The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma

by Trenton Lee Stewart

  Reynie unfolded the slip of paper. “Okay,” he said, glancing up at the others, and after a short, tension-filled pause, he began to read aloud:

  The answer to this riddle has a hole in the middle,

  And some have been known to fall in it.

  In tennis it’s nothing, but it can be received,

  And sometimes a person may win it.

  Though not seen or heard it may yet be perceived,

  Like princes or bees it’s in clover.

  The answer to this riddle has a hole in the middle,

  And without it one cannot start over.

  “It’s a trap!” Sticky cried with such vehemence that Reynie wrenched around, half-expecting to see a Ten Man leering from the doorway, and Kate snatched up her bucket and flew to the window.

  Sticky glanced wildly about, his heart pounding. “What is it? What’s going on?”

  Kate was peering intently into the courtyard, where Mr. Bane sat on the bench eating sunflower seeds and spitting out the shells. “All clear outside, as far as I can gather. Constance, is there someone in the hall?”

  “N-no, I don’t think so,” said Constance in a shaky voice.

  “What makes you think there’s a trap?” said Kate, spinning around to look seriously at Sticky. “What kind of trap?”

  Sticky blinked in confusion. He turned to Reynie, who had just covered his face with his hands. At first Sticky thought he was sobbing—his shoulders were shaking—but then with a great spluttering guffaw Reynie collapsed backward onto the floor, laughing and laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” Sticky said. Then his eyes grew wide. “Wait, did you think I meant… an actual…”

  Kate’s jaw dropped. “And you thought we… you mean you didn’t realize…”

  Soon everyone was rolling on the floor except Constance, who refused to see what was so hilarious about having the wits scared out of her. “For crying out loud, Sticky,” she complained as the others chortled and groaned, “you can’t go yelling stuff like that! We’ve seen too many real traps!” But they were all laughing too hard to pay any attention. (And they let themselves go on a while, too, for after such a fright the laughter came as a relief.)

  Eventually, however—with tremulous sighs, dabs at their eyes, and weak little chuckling aftershocks—they sorted themselves out. Kate retied her ponytail, Sticky resettled his spectacles, and Reynie smoothed the crumpled slip of paper in his hand. Ignoring Constance’s dark looks (she had one for each of them) they returned to the riddle.

  Kate said, “I don’t think ‘trap’ is the answer, Sticky. It fits some of the clues but not all of them.”

  “No, I see that now,” Sticky admitted. “I just got excited when it occurred to me, because you can fall into one, you know, and the part about the clover reminded me of the drapeweed traps at the Institute.”

  “What do you think that’s about, anyway?” said Kate. “What’s a prince doing in the clover?”

  “It’s a figure of speech,” Sticky said. “If you’re ‘in clover’ it means you’re wealthy—like a prince. Do you suppose the answer has something to do with money?”

  Kate snapped her fingers. “Maybe S.Q. has a secret fortune! An inheritance, maybe, or some other kind of treasure Mr. Curtain wants to get his hands on. That would explain why he’s kept S.Q. around, wouldn’t it? And gave him those extra sessions in the Whisperer?”

  “You can say a person ‘falls into’ money if it comes unexpectedly,” Sticky mused, “in which case it’s ‘received’…”

  “And you can win it!” Constance blurted out (forgetting, in her excitement, that she’d meant to be sulking).

  “Hey, and Mr. Curtain needed money to start over!” Kate said. “After he became a fugitive he had to find new ways to get it, right? That’s why he worked out that diamond scam with Mr. Pressius!”

  For a moment their eagerness was dampened by the thought of Mr. Pressius, the wealthy businessman whose fraudulent activities had recently enriched Mr. Curtain—not to mention himself—yet who had managed to escape any charge of wrongdoing. They’d never actually met Mr. Pressius, but they’d suffered considerably because of him and held him in particularly low esteem.

  Sticky reached for his spectacles, checked himself, and instead laced his fingers behind his head. “There’s a problem with ‘money,’” he said, pressing on with the riddle. “You can see it, right? And sometimes hear it—a pot of gold tends to jingle.”

  “True, but what if the answer isn’t ‘money’ but ‘wealth’” Constance suggested. “You can perceive wealth if a person has expensive cars and mansions, without actually seeing or hearing it.”

  “Hey, I think that works!” said Kate. “Now we just have to explain the ‘hole in the middle.’” She turned to Reynie, who usually would have offered a suggestion by now—or even a solution—but Reynie only looked thoughtful and said nothing.

  “The hole isn’t the only thing,” said Sticky. “There’s also the bit about tennis. And I suppose we should consider why there are bees in the clover and not just princes.”

  Kate snorted. “Sometimes you amaze me, Sticky! You know everything in the world but you don’t know why bees like clover?”

  “I think what Sticky means to say,” Reynie put in, “is there must be a reason the bees are mentioned.” With a curious hesitation, as if he expected argument from the others, he added, “My guess is it’s to show there’s more than one way to be in clover.”

  “What other way might there be?” Kate asked, but Reynie only shrugged, and when no one else volunteered an answer she said, “Well, at least the bees don’t automatically rule out wealth. And I don’t think the tennis part does, either.”

  “Can’t we just ignore that?” asked Constance hopefully. “‘In tennis it’s nothing,’ right? I’ll bet that’s just in there for the sake of the meter, and to set up the part about ‘receiving’ and ‘winning.’ I’m a poet, you know, I have experience with these things.”

  “But hold on,” said Sticky, lighting up. “In tennis there’s a net—and nets have holes in them!”

  “You can fall into a net, too,” Kate reflected. “I did it all the time in the circus… but it doesn’t seem to fit the rest of the riddle. What about ‘service,’ though? In tennis you receive a serve—and you can win it, too! Maybe Mr. Curtain keeps S.Q. around because he likes having a servant. That’s what S.Q. really is, you know—he’s always at Mr. Curtain’s beck and call.”

  The others mulled this over. It seemed to make perfect sense at first, but one problem with riddles is that wrong answers so often do seem to make sense at first, only to fall apart under closer examination. So it had been with Sticky’s idea, and so it was with Kate’s. “Service” seemed promising, but in the end they all realized it couldn’t work. And they went on like this for some time, trying out one possible solution after another, none of which seemed right.

  “I give up,” Constance said finally. “I think it has to be ‘wealth.’ Maybe we can’t figure out why the bees are in there, or what the hole in the middle is, but ‘wealth’ still seems like the best answer.”

  Kate sighed and unraveled her legs. “Well, we’ve been at this almost an hour. At the very least we could talk about something else and come back to the riddle later.”

  “We don’t have to come back to it,” Constance protested irritably. “‘Wealth’ is the answer!”

  Kate turned to Reynie. “Well, Reynie, what do you say? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so quiet when we were working on something.”

  “Hey, that’s true,” said Sticky, who’d been concentrating so hard on the riddle that he hadn’t noticed Reynie’s silence. “In fact, I’m surprised you haven’t solved it by now.”

  Reynie seemed taken aback. “But I have solved it.”

  The others stared at him.

  “Excuse me if I’m missing something,” Kate said after a pause, “but, um, were you ever going to tell us?”

  “Are you joking?” R
eynie replied. “You asked me not to!”

  “I did?”

  Reynie cocked his head. “Well, Constance did, and you and Sticky didn’t argue, so I figured you must agree.”

  “When did all this happen?” Sticky asked, exchanging a nervous look with Kate.

  “When I was unfolding the paper!” Reynie cried. “Constance said, ‘I know you’re probably going to solve this, Reynie, but for once we’d like to have a chance to figure it out ourselves.’ So I said ‘Okay,’ and then I read the riddle out loud, remember?”

  “You did say ‘Okay,’” Sticky recalled. “I guess we just didn’t hear what Constance said.”

  “That’s because I didn’t say it,” Constance said.

  Kate rolled her eyes. “Well, either you’re lying or Reynie is, and if I had to—”

  “I thought it,” Constance said, somewhat abashedly.

  “You… you what?”

  “I didn’t say what Reynie said I did… I only thought it.”

  There was a silence, during which Reynie sagged backward onto the floor and stared at the ceiling.

  Then Kate muttered, “Oh boy.”

  “So now Reynie can read minds, too?” Sticky asked.

  “I didn’t read any mind but my own,” Reynie said. “Constance just put her thoughts into it.”

  “Sorry,” Constance mumbled. “I didn’t mean to, you know.” And it was clear she was telling the truth, but at the same time there was a hint of impishness in her expression, as if she had just realized for the first time what her gifts might allow her to do.

  There followed another long pause, and then, rather hesitantly, Kate said, “Okay, I realize this mind-reading thing, or whatever you call what Constance did—”

  “Mental telepathy,” said Sticky in an awed tone.

  “Right, mental telepathy,” Kate said. “I realize it’s kind of a big deal. But, um, would anyone mind if I took a second to ask Reynie, just really quickly… I mean, I’m sorry, but it’s driving me nuts not to know…”

  “‘Love,’” Reynie said, swiveling his eyes toward her. “The answer to the riddle is ‘love.’”

  Kate sighed with relief. “‘Love’” she repeated, grinning. “Well, how about that! I wonder if…” She trailed off, recollecting herself. “We can talk about it later, of course. Er, anyway, thank you, Reynie.”

  “No problem,” Reynie said, and went back to staring at the ceiling.

  “It’s hot in here, isn’t it?” asked Constance the next day. She was sitting at the dining room table with the other children, two of whom were eating pie and ice cream with expressions of immense satisfaction.

  “Is it? I hadn’t noticed,” Sticky said irritably. He turned his back toward Reynie and Kate, who smiled at each other and kept eating. “Let’s concentrate and get through this, all right? The sooner you finish, the sooner you get your treat.”

  “And the sooner Sticky gets his,” murmured Kate, who like Reynie had drawn a long straw and thus avoided going last.

  It was just after lunch, the adults had all dispersed, and the children were engaged in the first exercise Constance had ever been excited about—the exercise for which the older ones had only reluctantly volunteered. In a move designed to motivate Constance, Mr. Benedict had asked Milligan to bring home a gallon of ice cream and Moocho Brazos to bake one of his famous pies. Furthermore (and this was the part they were reluctant about), he had asked the older children to think of an embarrassing memory—one that Constance would be amused to discover—and give the younger girl the opportunity to fish it out.

  Constance’s eagerness to do the exercise had made the others shudder—no doubt their embarrassments would soon be put down in rhyming verse, possibly to be laughed at by future generations. But they recognized the importance of learning more about Constance’s developing gifts (even more so now, given what had happened with Reynie the day before), and so with resigned hearts they all tried to think of experiences that had been just a little embarrassing, rather than outright humiliations.

  “Honestly, you don’t think it’s hot?” Constance said, more loudly this time, with a sidelong glance at Reynie. “Maybe it’s just me. I think I may faint if I don’t cool down.”

  Reynie wagged his spoon. “Give it up, Constance. You aren’t getting any of my ice cream.”

  Constance humphed—caught out—and Reynie chuckled to himself. It was small consolation for having Constance shine her unnerving spotlight into his mind, but he was determined to enjoy his treat nonetheless. The pie was Moocho’s best ever, with a flaky crust and a tart, sweet, piping-hot cherry filling, and Reynie was taking time to savor each bite. Not so with poor Kate, who had already finished her own slice, then gulped her ice cream too quickly and now sat clutching her throbbing head.

  “Fine, Sticky,” Constance sighed, “let’s have a peek inside that head of yours.”

  Her matter-of-fact tone, and indeed the whole exercise, reminded Sticky rather too much of going to the dentist with a mouth full of cavities. He tried to steel himself, but no sooner had Constance fixed her gaze on his face than he cried out, “Wait, wait! Let me… let me choose a better image.”

  Constance banged her fists on her knees. “Oh, for crying out loud! Now you’re stalling! Will I ever get to eat ice cream?”

  “Give me just a second,” Sticky said, and sitting on his hands to keep them at bay, he hurriedly sorted through his embarrassing memories again (he had no shortage of them) trying to decide which he could stand to share and how best to represent it. Mr. Benedict had suggested that images would probably be more effective than words—images being unmuddied by grammar and easier to hold steady in the mind—and he had also asked the children to pay close attention to the “telepathic experience,” if indeed any occurred, and to be prepared to report anything peculiar.

  Reynie and Kate had experienced nothing more peculiar than an intense dread of having Constance poke around in their minds, followed by a natural feeling of annoyance when she succeeded—but for Sticky this prospect alone was enough to throw him out of sorts.

  “I think it’s best to just get it over with, Sticky,” advised Reynie, who during his own turn had pictured Seymore the orphanage cat, over whom he had once tripped and fallen while others looked scornfully on. Constance had instantly guessed “some kind of slinky animal with whiskers, I’d say a weasel from the look of it.” This was close enough, and per their agreement Reynie had been compelled to tell the whole story, much to Constance’s amusement.

  Kate, for her part, had pictured herself hanging upside down from a tightwire and flailing about. After brief consideration Constance had guessed “a hideous baby bat waking up,” which may or may not have been an intentional insult, but regardless was good enough to earn her the story of Kate toppling from the wire with a shriek and just barely catching it with her legs. “The clowns got a kick out of that one,” Kate had said, then added defensively, “I was only eight, you know.”

  Now Sticky was ready to try again. Taking a deep breath, he rapped on the table with his knuckles and tensed as if bracing for a blow.

  “Is it ice cream?” Constance asked. “Ice cream and pie?”

  “Of course not,” Sticky said wearily, and he sank back into his chair. “Forget the sweets and try to focus on me, will you?”

  “I was focusing on you! How do you know I wasn’t?”

  “You guessed ice cream and pie, Constance!”

  They began to bicker, their tones growing more strident with every word, and Reynie was grateful for the distraction when Moocho Brazos swept into the dining room, all muscle and mustache, and swarthy as a sailor. Over his elegant tailored shirt and trousers Moocho wore the bright red apron the children had given him for his birthday. He wielded an ice cream scoop and a spatula (in his huge hands they looked like a child’s playthings) but observing Sticky and Constance in the midst of their heated argument he lowered the utensils and shook his head.

  “I see they aren’t quite read
y,” Moocho intoned. He chuckled and took a seat (or rather, two seats) next to Kate. “I trust you enjoyed yours?”

  “You know we did!” Kate laughed, reaching up to smooth a stray lock of Moocho’s well-oiled black hair. She and the strong man had been friends for years, and she felt very motherly toward him.

  “I’m so glad,” said Moocho, and idly inspecting his spatula he said, “By the way, I believe I’ve finally solved that riddle you gave me last night. The answer is ‘love,’ isn’t it? What a relief! If I’d known anything about tennis, perhaps I’d have managed sooner, but sadly I ignored that part for the longest time—‘in tennis it’s nothing,’ after all.”

  “That threw us, too,” said Kate. “Or some of us, anyway. How did you finally figure it out?”

  “I consulted an encyclopedia. Imagine my surprise when I learned that in tennis ‘love’ is a score of zero! Suddenly everything made sense! Or almost everything, I should say. Most of the lines came clear right away—a person can fall in love and so on—but a few aspects still puzzle me: the hole in the middle, the clover, and the part about starting over.”

  “Shall we tell you?” Reynie asked, speaking up to be heard over Constance, whose voice had gone quite shrill. “Or would you rather figure them out?”

  “Oh no, if you please, I’m anxious to be rid of them. They’ve been hanging over me like a cloud.”

  “Well,” said Reynie, “the hole in the middle is the letter O in ‘love.’ So the bit about ‘falling in it’ refers to falling in love—just as you guessed—and not to falling in the hole. You can read that first line either way.”

  “Clever,” said Moocho, writing out “love” in the air with his spatula. “Although, in my defense, the O is not precisely in the middle but slightly to the left.”

  “Funny, that’s what Constance said,” Kate observed. (Moocho stiffened ever so slightly.) “Anyway, the last line of the poem does the opposite—it refers to the O, not to ‘love.’”

  “You can’t start over without an O? Why not?”

  “Try writing the word ‘over’ without the O,” Reynie said. “It’s hard to start, isn’t it?”