The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma

by Trenton Lee Stewart

  “I’m on it,” said Kate, taking out a pen. She wrote MAIN LIBRARY on the palm of Mr. Benedict’s hand, where it couldn’t be lost or overlooked. Mr. Benedict twitched, snuffled, sighed heavily… and continued sleeping.

  Reynie was watching the sentries. They were several cars ahead now, talking to a bus driver. After a moment they nodded, glanced back at the taxi to be sure all was in order, then moved ahead to speak to another driver.

  “Now!” Reynie hissed, throwing open the door. He leaped into the crowded street and was almost swept away by the throngs of people pushing their way through the stopped traffic. He clung to the door until his friends got out, too, and then—hanging on to one another and frowning in the headlights and exhaust fumes—the three of them made off into the night, hoping they weren’t too late.

  The children soon discovered that the fastest way to reach the library was to cut through the downtown buildings. The streets were too congested to move freely, and though the buildings were dark—indeed, because they were dark—they were relatively empty. The boys had unthinkingly left their flashlights behind, but Kate still had hers, and she led the way through whatever hotels, late-night restaurants, and corner malls they could find whose doors had been left unlocked. In some cases, doors had even been propped open to allow people to pass through, for the electrical mechanisms that opened them were not functioning.

  It won’t be long till that changes, Reynie thought. If the power stayed off much longer, people would forget about convenience and start worrying about security. Everything that could be locked would be locked. But for the time being people seemed to think the blackout would end any moment—or hoped it would, anyway, and were acting as though they believed it.

  In some places they found it necessary to backtrack, in others to cut across a parking lot, which was what they were doing when Kate suddenly stopped in her tracks and looked up. Even in all the hubbub, she thought she had heard a familiar piercing cry. Sure enough, circling in the darkness above, along with a dizzying number of nighthawks and bats, was the much larger, instantly recognizable shape of her beloved peregrine falcon.

  “Oh, Madge! You followed me!” Kate shook her head wonderingly. She was very impressed—Madge must have seen her get into the limousine and followed it, then followed the taxi, then kept track of her despite all her shortcuts through buildings. She wanted to call the falcon down and reward her with a treat, but there simply was no time. “Oh, do be careful, Madge!” she cried, already pressing on. “I know it’s confusing out here tonight!”

  The boys took little notice of this exchange. Sticky was too busy keeping an eye out for well-dressed businessmen with briefcases, and Reynie was busy berating himself for not thinking clearly. Why, for instance, had he not thought to leave the Ten Men’s instructions with Mr. Benedict? Sticky could have memorized them with a glance and folded the paper into Mr. Benedict’s hand. Too late now. And shouldn’t he have realized sooner what the mysterious code in his head was? After all, he knew what Constance was capable of now—or at least he thought he did—and there had been other clues, too. Hadn’t she been confused when she ran off? Hadn’t it seemed she was reliving that fateful day when she’d sought refuge in the library? It should have been obvious to him that the code was a call number, Reynie thought. He needed to get his head straight and keep it that way.

  The Stonetown Main Library was a massive structure with columns in front and a peaceful courtyard in back. Like many of the buildings in the city, it was equipped with emergency lighting, but this consisted mostly of dim, battery-powered bulbs posted above doorways and in stairwells. The security guard, used to having more lights on, had found the vast empty building too creepy to suit him and was now sitting on the front steps watching the traffic and the crowds. Rather than risk his refusal, which would only slow them down, the children circled the building seeking a way in.

  Kate found one in the form of an unlocked window on the second floor. (She discovered it by climbing up a drainpipe and checking window latches while Reynie and Sticky covered their eyes, terrified she was going to fall.) A minute later the emergency door at the top of the fire escape opened and Kate appeared, smiling in triumph. Propping open the door with her bucket, she came down and lowered the fire escape ladder for the boys.

  They all knew the library fairly well, but it was Sticky who remembered exactly where every section was. They were on the right floor, he said; they just needed to bear left. Soon Kate was shining her light along a row of books as they read call numbers. This was the spot. They could even see a gap where the book in question had been. And on the floor beneath it was a cellophane wrapper smeared with peanut butter and flecked with crumbs.

  “She must be close by,” Kate whispered.

  No sooner had she spoken than from a shelf near her knees a head popped out and a voice cried, “It’s you! You came! You got my message!”

  Reynie and Sticky yelled and tottered backward, bumping into each other and knocking books from the shelves, and Kate suddenly found herself looking down from the topmost shelf, having instinctively scrambled up like a startled monkey.

  The head, of course, belonged to Constance Contraire. They had found her.

  Constance was wearing her old red raincoat and boots, both of which were too small for her to be comfortable. But her excitement at being found caused her to miss a perfectly good opportunity to complain; in fact it made her positively chatty. Riding piggyback on Kate as they hurriedly made their way back to the taxi, Constance chattered all the while.

  “It was so strange! Like one of those dreams where people from all different places and times in your life are together in one spot. It really felt that way to me—like everything that had happened to me before was happening to me right then, even though somehow I was in this new place with different people around me. But it was the past—my memory, I mean—that felt the most real. Oh, it’s hard to explain how strange it all was!

  “I caught a bus,” she continued, “and asked the driver to take me to the library branch that was farthest away—just like before, right?—but he checked his watch and told me I ought to go to the main library instead. He said because of the funding shortage the branches had reduced their hours, and the one I’d mentioned would be closed by the time we got there.”

  “Well, that was nice of him,” said Kate, “though I wish he’d have told you to go back home instead. It would’ve saved us a lot of trouble.”

  Kate’s tone was somewhat breezier than she actually felt. She and the boys were having a hard time suppressing their irritation. It was clear from what Constance had told them that she hadn’t been in her right mind when she ran away, and they knew it was unreasonable to blame a frightened four-year-old for causing them such intense worry and trouble. Still, after all they’d been through on her behalf, the others would have appreciated a little more apology and a lot more gratitude.

  “So you meant to go to a branch library,” said Sticky in as neutral a tone as he could manage. “That explains why Milligan was in the Quarryside neighborhood. The branch library there is the farthest one away from Mr. Benedict’s house—it’s all the way across town.”

  “Mr. Benedict must have guessed what you’d do,” Reynie reflected. “But he didn’t know exactly when you left, or what bus you might have caught—if you even managed to catch one—or whether you’d come to your senses and change your mind, or anything…” He cocked his head and looked at Constance curiously. “Hey, did you not try to send him the call number, too?”

  “No, I was scared when the lights went out, but I felt pretty mad at him—I know, I know! I was mixed-up, remember?—so I focused on you instead.”

  “Well, he’s really worried about you. You should know that.”

  “Is he?” asked Constance, clearly pleased. “I guess he’ll be glad to see me, then.”

  “You don’t have to be so happy about it,” Sticky snapped. “We’ve all been worried, you know—and we’ve been through a lot
.”

  “Have you?” said Constance, as if this had never occurred to her. “Probably not as much as I’ve been through, though. Can you imagine what it was like for me when I realized what I’d done? Exactly the most dangerous thing possible, right? Here I was, in the middle of the city with no protection, and then the lights went out, and people were frightened and hurrying for the exits—oh, they tried to act calm, but their fear might as well have been shouting at me, it was all I could feel—and I wanted so much to come back to the house, but I was terrified, you know. I got this feeling that there were people out looking for me. Ten Men, actually. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me, I don’t know, but I was really scared.”

  The others made an effort not to look at one another or even to think too much about the truth. They happened to know that the Ten Men were looking for Constance—but it wouldn’t do any good for Constance to know that herself. And then, as if to make a final play on their sympathies, she did what they’d all felt she should have done at the very beginning; she asked about them.

  “So you really have been through a lot?” Constance asked. “Like what? You have to tell me about it!” She was looking about her with curious, wondering eyes. They were passing through a dark hotel lobby, where a few weary travelers sat reading newspapers by flashlight. It was all very strange, and she felt rather as if she had awakened from one dream only to enter another, but in this one, at least, she felt less frightened and alone.

  “Later,” said Kate, coming to a stop in the open doorway. “Right now we have a problem.” She pointed down the street. The taxi was where they had left it—but it was unmistakably abandoned. Vehicles were creeping around it on both sides, blaring their horns and knocking bumpers in the confusion. The sentries and Mr. Benedict were nowhere to be seen.

  “Where did they go?” Sticky cried.

  “You mean they left without you?” said Constance, stunned. “Why would they do that?”

  “Well, if Mr. Benedict woke up,” said Kate, “then he probably saw the note we left on his hand—in which case they’ll be looking for us back at the library.”

  “And if he didn’t wake up?” Constance asked.

  This was Reynie’s question exactly, and once again he wanted to kick himself for not having thought everything through. “We should have left a note where the sentries could see it, but we left it on Mr. Benedict’s hand, where they wouldn’t think to check. So they would have had no idea where to look for us, or whether we intended to come back. They may well have carried him away, thinking it was their duty to get him to that secure location.”

  “I hope it was a hard decision,” Sticky muttered.

  “Well, where is this secure location?” asked Constance, looking round at them. Her face fell. “Oh… you don’t know.”

  “The way I see it, we only have one decent choice,” said Kate. “If they aren’t looking for us, they could be anywhere, right? It’ll be almost impossible to find them. So I think we should go back to the library in case they went there. But this time we stay out on the streets, because if they did go to the library that’s how we missed seeing them—by cutting through the buildings. What do you think?”

  “Makes sense to me,” said Sticky.

  Reynie didn’t answer for several seconds. He was determined to consider more carefully this time. “You’re right,” he said at last, “we should go back. Even if we don’t find them there, Mr. Benedict has to wake up eventually, and this way he’ll know where we are.”

  “We should’ve just stayed there,” grumbled Constance.

  “Oh, great point, Constance!” said Kate, rolling her eyes.

  They went back to the library. It took them much longer this time, and more than once they were jolted by the sight of a briefcase-toting businessman among the crowds. But these always proved to be actual businessmen, not Ten Men, and the children arrived at the library without incident.

  Mr. Benedict and the sentries weren’t there.

  Kate opened the emergency exit again to let the others in. After they had used the restrooms and Constance had produced an armload of snack crackers (“The librarians would understand,” she insisted, and the others were too hungry to argue), they settled down to wait in a stairwell, where the emergency lighting would spare Kate’s flashlight batteries. They didn’t intend to wait idly: Kate still had Crawlings’s instructions and they were keen to decipher them.

  As the Ten Men had done earlier, so the Mysterious Benedict Society did now: The paper was passed from hand to hand, each member reading it in turn. But whereas the Ten Men had merely glanced at the instructions and grunted in understanding, the children shook their heads—partly in bafflement, partly in excitement—and quickly passed the paper on, mumbling to themselves. Constance was the last to see it. On the front was a note:

  Gentlemen,

  I have arranged for you to meet my most highly placed contact in government. He may be accompanied by certain associates, but you must bring him to me alone. Above all, you must be discreet—if our enemies learn his identity, all is lost. Do not fail me. Your rendezvous instructions are opposite.

  Sincerely,

  Your Employer

  “What does rendezvous mean?” Constance asked. She pronounced the word as if it rhymed with “Ben says mouse.”

  “It’s French,” said Sticky. “It’s pronounced RON-day-voo. It means a meeting at a certain time and place. ‘Your rendezvous instructions are opposite’ means the instructions for determining that time and place are on the opposite side.”

  “Oh!” said Constance, flipping the paper over. “I mean, I knew that.”

  “If we can figure those instructions out,” said Kate, “we’ll know where the Ten Men are supposed to meet this ‘highly placed contact’—someone whose identity Mr. Curtain needs to keep secret at all costs. In other words, Constance, this is big.”

  Constance, frowning, had flipped the paper back over to study Mr. Curtain’s note. “But what about the Z?”

  It took the others a moment to realize what she was talking about.

  “It’s silent,” Sticky assured her.

  Constance’s frown deepened. “Well, that’s stupid. Why not just leave it out?”

  “How about we save grammar discussions for another time?” Reynie suggested.

  Kate took the note from her and reread the instructions, which were as follows:

  In the root

  By the mover

  To the north

  At noon

  “He’s using code words again,” Kate said, “or maybe just vague language he knows they’ll understand. We ought to be able to figure it out though, right? We figured out the last one. So let’s put our heads together!”

  But though “to the north” and “at noon” were easy enough to understand, “in the root” and “by the mover” were not, and after several minutes of consideration the children had yet to come up with anything like an answer.

  “I can’t believe those guys figured it out so quickly,” said Kate. “It hardly took them a second.”

  “They must have some trick,” said Sticky, “some strategy they apply to decipher the instructions.”

  Reynie sat up straight. “You know what? Mr. Curtain gave them the trick! He said the instructions were opposite!”

  “So?” said Kate. Then she brightened. “Oh!”

  Constance scowled. “But Sticky said ‘opposite’ meant—”

  “It isn’t Sticky’s fault,” Reynie said. “That’s exactly why Mr. Curtain wrote it that way, to throw off anyone who wasn’t supposed to read this note. He’s being careful, see? But the Ten Men must have known about the trick ahead of time. They’re probably familiar with all these code words, too—the instructions just make things easier for them.”

  “They must be familiar with the code words,” said Kate, “because it isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world to guess the opposite of ‘root,’ is it? Or maybe I’m speaking too soon—maybe you boys know the ans
wer already.”

  Reynie shrugged. “‘Stem’? ‘Flower’? It’s hard to know what he means by ‘opposite.’” He scratched his head. “Or what he means by ‘root,’ for that matter. It has lots of different meanings, now that I think of it. You can root for your favorite team—”

  “The opposite of that would be ‘boo’ or ‘jeer,’ maybe,” said Kate.

  “You can root around for something in a bag—”

  “So the opposite would be to hide something?” Constance said. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Well, there’s the square root of a number,” Sticky suggested, “the opposite of which would be the square…” He faltered when he saw Reynie giving him a strange look. “Right. I know. Obviously the Ten Men aren’t going to meet in a math problem somewhere. I was just—”

  “But they can meet in the square!” interrupted Reynie. “A city square! I think you’ve got it, Sticky!”

  “I… I guess you’re right!” said Sticky, surprised. “Now we just have to figure out which square!”

  “There’s more than one?” Constance said, making a face. “Oh, brother. For a second there I was getting my hopes up.”

  “He says ‘by the mover,’” said Kate. “Do you think he means an earth mover? You know—a bulldozer? Are they doing construction in any of the squares, Sticky?”

  “You’re forgetting it’s supposed to be the opposite,” Constance said. “There’s no opposite of a bulldozer, is there? Is there any such a thing as a bullwaker? Or a cowdozer? Come on, Kate, use your head!”

  “You know, I’m starting to regret finding you,” Kate muttered.

  “Let’s think about this,” said Reynie before Constance could respond. “A mover is someone or something that moves. So what is the opposite of that?”

  “Someone or something that doesn’t move,” said Sticky.

  “A statue!” cried Kate and Reynie at the same time.

  Sticky sucked in his breath. “Guess what? Only one square in Stonetown has a statue, and that’s Ferund Square! The others all have fountains or parks!”