The Reptile Room (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #2)

by Lemony Snicket

CHAPTER Thirteen

“Gustav didn’t quit,” he said in his wheezy voice. “Gustav is dead! One day when he was out collecting wildflowers I drowned him in the Swarthy Swamp. Then I forged a note saying he quit.”

“But that’s nothing compared to what I will do to you, orphans. You have won this round of the game, but I will return for your fortune, and for your precious skin.”

Mr. Poe began to step out the door, but he stopped when he heard the roar of a car engine starting up. The two ruffians—a word which here means “horrible people”—had reached Dr. Lucafont’s car, and were already driving away.

The Baudelaire orphans looked at one another and sighed. Everything in the world seemed wrong. It was wrong that Uncle Monty was dead. It was wrong that Count Olaf and the hook-handed man had escaped. It was wrong for Bruce to think of Monty as a person with a silly name, instead of a brilliant scientist. And it was wrong to assume that the children never wanted to see a snake again. The snakes, and indeed everything in the Reptile Room, were the last reminders the Baudelaires had of the few happy days they’d spent there at the house—the few happy days they’d had since their parents had perished.

When Bruce had used the word “brilliant” about Uncle Monty, he meant “having a reputation for cleverness or intelligence.” But when the children used the word—and when they thought of it now, staring at the Reptile Room glowing in the moonlight—it meant more than that. It meant that even in the bleak circumstances of their current situation, even throughout the series of unfortunate events that would happen to them for the rest of their lives, Uncle Monty and his kindness would shine in their memories. Uncle Monty was brilliant, and their time with him was brilliant. Bruce and his men from the Herpetological Society could dismantle Uncle Monty’s collection, but nobody could ever dismantle the way the Baudelaires would think of him.

To My Kind Editor

Remember, you are my last hope that the tales of the Baudelaire orphans can finally be told to the general public. With all due respect, Lemony Snicket

About the Author and Illustrator

LEMONY SNICKET is still at large. Find him on the Web at www.lemonysnicket.com.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

THE BAD BEGINNING

THE REPTILE ROOM

THE WIDE ...

ISBN 0-06-440767-5 (pbk.) — ISBN 0-06-028313-0 (lib. bdg.)

EPub Edition © July 2015 ISBN 9780061757143

First Edition, 1999