The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

“I’ll never understand how you can joke at times like these,” said Sticky, anxiously looking around.

“Who said I was joking?” said Kate. “Anyway, if she shows up, we can deal with it, can’t we? I’m sure I can handle her by myself — Jillson or Jackson, either one. With the three of you —” she glanced at Constance “— well, the two and a half of you to handle the other one, we can probably win if it comes to a fight. At the very least we’ll give them a run for their money.”

“It can’t come to that, Kate,” said Reynie. “I don’t know why Jackson’s here, but if he sees us he’ll report it to Mr. Curtain, and that will wreck everything. We can’t afford for him even to suspect that we’re here — not without putting Mr. Benedict and Number Two in greater danger.”

“So what do we do?” asked Constance. “How are we supposed to dig? How do we even find where to dig?”

Reynie quickly returned to the letter. He felt sure that Mr. Benedict had provided an answer if only he knew how to find it. A lot of the directions seemed unimportant or unhelpful, so perhaps they were meant as distractions — like the extra words in the bottom corners of the journal pages. And what was this business about going down for their hint, then up to where the clues led them? Mr. Benedict had written the clues at the bottom of the page, and they did lead uphill to the castle, but why say it like that? For that matter, why did he say “hint” first — as if there were only one — and then “clues,” which implied more than one? Did Mr. Benedict mean to suggest a difference between “hint” and “clues”? Why would he do that?

Sticky was growing more anxious by the second. It was well and good for Kate to conjecture about “handling” Jackson and Jillson — she was so quick she probably wouldn’t get handled in return. But he wasn’t Kate. He would almost certainly get handled, and just thinking about it was enough to make him sweat. “Reynie?” he prompted. “We need to hurry!”

“I know,” Reynie said, still poring over the letter. “That’s what’s troubling me. I don’t think Mr. Benedict meant for us to spend hours searching for our next clue. He expected us to be able to go straight to it — and to recover it quickly, without getting caught. The secret has to be in the letter. It has to be!”

“So find it,” snipped Constance. “Come on, Reynie, do your thing. Where do we dig?”

Reynie stared at the letter, desperately willing the answer to come to him — and suddenly it did. He started and looked up. “I don’t think we do.”

Constance scowled. “We don’t dig? But Captain Noland said —”

“I don’t care what Captain Noland said,” Reynie interrupted, with a sharpness that surprised all of them. “I’ll bet we just have to scrape off some putty and paint. That’s why we need a tool. Kate can use her Army knife for that.”

The others stared at him.

“You left out a part,” said Kate. “What are we scraping putty and paint from?”

Reynie handed her the letter. “Mr. Benedict says to go down for the clue. He doesn’t mean go down to the bottom of the page — he only wrote the hints down there as a distraction. He wanted to make it seem like he was just being playful: Go down for this, go up for that. But take a closer look. Go down the hints — read the first letter of each line.”

Kate did as Reynie said. Her eyes widened. Constance and Sticky crowded against her to see what she had seen. And there was the answer, plain as day.

Awkward Exchanges and Clever Disguises

I can’t believe you didn’t see that sooner,” said Constance with an incredulous snort. “It’s perfectly obvious!”

“Next time you might trouble to look at it yourself,” said Reynie, trying hard not to snap.

Kate glanced around the corner of the castle wall. “It’s the nearest one. The other cannons all have cork or pine trees within two meters.” (She could speak with perfect certainty given her talent for gauging distances.) Pulling out her spyglass, Kate popped off the kaleidoscope lens and took a closer look at the cannon.

“See anything unusual?” Reynie asked.

“Not yet.”

“Maybe it’s down inside the barrel,” said Sticky.

“No, I think I see something now. Yes, that’s it! There’s a slightly darker area near the base of the cannon . . .” Kate lowered the spyglass and grinned. “It’s rectangular.”

“Like an envelope,” Reynie said.

Kate nodded. “I think you were right. A little putty and paint and he was able to hide the envelope in plain sight.” She put away the spyglass and took out her Army knife. “I can get it and be back here in fifteen seconds.”

“Shouldn’t we do something to distract Jackson?” Sticky asked.

“Too risky,” said Kate. She slipped her bucket from her belt and set it down, then began untying her ponytail. “Too many people around, too little time. Jillson could show up any second. I’ll just need to go when he’s facing the other direction.”

“I agree with Kate,” said Reynie. “But listen, if he does look your way —”

“I’m one step ahead of you, pal.” Kate shook her head vigorously, then ran her fingers through her hair, teasing it up and forward, until it stuck out on all sides and almost completely obscured her face. “Sticky, can I borrow your glasses?”

Sticky cringed, but of course he couldn’t refuse. “Be careful with them, will you?”

“When am I ever not careful?” Kate said. She balanced the spectacles low on her nose so she could see over the rims. “How do I look?”