The Mysterious Benedict Society

stretch of rope you could lasso the flagpole, then climb up and stand on the pole while you got the window open.”

“You call that simple?” Reynie said.

Kate shrugged. “Simple enough.”

“Anyway,” Reynie said, “it’s in plain sight and you’d surely be spotted. I don’t think that’s what Mr. Benedict had in mind when he told us not to take unnecessary risks.”

Kate sighed. “I suppose that’s true.”

Constance, in the meantime, was looking disgusted. “This is a terrible spyglass, Kate. It makes everything look far away.”

Kate turned the spyglass around and handed it back to her.

The children lingered on the hilltop for some time. It was pleasant up there, with the grand view and the breeze, and though none of them said it, they were reluctant to go back down and meet the Executives again. Kate was more reluctant than any of them, not because she feared being caught as a spy (though, like the others, she was nervous about that), but because she hated to stop exploring. Exploring was what she did best, and Kate liked always to be doing what she did best. Not that she was a bad sport; in fact, she was a very good one, and she rarely complained. But Kate had spent all her life — ever since her father abandoned her, which affected her more than she cared to admit — trying to prove she didn’t need anyone’s help, and this was easiest to believe when she was doing what she was good at.

So when Sticky anxiously suggested they head back, Kate couldn’t help heaving another sigh. Everyone else felt like sighing, too, however, so no one asked Kate what hers was for.

Reynie helped Constance climb onto Kate’s back, and the children began making their way down to the dormitory. Kate kept a hopeful eye out for anything unusual, but unfortunately there was nothing to see except boulders and sand and swaths of green vegetation.

Halfway down the hill, Sticky stopped. “That’s odd.”

Kate’s eyes lit up. She glanced all around. “Something’s odd? What’s odd?”

Sticky pointed several yards off the path toward a lush green bed of ivy — or something like ivy — covering the ground near a cluster of boulders. “See that ground vine with the tiny leaves? It’s a rare plant called drapeweed that flourishes in thin soil.”

“Oh boy,” said Constance. “A rare plant.”

Kate’s face fell.

“What I was going to say,” Sticky persisted, “is that some of it was planted more recently than the rest. Mature drapeweed develops a woody brown stem, but young drapeweed has tender green shoots. Otherwise they look the same.”

The others peered at the drapeweed, trying to make out the shoots and stems beneath the dark green leaves. It was true: A large patch in the middle was different from the rest, although the difference was so subtle only a botanist — or Sticky — would have noticed it.

“What do you think?” said Constance. “Maybe something’s been buried there?”

“Or somebody,” suggested Kate. She looked at Reynie. “Shouldn’t we check it out?”

Reynie was pleasantly surprised. He still wasn’t used to other children wanting his opinion. “I think so,” he said after a moment. “But let’s be careful.”

“Careful about what?” Kate said. “It’s a plant.”

“I don’t know. It makes me uneasy somehow.”

“It’s probably nothing,” said Sticky, who began to think he shouldn’t have said anything. He followed the others off the path. “Maybe some of the vine developed fungus and died, and a gardener just filled in the bare spot. Drapeweed is prone to fungus. . . .”

The others stopped at the edge of the drapeweed bed. It was about twice the size of a living room rug and — to Kate, at least — about half as interesting. “Looks like a patch of ivy,” she said, hitching Constance higher on her back. “Does it give you a rash?”

“No, it’s perfectly harmless,” Sticky said, walking toward the middle of the bed. Kate and Constance moved to follow him. “I’ll pluck a younger shoot and show you the —”

In the next moment, the drapeweed seemed to swallow him.

Traps and Nonsense

Kate and Constance were two steps behind Sticky when he fell through the drapeweed. If he’d been the least bit farther away, there would have been no saving him. Nor would Sticky have stood a chance had it been any other child lunging to grab him. As it was, with a desperate dive onto her belly, Kate barely managed to snatch Sticky’s hand before it disappeared.

Their troubles were far from over. Kate’s dive to the ground had sent Constance tumbling over her shoulders. In a flash she caught the girl’s ankle before she, too, disappeared — but then the weight of her two catches began to drag Kate forward into the hole.

“Um, Reynie?” Kate called through gritted teeth. “A little help?”

Reynie rushed over and grabbed Kate’s legs.

Hauling Sticky and Constance to safety was an arduous, tricky business (and an unpleasant one, too, as Constance complained the whole time of Sticky’s elbow in her ribs). But eventually Reynie and Kate had dragged them back up onto solid ground, where all four now lay on their backs, looking up at the sky and panting from the exertion.

“Apparently drapeweed isn’t ‘perfectly harmless’ after all,” Constance said.