"Thank you," Esmé said. She poked Colette with one of her long fingernails, and the contortionist stood up so Esmé could sit down in her chair. "As you can see from the front of my gown, I love freaks."
"You do?" Kevin said. "That's very nice of you."
"Yes, it is," Esmé agreed. "I had this dress made especially to show how much I love them. Look, there's a cushion on the shoulder, to resemble a hunchback, and my hat makes me look as if I have two heads, like Beverly and Elliot."
"You certainly look very freakish," Colette said.
Esmé frowned, as if this wasn't quite what she wanted to hear. "Of course, I'm not really a freak," she said. "I'm a normal person, but I wanted to show you all how much I admire you. Now, please bring me a carton of buttermilk. It's very in."
"We don't have any," Hugo said, "but I think we have some cranberry juice, or I could make you some hot chocolate. Chabo here taught me to add cinnamon to the hot chocolate, and it tastes quite delicious."
"Tom ka gai!" Sunny said.
"And we also have soup," Hugo said.
Esmé looked down at Sunny and frowned. "No, thank you," she said, "although it's very kind of you to offer. In fact, you freaks are so kind that I consider you to be more than employees at a carnival I happen to be visiting. I consider you to be some of my closest friends."
The children knew, of course, that this ridiculous statement was as fake as Esmé's second head, but their coworkers were thrilled. Hugo gave Esmé a big smile, and stood up straight so that you could barely see his hunchback. Kevin blushed and looked down at his hands. And Colette was so excited that before she could stop herself, she twisted her body until it resembled the letter K and the letter S at the same time.
"Oh, Esmé," Colette said. "Do you really mean it?"
"Of course I mean it," Esmé said, pointing to the front of her gown. "I would rather be here with you than with the finest people in the world."
"Gosh," Kevin said. "No normal person has ever called me a friend."
"Well, that's what you are," Esmé said, and leaned toward Kevin to kiss him on the nose. "You're all my freaky friends. And it makes me very sad to think that one of you will be eaten by lions tomorrow." The Baudelaires watched as she reached into a pocket in the gown and drew out a white handkerchief, embroidered with the same slogan as her gown, and held up the word "freaks" to dab at her eyes. "I have real tears in my eyes from thinking about it," she explained.
"There, there, close friend," Kevin said, and patted one of her hands. "Don't be sad."
"I can't help it," Esmé said, yanking back her own hand as if she were afraid that being ambidextrous was contagious. "But I have an opportunity for you that might make all of us very, very happy."
"An opportunity?" Hugo asked. "Why, Beverly and Elliot were just telling us that an opportunity could come along at any minute."
"And they were right," Esmé said. "Tonight I am offering you the opportunity to quit your jobs at the House of Freaks, and join Count Olaf and myself in his troupe."
"What would we do exactly?" Hugo asked.
Esmé smiled, and began to accentuate the positive aspects of working with Count Olaf, a phrase which here means "make the opportunity sound better than it really was, by emphasizing the good parts and scarcely mentioning the bad." "It's a theatrical troupe," she said, "so you'd be wearing costumes and doing dramatic exercises, and occasionally committing crimes."
"Dramatic exercises!" Kevin exclaimed, clasping both hands to his heart. "It's always been my heart's desire to perform on a stage!"
"And I've always wanted to wear a costume!" Hugo said.
"But you do perform on a stage," Violet said "and you wear an ill-fitting costume every day at the House of Freaks."
"If you joined, you'd get to travel with us to exciting places," Esmé continued, glaring at Violet. "Members of Count Olaf's troupe have seen the trees of Finite Forest, and the shores of Lake Lachrymose, and the crows of the Village of Fowl Devotees, although they always have to sit in the back seat. And, best of all, you'd get to work for Count Olaf, one of the most brilliant and handsome men who ever walked the face of the earth."
"Do you really think that a normal man like him would want to work with freaks like us?' Colette asked.
"Of course he would," Esmé said. "Count Olaf doesn't care whether you have something wrong with you or if you're normal, as long as you're willing to carry out his orders. I think you'll find that working in Olaf's troupe is a job where people won't think you're freakish at all. And you'll be paid a fortune — at least, Count Olaf will be."
"Wow!" Hugo said. "What an opportunity!"
"I had a hunch you'd be excited about it," Esmé said. "No offense, Hugo. Now, if you're interested in joining, there's just one thing you need to do."
"A job interview?" Colette asked nervously.
"There's no need for close friends of mine to do anything as unpleasant as a job interview," Esmé said. "You just have to do one simple task. Tomorrow afternoon, during the show with the lions, Count Olaf will announce which freak will jump into the pit of lions. But I want whomever is chosen to throw Madame Lulu in instead."
The freaks' caravan was silent for a moment as everyone digested this information. "You mean," Hugo said finally, "that you want us to murder Madame Lulu?"
"Don't think of it as murder," Esmé said. "Think of it as a dramatic exercise. It's a special surprise for Count Olaf that will prove to him that you're brave enough to join his troupe."
"Throwing Lulu into a pit of lions doesn't strike me as particularly brave," Colette said. "Just cruel and vicious."
"How can it be cruel and vicious to give people what they want?" Esmé asked. "You want to join Count Olaf's troupe, the crowd wants to see someone eaten by lions, and I want Madame Lulu thrown into the pit. Tomorrow, one of you will have the exciting opportunity to give everybody exactly what they want."
"Grr," Sunny growled, but only her siblings understood that she really meant "Everybody except Lulu."
"When you put it like that," Hugo said thoughtfully, "it doesn't sound so bad."
"Of course it doesn't," Esmé said, adjusting her false head. "Besides, Madame Lulu was eager to see all of you eaten by lions, so you should be happy to throw her in the pit."
"But why do you want Madame Lulu thrown in?" Colette asked.
Esmé scowled. "Count Olaf thinks we have to make this carnival popular, so that Madame Lulu will help us with her crystal ball," she said, "but I don't think we need her help. Besides, I'm tired of my boyfriend buying her presents."
"That doesn't seem like such a good reason for someone to be eaten by lions," Violet said carefully, in her disguised voice.
"I'm not surprised that a two-headed person like yourself is a little confused," Esmé said, and reached out her long-nailed hands to pat both Violet and Klaus on their scarred faces. "Once you join Olaf's troupe, you won't be troubled by that kind of freakish thinking any longer."
"Just think," Hugo said, "tomorrow we'll stop being freaks, and we'll be henchmen of Count Olaf."
"I prefer the term henchpeople," Colette said.
Esmé gave everyone in the room a big smile and then reached up to her shoulder and opened the brown sack. "To celebrate your new jobs " she said, "I brought each of you a present."
"A present!" Kevin cried. "Madame Lulu never gave us presents."
"This is for you, Hugo," Esmé said, and took out an oversized coat the Baudelaires recognized from a time when the hook-handed man had disguised himself as a doorman. The coat was so big that it had covered his hooks, and as Hugo tried it on, they saw that it was also big enough to fit Hugo, even with his irregular shape. Hugo looked at himself in the mirror and then at his coworkers in joy.
"It covers my hunchback!" he said happily. "I look normal, instead of freakish!"
"You see?" Esmé said. "Count Olaf is already making your life much better. And look what I have for you, Colette." The Baudelaires watched as Olaf's girlfri
end reached into the sack and pulled out the long, black robe that they had seen in the trunk of the automobile. "It's so baggy," Esmé explained, "that you can twist your body any which way, and no one will notice that you're a contortionist."
"It's like a dream come true!" Colette said, grabbing it out of Esmé's hands. "I'd throw a hundred people into the lion pit to wear something like this."
"And Kevin," Esmé said, "look at this small piece of rope. Turn around, and I'll tie your right hand behind your back so you can't possibly use it."
"And then I'll be left-handed, like normal people!" Kevin said, jumping out of his chair and standing on his two equally strong feet. "Hooray!"
The ambidextrous person turned around happily so Esmé could tie his right hand behind his back, and in a moment he became someone with only one useful arm instead of two.
"I haven't forgotten you two," Esmé continued, smiling at the three of them. "Chabo here's a long razor that Count Olaf uses when he needs to disguise himself with a good shave I thought you could use it to trim some of that ugly wolf hair. And for you, Beverly and Elliot I have this."
Esmé removed the sack from her gown and held it out to the older Baudelaires triumphantly. Violet and Klaus peeked inside and saw that it was empty. "This sack is perfect to cover up one of your heads," she explained. "You'll look like a normal one-headed person who just happens to have a sack balanced on their shoulder. Isn't that smashing?"
"I guess so," Klaus said, in his fake high voice.
"What's the matter with you?" Hugo demanded. "You've been offered an exciting job and given a generous present, and yet both your heads are moping around."
"You, too, Chabo," Colette said. "I can see through your fur that you don't look very enthusiastic."
"I think this might be an opportunity that we should refuse," Violet said, and her siblings nodded in agreement.
"What?" Esmé said sharply.
"It's nothing personal," Klaus added quickly, although not wanting to work for Count Olaf was about as personal as things could get. "It does seem very exciting to work in a theatrical troupe, and Count Olaf does seem like a terrific person."
"Then what's the problem?" Kevin asked.
"Well," Violet said, "I don't think I'm comfortable throwing Madame Lulu to the lions."
"As her other head, I agree," Klaus said, "and Chabo agrees, too."
"I bet she only half agrees," Hugo said. "I bet her wolf half can't wait to watch her get eaten."
Sunny shook her head and growled as gently as she could, and Violet lifted her up and placed her on the table. "It just doesn't seem right," Violet said. "Madame Lulu isn't the nicest person I know, but I'm not sure she deserves to be devoured."
Esmé gave the older Baudelaires a large false smile, and leaned forward to pat them each on the head again. "Don't worry your heads over whether or not she deserves to be devoured," she said, and then smiled down at Chabo. "You don't deserve to be half wolf, do you?" she asked. "People don't always get what they deserve in this world."
"It still seems like a wicked thing to do," Klaus said.
"I don't think so," Hugo said. "It's giving people what they want, just like Lulu says."
"Why don't you sleep on it?" Esmé suggested, and stood up from the table. "Right after tomorrow's show, Count Olaf is heading north to the Mortmain Mountains to take care of something important, and if Madame Lulu is eaten by then, you'll be allowed to join him. You can decide in the morning whether you want to be brave members of a theater troupe, or cowardly freaks in a rundown carnival."
"I don't need to sleep on it," Kevin said.
"Me neither," Colette said. "I can decide right now."
"Yes," Hugo agreed. "I want to join Count Olaf."
"I'm glad to hear that," Esmé said. "Maybe you can convince your coworkers to join you in joining me joining him." She looked scornfully at the three children as she opened the door to the caravan. The hinterlands sunset was long over, and there was not a trace of blue light falling on the carnival. "Think about this, Beverly and Elliot, and Chabo, too," she said. "It just might be a wicked thing, throwing Madame Lulu into a pit full of carnivorous lions." Esmé took a step outside, and it was so dark that Olaf's girlfriend looked like a ghost in a long, white gown and a fake extra head. "But if you don't join us, where can you possibly go?" she asked. The Baudelaire orphans had no answer for Esmé Squalor's terrible question, but Esmé answered it herself, with a long, wicked laugh. "If you don't choose the wicked thing what in the world will you do?" she asked, and disappeared into the night.
Chapter Nine
The curious thing about being told to sleep on it — a phrase which here means, as I'm sure you know, "to go to bed thinking about something and reach a conclusion in the morning" — is that you usually can't. If you are thinking over a dilemma, you are likely to toss and turn all night long, thinking over terrible things that can happen and trying to imagine what in the world you can do about it, and these circumstances are unlikely to result in any sleeping at all. Just last night, I was troubled by a decision involving an eyedropper, a greedy night watchman, and a tray of individual custards, and this morning I am so tired that I can scarcely type these words. And so it was with the Baudelaire orphans that night, after Esmé Squalor had told them to sleep on it, and decide the next morning whether or not to throw Madame Lulu to the lions and join Count Olaf's troupe. The children, of course, had no intention of becoming part of a band of villains, or tossing anyone into a deadly pit. But Esmé had also asked them what in the world they would do if they decided not to join Olaf, and this was the question that kept them tossing and turning in their hammocks, which are particularly uncomfortable places to toss and turn. The Baudelaires hoped that instead of joining Count Olaf, they would travel through the hinterlands in a motorized roller-coaster cart of Violet's invention, accompanied by Madame Lulu, in her undisguised identity of Olivia, along with the archival library from underneath the table of the fortune-telling tent, in the hopes of finding one of the Baudelaire parents alive and well at the V.F.D. headquarters in the Mortmain Mountains. But this plan seemed so complicated that the children worried over all that could go wrong and spoil the whole thing. Violet thought about the lightning device that she planned to turn into a fan belt, and worried that there wouldn't be sufficient torque to make the carts move the way they needed to. Klaus worried that the archival library wouldn't contain specific directions to the headquarters, and they would get lost in the mountains, which were rumored to be enormous, confusing, and filled with wild animals. Sunny worried that they might not find enough to eat in the hinterlands. And all three Baudelaires worried that Madame Lulu would not keep her promise, and would reveal the orphans' disguise when Count Olaf asked about them the next morning. The siblings worried about these things all night, and although in my case the dessert chef managed to find my hotel room and knock on my window just before dawn, the Baudelaire orphans found that when morning came and they were done sleeping on it, they hadn't reached any other conclusion but that their plan was risky, and the only one they could think of.
As the first rays of the sun shone through the window onto the potted plants, the Baudelaires quietly lowered themselves out of their hammocks. Hugo, Colette, and Kevin had announced that they were ready to join Count Olaf's troupe and didn't need to sleep on it, and as so often happens with people who have nothing to sleep on, the children's coworkers were sleeping soundly and did not awaken as the siblings left the caravan to get to work on their plan.
Count Olaf and his troupe had dug the lions' pit alongside the ruined roller coaster, so close that the children had to walk along its edge to reach the ivy-covered carts. The pit was not very deep, although its walls were just high enough that nobody could climb out if they were thrown inside, and it was not very large, so all the lions were as crowded together as they had been in the trailer. Like the Baudelaires' coworkers, the lions must not have had much to sleep on, and they were still dozing in the morni
ng sun. Sound asleep, the lions did not look particularly ferocious. Some of their manes were all tangled, as if no one had brushed them for a long time, and sometimes one of their legs twitched, as if they were dreaming of better days. On their backs and bellies were several nasty scars from the whippings Count Olaf had given them, which made the Baudelaires sore just looking at them, and most of the lions were very, very thin, as if they had not eaten a good meal in quite some time.
"I feel sorry for them," Violet said, looking at one lion who was so skinny that all of its ribs were visible. "If Madame Lulu was right, these lions were once noble creatures, and now look how miserably Count Olaf has treated them."
"They look lonely," Klaus said, squinting down into the pit with a sad frown. "Maybe they're orphans, too."
"But maybe they have a surviving parent," Violet said, "somewhere in the Mortmain Mountains."
"Edasurc," Sunny said, which meant something like, "Maybe someday we can rescue these lions."
"For now, let's rescue ourselves," Violet said with a sigh. "Klaus, let's see if we can untangle the ivy from this cart in front. We'll probably need two carts, one for passengers and one for the archival library, so Sunny, see if you can get the ivy off that other one."