The Mysterious Benedict Society

makes you temporarily believe you don’t have them. And I know it’s a lie, but what a powerful one! Maybe I’m not who I always thought myself to be. Maybe I’m the sort of person who will do anything to hear what I want to believe. . . .

Reynie was crumbling, on the brink of despair. Mr. Benedict had expected him to be a leader to his friends, to be smart enough to devise a plan, to be brave. But he was no kind of leader at all, he knew that now, certainly not brave, and Mr. Benedict felt very far away indeed. More and more, Mr. Curtain seemed like the real man, and Mr. Benedict like a memory from a dream. And Miss Perumal, the only person who always treated him kindly, had become an imaginary reader to whom he wrote imaginary letters.

What has happened to you? he thought. He’d never expected doing the right thing to be so hard. But it was. Too hard for him, anyway. He was the wrong person for this task, the wrong person in the wrong place.

Reynie squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to cry. But that only made him see the Whisperer all the more clearly. How was he supposed to resist the Whisperer when it was the one thing that offered relief? What he needed was help — some encouragement, some guidance, anything to bolster his resolve. The others all looked to him. Who was he supposed to look to?

It had to be Mr. Benedict, Reynie thought. If Mr. Benedict couldn’t help him, then he was beyond help.

Reynie climbed down and went to the window. He gazed out into the dark night. Kate was off somewhere risking her neck. Sticky was murmuring in his sleep, having troubled dreams. And Constance’s dreams could be no less troubled — she had more to worry about than anyone.

Reynie would send one message, one message only. He had never been superstitious, but he decided now that if he received no response to help him, he would give up. Just give up and take an easier path. He wouldn’t have to try to be some kind of hero, wouldn’t have to fail — and soon it would be too late to matter. There would be nothing he could do, no point in trying. It would be out of his hands.

Just thinking about it was so enticing Reynie almost didn’t send the message. But then, squeezing his lips tight in determination, he signaled the words before he could change his mind: Whisperer too strong. Please advise. — RM

Reynie waited at the window, his heart hammering. He felt his entire future, indeed his entire character, depended upon the next few moments. Send me something, he thought. Please just send me . . . just send me anything.

He waited. Minutes crawled by. Why must they take so long? Perhaps they had nothing to offer him. Perhaps they were racking their brains for anything to say other than “good luck.” Or perhaps they weren’t even watching — perhaps the Recruiters had found them. Reynie couldn’t know the reason, but the reason hardly mattered. What mattered was the empty night.

“I can’t believe this is it,” Reynie thought, with the strangest mixture of despair and relief.

But this was it. It was all over.

He was just turning from the window when he saw a distant flash, a pinprick of light among the trees on the mainland shore. Someone, at last, was signaling a response. Reynie heard his pulse pounding in his ears. He held his breath until the message was completed.

Remember the white knight.

Reynie let out his breath. A long, slow release. He didn’t have to think very hard to know what Mr. Benedict meant by that. Though it seemed so long ago, he well remembered their conversation about the chess problem. The white knight had made a move, changed his mind, and started over.

“And do you believe this was a good move?” Mr. Benedict had asked.

“No, sir,” Reynie had answered.

“Why, then, do you think he made it?”

And Reynie had replied, “Perhaps because he doubted himself.”

Reynie stared out the window for a long time. Then he put down the flashlight and climbed back into bed. His heartbeat had steadied, his shoulders relaxed. In his mind he took out the letter he had just written to Miss Perumal, crumpled it up, and threw it away.

He would write her another.

The Mouse in the Culvert

As Reynie composed a more optimistic letter to his former tutor — indeed, even as, in his mind, he wrote the words “and now our hopes really do lie with Kate” — Kate was feeling less and less optimistic herself.

Her problem wasn’t finding Mr. Curtain’s secret computer room. Her problem was not getting caught.

At first everything had gone fine. Kate had flitted through the shadows behind the dormitory, and in no time had made her way down to the boulders behind the Institute Control building, kicked open the secret entrance, and darted inside the foyer. It was here that the problems began. The ceilings had no crawl space, and the air vents were too small to accommodate her. She had no choice but to move about in the open. And it was open in the passage, as a quick peek from the foyer proved — open and bright as day. Not to mention it was hardly a “short passage” at all. Lined with doorways, it stretched off into the distance, where it finally turned a corner. Why had Sticky said it was short?

Then Kate remembered the boys had been blindfolded. They must have thought it was short, because they’d only gone a little way before Jackson had led them through a doorway and onto the tower steps. Any one of these near doorways might lead to the steps, then. Should she try them all?

As if in answer, about halfway down the passage a door slid open and Jackson stepped out into the passage. Kate pulled back into the foyer and listened. No footsteps. She peeked out again. Jackson was leaning against the wall by the door, munching absently on a stick of licorice. He seemed relaxed, settled, as if he intended to stay there awhile. Kate smiled. She thought it pretty likely he was guarding the tower steps. Now she just needed to get past him.

Pulling back out of view, Kate eased her slingshot from her bucket, snugged a marble into it, then peeked around the corner again. She waited a long minute, then another. Finally the opportunity came: Jackson looked down to straighten his sash, muttering something to himself. It was now or never. Kate launched the marble down