The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages, page 4
“Let the boys go first,” Constance said. “I want to finish eating.…” She seemed to be about to say something else, then checked herself and shot a warning look at Tai, who nonetheless burst into a grin.
“You were going to say a rhyme!” he exclaimed. “Something to do with liverwurst! Is that what’s on your sandwich? And—oh!” Tai looked at Sticky and Reynie and clapped a hand over his mouth. “I’d better not say the last part.”
“Oh no,” Sticky said. “The insulting poems are back?”
Constance shrugged. “He thinks they’re funny.”
The apparent return of Constance’s rude versifying, a habit she seemed to have broken long ago, was dispiriting to the others. But in silent accord they let the matter drop, for Constance too often took protests as encouragement.
“I know you were in the middle of lunch when Milligan radioed,” said Kate, getting the conversation back on track. “Tell me what happened.”
“It was such an odd moment,” said Sticky. “There were three different conversations going on, as usual. Then Number Two charged in with the news. She said, ‘It’s evacuation plan A!’—and every single person in the room looked at the clock.”
“Mr. Benedict had different emergency plans for packing up and leaving,” Reynie explained to Tai, “depending on how much time we had.”
“Oh!” Tai said, nodding. He took a bite of his sandwich.
“Number Two saved most of the details about the breakout until we were all ready to go,” Sticky went on. “And honestly, I never would have guessed that could happen so quickly and so calmly. My parents, the Perumals, Moocho—no one hesitated. Everyone put down what was in their hands. Then for about twenty seconds everyone went around hugging everybody else, and then we all hurried to our rooms to pack.”
Kate was shaking her head. “I wish I could have seen it. So strange! After all these peaceful years, and then—” She snapped her fingers. “Everybody out. Actually, I guess I’m glad I wasn’t here. I suppose there was a fair amount of crying.”
“There were a few tears,” Reynie said. “Quiet tears, though. Nobody broke down.”
Sticky opened his mouth to interject something, thought better of it, and disguised his original intention by cramming the last of his sandwich into his mouth. He chewed with impressive focus, resisting the urge to glance at Constance—who technically, perhaps, had not broken down, but who certainly had broken things.
(Reynie, too, avoided mention of Constance’s tantrums. Discussing the evacuation without upsetting Constance all over again was going to be tricky enough, for she had grown quite furious with Reynie and Sticky that day, and was very likely furious with them still. It seemed only wise to proceed with special caution as they continued their account.)
Trunks and suitcases had been packed and loaded into taxicabs. A stream of farewells were made to Captain Plugg, who promised to do her utmost to safeguard their homes. (It was understood that if any Ten Men entered the picture, however, the guard’s orders were to prioritize her own safety.) Curious neighbors waved as the caravan of taxicabs drove away down the street. Mr. Benedict’s strange little community was well liked throughout the neighborhood, but not at all understood. It was widely assumed that this mass departure by taxicab simply signaled the beginning of some kind of weird vacation.
The taxis, driven by Milligan’s most trusted sentries, had proceeded directly to Stonetown Harbor, where the evacuees expected to wait for the arrival of the MV Shortcut II—the world’s fastest cargo ship, piloted by old friends Captain Noland and his energetic first mate, Joe “Cannonball” Shooter. As it happened, though, there was no waiting to be done: Against all probability, the ship had already arrived, and in a great whirl of activity, crew members were dispatched, dockworkers were employed, and the families and all their luggage were aboard in a matter of minutes. Everyone, that is, except Mr. Benedict, who instead of joining the others was heading straight to the high-security facility where Mr. Curtain was imprisoned.
(It was this fact, announced before the caravan’s departure, that had been the reason for Constance’s tantrums.)
“You’re sure it’s the best thing, Nicholas?” Captain Noland had asked as the two lifelong friends—the brisk, trim, gray-haired ship captain and the disheveled, gentle, white-haired genius—shook hands on the dock. “There’s no one else who can implement these emergency security measures?”
“I’m afraid not, Phil,” Mr. Benedict replied. “Don’t worry, though. I’ll be as safe in that facility as anywhere in the world. Until this unfortunate situation is resolved, I’ll remain there and keep my brother company.”
“I sometimes forget Curtain is your twin,” said Captain Noland, shaking his head. “It’s hard to imagine anyone more different from you. I do earnestly hope you succeed in keeping him locked up. In the meantime, I promise to keep your people safe and comfortable.”
“You have my word, too, Mr. Benedict!” cried Cannonball Shooter, striding up to join them. “I’ve laid in the best possible provisions, and plenty of them. We’re all completely up to speed on communication protocol. There’s not a Ten Man alive who could find us in the middle of that big, beautiful ocean! And even if they did, they couldn’t catch us, ha ha!”
“I have no doubt, Joe,” said Mr. Benedict, warmly shaking his hand. “I’m indebted to you both.”
“Oh, Nicholas, as for that,” said Captain Noland, “you know very well that the debt runs in the opposite direction.”
It was at this point, as Mr. Benedict took his leave, and Constance, Reynie, and Sticky looked down from the ship’s deck, that Constance had said in a tight, desperate voice, “Captain Noland is afraid he’ll never see Nicholas again!”
The young men understood at once that Constance, intentionally or not, had read Captain Noland’s thoughts. This would have been clear enough even if she hadn’t referred to Mr. Benedict as “Nicholas” instead of “Dad,” which was what she’d called him since the day of her adoption. After years of training to avoid accidentally reading others’ minds, Constance still couldn’t help it sometimes. Her friends and family members had likewise learned how to keep their most private thoughts better guarded when Constance was in the room. But at a time like this, an untrained mind in high emotion would always pull at Constance’s mental attention like a powerful magnet.
“He may be afraid of that,” Sticky had said quickly, putting a hand on Constance’s shoulder, “but that doesn’t make it true, right? You know that. It’s going to be okay.”
Reynie, for his part, had felt his own mental gears suddenly cranking at high velocity. Because of those years of training, it had been quite a while since he’d witnessed Constance reading another person’s mind. Now that he had, he felt some kind of answer emerging, but what was the question?
As Mr. Benedict waved goodbye to them, and Sticky did his best to comfort Constance, Reynie concentrated. He needed to figure something out, and he needed to do it right away, he could tell. Yet there was so much commotion as Cannonball whisked Mr. Benedict away on a motorized cart, and dockworkers and crew members swarmed the gangway, and Captain Noland shouted his announcement that they would be launching as soon as the ship had finished refueling, that Reynie had felt the need to steal away by himself. He’d gone below, letting himself into the captain’s quarters (which they had been urged to treat like their own home), and was sitting at the captain’s desk when suddenly it all came clear to him:
The truth behind the Ten Men’s breakout. The explanation for the mysterious success of the Scaredy Katz’s ambushes. The importance of the fourteenth figure. Everything fit together at once.
Leaping from his chair, Reynie started for the door, then checked himself. There was no way he could catch up with Mr. Benedict now, even if he were allowed off the ship, which he would not be. Yet Mr. Benedict would need help, he felt sure of it; and here in this moment, when everything mattered the most, Reynie couldn’t just sit by and hope for the best.
And so he had formed his plan.
Wait, you’re telling me the Ten Men have a telepath? Like Constance?”
Kate spoke from behind her sandwich. She had just been about to take another bite, but now she lowered her hand. “Why, that explains so much! The successful ambushes, the secret codes and hidden keys the Scaredy Katz would have had to get their hands on—oh! And you think it’s the fourteenth figure!”
“It certainly made sense to me,” Reynie said. “I only wish I’d thought of it sooner. All this time we’ve been assuming Constance was the only one, but why shouldn’t there be others?”
“Right,” Kate said, still turning the idea over. “And, good grief, if they have someone like that—”
“It changes everything,” Sticky finished. “Which is why we had to get off that ship.”
At this, with a wary glance at Constance (who returned his look with an unreadable expression), Reynie went on to explain that just before the MV Shortcut II set sail again, two young sailors in ill-fitting uniforms, their caps pulled low (and one of them with very stylish spectacles hidden away in his pocket), had hurried off the ship, down the bustling gangway, and onto the docks again. (Their notes of explanation and apology, left behind on the captain’s desk, would be read later—too late for them to be stopped.) Moving with purpose, carrying a crate between them, they drew no notice. Soon they had blended in among the crowds of sailors, stevedores, and other workers on the busy docks.
The two had walked briskly, keeping their heads down, with Reynie in the lead, calling out occasional directions and warnings to Sticky, whose too-distinctive spectacles had to remain hidden away for the present. At length the young men were out of view of the MV Shortcut II, obscured by the shadows of other docked ships. When they heard their own ship’s horn signaling its departure, in silent agreement they set down the crate, taking a moment to rest—and also to steady themselves. It was such a large ship, and there was so much confusion, they felt sure that their absence would go unnoticed until Constance and their families were well on their way toward the safety of the high seas. Their daring maneuver had succeeded; their reward was a mutual pang of sadness and guilt.
Still, they had reason to be hopeful. Their cover was perfect. They had clearly been seen boarding the ship—there were witnesses aplenty—but no one had recognized them as they disembarked. The Ten Men would track them as far as the harbor and confirm their departure, and that would be the end of it. The Baker’s Dozen would have no idea that two of the Society’s members were still in Stonetown, working in secret to thwart their plans.
“I hate you both,” came a voice from inside the crate.
Reynie and Sticky jumped. They stared at each other, each watching his friend’s expression change from one of surprise to one of profound dread. The only thing worse than leaving Constance behind was discovering that they’d actually failed to do so.
“I thought you said it was empty,” Sticky moaned.
“It was!” Reynie said.
The voice from inside the crate said, “Were you keeping an eye on it while you changed into your ridiculous costumes? Were you thinking you could betray your supposed friend without her even noticing?”
Reynie and Sticky didn’t relate the details of this conversation to Kate. It was enough to say that they had intended to leave Constance on the ship for her own safety—since, after all, they knew that the Ten Men might be particularly interested in tracking her down—but that she’d insisted on coming with them. And that of course they had apologized, repeatedly and profusely, for having left her out of the original plan.
Constance said not a word during all of this, only kept her face blank and nibbled at her half-eaten sandwich as if no longer hungry. Eventually she handed it to Tai, who had finished his own sandwich and begun eyeing hers. He took a bite, screwed up his face, and tried to give it back. But Constance just wrapped her arms around her knees, and though she didn’t speak, Tai whispered, “If you say so,” and crawled over the rug to hand the sandwich to Kate.
“She says you’ll eat it,” he declared.
“And she’s right,” said Kate, happily taking it from him. To Sticky and Reynie she said, “So, what happened next?”
“We split up for a bit,” Sticky said. “Reynie went to find a phone booth to call Mr. Benedict at the facility—we didn’t dare call from the house, because there’d be a record of it. Too risky. So Constance and I waited—”
“I waited in the crate,” Constance said, glowering at Sticky.
“Right, because she didn’t have a disguise. So Reynie went to make the phone call and grab disguises from our stash at the Monk Building—”
“In the crate,” Constance repeated, still glowering. “I had to wait. In the crate.”
“For crying out loud, Constance,” Kate interjected. “You’re the one who got into the crate in the first place, right? What were they supposed to do?”
Sticky and Reynie winced, and Kate realized her mistake. Too late. Constance’s face turned almost as red as her scarlet-dyed hair. Her eyes narrowed, and, directing them at Kate, she began to recite, spitting out her words:
“To wait in a crate is quite horrible, Kate.
I find your reminder deplorable, Kate.
You suppose that I chose it for any old reason?
You have to think fast
when your friends commit treason.”
Tai let out a delighted laugh. “Wow!” he cried, clapping. “That was good, Constance!”
The older three pursed their lips, took deep breaths, and moved on without further comment on the matter of the crate. Reynie told Kate that he had managed to get through to Mr. Benedict, who expressed dismay, but not exactly surprise, when he learned that the three of them had abandoned ship. Nor was he surprised when Reynie shared his idea about the telepath.
“It occurred to me, too, my dear boy,” Mr. Benedict had said on the phone, “and I intended to discuss it with you this very evening. I’ve spent the last several days trying to persuade the new warden at the Citadel to take immediate precautions, but despite my credentials and connection to the case, he was skeptical. He’s one of those dubious bureaucrats who even now mistrust the idea that the Whisperer ever existed. He could believe that the Ten Men and my brother were dangerous criminals, he informed me, without subscribing to fanciful notions of mind-control machines and psychic abilities. ‘Our thoughts are our own, Benedict,’ he said to me this morning, ‘and you’ll never convince me otherwise.’ So I urged him to take special care of the very small number of thoughts he seemed to possess—I’m afraid in my frustration I grew a tad snide—and was in the process of persuading the relevant committees to override his authority when the breakout occurred.”
“So my warning to Mr. Benedict was unnecessary,” Reynie told Kate, having paraphrased Mr. Benedict’s report. “I should have predicted that. But I still knew he needed our help, and I told him so. He doesn’t want us putting ourselves at risk, of course. And of course I argued with him. I explained that George and I were absolutely resolved to help him however we could—that we were going to try, no matter what—and so the best thing would be for him to help us help him. He knew I had him cornered with that, and there was no time to argue. Obviously, the most critical thing from his perspective was that we keep Constance safe.”
“Obviously,” Kate agreed. There was the briefest pause as the older three traded glances, prepared for Constance to react in some surprising, unpleasant way, but Constance only rested her chin on her knees and said nothing.
In the end, she had been compelled to wait in the crate for almost an hour. By the time the three of them left the docks—two sailors and a surly, undersized stevedore, all of them in dark sunglasses and caps—the Katz brothers were already on their way to the harbor.
Kate hurriedly swallowed her last mouthful of liverwurst. “Wait, what? The Scaredy Katz were already in Stonetown? Milligan knew they’d be sent ahead as scouts, but that was fast even for them. They must have flown!”
“They did,” Sticky said. “A private plane. And we narrowly avoided them. They’d already been by the house and had a little interview with Captain Plugg—the three of them standing in the courtyard, pretending to be so nice and civil—until they were satisfied she really was the only person here. Naturally, she lied about where we’d gone, but they knew she was lying. They sniffed out our trail soon enough and made straight for the harbor.”
“How did you get back in here without the neighbors seeing you?” Kate asked.
“I’d already called Captain Plugg from the phone booth,” Reynie explained. “I told her where we’d be hiding out, and she came and got us on her motorcycle. She had to make two trips.”
Kate frowned. “That still doesn’t explain—”
“Duffel bags,” Sticky said. “She smuggled us into the house in duffel bags.”
Kate slapped her thighs and laughed. “She’s so strong! And you must have been so uncomfortable! I love it.”
Tai was leaning toward Constance and trying to whisper, but everyone heard him say, “Oh, those are good rhymes! What’s a ‘kerfuffle’?”
“Never mind,” Constance muttered.
Kate’s expression turned thoughtful. “Listen, though, how did you know the Katz brothers came by private plane? Not even Milligan’s agents knew that—no one reported it.”
Reynie shrugged. “It was Constance. Somehow she knew.” Turning to Constance, he said, “I’ve wanted to ask you about it ever since, but you’ve been in your room this whole time, and Sticky and I have been trying to keep up with everything. Now we’re all here, though. Including our new friend”—this with a wink at Tai, who giggled—“so can you fill us in?”
There was a long silence. Then Constance heaved an equally long sigh. And then she said, “She’s been in my head. The Listener. That’s how I think of her, anyway. Ever since the harbor, she’s been in my head, trying to find us.” Constance tilted her head toward Tai. “And trying to find him.”
