J. Smoke - The Reptile Room

Chapter TWO

Dr. Montgomery led the Baudelaire's and Mr. Poe into the parlor of his house, and offered each of them a slice. He pulled out four forks, one for each of the children, and one for himself.

"Sunny doesn't like soft foods," said Violet, "to tell you the truth. She actually prefers hard food."

"I'm quite surprised," said Mr. Montgomery, "But it isn't unusual for many snakes. Such as the Barbary Chewer, which must have something in its mouth to chew at all times or it will eat its own mouth. Perhaps a raw carrot for Sunny?"

"That would be perfect, Dr. Montgomery," said Klaus.

"Could please not call me Dr. Montgomery," said Dr. Montgomery," and instead call me Uncle Monty, after all, I'm related to you three?"

"Okay, Uncle Monty," said Violet.

"Now the children have many questions about you," said Mr. Poe to Uncle Monty.

"Their parents never told them about me?" said Uncle Monty, "that I'm Dr. Montgomery Montgomery, the renowned herpetologist, no?"

The Baudelaire's shook their heads.

"Well now you know who I am!" Dr. Montgomery happily said.

"What are herpetologists?" asked Violet.

"Not too many questions," Mr. Poe sternly said.

"She was just asking one," said Uncle Monty quickly said. "But I actually like it when people ask me a lot of questions, they show an 'inquisitive' mind. And I believe these children know what the word inquisitive means."

"Inquisitive means 'full of questions'," Klaus answered.

"And do you know what 'herpetology' means," asked Uncle Monty.

"Well whenever a word has -ology in it, it's the study of something," said Klaus.

"Snakes!" Uncle Monty cried. "Snakes, snakes, snakes! I travel all over the world to look for different specimens of snakes to study about."

"How interesting," said Violet.

Uncle Monty stood up from one of the couches, and looked dow at the parlor table.

"There are two untouched slices of cake," he said. "I guess I'll have them for myself. Just kidding! Mr. Poe, feel free to have a slice, where are my manners!" Uncle Monty handed Mr. Poe a clean fork.

"No thank you," said the banker, putting down the fork. "Coconut leaves a funny feeling in my mouth, and I better be going by now."

"I'll lead you to the door," said Monty," and I promise you the Baudelaires will be in good care when in my hands."

"The Baudelaire fortune is locked up until Violet comes of age!" Klaus suddenly blurted out.

"Klaus, don't be rude," said Mr. Poe. "But clearly, he's correct about the fortune."

"I actually understand how Klaus feels," said Uncle Monty. "I'm the second person, whom the Baudelaires are surprised I'm related to, after that fire, and their first guardian tried to steal their fortune. But I believe that the Baudelaires will feel at home in a day or two."

"If anything goes wrong, "said Mr. Poe, "you can contact me at—"

At that moment, a loud screeching sound came from upstairs, and scare the daylights out of Mr. Poe—a phrase here which means "scared Mr. Poe an extraordinary amount."

"I'm so sorry," said Uncle Monty, who had also noticed the children winced at the sound. "That's just the screeching iguana clock."

"Bye, Mr. Poe," said Violet.

"Bye, Mr. Poe," said Klaus.

"Clak!" Sunny shrieked, which meant along the lines of, "good riddance!"

"Hope you have a pleasant ride back to Mulctuary Money Management," said Monty, as he walked Mr. Poe to the door, "and stay safe."

When Mr. Poe exited the room, Uncle Monty turned to the children and smiled.

"There is something I want to show you," he said. "Something that is kept very private. You can leave your plates on that table. Gustav will clean them up."

"Who's Gustav?" asked Klaus.

"What are you going to show us?" Violet asked.

"Excellent questions!" said Monty. "But I'm afraid I can't spoil to you the surprise I'm going to show you, otherwise, it wouldn't be a surprise."

The Baudelaire's smiled, just as Uncle Monty remembered something.

"Gustav," he said, "is my assistant, well he was."

"Qux!" Sunny shrieked.

"What happened," translated Violet.

"Well after the night you got out of Count Olaf's care—who sounds quite a terrible man—I got a letter from Gustav on the very next, saying he was quitting his job for unexpected reasons, even though I wanted him to meet you three," said Uncle Monty. "But I'll clean up the plates, anyway some herpetologists would eat nine garter snakes to get a glimpse of what you three are about to see! Follow me!"

Monty led the Baudelaire's out of the parlor, and into a scarlet-wallpaper hallway.

"Now as you walk through this very hallway, you will see pictures of people you probably never met before," said Monty.

This was true, there were photographs of various people the Baudelaire didn't know.

"This is Gustav," said Monty, and gestured to a photo of a man with a black, trimmed beard. "He was a really good friend of mine, he always checked on how I was, cooked meals for dinner, and was the one who trimmed all those snake-shaped hedges you may have seen outside, very fine decorates I should say."

"There's Mr. Poe's secretary," said Klaus, pointing to a photo above all the others.

"Jacquelyn Scieszka," said Dr. Montgomery. "Another old friend of mine."

"And there's the bald man with the sunglasses," Violet said.

"Smoke," said Uncle Monty. "I would say he is quite intelligent, as well as you three!"

"In case you didn't know, we encountered these two people at the Marvelous Marriage play," said Klaus. "They were very mysterious."

"Many of these people on the wal are," said Uncle Monty.

"Ubic!" Sunny shrieked in lines of, "look at that photo" and pointed to a photo at the bottom of the collection, showing a group of people in front of a small town.

"Our parents are in this photo," said Violet, "and you too, Uncle Monty."

"Why that's the town, Paltryville," said Uncle Monty. "Have you seen this photo before?"

"In the library of our old mansion," Klaus said.

"There's another photo, but just of your parents and I," said the herpetologist. "it should be between those two photos."

"It just shows a piano," Violet said.

"Well you see, we're inside the piano," Monty laughed. "We were quite young back then."

Uncle Monty led the children to the end of the hallway, where there stood an enormous, thick door.

"Now what I really planned to show you," said Uncle Monty, "lies behind this very door. But to open it, you need 19 keys, three combinations, two fingerprints, and one retinal scan, ever since this door has been improved with a top of the line security. Or to my mainly trusted associates like you three, you'll just need to turn the doorknob."

The man place a hand on the very knob, and turned it. When the door opened the Baudelaire's were amazed at what they saw.