The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

Kate shrugged. “Nope.”

Even knowing her as they did, the others stared at Kate, flatly amazed. In a matter of seconds — in the time it took the rest of them just to reach the stairway — she had flown down the stairs into the study, found the dictionary, and come out again without being spotted. It seemed impossible.

Kate noticed their expressions. “What?” She bent to look at herself in Constance’s wall mirror. “Do I have something on my face?”

“Just show us the stupid dictionary,” said Constance resentfully. (She still had trouble tying her shoes.)

Kate laid the thick book on the floor, and everyone knelt for a closer look. The dictionary was a tattered old thing with warped covers — evidence of some long-ago water spill — and a hopelessly ruined spine. Gingerly, so as not to damage it further, Reynie opened it and began turning pages. Some were irrevocably stuck together; some fell out at the merest touch. An odor of must and mildew filled the room.

“He should have thrown this away years ago,” Constance said, wrinkling her nose at the mildew smell. “It isn’t even usable.”

Reynie turned a page to reveal a deep, rectangular space cut out of the dictionary pages. Nestled inside the cut-out space was another book. “Not usable as a dictionary, maybe. But as a hiding place it’s perfect.”

The second book had brown leather covers and was rather large itself. Reynie quickly turned to the first page, which was blank except for the following inscription:

Travelers should always keep journals, and journals should always keep secrets. This journal is no exception. I have taken the liberty of writing the first entry. Read it quickly and move on. Bon voyage! — Mr. Benedict

With the others peering over his shoulder, Reynie flipped through the next few pages. It was difficult to gauge whether the journal was an expensive gift or something Mr. Benedict had snatched from a bargain pile — something discarded as a botched product and sold for a nickel. Its pages, although made of fine, heavy paper, had been cut unevenly, so that some were much wider than others. Each page was blank except for a single word written in the outer bottom corner. Reynie flipped to the back of the book. The same. One word per page, but taken in order the words did not form intelligible sentences.

“Let’s go through it nice and slow,” Kate said.

Reynie returned to the front and began turning the pages one at a time, working all the way to the end. The first several pages yielded the following sequence of words:

TAKE DOWN ROSES AND THREE TAKE YOUR CHANCES TAKE TIME TO BELIEVE TAKE UP CINNAMON CANDLES TAKE NOTES TAKE MY RULER TOO TAKE OFF GLOVES TAKE HOME.

About a third of the way through the journal a different sequence began:

THE LUCK OF MY BROTHERS THE NOTION OF CONSEQUENCE THE SCOUNDREL THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT THE NERVE THE PUZZLE THE DOGFISH ATE THE CATFISH THE ANSWER.

And in the last third of the journal, the words in the bottom corners ran like this:

SHORTCUT HAIRCUT SHORTCUT BLUE SHORTCUT CREWCUT SHORTCUT DO SHORTCUT COLDCUT SHORTCUT YOU SHORTCUT UPPERCUT SHORTCUT THROUGH.

Sticky scratched his head. “It’s some kind of word puzzle, I take it.”

“It does mention the word ‘puzzle,’” Kate said. “Maybe that’s a hint?”

They were both looking to Reynie for help, but Constance surprised them all by speaking first. “Take the shortcut,” she whispered, as if to herself.

“What?” Sticky said.

“That’s the answer,” Constance declared, more confidently now. “Take the shortcut.”

Reynie gave Constance a long, searching look. She stared back as if daring him to argue. Instead he turned to the others and said, “I agree with Constance.”

Sticky was baffled. “But . . . but how . . .”

Kate was glancing back and forth between Reynie and Constance. “What makes you think that?” she asked, though she didn’t appear to know which of them to ask.

Reynie held out his hand to Constance, indicating that she should answer.

“It’s obvious,” Constance said. “Those are the only three words that keep being repeated. The other words are meaningless — they’re just there to make things look weird.”

“They may be repeated a lot,” said Sticky, “but how can you be sure that matters?”

“Take a look at them,” Constance said. “They’re always in the corner of a wide page, never in the corner of a narrow one. Doesn’t that seem significant?”

Sticky didn’t have to look. He remembered perfectly where the words fell on every page. “Okay, that’s true, too. But why are the wider pages significant? Who’s to say we can rule out the narrow pages?”

Constance shrugged. She had no answer for this. “I know I’m right, though,” she said. “I can just tell.”

Reynie gazed at her wonderingly. It should have occurred to him, he thought, that Constance would surprise them. Given what she’d been capable of at the age of two, there was no telling what she could do now that she was three. After all, she must have developed considerably in the past six months.

“Reynie?” said Kate. “Any idea about the wide pages?”

Reynie opened the journal to Mr. Benedict’s inscription and drew his finger along this phrase: Read it quickly. “Remember that? I figured it was important, since Mr. Benedict knows how quickly some of us read already — especially Sticky.”