"What is it?" asked Violet.
Monty walked over to a cage, where a large snake, the largest snake the children had ever seen in real life. "This is a snake of my own discovery. I got to name it!" Monty announced proudly.
"What is it called?" asked Rowan.
"The Incredibly Deadly Viper."
Suddenly, the Viper pushed open the cage door with his head and shot out like a rocket, teeth bared.
In the shock and the terror, the children could hardly see clearly.
"Violet! Klaus!" yelled Rowan, despite the fact the Viper had hardly gone near them. "Are you alright?"
"I think I'm fine." Violet said, tucking her hair behind her ears. "Mon-."
"Sunny!" yelled Klaus suddenly. "Montgomery, if you let a deadly snake bite my sister-."
"Let her go!" shouted Violet. "Get the snake!"
"You're laughing?" asked Klaus, furious.
Monty was laughing. "I am terribly sorry if that frightened you, children, but the Incredibly Deadly Viper is completely harmless. Believe it or not, it is probably the friendliest snake on the planet."
Sure enough, Sunny was giggling and biting the snake's tail.
"Sunny, don't bite the snake," said Violet in a gentle voice.
"Oh, don't worry, Violet." reassured Monty. "The Incredibly Deadly Viper doesn't mind being played with, or bitten."
"Why did you name the Viper what you did if it's friendly?" asked Klaus.
"I intend to play a little joke on the members of the Herpetological Society." Monty explained, his eyes gleaming, and then went on to say how he was tired of the Society teasing him about his name, and was planning to pretend that the 'deadly' snake had escaped.
"Does the snake have a nickname?" asked Rowan. "Like, something you call it instead of the Incredibly Deadly Viper?"
"Not yet," said Monty. "Although soon they might have one."
The children walked around for five minutes, examining all of the reptiles, when Monty walked up to them and gathered them all in the centre of the room.
"Children," he said. "I've just remembered that my assistant, Stephano, is due to arrive at the same time I had planned to get some supplies for the reptiles." He gestured around them. "Would you be okay to stay in the house with a stranger for ten minutes?"
"Oh, yes," said Violet.
"If he's as nice as you are." added Rowan, and Monty smiled at him.
"Wonderful, children, thank you." Monty said gratefully. "Well the doorbell rings at about half ten in the morning, just remember that it is Stephano arriving."
"We'll remember!" Klaus exclaimed, and they skipped off happily.
The children sat on Violet and Sunny's bed (which was slightly bigger as it was for two people) in a circle.
"I was very nervous about living with a man we've never heard of after last time but Monty is so nice that I am glad we were put with him." said Violet happily.
"You mean you haven't heard of Montgomery Montgomery?" asked Rowan.
"Dugalm?" said Sunny, which meant, 'Why, have you heard of him?'.
"Well, I've never heard of him, but apparently he visited me a week after I was born. I also heard my parents saying - two weeks before the fire - 'M. wasn't there. We have to inform him.'. My father said in response, 'I'll let him know tonight.'."
The Baudelaires glanced at each other - Sunny even stopped biting an apple that Monty had given her.
"What were your parents?" asked Klaus. "Job-wise?"
"Scientists." Rowan answered. "I don't know what type, but scientists."
"That's it then." said Klaus, as if it settled the matter. When Violet, Sunny, and Rowan looked at him strangely, he said, "Maybe your parents were Herpetologists and at a Society meeting that Monty wasn't attending, a snake escaped or something. Maybe your parents were simply going to warn him about the snake."
"That makes sense." said Rowan and the other orphans, visually relaxed.
"Children!" Monty called from the kitchen.
It was lunchtime. The children all sat around with Monty at the table. Klaus and Monty were having a conversation about different reptiles, with Sunny occasionally contributing by complimenting one of their facts, whilst Rowan was asking Violet about her different inventions.
The children had an amazing time with Monty for three days. Eating good food, sleeping in large beds, and having the Reptile Room to visit whenever they liked felt like the only good time they had had in years. Violet had already started making her own electric whisk, Sunny had found plenty of good things to bite, Klaus would visit the Reptile Room every day, and Rowan had started a map.
"Children, I am just going to leave to get some supplies," said Monty. "Stephano will probably arrive soon, be nice to him, won't you?"
"Of course we will!" said Violet, and Rowan and Klaus nodded.
It was at about quarter to eleven, when Sunny, Violet, and Rowan were in the kitchen and Klaus was in the Reptile Room, when they heard the doorbell ring.
Violet and Rowan put down the map that they had been examining in the kitchen, Sunny put down her pear and was picked up by Violet, and Klaus put down his book and walked out of the Reptile Room.
"It's Stephano!" said Violet.
"I hope he is as nice as Monty is," said Klaus.
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Baudelaires and a White
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