Chapter 3
Violet stared. Could this possibly be the VFD that Duncan and Isadora had tried to warn them about? But Jacques Snicket had said that he worked for VFD, and how can you work for a dog? And why would that require you to tattoo your ankle? All three Baudelaires felt a sinking feeling that, yet again, they had found the wrong VFD.
"Why are y'all lookin' so disappointed all of a sudden?" Madam Lulu asked, wiping her eyes. "All I said was that my lil' Chabo was a Very Freakish Dog, and he is! The poor feller was born three times the size of a normal dog, with amazing speed and very sharp teeth. He's my wolf baby!" she went on and on about his greenish-reddish-bluish-brownish-purplish-yellow eyes and keen sense of smell, his ability to leap ten feet in the air, how he can tell when someone is lying and when someone is a bad person or not. Soon her tears were dried and she was looking dreamily into the distance.
"Oh, nothing, Madam Lulu, it's just that…well, we were hoping VFD had something to do with a volunteer organization of some kind…it's a long story, and a sad one," Klaus said, looking down at the ground. If only Madam Lulu could help them in some way!
"Go on, then. I got plenty o' time. Apparently, nobody likes getting their fortunes told no more, 'cause I ain't seen one fairgoer in here since…well anyway, fire away."
"Noffergsy!" Sunny said, and her siblings translated for Lulu: "The story starts with a terrible fire that killed our parents and destroyed our house. We got stuck with a weirdo called Count Olaf, who"
"Don't you mean that poor guy those awful children murdered? He can't have been a weirdo! Anyone who is accused of murder is the villain, and the person who accuses them is ALWAYS innocent! I just can't believe those terrible young 'uns, foolin' around with scary stuff like murder…" the orphans exchanged nervous glances. "Well, keep goin', what happened next?" Madam Lulu now had a dark scowl on her face from thinking about the Baudelaire murderers.
So the Baudelaires went on explaining their extremely unlucky pasts, leaving out the parts about Count Olaf. When they did so, it made the story quite a bit shorter, considering Count Olaf constantly affected how they lived. They told about Uncle Monty and Aunt Josephine, about Sir and Vice Principal Nero, about Jerome Squalor (leaving out Esme) and Hector the Handyman of VFD, and then about Hal and their recent stay at the now destroyed Heimlich Hospital. When they were finished, Lulu said,
"Now, you three seem like nice kids, charming, resourceful, the whole lot, and you've had a bit of a difficult childhood so far, so y'all are welcome to stay with me. I'll make sure that guy with the hooks on 'is arms won't find ya. 'Member, you got yourselves a 100% psychic in front of ya. I know everythin', so no one'll dare hurt me or you. No one has tried before, anyways,"
At this point in the story, I, Selia Jour, must tell you about one of my wishes. Not just any wish, of course, for I have many, but one that has to do with Madam Lulu, the psychic who is not really 100% psychic but actually only 15%. I wish that after saying what she had just said, she had knocked on wood. By refraining to do so, she jinxed herself, but she also jinxed the Baudelaires, by saying she would not let the hook-handed man find them and that no one would hurt them. But this is the truth. The sad, horrible truth.
The Baudelaires spent that night in Madam Lulu's tent-closet, using sparkly capes as blankets and pillows, and they would spend many nights after that there, too.
The next morning, the Baudelaires were enjoying themselves with Madam Lulu. She was teaching them how to read palms.
"Now, you see this here itty-bitty line? That one's the luck-line. Hmm…that's strange…the luck-line's usually much, much longer than it is on you three." The orphans looked at each other and exchanged small smiles. They knew that they were probably the three unluckiest people to walk on the face of the earth.
"Anyway, Duncan, Isadora, Quiglina… acrobat's practice resumes today. I've let them know that you have no prior trainin', and they're OK with that. I just thought y'might like to know…oh, and d'ya wanna meet my widdle puppy? His name's Chabo and he's a DOLL. Oh! Here's the sweetie right now!" Madam Lulu was pointing at a creature that was taller than she was, with thick brown fur, razor-sharp, four-inch-long teeth dripping with saliva, and strange eyes that seemed to be a mixture of many different colors. It lowered its enormous, smelly head so that it was level with Violet's, and then he stuck out his great big slobbery tongue and licked her on the face.
"Well I'll be darned! He likes ya! Awww…ain't he the cutest thang you ever saw?" Madam Lulu said as Violet looked around for something she could wash her face with. Lulu pointed to a bathroom outside the tent, and Violet scurried off to get rid of the coat of slimy stuff that covered her face, which now reeked of dog breath. Klaus and Sunny backed away toward the wall, hoping that Chabo wouldn't "like them" as well. The enormous dog lowered itself to the ground. The younger Baudelaires looked at Madam Lulu, uncertain of what he was doing.
"Don' be scared, now, Quiglina and Duncan, he only wants to take y'all to acrobat's practice! Right on time, too. Chabo, honey, let's wait for Isadora to come back before y' leave, OK?" But Chabo didn't want to wait. He let out an earth-shaking growl and bared his teeth.
"All right, all right, you can have them ride you NOW," Lulu said, beaming. "Climb on, young 'uns!" and Klaus and Sunny did so, reluctantly. Chabo started running at full speed, and in the process, knocked Violet over as she reentered the tent. Though she was startled, she giggled softly as she watched Sunny hold on to Klaus and Klaus hold on to Chabo for dear life; Chabo tearing through the tiny crowds of people hurrying to and from tents.
"Y' can just walk with me to practice, I'll show y'all the way to the big tent," Madam Lulu said sympathetically, and off they went to their first acrobat's practice.
"Now, you three. New acrobats, huh? Ever performed before, little one? Boy, can you even touch your toes? Get that piece of ripped cloth out of your hair! I can see all of you aren't in the greatest physical condition. Well, I'LL fix you up, that's for sure," said an extremely short man with a nose that was bent almost completely sideways. He had very short hair and a shadow of a goatee, and squinty eyes that looked like little black pebbles stuck on his face. This man's name was Alfred Gnawschtein. "My name is Alfred Gnawschtein, that's MISTER Gnawschtein to you, twerps."
Klaus bit his lip. This wasn't going to be fun at all, not with someone as nasty sounding as Mr. Gnawschtein to teach you, and let me tell you, he WAS nasty.
"Anyway, this is THE SECOND-GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, so we can't have anyone messing us up. You guys had better be good." Mr. Gnawschtein went on like this for a long while, telling them what would happen if they messed up during a performance. Finally, he got around to talking about THE SECOND- GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH and where they would travel with it. He showed them a great big long list of towns.
"Tedia…Lake Lachrymose…Paltryville…we know those places. They were where Uncle Monty and Aunt Josephine lived, and where the Lucky Smells Lumbermill was. Hey! There's OUR hometown. Maybe we'll see Jerome again," Klaus said hopefully. Jerome was one of their few guardians who had actually cared for them and lived to tell the tale.
"Mechonis!" Sunny shrieked, meaning "I notice VFD is not on the list. This carnival has things like Ferris wheels, which are mechanical devices and therefore aren't allowed."
"Look at the city listed right after this one: Librariton. Doesn't that sound like it would be a place where we could find out what VFD actually stands for and what it has to do with Count Olaf, using libraries?" Violet said thoughtfully.
"It does. We could stay with this "Second-Greatest Show on Earth" thing long enough to travel there, and then quit," said Klaus.
"Lulu!" Sunny said, which meant something along the lines of "But Madam Lulu would be left without three acrobats to take the places of the ones Chabo hurt!"
"I think that the original acrobats would be healed by then. Let's hope the are," said Violet.
"Enough chatter! I have only a couple of weeks to turn you into fine acrobats before we move to Librariton!" Mr. Gnawschtein snapped. He walked them into an enormous circus tent, with seats sky-high on every side. The Baudelaires' stomachs gave a quiver. None of them had stage fright, but it WOULD make them nervous to have to perform in front of all those people.
Mr. Gnawschtein showed them the equipment they would be working with, the awful ways they would have to twist themselves up in knots and then bound right back and do flips in the air.
It may seem unbelievable, as do most things in this story, but in two weeks Mr. Gnawschtein HAD trained them to be excellent acrobats. Being the smallest, Sunny was the lucky Baudelaire who got to be hurtled through the air by her big sister and caught with her big brother's feet, all of this happening at least fifty feet above the ground. Klaus and Violet could both do back handsprings onto trampolines, which bounced them up to trapezes high in the air. Though he taught them well, Mr. Gnawschtein was still incredibly annoying. If they made ONE mistake he would holler at the top of his lungs, "NO! YOU'RE DOING IT ALL WRONG!! From the beginning, now!"
Soon it was time for the whole carnival to move to Librariton, where the Baudelaires would perform in their first real show.
"Y'all shouldn't be nervous, you'll do fine. Why, I ain't never seen three acrobats who perform as good as you!" Madam Lulu said encouragingly. The orphans found this hard to believe, however, because they had only been practicing for two weeks.
"Lulu, we've only been practicing for two weeks!" Klaus exclaimed as he paced back and forth in her tent's new location.
"Madam Lulu, do you know if we'll get any free time while we're staying in Librariton? Time to, maybe, look at some libraries?" Violet asked hopefully.
"I should think so, Isadora. It's not like the carnival's open all day and all night or somethin'!" Madam Lulu said, chuckling. "Why are you three so keen on goin' to the libraries anyway? It's all you ever talk about anymore. Haven't y'all ever been to one?"
"Polytin!" Sunny shrieked, which meant something along the lines of "Of course! We've been to Legal Libraries and Reptile Libraries, Grammatical Libraries and Barely Libraries, School Libraries and Snooty Libraries, Secret Libraries and Records Libraries, and our own library that…got burned." Which Klaus was quick to translate.
"Well goodness me, that's a lotta libraries y'all've been to! But I suppose you ain't never been to Librariton? That town's the biggest bunch of book- fanatics as you're ever gonna find."
It comforted the Baudelaires to know that they might just be able to finally solve the mystery that controlled their miserable lives.
Violet stared. Could this possibly be the VFD that Duncan and Isadora had tried to warn them about? But Jacques Snicket had said that he worked for VFD, and how can you work for a dog? And why would that require you to tattoo your ankle? All three Baudelaires felt a sinking feeling that, yet again, they had found the wrong VFD.
"Why are y'all lookin' so disappointed all of a sudden?" Madam Lulu asked, wiping her eyes. "All I said was that my lil' Chabo was a Very Freakish Dog, and he is! The poor feller was born three times the size of a normal dog, with amazing speed and very sharp teeth. He's my wolf baby!" she went on and on about his greenish-reddish-bluish-brownish-purplish-yellow eyes and keen sense of smell, his ability to leap ten feet in the air, how he can tell when someone is lying and when someone is a bad person or not. Soon her tears were dried and she was looking dreamily into the distance.
"Oh, nothing, Madam Lulu, it's just that…well, we were hoping VFD had something to do with a volunteer organization of some kind…it's a long story, and a sad one," Klaus said, looking down at the ground. If only Madam Lulu could help them in some way!
"Go on, then. I got plenty o' time. Apparently, nobody likes getting their fortunes told no more, 'cause I ain't seen one fairgoer in here since…well anyway, fire away."
"Noffergsy!" Sunny said, and her siblings translated for Lulu: "The story starts with a terrible fire that killed our parents and destroyed our house. We got stuck with a weirdo called Count Olaf, who"
"Don't you mean that poor guy those awful children murdered? He can't have been a weirdo! Anyone who is accused of murder is the villain, and the person who accuses them is ALWAYS innocent! I just can't believe those terrible young 'uns, foolin' around with scary stuff like murder…" the orphans exchanged nervous glances. "Well, keep goin', what happened next?" Madam Lulu now had a dark scowl on her face from thinking about the Baudelaire murderers.
So the Baudelaires went on explaining their extremely unlucky pasts, leaving out the parts about Count Olaf. When they did so, it made the story quite a bit shorter, considering Count Olaf constantly affected how they lived. They told about Uncle Monty and Aunt Josephine, about Sir and Vice Principal Nero, about Jerome Squalor (leaving out Esme) and Hector the Handyman of VFD, and then about Hal and their recent stay at the now destroyed Heimlich Hospital. When they were finished, Lulu said,
"Now, you three seem like nice kids, charming, resourceful, the whole lot, and you've had a bit of a difficult childhood so far, so y'all are welcome to stay with me. I'll make sure that guy with the hooks on 'is arms won't find ya. 'Member, you got yourselves a 100% psychic in front of ya. I know everythin', so no one'll dare hurt me or you. No one has tried before, anyways,"
At this point in the story, I, Selia Jour, must tell you about one of my wishes. Not just any wish, of course, for I have many, but one that has to do with Madam Lulu, the psychic who is not really 100% psychic but actually only 15%. I wish that after saying what she had just said, she had knocked on wood. By refraining to do so, she jinxed herself, but she also jinxed the Baudelaires, by saying she would not let the hook-handed man find them and that no one would hurt them. But this is the truth. The sad, horrible truth.
The Baudelaires spent that night in Madam Lulu's tent-closet, using sparkly capes as blankets and pillows, and they would spend many nights after that there, too.
The next morning, the Baudelaires were enjoying themselves with Madam Lulu. She was teaching them how to read palms.
"Now, you see this here itty-bitty line? That one's the luck-line. Hmm…that's strange…the luck-line's usually much, much longer than it is on you three." The orphans looked at each other and exchanged small smiles. They knew that they were probably the three unluckiest people to walk on the face of the earth.
"Anyway, Duncan, Isadora, Quiglina… acrobat's practice resumes today. I've let them know that you have no prior trainin', and they're OK with that. I just thought y'might like to know…oh, and d'ya wanna meet my widdle puppy? His name's Chabo and he's a DOLL. Oh! Here's the sweetie right now!" Madam Lulu was pointing at a creature that was taller than she was, with thick brown fur, razor-sharp, four-inch-long teeth dripping with saliva, and strange eyes that seemed to be a mixture of many different colors. It lowered its enormous, smelly head so that it was level with Violet's, and then he stuck out his great big slobbery tongue and licked her on the face.
"Well I'll be darned! He likes ya! Awww…ain't he the cutest thang you ever saw?" Madam Lulu said as Violet looked around for something she could wash her face with. Lulu pointed to a bathroom outside the tent, and Violet scurried off to get rid of the coat of slimy stuff that covered her face, which now reeked of dog breath. Klaus and Sunny backed away toward the wall, hoping that Chabo wouldn't "like them" as well. The enormous dog lowered itself to the ground. The younger Baudelaires looked at Madam Lulu, uncertain of what he was doing.
"Don' be scared, now, Quiglina and Duncan, he only wants to take y'all to acrobat's practice! Right on time, too. Chabo, honey, let's wait for Isadora to come back before y' leave, OK?" But Chabo didn't want to wait. He let out an earth-shaking growl and bared his teeth.
"All right, all right, you can have them ride you NOW," Lulu said, beaming. "Climb on, young 'uns!" and Klaus and Sunny did so, reluctantly. Chabo started running at full speed, and in the process, knocked Violet over as she reentered the tent. Though she was startled, she giggled softly as she watched Sunny hold on to Klaus and Klaus hold on to Chabo for dear life; Chabo tearing through the tiny crowds of people hurrying to and from tents.
"Y' can just walk with me to practice, I'll show y'all the way to the big tent," Madam Lulu said sympathetically, and off they went to their first acrobat's practice.
"Now, you three. New acrobats, huh? Ever performed before, little one? Boy, can you even touch your toes? Get that piece of ripped cloth out of your hair! I can see all of you aren't in the greatest physical condition. Well, I'LL fix you up, that's for sure," said an extremely short man with a nose that was bent almost completely sideways. He had very short hair and a shadow of a goatee, and squinty eyes that looked like little black pebbles stuck on his face. This man's name was Alfred Gnawschtein. "My name is Alfred Gnawschtein, that's MISTER Gnawschtein to you, twerps."
Klaus bit his lip. This wasn't going to be fun at all, not with someone as nasty sounding as Mr. Gnawschtein to teach you, and let me tell you, he WAS nasty.
"Anyway, this is THE SECOND-GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, so we can't have anyone messing us up. You guys had better be good." Mr. Gnawschtein went on like this for a long while, telling them what would happen if they messed up during a performance. Finally, he got around to talking about THE SECOND- GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH and where they would travel with it. He showed them a great big long list of towns.
"Tedia…Lake Lachrymose…Paltryville…we know those places. They were where Uncle Monty and Aunt Josephine lived, and where the Lucky Smells Lumbermill was. Hey! There's OUR hometown. Maybe we'll see Jerome again," Klaus said hopefully. Jerome was one of their few guardians who had actually cared for them and lived to tell the tale.
"Mechonis!" Sunny shrieked, meaning "I notice VFD is not on the list. This carnival has things like Ferris wheels, which are mechanical devices and therefore aren't allowed."
"Look at the city listed right after this one: Librariton. Doesn't that sound like it would be a place where we could find out what VFD actually stands for and what it has to do with Count Olaf, using libraries?" Violet said thoughtfully.
"It does. We could stay with this "Second-Greatest Show on Earth" thing long enough to travel there, and then quit," said Klaus.
"Lulu!" Sunny said, which meant something along the lines of "But Madam Lulu would be left without three acrobats to take the places of the ones Chabo hurt!"
"I think that the original acrobats would be healed by then. Let's hope the are," said Violet.
"Enough chatter! I have only a couple of weeks to turn you into fine acrobats before we move to Librariton!" Mr. Gnawschtein snapped. He walked them into an enormous circus tent, with seats sky-high on every side. The Baudelaires' stomachs gave a quiver. None of them had stage fright, but it WOULD make them nervous to have to perform in front of all those people.
Mr. Gnawschtein showed them the equipment they would be working with, the awful ways they would have to twist themselves up in knots and then bound right back and do flips in the air.
It may seem unbelievable, as do most things in this story, but in two weeks Mr. Gnawschtein HAD trained them to be excellent acrobats. Being the smallest, Sunny was the lucky Baudelaire who got to be hurtled through the air by her big sister and caught with her big brother's feet, all of this happening at least fifty feet above the ground. Klaus and Violet could both do back handsprings onto trampolines, which bounced them up to trapezes high in the air. Though he taught them well, Mr. Gnawschtein was still incredibly annoying. If they made ONE mistake he would holler at the top of his lungs, "NO! YOU'RE DOING IT ALL WRONG!! From the beginning, now!"
Soon it was time for the whole carnival to move to Librariton, where the Baudelaires would perform in their first real show.
"Y'all shouldn't be nervous, you'll do fine. Why, I ain't never seen three acrobats who perform as good as you!" Madam Lulu said encouragingly. The orphans found this hard to believe, however, because they had only been practicing for two weeks.
"Lulu, we've only been practicing for two weeks!" Klaus exclaimed as he paced back and forth in her tent's new location.
"Madam Lulu, do you know if we'll get any free time while we're staying in Librariton? Time to, maybe, look at some libraries?" Violet asked hopefully.
"I should think so, Isadora. It's not like the carnival's open all day and all night or somethin'!" Madam Lulu said, chuckling. "Why are you three so keen on goin' to the libraries anyway? It's all you ever talk about anymore. Haven't y'all ever been to one?"
"Polytin!" Sunny shrieked, which meant something along the lines of "Of course! We've been to Legal Libraries and Reptile Libraries, Grammatical Libraries and Barely Libraries, School Libraries and Snooty Libraries, Secret Libraries and Records Libraries, and our own library that…got burned." Which Klaus was quick to translate.
"Well goodness me, that's a lotta libraries y'all've been to! But I suppose you ain't never been to Librariton? That town's the biggest bunch of book- fanatics as you're ever gonna find."
It comforted the Baudelaires to know that they might just be able to finally solve the mystery that controlled their miserable lives.