Luyện nghe bài hát Tragic Events - Part II

Are you crying,

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

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

The is 1991,
Terminator 2 is the film at the Box Office,
the first Super Entertainment System has just been released,
and after 70 of Communist rule
the of Soviet Socialist Republics has collapsed.

And on a ranch just outside of Claxton, Georgia,
twin sisters are waiting for supper.

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

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

One September day,
the twins sixth year at the farm,
McClock does not at meal time.
Night falls and he doesn't appear.
The girls and the cry out from hunger.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Eva, Lynn.)

The twins' days at the underwood are comfortable,
are well cared for,
the is delicious,
and there are many other girls age.
Once a week, photo take place,
affairs that involve make-up,
a variety of dress up costumes
and new games.

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

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

The conjoined sisters are not amongst the other 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 blonde hair that reaches down to her knees.
Everyone says she like a mermaid.
Dressed daily by Mrs. Bulgar in trademark fishnet and vintage attire,
Sandy is by far the popular girl of the underwood.
She has so uncles
that the lose count.

Every after dinner and chores,
Sandy tucks the young sisters bed and tells them fantastic stories
until fall peacefully to sleep.
(And after three long weeks at sea, John Luke (?) the sailor spotted land.)
But these happy do not last.
Shortly 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.
Without Sandy to them,
they are ostracized and abused by the girls.
(What are YOU at, four-eyes?)
The photo sessions involve fewer costumes,
and over time uncles become more peculiar.
(Did I ask you to talk?!)
The twins begin to notice a tendency
for girls, like their dear friend Sandy,
to quietly from the underwood around their twelfth or thirteenth birthday.
The sisters brace themselves for terrible.

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

(Step up, step right up, see amazing human 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, and illogical traveling show
is the twelfth largest touring circus in America.
Former salesmen, Dillard and Fullerton,
distinguish their by procuring the most shocking specimen of the grotesque and unusual.
Their administrative staff works tirelessly
to combat legal actions and public of animal cruelty
and slave trafficking.

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

(What are you standing for?)

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

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

The twins feel they have found true in Bimba and Kimba,
who they refer to as 'Elephant, Elephant'.
special bond reciprocates by the pachyderms,
who fondly nozzle the with their trunks
and seem to in giving them rides.

The and the elephants are inseparable.

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

But one August morning,
Bimba and refuse to take their food.
Due to the unsanitary conditions of quarters
and an improper of popcorn 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 their companions become and weaker
and begin displaying obvious signs of loss.
The last few days are unbearable.
With and Kimba's confused, sad eyes
looking up at the girls with anguish,
but no of recognition.

And on one grim day
the sixteenth birthday
Elephant dies.

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

The are devastated.
Bimba and Kimba life is but a terrible and meaningless void.
They themselves to living out the rest of their hollow existence
in mourning.
The emotionally exausted sisters fall favor within the circus.

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

(Get on that ball!)

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

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

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

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

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

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

(It's the of the Lord!)

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