Luyện nghe bài hát Tragic Events - Part II

Are you crying,

No... Well, yes.
I was just thinking Sandy.
And about and Kimba.
I them, Evelyn.

I know,
I miss too.
this time of year, Evelyn.

The is 1991,
2 is the highest-grossing film at the Box Office,
the first Super Nintendo Entertainment has just been released,
and after 70 years of rule
the Union of Soviet Socialist has collapsed.

And on a chicken ranch just of Claxton, Georgia,
twin are waiting for their supper.

The farm is old and by Alfred McClock,
an eccentric man with a with Civil War weaponry.
McClock's chicken farms produces over 140, 000 a year
and wings, thighs and legs all over the continental United States.

Despite the success of his business,
McClock leads a life,
never marrying and tending several of the houses himself.
A simple man with a not bad heart.
McClock never knew how to best take care of the young girls who came into his life after their birth,
so he raised the only way he knew how -
in a two by two foot wire-mesh cage,
on a diet of mash, crumbles, and egg booster.

One clear day,
the twins sixth year at the farm,
McClock not come at meal time.
Night falls and still he appear.
The girls and the cry out from hunger.

pass, and the chickens in neighboring cages begin to die.
The of rotting poultry permeates the air of the hot, humid barn.

Finally,
desperate to find food and over the whereabouts of their guardian,
the twins free from their cage.
McClock's house is tight,
but the girls find the garden hose, which quenches thirst.
Still half with hunger,
they their way out to the road.

time passes before a dusty black Cadillac Coupe DeVille drives by and pulls over.
A tall, mustachioed man a kindly face steps out of the vehicle.
He at the girls
(Hello)
and presents them the first candy they have ever tasted - a Twix bar,
which share in silent, odd delight.
The girls do not at all uncomfortable when the man leads them gently into the dark, spacious trunk.

In the following the girls are transferred into the trunks of several other cars (Hello)
by many kindly, (Hello) candybar-offering men (Hello)
until they their final destination at a lakeside lodge in Manitoba.

The underwood lodge is a collection of cozy, waterfront with an attached trailer park along the shores of lake Winnipeg.
It is also the world headquarters of Flowers Entertainment,
specializing in the production and distribution of photographs and VHS tapes for clientele unique tastes.

The girls are welcomed by Mrs. Bulgar, the fifty-two-year-old podiatrist, (?)
(Well, hello, girls!)
a woman of proportions,
who lives with her own three in the main lodge of the underwood.

finding that the girls have no names she christens them Eva and Lynn,
names which neither she nor the twins themselves are able to keep straight.

(Eva, Lynn.)

The twins' days at the are relatively comfortable,
they are cared for,
the is delicious,
and there are many other girls age.
a week, photo sessions take place,
convivial that involve make-up,
a wide of dress up costumes
and new games.

Every few Mrs. Bulgar introduces the girls to one of their many uncles.
(Eva, Lynn, say hello to uncle, Mark.)
(Heeey.)
uncles,
seemingly in number,
travel all over the world to visit their nieces.

The girls don't always their new uncles,
but Mrs. Bulgar is quick to remind them
that 'family is family' and 'blood is than water'.

The conjoined sisters are not popular amongst the girls,
however, one gentle resident, a few years their senior, befriends and takes them under her wing.

(Hello, what's name?)

Her is Sandy.

(I'm Sandy.)

She has soft blonde hair that reaches to her knees.
says she looks like a mermaid.
Dressed daily by Mrs. Bulgar in fishnet stockings and vintage attire,
Sandy is by far the most girl of the underwood.
She has so uncles
that the lose count.

night after dinner and chores,
Sandy tucks the young into bed and tells them fantastic stories
until they peacefully to sleep.
(And after long weeks at sea, John Luke (?) the sailor finally spotted land.)
But happy times do not last.
after the twins' third Christmas under Mrs. Bulgar's care,
disappears,
to return.

The twins remain in the underwood for the greater of two long, miserable years.
Sandy to protect them,
they are and abused by the other girls.
(What are YOU at, four-eyes?)
The photo sessions involve fewer costumes,
and over their uncles become more peculiar.
(Did I ask you to talk?!)
The twins begin to a disturbing tendency
for girls, much like their friend Sandy,
to quietly disappear from the underwood around their or thirteenth birthday.
The brace themselves for something terrible.

One autumn, the girls are eleven,
an old man, who speaks only Spanish, takes the twins into a orange van and drives them to their new home.

(Step right up, step right up, see amazing oddities, freaks of nature! Be warned, people with heart condition, children, women - We will accept no responsibility for fainting, reoccurring nightmares, or death.)

Dillard and Fullerton, elusive and illogical traveling
is the twelfth largest circus in North America.
Former salesmen, Dillard and Fullerton,
their enterprise by procuring the most shocking specimen of the grotesque and unusual.
Their small administrative staff works
to combat legal and public allegations of animal cruelty
and human trafficking.

Life in the is harder than their time at the underwood.
There is always to be done.
In addition to chores of laundry and sweeping,
Mr. Dillard that the twins spend many hours each day practicing their act.

(What are you around for?)

The are frightened of the clowns,
of whom, by amazing coincidence,
also to be their uncles.
(Hello!)
(Hello!)
(Hello!)
But still, overall,
early days at the circus are happy times for the twins.

Every night to the of audiences across the country,
the girls in the center ring, singing and strumming a ukulele,
atop Bimba and Kimba - the world's only conjoined twin siamese elephants.

The twins feel they found true soulmates in Bimba and Kimba,
who they affectionately to as 'Elephant, Elephant'.
This special bond by the pachyderms,
who fondly nozzle the girls with trunks
and to delight in giving them rides.

The twins and the are inseparable.

With the of the Alphonso the Arresting, the animal trainer,
(Like this!)
the twins to the elephants,
feeding and them daily.

But one August morning,
Bimba and refuse to take their food.
Due to the unsanitary conditions of their
and an improper diet of and cotton candy,
the elephants have contracted a rare of elephantine diphtheria,
compounded by early Alzheimer's disease.

For the next two the twins can only stand by helplessly,
as companions become sicker and weaker
and begin displaying obvious of memory loss.
The last few days are unbearable.
With Bimba and Kimba's confused, sad
looking up at the girls with anguish,
but no of recognition.

And on one grim day
the sisters' sixteenth
Elephant dies.

The is held the same day,
a grisly affair at an industrial trash compactor behind a Home
in Dodge, Iowa.

The are devastated.
Without and Kimba life is but a terrible and meaningless void.
They resign to living out the rest of their hollow existence
in mourning.
The exausted sisters fall from favor within the circus.

No longer willing to and play their ukulele,
the girls are in a pink tutu and forced to balance on a giant red ball,
an impossible for the conjoined sisters.

(Get on damn ball!)

The audience roars with laughter each time they fall.
Their discomfort is by a pair of radical groups ,
who taken an interest in the twins.
night in most major cities, protesters assemble,
nosily waving signs and slogans in front of the Box Office.

The first faction claims to represent an organization 'FASSTEN' - the Foundation for Always Separating Siamese Twins Everywhere Now.

Citing the bible, members vehemently believe
that it is the will of the Lord all conjoined twins
be separated and allowed to individual lives.
Wielding symbolical saws and blunt carbon knives,
FASSTEN members chide the ticket buyers for supporting the of god.

The second operates under the acronym SPLIT - the Society for the Preservation of Linked Identical Twins.
A organization,
to discredit the claims of FASSTEN,
SPLIT believes conjoined twins will play a critical role in the second coming of Christ.

The twins are terrified by both groups - the and saws make them very nervous,
and SPLIT make threats to kidnap the girls
and take to where they will be kept safe in a place of darkness until the rapture.

One day before a Sunday matinee in Sacramento, a chaotic erupts between the two factions
and one FASSTEN member gets close to the twins with a hacksaw.

(It's the of the Lord!)

with fear,
the sisters decide that are no longer safe at the circus.
That night, they make a resolution - to leave the Dillard and traveling show
forever.