The Mysterious Benedict Society

“No problem,” whispered Rhonda Kazembe from behind Reynie.

The pencil woman’s eyes darted to their side of the room. She stared hard at Reynie, whose mouth went dry. Why on earth didn’t Rhonda keep her mouth closed? Was she trying to get them thrown out?

“You may begin the test as soon as you receive it,” said the pencil woman, turning away at last, and Reynie resisted the urge to sigh with relief — even a sigh might disqualify him. Besides, what relief he felt didn’t last long: The pencil woman had begun handing out the tests.

The first child to receive one was a tough-looking boy in a baseball cap who eagerly grabbed it, looked at the first question, and burst into tears. The girl behind him looked at her test, rubbed her eyes as if they weren’t working properly, then looked again. Her head wobbled on her neck.

“If you begin to feel faint,” said the pencil woman, moving on to the next child, “place your head between your knees and take deep breaths. If you think you may vomit, please come to the front of the room, where a trash can will be provided.”

Down the row she went, distributing the tests. The crying boy had begun flipping through the test now — there appeared to be several pages — and with each new page his sobs grew louder and more desperate. When he reached the end, he began to wail.

“I’m afraid loud weeping isn’t permitted,” said the pencil woman. “Please leave the room.”

The boy, greatly relieved, leaped from his desk and raced to the door, followed at once by two other children who hadn’t received the test yet but were terrified now to see it. The pencil woman closed the door.

“If any others flee the room in panic or dismay,” she said sternly, “please remember to close the door behind you. Your sobs may disturb the other test-takers.”

She continued handing out the test. Child after child received it with trembling fingers, and child after child, upon looking at the questions, turned pale, or red, or a subtle shade of green. By the time the pencil woman dropped the pages upon his desk, dread was making Reynie’s stomach flop like a fish. And for good reason — the questions were impossible. The very first one read:

The territories of the Naxcivan Autonomous Republic and the Nagorno-Karabakh region are disputed by what two countries?

A. Bhutan, which under the 1865 Treaty of Sinchulu ceded border land to Britain; and Britain, which in exchange for that land provided Bhutan an annual subsidy, and under whose influence Bhutan’s monarchy was established in 1907.

B. Azerbaijan, whose territory in 1828 was divided between Russia and Persia by the Treaty of Turkmenchay; and Armenia, a nation founded after the destruction of the Seleucid Empire some two thousand years ago, likewise incorporated into Russia by the aforementioned treaty.

C. Vanuatu, which having been administered (until its independence) by an Anglo-French Condominium, retains both French and English as official languages (in addition to Bislama, or Bichelama); and Portugal, whose explorer Pedro Fernandez de Quiros became in 1606 the first European to discover the islands Vanuatu comprises.

Although there were two more answers to choose from, Reynie didn’t read them. If every question was like this one, he had absolutely no hope of passing. A quick glance at the next few questions did nothing to encourage him. If anything, they got worse. And this was only the first page! All around him children were shivering, sighing, grinding their teeth. Reynie felt like joining them. So much for those special opportunities. Back to the orphanage he would go, where no one — not even good Miss Perumal — knew what to do with him. It had been a nice idea, but apparently he did not have what it took.

Even so, he wasn’t ready to leave. He had yet to follow the directions, and because he was determined not to quit until he had at least tried, he proceeded to follow them now. Dutifully he wrote his name atop the first page — that was the first step. Well, you’ve accomplished that much, he thought. The second step was to read all the questions and answers carefully. Reynie took a deep breath. There were forty questions in all. Just reading them would take him most of the hour. It didn’t help that the pencil woman now sat eating pickles — they were especially crisp ones, too — as she watched the children struggle.

The second question wanted to know where the common vetch originated and to what family it belonged. Reynie had no idea what a common vetch was, and the possible answers offered no helpful clue — it might be an antelope, a bird, a rodent, or a vine. Reynie went on to the third question, which had to do with subatomic particles called fermions and an Indian physicist named Satyendranath Bose. The fourth question asked which church was built by the emperor Justinian to demonstrate his superiority to the late Theodoric’s Ostrogothic successors. On and on the questions went. To his credit, Reynie recognized the names of a few places, a few mathematic principles, and one or two important historical figures, but it wouldn’t do him any good. He would be lucky to answer a single question correctly, much less all of them.

When he was exactly halfway through the test (he was on question twenty, regarding the difference between parataxis and hypotaxis), Reynie heard Rhonda Kazembe rise from the desk behind him. Was she already finished? Well, of course! She had all the answers. Reynie grimaced in irritation, and as Rhonda stepped forward to turn in her test, the other children gasped in amazement. But the pencil woman seemed not the least bit suspicious. If anything, she was absorbed in Rhonda’s bizarre appearance and hardly glanced at the test as she took it.

Reynie had a sudden insight: Rhonda was calling attention to herself on purpose. It was a trick. No one would suspect her of cheating, because who in her right mind would make such a spectacle of herself if she intended to cheat? The green hair (it must be a wig), the poofy dress, the whispering — they were all meant to distract. Most people would assume that if a child intended to cheat, then surely she would call as little attention to herself as possible, would be as quiet as a mouse and as plain as wallpaper. Reynie had to hand it to Rhonda: She might not be smart enough to pass the test, but she was clever enough to get away with cheating on it. He felt a pang of jealousy. Now Rhonda would move on to experience those special opportunities, while Reynie would mope his way back to the orphanage, defeated.

As Rhonda passed by him on the way to her desk, she winked and let fall a tiny slip of paper. It drifted down like a feather and settled lightly upon Reynie’s desk. The test answers. Reynie peeked over at the pencil woman, but she hadn’t noticed — she was busy grading Rhonda’s test now, making check mark after check mark and nodding her head. So the answers were indeed the right ones. And here they sat on his desk.

If he’d felt tempted before, when he’d had no idea how hard the test would be, that temptation was nothing compared to now. No matter that he’d resisted, no matter that he’d chosen this seat precisely to avoid this situation, here he was, staring at a slip of paper that contained the key to his hopes. All he had to do was turn it