J. Smoke - The Reptile Room

Chapter THREE

The room the Baudelaire's entered had glass walls arching over them. But all around the room, were pens each containing a reptile. There were snakes and lizards, and tortoises, and so on. But the most unusual thing about many of these animals was that some of these animals had multiple heads, legs, tails, eyes, mouths.

"It's marvelous," Klaus said as he looked around the room in amazement.

"Where did you get all these reptiles?" asked Violet.

"From all around the world," said Monty. "What you are looking at are all the world's rarest reptiles."

"Now I'm really interested in herpetology!" Klaus said.

"That's the spirit!" Uncle Monty said, and he led the children to one of the glass cases. "I introduce you the Super-Tongued Iguana from Brazil!" The Baudelaires walked by to see a reptile with dark green scales. The iguana opened its mouth, and a purple tongue rolled out before waving 'hi' to the Baudelaires, who waved back.

"It requires a lot of energy from that tongue to serve as a helping hand," said Monty, and led the children to another glass case. "Introducing to you the Multi- Color-Scale Lizard from Madagascar."

The children looked through the case to see a small lizard with reddish-brownish scales.

"Look closely at the scales that observe the rays of the sunlight," said Uncle Monty, and the Baudelaires did. After a minute passed by, the scales were rainbow.

"Whoa!" Sunny shrieked which could had possibly meant, "I didn't see that coming!"

"What did Sunny say?" asked Uncle Monty.

"Sunny says she's impressed and surprised with your discoveries," Klaus answered.

"Well I'm very interested to learn that language of hers," said Uncle Monty. "But right now, I'm eager to present you my latest discovery." Monty led the Baudelaires to a cage that was covered with a white sheet. "I present to you three children a snake I shall name, the Incredibly Deadly Viper!"

In swift motion, Uncle Monty pulled the sheet off the cage, revealing an incredibly thick snake inside. Its scales were incredibly black, and the sunlight reflected incredibly from its scales. In swift motion, itself, the Incredibly Deadly Viper unhooked the hatch of its cage, and leapt out, straight for Sunny.

I advise you stop reading this story, and lock it some where else than home because things won't be pleasant in this book. However, Sunny wasn't harmed, for the Incredibly Deadly Viper only kept out of its cage, not to bite Sunny but to play with her. The snake curled around the baby, who seem calm and comfortable.

"Sunny," Violet said, as Monty opened the cage for the Incredibly Deadly Viper to slither back in, are you O.K."

Sunny nodded.

"I'm so sorry, Baudelaires," said the herpetologist. "But what I did was a little prank. The Incredibly Deadly Viper is a misnomer, in fact it is one of the least harmful and most friendly reptiles in the world."

"Really!" Violet was relieved.

"Yes," said Uncle Monty.

"But why did you give your snake a very wrong name?" asked Klaus.

"Well you see, I am one of the people who is loyal to an organization called the Herpetological Society, but many of the herpetologists there ridicule me of my name. They say such things as 'How you doin', how you doin', Montgomery Montgomery,' and laugh every time," said Uncle Monty. "But in a month or so, I will introduce this very snake to the other herpetologists, and pretend it escaped from its cage. Then I'll be the one laughing."