"The Reptile Room" by Lemony Snicket, Chapters 10–13

When you were very small, perhaps someone read to you the insipid story—the word “insipid” here means “not worth reading to someone”—of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

A very dull boy, you may remember, cried “Wolf!” when there was no wolf, and the gullible villagers ran to rescue him only to find the whole thing was a joke.

You will recall that the wolf, after being treated very rudely by Little Red Riding Hood, ate the little girl’s grandmother and put on her clothing as a disguise. It is this aspect of the story that is the most ridiculous, because one would think that even a girl as dim-witted as Little Red Riding Hood could tell in an instant the difference between her grandmother and a wolf dressed in a nightgown and fuzzy slippers.

But Klaus did know Sunny, and knew that when she was very frightened, her face grew all puckered and silent, as it did when Stephano had threatened to cut off one of her toes.

“It bit her! It bited her! Calm down! Get moving! Call an ambulance! Call the police! Call a scientist! Call my wife! This is terrible! This is awful! This is ghastly! This is phantasmagorical! This is—”

“What do you mean, nothing to worry about?” Mr. Poe asked incredulously.

“Sunny was just bitten by—what’s the name of the snake, Klaus?”
“The Incredibly Deadly Viper,” Klaus answered promptly.

It was a look of sheer vanity, a word which here means “Count Olaf thinking he’s the most incredible person who ever lived.”

When the Baudelaire orphans had been under Olaf’s care, he had often acted this way, always happy to show off his skills, whether he was onstage with his atrocious theater company or up in his tower room making nasty plans.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Violet was upstairs, surveying her bedroom with a critical eye.

Hoping that Klaus and Sunny were continuing to stall the adults successfully, Violet wiggled the two prongs of the plug this way and that until at last they came loose from their plastic casing.

With the sharp end of the tack she poked and prodded the two pieces of metal until one was hooked around the other, and then forced the thumbtack between the two pieces so the sharp end stuck straight out.

The result looked like a piece of metal you might not notice if it lay in the street, but in fact what Violet had made was a crude—the word “crude” here means “roughly made at the last minute” rather than “rude or ill-mannered”—lockpick.

You and I know, of course, that Mr. Poe was panicking over Sunny and the Incredibly Deadly Viper, but all Violet knew was that whatever ruse her siblings had devised was still working.

If, however, you were looking for anything in a haystack, that wouldn’t be difficult at all, because once you started sifting through the haystack you would most certainly find something: hay, of course, but also dirt, bugs, a few farming tools, and maybe even a man who had escaped from prison and was hiding there.

Sunny looked triumphant. Klaus looked defiant. Mr. Poe looked furious.

Stephano looked back at all these people silently, his face fluttering as he tried to decide whether to come clean, a phrase which here means “admit that he’s really Count Olaf and up to no good,” or perpetuate his deception, a phrase which here means “lie, lie, lie.”

“When I told you I knew nothing of snakes,” Stephano said, “I was being modest. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go outside for a moment, and—”
“You weren’t being modest!” Klaus cried. “You were lying! And you are lying now! You’re nothing but a liar and murderer!”

“Then you must know,” Klaus said, “that the Mamba du Mal did not kill Uncle Monty. His body didn’t have a tenebrous hue. It was as pale as could be.”
“That’s true,” Mr. Poe said, “but it doesn’t necessarily indicate that Dr. Montgomery was murdered.”

“Because he’s really Count Olaf,” Violet said, exasperated that she had to explain what she and her siblings and you and I knew the moment Stephano arrived at the house.

With the villain’s identity and evil plans exposed, the police would arrive on the scene and place him in a jail for the rest of his life, and the plucky youngsters would go out for pizza and live happily ever after.

But it seemed to the Baudelaire orphans, as the tattoo became evident, that at least a little bit of Uncle Monty had come back to them as they proved Count Olaf’s treachery once and for all.

“Violet, Klaus, Sunny—please forgive me for not believing you earlier. It just seemed too far-fetched that he would have searched you out, disguised himself as a laboratory assistant, and concocted an elaborate plan to steal your fortune.”

“Violet, Klaus, Sunny—please forgive me for not believing you earlier. It just seemed too far-fetched that he would have searched you out, disguised himself as a laboratory assistant, and concocted an elaborate plan to steal your fortune.”

“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.”

“He’s not a doctor! He’s one of Count Olaf’s henchmen!” Instinctively, Violet grabbed the air where the two men had been standing, but of course they weren’t there.

The two ruffians—a word which here means “horrible people”—had reached Dr. Lucafont’s car, and were already driving away.

“Giving a snake a wrong name doesn’t sound brilliant to me. It sounds idiotic. But then, what can you expect from a man whose own name was Montgomery Montgomery?”
“It is not nice,” Klaus said, “to lampoon someone’s name like 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.

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.