The Carnivorous Carnival

'But what exactly do freaks do?' Violet asked.

'I read a book once about a man named John Merrick,' Klaus said. 'He had horrible birth defects that made him look terribly deformed. A carnival put him on display as part of a House of Freaks, and people paid money to go into a tent and look at him.'

'Why would people want to look at someone with birth defects?' Violet asked. 'It sounds cruel.'

'It was cruel,' Klaus said. 'The crowd often threw things at Mr. Merrick, and called him names. I'm afraid the House of Freaks isn't a very pleasant form of entertainment.'

'You'd think someone would put a stop to it,' Violet said, 'but you'd think somebody would put a stop to Count Olaf, too, and nobody does.'

'Radev,' Sunny said with a nervous look around them. By 'Radev,' she meant 'Somebody's going to put a stop to us if we don't disguise ourselves soon,' and her siblings nodded solemnly in agreement.

'Here's some kind of fancy shirt,' Klaus said. 'It's covered in ruffles and bows. And here's an enormous pair of pants with fur on the cuffs.'

'Could both of us wear them at once?' Violet asked.

'Both of us?' Klaus said. 'I suppose so, if we kept on our clothes underneath, so Olaf's would fit. We could each stand on one leg, and tuck our other legs inside. We'd have to lean against one another as we walked, but I think it might work.'

'And we could do the same thing with the shirt,' Violet said. 'We could each put one arm through a sleeve and keep the other tucked inside.'

'But we couldn't hide one of our heads,' Klaus pointed out, 'and with both of our heads poking out of the top we'd look like some sort of–'

'–two-headed person,' Violet finished, 'and a two-headed person is exactly what a House of Freaks would put on display.'

'That's good thinking,' Klaus said. 'People won't be on the lookout for a two-headed person. But we'll need to disguise our faces, too.'

'The makeup kit will take care of that,' Violet said. 'Mother taught me how to draw fake scars on myself when she appeared in that play about the murderer.'

'And here's a can of talcum powder,' Klaus said. 'We can use this to whiten our hair.'

'Do you think Count Olaf will notice that these things are missing from his trunk?' Violet asked.

'I doubt it,' Klaus said. 'The trunk isn't very well organized, and I don't think he's used some of these disguises for a long time. I think we can take enough to become a two-headed person without Olaf missing anything.'

'Beriu?' Sunny said, which meant 'What about me?'

'These disguises are made for fully grown people,' Violet said, 'but I'm sure we can find you something. Maybe you could fit inside one of these shoes, and be a person with just a head and one foot. That's plenty freakish.'

'Chelish,' Sunny said, which meant something along the lines of, 'I'm too big to fit inside a shoe.'

'That's true,' Klaus said. 'It's been a while since you were shoe-sized.' He reached inside the trunk and pulled out something short and hairy, as if he had caught a raccoon. 'But this might work,' he said. 'I think this is the fake beard Olaf wore when he was pretending to be Stephano. It's a long beard, so it might work as a short disguise.'

'Let's find out,' Violet said, 'and let's find out quickly.'

The Baudelaires found out quickly. In just a few minutes, the children found out just how easy it was to transform themselves into entirely different people. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny had some experience in disguising themselves, of course–Klaus and Sunny had used medical coats at Heimlich Hospital in a plan to rescue Violet, and even Sunny could remember when all three siblings had occasionally worn costumes for their own amusement, back when they had lived in the Baudelaire mansion with their parents. But this time, the Baudelaire orphans felt more like Count Olaf and his troupe, as they worked quietly and hurriedly in the night to erase all traces of their true identities. Violet felt through the makeup kit until she found several pencils that were normally used to make one's eyebrows more dramatic, and even though it was simple and painless to draw scars on Klaus's face, it felt as if she were breaking the promise she made to her parents, a very long time ago, that she would always look after her siblings and keep them away from harm. Klaus helped Sunny wrap herself in Olaf's fake beard, but when he saw her eyes and the tips of her teeth peeking out of the mass of scratchy hair it felt as if he had fed his baby sister to some tiny but hungry animal. And as Sunny helped her siblings button themselves into the fancy shirt and sprinkle talcum on their hair to turn it gray, it felt as if they were melting into Olaf's clothes. The three Baudelaires looked at one another carefully but it was as if there were no Baudelaires there at all, just two strangers, one with two heads and the other with a head that was covered in fur, all alone in the hinterlands.

'I think we look utterly unrecognizable,' Klaus said, turning with difficulty to face his older sister. 'Maybe it's because I took off my glasses, but to me we don't look a thing like ourselves.'

'Will you be able to see without your glasses?' Violet asked.

'If I squint,' Klaus said, squinting. 'I can't read like this, but I won't be bumping into things. If I keep them on, Count Olaf will probably recognize me.'

'Then you'd better keep them off,' Violet said, 'and I'll stop wearing a ribbon in my hair.'

'We'd better disguise our voices, too,' Klaus said. 'I'll try to speak as high as I can, and why don't you try to speak in a low voice, Violet?'

'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 three–I 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,