Boys."
"There was something in that notebook you found in the Grotto about Verse Fluctuation Declarations," Dash said. "The changed words are the message. So it's brainy... beach."
"Brainy Beach!" said Violet. "We have the location. Now we just need to work out the second one."
"That one's impossible," said Dash.
"Not if we can find a poetry book," said Violet.
Dash speed-skimmed every book he could find, looking for poetry. Finally, on the top shelf of the bookcase he found what he needed.
"Violet... taxi.. waiting," said Dash
"So there'll be a taxi waiting for me, or a violet taxi, or just a taxi and Quigley wanted to write my name," said Violet.
"Can we make Brainy Beach on time?" asked Dash.
"If I can figure out our course. Help me read the maps, ok?" Violet asked.
Dash sighed, "All this reading is making my head hurt. But ok, I'll help."
They brought the Quohog to the foggy shore of Brainy Beach about the same time of day as their adventures had begun, when Agent Rick Poe had told them their house was burned down and their parents were missing. It was like things were starting all over again: their house was still burned down, their parents were still missing...
And here was Mr. Poe again, coming through the fog. "Children! I had a tip you might be here." he said. "An anonymous tip by someone who signed only their initials, J.S. Do you know who that might be?"
"How did you get here?" Violet asked suspiciously.
"In my own car, naturally. Come with me for a debriefing. You have a lot of explaining to do," Poe said.
"You didn't come in a taxi?" Dash asked.
"No. As I said, I came by car. Come on, we need to get out of here quickly," said Poe.
Dash gave him a hard, fast punch in the stomach that doubled him over.
"No!" gasped Poe. "You're in big trouble. Let me help you. You need me!"
"We don't trust you. Let's go, Violet," Dash said, and Violet formed the force-sphere running-ball they had used for transport many times before. They ran toward the road, where a taxi with tinted windows was waiting.
Inside, there was a red-headed woman wearing gloves and a long black coat buttoned up to her chin, who had been reading a poetry book. She looked up and gave them a smile, a smile that a person might give an associate or another member of an organization rather than a friend.
"Hello, I'm KitFox," she told them. "Climb in."
The children did as she asked and the taxi sped away. The tables of their lives had turned again, but whether for good or ill only time would tell.