The Mysterious Benedict Society

“Exactly! And ‘market’ was the very first word we heard come through Mr. Benedict’s Receiver, remember?”

Sticky nodded — of course he remembered — but Kate only shrugged.

“I’ll have to take your word for it,” she said. “Anyway, the classes are obviously linked to the hidden messages. So the question is how it all fits together.”

“The sooner we become Messengers, the sooner we find out!” said Reynie excitedly.

“We aren’t Messengers yet, so hold your horses,” said Sticky, who was still trying to recover from his wounded feelings and felt a bit testy. “We’ve only been here a few days.”

“It’s true,” Reynie sighed. “All right, let’s report this to Mr. Benedict.”

They prepared to send a report to the mainland, only to be thwarted by the presence of Mr. Curtain on the plaza. And then, just as Mr. Curtain was finally going inside, a couple of Executives came out for a leisurely stroll over the Institute grounds. They seemed intent on strolling every walkway and path in sight. The night was growing late, and the children, exhausted, decided to adjourn. They couldn’t very well succeed in their classes if they couldn’t stay awake in them.

“The report will keep,” Kate said with a yawn, “and in the meantime we’ll sleep. You boys have a good night.”

She scurried up her rope, drew it into the ceiling after her, and disappeared. With a mixture of amusement and admiration, Reynie and Sticky watched her go. Kate’s method of coming and going still took some getting used to.

“What must it be like, getting around the way she does?” Sticky wondered.

Reynie shrugged. “Dusty, I imagine.”

Long after Kate had gone her dusty way and the boys had gone to bed, Reynie lay awake, calming his nerves by composing a mental letter to Miss Perumal. He could never actually write the letter, of course — he could never send it — but it soothed Reynie to think of Miss Perumal, in a setting far from this responsibility and danger, sipping her tea and correcting his Tamil grammar. He reflected upon the pleasant afternoons they’d spent walking in Oldwood Park, discussing this thing or that — her mother, or the aged trees in the park, or baseball, or dogs. And the times, too, when he’d told her about some savage teasing he’d got from other children, upon which Miss Perumal never offered advice — which would have been useless — but only nodded and clucked her tongue, smiling sadly at Reynie as if his memory were her memory, too, as if they shared it. Well, he supposed they did share it, now that he’d told her of it. And somehow this had always lightened its effect on him — even, on occasion, cheered him right up.

Reynie had just ended the letter when he heard Sticky rise and move about the room, and then, after a pause, whisper, “Reynie, are you awake?”

It would have been a nice way to go to sleep; Reynie was feeling calm for the first time all day. But he couldn’t very well thank Miss Perumal in his letter for always being there to listen, then turn around and not be there for Sticky. “Yes, I’m awake,” he replied.

“The coast is clear now.”

Reynie looked down from his bunk.

Sticky had put on his spectacles and was peering out the window. “If Kate hadn’t taken her flashlight, we could send the report. We should remember that next time. We might as well get something out of a bad night’s sleep.”

“We could flip the light switch,” Reynie suggested.

“I suppose so,” Sticky said doubtfully, with a twinge of worry in his voice, “but what if there’s someone outside? I can’t keep an eye out from over by the light switch.”

“There are two of us, remember. I’ll watch out the window.”

Sticky was casting about for his polishing cloth. “Makes me nervous,” he said, finding the cloth on his desk and giving his glasses a brisk rub. “I keep thinking about that Messenger’s face when Jackson told him about the Waiting Room. The last thing we want is to be suspected of something.” He put his glasses on and sighed. “Now I wish I hadn’t mentioned it. But I suppose we ought to?”

“We’ll do it quickly and get it over with,” Reynie said.

The light switch, unfortunately, made a sharp clicking sound when it was thrown. Sticky cringed with every click, as if he were being shocked, and by the end of the message his trembling, sweaty fingers were slipping off the switch. At last the message was sent, however, and no one had discovered them.

Peering toward the mainland shore, Reynie chuckled. “They want to know what we’re still doing up.”

Sticky felt too anxious to smile. “Anything else?”

“We’re doing excellent work, we must continue to be careful, and now we should really get some sleep.”

“They said all that?”

Reynie climbed down from the television. “Well, they said, ‘Excellent. Careful. Sleep.’”

“They don’t have to tell me twice,” Sticky said, slipping into bed. “Especially not the careful part. My stomach’s all in knots, Reynie. It feels that way all the time.”

“I know,” Reynie said, climbing up to his bunk. “Same with me. But at least we know Mr. Benedict and his crew are out there watching. We’re not alone, right?”

“I suppose that should be encouraging,” Sticky said uncertainly.

“I take it you don’t find it very encouraging.”

“No,” Sticky replied, pulling his sheet up tightly under his chin. “No, ever since I first saw him, I keep imagining Mr. Curtain chasing me down, getting closer and closer. He seems a lot closer than Mr. Benedict and the others do, way off on that shore.”