Beside her, Sticky was polishing his spectacles, feeling even more troubled now at the prospect of bumping into a Ten Man. The adults were disturbed as well. All around the table they were shaking their heads, clucking their tongues, and looking very somber indeed. Only Reynie felt unsurprised by Kate’s report, for he retained the feeling — despite Mr. Benedict’s argument against it — that wickedness was something to be expected.
“That’s all I know,” Kate said apologetically. “It doesn’t really shed any light on our situation.”
Reynie noticed Miss Perumal looking thoughtful and prepared himself. He figured he knew what was coming. Sure enough, she turned to him and said, “I’m assuming the envelope Rhonda gave you doesn’t clear anything up. Otherwise you’d have told us right away.”
“It didn’t give us the least idea of where they might have gone,” Reynie said, which was true in a sense. “Maybe Milligan will have some answers. Surely he’ll be here soon.”
“In the meantime, may we see the letter?” Mr. Washington asked.
“Of course,” said Reynie at once, before his friends betrayed any alarm. “We left it up in Constance’s room. Should I get it now?” He made as if to rise.
“Finish your lunch first,” Miss Perumal said, which was what Reynie had hoped she’d say. “You can go up afterward.”
Reynie settled into his seat again. He was so nervous he had no appetite, but he did try to eat something. If he and the others were going to sneak out, they had to do it right after lunch. After that, who knew where his next meal would come from?
Eventually Rhonda Kazembe rejoined them in the dining room, closing the door behind her. With a weary shake of her head, she reported that Ms. Argent very much wanted to interview the children but had been put off until later. “I insisted she allow you time to recover from the shock, and that at any rate you could hardly be expected to know anything. Now tell me,” she said with a keen look, “what was in the envelope? Did you learn anything?”
Reynie quickly repeated his half-truth, saying that the letter hadn’t given them any idea about where their friends had gone. Rhonda, who had no reason not to trust him — indeed she put great stock in his opinions — looked bitterly disappointed. In that case, she said, she would wait to see the letter until she’d dealt with another matter. Reynie nodded, feeling every bit as guilty as he did relieved.
Rhonda moved to sit beside Constance (who squirmed uncomfortably, as if in danger of being shown affection) and placed a small, clumsily wrapped box on the table. “I couldn’t give you this earlier,” she said. “It was in Mr. Benedict’s study, and the inspectors wouldn’t let me take anything out until they’d gone over it with a fine-toothed comb. I’m sorry to say they’ve already examined this, even though it was a personal present to you from Mr. Benedict. I did make them rewrap it.”
“They sure did a terrible job,” Kate observed. “They put the paper on inside out!”
“I know,” said Rhonda, and in a melancholy tone she added, “Mr. Benedict would have found that amusing, don’t you think? No doubt he’d have laughed himself to sleep.”
“What is it?” Constance asked.
“An early birthday present,” Rhonda said.
Everyone immediately understood. After the children’s mission last year, Mr. Benedict had baked a cake for Constance’s birthday even though it was a month early. He’d known too well that they would all be separated soon enough. It was at that unexpected celebration that the other children had learned Constance was only two years old. Until then they’d thought she was just an unusually small, awkward, and stubborn child with poor manners.
“So it’s a sort of commemoration,” Sticky said. “To remind us of last year.”
The first thing Constance pulled from the box was a card that read:
Constance seemed ready to cry, but she cleared her throat and passed the card roughly to Reynie. She needed several tries to take out her present — it was small and delicate, and Constance had neither patience nor dexterity — but at last she produced a lovely pendant on a slender gold chain. The pendant was a miniature globe, painted in deep greens and blues, with a bright, tiny crystal set into it.
“Oh, it’s beautiful, dear!” said Mrs. Washington.
“It’s all right,” Constance said, but now she really was crying and in no mood to be watched. “I’m going to my room now.” Clutching the pendant tightly in her pudgy fingers, she hastened from the room.
“We should go be with her,” Reynie said.
The adults murmured their approval as Sticky and Kate nodded and rose from the table. Before he left the room, Reynie stopped in the doorway to take one last glance at Miss Perumal, who happened to be looking right back at him. Her forehead was wrinkled with concern — she was worried about him, of course — and Reynie did his best to give her a reassuring look before he closed the door, wondering when he would see her again.
He could have used a reassuring look himself.
Constance Contraire sat among the heaps of linens on her bed, wearing her new pendant and a sullen expression. When her friends came in, she muttered something cranky and looked away. Not even Reynie, an excellent judge of people’s moods, could tell exactly how upset Constance was, for with Constance crankiness was routine.
It wasn’t entirely her fault. Though older, wiser, and slightly bigger than she had been a year ago, Constance knew perfectly well that her obstinacy — her sheer, unrivaled determination not to do what she was told — had played a key role in the success of their mission. She knew, of course, that her friends also had played important roles, and that her willfulness was not generally a likable trait — in fact, it sometimes ran counter to her
Her friends were used to this. To a certain degree they all faced the same difficulty — that conflict between heart and brain that arose from being gifted beyond their years — and in sensitive moments such as this one, they
