A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket Page A

Harbor and I'd like to be the first passenger aboard. That way I'll have time for a bottle of wine before lunch." "How could you?" Klaus whispered hoarsely. He couldn't take his eyes off Uncle Monty's pale, pale face. "How could you do this? How could you murder him?" "Why, Klaus, I'm surprised," Stephano said, and walked over to Uncle Monty's body. "A smarty-pants boy like you should be able to figure out that your chubby old uncle died from snakebite, not from murder. Look at those teeth marks. Look at his pale, pale face. Look at these staring eyes." "Stop it!" Violet said. "Don't talk like that!" "You're right!" Stephano said. "There's no time for chitchat! We have a ship to catch! Let's move!" "We're not going anywhere with you," Klaus said. His face was pinched with the effort of focusing on their predicament rather than going to pieces. "We will stay here until the police come." "And how do you suppose the police will know to come?" Stephano said. "We will call them," Klaus said, in what he hoped was a firm tone of voice, and began to walk toward the door. Stephano dropped his suitcase, the shiny silver padlock making a clattering sound as it hit the marble floor. He took a few steps and blocked Klaus's way, his eyes wide and red with fury. "I am so tired" Stephano snarled, "of having to explain everything to you. You're supposed to be so very smart, and yet you always seem to forget about this!" He reached into his pocket and pulled out the jagged knife. "This is my knife. It is very sharp and very eager to hurt you- almost as eager as I am. If you don't do what I say, you will suffer bodily harm. Is that clear enough for you? Now, get in the damn jeep." 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. Taking a last look at their poor Uncle Monty, the three children followed Stephano to the door of the Reptile Room to get in the damn jeep. To add insult to injury-a phrase which here means "forcing somebody to do an unpleasant task when they're already very upset"- Stephano forced Violet to carry his suitcase out of the house, but she was too lost in her own thoughts to care. She was remembering the last conversation she and her siblings had had with Uncle Monty, and thinking with a cold rush of shame that it hadn't really been a conversation at all. You will recall, of course, that on the ride home from seeing Zombies in the Snow, the children had been so worried about Stephano that they hadn't said a word to Uncle Monty, and that when the jeep had arrived at the house, the Baudelaire orphans had dashed upstairs to hash out the situation, without even saying good night to the man who now lay dead under a sheet in the Reptile Room. As the youngsters reached the jeep, Violet tried to remember if they had even thanked him for taking them to the movies, but the night was all a blur. She thought that she, Klaus, and Sunny had probably said "Thank you, Uncle Monty," when they were standing together at the ticket booth, but she couldn't be sure. Stephano opened the door of the jeep and gestured with the knife, ushering Klaus and Sunny into the tiny backseat and Violet, the black suitcase heavy on her lap, into the front seat beside him. 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. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny looked behind them as Stephano began to drive alongside the snake-shaped hedges. At the sight of the Reptile Room, which Uncle Monty had filled so carefully with his specimens and in which he was now a sort of specimen himself, the weight of the Baudelaires' despair was too much for them and they quietly began to cry. 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