The Mysterious Benedict Society

  Something about this made Reynie uneasy. Had he done so badly? Was this meant to test his courage? He did as he was told, closing his eyes and bracing himself as best he could.

  “Why are you flinching?” the pencil woman asked.

  “I don’t know. I thought maybe you were going to slap me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I could slap you perfectly well with your eyes open. I’m only going to blindfold you.”

  Having done so, she led Reynie down the stairs again. With her hand on his shoulder, the pencil woman guided him back through the maze into the first room, where she removed the blindfold. Starting the stopwatch, she said, “Please go ring the bell again.”

  This time it was easy. Reynie trotted through the rooms, glancing at the panels for guidance, and in a few short minutes had rung the bell again. The pencil woman came up behind him, reading her stopwatch. “Three minutes even,” she said. She led him up more stairs into a sitting room and pointed him toward a sofa.

  “Does this mean I pass?”

  “We ask you to complete the maze a second time to see if you’ve actually solved it. We need to make sure you didn’t just come upon the staircase by luck. If you’ve discovered the secret, you should be much faster the second time around. Which you were. Therefore you seem to have solved the maze. Therefore you pass. Therefore —” Interrupting herself, she took a cracker from her pocket and ate it very quickly, as if she hadn’t eaten in days and couldn’t wait another moment.

  Reynie cocked his head curiously. “But why did you have me go through again when you could have just asked me? I could have told you the secret, you know.”

  “You’d be surprised how few children have pointed that out,” said the pencil woman as she moved toward the door.

  “You mean you wondered whether I’d notice that?”

  The pencil woman winked. “And now we know, don’t we?”

  She hurried from the room, leaving Reynie alone on the sofa. He was getting used to her abrupt entrances and exits. Still, it was strange to find himself in an unknown house, sitting on this sofa by himself. He looked around the room. The walls were lined with books, many of them in languages he didn’t recognize. In one corner stood an old piano; in another, a marvelous green globe. Reynie went to look at the globe. If the others took as long as he did to finish the maze, it would be some time before he had company. He might as well entertain himself.

  But hardly had he given the globe a single spin — he hadn’t even located Stonetown Harbor on it yet — when he heard the bell clanging outside on the stairway landing. It rang and rang, very loudly and with no sign of stopping, and from this he gathered it was Kate at the bell. Sure enough, within a few moments the ringing had ceased and the pencil woman had led Kate into the sitting room to join him. Kate was grinning ear to ear. The pencil woman had a hand to her forehead, as if perhaps all the bell ringing had given her a headache.

  “She doesn’t have to go through a second time?” Reynie asked, surprised.

  “No point,” said the pencil woman, and left them there alone.

  “What do you mean, a second time?” Kate asked.

  “I had to finish it twice to prove I’d solved it. But you got through so fast, I suppose it would be hard to do it any faster.”

  “Not as long as I have my bucket with me,” Kate agreed.

  After turning this over in his mind a few times, Reynie gave up and said, “Okay, what did your bucket have to do with getting through the maze?”

  “Well, of course I saw right away that I was in a maze, and I knew that I had to get to the opposite side of the house. So I looked around for a heating vent —”

  “A heating vent?”

  “Sure. And there in the floor of the very first room I saw one, so I got out my army-knife screwdriver and removed the grate and squeezed down into the heating duct. It was a tight fit, I’ll tell you — had to tie my bucket to my foot and pull it along behind me. Those old ducts run all over the house, but the central duct runs more or less in a straight line to the back, so with my flashlight in one hand and my army knife in the other, I just followed it all the way there, pried up the vent, and popped out by the staircase. I sort of had to bend the grate on that last one. I think maybe Old Yellow Suit’s mad about that.”

  “I bet she’ll forgive you.”

  “Don’t you think? It’s not like it’ll be hard to fix. Only a little one-by-one grate. Hey, this is an impressive globe.”

  For a while the two of them entertained themselves finding places on the globe, but eventually they’d had enough of it, and Sticky Washington had yet to appear. Kate went over to the piano and tried to play it. The keys made no sound. Together they lifted the lid and looked inside. The piano strings had been removed, and in their place were more books.

  “These people certainly have a lot of reading to do,” Kate observed. “Oh well, no great loss. I only know ‘Chopsticks,’ anyway.”

  Almost twenty minutes had passed, and still no sign of Sticky. Kate began to sort through the items in her bucket, making sure each was in its proper place. She had found an arrangement that kept her things secure and within easy reach, and she was very particular about it. She was the sort of person who liked to be constantly busy, Reynie realized. She hadn’t much use for idleness. Which reminded him of something he wanted to ask her. “You know, Kate, something’s been nagging me. You told us you carry all these things around in your bucket because they’re useful, right?”

  “Absolutely,” Kate replied.

  “Then why the kaleidoscope? It’s interesting to look through, maybe, but how is it useful?”

  Kate stopped double-checking the things in her bucket and gave Reynie a searching look. At last she nodded. “You know, I think I can trust you, I can already tell. All right, here’s the secret.” She took out the kaleidoscope and popped off its colorful prismatic lens. Only then did Reynie see that the prismatic lens had been concealing a different lens beneath.

  “The kaleidoscope is a spyglass in disguise,” Kate explained. “It’s a good spyglass and I wouldn’t want anyone to steal it. The kaleidoscope, on the other hand, is rather a bad kaleidoscope. I don’t think it would tempt anyone.”

  The very idea of disguising a good spyglass as a bad kaleidoscope made Reynie laugh with pleasure. “It’s terrific!” he cried.

  Kate wasn’t sure what Reynie was laughing about, but she was eminently agreeable, and before long she was laughing with him. When Reynie had taken a good look at the spyglass, Kate tucked it away again and flopped onto the sofa. “Do you think Sticky’s ever going to finish? I’m having a fine time and all, but I’m about to drop dead from hunger.”

  In answer to her question, the bell rang — only once, and almost imperceptibly, as if Sticky had just tapped it with his fingernails. Through the closed door they heard the pencil woman speaking in her brusque way, then an embarrassed murmur that must have been Sticky’s response. After a moment all was silent again. Again they waited.

  “Shouldn’t be long now,” Reynie said. “It’s easy once you’ve figured out the secret. It only took me three minutes the second time through.”

  Three minutes soon passed, however. Then four, then five. Not until almost fifteen minutes had gone by did the bell ring again, just as softly as before. A moment later the door opened, and Sticky entered the room with the pencil woman behind him. He gave a great smile when he saw Reynie and Kate, not so much because he’d finished the test but because he was relieved to have company again.

  “Congratulations,” said the pencil woman. “You all pass.”

  The children cheered and clapped each other on the backs, and when they were done cheering and clapping, they realized that the pencil woman had left them yet again.

  “She’s awfully fond of leaving, isn’t she?” asked Kate. “I never saw anybody who left so much. I suppose she expects us to wait again?”

  “Maybe Rhonda’s coming for us,” Reynie said.

  “I hope so
. Otherwise I’m going to have to eat some of these books. Sticky, what on earth took you so long? Didn’t you know how hungry I was?”

  Sticky seemed about to cry. He was reaching for his spectacles when he saw Kate was only teasing him. Then he smiled and shrugged. “I had to go through twice.”

  “So did Reynie. But he said there’s some kind of secret that gets you through faster. So why did it take you so long the second time?”

  “It was a little faster,” Sticky protested. “Now what’s this secret you’re talking about?”

  “The secret to getting through the maze,” Reynie said. “You know, the arrows.”

  “Arrows? You mean the ones on those panels?”

  Reynie gave Kate a look of amazement, but Kate replied, “Don’t look at me. I don’t know anything about arrows, remember? I took a shortcut.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “Sticky, if you didn’t use the arrows, how did you get through?”

  Sticky shuffled his feet and said, “I just kept trying one door after the other, until finally I found the staircase. It was sheer luck.”

  “And you found it more quickly the second time? That’s the really lucky part, I guess.”

  “Oh, no, that part was easy,” Sticky said. “I just remembered how I got through the first time: First I took a right, then a left, then straight ahead, then right, then right again, then left, then left again, then right, then straight ahead, and so on, until I came to the staircase. I didn’t have to waste time scratching my head over those panels, or worrying they were going to turn the lights off, or any of that stuff. I just hurried through exactly as I did before.”

  “Exactly as you —,” Kate began, then just shook her head. “That’s incredible.”

  Reynie laughed. “You did it the hard way, Sticky!”

  “What’s the easy way?”

  “Follow the wiggly arrows.”

  “Oh,” Sticky said thoughtfully. “That would have been useful to know.”

  The Trouble with Children Or, Why They Are Necessary

  Their supper was served in a cozy dining room with crowded bookshelves on every wall and a window overlooking the courtyard. Redbirds twittered in the elm tree outside the open window, a gentle breeze drifted into the room, and in general the children were in much better spirits, having passed the tests and at last having gotten some food in their bellies. Rhonda Kazembe had already brought them bowls of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, which they’d eagerly devoured; now she set out a great platter of fruit, and as the children reached happily for bananas and grapes and pears, she sat down and joined them.

  “It’s all part of the test, you know. Being hungry and irritable. It’s important to see how you behave when other children are getting doughnuts and you’re getting nothing, and how well your mind works despite being tired and thirsty. You all did brilliantly, I must say. Just brilliantly.”

  Sticky, who still felt sensitive about his performance in the maze, said, “I wouldn’t say I did brilliantly. I didn’t figure out the solution or find a shortcut, I just stumbled around like a twit.”

  “You mustn’t belittle yourself,” Rhonda said. “I daresay very few people could have done what you did the second time through, retracing your steps so exactly. You made over a hundred turns!”

  “I doubt I could have done it,” Reynie remarked.

  “I know I couldn’t have,” said Kate through a mouthful of grapes.

  Sticky ducked his head.

  “Besides, you aren’t the only child ever to have trouble with the maze,” said Rhonda. “When I first went through it, I got terribly lost.”

  “You got lost in the maze?” Sticky said. The others’ ears perked up.

  “Oh, yes, several years ago, when I took these same tests. I thought I was very clever, because I knew right away that I was in a maze of identical rooms. I’ve often been able to sense such things. ‘Well,’ I thought to myself, ‘if every room has three exits, and I always take the exit to the right, then I’ll make my way around the house to the back in no time.’ Of course, Mr. Benedict had thought of that.”

  “Who’s Mr. Benedict?” Reynie asked.

  “Mr. Benedict is the reason we’re all here. You’ll meet him after supper.”

  “What happened to you in the maze?” Kate asked.

  “Well now, if you do what I did,” Rhonda went on, “after about six rooms you come upon a dead end, and your clever little plan flies out the window. I was so frustrated, I didn’t bother trying to solve the panels. Instead I just tried to follow the green arrows for a while — green so often means ‘go’ — and when that didn’t work I tried the red ones. When the solution finally occurred to me, more than an hour had gone by.”

  “But you still passed?” Sticky asked, heartened to learn of someone else having difficulty with the maze.

  “Of course she passed,” said the pencil woman, entering the dining room. “Rhonda was the most gifted child ever to take the tests. She did so well on everything else, she would have passed no matter what happened in the maze.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Rhonda said. “If you aren’t the most gifted person ever to have taken Mr. Benedict’s tests, I’m the queen of England.”

  At this, the pencil woman’s cheeks turned as red as her hair.

  As he had already admitted, Sticky often got mixed up when he was excited, and in this frenzy of mysteries and revelations, he could hardly think straight. “What’s that you said about being the queen of England?” he asked Rhonda. “Was it a riddle?”

  Rhonda laughed. “That was only a joke, Sticky. I’m hardly a queen, you know, and I’m not from England. I was born in a country called Zambia and brought here to Stonetown when I was a child.”

  “Zambia? So did you speak Bembi, then, or one of the other Bantu languages?”

  “Why, Bembi,” Rhonda answered, taken aback. “And how on earth did you know that? Do you speak it?”

  “Oh, no, I’m sure I couldn’t. I can read most languages, but I have trouble speaking anything but English. Can’t get my tongue to do what it’s supposed to.”

  Rhonda smiled. “I can hardly speak it myself, these days — it’s been so long.” She gave him a significant look. “I rarely meet anyone who knows what the languages of Zambia are, much less who can read them.”

  “Sticky knows a good number of things,” said Reynie.

  “I wish he knew when we’re supposed to meet this Mr. Benedict,” Kate said. “It’s been an awfully long day, and I’d like to learn what this is all about.”

  “As for that,” said the pencil woman, “the reason I came in was to tell you that Mr. Benedict is ready to see you. He’s waiting in his study.”

  “What about the other one?” asked Rhonda Kazembe.

  “Apparently there’s been some delay. Mr. Benedict said he will meet with these children now, and she can join them when she arrives.”

  The children wanted to know who this other girl was, but there was no time for questions, for Rhonda and the pencil woman ushered them out of the room and down a long hallway into the study of Mr. Benedict.

  Like every other room in the old house, Mr. Benedict’s study was crammed with books. Books on shelves that rose to the high ceiling, books in stacks on the floor, books holding up a potted violet in desperate need of water. On four chairs arranged before an oak desk rested still more books — which Rhonda and the pencil woman removed so the children could sit — and on the desk itself, piled in precarious, leaning towers, were even more. The children took their seats and looked about the study. Except for the books, the furniture, and the violet, it appeared to be empty.

  “I thought you said he was waiting for us,” Kate said.

  “And indeed I have been,” said a voice, and out from behind the desk where he’d been sitting, hidden by the piles of books, appeared a bespectacled, green-eyed man in a green plaid suit. His thick white hair was shaggy and mussed, his nose was rather large and lumpy like a vegetable, and althou
gh it was clear he had recently shaved, he appeared to have done so without benefit of a mirror, for here and there upon his neck and chin were nicks from a razor, and occasional white whiskers that he’d missed altogether. This was Mr. Benedict.

  With a friendly smile, Mr. Benedict stepped round to introduce himself to the children, shaking hands and calling each by name. As he did so, Rhonda Kazembe and the pencil woman followed him, standing on either side as he moved from child to child. When he stepped back to lean against his desk, the two women again followed him and stood closely on either side, watching him with alert expressions, as if worried what he might do. It was very curious, and more than a little unsettling.

  “First, children, I wish to congratulate you,” said Mr. Benedict. “You have all done exceedingly well today. There is much to explain, of course, but I’m afraid the explanations must wait a bit longer, until we are joined by another.” He took out a pocket watch, checked the time, and sighed. To the pencil woman he said, “Number Two, any word from Milligan about our missing young friend?”

  “Not yet,” said the pencil woman. “But he said it should be soon.”

  “Would you please go meet them? I want to be sure she’s had a bite to eat.”

  The pencil woman gave him a doubtful look.

  “I’ll be fine,” he assured her. “Rhonda is right here.”

  With an uncertain nod, the pencil woman took her leave.

  “Did you just call her Number Two?” asked Kate.

  “She prefers we use her code name,” explained Rhonda. “She’s shy about her real name. For no good reason, if you ask me. It’s a perfectly fine name.”

  “For good reasons or not, we all have things we’re shy about,” said Mr. Benedict with a significant look at Sticky, who immediately took to polishing his glasses.

  Kate and Reynie glanced at each other wonderingly.

  “I know you have questions,” Mr. Benedict said. “And I may be able to offer some answers now, though some must come later. What’s on your mind?”

  “I’d like to know who we’re waiting for,” said Kate.