The Carnivorous Carnival (A Series of Unfortunate Events 9)

"Kevin!" Hugo called up to the sleeping man. "Kevin, get up! We have new coworkers, and I'll need help setting up more hammocks."

The man frowned and glared down at Hugo. "I wish you hadn't woken me up," Kevin said. "I was having a delightful dream that there was nothing wrong with me at all, instead of being a freak."

The Baudelaires took a good look at Kevin as he lowered himself to the floor and were unable to see anything the least bit freakish about him, but he stared at the Baudelaires as if he had seen a ghost. "My word," he said. "You two have it as bad as I do."

"Try to be polite, Kevin," Hugo said. "This is Beverly and Elliot, and there on the floor is Chabo the Wolf Baby."

"Wolf Baby?" Kevin repeated, shaking Violet and Klaus's shared right hand. "Is she dangerous?"

"She doesn't like to be teased," Violet said.

"I don't like to be teased either," Kevin said, and hung his head. "But wherever I go, I hear people whispering, 'there goes Kevin, the ambidextrous freak.'"

"Ambidextrous?" Klaus said. "Doesn't that mean you are both right-handed and left-handed?"

"So you've heard of me," Kevin said. "Is that why you traveled out here to the hinterlands, so you could stare at somebody who can write his name with either his left hand or his right?"

"No," Klaus said. "I just know the word 'ambidextrous' from a book I read."

"I had a feeling you'd be smart," Hugo said. "After all, you have twice as many brains as most people."

"I only have one brain," Kevin said sadly. "One brain, two ambidextrous arms, and two ambidextrous legs. What a freak!"

"It's better than being a hunchback," Hugo said. "Your hands may be freaky, but you have absolutely normal shoulders."

"What good are normal shoulders," Kevin said, "when they're attached to hands that are equally good at using a knife and fork?"

"Oh, Kevin," the woman said, and climbed down from her hammock to give him a pat on the head. "I know it's depressing being so freakish, but try and look on the bright side. At least you're better off than me." She turned to the children and gave them a shy smile. "My name is Colette," she said, "and if you're going to laugh at me, I'd prefer you do it now and get it over with."

The Baudelaires looked at Colette and then at one another. "Renuf!" Sunny said, which meant something like, "I don't see anything freakish about you either, but even if I did I wouldn't laugh at you because it wouldn't be polite."

"I bet that's some sort of wolf laugh," Colette said, "but I don't blame Chabo for laughing at a contortionist."

"Contortionist?" Violet asked.

"Yes," Colette sighed. "I can bend my body into all sorts of unusual positions. Look."

The Baudelaires watched as Colette sighed again and launched into a contortionist routine. First she bent down so her head was between her legs, and curled up into a tiny ball on the floor. Then she pushed one hand against the ground and lifted her entire body up on just a few fingers, braiding her legs together into a spiral. Finally she flipped up in the air, balanced for a moment on her head, and twisted her arms and legs together like a mass of twine before looking up at the Baudelaires with a sad frown.

"You see?" Colette said. "I'm a complete freak."

"Wow!" Sunny shrieked.

"I thought that was amazing," Violet said, "and so did Chabo."

"That's very polite of you to say so," Colette said, "but I'm ashamed that I'm a contortionist."

"But if you're ashamed of it," Klaus said, "why don't you just move your body normally, instead of doing contortions?"

"Because I'm in the House of Freaks, Elliot," Colette said. "Nobody would pay to see me move my body normally."

"It's an interesting dilemma," Hugo said, using a fancy word for "problem" that the Baudelaires had learned from a law book in Justice Strauss's library. "All three of us would rather be normal people than freaks, but tomorrow morning, people will be waiting in the tent for Colette to twist her body into strange positions, for Beverly and Elliot to eat corn, for Chabo to growl and attack the crowd, for Kevin to write his name with both hands, and for me to try on one of those coats. Madame Lulu says we must always give people what they want, and they want freaks performing on a stage. Come now, it's very late at night. Kevin, give me a helping hand putting up hammocks for the newcomers, and then let's all try to get some sleep."

"I might as well give you two helping hands," Kevin said glumly. "They're both equally efficient. Oh, I wish that I was either right-handed or left-handed."

"Try to cheer up," Colette said gently. "Maybe a miracle will happen tomorrow, and we'll all get the things we wish for most."

No one in the caravan said anything more, but as Hugo and Kevin prepared two hammocks for the three Baudelaires, the children thought about what Colette had said. Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can exactly agree what they are made of, where they come from, or how often they should appear. Some people

say that a sunrise is a miracle, because it is somewhat mysterious and often very beautiful, but other people say it is simply a fact of life, because it happens every day and far too early in the morning. Some people say that a telephone is a miracle, because it sometimes seems wondrous that you can talk with somebody who is thousands of miles away, and other people say it is simply a manufactured device fashioned out of metal parts, electronic circuitry, and wires that are very easily cut. And some people say that sneaking out of a hotel is a miracle, particularly if the lobby is swarming with policemen, and other people say it is simply a fact of life, because it happens every day and far too early in the morning. So you might think that there are so many miracles in the world that you can scarcely count them, or that there are so few that they're scarcely worth mentioning, depending on whether you spend your mornings gazing at a beautiful sunset or lowering yourself into a back alley with a rope fashioned out of matching towels.

But there was one miracle the Baudelaires were thinking about as they lay in their hammocks and tried to sleep, and this was the sort of miracle that felt bigger than any meatball the world has ever seen. The hammocks creaked in the caravan as Violet and Klaus tried to get comfortable in one set of clothing and Sunny tried to arrange Olaf's beard so that it wouldn't be too scratchy, and all three youngsters thought about a miracle so wondrous and beautiful that it made their hearts ache to think of it. The miracle, of course, was that one of their parents was alive after all, that either their father or their mother had somehow survived the fire that had destroyed their home and begun the children's unfortunate journey. To have one more Baudelaire alive was such an enormous and unlikely miracle that the children were almost afraid to wish for it, but they wished for it anyway. The youngsters thought of what Colette had said–that maybe a miracle would happen, and that they would all get the thing they wished for most–and waited for morning to come, when Madame Lulu's crystal ball might bring the miracle the Baudelaires were wishing for.

At last the sun rose, as it does every day, and very early in the morning. The three children had slept very little and wished very much, and now they watched the caravan slowly fill with light, and listened to Hugo, Colette, and Kevin shift in their hammocks, and wondered if Count Olaf had entered the fortune-teller's tent yet, and if he had learned anything there. And just when they could stand it no more, they heard the sound of hurrying footsteps and a loud, metallic knock on the door.

"Wake up! Wake up!" came the voice of the hook-handed man, but before I write down what he said I must tell you that there is one more similarity between a miracle and a meatball, and it is that they both might appear to be one thing but turn out to be another. It happened to me once at a cafeteria, when it turned out there was a small camera hidden in the lunch I received. And it happened to Violet, Klaus and Sunny now, although it was quite some time before they learned that what the hook-handed man said turned out to be something different from what they thought when they heard him outside the door of the freaks' caravan.

"Wake up!" the hook-han

ded man said again, and pounded on the door. "Wake up and hurry up! I'm in a very bad mood and have no time for your nonsense. It's a very busy day at the carnival. Madame Lulu and Count Olaf are running errands, I'm in charge of the House of Freaks, the crystal ball revealed that one of those blasted Baudelaire parents is still alive, and the gift caravan is almost out of figurines."

Chapter Four

"What?" asked Hugo, yawning and rubbing his eyes. "What did you say?"

"I said the gift caravan is almost out of figurines," the hook-handed man said from behind the door. "But that's not your concern. People are already arriving at the carnival, so you freaks need to be ready in fifteen minutes."

"Wait a moment, sir!" Violet thought to use her low, disguised voice just in time, as she and her brother climbed down from their hammock, still sharing a single pair of pants. Sunny was already on the floor, too astonished to remember to growl. "Did you say that one of the Baudelaire parents is alive?"

The door of the caravan opened a crack, and the children could see the face of the hook-handed man peering at them suspiciously.

"What do you care, freaks?" he asked.