The Mysterious Benedict Society mbs-1 Read online

  “A puzzle?”

  “You didn’t notice that the answers were all right there in the test?”

  “I did notice that a lot of information was repeated,” Sticky reflected, “but I didn’t really pay attention to it. I was concentrating too hard on getting the answers right. That question on colloidal suspensions really had me sweating, I can tell you, and as I said, when I’m anxious I can get mixed up.” After a pause, he sighed and added, “I tend to get anxious a lot.”

  Reynie laughed. “Well, you didn’t know it was a puzzle, and I didn’t know any of the answers, but we’re both here now. We’d make a good team.”

  “You think so?” said Sticky. He grinned. “Yes, I suppose we would.”

  The boys waited there for some time, discussing the curiosities of the day. Sticky was more relaxed now, and soon the two of them grew comfortable together, joking and laughing like old friends. Sticky couldn’t stop giggling about Rhonda Kazembe’s crazy getup, and Reynie smiled until his face hurt when Sticky told him more about hanging upside down in the storm drain. (“My shoes started to slip off in her hands,” Sticky recounted, “and for a second I thought she was going to take them and leave me down there under the grate. I panicked and started wriggling like crazy — I think it was all she could do to pull me back up without dropping me!”)

  Then Reynie told Sticky about the pencil woman’s sneakiness regarding the phone call to Miss Perumal.

  Instead of laughing, as Reynie had expected, Sticky slipped back into his nervous behavior. He began polishing his spectacles again, even though he’d just done it minutes before. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Yes, I tried to call my parents, too. Same thing happened. But in the end it was fine. She called them. Nothing to worry about.”

  Reynie nodded politely. He saw perfectly well that Sticky was trying to hide something. Maybe he hadn’t thought of calling his parents and felt guilty about it now? But Reynie decided not to press him on the matter — Sticky seemed uncomfortable enough as it was.

  “So where do you live?” he asked, to change the subject.

  This only made Sticky polish all the harder. Perhaps he simply disliked personal questions. “Well,” he began. He cleared his throat. “Well —”

  Just then the door flew wide open, and a girl raced into the room carrying a bucket. She was extremely quick: One moment she was bursting through the door, golden-blond hair flying out behind her like a horse’s mane, and the next she was standing right beside them. Sticky leaped back in alarm.

  “What’s the matter?” he cried.

  “What’s the matter with you?” the girl replied calmly.

  “Well . . . what were you running from?”

  “From? I wasn’t running from anything. I was running to this room. Old Yellow Suit told me to come down here and wait with you two, so here I am. My name’s Kate Wetherall.”

  Sticky was breathing hard and casting glances at the door, as if a lion might fly in next, so it fell to Reynie to introduce them. “I’m Reynie Muldoon and this is Sticky Washington,” he said, shaking her hand and immediately regretting it — her grip was so strong it was like getting his fingers caught in a drawer. (Sticky noticed Reynie’s pained expression and quickly thrust his own hands into his pockets.) Rubbing his tender knuckles, Reynie went on, “I think the question is why you were running instead of walking.”

  “Why not? It’s faster. Now I’m here with you boys instead of trudging along the empty hallway, and it’s much better, isn’t it? You seem like nice fellows. So why do they call you Sticky?” She touched Sticky’s arm. “You don’t feel sticky.”

  “It’s a long story,” Sticky said, regaining his composure.

  “Let’s have it, then,” Kate said.

  So Sticky told her about his name, and then Kate revealed that she had always wanted a nickname herself. “I’ve tried to get people to call me The Great Kate Weather Machine,” she said, “but nobody ever goes along with it. I don’t suppose you boys would call me that, would you?”

  “It does seem a bit awkward for a nickname,” Reynie said mildly. “It takes a long time to say.”

  “I suppose it does,” Kate admitted, “but not if you speak very quickly.”

  “Let us think about it,” said Sticky.

  Kate nodded, agreeing. She seemed pleasant enough. She had very bright, watery blue eyes, a fair complexion, and rosy cheeks, and was unusually tall and broad-shouldered for a twelve-year-old. (She announced her age right away, for children consider their ages every bit as important as their names. In return she learned that the boys were eleven.) But what Reynie was most curious about was her bucket. It was a good, solid metal bucket, painted fire-engine red. As they were talking, Kate unfastened her belt, slipped it through the bucket handle, and fastened the belt again so that the bucket hung at her hip. From the way she did this, it was obvious she’d done it a thousand times. Reynie was fascinated. Finally he asked her what it was for.

  She gave him a quizzical look. “What kind of person doesn’t know what a bucket’s for? It’s for carrying things, silly.”

  “Yes, I know that,” Reynie said, “but why do you have one with you? Most people don’t carry buckets around for no particular reason.”

  “That’s true,” Kate reflected. “I’ve often noticed that, but I can’t understand why. I can’t imagine not having a bucket. How else am I to tote my things?”

  “What things?” asked Sticky, who, like Reynie, was trying to sneak a peek at the bucket’s contents.

  “I’ll show you,” Kate said, and began removing things from the bucket. First came a Swiss Army knife, a flashlight, a pen light, and a bottle of extra-strength glue, which Kate examined to be sure its lid was tightly closed. Then she produced a bag of marbles, a slingshot, a spool of clear fishing twine, one pencil and one eraser, a kaleidoscope, and a horseshoe magnet, which she yanked with some effort from the metal bucket. “I’ve been through dozens of these,” she said, holding the magnet up for them to admire. “This is the strongest I’ve found.” Finally she showed them a length of slender nylon rope coiled around the bottom and sides of the bucket.

  “That’s a lot of stuff to carry,” Sticky remarked.

  “It’s all useful,” Kate said, putting her things away again. “Take this morning, for example. Some crazy-looking girl dropped her pencil down a storm drain out on the plaza —”

  Reynie and Sticky looked at each other.

  “— and if I didn’t have my bucket with me,” Kate continued, “she’d have been up a creek without a paddle.” A thoughtful expression came over her face. “Hmm, a paddle would be great to have. But no, I suppose it would be too big to haul around. Still, it would come in handy sometimes —”

  “Did you help Rhonda get her pencil back?” Reynie asked.

  “Of course I did. I just . . . now wait a minute. How did you know her name?”

  “Finish your story,” Reynie said. “We’ll tell you later.”

  So Kate told them how she had pried up the edge of the metal grate with a screwdriver on her Swiss Army knife. After dragging the grate aside, she tied her rope to a nearby bench and lowered herself into the drain, using her flashlight to find the pencil in the darkness.

  “It had rolled down into a crack,” she explained, “about ten and a half inches deep, so I put a drop of glue on the end of some fishing twine — that’s why it pays to have a pen light, too, you know, so you can hold it in your mouth and point it when you need both hands for something like putting glue on twine. Anyway, I poked the twine down into the crack until it reached the pencil. Gave the glue a few seconds to dry, then pulled it right out. I couldn’t have done any of that without my bucket, now could I?”

  “Weren’t you afraid?” Sticky asked. He’d been terrified himself and didn’t want to be the only one.

  “Of what? Getting wet? It was perfectly dry down there. We haven’t had rain for days.”

  Something about Kate’s story had caught Reynie’s attention. “How
did you know that crack was ten and a half inches deep?” he said. “I don’t see a tape measure in your bucket.”

  “Oh, I can always tell distances and weights and that sort of thing,” said Kate with a shrug. She glanced around. “For example, just by looking at it I can tell this room is twenty-two feet long and sixteen feet wide.”

  Sticky, irritated that Kate hadn’t been frightened in the dark drain, was inclined to be skeptical. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “Let’s measure,” said Reynie, fetching the ruler from the pencil woman’s desk.

  The room was twenty-two feet long and sixteen feet wide.

  Impressed, Reynie whistled, and Sticky said, “Not bad.”

  “Okay, back to your story,” Reynie said. “Did Rhonda offer to help you cheat on the test?”

  Kate’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You sure seem to know a lot about it. Were you spying on me somehow? If you were, then I guess you know I called her a loon.”

  “We weren’t spying, but that’s what I figured,” Reynie said. “So I take it you solved the puzzle? Unless, of course, you knew all the answers.”

  Kate snorted. “Who in the world could possibly know the answers to a test like that?”

  “Sticky did,” said Reynie.

  It was Kate’s turn to be impressed. “Not bad,” she said, and Sticky ducked his head shyly. “Now what’s this about a puzzle?”

  Once again Reynie and Sticky looked at each other.

  “But if you didn’t know about that,” said Sticky, “how did you pass?”

  “I didn’t pass. Nobody in my session did. To tell you the truth, I think the only reason they let me stick around was because I helped Old Yellow Suit out of a tight spot.”

  Of course the boys wanted to hear what had happened, and Kate was happy to oblige them.

  “After the test was over,” she said, “Old Yellow Suit took us down the hall to give everybody doughnuts and tell the parents that she was sorry but that they had to go now, thanks for coming, that sort of thing. Some of the parents were furious. One started shouting how this was some kind of trick, and another demanded to know what these tests were all about, and Old Yellow Suit started glancing toward the exit. I could tell she was nervous, but a few people stood between her and the door, and she was trapped.

  “I felt sorry for her, you know, because I figured she was only doing her job, whatever it is, and at least she’d given me something interesting to do today, so I decided to help her out. While the grown-ups were all yelling, and the other kids were making themselves sick on doughnuts, I whipped out my Army knife screwdriver and took off the doorknob. Then I pointed and yelled, ‘There’s the man behind all this! That’s him in the corner!’ And everybody turned and pushed against one another to see — except Old Yellow Suit, of course, who made a beeline for the exit. As soon as she was out, I turned off the light and closed the door, and the two of us ran off down the hall. We had a good head start, because it was dark in the room now, and they kept reaching for the doorknob and not finding it. Finally someone turned on the light, and I suppose they all came flying out like angry hornets, but by then we were hiding in a closet.

  “After we heard the last person leave, Old Yellow Suit smiled at me and said, ‘I believe you should stay for the next stage of testing.’ And so here I am.”

  “Amazing!” Reynie said.

  “I can’t believe it!” cried Sticky. “You’re a hero!”

  “Oh good grief,” Kate said, frowning with embarrassment. “It was no big deal. Anybody could have done it. Now, I’ve told you my story, so you have to tell me yours. How did you know about Rhonda Kazembe? And what’s all this about the test being a puzzle?”

  Before they could answer her, the pencil woman poked her head into the room and said, “It’s time for the third test, children. Please report immediately to Room 7-B.” Then she disappeared again.

  “Where in the world is Room 7-B?” Sticky said, exasperated. “She never tells us where anything is. It took me half the night to find the Monk Building.”

  “I’m sure we can find it easily enough,” Reynie said, but privately he was thinking about Sticky’s words — “half the night.” What was Sticky doing in the city alone at night? Where were his parents?

  “You’d better fill me in quick,” Kate said. “You know Old Yellow Suit isn’t particularly patient.”

  “You’re right,” Reynie said. “We’ll tell you on the way.”

  And with that, the three new friends went in search of Room 7-B.

  Squares and Arrows

  The room was on the seventh floor, as Reynie had suspected. The door had no sign on it, but after roaming the empty hallways and looking at all the other door signs (there was a 7-A, a 7-C, a 7-D, and a 7-E), they returned to the unmarked door, upon which Kate knocked boldly. After a pause, she knocked again, still more loudly. This happened several times before they got a response — which, as it happened, came not from beyond the door, but from directly behind them.

  “That’s enough with the knocking,” said a deep voice, quite close.

  The children whirled around in surprise.

  Before them stood a tall man in a weatherbeaten hat, a weatherbeaten jacket, weatherbeaten trousers, and weatherbeaten boots. His ruddy cheeks were dark with whisker stubble, while his hair (what little peeked from beneath his hat) was yellow as flax. If not for the alertness in his ocean-blue eyes, he would resemble, more than anything, a scarecrow that had come down from its stake. On top of all this, the man’s expression was profoundly sad. All the children noticed this at once. Reynie was so struck by it that instead of saying hello, he asked, “Are you all right, sir?”

  “I’m afraid not,” the man said. “But that’s neither here nor there. Are you ready to begin the next test?”

  “But we haven’t even met yet!” Kate said, sticking out her hand. “My name’s Kate Wetherall, though my friends call me —” She glanced at the boys, who looked at her doubtfully. “Well, my friends call me Kate.”

  The man shook Kate’s hand, somewhat reluctantly. Even his handshake seemed sad — he hardly squeezed at all. The boys introduced themselves and the man sadly shook their hands, too. “There,” he said. “We’ve met. Now —”

  “But you haven’t given us your name,” Kate insisted.

  The man sighed, considering this. “Call me Milligan,” he said at last.

  “Is that your first name or your last name?”

  “Just Milligan. And no more questions. We have to proceed. Now, which of you is George?”

  Kate scowled. She was getting very impatient with this man. “Weren’t you listening? Our names are Sticky, Reynie, and Kate!”

  Sticky cleared his throat. “Uh, well, actually, my name is George. Sticky’s my nickname.”

  “Your name is George Washington?” Kate said. “Like the president? The father of our country?”

  “It isn’t that unusual,” Sticky said defensively. “You don’t have to tease me about it.”

  “Take it easy, pal,” said Kate. “I wasn’t teasing you.” Clearly Sticky was a bit touchy about his name.

  “Sticky or George, whichever it is,” said Milligan. “You’re to go first. Step through that door now and shut it behind you.”

  Sticky’s eyes grew wide. “I have to go in alone?”

  “It’s all right. It’s only a test. The others will be with you soon.”

  “Good luck, Sticky,” Reynie said, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll do fine!”

  “Go, Sticky!” said Kate.

  Sticky removed his spectacles, polished them, and replaced them. After a moment’s consideration, he removed them and began polishing again. There seemed to be a speck on the lens he couldn’t remove.

  “Quit stalling,” Milligan said. “Nothing’s going to harm you in that room.”

  At last Sticky nodded, settled his glasses on his nose, tucked away his polishing cloth, and passed through th
e door. Milligan closed it behind him and went away without a word.

  “How do you like that?” Kate said. “He didn’t even tell us what to do, or how long it would take, or anything.”

  “Big surprise,” said Reynie.

  Soon Milligan came back and announced that it was Reynie’s turn. He gave no hint about what had happened to Sticky.

  “See you on the other side,” said Kate. “Wherever that is.”

  Reynie took a deep breath and went in, the door closing behind him. He found himself in an empty room. On the opposite wall, above another closed door, hung a large sign that read: CROSS THE ROOM WITHOUT SETTING FOOT ON A BLUE OR BLACK SQUARE.

  Reynie looked down. On the cement floor just inside the door, where he now stood, was a large red circle. On the other side of the room, by the opposite door, was another red circle. Between these circles the floor resembled a giant checkerboard, with alternating rectangles of blue, black, and yellow. Reynie studied the pattern. There was far more blue and black than yellow. So much more, in fact, that he soon realized it would be impossible to cross the room without stepping on blue or black. The yellow parts were so widely scattered that he doubted even a kangaroo could hop from one to the other. He looked at the sign again, and after a moment’s consideration, he laughed and shook his head. Then he strode confidently across the room, into the other red circle, and out the far door.

  Sticky and Milligan stood waiting for him beyond the door. They had been watching him secretly through tiny holes in the wall. Sticky looked confused and started to ask Reynie something, but Milligan shushed him. “You boys can watch, but you must be quiet,” he said. He went away to tell Kate it was her turn.

  Moments later they saw Kate step boldly into Room 7-B. After reading the sign, she studied the floor, considering whether she might manage to leap from yellow to yellow. At last she shook her head, rejecting the idea. Next she looked from one door to the other, gauging the distance. Then, taking the length of rope from her bucket, she fashioned a loop at the end, and with one expert throw lassoed the doorknob at the far side of the room. Fastening the other end to the doorknob behind her, she pulled the rope tight, knotted it securely, and climbed up. “Now, if I only had that paddle,” she said aloud to herself as she walked along the rope, “I could hold it out in front of me for balance.”