The Mysterious Benedict Society

serious trouble now, do you realize that?”

Kate scarcely heard Martina. Her mind was racing. Could she get past Martina? Alone, maybe, but with Constance on her back? Martina would call for help, and the Recruiters guarding the computer room would come running. All Martina had to do was hold Kate off a few short moments. No, they’d never make it. They would have to try another way.

“Well, what do you have to say for yourselves?” Martina snarled, advancing threateningly.

Kate bit her lip, clenched her fists, and for once, said nothing. Instead she whirled on her heel, hitched Constance higher on her back, and ran away.

Martina stared after the girls, extremely confused. It was not like Kate Wetherall to back down like that, not like her at all. And why had they come into the secret passage in the first place? They’d been in a hurry, clearly rushing toward some urgent business. Her face darkened as she contemplated the possibilities.

Just then Jillson rounded the corner. She’d spent a dreadful night in the bathroom making sounds like a sea lion, but now that she was feeling better she was coming to relieve Martina from guard duty. “Jackson told me to take over for you. If Mr. Curtain doesn’t finish the job with Reynard and George, you may be having another session in a few hours. Go get some rest.”

Martina wasn’t listening. Her mind was awhirl with speculations about Kate. The wicked little snoop must know this was the way up to the Whispering Gallery, she thought. Why else would the girls have come here? And what had they been in such a hurry for? And . . . and what was that infernal beeping sound in the distance? Martina was finding it difficult to concentrate.

“Jillson, did you pass Kate Wetherall in the foyer just now?”

“And that little squirt Constance? You bet I did. I sent them straight back to their room. Some kids never learn. It’ll be a brainsweep for those two, no doubt about it.”

“They aren’t going back to their room,” said Martina. “Something’s going on.”

Jillson frowned. “Is that so? Do you think it has anything to do with that maddening honking sound? What is that, anyway?”

“You’ve noticed it, too, then. I don’t know. It almost sounds like — no, it definitely sounds like a code. Yes, it’s a code! Morse code. Jillson, you don’t know Morse code, do you?”

“Why on earth would I? Nobody uses Morse code anymore. But you know, Mr. Curtain keeps all sorts of code books in his office cabinet. We could take a look. I have the cabinet key with me — privilege of a senior Executive.”

Moments later the two of them were in Mr. Curtain’s office, poring over a chart of Morse code, hastily scrawling a transcription of the distant honks.

“What’s a ‘flauta’?” Jillson asked, scratching her head.

Martina corrected the mistake. Not short short long, but long long short — not U but G. Flag tower. “I knew it! Let’s go find Jackson. We have two more spies to catch!”

The spies in question were at that very moment hurrying down a corridor in the Helpers’ barracks, where Kate had just burst into a storage room and snatched a ladder from an alarmed Helper. Now they were tripping and stumbling toward the exit. Kate stumbled because of the unwieldy ladder. Constance stumbled because it was her natural method of locomotion, and because her feet hurt from being in the wrong shoes.

“Come on!” Kate urged, panting for breath. “Can’t you move any faster? Honestly, I can’t carry you and the ladder both.”

“Just leave me then! You don’t want me along, anyway.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Kate muttered, banging the door open at the end of the corridor and hauling the ladder out into the early morning light. Constance came tottering after her, struggling to keep up as Kate rounded the classroom building and charged onto the empty plaza.

The horn still sounded from across the water, insistently repeating its urgent message.

Kate was just thinking, I wish they’d knock it off now, someone else is sure to catch on, when the horn abruptly stopped. Unfortunately, even as it did so, two Executives emerged from behind the boulders on the hill to stare curiously toward the mainland. (One of them was S.Q., whose gangly frame Kate recognized even from this distance. The other, judging by the size of her head, was a tall-haired Executive named Regina.) They were too distracted at the moment to notice the girls. Still, this would never do. Constance was dragging behind. If the Executives spotted them, she was sure to be caught.

“Listen,” Kate puffed as they crossed the plaza, “if the sashes come after us, I’ll slow them down. You keep going. Head straight up the hill behind the Institute Control Building — to that stone wall below the brook. I’ll catch up with you there.”

Constance stopped. “All the way up there? But I can’t walk that far! I’m exhausted! My feet are killing me!”

Kate skidded to a halt. “You can’t make anything easy, can you? Not even now, the most important moment of your life?” She dropped the ladder and reached into her bucket for the rope.

“What are you doing?” said Constance. “I thought we were in some huge hurry.”

“Put a lid on it,” Kate said.

Before Constance could think of a grumpy reply, Kate had tied the ladder to her belt and hoisted the smaller girl upon her back. “I’ll just have to drag the stupid thing. It’s going to make an awful racket, though, so hang on.”

With that, Kate was off, faster than she would have thought possible herself, perhaps spurred on by the tremendous bang and clatter and scrape of the ladder dragging behind her. In the distance Regina began to shout — the ruckus had caught her attention. Kate glanced up the hill to see S.Q. tripping over his feet, and Regina tripping over S.Q., as they started out after the girls. “Bless those size fifteens,” she thought. “Now we may just make it.”