"Just one minute, my Olaf," Olivia said, reaching down to grab the material for her turban. "Why don't you be taking of a shower, please? You must be sweaty from the pit digging, and when you are done we will all be having of the wine together."
"Don't be ridiculous," Count Olaf replied. "I took a shower ten days ago. I'll go put on some extra cologne and meet you in your caravan."
"Yes, my Olaf," Olivia called, and then turned to whisper to the children as she wound the turban around her hair. "We'd better cut short our conversation," she said. "The others will be looking for you. When we leave here tomorrow, I'll tell you everything you want to know."
"Couldn't you just tell us a few things now?" Klaus asked. The Baudelaires had never been closer to the answers they were seeking, and delaying things any further was almost more than they could stand.
"No, no," Olivia decided. "Here, I'd better help you get back into your disguises or you'll get caught."
The three children looked at one another reluctantly. "I guess you're right," Violet said finally. "The others will be looking for us."
"Proffco," Sunny said, which meant "I guess so, " and began to wind the beard around her. Violet and Klaus stepped into the fur-cuffed pants, and buttoned the shirt around them, while Olivia tied her necklace back together so she could become Madame Lulu once more.
"Our scars," Klaus remembered, looking at his sister's face. "We rubbed them off."
"And our hair needs repowdering," Violet said.
"I have a makeup pencil, please," Olivia said, reaching into the trunk, "and also the powder of talcum."
"You don't have to use your accent right now," Violet said, taking the ribbon out of her hair.
"Is good to practice, please," Olivia replied. "I must be thinking of myself as Madame Lulu, otherwise I will please be forgetting of the disguise."
"But you'll remember our promises, won't you?" Klaus asked.
"Promises?" Madame Lulu repeated.
"You promised you wouldn't tell Count Olaf that we're here," Violet said, "and we promised to take you with us to the Mortmain Mountains."
"Of course, Beverly," Madame Lulu replied. "I will be keeping of the promise to freaks."
"I'm not Beverly," Violet said, "and I'm not a freak."
Madame Lulu smiled, and leaned in to pencil a scar on the eldest Baudelaire's face. "But it is time for disguises, please," she said. "Don't be forgetting of your disguised voices, or you will be recognized."
"We won't forget our disguises," Klaus said, putting his glasses back in his pocket, "and you won't forget your promise, right?"
"Of course, please," Madame Lulu said, leading the children out of the fortune-telling tent. "Do not be of the worrying, please."
The siblings stepped out of the tent with Madame Lulu, and found themselves bathed in the blue light of the famous hinterlands sunset.
The light made each of them look a bit different, as if they were wearing another blue disguise on top of their carnival disguises. The powder in Violet's hair made her head look a pale, strange color, Klaus's fake scars looked darker and more sinister in the shadows, and Sunny looked like a small blue cloud, with small sparks of light where her teeth reflected the last of the sun. And Madame Lulu looked more like a fortune-teller, as the sunset glistened on the jewel in her turban, and shone on her long robe in an eerie light that looked almost magical.
"Good night, my freaky ones," she said, and the Baudelaires looked at this mysterious woman and wondered if she had really changed her motto, and would become a noble person once more. "I will be keeping of the promise," Madame Lulu said, but the Baudelaire orphans did not know if she was speaking the truth, or just telling them what they wanted to hear.
Chapter Eight
By the time the Baudelaire orphans found their way back to the freaks' caravan, Hugo, Colette, and Kevin were waiting for them. Colette and Kevin were just finishing a game of dominoes, and Hugo had cooked up a pot of tom ka gai, which is a delicious soup commonly eaten in Thailand. But as the Baudelaires sat at the table and ate their supper, they were not in the mood to digest the mixture of chicken, vegetables, fancy mushrooms, fresh ginger, coconut milk and water chestnuts that the hunchback had prepared. They were more concerned with digesting information, a phrase which here mean "thinking about everything that Madame Lulu had told them." Violet took a spoonful of hot broth, but she was thinking so hard about Lulu's archival library that she scarcely noticed the unusual, sweet taste. Klaus chewed on a water chestnut, but he was wondering so much about the headquarters in the Mortmain Mountains that he didn't appreciate its appealing, crunchy texture. And Sunny tipped the bowl forward to take a large sip, but she was so curious about the disguise kit that she wasn't aware that her beard was getting soaked. Each of the three children finished their soup to the last drop, but they were so eager to hear more from Lulu about the mystery of V.F.D. that they felt hungrier than when they sat down.
"Everyone sure is quiet tonight," Colette said, contorting her head underneath her armpit look around the table. "Hugo and Kevin, you haven't talked much, and I don't think I've heard a single growl from Chabo, or heard a word out of either of your heads."
"I guess we're not feeling much like making conversation," Violet said, remembering to speak as low as she could. "We have a lot to think about."
"We sure do," Hugo said. "I'm still not wild about the idea of being eaten by a lion."
"Me neither," Colette said, "but today's visitors were certainly excited about the carnival's new attraction. Everyone does seem to love violence."
"And sloppy eating," Hugo said, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin. "It's certainly an interesting dilemma."
"I don't think it's an interesting dilemma," Klaus said, squinting at his coworkers. "I think its a terrible one. Tomorrow afternoon, someone will jump to their deaths." He did not add that the Baudelaires planned to be far away from Caligari Carnival by then, heading out to the Mortmain Mountains in the invention Violet planned to construct early tomorrow morning.
"I don't know what we can do about it " Kevin said. "On one hand, I'd rather keep on performing at the House of Freaks instead of being fed to the lions. But on the other hand — and in my case, both my hands are equally strong — Madame Lulu's motto is 'give people what they want,' and apparently they want this carnival to be carnivorous."
"I think it's a terrible motto," Violet said, and Sunny growled in agreement. "There are better things to do with your life than doing something humiliating and dangerous, just to make total strangers happy."
"Like what?" Colette asked.
The Baudelaires looked at one another. They were afraid to reveal their plan to their coworkers, in case one of them would tell Count Olaf and ruin their escape. But they also couldn't stand resolute, knowing that something terrible would happen just because Hugo, Colette, and Kevin felt obliged to be freaks and live up to Madame Lulu's motto.
"You never know when you'll find something else to do," Violet said finally. "It could happen at any moment."
"Do you really think so?" Hugo asked hopefully.
"Yes," Klaus said. "You never know when opportunity will knock."
Kevin looked up from his soup and gazed at the Baudelaires with a look of hope in his eye. "Which hand will it knock with?"
"Opportunity can knock with any hand, Kevin," Klaus said, and at that moment there was a knock at the door.
"Open up, freaks." The impatient voice, coming from outside the caravan, made the children jump. As
I'm sure you know, when Klaus used the expression "opportunity will knock," he meant that his coworkers might find something better to do with their time, instead of leaping into a pit of hungry lions just to give some people what they wanted. He did not mean that the girlfriend of a notorious villain would actually knock on the door and give them an idea that was possibly even worse, but I am sorry to say that it was Esmé Squalor who was knocking, her long fingernails clattering against the door. "Open up. I want to talk to you."
"Just one moment, Ms. Squalor," Hugo called, and walked over to the door. "Let's all be on our best behavior," he said to his coworkers. "It's not often that a normal person wants to talk to us, and I think we should make the most of this opportunity."
"We'll be good," Colette promised. "I won't bend into a single strange position."
"And I'll use only my right hand," Kevin said. "Or maybe only my left hand."
"Good idea," Hugo said, and opened the door. Esmé Squalor was leaning in the doorway with a wicked smile on her face.
"I am Esmé Gigi Geniveve Squalor," she said which was often how she announced herself, even when everyone nearby knew who she was. She stepped inside the freaks' caravan, and the Baudelaires could see that she had dressed for the occasion, a phrase which here means "put on a specific outfit in an attempt to impress them." She was dressed in a long, white gown, so long that it passed her feet and lay around her as if she were standing in a large puddle of milk. Embroidered on the front of the gown in glittery thread were the words I LOVE FREAKS, except instead of the word "love" there was an enormous heart, a symbol sometimes used by people who have trouble figuring out the difference between words and shapes. On one of the shoulders of the gown, Esmé had tied a large brown sack, and on her head she had an odd round hat, with black thread poking out of the top, and it had a large, angry face drawn on the front of it. The children knew that such an outfit must be very in, otherwise Esmé would not be wearing it, but they couldn't imagine who in the world would admire such strange clothing "What a lovely outfit!" Hugo said.