The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

“What does speed have to do with what the words mean?” Kate asked.

“Speed has to do with what words you see,” Reynie said, and with the others looking on, he fanned the pages of the journal from left to right. Sure enough, the only words that appeared in the bottom corners were these: TAKE THE SHORTCUT.

“Well, what do you know!” said Kate with a laugh. “Of course! The other words are on narrow pages, so when you fan through like that —”

“— only the corners of the wider pages show up,” Sticky finished, nodding. “Yeah, I get it too.”

Kate whistled. “I wouldn’t have figured that out in a million years.”

Constance looked exceedingly pleased.

“Okay, so we’re one step closer,” Reynie said. “We need to take the shortcut. But what shortcut? A shortcut to where?”

The group fell silent, and Reynie thrust his chin into his hands, trying to concentrate. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Constance do the same thing. At first he thought she was mocking him, and he started to tell her to knock it off. Then he saw her close her eyes, obviously trying to think. Reynie felt oddly, deeply touched. He had no time to linger on the feeling, though, for just then someone knocked on the door.

“Are you all in there?” said Rhonda. “You have a visitor.”

The children exchanged frustrated glances. If they didn’t want to raise suspicion, they had no choice. For the moment, this meeting of the Society was adjourned.

Half-Truths and Deceptions

I left as soon as I received Rhonda’s telegram,” Moocho Brazos was saying. “I hoped to catch up and warn you, but you were too far ahead. I’m afraid I was rather agitated when I got here.”

“Perfectly understandable,” said Miss Perumal, passing him a platter of cold cuts. “It was good of you to try to warn us.”

Everyone was gathered in the dining room again except Rhonda — who’d returned to the questioning interrupted by Moocho’s arrival — and the recent confusion had been sorted out. Moocho and the police officers had apologized to one another (much to the displeasure of Mr. Bane, who would not be soothed), and Kate had whistled Madge down from the eaves — for the bird Sticky had seen was indeed Kate’s clever falcon.

(“What a bird!” Kate had exclaimed. “She must have seen me get into the station wagon and followed it all this way! Oh, you must be exhausted, you foolish, naughty thing!” she scolded, stroking the bird’s feathers. She was clearly flattered to discover her falcon was so attached. Nevertheless, she felt obliged to leave Madge outside, for a bird of prey could hardly be trusted in the same house with the precious homing pigeon.)

“Does Milligan know about any of this?” asked Moocho, politely taking only enough cold cuts to feed a normal- sized person.

“Rhonda’s been unable to reach him,” said Mrs. Washington.

Mr. Washington, who had been staring out the window, spoke up for the first time since they’d arrived. “What is Milligan doing, anyway? I thought he’d already tracked down everyone Mr. Benedict wanted to help.”

“Everyone but the Executives who disappeared with Mr. Curtain,” Kate said through a mouthful of turkey cold cut. She swallowed and continued, “Lately he’s been going on other kinds of missions. He’s . . . uh . . . I’m actually not supposed to know about them,” she said nervously.

“Don’t say anything you shouldn’t, dear,” said Mrs. Washington.

“If the missions have had anything to do with Mr. Curtain,” said Reynie (who was hoping to stall questions about the envelope Mr. Benedict had given them), “it might be important for us to know about them.”

“That’s true,” said Mr. Washington, coming to sit at the table. “This concerns all of us. Do you know anything that might be relevant, Kate? You should keep quiet about anything that isn’t, of course.”

Kate cast a wary glance at the dining room door. Miss Perumal’s mother, seeing this, rose from her seat. “I’ll stand guard,” she said. “You can fill me in later. I can’t hear a word when you’re all whispering, anyway, and this is certainly a time for whispering.” She went out. The others looked expectantly at Kate.

“He’s been investigating the activities of Mr. Curtain’s creepy henchmen,” Kate said. “The Ten Men. They’ve been up to something these past few months — breaking into offices, stealing things from laboratories — but no one can figure out what it is.”

“Ten Men?” said Miss Perumal. “What a curious name.”

“They’re called that because they have ten different ways of hurting you,” Sticky said knowingly.

Sticky’s parents turned to stare at him. “I see you’ve already heard about them,” said Mr. Washington.

“We don’t know any details, though,” Reynie said quickly, as Sticky averted his eyes.

“Ten Men look pretty much like regular businessmen,” Kate said, “which can make them hard for the authorities to spot. But everything they carry is a weapon. You already know about their shockwatches, right? Well, they also use their neckties like whips. And their pocket handkerchiefs are soaked in something — if they hold it to your nose you’ll be knocked right out — and their briefcases are chock-full of evil stuff, too: razor-sharp pencils, poisonous chewing gum, even a laser pointer that fires a real laser — not just a red light, I mean, but a beam they can cut your ears off with!”

At this, everyone at the table looked uncomfortably at their plates of cold cuts. Sticky’s hands went to his ears. “They really cut them off?”

“Well, I don’t know if they really do,” Kate admitted, “but they could if they wanted to.”

“We get the picture,” said Mrs. Washington, pushing her plate away. “These are bad men.”

“Nasty men,” Kate corrected. “Milligan has been in some awful scrapes, I can tell you. If he weren’t Milligan, I’d be worried about him all the time.”