"Good idea," Violet said, in as low a voice as she could. "And Sunny, you should probably just growl."
"Grr," Sunny tried.
"You sound like a wolf," Violet said, still practicing her disguised tone. "Let's tell Madame Lulu that you're half wolf and half person."
"That would be a miserable experience," Klaus said, in the highest voice he could manage. "But I suppose being born with two heads wouldn't be any easier."
"We'll explain to Lulu that we've had miserable experiences, but now we're hoping things will get better working at the carnival," Violet said, and then sighed. "That's one thing we don't have to pretend. We have had miserable experiences, and we are hoping that things will get better here. We're almost as freakish as we're pretending to be."
"Don't say that," Klaus said, and then remembered his new voice. "Don't say that," he said again, at a much higher pitch. "We're not freaks. We're still the Baudelaires, even if we're wearing Olaf's disguises."
"I know," Violet said, in her new voice, "but it's a little confusing pretending to be a completely different person."
"Grr," Sunny growled in agreement, and the three children put the rest of Count Olaf's things back in the trunk, and walked in silence to Madame Lulu's caravan. It was awkward for Violet and Klaus to walk in the same pair of pants, and Sunny had to keep stopping to brush the beard out of her eyes. It was confusing pretending to be completely different people, particularly because it had been so long since the Baudelaires were able to be the people they really were. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny did not think of themselves as the sort of children who hid in the trunks of automobiles, or who wore disguises, or who tried to get jobs at the House of Freaks. But the siblings could scarcely remember when they had been able to relax and do the things they liked to do best. It seemed ages since Violet had been able to sit around and think of inventions, instead of frantically building something to get them out of trouble. Klaus could barely remember the last book he had read for his own enjoyment, instead of as research to defeat one of Olaf 's schemes. And Sunny had used her teeth many, many times to escape from difficult situations, but it had been quite a while since she had bitten something recreationally. As the youngsters approached the caravan, it seemed as if each awkward step took them further and further from their real lives as Baudelaires, and into their disguised lives as carnival freaks, and it was indeed very confusing.
When Sunny knocked on the door, Madame Lulu called out, "Who's there?" and for the first time in their lives, it was a confusing question.
"We're freaks," Violet answered, in her disguised voice. "We're threeI mean, we're two freaks looking for work."
The door opened with a creak, and the children got their first look at Madame Lulu. She was wearing a long, shimmering robe that seemed to change colors as she moved, and a turban that looked very much like the one Count Olaf had worn back at Prufrock Preparatory School. She had dark, piercing eyes, with two dramatic eyebrows hovering suspiciously as she looked them over. Behind her, sitting at a small round table, were Count Olaf, Esm Squalor, and Olaf's comrades, who were all staring at the youngsters curiously. And as if all those curious eyes weren't enough, there was one more eye gazing at the Baudelairesa glass eye, attached to a chain around Madame Lulu's neck. The eye matched the one painted on her caravan, and the one tattooed on Count Olaf's ankle. It was an eye that seemed to follow the Baudelaires wherever they went, drawing them deeper and deeper into the troubling mystery of their lives.
"Walk in, please," Madame Lulu said in her strange accent, and the disguised children obeyed. As freakishly as they could, the Baudelaire orphans walked in, taking a few steps closer to all those staring eyes, and a few steps further from the lives they were leaving behind.
Chapter Three
Besides getting several paper cuts in the same day or receiving the news that someone in your family has betrayed you to your enemies, one of the most unpleasant experiences in life is a job interview. It is very nerve-wracking to explain to someone all the things you can do in the hopes that they will pay you to do them. I once had a very difficult job interview in which I had not only to explain that I could hit an olive with a bow and arrow, memorize up to three pages of poetry, and determine if there was poison mixed into cheese fondue without tasting it, but I had to demonstrate all these things as well. In most cases, the best strategy for a job interview is to be fairly honest, because the worst thing that can happen is that you won't get the job and will spend the rest of your life foraging for food in the wilderness and seeking shelter underneath a tree or the awning of a bowling alley that has gone out of business, but in the case of the Baudelaire orphans' job interview with Madame Lulu, the situation was much more desperate. They could not be honest at all, because they were disguised as entirely different people, and the worst thing that could happen was being discovered by Count Olaf and his troupe and spending the rest of their lives in circumstances so terrible that the children could not bear to think of them.
"Sit down, please, and Lulu will interview you for carnival job," Madame Lulu said, gesturing to the round table where Olaf and his troupe were sitting. Violet and Klaus sat down on one chair with difficulty, and Sunny crawled onto another while everyone watched them in silence. The troupe had their elbows on the table and were eating the snacks Lulu had provided with their fingers, while Esm Squalor sipped her buttermilk, and Count Olaf leaned back in his chair and looked at the Baudelaires very, very carefully.
"It seems to me you look very familiar," he said.
"Perhaps you have seen before the freaks, my Olaf," Lulu said. "What are names of the freaks?"
"My name is Beverly," Violet said, in her low, disguised voice, inventing a name as quickly as she could invent an ironing board. "And this is my other head, Elliot."
Olaf reached across the table to shake hands, and Violet and Klaus had to stop for a moment to figure out whose arm was sticking out of the right-hand sleeve. "It's very nice to meet you both," he said. "It must be very difficult, having two heads."
"Oh, yes," Klaus said, in as high a voice as he could manage. "You can't imagine how troublesome it is to find clothing."
"I was just noticing your shirt," Esm said. "It's very in."
"Just because we're freaks," Violet said, "doesn't mean we don't care about fashion."
"How about eating?" Count Olaf said, his eyes shining brightly. "Do you have trouble eating?"
"Well, II mean, well, we" Klaus said, but before he could go on, Olaf grabbed a long ear of corn from a platter on the table and held it toward the two children.
"Let's see how much trouble you have," he snarled, as his henchmen began to giggle. "Eat this ear of corn, you two-headed freak."
"Yes," Madame Lulu agreed. "It is best way to see if you can work in carnival. Eat corn! Eat corn!
Violet and Klaus looked at one another, and then reached out one hand each to take the corn from Olaf and hold it awkwardly in front of their mouths. Violet leaned forward to take the first bite, but the motion of the corn made it slip from Klaus's hand and fall back down onto the table, and the room roared with cruel laughter.
"Look at them!" one of the white-faced women laughed. "They can't even eat an ear of corn! How freakish!"
"Try again," Olaf said with a nasty smile. "Pick the corn up from the table, freak."
The children picked up the corn and held it to their mouths once more. Klaus squinted and tried to take a bite, but when Violet tried to move the corn to help him, it hit him in the face and everyoneexcept for Sunny, of course laughed once more.