The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

Kate was looking back up the way they’d come. The spyglass was of no use; the streets were too winding to allow her to see more than a block in any direction. But at least Jackson and Jillson weren’t right behind them, which they all had half-feared.

“We don’t even know where we’re going yet,” Reynie gasped. “We need to read the clue.”

They moved into an alley, huddling together behind a stall in which rows of huge fish were stacked like logs. They would not be easily seen from the street. The fish vendor — a burly man wielding a cleaver — glanced at them, saw that they were only children, and returned to his task of lopping off fish heads. Kate slit the envelope open with her Army knife. Inside was a note and a key.

She glanced at the note. “I can’t make heads or tails of this,” she said, handing the note to Sticky and directing her attention to the key. It was an ordinary metal key, smallish, with the number 37 engraved upon it. Kate took out her farm keys to compare with it, thinking she might deduce what sort of thing it unlocked. She suspected a cabinet, or no, a locker — this key was much like the one for the grain locker in the barn, and lockers, after all, were usually numbered.

Sticky, meanwhile, was reading the note aloud: “This station word will train you to send the puzzle.”

“What’s a station word, anyway?” asked Kate.

“I’ve never heard of any such thing,” said Sticky. “Maybe it’s a —”

“The train station,” said Constance. “Right, Reynie? This word puzzle will send you to the train station. That’s the only possible answer!”

Startled, Sticky looked back and forth between Constance and the note in his hand. This new Constance — the one who could detect patterns and sense things others couldn’t — took some getting used to.

“Looks right to me,” Reynie said.

“I’ll bet this key opens a rental locker there!” said Kate. “Quick, Sticky! Ask this man how to get to the train station!” She tapped the shoulder of the fish vendor.

Sticky blinked, opened his mouth, closed it again. The vendor looked at Kate, then at Sticky. He waved his cleaver impatiently and said something in Portuguese.

“I . . . I don’t speak Portuguese,” Sticky said, and Kate cocked her head in surprise.

Constance looked positively disgusted. “But on the ship,” she said, “when Captain Noland asked you —”

“I can write it, though!” Sticky said, digging in his pocket for a pen. As the vendor watched — and the others exchanged troubled glances — Sticky turned Mr. Benedict’s note over and began to write. The vendor said something else in Portuguese. He made a writing motion with his hand, then shrugged and shook his head.

“He can’t read,” Reynie said.

“Let me get this straight,” Kate said. “Sticky can write Portuguese but can’t speak it, and this fellow can speak it but can’t read it.” She seemed uncertain whether to be frustrated or amused.

Sticky, meanwhile, seemed ready to cry.

Reynie stepped forward. “Do you speak English?”

The man shrugged apologetically and turned away.

“Espanol?” asked Reynie. He had studied Spanish for a couple of years at the orphanage academy. Portugal bordered Spain, so just maybe . . .

“Si,” the man said, turning back to him. “Un poquito.”

“What’s he saying?” Kate asked.

“He speaks a little Spanish,” said Reynie, and he quickly asked the man where the train station was located. After a brief, difficult exchange (they both spoke rather clumsy Spanish), Reynie deduced that the station was only a short walk away. The man even agreed to draw them a map, and with a few proficient strokes of the pen he rendered quite an excellent one on the back of Mr. Benedict’s note. He couldn’t write the street names, but these he spoke aloud to Reynie, who thanked him heartily and turned back to the others.

The girls were already set to go, with Constance riding piggyback and Kate looking up and down the busy street to be sure Jackson and Jillson weren’t around. Sticky was avoiding Reynie’s gaze, but if he expected a complaint, he certainly wouldn’t get it from Reynie. Now was hardly the time.

The train station was a bustling, crowded place, with several loading platforms all swarming with people. There was a constant babble of conversation and a barrage of rattling and clacking and hissing as trains pulled in and out of the station, and on top of all that were loudspeaker announcements that echoed everywhere. It was very difficult to hear anything clearly.

“Try again,” said Constance.

Kate again tried to contact Captain Noland on Cannonball’s radio. But the squawk that came through its speaker was unintelligible, and for all she knew her own voice on the other end had sounded every bit as squawkish. Even if not, the noisy station might have made her words impossible to comprehend. There was no way to tell if the captain had understood her — or even if it was the captain who had responded. Kate turned the radio off to preserve its battery. They would have to try again later.

Constance scowled. “You should have radioed from the castle, Kate.”

“If you’ll recall,” Kate said lightly, “I was a little busy helping us escape.”

Reynie said nothing. He had observed Kate’s efforts to contact the captain with a strange mixture of hope and misgiving, and he thought it best to keep quiet until he figured out how he really felt.

Sticky came hurrying over from the ticket counter. “I got directions,” he said, waving a piece of paper. “The rental lockers are that way.”

The others followed Sticky through a door and down a short corridor. If the key didn’t open a locker, the