Broken - Isadora Quagmire

Chapter Thirty Five - Lions

A loud band woke me up. The hook-handed man swung open the door and clapped his hook together. As I got up, I saw that everybody in the Freaks Caravan, except fro me and my brother, were already awake and eating breakfast together.

"Good morning Duncan, good morning Isadora. I hope you two triplets slept well"

"Good morning Hugo" we smiled back

"You freaks better put on a good show, cause the boss is in a bad mood. Madame Lulu told him one of the Baudelaire parents are alive". Me and Duncan looked at each other, we were happy of course, our friends weren't orphans, they had a parent who was alive. Though, there was a part of me that did hope that it was one of my parents, or Quigley. "It's a miracle" said the hook-handed man sarcastically, "now come on orphans".

We followed him out the door for a while walking towards the big tent, then Beverly & Elliot caught up and started asking the hook-handed man about what happened when Count Olaf visited Madame Lulu earlier that morning, giving me and Duncan a perfect chance to write down everything that would be useful to us and the Baudelaires in our commonplace books.

"Why am I surprised that you two twins are writing in your nerd books". I looked up and saw Esme looking down at me and Duncan.

"What are you wearing?" I asked, looking at her unique outfit (that is me trying to say something nice about the dress)

"Don't look at it, I had to make this out of a carnival tent. But look at your outfits, they aren't in at all, you should really change your clothes".

"We can't change Esmé because all of our clothes, actually all our things, are most likely still in a broom closet at Prufrock Prep" said Duncan still writing in his commonplace book.

"Stop writing in that" said Esmé slamming it onto the floor "now come along we can't have two murderers walking around freely". She took us backstage, the freaks eventually came in and started getting ready.

"Oh hello triplets" said Hugo.

"Hello Hugo" we replied.

Esme rolled her eyes "you two twins can sit over there in the corner" she said pointing "and stay there, I'll be back in a second, my boyfriend got me a new present, wait until you see it, you'll be sick with jealousy".

We walked over to the corner and sat down, "do you really think that one of the Baudelaires parents are alive?" I asked Duncan.

"Well Jacques did say that there was a survivor of the fire and Madame Lulu did say that one of the Baudelaire parents were alive..." said Duncan.

"But?" I continued. "But we know that many fires have been set by the bad side of V.F.D. killing good V.F.D. members and leaving their children as orphans, so Jacques could have been talking about a different fire and a different set of orphans" he said "and also when I wrote that article about fortune telling I couldn't find any concrete evidence that fortune telling is real".

"So Madame Lulu is lying?".

"Maybe, we need to investigate her tent".

"And how are we supposed to do that, Count Olaf always either has someone watching us or traps us somewhere that we can't get out".

"We just need to wait until we have a chance, whether that is when Count Olaf is distracted or later tonight".

Suddenly, Esme burst into the room with something long and damp in one of her manicured hands "you freaks better put on a show, if not Madame Lulu and my boyfriend said that I can whip you with this tagliatelle grande".