'Well, Madame Lulu will know,' Olaf said. 'With her crystal ball, she'll be able to tell us where the orphans are, where the file is, and anything else we want to know.'
'I never believed in things like crystal balls,' remarked a white-faced woman, 'but when this Madame Lulu started telling you how to find the Baudelaires every time they escaped, I learned that fortune-telling is real.'
'Stick with me,' Olaf said, 'and you'll learn lots of new things. Oh, here's the turn for Rarely Ridden Road. We're almost there.'
The car lurched to the left, and the Baudelaires lurched with it, rolling to the left-hand side of the trunk, along with the many items Olaf kept in his car to help with his dastardly plots. Violet tried not to cough as one of his fake beards tickled her throat. Klaus held his hand up to his face so that a sliding toolbox wouldn't break his glasses. And Sunny shut her mouth tightly so she wouldn't get one of Olaf's dirty undershirts tangled in her sharp teeth. Rarely Ridden Road was even bumpier than the highway they had been traveling on, and the car made so much noise that the children could not hear any more of the conversation until Olaf pulled the automobile to a creaky stop.
'Are we there yet?' the hook-handed man asked.
'Of course we're here, you fool,' Olaf said. 'Look, there's the sign–Caligari Carnival.'
'Where is Madame Lulu?' asked the bald man.
'Where do you think?' Esmй asked, and everyone laughed. The doors of the automobile opened with a scraping sound, and the car lurched again as everyone piled out.
'Should I get the wine out of the trunk, boss?' the bald man asked.
The Baudelaires froze.
'No,' Count Olaf replied. 'Madame Lulu will have plenty of refreshments for us.'
The three children lay very still and listened as Olaf and his troupe trudged away from the car. Their footsteps grew fainter and fainter until the siblings could hear nothing but the evening breeze as it whistled through the bullet holes, and at last it seemed safe for the Baudelaire orphans to speak to one another.
'What are we going to do?' Violet whispered, pushing the beard away from her.
'Merrill,' Sunny said. Like many people her age, the youngest Baudelaire sometimes used language that was difficult for some people to understand, but her siblings knew at once that she meant something like, 'We'd better get out of this trunk.'
'As soon as possible,' Klaus agreed. 'We don't know how soon Olaf and his troupe will return. Violet, do you think you can invent something to get us out of here?'
'It shouldn't be too hard,' Violet said, 'with all this stuff in the trunk.' She reached out her hand and felt around until she found the mechanism that was keeping the trunk closed. 'I've studied this kind of latch before,' she said. 'All I need to move it is a loop of strong twine. Feel around and see if we can find something.'
'There's something wrapped around my left arm,' Klaus said, squirming around. 'It feels like it might be part of the turban Olaf wore when he disguised himself as Coach Genghis.'
'That's too thick,' Violet said. 'It needs to slip between two parts of the lock.'
'Semja!' Sunny said.
'That's my shoelace, Sunny,' Klaus said.
'We'll save that as a last resort,' Violet said. 'We can't have you tripping all over the place if we're going to escape. Wait, I think I found something underneath the spare tire.'
'What is it?'
'I don't know,' Violet said. 'It feels like a skinny cord with something round and flat at the end.'
'I bet it's a monocle,' Klaus said. 'You know, that funny eyepiece Olaf wore when he was pretending to be Gunther, the auctioneer.'
'I think you're right,' Violet said. 'Well, this monocle helped Olaf with his scheme, and now it's going to help us with ours. Sunny, try to move over a bit so I can see if this will work.'
Sunny squirmed over as far as she could, and Violet reached around her siblings and slipped the cord of Olaf's monocle around the lock of the trunk. The three children listened as Violet wiggled her invention around the latch, and after only a few seconds they heard a quiet
The Baudelaires looked at one another, squinting in the dim light, and without another word Violet and Klaus climbed out of the trunk and then lifted their sister out into the night. The famous hinterlands sunset was just ending, and everything the children saw was bathed in dark blue, as if Count Olaf had driven them into the depths of the ocean. There was a large wooden sign with the words CALIGARI CARNIVAL printed in old-fashioned script, along with a faded painting of a lion chasing a frightened little boy. Behind the sign was a small booth advertising tickets for sale, and a phone booth that gleamed in the blue light. Behind these two booths was an enormous roller coaster, a phrase which here means 'a series of small carts where people can sit and race up and down steep and frightening hills of tracks, for no discernible reason,' but it was clear, even in the fading light, that the roller coaster had not been used for quite some time, because the tracks and carts were overgrown with ivy and other winding plants, which made the carnival attraction look as if it were about to sink into the earth. Past the roller coaster was a row of enormous tents, shivering in the evening breeze like jellyfish, and alongside each tent was a caravan, which is a wheeled carriage used as a home by people who travel frequently. The caravans and tents all had different designs painted on the sides, but the Baudelaires knew at once which caravan was Madame Lulu's because it was decorated with an enormous eye. The eye matched the one tattooed on Count Olaf's left ankle, the one the Baudelaires had seen many times in their lives, and it made them shiver to think they could not escape it even in the hinterlands.
'Now that we're out of the trunk,' Klaus said, 'let's get out of the area. Olaf and his troupe could get back any minute.'
'But where are we going to go?' Violet asked. 'We're in the hinterlands. Olaf's comrade said there was no place to hide.'
'Well, we'll have to find one,' Klaus said. 'It can't be safe to hang around any place where Count Olaf is welcome.'
'Eye!' Sunny agreed, pointing to Madame Lulu's caravan.
'But we can't go wandering around the countryside again,' Violet said. 'The last time we did that, we ended up in even more trouble.'
'Maybe we could call the police from that phone booth,' Klaus said.
'Dragnet!' Sunny said, which meant 'But the police think we're murderers!'
'I suppose we could try to reach Mr. Poe,' Violet said. 'He didn't answer the telegram we sent him asking for help, but maybe we'll have better luck on the phone.'
The three siblings looked at one another without much hope. Mr. Poe was the Vice President of Orphan Affairs at Mulctuary Money Management, a large bank in the city, and part of his job was overseeing the Baudelaires' affairs after the fire. Mr. Poe was not a wicked person, but he had mistakenly placed them in the company of so much wickedness that he had been almost as wicked as an actual wicked person, and the children were not particularly eager to contact him again, even if it was all they could think of.
'It's probably a slim chance that he'll be of any help,' Violet admitted, 'but what have we got to lose?'
'Let's not think about that,' Klaus replied, and walked over to the phone booth. 'Maybe Mr. Poe will at least allow us to explain ourselves.'
'Veriz,' Sunny said, which meant something like, 'We'll need money to make a phone call.'
'I don't have any,' Klaus said, reaching into his pockets. 'Do you have any money, Violet?'
Violet shook her head. 'Let's call the operator and see if there's some way we can place a call without paying for it.'
Klaus nodded, and opened the door of the booth so he and his sisters could crowd inside. Violet lifted the receiver and dialed O for operator, while Klaus lifted up Sunny so all three siblings could hear the conversation.
'Operator,' said the operator.
'Good evening,' Violet said. 'My siblings and I would like to place a call.'
'Please deposit the proper amount of money,' the operator said.
'We don't have the proper amount of money,' Violet said. 'We don't have any money at all. But this is an
