The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
He laid down his pencil and looked around. Most of the other children were also finishing the test. At the front of the room, munching rather loudly on an apple, the test administrator was keeping a close eye on them to ensure they didn’t cheat. She was a thin woman in a mustard-yellow suit, with a yellowish complexion, short-cropped, rusty-red hair, and a stiff posture. She reminded Reynie of a giant walking pencil.
“Pencils!” the woman suddenly called out, as if she’d read his thoughts.
The children jumped in their seats.
“Please lay down your pencils now,” the pencil woman said. “The test is over.”
“But I’m not finished!” one child cried. “That’s not fair!”
“I want more time!” cried another.
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry you haven’t finished, children, but the test is over. Please pass your papers to the front of the room, and remain seated while the tests are graded. Don’t worry, it won’t take long.”
As the papers were passed forward, Reynie heard the boy behind him snicker and say to his neighbor, “If they couldn’t finish that test, they shouldn’t even have come. Like that chess question — who could have missed it?”
The neighbor, sounding every bit as smug, replied, “They were trying to trick us. Pawns can only move one space at a time, so of course the position wasn’t possible. I’ll bet some stupid kids didn’t know that.”
“Ha! You’re just lucky you didn’t miss it yourself! Pawns can move two spaces — on their very first move, they can. But whether it moved one space or two is beside the point. Don’t you know that white always moves first? The black pawn couldn’t have moved yet at all! It’s so simple. This test was for babies.”
“Are you calling me a baby?” growled the other.
“You boys there!” snapped the pencil woman. “Stop talking!”
Reynie was suddenly anxious. Could he possibly have answered that question wrong? And what about the other questions? Except for the odd ones about television and bravery, they had seemed easy, but perhaps he was such a strange bird that he had misunderstood everything. He shook his head and tried not to care. If he wanted to prove himself brave, after all, he had better just stop worrying. If he must return to his old routine at the orphanage, at least he had Miss Perumal. What did it matter if he was different from other children? Everyone got teased from time to time — he was no different in that respect.
Reynie told himself this, but his anxious feeling didn’t fade.
After all the tests had been turned in, the pencil woman stepped out of the room, leaving the children to bite their nails and watch the clock. Only a few minutes passed, however, before she returned and announced, “I shall now read the names of children admitted into the second phase of the test.”
The children began to murmur. A second phase? The advertisement hadn’t mentioned a second phase.
The woman continued, “If your name is called, you are to report to the Monk Building on Third Street no later than one o’clock, where you will join children from other sessions who also passed the test.” She went on to lay out the rules about pencils, erasers, and disqualification. Then she popped a handful of peanuts into her mouth and chewed ferociously, as if she were starving.
Reynie raised his hand.
“Mm-yes?” the woman said, swallowing.
“Excuse me, you say to bring only one pencil, but what if the pencil lead breaks? Will there be a pencil sharpener?”
Again the boy behind Reynie snickered, this time muttering: “What makes him so sure he’ll be taking that test? She hasn’t even called the names yet!”
It was true — he should have waited until she’d called the names. He must have seemed very arrogant. Cheeks burning, Reynie ducked his head.
The pencil woman answered, “Yes, if a sharpener should become necessary, one will be provided. Children are not to bring their own, understood?” There was a general nodding of heads, after which the woman clapped the peanut grit from her hands, took out a sheet of paper, and continued, “Very well, if there are no other questions, I shall read the list.”
The room became very quiet.
“Reynard Muldoon!” the woman called. Reynie’s heart leaped.
There was a grumble of discontent from the seat behind him, but as soon as it passed, the room again grew quiet, and the children waited with bated breath for the other names to be called. The woman glanced up from the sheet.
“That is all,” she said matter-of-factly, folding the paper and tucking it away. “The rest of you are dismissed.”
The room erupted in outcries of anger and dismay. “Dismissed?” said the boy behind Reynie. “Dismissed?”
As the children filed out the door — some weeping bitterly, some stunned, some whining in complaint — Reynie approached the woman. For some reason, she was hurrying around the room checking the window locks. “Excuse me. Miss? May I please use your telephone? My tutor said —”
“I’m sorry, Reynard,” the woman interrupted, tugging unsuccessfully on a closed window. “I’m afraid there isn’t a telephone.”
“But Miss Perumal —”
“Reynard,” the woman said with a smile, “I’m sure you can make do without one, can’t you? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must sneak out the back door. These windows appear to have been painted shut.”
“Sneak out? But why?”
“I’ve learned from experience. Any moment now, some of these children’s parents will come storming in to demand explanations. Unfortunately, I have none to give them. Therefore, off I go. I’ll see you this afternoon. Don’t be late!”
And with that, away she went.
It had been a strange business indeed, and Reynie had a suspicion it was to grow stranger still. When the distant church bell struck the quarter hour, Reynie finished his sandwich and rose from the park bench. If the doors to the Monk Building weren’t open by now, he would try to find another way in. At this point, it would hardly surprise him to discover he must enter the building through a basement window.
As he mounted the steps to the Monk Building’s broad front plaza, Reynie saw two girls well ahead of him, walking together toward the front doors. Other test-takers, he guessed. One girl, who seemed to have green hair — though perhaps this was a trick of the light; the sun shone blindingly bright today — was carelessly flinging her pencil up into the air and catching it again. Not the best idea, Reynie thought. And sure enough, even as he thought it, the girl missed the pencil and watched it fall through a grate at her feet.
For a moment the other girl hesitated, as if she might try to help. Then she checked her watch. In only a few minutes it would be one o’clock. “Sorry about your pencil — it’s a shame,” she said, but already her sympathetic expression was fading. Clearly it had occurred to her that with the green-haired girl unable to take the test, there would be less competition. With a spreading smile, she hurried across the plaza and through the front doors of the Monk Building, which had finally been unlocked.
The metal grate covered a storm drain that ran beneath the plaza, and the unfortunate girl was staring through it, down into darkness, when Reynie reached her. Her appearance was striking — indeed, even startling. She had coal-black skin; hair so long she could have tied it around her waist (and yes, it truly was green); and an extraordinarily puffy white dress that gave you the impression she was standing in a cloud.
“That’s rotten luck,” Reynie said. “To drop your pencil here, of all places.”
The girl looked up at him with hopeful eyes. “You don’t happen to have an extra one, do you?”
“I’m sorry. I was told to bring —”
“I know, I know,” she interrupted. “Only one pencil. Well, that was my only pencil, and a fat lot of good it will do me down in that drain.” She stared wistfully through the grate a moment, then looked up at Reynie as if surprised to see him still standing there. “What are you waiting for? The test starts any minute.”
“Friend? Oh, that other girl. She’s not my friend — we just met at the bottom of the steps. I didn’t even know her name. For that matter, I don’t know yours, either.”
“Reynard Muldoon. You can call me Reynie.”
“Okay, Reynie, nice to meet you. I’m Rhonda Kazembe. So now that we’re friends and all that, how do you intend to get my pencil back? We’d better hurry, you know. One minute late and we’re disqualified.”
Reynie took out his own pencil, a new yellow #2 that he’d sharpened to a fine point that morning. “Actually,” he said, “we’ll just share this one.” He snapped the pencil in two and handed her the sharpened end. “I’ll sharpen my half and we’ll both be set. Do you have your eraser?”
Rhonda Kazembe was staring at her half of the pencil with a mixture of gratitude and surprise. “That would never have occurred to me,” she said, “breaking it like that. Now, what did you say? Oh, yes, I have my eraser.”
“Then let’s get going, we only have a minute,” Reynie urged.
Rhonda held back. “Hold on, Reynie. I haven’t properly thanked you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said impatiently. “Now let’s go!”
Still she resisted. “No, I really want to thank you. If it weren’t for you, I couldn’t have taken this test, and do you want to know something?” Glancing around to be sure they were alone, Rhonda whispered, “I have the answers. I’m going to make a perfect score!”
“What? How?”
“No time to explain. But if you sit right behind me, you can look over my shoulder. I’ll hold up my test a bit to make it easier.”
Reynie was stunned. How in the world could this girl have gotten her hands on the answers? And now she was offering to help him cheat! He was briefly tempted — he wanted desperately to learn about those special opportunities. But when he imagined returning to tell Miss Perumal of his success, hiding the fact that he’d cheated, he knew he could never do it.
“No, thank you,” he said. “I’d rather not.”
Rhonda Kazembe looked amazed, and Reynie once again felt the weight of loneliness upon him. If it was unpleasant to feel so different from the other children at Stonetown Orphanage, how much worse was it to be seen as an oddball by a green-haired girl wearing her own personal fog bank?
“Okay, suit yourself,” Rhonda said as the two of them started for the front doors. “I hope you know what you’re in for.”
Reynie was in too much of a hurry to respond. He had no idea what he was in for, of course, but he certainly wanted to find out.
Inside the Monk Building, conspicuously posted signs led them down a series of corridors, past a room where a handful of parents waited anxiously, and at last into a room crowded with children in desks. Except for the unusual silence, the room was just like any schoolroom, with a chalkboard at the front and a teacher’s desk upon which rested a pencil sharpener, a ruler, and a sign that said: NO TALKING. IF YOU ARE CAUGHT TALKING IT WILL BE ASSUMED YOU ARE CHEATING. Only two seats remained empty, one behind the other. To guarantee he wouldn’t be tempted to cheat, Reynie chose the one in front. A clock on the wall struck one just as Rhonda Kazembe dropped into the desk behind him.
“That was close,” she said.
“There will be no talking!” boomed the pencil woman, who entered just then, slamming the door behind her. She strode briskly to the front of the room, carrying a tall stack of papers and a jar of pickles. “If any child is caught cheating, then he or she will be executed —”
The children gasped.
“I’m sorry, did I say executed? I meant to say escorted. Any child caught cheating will be escorted from the building at once. Now then, are you all relaxed? It’s important to be relaxed when taking such an extremely difficult test as this, especially considering how long it is and how very little time you’ll have to complete it.”
In the back of the room someone groaned in distress.
“You there!” shouted the pencil woman, pointing her finger. Every head in the room swiveled to see who had groaned. It was the same girl who had abandoned Rhonda Kazembe on the plaza. Under the savage stare of the pencil woman, the girl’s face went pasty pale, like the underbelly of a dead fish. “I said no talking,” the woman barked. “Do you wish to leave now?”
“But I only groaned!” the girl protested.
The pencil woman frowned. “Do you mean to suggest that saying, ‘But I only groaned!’ doesn’t count as talking?”
The girl, frightened and perplexed, could hardly muster a shake of the head.
“Very well, let this be a warning to you. To all of you. From this moment on there will be no talking, period. Now then, are there any questions?”
Reynie raised his hand.
“Reynard Muldoon, you have a question?”
Reynie held up his broken pencil and made a pencil-sharpening motion with the other hand.
“Very well, you may use the pencil sharpener on my desk.”
Reynie hustled forward, sharpened his pencil — he felt all eyes upon him as he ground away, checked the tip, and ground away again — and hurried back to his seat. As he did so, he noticed Rhonda Kazembe slipping a tiny piece of paper from the sleeve of her cloud-dress: the list of test answers. She was taking quite a risk, Reynie thought, but he had no chance to reflect on it further, as the pencil woman now launched into the rest of her speech.
“You shall have one hour to complete this test,” she barked, “and you must follow these directions exactly. First, write your name at the top of the test. Second, read all the questions and answers carefully. Third, choose the correct answers by circling the appropriate letter. Fifth, bring the completed test to me. Sixth, return to your seat and wait until all the tests have been graded, at which time I will announce the names of those who pass.”
The children were shifting uneasily in their seats. What had happened to the fourth step? The pencil woman had skipped from third to fifth. The children looked at one another, not daring to speak. What if the fourth step was important? Reynie was waiting, hoping someone else would raise a hand for a change. When no one did, he timidly raised his own.
“Yes, Reynard?”
He pointed to his mouth.
“Yes, you may speak. What is your question?”
“Excuse me, but what about the fourth step?”
“There is no fourth step,” she replied. “Any other questions?”
Utterly baffled now, the children held their tongues.
“To pass this test,” the pencil woman went on, “you must correctly answer every question, by which I mean every question. If you skip even one question, or answer one incorrectly, you will fail the test.”
“No problem,” whispered Rhonda Kazembe from behind Reynie.
The pencil woman’s eyes darted to their side of the room. She stared hard at Reynie, whose mouth went dry. Why on earth didn’t Rhonda keep her mouth closed? Was she trying to get them thrown out?
“You may begin the test as soon as you receive it,” said the pencil woman, turning away at last, and Reynie resisted the urge to sigh with relief — even a sigh might disqualify him. Besides, what relief he felt didn’t last long: The pencil woman had begun handing out the tests.
The first child to receive one was a tough-looking boy in a baseball cap who eagerly grabbed it, looked at the first question, and burst into tears. The girl behind him looked at her test, rubbed her eyes as if they weren’t working properly, then looked again. Her head wobbled on her neck.
“If you begin to feel faint,” said the pencil woman, moving on to the next child, “place your head between your knees and take deep breaths. If you think you may vomit, please come to the front of the room, where a trash can will be provided.”
Down the row she went, distributing the tests. The crying boy had begun flipping through the test now — there appeared to be several pages — and w
“I’m afraid loud weeping isn’t permitted,” said the pencil woman. “Please leave the room.”
The boy, greatly relieved, leaped from his desk and raced to the door, followed at once by two other children who hadn’t received the test yet but were terrified now to see it. The pencil woman closed the door.
“If any others flee the room in panic or dismay,” she said sternly, “please remember to close the door behind you. Your sobs may disturb the other test-takers.”
She continued handing out the test. Child after child received it with trembling fingers, and child after child, upon looking at the questions, turned pale, or red, or a subtle shade of green. By the time the pencil woman dropped the pages upon his desk, dread was making Reynie’s stomach flop like a fish. And for good reason — the questions were impossible. The very first one read:
The territories of the Naxcivan Autonomous Republic and the Nagorno-Karabakh region are disputed by what two countries?
A. Bhutan, which under the 1865 Treaty of Sinchulu ceded border land to Britain; and Britain, which in exchange for that land provided Bhutan an annual subsidy, and under whose influence Bhutan’s monarchy was established in 1907.
B. Azerbaijan, whose territory in 1828 was divided between Russia and Persia by the Treaty of Turkmenchay; and Armenia, a nation founded after the destruction of the Seleucid Empire some two thousand years ago, likewise incorporated into Russia by the aforementioned treaty.
C. Vanuatu, which having been administered (until its independence) by an Anglo-French Condominium, retains both French and English as official languages (in addition to Bislama, or Bichelama); and Portugal, whose explorer Pedro Fernandez de Quiros became in 1606 the first European to discover the islands Vanuatu comprises.
Although there were two more answers to choose from, Reynie didn’t read them. If every question was like this one, he had absolutely no hope of passing. A quick glance at the next few questions did nothing to encourage him. If anything, they got worse. And this was only the first page! All around him children were shivering, sighing, grinding their teeth. Reynie felt like joining them. So much for those special opportunities. Back to the orphanage he would go, where no one — not even good Miss Perumal — knew what to do with him. It had been a nice idea, but apparently he did not have what it took.