The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages, page 15
Sticky’s eyes widened, and for a moment his expression turned guilty, as if he had shared the letter with the little boy on purpose. Then he looked concerned. They all did.
“You can read, Tai?” Reynie asked.
Tai’s chin was raised, his eyes turned upward and slightly to the side. He had the expression of a person trying to remember something. He nodded slowly in response to Reynie’s question and continued in the same attitude, presumably still looking at the letter in his mind’s eye.
“Um,” Constance said, “this is probably not good, correct?”
The others all opened their mouths, then closed them again, trying to think of what to say or do. This was not a problem they had foreseen. Several moments passed in a confused silence, until Tai interrupted it.
“What does ‘salutations’ mean?” he asked, and then he giggled. “Why did you all just sigh at the same time? Why do you all look like that?”
It was true they all looked extremely relieved, and none more so than Sticky, who had done nothing wrong, of course, yet couldn’t shake the feeling that he had single-handedly caused a potentially dangerous problem. Reynie was right: There were things in that letter that Constance shouldn’t know, and if Constance shouldn’t know them, a five-year-old boy with unpredictable telepathic abilities certainly shouldn’t know them, either.
“I’m going to take a break to clear my head,” Sticky said, and quickly left the room.
“Hey, sport,” Kate said to Tai, “where’s my bucket? Don’t tell me you left it in Constance’s room with no one to guard it.”
Tai’s mouth fell open. “But I did,” he whispered. “I’ll go get it!” He ran out.
As soon as he was gone, Reynie said to Constance, “Mr. Benedict needs our help. The situation is dangerous, no question about it, but I want you to see—no, I need you to see—how confident I am that Mr. Benedict is going to be okay. Don’t dig too deeply, all right? But take a good look at my certainty.”
“Mine, too,” Kate said.
Constance rolled her eyes. “You’re always certain, Kate. That does me no good.” She looked at Reynie. “Obviously, you’ve just made me really worried about what’s going on with Dad.”
“I know,” Reynie said. “I’m sorry.”
Constance was staring intently at him. “It’s okay, I get it. And your confidence helps. I do see it, and it helps. So what can I know?”
“I’m assuming you haven’t reached out to him since yesterday, right?” Reynie asked.
“With Miss Nosy Pants eavesdropping? Of course not.”
“You’re going to need to now,” Kate said. “He probably has a message for us. Don’t worry about the Listener getting it, too. It can’t be helped.”
“Now, as in right now?” Constance asked. “Right this second? Just sitting here at the dining table? You two are making me so nervous.”
“Right this second,” Kate confirmed, and Reynie signaled his agreement.
“Wow, okay, then. Here we go.” Constance took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “First I’m letting him know that we’re safe,” she murmured. “That’s right, Listener Lady, no thanks to you. Okay, here he is! He’s safe, too. He’s still with Uncle Horrible,” she said, using her favorite nickname for Mr. Curtain. “S.Q. isn’t there, but I guess he brought them something? Tea. Mr. Curtain drank some tea—I don’t know why this is important. Dad’s showing me the container it came in. Fancy stuff, I guess. Uh-oh. Okay. He’s imagining a skull and crossbones. Do you think he means poison? The tea was poisoned?”
“Yes,” Reynie said softly. “That’s what he means.”
“Wow, okay,” Constance murmured again. She was silent a moment. “He knows that the Listener is eavesdropping, I can tell. He’s being very careful about what he tries to communicate.”
“Tell him about the letter,” Reynie said. “That will make it easier for him. Tell him Mr. Curtain sent a secret letter to McCracken, and we’ve got a copy of it. We know everything about his situation.”
Constance did as Reynie suggested, and after a pause she said, “He understands.”
“Tell him that Sticky can make the serum.”
Constance opened one eye. “What serum? Is it for saving Uncle Horrible? Right, sorry, never mind. No questions. Okay, I’ll tell him.” She closed the eye. Another pause. She frowned. “He says he’s sorry. He doesn’t want us to take the risk. He really doesn’t—I can tell. Especially not me, of course.” She shrugged, her eyes still closed. “I don’t know what he’s talking about, but of course he doesn’t want us to take any risks.”
Reynie was chewing on his lip. Kate was watching him. “If you’re going to think of something clever,” she muttered, “seems like now would be a good time.”
“Okay,” Reynie said. “Constance, tell him not to worry. Tell him we aren’t going to take any risks. We’ll figure out some other way to help him.”
Constance opened one eye again. “He isn’t going to believe that, you know. I don’t know how I’m supposed to make him believe it when I know it isn’t true myself.”
“It doesn’t matter whether he believes it or not,” Reynie said. “He isn’t the only person who can hear your thoughts.”
“Oh, her?” Constance shook her head skeptically. “I doubt she’ll believe it, either, Reynie. Even if she does, McCracken won’t, and you know she’ll tell McCracken.”
“Can you please just try? It’s not your fault if it doesn’t work. Just try.”
Constance sighed. “Okay, Mr. Mastermind, I’ll tell him we aren’t going to take any risks.” She concentrated awhile with her eyes closed. “No, I don’t think he believes me,” she murmured. “He just repeated that he wants us to be safe. He’s keeping something from me, but maybe it’s just because he doesn’t want the Listener to know.”
Constance gasped. Her eyes popped open. “He drank the tea, too, didn’t he?” Her face was suddenly awash in horror. “This isn’t just about Mr. Curtain—it’s about him!”
Reynie jumped from his chair and went to Constance, who looked up at him with brimming eyes. He placed his hands on her cheeks, holding her face steady. “Look at me,” he said. “Do you remember my confidence that Mr. Benedict is going to be fine? How often have you seen me be so confident and then be wrong?”
“Never?” Constance whispered, staring back at him. “Or almost never, anyway.” She squeezed her eyes closed, trying not to cry, but tears trickled down her cheeks regardless, wetting Reynie’s fingers. “I’m—I’m trying not to dig too deeply. I want to know what’s making you so confident, but I know… I know…”
“He’s so confident because we’re better than they are,” Kate said firmly.
Despite herself, Constance gave a little snort. She smirked. “Yes, we are,” she mumbled, her eyes still closed.
“Is that enough to help?” Reynie asked. “Can you just trust us that everything will be okay?”
Constance nodded. “Fine,” she muttered. “I hate it, but fine. Now get your hands off my face.”
When Tai Li trotted back into the room carrying Kate’s bucket, he saw Constance wiping her eyes with her pajama sleeves, Kate at the dining room table loading a plate with toast and eggs, and Reynie walking back and forth with his hands clasped behind him.
“This is weird!” Tai exclaimed. “What’s everyone doing?”
“Constance is recovering from a bit of a shock,” Kate said. “Reynie is thinking about Mr. Benedict’s message from yesterday, and I’m eating a second breakfast. Because what good is a dining table if no one is dining?”
“That’s true!” Tai exclaimed. He made a beeline for the sugar bowl.
Reynie stopped pacing. He had already felt himself on the verge of something, and now Kate had given him precisely the push he needed.
“Okay, listen,” he said to no one in particular. “Mr. Benedict was giving us instructions yesterday, and the very first line focused on a place—the place where we’re supposed to hunt the hunter. Now, I don’t think he’d send us out on some wild-goose chase in the city, not with the Baker’s Dozen in town.”
“True enough,” Kate said. “Go on.” Sensing that her second breakfast was about to be interrupted, she made a sandwich of her eggs and toast and took a huge bite.
“Wow, you chew so fast, Kate!” Tai said.
“You think we’re supposed to look somewhere here,” Constance said to Reynie. “In this house.”
“He couldn’t come out and say that, of course, not if there was any chance the Listener would overhear. He wanted to make it completely confusing for her but easy for us. And it should have been easy! Think about it—what name is being defied by one who stands?”
“I have thought about it,” Kate said between bites. “Does it depend on who’s doing the standing? Or is it the hunter?”
Kate’s mention of the hunter was the last piece of the puzzle for Reynie. “I know who the hunter is,” he said excitedly, “but it isn’t his name that’s being defied by one who stands. It isn’t a person’s name at all!”
Kate was rising from the table, sandwich in hand. “Can you stop talking and maybe—?”
“Right!” Reynie said. “I’ll show you. Let’s go!”
The sitting room!” Kate declared as they hurried down the hallway. She tapped her nose and pointed at herself. “One who stands in a sitting room is defying the name of the room!”
“Exactly,” Reynie said, glancing back. “Kind of like being in the dining room and not dining, right?”
“Right!” Tai exclaimed. He was walking behind Constance with his arms wrapped around the bucket and his bowl of oatmeal balanced on its flip-top. “Oh no, I forgot my spoon.” He started to turn back, but Kate scooped him up, bucket and bowl and all, and when she had deposited him in the sitting room, she produced a shiny spoon, as if by magic.
“Orion,” Reynie said, crossing the room to take one of the paintings from the wall. “Do you remember Sticky telling you the name of this constellation, Tai? Well, guess what? In Greek mythology, Orion is known as the Hunter!”
Tai, his mouth full of sugary oatmeal, nodded vigorously.
“‘Dare hunt the hunter in his frame,’” Kate said. “Of course! The picture frame! But why does he say ‘dare,’ do you think? Is there something dangerous about taking down the painting?”
“Poetic license,” Constance said with a shrug.
Tai was fascinated. “There’s a license for poetry?”
“What? No,” Constance said. “Poetic license means having the freedom to bend the rules to create whatever kind of effect you want. I just meant that Dad wrote it that way for the rhyme. ‘Dare hunt’ has the same sound as ‘Where one’ from the first line.”
“It sure does!” said Tai agreeably. He directed another spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth, which, for no apparent reason, he was opening far wider than necessary.
Reynie carefully leaned the painting against the wall with its back facing them. The frame behind the canvas had been covered with heavy brown paper, held in place by small metal fasteners. “‘Strike the clenches from their floor,’” he murmured. “More poetic license. I think he just means remove the fasteners.”
Kate took out her Swiss Army knife. “A ‘clench’ can refer to a nail or other kinds of fasteners,” she said to Tai. She began removing the fasteners at high speed.
“I know that, of course,” Tai replied.
“Oh, really?” said Kate with an arched eyebrow. “When did you learn that?”
“Just now!”
“It doesn’t quite work that way, sport,” Kate said, carefully peeling the brown paper away from the frame.
There, in the hollow space behind the painting canvas, was a sealed plastic pouch. It appeared to contain folded papers, and a message had been taped to the outside. “This is written in Tamil,” said Kate, who had learned some Tamil from Reynie and his mother Miss Perumal over the years but could read only a little, and with difficulty. Kate handed the pouch to Reynie. “Obviously, Mr. Benedict was counting on you to be here.”
Reynie read the message at a glance. “Not just me. This says, ‘REMEMBER THE DUSKWORT? WHAT A STICKY PROBLEM!’”
“Hey, duskwort!” Tai exclaimed. “That was the plant that makes you fall asleep.”
“Yep,” Kate said. “But what does this have to do with Sticky? That’s the question.”
“Sticky was the only one to see the duskwort under a microscope,” Constance said. “Maybe that matters somehow.”
Reynie pursed his lips. He turned the pouch around two or three times in his hands. “The thing is,” he said slowly, “if whatever is in here needs to be read by Sticky, Mr. Benedict could have just counted on us to figure that out. So why did he place this message on the outside of the pouch?”
“Because he wants Sticky to be here when we open it,” Constance suggested. “But why would that matter so much?”
“This pouch is airtight,” Reynie observed. “Maybe its contents will be affected when they’re exposed to fresh air.”
Tai, who had been busily tapping his nose and pointing his finger every time someone spoke, piped up: “The duskwort got de-cinerated really fast!”
“Disintegrated,” Kate said. “It’s true. If it wasn’t in the perfect conditions, it just crumbled to dust. So what do you think, Reynie? Maybe Sticky is the only one who can read these papers fast enough?”
“And memorize them,” Reynie said, nodding. “Yes, I think so. I think these are all security measures. Whatever’s inside this pouch, Mr. Benedict meant it for us and only us. But listen,” he added just as Kate, he could tell, was heading for the intercom. “Let’s take the pressure off as much as possible. We can just ask Sticky to read the papers because Mr. Benedict wants him to, which is true.”
“You’re suggesting we don’t tell him everything?” Kate furrowed her brow. “Not sure I’m crazy about that idea, Reynie.”
Reynie grimaced. His conscience had been bothering him enough already. But this was a critical moment—wouldn’t it be wrong not to avoid risks if possible? “I’m only suggesting,” he said, “that we don’t have to mention that there might be a time limit. Sticky’s so fast it shouldn’t matter, right? I’m just trying to spare him the pressure—which would be, you know, considerable.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Kate conceded reluctantly. “I don’t like it. But it’s true that absolutely everything could depend on whether he succeeds.”
Constance gave Kate a bleak look. “I was actually trying not to think of it like that.”
“Think of what like what?” asked Tai, who was furiously scraping the last of his oatmeal out of the bowl and seemed not to have been paying attention.
“She’s worried you’re going to eat all the sugar in the house,” Kate said.
“No, she isn’t!” Tai cried with a laugh.
“I am a little bit,” Constance muttered.
Down in the Blab, Sticky Washington was checking the supply cabinets, making notes, checking the computers (there were several), making more notes, checking the workbenches (no notes)—all in perfect silence, for he had activated the Husher. Sticky had come here to clear his mind, which for him meant shoving worrisome information aside, if only for a few minutes, by focusing on other information. It was like eating a roll while waiting for hot soup to cool; soon he’d be able to handle the soup. As for the Husher, he’d discovered long ago that silence helped. Silence reduced distractions.
Silence also allowed Sticky to yell with frustration and not be heard—something he suddenly felt a powerful need to do. He set down his clipboard, carefully removed his spectacles, threw back his head, and yelled at the top of his lungs: “Why didn’t I think of that! Why, why, why? Come on, brain! Come on!” He jumped up and down a few times, stomping the concrete floor as hard as he could. All in perfect silence. Breathing hard, he dug a cloth out of his pocket and gave his spectacle lenses a thorough polishing. Then he resettled them on his nose. Okay, he thought, feeling calmer. Okay.
Sticky’s mind returned to the nightmare he’d awakened from this morning. All those scorpions on the floor. Contrary to what others might expect, he didn’t imagine they represented Ten Men.
“You’re dwelling on your mistakes again,” his mother had said to him not long ago, and not for the first time. “It’s good to acknowledge them, but I do wish you’d not forget everything you get right.”
They’d been having breakfast in their home across the street. Sticky had just awakened from a similar dream.
Sticky’s father had nodded his agreement, which for such a profoundly quiet man was a significant contribution to the discussion.
“I know,” Sticky had said, taking up a glass of grape juice, then setting it down again. “You’re right, Mom. I know that. I just get so frustrated! I never see Reynie make the mistakes I do.”
His mother regarded him with hooded eyes. “Can Reynie do all the things you can do?”
Sticky sighed and rubbed his scalp. “No, I know. I just don’t like making mistakes.”
“Reynie makes his own share of mistakes, love,” said Sticky’s mom. “You just don’t dwell on those. Do you know who probably does?”
Sticky pursed his lips. “No idea. Constance?”
They all chuckled at this.
“Well, she probably does, too,” Sticky’s mom admitted. “And on everyone else’s. But there’s a reason, you know, that your father and I are comfortable with you making your own decisions. You’re doing a wonderful job leading your life. We only hope you’ll come to us for love and support—and maybe, sometimes, even advice. Who knows?”
“I’ll always come to you for all of those things,” Sticky had said, rounding the table to hug his parents. “Advice included.”
Now, in the Blab, Sticky took a deep breath and let it out. He tapped a pencil on the clipboard. Yes, he’d forgotten the chemicals on the rooftop patio, and it hadn’t occurred to him to get a copy of Mr. Curtain’s letter, and he hadn’t thought to ask Tai about his reading abilities before scanning the letter. That was okay. He couldn’t think of everything. He was who he was, and that was enough. He knew that. He believed it. And now it was time to rejoin his friends. Sticky went to the Husher and switched it off.
