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April 3 - September 12, 2019
CHAPTER One
Their misfortune began with an enormous fire that destroyed their home and killed both their loving parents, which is enough sadness to last anyone a lifetime, but in the case of these three children it was only the bad beginning. After the fire, the siblings were sent to live with a distant relative named Count Olaf, a terrible and greedy man. The Baudelaire parents had left behind an enormous fortune, which would go to the children when Violet came of age, and Count Olaf was so obsessed with getting his filthy hands on the money that he hatched a devious plan that gives me nightmares to this
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“How exactly is Dr. Montgomery related to us?” Klaus asked. “Dr. Montgomery is—let me see—your late father’s cousin’s wife’s brother. I think that’s right. He’s a scientist of some sort, and receives a great deal of money from the government.”
“I am your Uncle Monty, and this is really perfect timing! I just finished making a coconut cream cake!”
CHAPTER Two
“Snakes!” Uncle Monty cried. “Snakes, snakes, snakes! That’s what I study! I love snakes, all kinds, and I circle the globe looking for different kinds to study here in my laboratory! Isn’t that interesting?”
“Count Olaf sounds like an awful person. I hope he is torn apart by wild animals someday. Wouldn’t that be satisfying? Oh, well, here we are: the Reptile Room.”
Violet, Klaus, and Sunny gazed at the Reptile Room and envisioned an end to their troubles as they lived their lives under Uncle Monty’s care. They were wrong, of course, about their misery being over, but for the moment the three siblings were hopeful, excited, and happy.
“Because I discovered it,” Uncle Monty said, “I got to name it.” “What is it called?” Violet asked. “The Incredibly Deadly Viper,” Uncle Monty replied, and at that moment something happened which I’m sure will interest you.
CHAPTER Three
promise you Sunny survives this particular episode. It is Uncle Monty, unfortunately, who will be dead, but not yet.
Uncle Monty drew himself up to his full height and began talking in a silly, scientific voice. “‘Colleagues,’ I’ll say, ‘I would like to introduce to you a new species, the Incredibly Deadly Viper, which I found in the southwest forest of—my God! It’s escaped!’ And then, when all my fellow herpetologists have jumped up on chairs and tables and are shrieking in fear, I’ll tell them that the snake wouldn’t hurt a fly! Won’t that be hysterical?”
Simply put, dramatic irony is when a person makes a harmless remark, and someone else who hears it knows something that makes the remark have a different, and usually unpleasant, meaning.
As you and I listen to Uncle Monty tell the three Baudelaire orphans that no harm will ever come to them in the Reptile Room, we should be experiencing the strange feeling that accompanies the arrival of dramatic irony.
For no matter how safe and happy the three children felt, no matter how comforting Uncle Monty’s words were, you and I know that soon Uncle Monty will be dead and the Baudelaires will be miserable once again.
Just when the Baudelaires were beginning to think about lunch, they heard a car pull up in front of the house and toot its horn. To the children it signaled the arrival of Stephano. To us it should signal the beginning of more misery.
The three children looked at Uncle Monty’s new assistant from head to toe and saw that he was none other than Count Olaf.
CHAPTER Four
“Let’s not discuss what I would or would not dare to do,” Olaf said. “Let us discuss, rather, what I am to be called for as long as we are together in this house.” “We’ll call you Stephano, if you insist on threatening us,” Violet said, “but we won’t be together in this house for long.”
The three orphans were quiet. They tried to picture leaving Uncle Monty and living by themselves, trying to find jobs and take care of each other. It was a very lonely prospect. The Baudelaire children sat in sad silence awhile, and they were each thinking the same thing: They wished that their parents had never been killed in the fire, and that their lives had never been turned topsy-turvy the way they had. If only the Baudelaire parents were still alive, the youngsters wouldn’t even have heard of Count Olaf, let alone have him settling into their home and undoubtedly making evil plans.
Stephano didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. Violet knew that if she breathed one word about his true identity, Stephano would hurt her brother, right there at the snake-shaped hedges.
CHAPTER Five
“He’s not a Herpetological Society spy,” Klaus said impatiently, “he’s Count Olaf!”
“I wouldn’t rely on that,” he said, in a terrible, terrible voice. “Even the best plans can change if there’s an accident.” He pointed one spiky finger at the brass reading lamp. “And accidents happen all the time.”
CHAPTER Six
“Count Olaf, calling himself Stephano, has come to this house in disguise and is obviously after the Baudelaire fortune.” “And,” Klaus continued, “once he gets his hands on it, he plans to kill us.” “Tadu,” Sunny murmured solemnly, which probably meant something along the lines of “It’s a loathsome situation in which we find ourselves.”
For just as they reached the books, the three siblings could see a large, shadowy mass huddled in the far corner. Nervously, Klaus switched on one of the reading lamps to get a better look. The shadowy mass was Uncle Monty. His mouth was slightly agape, as if he were surprised, and his eyes were wide open, but he didn’t appear to see them. His face, usually so rosy, was very, very pale, and under his left eye were two small holes, right in a line, the sort of mark made by the two fangs of a snake.
As he had promised, no harm had come to the Baudelaire orphans in the Reptile Room, but great harm had come to Uncle Monty.
CHAPTER Seven
It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things. The Baudelaire orphans were crying not only for their Uncle Monty, but for their own parents,
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CHAPTER Eight
“In his veins, I found the venom of the Mamba du Mal, one of the world’s most poisonous snakes.” “Does this mean that there’s a poisonous snake loose in this house?” Mr. Poe asked. “No, no,” Dr. Lucafont said. “The Mamba du Mal is safe in its cage. It must have gotten out, bitten Dr. Montgomery, and locked itself up again.” “What?” Violet asked. “That’s a ridiculous theory. A snake cannot operate a lock by itself.” “Perhaps other snakes helped it,” Dr. Lucafont said calmly, sipping his coffee.
“What are we doing?” Klaus asked. “Where are we going?” Sunny, too, looked questioningly at her sister, but Violet merely shook her head in answer, and walked faster, toward the door of the Reptile Room.
CHAPTER Nine
“If only we’d found evidence and proof earlier,” Klaus said glumly. “Then maybe we could have saved Uncle Monty’s life.”
“But if we put Stephano behind bars for his murder, we’ll at least be able to prevent him from harming anyone else.”
“Remember how Uncle Monty said he kept the venoms of all his poisonous snakes in test tubes, to study them?” Klaus said. “I think Stephano took the venom and injected it into Uncle Monty.”
“That’s awful.” “Okipi!” Sunny shrieked, apparently in agreement.
or maybe the large black one, with the shiny silver padlock, that belonged to Stephano.
CHAPTER Ten
Mr. Poe was the leaping-and-babbling kind. Klaus and Sunny had never seen the banker move so quickly or talk in such a high-pitched voice. “Goodness!” he cried. “Golly! Good God! Blessed Allah! Zeus and Hera! Mary and Joseph! Nathaniel Hawthorne! Don’t touch her! Grab her! Move closer! Run away! Don’t move! Kill the snake! Leave it alone! Give it some food! Don’t let it bite her! Lure the snake away! Here, snakey! Here, snakey snakey!”
Stephano said. “I studied books on all the major species. I looked carefully at sketches and charts. I took careful notes and looked them over each night before I went to sleep. If I may say so, I consider myself to be quite the expert on snakes.”
“Aha!” Sunny cried, disentangling herself from the Incredibly Deadly Viper.
“Aha!” Sunny cried again, pointing at Stephano.
“By ‘Aha,’” he said, “she means ‘One minute Stephano claims he knows nothing about snakes, the next he claims he is an expert!’ By ‘Aha’ she means ‘Stephano has been lying to us.’ By ‘Aha’ she means ‘We’ve finally exposed his dishonesty to you!’ By ‘Aha’ she means ‘Aha!’”
CHAPTER Eleven
Sometimes even in the most unfortunate of lives there will occur a moment or two of good fortune.
Violet gazed at each piece of evidence, thinking very hard, and before too long, her face lit up the way it always did when all the pieces of something were fit together properly and the machine worked just the way it should.
CHAPTER Twelve
Violet, Klaus, and Sunny all stared at the eye, and the eye stared back. For the first time in their lives, the Baudelaire orphans were happy to see it.
