"The Reptile Room" by Lemony Snicket, Chapters 7–9

Of course, after they discover that Dr. Montgomery is dead, they’ll wonder what became of those repulsive orphans he had lying around the house.

His face was pinched with the effort of focusing on their predicament rather than going to pieces.

It is, as you know, very, very rude and usually unnecessary to use profanity, but the Baudelaire orphans were too terrified to point this out to Stephano.

The orphans had a brief hope that the engine would not start when Stephano turned the key in the ignition, but this was a futile hope. Uncle Monty took good care of his jeep, and it started right up.

These are frightening questions, and if you are thinking about such matters, they require your full attention, and the orphans were so immersed in thinking about them that they didn’t realize that Stephano was about to collide with another automobile until the moment of impact.

The black suitcase lurched into Violet’s shoulder and then forward into the windshield, which immediately cracked in a dozen places so it looked like
 a spiderweb.

Its entire front had pleated itself together, like an accordion, and one hubcap was spinning noisily on the pavement of Lousy Lane, making blurry circles as if it were a giant coin somebody had dropped.

The driver was dressed in gray and making a rough hacking sound as he opened the crumpled door of the car and struggled his way out. He made the hacking sound again, and then reached into a pocket of his suit and pulled out a white handkerchief.

“Please, Klaus,” Mr. Poe admonished, a word which here means “reprimanded Klaus even though he was interrupting for a very good reason.” “It is not polite to interrupt.”

“Please, Klaus,” Mr. Poe admonished, a word which here means “reprimanded Klaus even though he was interrupting for a very good reason.” “It is not polite to interrupt.”

“But Mr. Poe—” Klaus said indignantly.

“But the children’s suitcases are here. I don’t want to leave them unattended. Why don’t we put the luggage into your car, and the children and I will walk back to the house?”

While the jeep sputtered ahead of them, the Baudelaire orphans trudged back toward Uncle Monty’s house, the scent of horseradish in their nostrils and a feeling of frustration in their hearts.

“Klaus,” Mr. Poe said, when he had stopped coughing, “this is getting very tiresome, going over this again and again. We have just seen Stephano’s unblemished ankle. 'Unblemished’ means—”

“Nothing like a hearty cup of coffee before starting the day’s work.”

“Have you completed your examination already?” Mr. Poe asked.
“The preliminary one, yes,” Dr. Lucafont said.

I will have to take the body for some further tests, but my autopsy shows that the doctor died of snakebite.

“I’m sorry, children. Dr. Montgomery seemed like an appropriate guardian for you.”

"That’s Uncle Monty’s food!” Klaus cried out suddenly, his face contorted in anger.

The children are very upset. I’m sure you can understand that. Violet, Klaus, Sunny, why don’t you excuse yourselves for a little while? We have much to discuss, and you are obviously too overwrought to participate.

“Of course we will,” Violet said, giving Klaus and Sunny a significant look, and taking her siblings’ hands, she half-led them, half-dragged them out of the kitchen.

For unlike Klaus, who was so surprised when he first recognized Stephano that the moment to act passed him by, Violet realized, as she heard the adults drone on and on, that the time to act was now.

What happens in a certain place can stain your feelings for that location, just as ink can stain a white sheet. You can wash it, and wash it, and still never forget what has transpired, a word which here means “happened and made everybody sad.”

“We have work to do,” she said, “that Mr. Poe should be doing, but as usual, he is well intentioned but of no real help.” Klaus and Sunny sighed as she spoke out loud a sentiment all three siblings had never said, but always felt, since Mr. Poe had taken over their affairs.

“But all that research could take days,” Klaus said, looking at Monty’s considerable library.

It is now necessary for me to use the rather hackneyed phrase “meanwhile, back at the ranch.”

The word “hackneyed” here means “used by so, so many writers that by the time Lemony Snicket uses it, it is a tiresome cliché.”

“I’m afraid that won’t work,” Dr. Lucafont said gravely.

Violet found herself half hoping that Stephano would bound up the stairs and stop her, just so she wouldn’t have to open this door and go into the room where he slept.

The closet door was open, revealing a bunch of rusty wire coathangers that shivered in the drafty room.

Although it was frightening to be trapped in his inner sanctum—a phrase which here means “filthy room in which evil plans are devised”—it turned out to be quite useful, because they were able to read up on nuptial law and work their way out of their predicament.

“‘The Mamba du Mal,’” he read, “‘is one of the deadliest snakes in the hemisphere, noted for its strangulatory grip, used in conjunction with its deadly venom, giving all of its victims a tenebrous hue, which is ghastly to behold.’”

“I didn’t either,” Klaus admitted, “until I looked up some of the words. ‘Strangulatory’ means ‘having to do with strangling.’ ‘In conjunction’ means ‘together.’ ‘Tenebrous’ means ‘dark.’ And ‘hue’ means ‘color.’ So the Mamba du Mal is noted for strangling people while it bites them, leaving their corpses dark with bruises.”

“I didn’t either,” Klaus admitted, “until I looked up some of the words. ‘Strangulatory’ means ‘having to do with strangling.’ ‘In conjunction’ means ‘together.’ ‘Tenebrous’ means ‘dark.’ And ‘hue’ means ‘color.’ So the Mamba du Mal is noted for strangling people while it bites them, leaving their corpses dark with bruises.”

“I hope you are feeling a bit calmer,” Mr. Poe said, looking at each of the children in turn, “and no longer entertaining the thought that Stephano is Count Olaf.” When Mr. Poe used the word “entertaining” here he meant “thinking,” rather than “singing or dancing or putting on skits.”