"What do you mean, 'Count Olaf was right'?" Violet demanded.

"What do you mean, 'Ishmael was at the arboretum'?" Finn demanded.

"What do you mean, what do I mean?" Erewhon demanded.

"What you mean what you mean what I mean?" Sunny demanded.

"Please, everyone!" Ishmael cried from his clay chair. "I suggest we all take a few sips of cordial and discuss this cordially!"

"I'm tired of drinking cordial," Professor Fletcher said, "and I'm tired of your suggestions, Ishmael!"

"Call me Ish," the facilitator said.

"I'm calling you a bad facilitator!" retorted Calypso.

"Please, everyone!" Ishmael cried again, with a nervous tug at his beard. "What is all this argy-bargy about?"

"I'll tell you what it's about," Alonso said. "I washed up on these shores many years ago, after enduring a terrible storm and a dreadful political scandal."

"So what?" Rabbi Bligh asked. "Eventually, everyone washes up on these shores."

"I wanted to leave my unfortunate history behind," Alonso said, "and live a peaceful life free from trouble. But now there are some colonists talking of mutiny. If we're not careful, this island will become as treacherous as the rest of the world!"

"Mutiny?" Ishmael said in horror. "Who dares talk of mutiny?"

"I dare," Erewhon said. "I'm tired of your facilitation, Ishmael. I washed ashore on this island after living on another island even farther away. I was tired of a peaceful life, and ready for adventure. But whenever anything exciting arrives on this island, you immediately have it thrown into the arboretum!"

"It depends on how you look at it," Ishmael protested. "I don't force anyone to throw anything away."

"Ishmael is right!" Ariel cried. "Some of us have had enough adventure for a lifetime! I washed up on these shores after finally escaping from prison, where I had disguised myself as a young man for years! I've stayed here for my own safety, not to participate in more dangerous schemes!"

"Then you should join our mutiny!" Sherman cried. "Ishmael is not to be trusted! We abandoned the Baudelaires on the coastal shelf, and now he's brought them back!"

"The Baudelaires never should have been abandoned in the first place!" Ms. Marlow cried. "All they wanted to do was help their friend!"

"Their friend is suspicious," claimed Mr. Pitcairn. "She arrived on a raft of books."

"So what?" said Weyden. "I arrived on a raft of books myself."

"But you abandoned them," Professor Fletcher pointed out.

"She did nothing of the sort!" cried Larsen. "You helped her hide them, so you could force those children to read!"

"We wanted to learn to read!" Friday insisted.

"You're reading?" Mrs. Caliban gasped in astonishment.

"You shouldn't be reading!" cried Madame Nordoff.

"Well, you shouldn't be yodeling!" cried Dr. Kurtz.

"You're yodeling?" Rabbi Bligh asked in astonishment. "Maybe we should have a mutiny after all!"

"Yodeling is better than carrying a flashlight!" Jonah cried, pointing at Finn accusingly.

"Carrying a flashlight is better than hiding a picnic basket!" Sadie cried, pointing at Erewhon.

"Hiding a picnic basket is better than pocketing a whisk!" Erewhon said, pointing at Sunny.

"These secrets will destroy us!" Ariel said. "Life here is supposed to be simple!"

"There's nothing wrong with a complicated life," said Byam. "I lived a simple life as a sailor for many years, and I was bored to tears until I was shipwrecked."

"Bored to tears?" Friday said in astonishment. "All I want is the simple life my mother and father had together, without arguing or keeping secrets."

"That's enough," Ishmael said quickly. "I suggest that we stop arguing."

"I suggest we continue to argue!" cried Erewhon.

"I suggest we abandon Ishmael and his supporters!" cried Professor Fletcher.

"I suggest we abandon the mutineers!" cried Calypso.

"I suggest better food!" cried another islander.

"I suggest more cordial!" cried another.

"I suggest a more attractive robe!"

"I suggest a proper house instead of a tent!"

"I suggest fresh water!"

"I suggest eating bitter apples!"

"I suggest chopping down the apple tree!"

"I suggest burning up the outrigger!"

"I suggest a talent show!"

"I suggest reading a book!"

"I suggest burning all books!"

"I suggest yodeling!"

"I suggest forbidding yodeling!"

"I suggest a safe place!"

"I suggest a complicated life!"

"I suggest it depends on how you look at it!"

"I suggest justice!"

"I suggest breakfast!"

"I suggest we stay and you leave!"

"I suggest you stay and we leave!"

"I suggest we return to Winnipeg!"

The Baudelaires looked at one another in despair as the mutinous schism worked its way through the colony. Seashells hung open at the waists of the islanders, but there was no cordiality evident as the islanders turned against one another in fury, even if they were friends, or members of the same family, or shared a history or a secret organization. The siblings had seen angry crowds before, of course, from the mob psychology of the citizens in the Village of Fowl Devotees to the blind justice of the trial at the Hotel Denouement, but they had never seen a community divide so suddenly and so completely. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny watched the schism unfold and could imagine what the other schisms must have been like, from the schism that split V.F.D., to the schism that drove their parents away from the very same island, to all the other schisms in the world's sad history, with every person suggesting something different, every story like a layer of an onion, and every unfortunate event like a chapter in an enormous book. The Baudelaires watched the terrible argy-bargy and wondered how they could have hoped the island would be a safe place, far from the treachery of the world, when eventually every treachery washed up on its shores, like a castaway tossed by a storm at sea, and divided the people who lived there. The arguing voices of the islanders grew louder and louder, with everyone suggesting something but nobody listening to anyone else's suggestions, until the schism was a deafening roar that was finally broken by the loudest voice of all.

"SILENCE!" bellowed a figure who entered the tent, and the islanders stopped talking at once, and stared in amazement at the person who stood glaring at them in a long dress that bulged at the belly.

"What are you doing here?" gasped someone from the back of the tent. "We abandoned you on the coastal shelf!"

The figure strode into the middle of the tent, and I'm sorry to tell you that it was not Kit Snicket, who was still in a long dress that bulged at the belly on top of her library raft, but Count Olaf, whose bulging belly, of course, was the diving helmet containing the Medusoid Mycelium, and whose orange and yellow dress the Baudelaires suddenly recognized as the dress Esmé Squalor wore on top of the Mortmain Mountains, a hideous thing fashioned to look like an enormous fire, which had somehow washed onto the island's shores like everything else. As Olaf paused to give the siblings a particularly wicked smile, the children tried to imagine the secret history of Esme's dress, and how, like the ring Violet still held in her hand, it had returned to the Baudelaires' story after all this time.

"You can't abandon me," the villain snarled to the islander. "I'm the king of Olaf-Land."

"This isn't Olaf-Land," Ishmael said, with a stern tug on his beard, "and you're no king, Olaf."

Count Olaf threw back his head and laughed, his tattered dress quivering in mirth, a phrase which here means "making unpleasant rustling noises." With a sneer, he pointed at Ishmael, who still sat in the chair. "Oh, Ish," he said, his eyes shining bright, "I told you many years ago that I would triumph over you someday, and at last that day has arrived. My associate with the weekday for a name told me that you were still hiding out on this island, and—"