The children stood up unsteadily in their piece of the boat, their limbs aching from clinging to one another all night, and tried to figure out where in the world they were, and how in the world they had survived. But as they gazed around at their surroundings, they could not answer these questions, as they had never seen anything in the world like the sight that awaited them.
At first, it appeared that the Baudelaire orphans were still in the middle of the ocean, as all the children could see was a flat and wet landscape stretching out in all directions, fading into the gray morning mist. But as they peered over the side of their ruined boat, the children saw that the water was not much deeper than a puddle, and this enormous puddle was littered with detritus, a word which here means "all sorts of strange items." There were large pieces of wood sticking out of the water like jagged teeth, and long lengths of rope tangled into damp and complicated knots. There were great heaps of seaweed, and thousands of fish wriggling and gaping at the sun as seabirds swooped down from the misty sky and helped themselves to a seafood breakfast. There were what looked like pieces of other boats—anchors and portholes, railings and masts, scattered every which way like broken toys—and other objects that might have been from the boats' cargo, including shattered lanterns, smashed barrels, soaked documents, and the ripped remains of all sorts of clothing, from top hats to roller skates. There was an old-fashioned typewriter leaning against a large, ornate bird cage, with a family of guppies wriggling through its keys. There was large, brass cannon, with a large crab clawing its way out of the barrel, and there was a hopelessly torn net caught in the blades of a propeller. It was as if the storm had swept away the entire sea, leaving all of its contents scattered on the ocean floor.
"What is this place?" Violet said, in a hushed whisper. "What happened?"
Klaus took his glasses out of his pocket, where he had put them for safekeeping, and was relieved to see they were unharmed. "I think we're on a coastal shelf," he said. "There are places in the sea where the water is suddenly very shallow, usually near land. The storm must have thrown our boat onto the shelf, along with all this other wreckage."
"Land?" Sunny asked, holding her tiny hand over her eyes so she might see farther. "Don't see."
Klaus stepped carefully over the side of the boat. The dark water only came up to his knees, and he began to walk around the boat in careful strides. "Coastal shelves are usually much smaller than this," he said, "but there must be an island somewhere close by. Let's look for it."
Violet followed her brother out of the boat, carrying her sister, who was still quite short. "Which direction do you think we should go?" she asked. "We don't want to get lost."
Sunny gave her siblings a small smile. "Already lost," she pointed out.
"Sunny's right," Klaus said. "Even if we had a compass, we don't know where we are or where we are going. We might as well head in any direction at all."
"Then I vote we head west," Violet said, pointing in the opposite direction of the rising sun. "If we're going to be walking for a while, we don't want the sun in our eyes."
"Unless we find our concierge sunglasses," Klaus said. "The storm blew them away, but they might have landed on the same shelf."
"We could find anything here," Violet said, and the Baudelaires had walked only a few steps before they saw this was so, for floating in the water was one piece of detritus they wished had blown away from them forever. Floating in a particularly filthy part of the water, stretched out flat on his back with his harpoon gun leaning across one shoulder, was Count Olaf. The villain's eyes were closed underneath his one eyebrow, and he did not move. In all their miserable times with the count, the Baudelaires had never seen Olaf look so calm.
"I guess we didn't need to throw him overboard," Violet said. "The storm did it for us."
Klaus leaned down to peer closer to Olaf, but the villain still did not stir. "It must have been terrible," he said, "to try and ride out the storm with no kind of shelter whatsoever."
"Kikbucit?" Sunny asked, but at that moment Count Olaf's eyes opened and the youngest Baudelaire's question was answered. Frowning, the villain moved his eyes in one direction and then the other.
"Where am I?" he muttered, spitting a piece of seaweed out of his mouth. "Where's my figurehead?"
"Coastal shelf," Sunny replied.
At the sound of Sunny's voice, Count Olaf blinked and sat up, glaring at the children and shaking water out of his ears. "Get me some coffee, orphans!" he ordered. "I had a very unpleasant evening, and I'd like a nice, hearty breakfast before deciding what to do with you."
"There's no coffee here," Violet said, although there was in fact an espresso machine about twenty feet away. "We're walking west, in the hopes of finding an island."
"You'll walk where I tell you to walk," Olaf growled. "Are you forgetting that I'm the captain of this boat?"
"The boat is stuck in the sand," Klaus said. "It's quite damaged."
"Well, you're still my hench people," the villain said, "and my orders are that we walk west, in the hopes of finding an island. I've heard about islands in the distant parts of the sea. The primitive inhabitants have never seen civilized people, so they will probably revere me as a god." The Baudelaires looked at one another and sighed. «Revere» is a word which here means "praise highly, and have a great deal of respect for," and there was no person the children revered less than the dreadful man who was standing before them, picking his teeth with a bit of seashell and referring to people who lived in a certain region of the world as "primitive." Yet it seemed that no matter where the Baudelaires traveled, there were people either so greedy that they respected and praised Olaf for his evil ways, or so foolish that they didn't notice how dreadful he really was. It was enough to make the children want to abandon Olaf there on the coastal shelf, but it is difficult to abandon someone in a place where everything is already abandoned, and so the three orphans and the one villain trudged together westward across the cluttered coastal shelf in silence, wondering what was in store for them. Count Olaf led the way, balancing the harpoon gun on one shoulder, and interrupting the silence every so often to demand coffee, fresh juice, and other equally unobtainable breakfast items. Violet walked behind him, using a broken banister she found as a walking stick and poking at interesting mechanical scraps she found in the muck, and Klaus walked alongside his sister, jotting the occasional note in his commonplace book. Sunny climbed on top of Violet's shoulders to serve as a sort of lookout, and it was the youngest Baudelaire who broke the silence with a triumphant cry.
"Land ho!" she cried, pointing into the mist, and the three Baudelaires could see the faint shape of an island rising out of the shelf. The island looked narrow and long, like a freight train, and if they squinted they could see clusters of trees and what looked like enormous sheets of white cloth billowing in the wind.
"I've discovered an island!" Count Olaf cackled. "I'm going to name it Olaf-Land!"
"You didn't discover the island," Violet pointed out. "It appears that people already live on it."
"And I am their king!" Count Olaf proclaimed. "Hurry up, orphans! My royal subjects are going to cook me a big breakfast, and if I'm in a good mood I might let you lick the plates!"