“Hello, George, hello, Reynard,” the Messenger said, ignoring the girls. He was a stout boy with braces so heavily rubber-banded that his mouth looked like a cat’s cradle. “On behalf of the other Messengers I want to congratulate you, and to invite you to join us at one of the Messenger tables for meals. You know — to mess with the Messengers, ha ha!”
“Ha ha,” said Reynie, as politely as possible. It wouldn’t exactly help their mission to offend the other Messengers, but neither did he wish to be split up from Kate and Constance. He glanced at Sticky, who had a curious, expectant look on his face, as if he really were considering joining the Messengers. What was he thinking?
“Thanks so much,” Reynie said quickly. “But do you have any concerns about stomach viruses? It may be a day or two until Sticky and I get over ours.”
“Stomach viruses?” said the boy.
“Stoma —? Oh, yes,” said Sticky, catching on. “We spent most of last night throwing up. It was bad, too — I felt like I was being turned inside out. But Reynie’s too cautious. We’re probably not contagious. We should go ahead and join you.” He grabbed his tray and made as if to rise.
“Uh, no . . . no, I think Reynard’s probably right,” said the boy, backing away. He covered his mouth and spoke from behind his hand. “You can never be too careful with these things. Why don’t you fellows give it a few days, and when you feel absolutely better, I mean one hundred percent, then come on over and join us.”
“That’s awfully nice of you,” Reynie said as the Messenger hurried away.
“Quick thinking,” Kate said. “And you, too, Sticky — pretty bold work. But what happened to the Sticky Washington I know? You know, the shy and timid one?”
“Give me a break,” Sticky said, ducking his head.
“Ah, there he is!”
Sticky tried to smile, but in truth he was decidedly troubled. If Reynie hadn’t spoken up just then, he wasn’t at all sure what he would have done. He had actually wanted to join the Messengers! Was that all it took to sway him — being asked? Did he want so much to be wanted that he would do, well, anything? It was as if the Whisperer had opened a door, and now Sticky couldn’t close it again. He was so ashamed he could hardly look up.
Reynie, meanwhile, felt deeply disturbed. The more he thought about his response to the Whisperer, the more convinced he was that becoming a Messenger had been a bad development, a blow to their mission rather than a boon — because he was too weak to handle it. He needed to get through the mission and off this island before he faced the Whisperer again. His next turn probably wouldn’t come for several days, and yet already he found himself glancing at doors.
Reynie cleared his throat. “I think we need to —”
“Please!” Constance snapped, covering her ears. “Reynie! Will you please . . . stop . . . talking!”
Taken aback, Reynie closed his mouth and stared at her in surprise.
“What is your problem?” Sticky said sharply.
Constance lowered her hands and looked at Reynie with a mixture of ruefulness and irritation. “Sorry about that,” she said tersely. “It’s just that you’ve been on this whole time, and it’s already getting old. One of you, maybe. But two of you is too much.”
“On?” Reynie repeated. “Two of me?”
“You know,” Constance said, tapping her head. “You’re on. The broadcast — it’s you talking.”
The others looked at one another in amazement.
Reynie was flabbergasted. “Are you . . . are you sure, Constance? I mean I’m — I’m right here!”
Constance thumped the side of her head, as if trying to clear water from her ears. “It’s like you’re in stereo.”
“Wow,” Kate said, impressed. “This must be really weird for both of you.”
“You know what this means?” Sticky said. “Mr. Curtain is recording the Whisperer sessions! He can record thoughts!”
“But if he can do that,” said Kate, “then why does he need fresh Messengers all the time? Why not just play his recordings?”
“I think I know,” said Reynie, finally recovering from his astonishment. “He hasn’t always been able to do it. Remember the ‘modifications’ he wrote about in his journal? He said it this morning, too — he said his Whisperer was ‘undergoing modification.’”
“That explains why he’s not going to need Messengers after the Improvement,” Sticky said. “Once he’s finished recording all his messages, he’ll have no use for Messengers anymore.”
“And he’ll be able to broadcast his recordings around the clock,” said Constance. She sighed miserably and closed her eyes. “That’s just peachy.”
That wasn’t all, Reynie thought. He had a strong suspicion that as soon as Mr. Curtain had recorded his messages, he would boost them to full-strength. It was all going to be part of the Improvement. But for Constance’s sake, Reynie decided not to mention this aloud. She was already frightened, no doubt. Sitting there, eyes tightly shut, anxiously wondering what lay in store for her. . . .
Reynie felt an itch in the back of his mind. He had recently felt the very same way himself. But his eyes hadn’t been closed, exactly. . . .
“We’re almost out of time, aren’t we?” Sticky was saying. “I never thought we’d still be on the island when all the bad stuff happened. Of course, I hoped it never would happen.”
“I wish we could be doing something!” Kate said. “If we could just figure out what Mr. Benedict . . .” She paused. “Reynie, why are you looking at Constance like that?”
Constance opened her eyes to find Reynie staring at her.
“Mr. Benedict said with open eyes now,” Reynie muttered, almost to himself. “Meaning before they were closed — or blindfolded!” Abruptly he stood up. “Quick, everyone, we still have time before class.”
Kate leaped to her feet. Her blue eyes twinkled with excitement. “Where are we going?”
“To find a place you must exit to enter.”
Moments later the Mysterious Benedict Society stood on the plaza, exactly where the boys had stood that morning when Jackson blindfolded them. A few students milled about in the rock garden, but there were no Executives in sight.
“This is the spot, isn’t it?” Reynie asked.
“I’m pretty sure,” said Sticky, who still wasn’t sure what Reynie was up to. Reynie had been in too much of a hurry to explain.
“And how many steps did we take before we went inside?”
Sticky told him, and Reynie looked at Kate. “Which door would that take us to?”
Kate asked Sticky to take a few steps while she watched. Then, one by one, she studied the Institute buildings. Finally she shook her head. “Based upon the length of your stride, that many steps wouldn’t take you to any door of any building in the whole Institute, front or back.”
“Oh,” Sticky said, certain he had disappointed Reynie somehow. “I’m sorry. I was so nervous, you know. I guess I’ve misremembered.”
“I don’t think so,” said Reynie, who, far from looking disappointed, was growing more and more excited. “We left the plaza, remember? Went down a walkway — and then across grass.”
“Grass?” Sticky said. “Hey, that’s right! I was so anxious I didn’t even think about that. And you know what? It was the same when Jillson took me to the Waiting Room.”
Reynie nodded. “When Mr. Benedict said we must exit to enter, he meant we must exit the buildings to enter someplace else — a place we can’t get to from inside!”
Kate’s face broke into a grin. “It’s the traps, isn’t it? The number of steps you took would bring you almost exactly to the one behind the Institute Control Building.”
“But why would we want to enter the traps?” Constance asked doubtfully.
“Not the traps themselves,” Reynie said. “Remember how we thought the boulders were to help hide them? I think it’s the other way around. The traps are there to keep us away from the boulders — because the boulders are hiding secre
t entrances!”
“Secret entrances!” Constance said, trying hard not to look impressed. “How did you think of that?”
“Actually I should have thought of it sooner,” Reynie said. “Sticky had already told me Jillson took him outside and blindfolded him. Obviously the Executives wanted to keep something hidden — something other than the Waiting Room, I mean, because no sane person would ever want to find that place. I’ll bet you anything the next line of Mr. Benedict’s message was going to be something like ‘Where one of you has been before.’”
Sticky was mystified. “But how would Mr. Benedict know?”
“They’re watching the Institute through their telescopes, remember? And the plaza’s in plain sight of the mainland. They must have seen Jillson blindfold you and take you behind the Institute Control Building. That’s how Mr. Benedict knew about it.”
“So you mean something good came out of that?” Sticky asked, his eyes suddenly shining with tears. “I didn’t go to the Waiting Room for nothing?”
“You aren’t going to start crying on us, are you?” asked Constance rudely.
“Not now,” Sticky growled, removing his spectacles and swiping at his eyes. “I believe you’ve cleared me right up.”
“Anyway,” Reynie said, “the passages that lead to the Waiting Room and the Whispering Gallery may also lead somewhere else. Somewhere important. We need to get inside them and find out.”
“So what’s next?” Kate asked. “Sneak around to the boulders behind the building? We still have a few minutes before class.”
Reynie considered. “I think the ones up behind the dormitory would be safer. There’s too much activity down here.”
“Safer is good,” Sticky said.
Kate was bouncing on the balls of her feet. “So what are we waiting for?”
“The right moment,” Reynie replied.
As it happened, Reynie had a particular “right moment” in mind — the moment the day’s classes had ended, when all the Recruiters and most of the Executives would be in the gym, marking the steps of their eerie dance. There would be far less of a chance of bumping into someone in the secret passages, he pointed out. But they would only have a few minutes. They needed to hurry.
Luckily hurrying was something at which Kate excelled. By the time the others had made it halfway up the hill to the stretch of path nearest the drapeweed patch, Kate had already reached the hilltop well above them. A quick check to make sure no one was coming up the other side of the hill; a quick scan of the plaza to see if anyone was looking this way; then Kate gave the “all clear” sign, and the others ran over to hide behind the boulders. A minute later she joined them.
“We’ve found the entrance,” Sticky told her, pointing to a barely detectable outline in the stone. “The question is how to open it. We’ve already tried pushing it, sliding it, and begging it. No luck.”
“Open Sesame!” Constance cried, then scowled at the unmoving boulders as if she hated them.
At the moment Reynie wasn’t particularly fond of them, either. He hadn’t considered that it might be difficult getting into the secret entrances once you’d found them. Now here they stood, thwarted, while precious seconds ticked away.
Kate glanced around to be sure they couldn’t be seen, but Mr. Curtain had placed the entrance very carefully. The back of the boulders couldn’t be seen from anywhere below — not from any window or door in the Institute. The same was true for the boulders behind the Institute Control Building. If students stayed on the paths and walkways as they were supposed to, they would never spot an Executive using a secret entrance.
Reynie, meanwhile, was casting about for a hidden lever or knob — anything that might open the door. Finding nothing, he growled, “Come on! We don’t have time for this!” He gave the door a frustrated kick.
To the amazement of all, the stone door immediately swung up and away, revealing an open archway.
“You kick it?” Sticky cried incredulously.
Reynie nodded, finally understanding. “Mr. Curtain likes to ram through doors,” he said. “Have you noticed?”
The children hurried through the archway into a small, empty foyer. The wall swung closed behind them, and immediately a light came on overhead. It was so bright they almost had to squint. Before them an equally bright passageway curved away in a steep descent. Reynie had thought to post Constance near the entrance as a lookout, but he saw now that a lookout was pointless. After the passage curved away from the foyer, it descended for quite some distance uninterrupted by other doorways or passages. If someone came in through the foyer, there would be no place for a lookout to hide. The children had no choice but to keep together and hope for the best.
Quickly, quietly, they moved down the passage. Constance was riding piggyback, Kate and Reynie were tiptoeing, and Sticky, who was bad at tiptoeing (he brought his knees rather too high, so that he looked and sounded like a prancing horse), carried his shoes and walked silently in his socks. In the bright light, with no nooks or crannies to duck into, they all felt quite vulnerable.
Near the bottom of the hill they came upon another passage that branched off to their right and slanted steeply downward. They wouldn’t need to investigate it, though; they knew at once where it led. A remarkably foul odor hung in the air, and the passage descended to a lonely black door with an iron padlock. Near the door the stone floor was slick with black mud, and from beyond it came a high-pitched humming noise, punctuated with little clicks and scratches. Reynie turned. Sticky stood a few paces behind them, trembling and closing his eyes.
“Let’s move on,” Reynie said quickly. He and Kate took Sticky by the arms just as his knees appeared ready to buckle. He leaned on them gratefully as they hurried on.
A dozen paces more and the children had come to another passage that branched off to the left. This one led to a simple metal door.
Regaining his composure, Sticky quit leaning on Kate and Reynie and set his shoulders. Whatever the door concealed, he wanted to confront it bravely — or at least more bravely than he’d handled the Waiting Room. And so, while Kate and Constance looked questioningly at Reynie (who seemed hesitant to be the one to open it), Sticky took the opportunity to press forward and give the door a sharp kick. This produced a sound very much like that of a hammer coming down upon a finger — a sort of dull donk — and Sticky fell to the floor, clutching his foot.
Reynie pointed to a numeric keypad beside the door. “It’s not like the outside doors,” he whispered. “It’s locked.”
Sticky winced and put his shoes back on. So much for regaining composure.
“What’s that?” Kate said, pointing to a piece of paper stuck to the wall above the door. “It looks like a note. Here, Constance, let me lift you up.” In a moment Constance had the note. Printed in distinctive, awkward handwriting, it read: LOSE the new code? Turn OVER for new code!
At the bottom of the paper an arrow pointed down.
The children sucked in their breath. Could it be as simple as this? Could they be so lucky? Eagerly Reynie flipped the paper over. On the back was another note, this one in different handwriting: Attention all Executives: You cannot leave notes like this. S.Q., this had better be gone by tonight. Stop trying to be clever. — Jackson
“I knew it was too good to be true,” said Constance.
“I don’t get it,” Sticky said. “Why would S.Q. say ‘turn over for code’ if he wasn’t going to write the code on the back?”
“It’s S.Q., remember,” said Kate. “Maybe he forgot to write it. My question is why Jackson didn’t just take the note down himself.”
“And miss a chance to scold S.Q. in front of the other Executives?” Constance said.
“Good point,” Kate said.
Reynie was studying the note. “There’s something . . .” The others looked at him expectantly. He rubbed his chin. “Well . . . why did Jackson tell him not to try to be clever?”
“Because Jackson knows it’s pointless fo
r S.Q. to try?” said Constance.
“But he did try — that’s what Jackson’s saying. So the question is, what did S.Q. do that he thought was so clever? Surely it wasn’t just leaving the note so high up. It was hard to reach, maybe, but not hard to spot.”
Kate read the note again. “Okay, why does he capitalize LOSE and OVER? It’s not just for emphasis, is it?”
“I think it’s to call attention to them,” Reynie said. “There’s something special about them. . . .” He trailed off, considering.
“Well . . . both words have four letters,” Sticky offered, hoping somehow this was a helpful thing to point out.
“Maybe the code’s in invisible ink,” Constance suggested.
“With invisible ink he could have just written the code on the front,” Reynie said. “What would be the point in turning the note over?”
“You think everything S.Q. does has a point?” Sticky said.
Suddenly Reynie stifled a laugh. “Wait a minute! I have it! Turning the note over is the point! S.Q., you devil!”
“Um, Reynie?” said Kate. “We did turn it over, remember? There’s nothing there.”
“We turned to the back of the paper,” Reynie said. “S.Q. didn’t mean that. He meant to turn the note upside down.”
“I still don’t get it,” Sticky said.
“Think of it this way. What if the note read: ‘Is LOSE the new code?’ The answer is ‘Yes, but you have to turn it OVER!’” Reynie turned the note upside down and pointed to the word LOSE. The letters were now numbers: 3507.
“Hey, that is clever,” said Sticky. “For S.Q., I mean.”
“We’re just lucky he’s not clever enough to remember the code without leaving notes,” Reynie said.
The note was returned to its proper place, and the children prepared themselves. Now that they’d had a moment’s pause, their minds had filled up with questions: What would they find behind this door? What if it was terrifying? Or what if it was exactly what Mr. Benedict needed? Or what if — this had suddenly occurred to Reynie — what if S.Q.’s note had been left on purpose, to trick sneaking children like themselves?