The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

was the only one, you know, who . . .”

Kate looked at him askance. “Reynard Muldoon! I would never have thought you, of all people —” She shook her head. “Not everyone has your gift for expressing things, Reynie. You have no idea how much I’ve missed all of you. I even miss Constance, for crying out loud!”

Reynie grinned. It was just as he’d hoped. He’d been here only five minutes and already felt a hundred times better.

“Ah, here she is!” Kate said, holding her arm aloft. An instant later the air in front of them burst into a flurry of talons and wings. Reynie leaped back. The falcon had swooped down to perch upon Kate’s thick leather glove, which extended well past her wrist, and was now flicking its head from side to side, regarding them. “Reynie, meet Madge.”

“Madge?”

“Short for Majesty. Actually, her full name is Her Majesty the Queen. Because, you know, she’s queen of the birds.”

“I see,” said Reynie. “Naturally. Queen of the birds.”

“Don’t give me that look! It’s an excellent name whether you like it or not. Isn’t it an excellent name, Madge?” Kate gave the falcon a strip of meat from a sealed pouch inside her bucket. She urged Reynie to stroke the bird’s feathers (Reynie nervously obliged) and then sent her off again. “Milligan gave her to me for my birthday — it only took a dozen hints and a month of begging — and I’ve been training her. She’s very smart.” Kate lowered her voice, as if Madge, already a hundred yards away, might overhear. “Which, between you and me, is kind of rare for a bird of prey. Of course I’d never tell her that.”

Reynie was watching the falcon sail away over the farm. It was just like Kate Wetherall to show you something so dramatic and then act as if you shouldn’t be surprised. “I thought you needed a license to own a falcon,” he said, “and go through years of special training.”

“Oh, you do,” said Kate, slipping the leather glove back into her bucket. “I did all that when I was in the circus. One of the animal trainers was a falconer, and he let me be his apprentice. I learned all sorts of things from that guy . . . but we can talk about that later,” she said, dismissing the subject with an impatient wave of her hand. “You were going to tell me about Sticky. Have you heard from him lately?”

Reynie produced a folded sheaf of papers from his pocket. “Actually, he sent me this a few days ago. It’s an account of our mission — for posterity, he says, assuming the mission’s ever declassified. He said I could show it to you. He wants our opinion.”

“You mean he wrote about everything that happened? Like a story?”

“Well . . . something like that.” Reynie unfolded the papers and handed them to Kate, who immediately sat down in the hay to read. There were five pages, covered front and back with tiny, cramped print, and the title alone was almost as long as one of Kate’s letters. It read:

The Mysterious Benedict Society’s Defeat of the Terrible Brainsweeping Machine Called the Whisperer (along with its inventor, Ledroptha Curtain, who was revealed to be the long-lost identical twin of Mr. Nicholas Benedict, for whom the Society is named): A Personal Account

“Holy smokes!” Kate said.

“The title?”

Kate nodded and continued to read:

In the event that you, the reader, are unaware of Mr. Curtain’s foiled plan to become a powerful world ruler using the mind-altering effects of his Whisperer, this account will inform you of it.

The account commences with the forming of the Mysterious Benedict Society. Through a series of tests it was determined that George “Sticky” Washington (the author of this account), Reynard Muldoon (whose full name is now Reynard Muldoon Perumal, as he has been adopted), Kate Wetherall, and Constance Contraire were sufficiently skilled to enter Mr. Curtain’s Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened (the acronym being L.I.V.E.) and act as secret agents for Mr. Benedict. At the aforementioned Institute these children discovered many disturbing things. Then they disabled the Whisperer, although Mr. Curtain and his closest assistants (his Executives, as they were called) unfortunately avoided capture. But I see I have already come to the end. Allow me to back up and make a proper introduction to the course of events . . .

The account went on like this, backtracking and sidetracking and circling around as Sticky labored to produce an accurate summary of their adventures. An entire paragraph, for instance, was devoted to the origin of the word “terrified,” another to the curious sense of isolation that can occur on islands (as opposed to peninsulas), and still another to a consideration of cruel punishment in schools. By the time Kate reached the second page, her shoulders were sagging. With a sigh, she flipped to the last page and read the final sentence: “And that is the end of the account.” She looked up at Reynie. “Is it . . . um, all like this?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“But how could he make the most exciting, the most dangerous, the most important event in his life — in anyone’s life — so . . . so . . .”

“So dull?” Reynie offered.

Kate flopped back onto the hay and started giggling. “Oh, I can’t wait to see him!”

“Don’t give him too hard a time. He may be coming out of his shell, but he’s still sensitive, you know.”

“I’ll be sure to hug him before I tease him,” Kate said.

Reynie cringed. Kate’s hug would probably hurt Sticky much worse than her teasing.

“Well, enough lying around,” said Kate, who had been lying around for perhaps three seconds. She sprang to her feet. “Aren’t you going to say anything about my bucket?”

“I was about to,” Reynie said. “I see you’ve made some modifications.”

Kate hurried over to show it to him. The bucket’s clever new lid opened easily but closed securely, which kept