The Mysterious Benedict Society

Kate gave a satisfied nod and knelt down. Reynie climbed onto her shoulders. He steadied himself with his hands against the stone wall and got his feet set on her shoulders. Slowly, smoothly, Kate straightened up. Reynie’s chin came to the bottom of the window. He could just see inside . . . and what he saw was the most curious thing.

Two lines of Recruiters — there were dozens of them — stood back to back down the length of the gym floor, as if preparing for a dance. Each of them faced some kind of cut-out figure, but Reynie wasn’t sure what they were. At the far end of the lines stood Jackson, S.Q., and a great many other Executives. Jackson was shouting something Reynie couldn’t make out. Again as if in a dance, the Recruiters adopted different poses. Some spread their arms as if welcoming an embrace. Others reached out as if to shake hands in greeting. And still others raised their hands, palms forward, in a calming gesture that Reynie recognized too well. All of them were smiling, smiling. Jackson shouted again.

Reynie could see the figures more plainly now. The figures came in all sizes, from small children to full-grown adults. He shuddered.

This was no dance. The Recruiters were preparing for something. But what? Hadn’t Mr. Curtain’s journal said new children were no longer necessary? And this many Recruiters certainly weren’t required to guard the bridge gates. No, they were preparing for something else. The Improvement. The thing to come.

“All right, everyone!” Jackson shouted. “That’s it for today!”

The Executives started making their way down the lines, collecting the paper figures. The practice was over, and it suddenly occurred to Reynie that he’d never seen Recruiters leaving the gym — which must mean they used the back door. His stomach did a flip. He and Kate needed to get out of here. “Kate,” Reynie whispered, glancing down. “We need —”

He didn’t finish, for just then he glanced back through the window and saw S.Q. staring up at him.

Fear shot through Reynie like a dose of hot poison. His nerves tingled all over his body, and in his panic to get down, he toppled from Kate’s shoulders.

“Are you all right?” Kate whispered.

“Run!” Reynie cried, regaining his feet. “Run, run, run!”

Reynie was halfway up the rise when Kate overtook him and caught his arm in an iron grip. “Come on!”

The back door gave an ominous thump, then another, followed by the sound of angry curses. The tree limb had bought them a few extra seconds. Together they dashed up the rise, with Reynie half running and half being dragged behind Kate, feeling as if he’d been tied to a galloping horse. He cast one glance up at Constance — a red smudge on the hilltop, jumping up and down and waving furiously — and then he and Kate flung themselves down the other side of the rise, out of sight.

“Tell me they didn’t recognize you,” Kate said, pulling him to his feet.

“I don’t know,” said Reynie.

“Then let’s head for the hills and hope for the best.”

And so they fled: away from the gym, away from the paths, away from the Institute — into the tangled rock- jungle of sand dunes, ridges, and crags that made up the island’s interior. Weaving among the hills, keeping low, constantly changing directions, they ran as if their lives depended upon it — which indeed they might have. In his mind’s eye Reynie kept seeing S.Q.’s disapproving, accusing eyes. Had he been recognized? Had he been?

When Kate thought they’d put enough distance between themselves and the gym, and was convinced they hadn’t been followed, the two children hunkered beneath a scraggly copse of stunted cedar trees to rest. It was just in time — another step and Reynie might have collapsed into a useless heap. Between ragged breaths he told Kate what he’d seen, right up to the part when he’d seen S.Q. frowning at him from across the gym.

Unbelievably, or almost unbelievably, Kate made a joke of it. “Well, if he recognized you, he’s probably wondering how you got to be so tall.” She chuckled. “The poor guy, he’s not the brightest —”

Reynie groaned. He’d just realized something. Having only just sat down, he struggled to his feet again. “We need to split up.”

“Why? I thought we’d just circle back up to Constance —”

“Listen, Kate, they’ll know it took two people. The window’s too high for one person to have looked through without help, remember? You go back for Constance. If S.Q. recognized me, at least you can claim you were miles away when it happened.”

“Gosh, you’re right,” Kate said, adjusting her bucket on her belt. “You head that way, then, and I’ll fetch Constance. If we’re lucky we’ll be laughing about this over supper.”

“If we’re lucky,” said Reynie, who was not feeling lucky at all. In fact he had the awful feeling he wouldn’t see Kate again. If Mr. Curtain knew the truth, by tomorrow Reynie might become someone else entirely — a mixture of mysterious pain and forgotten purposes, forgotten dreams. His friends’ faces would blur, like photographs somehow being undeveloped, then disappear entirely. The mission would fail. All would be lost.

Suddenly, Reynie felt compelled to grab Kate’s hand. “Thanks for helping me get up that hill back there. I never could have made it in time by myself.”

Kate waved him off. “Oh, good grief. Just do me a favor. If you get sent to the Waiting Room, tell Sticky I said hello.”

Reynie’s face fell. “It’s not funny, Kate.”

For a moment — a fleeting moment — Kate looked desperately sad. “Well, of course it’s not funny, Reynie Muldoon. But what do you want me to do? Cry? Now get going, will you? And make sure I see you at supper!” She turned and hurried into the gloom.

And so, in the darkness and mist, Reynie picked his way alone through the forbidding hills. In half an hour he arrived, weary and wet, at a path on the far side of the Institute. Nobody accosted him in the student dormitory, where he slipped into his room and changed. And no one looked askance at him as he crossed the plaza. He had yet