Luyện nghe bài hát Tragic Events - Part II

Are you crying,

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

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

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

And on a chicken ranch outside of Claxton, Georgia,
twin sisters are for their supper.

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

the modest success of his business,
McClock leads a life,
never and tending several of the chicken houses himself.
A man with a not entirely bad heart.
McClock never knew how to best 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 diet of mash, crumbles, and egg booster.

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

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

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

Little time passes before a dusty Cadillac Coupe DeVille 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 candy they have ever tasted - a Twix bar,
they share in silent, odd delight.
The girls do not feel at all uncomfortable when the man leads them gently the dark, spacious trunk.

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

The underwood lodge is a collection of cozy, waterfront cabins with an 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 unique tastes.

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

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

(Eva, Lynn.)

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

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

The girls always like their new uncles,
but Mrs. is always quick to remind them
that 'family is and 'blood is thicker than water'.

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

(Hello, what's name?)

Her is Sandy.

(I'm Sandy.)

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

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

The twins remain in the for the greater part 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 time their 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 from the underwood around their twelfth or thirteenth birthday.
The sisters brace for something terrible.

One autumn, when the 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 human oddities, freaks of nature! Be warned, people with heart condition, children, women - We accept no responsibility for fainting, reoccurring nightmares, or death.)

Dillard and Fullerton, elusive and traveling show
is the twelfth largest touring in North America.
Former insurance salesmen, and Fullerton,
distinguish their enterprise by procuring the most specimen of the grotesque and unusual.
small administrative staff works tirelessly
to combat legal actions and public allegations of animal
and human trafficking.

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

(What are you standing for?)

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

Every night to the delight of audiences the country,
the appear in the center ring, singing and strumming a ukulele,
atop Bimba and Kimba - the only known conjoined twin siamese elephants.

The twins feel they have true soulmates in Bimba and Kimba,
who they affectionately to as 'Elephant, Elephant'.
This special reciprocates by the pachyderms,
who nozzle the girls with their trunks
and seem to delight in giving rides.

The and the elephants are inseparable.

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

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

For the next two weeks the can only stand by helplessly,
as companions become sicker and weaker
and begin displaying obvious of memory loss.
The last few are almost unbearable.
Bimba and Kimba's confused, sad eyes
looking up at the with great 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 behind a Depot
in Dodge, Iowa.

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

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

(Get on that ball!)

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

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

Citing the bible, members vehemently believe
that it is the will of the that all conjoined twins
be and allowed 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 Preservation of Linked Twins.
A organization,
working to discredit the of FASSTEN,
SPLIT that conjoined twins will play a critical role in the second coming of Christ.

The twins are terrified by both groups - the knives and saws make them nervous,
and SPLIT members threats 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 chaotic brawl between the two factions
and one FASSTEN member gets alarmingly close to the with a hacksaw.

(It's the of the Lord!)

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