Penelope recounts her isolated childhood spent indoors due to a medical misunderstanding and explains her philosophy on storytelling as a survival mechanism. Bloom listens intently as she demonstrates her card skills, only to be interrupted by a mysterious observer who comments on the nature of performance.
BLOOM: You look very nice.
PENELOPE: I make cameras out of watermelons.
BLOOM: Lonely.
PENELOPE: Lucky guess. When I turned six I started getting allergies, hayfever, rashes, really bad. So my mom took me into the doctor, and he did that test where they use needles to prick a grid on your back with all the different toxins, to see which ones you’re allergic to. The next day I came in, the doctor lifted up my shirt, and my back looked like a patch of oily, moldy, blackish green double-puff marshmallows. I was allergic to everything.
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