"I hope she avoided the Medusoid Mycelium," Klaus said. "I hate to think of what that would do to her child."
" Phearst," Sunny said, which meant something like, "We should rescue her promptly."
"The islanders are in worse shape than Kit," Klaus said. "We should go to Ishmael’s tent first, and then go rescue Kit."
Violet peered through the periscope and frowned. "We shouldn't go to Ishmael's tent," she said. "We need to fill that stockpot with apples and get to the coastal shelf as quickly as we can."
"What do you mean?" Klaus said.
"They're leaving," Violet said, and I'm sorry to say it was true. Through the periscope, the eldest Baudelaire could see the shape of the outrigger and the figures of its poisoned passengers, who were pushing it along the coastal shelf toward the library raft where Kit Snicket still lay. The three children each peered through the periscope, and then looked at one another. They knew they should be hurrying, but for a moment none of the Baudelaires could move, as if they were unwilling to travel any farther in their sad history, or see one more part of their story come to an end.
If you have read this far in the chronicle of the Baudelaire orphans—and I certainly hope you have not—then you know we have reached the thirteenth chapter of the thirteenth volume in this sad history, and so you know the end is near, even though this chapter is so lengthy that you might never reach the end of it. But perhaps you do not yet know what the end really means. "The end" is a phrase which refers to the completion of a story, or the final moment of some accomplishment, such as a secret errand, or a great deal of research, and indeed this thirteenth volume marks the completion of my investigation into the Baudelaire case, which required much research, a great many secret errands, and the accomplishments of a number of my comrades, from a trolley driver to a botanical hybridization expert, with many, many typewriter repair people in between. But it cannot be said that The End contains the end of the Baudelaires' story, any more than The Bad Beginning contained its beginning. The children's story began long before that terrible day on Briny Beach, but there would have to be another volume to chronicle when the Baudelaires were born, and when their parents married, and who was playing the violin in the candlelit restaurant when the Baudelaire parents first laid eyes on one another, and what was hidden inside that violin, and the childhood of the man who orphaned the girl who put it there, and even then it could not be said that the Baudelaires' story had not begun, because you would still need to know about certain tea party held in a penthouse suite, and the baker who made the scones served at the tea party, and the baker's assistant who smuggled the secret ingredient into the scone batter through a very narrow drainpipe, and how a crafty volunteer created the illusion of a fire in the kitchen simply by wearing a certain dress and jumping around, and even then the beginning of the story would be as far away as the shipwreck that left the Baudelaire parents as castaways on the coastal shelf is far away from the outrigger on which the islanders would depart. One could say, in fact, that no story really has a beginning, and that no story really has an end, as all of the world's stories are as jumbled as the items in the arboretum, with their details and secrets all heaped together so that the whole story, from beginning to end, depends on how you look at it. We might even say that the world is always in medias res — a Latin phrase which means "in the midst of things" or "in the middle of a narrative" — and that it is impossible to solve any mystery, or find the root of any trouble, and so The End is really the middle of the story, as many people in this history will live long past the close of Chapter Thirteen, or even the beginning of the story, as a new child arrives in the world at the chapter's close. But one cannot sit in the midst of things forever. Eventually one must face that the end is near, and the end of The End is quite near indeed, so if I were you I would not read the end of The End, as it contains the end of a notorious villain but also the end of a brave and noble sibling, and the end of the colonists' stay on the island, as they sail off the end of the coastal shelf. The end of The End contains all these ends, and that does not depend on how you look at it, so it might be best for you to stop looking at The End before the end of The End arrives, and to stop reading The End before you read the end, as the stories that end in The End that began in The Bad Beginning are beginning to end now.
The Baudelaires hurriedly filled their stock-pot with apples and ran to the coastal shelf, hurrying over the brae as quickly as they could. It was past lunchtime, and the waters of the sea were already flooding the shelf, so the water was much deeper than it had been since the children's arrival. Violet and Klaus had to hold the stockpot high in the air, and Sunny and the Incredibly Deadly Viper climbed up on the elder Baudelaires' shoulders to ride along with the bitter apples. The children could see Kit Snicket on the horizon, still lying on the library raft as the waters rose to soak the first few layers of books, and alongside the strange cube was the outrigger. As they drew closer, they saw that the islanders had stopped pushing the boat and were climbing aboard, pausing from time to time to cough, while at the head of the outrigger was the figure of Ishmael, seated in his clay chair, gazing at his poisoned colonists and watching the children approach.
"Stop!" Violet cried, when they were close enough to be heard. "We've discovered a way to dilute the poison!"
"Baudelaires!" came the faint cry of Kit high atop the library raft. "Thank goodness you're here! I think I'm going into labor!"
As I'm sure you know, «labor» is the term for the process by which a woman gives birth, and it is a Herculean task, a phrase which here means "something you would rather not do on a library raft floating on a flooding coastal shelf." Sunny could see, from her stockpot perch, Kit holding her belly and giving the youngest Baudelaire a painful grimace.
"We'll help you," Violet promised, "but we need to get these apples to the islanders."
"They won't take them!" Kit said. "I tried to tell them how the poison could be diluted, but they insist on leaving!"
"No one's forcing them," said Ishmael calmly. "I merely suggested that the island was no longer a safe place, and that we should set sail for another one."
"You and the Baudelaires are the ones who got us into this mess," came the drowsy voice of Mr. Pitcairn, thick with fungus and coconut cordial, "but Ishmael is going to get us out."
"This island used to be a safe place," said Professor Fletcher, "far from the treachery of the world. But since you've arrived it's become dangerous and complicated."
"That's not our fault," Klaus said, walking closer and closer to the outrigger as the water continued to rise. "You can't live far from the treachery of the world, because eventually the treachery will wash up on your shores."
"Exactly," said Alonso, who yawned. "You washed up and spoiled the island forever."
"So we're leaving it to you," said Ariel, who coughed violently. "You can have this dangerous place. We're going to sail to safety."
"Safe here!" Sunny cried, holding up an apple.
"You've poisoned us enough," said Erewhon, and the islanders wheezed in agreement "We don't want to hear any more of your treacherous ideas."
"But you were ready to mutiny," Violet said. "You didn't want to take Ishmael's suggestions."
"That was before the Medusoid Mycelium arrived," Finn said hoarsely. "He's been here the longest, so he knows how to keep us safe. At his suggestion, we all drank quite a bit of cordial while he figured out the root of the trouble." She paused to catch her breath as the sinister fungus continued to grow. "And the root of the trouble, Baudelaires, is you."