"Oh no," Aunt Josephine said, "and I mean it this time."
"What's wrong, Aunt Josephine?" Violet said tiredly. The sailboat had reached the approximate middle of the lake. The water was still fairly calm, and the lighthouse still glowed, a pinpoint of pale purple light. There seemed to be no cause for alarm.
"We're about to enter the territory of the Lachrymose Leeches," Aunt Josephine said.
"I'm sure we'll pass through safely," Klaus said, peering through the spying glass to see if Damocles Dock was visible yet. "You told us that the leeches were harmless and only preyed on small fish."
"Unless you've eaten recently," Aunt Josephine said.
"But it's been hours since we've eaten," Violet said soothingly. "The last thing we ate were peppermints at the Anxious Clown. That was in the afternoon, and now it's the middle of the night."
Aunt Josephine looked down, and moved away from the side of the boat. "But I ate a banana," she whispered, "just before you arrived."
"Oh no," Violet said. Sunny stopped moving the tiller and looked worriedly into the water.
"I'm sure there's nothing to worry about," Klaus said. "Leeches are very small animals. If we were in the water, we might have reason to fear, but I don't think they'd attack a sailboat. Plus, Hurricane Herman may have frightened them away from their territory. I bet the Lachrymose Leeches won't even show up."
Klaus thought he was done speaking for the moment, but in the moment that followed he added one more sentence. The sentence was "Speak of the Devil," and it is an expression that you use when you are talking about something only to have it occur. For instance, if you were at a picnic and said, "I hope it doesn't snow," and at that very minute a blizzard began, you could say, "Speak of the Devil" before gathering up your blanket and potato salad and driving away to a good restaurant. But in the case of the Baudelaire orphans, I'm sure you can guess what happened to prompt Klaus to use this expression.
"Speak of the Devil," Klaus said, looking into the waters of the lake. Out of the swirling blackness came skinny, rising shapes, barely visible in the moonlight. The shapes were scarcely longer than a finger, and at first it looked as if someone were swimming in the lake and drumming their fingers on the surface of the water. But most people have only ten fingers, and in the few minutes that followed there were hundreds of these tiny shapes, wriggling hungrily from all sides toward the sailboat. The Lachrymose Leeches made a quiet, whispering sound on the water as they swam, as if the Baudelaire orphans were surrounded by people murmuring terrible secrets. The children watched in silence as the swarm approached the boat, each leech knocking lightly against the wood. Their tiny leech-mouths puckered in disappointment as they tried to taste the sailboat. Leeches are blind, but they aren't stupid, and the Lachrymose Leeches knew that they were not eating a banana.
"You see?" Klaus said nervously, as the tapping of leech-mouths continued. "We're perfectly safe."
"Yes," Violet said. She wasn't sure they were perfectly safe, not at all, but it seemed best to tell Aunt Josephine they were perfectly safe. "We're perfectly safe," she said.
The tapping sound continued, getting a little rougher and louder. Frustration is an interesting emotional state, because it tends to bring out the worst in whoever is frustrated. Frustrated babies tend to throw food and make a mess. Frustrated citizens tend to execute kings and queens and make a democracy. And frustrated moths tend to bang up against lightbulbs and make light fixtures all dusty. But unlike babies, citizens, and moths, leeches are quite unpleasant to begin with. Now that the Lachrymose Leeches were getting frustrated, everyone on board the sailboat was quite anxious to see what would happen when frustration brought out the worst in leeches. For a while, the small creatures tried and tried to eat the wood, but their tiny teeth didn't really do anything but make an unpleasant knocking sound. But then, all at once, the leeches knocked off, and the Baudelaires watched them wriggle away from the sailboat.
"They're leaving," Klaus said hopefully, but they weren't leaving. When the leeches had reached a considerable distance, they suddenly swiveled their tiny bodies around and came rushing back to the boat. With a loud thwack! the leeches all hit the boat more or less at once, and the sailboat rocked precariously, a word which here means "in a way which almost threw Aunt Josephine and the Baudelaire youngsters to their doom." The four passengers were rocked to and fro and almost fell into the waters of the lake, where the leeches were wriggling away again to prepare for another attack.
"Yadec!" Sunny shrieked and pointed at the side of the boat. Yadec, of course, is not grammatically correct English, but even Aunt Josephine understood that the youngest Baudelaire meant "Look at the crack in the boat that the leeches have made!" The crack was a tiny one, about as long as a pencil and about as wide as a human hair, and it was curved downward so it looked as if the sailboat were frowning at them. If the leeches kept hitting the side of the boat, the frown would only get wider.
"We have to sail much faster," Klaus said, "or this boat will be in pieces in no time."
"But sailing relies on the wind," Violet pointed out. "We can't make the wind go faster."
"I'm frightened!" Aunt Josephine cried. "Please don't throw me overboard!"
"Nobody's going to throw you overboard," Violet said impatiently, although I'm sorry to tell you that Violet was wrong about that. "Take an oar, Aunt Josephine. Klaus, take the other one. If we use the sail, the tiller, and the oars we should move more quickly."
Thwack! The Lachrymose Leeches hit the side of the boat, widening the crack in the side and rocking the boat again. One of the leeches was thrown over the side in the impact, and twisted this way and that on the floor of the boat, gnashing its tiny teeth as it looked for food. Grimacing, Klaus walked cautiously over to it and tried to kick the leech overboard, but it clung onto his shoe and began gnawing through the leather. With a cry of disgust, Klaus shook his leg, and the leech fell to the floor of the sailboat again, stretching its tiny neck and opening and shutting its mouth. Violet grabbed the long pole with the net at the end of it, scooped up the leech, and tossed it overboard.
Thwack! The crack widened enough that a bit of water began to dribble through, making a small puddle on the sailboat's floor. "Sunny," Violet said, "keep an eye on that puddle. When it gets bigger, use the bucket to throw it back in the lake."
"Mofee!" Sunny shrieked, which meant "I certainly will." There was the whispering sound as the leeches swam away to ram the boat again. Klaus and Aunt Josephine began rowing as hard as they could, while Violet adjusted the sail and kept the net in her hand for any more leeches who got on board.
Thwack! Thwack! There were two loud noises now, one on the side of the boat and one on the bottom, which cracked immediately. The leeches had divided up into two teams, which is good news for playing kickball but bad news if you are being attacked. Aunt Josephine gave a shriek of terror. Water was now leaking into the sailboat in two spots, and Sunny abandoned the tiller to bail the water back out. Klaus stopped rowing, and held the oar up without a word. It had several small bite marks in it-the work of the Lachrymose Leeches.
"Rowing isn't going to work," he reported to Violet solemnly. "If we row any more these oars will be completely eaten."
Violet watched Sunny crawl around with the bucket full of water. "Rowing won't help us, anyway," she said. "This boat is sinking. We need help."