Violet walked quietly back down the stairs, holding her lockpick in one hand and cross-ing her fingers with the other. She tiptoed past the enormous door of the Reptile Room and hoped that her absence would not be noticed as she slipped outside. Deliberately averting her eyes from Dr. Lucafont’s car to avoid catching even a glimpse of Uncle Monty’s body, the eldest Baudelaire walked toward the pile of suitcases. She looked first at the old ones belonging to the Baudelaires.

Those suitcases contained, she remembered, lots of ugly, itchy clothing that Mrs. Poe had bought for them soon after their parents died. For a few seconds, Violet found herself staring at the suitcases, remembering how effortless her life had been before all this trouble had set upon them, and how surprising it was to find herself in such miserable circumstances now. This may not be surprising to us, because we know how disastrous the lives of the Baudelaire orphans are, but Violet’s misfortune was constantly surprising to her and it took her a minute to push thoughts of their situation out of her head and to concentrate on what she had to do.

She knelt down to get closer to Stephano’s suitcase, held the shiny silver padlock in one hand, took a deep breath, and stuck the lockpick into the keyhole. It went inside, but when she tried to turn it around, it scarcely budged, only scraped a little at the inside of the keyhole. It needed to move more smoothly or it would never work. Violet took her lockpick out and wet it with her mouth, grimacing at the stale taste of the metal. Then she stuck the lockpick into the keyhole again and tried to move it.

It wiggled slightly and then lay still.

Violet took the lockpick out and thought very, very hard, retying her hair in the ribbon. As she cleared the hair from her eyes, though, she felt a sudden prickle on her skin.

It was unpleasant and familiar. It was the feeling of being watched. She looked quickly behind her, but saw only the snake-shaped hedges on the lawn. She looked to the side and saw only the driveway leading down to Lousy Lane. But then she looked straight ahead, through the glass walls of the Reptile Room.

It had never occurred to her that people could see in through the Reptile Room’s walls as clearly as they could see out, but when she looked up Violet could see, through the cages of reptiles, the figure of Mr. Poe leaping up and down excitedly. You and I know, of course, that Mr. Poe was panicking over Sunny and the Incredibly