The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages, page 31
Before Mr. Benedict left them to finish their private party, Kate informed him that they were finally giving Constance all the details of their complicated Ten Man Trap Plan. “Or plans, I should say, since we did have backup plans, and we knew you’d have them, too.”
Mr. Benedict smiled. “Oh, yes! Backup plans beyond backup plans—from plan A to plan Q!”
“Only to Q?” Constance said. “Not Z?”
Mr. Benedict shrugged. “Alas, no. The whole business was complicated enough, I must say. Arriving at my agreement with the government authorities was the only simple part, to be sure: They were perfectly happy to give me a chance to capture the Ten Men before the officials were compelled to intervene themselves. For any confrontation with McCracken and his crew—even if ultimately successful—would no doubt result in many casualties among law enforcement personnel, and very likely innocent civilians as well.”
“Weren’t all of Milligan’s best agents out of commission?” Constance asked.
“Indeed they were. A large number of reinforcements were quietly being moved into place, however, forming a secret perimeter around Stonetown. But their orders were to tighten the net only if the Ten Men decided to leave the city instead of trying to infiltrate the KEEP—or if they did take the bait but our plans went awry.
“Now, my dear,” Mr. Benedict continued, “you may be wondering what the plan was if the Ten Men had never escaped in the first place. That, admittedly, would have been the ideal situation. Milligan did feel certain that we were closing in on the Katz brothers. If things worked out well, all would eventually have been transferred to the KEEP, and the final renovations made. The facility would no longer need its various trap-like elements, and of course special measures have to be taken in the case of individuals as uniquely dangerous as the Ten Men. You can be assured, for instance, that the doors to the control rooms have already been replaced by ones impossible to breach.”
“I wondered about that!” Constance said. “They were just regular doors!”
Mr. Benedict chuckled. “I’ve had to deal with all manner of absurdities. When the government granted me a ‘free hand’ in the design-and-renovation process, they truly did mean a free hand. The other they kept firmly tied behind my back. Fortunately, for our purposes, I was still able to make a workable design, if not a perfect one.”
“Personally, I loved it,” Kate said.
“Thank you, Kate,” said Mr. Benedict, and his tone suggested that she could not have given him a greater compliment. “And to answer one more of your questions, Constance,” he said just as Constance was opening her mouth to ask it, “I had almost no control of facility operations from within Ledroptha’s security suite. I couldn’t open any doors or drop any barriers. The only option available to me was to enter a computer command that would disperse the KeepSleep and, simultaneously, send a unique distress signal to key figures on the mainland, Rhonda among them. They all knew the response protocols for that particular signal and would have followed them accordingly.”
Constance considered this. “But how was that supposed to work? McCracken said they had a signal Disrupter.”
“Indeed,” said Mr. Benedict. “But if I hadn’t anticipated that and invented my own Disrupter disrupter—well, I daresay I would hardly have been worth my keep. My keep, Constance!” Here he erupted into a boisterous, whinnying laugh, and Constance groaned again. This time she hid her face, however, for although she found Mr. Benedict’s joke ridiculous, she couldn’t help laughing just a little.
The others were more open about their own amusement, and everyone was laughing freely again as Mr. Benedict took his leave, promising Constance he would answer any remaining questions later. He said not a single word about the fact that she was sitting in the Whisperer at a tea party, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. Soon he was sinking out of view on the platform, and the Society was alone again on the roof.
“So,” Constance said when the others’ laughter had died down, “since I don’t want to wait forever to get more answers from Dad, how about you all explain to me Uncle Horrible’s letter? I had a chance to read it yesterday, and I don’t know what to make of it. Was it all a lie? Or only parts of it? And how did Dad get him to write it?”
“We asked them both the same things after Crawlings went down,” Sticky told her. “That secret weapon Mr. Curtain said no one knew existed? With the potential to change the world? What he told us was that it was his willingness to believe that the Ten Men weren’t eternally loyal to him—something McCracken proved when he went after S.Q. Anticipating such a betrayal made Mr. Curtain very inclined to cooperate with Mr. Benedict, he said.”
“But when we had a chance to speak privately with Mr. Benedict later,” Reynie put in, “he said that he believed there was more to it than that. Mr. Benedict thinks that Mr. Curtain’s secret weapon was the realization, the very slow realization, that he might have been wrong about other things—including the way he’d gone about trying to ‘improve’ the world. Mr. Curtain wouldn’t admit as much to him, but he did show that he was willing to change the world forever in a positive way—whatever his motives truly were—by doing his part to help capture the Baker’s Dozen.”
“It’s really a lot to take in,” Constance mused. “I mean, he’s so bad.”
“That’s for sure,” Kate said. “But, well, Mr. Curtain knew that there was absolutely no way he would ever escape the KEEP. Mr. Benedict was telling me about this earlier today. He said he’d explained to Mr. Curtain all the measures that would prevent it, and Mr. Curtain, despite his arrogance, was just too smart not to see that he’d been beaten. Plus, you know how badly he wants to control things. After all these years of being completely out of control? He was desperate to be able to accomplish something, even if it meant helping to capture his former employees.”
“So there was no secret cache of weapons, right?” Constance said. “And he didn’t have any secret way off the island?”
They all shook their heads, and Reynie said, “I did ask him if he’d ever considered having an escape tunnel under the harbor, and he acted like that was ridiculous. But when I pressed him and asked if he’d never even considered it—”
“He flew off the handle!” Sticky interjected, laughing. “He totally blew up!”
Reynie said, “He turned purple and shouted, ‘Of course I considered it, you dolt! I wanted one! But do you have any idea how much a secret tunnel under the harbor would cost? Snakes and dogs! It simply couldn’t be done!’”
“Fortunately, he managed to lie down before he lost consciousness,” Sticky said. “And that was the end of the conversation.”
From the street came the sound of car doors opening and closing. The guests were beginning to arrive. Exclamations of greeting issued from the courtyard, whose gate screeched and clanged, and the Society discussed whether to go straight down or wait a few minutes and make a dramatic entrance. They were eager to be with their friends and families, but they were also reluctant to end their private party.
They were still debating what to do when the platform machinery sounded again, and before long they were presented with the unexpected sight of Tai Li wearing a bow tie and suspenders. He leaped from the platform and dashed to their table, exclaiming, “Look at me! I’m so uncomfortable!”
“We all are!” Kate replied, laughing, and everyone, even Constance, complimented Tai on his splendid attire.
Beaming, he announced that S.Q. Pedalian had arrived, and that his feet were indeed the most impressive feet Tai had ever seen, and that he had been so nice.
“He shook my hand and said he was charmed to meet me!” Tai said, happily accepting the small spoonful of sugar Reynie handed him. He touched his tongue to it, smiled, and went on. “And he actually bowed to Aunt Claire! Like in a movie! Except he bumped his head on the table! This is so fun! Aunt Claire was very nice to him, too. She offered to get him some ice.”
He was referring, of course, to the Listener, whose real name had turned out to be Claire Li, and whose identity had been determined soon after that surprise meeting in Mr. Curtain’s security suite. She was the older sister of Tai’s father, and a scientist herself—an expert in invisible-signal technology. Whether her research had led her to Mr. Curtain or vice versa was unclear, for Mr. Curtain refused to discuss the matter. (No doubt, Mr. Benedict speculated, his brother knew that an apology was in order and did not yet feel capable of making one. Everyone else was skeptical about this, but politely accepted it as a possibility.)
What was clear was that Dr. Li was the reason that Tai’s parents had been trying to invent a long-distance tracking device. It might have been used to help any number of people, but Tai’s parents had wanted very specifically to find her.
“Your aunt Claire is very nice,” Sticky said. “She’s already becoming good friends with my parents—my mom especially. My dad likes her, too, but it takes longer to become friends with my dad, since he only speaks about one word a day.”
Tai giggled. “She says she really likes them, too! And Miss Perumal and her mother have been helping her fix up her room!”
“Amma and Pati are very fond of her,” Reynie said. “I think she’s doing well, all things considered, don’t you? She doesn’t seem especially sad anymore, even though she doesn’t have her memory back yet.”
“She isn’t sad!” Tai exclaimed. He had finished off the sugar and was emphasizing his words with flourishes of the spoon. “And she’s going to get her memory back! Mr. Benedict says he’s working on it, and if Mr. Benedict says it, you know it’s true!”
They all voiced their agreement and expressed their gladness that the situation with the Listener had taken such an unexpectedly happy turn. Constance, in particular, had felt profound relief in losing an adversary and gaining an ally. Indeed, when she and Dr. Li had finally met face-to-face, they found themselves spontaneously crying, clinging to each other like long-lost friends. Constance, in rare form, had insisted that there was nothing to forgive, and in fact had promised she would do everything she could to help Dr. Li. The two had been especially kind to each other ever since and had spent a great deal of time talking about their telepathic experiences.
“Do you want to know something I hope?” Tai asked the table in general.
They all said they would be very gratified to know.
“I hope,” said Tai, “that when Aunt Claire gets her memory back, she may be able to guess what my middle initial stands for! Because maybe I’m named for some relative I don’t know about!”
“Wait,” Constance said. “You don’t know what the M stands for? Why on earth did you keep asking us to guess it, then?”
“I thought maybe you could!” Tai said with a carefree shrug. “I thought I might know it if I heard it.”
The others laughed and shook their heads. Kate leaned toward Tai and whispered conspiratorially, “Have a look beneath the table, why don’t you?”
Tai instantly complied, ducking out of view under the tablecloth. He emerged with Kate’s bucket in his arms and a huge grin on his face.
Kate tapped him playfully on the nose. “Will you keep track of that for me until after lunch, when I can change into some decent clothes?”
Tai agreed that he would, and promptly stepped up onto the bucket to be on the same level as the others, or very nearly. He had never lacked for cheer, but the discovery of his aunt, the successful entrapment of the Baker’s Dozen, and his own role in the matter had lifted his spirits to even greater heights. In the final moments of their mission he truly had played an important part, for he had told his aunt telepathically that she didn’t need to be confused anymore, that he was with the heroes, and that all she had to do was help them and everything would be fine.
“And it worked,” Dr. Li had said later. “All my confusion fell away. I felt the truth of what he was saying, so clearly. When I sensed that Crawlings was meant to drink the serum, I found it easy to play along. I knew everything was about to get better at last. And so it has!”
So it had indeed.
The Society had agreed that they were all staying put indefinitely. Their other opportunities had certainly been appealing, but it had become clear that, at least for the time being, the most special opportunities were right here. They had far too many projects that needed tending to: It would take all of them to keep Tai out of trouble, they told him (much to his delight); they wanted to help Mr. Benedict help Dr. Li; and the older three intended to help Constance find some friends her own age (she grumbled about this, but only half-heartedly, since in fact the prospect pleased her). And there were many others besides.
Also, Mr. Benedict had made an interesting request: The Ten Men would need to be offered productive activities that did not involve anything that could be used as a weapon. With their ability to do harm taken away, McCracken and his comrades were destined to be the most polite and agreeable prisoners in the world, but they did need something to do. (Sticky already had an idea, based on duskwort’s fragile molecular structure, for a watering can and garden implements that disintegrated into powder if used to strike anything with force.)
Yes, the Society was going to be very busy indeed. In the meantime, their private party was at an end, and as Kate whipped the tablecloth out from under the objects on the table, which remained where they were, and the others all rose from their seats, Tai stepped down from the bucket and asked Reynie why he was thinking about the funny word.
“Zugzwang?” Reynie said with a smile. “Oh, I’d just been thinking how fitting it was that it was the code for Mr. Curtain’s security suite. Crawlings had to make a move, but unbeknownst to him, the only options available to him were bad ones.”
“And that’s what that word means in chess!” Tai said, scooping up the bucket. “Mr. Benedict taught me that. But just now you were thinking that there’s a word that’s the opposite of ‘zugzwang,’” he said, pronouncing the chess term with some difficulty. “What is it?”
“I’ll see if you can guess it,” Reynie said with a wink.
For they were all headed downstairs now, where they were to be so warmly greeted: Reynie with hugs and kisses from Amma and Pati; Sticky from his parents; Kate from Milligan, who was getting around quite nimbly, despite the casts on his legs; and Tai from his aunt, who lit up every time he entered the room—and all of them by everyone, from Moocho to Captain Plugg to Rhonda to Number Two to dear old S.Q. Pedalian. They would happily greet Mr. Benedict’s lifelong friends as well, and meanwhile the delicious smell of Moocho’s famous lasagna would be wafting in from the kitchen, and they would take their familiar seats at the dining room table, where they would all feel, now and forever, at home.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Mary Ruth Marotte, Brock Clarke, Michael Griffith, and Eric Simonoff for Counsel and Confirmation; Mark Barr for Le Clé et le Clair; Joe Williams for Combinations and Confabulations; Megan Tingley, Anna Prendella, Bethany Strout, and Barbara Bakowski for Considerations and Clarifications; and all my coconspirators for Coming Back for More.
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Trenton Lee Stewart, The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages
