Lemony Snicket
Scholastic, 2004, 323 blz.
De Baudelaires komen terecht in de Queequeg, de duikboot van Captain Widdershins en zijn stiefdochter Fiona. Klaus probeert te achterhalen waar de suikerpot van V.F.D. zou terechtgekomen zijn door de waterstromen te analyseren, en denkt dat hij in de Gorgonian Grotto zou kunnen terechtgekomen zijn. Daar leeft een zeldzame dodelijke paddestoel, de Medusoid Mycelium. Shenanigans, de kinderen zitten in de grot, vinden niets, Sunny wordt besmet, ze geraken ternauwernood terug, Olaf heeft zijn eigen duikboot, Sunny op het laatste moment gered, telegram van Quigley dat er een V.F.D.-afspraak is in Hotel Denouement, en dat ze de dag daarvoor op het strand moeten zijn waar hun verhaal begon. Daar aangekomen, zien ze Kit Snicket, die ze meeneemt in een taxi.
Ayup, de eerste keer op elf boeken dat er min of meer een happy end is.
En het wordt ook alsmaar complexer, niet in de zin van moeilijk te volgen, maar in de zin van volwassener. Consider the following, nadat ze kinderen ontdekken dat hun ouders ook twijfelachtige dingen zouden kunnen gedaan hebben:
Everyone yells, of course, from time to time, but the Baudelaire children did not like to think about their parents yelling, particularly now that they were no longer around to apologize or explain themselves. It is often difficult to admit that someone you love is not perfect, or to consider aspects of a person that are less than admirable. To the Baudelaires it felt almost as if they had drawn a line after their parents died – a secret line in their memories, separating all the wonderful things about the Baudelaire parents from the things that perhaps were not quite so wonderful. Since the fire, whenever they thought of their parents, the Baudelaires never stepped over this secret line, preferring to ponder the best moments the family had together rather than any of the times when they had fought, or been unfair or selfish. But now, suddenly, in the gloom of the Gorgonian Grotto, the siblings had stumbled across that line and found themselves thinking of that angry afternoon in the library, and in moments other angry afternoons and evenings had occurred to them until their brains were lousy with memories of all stripes, a phrase which here means “both good and bad.” It gave the siblings a queasy feeling to cross this line in their memories, and admit that their parents were sometimes difficult, and it made them feel all the queasier to realize they could not step back, and pretend they had never remembered these less-than-perfect moments, any more than they could step back in time, and once again find themselves safe in the Baudelaire home, before fire and count Olaf had appeared in their lives.
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