“By all means, Number Two,” said Mr. Benedict, climbing into the car. “Let us fly!”
For Every Exit, an Entrance
Every night the moon made its slow passage over Stonetown, and every night Reynie Muldoon gazed up through the window of the drafty old house, remembering the moonlit meetings of the Mysterious Benedict Society. There was much to remember about that time, and much to tell, but the moon in its nightly travels would dwindle, disappear, and fatten again before their stories were entirely told. There was too much to do, too little time for storytelling.
Mr. Curtain had escaped the island, along with several Recruiters and a few of his most trusted Executives. So reported the government officials Mr. Benedict had persuaded to raid the Institute. These officials had never believed him before, but their former skepticism had crumbled under the weight of new developments. For one thing, Milligan’s memory had returned, and with it a number of top-secret government passwords. For another, Kate, unbeknownst to anyone, had swiped a pamphlet from Mr. Curtain’s press room, not to mention Mr. Curtain’s journal, which she’d nabbed on her way out of the Whispering Gallery. But most important of all, the Whisperer was no longer broadcasting Mr. Curtain’s messages. Their mind-muddying effects were daily diminishing, the Emergency was fading, and minds long closed to truth were opening again, like flowers craving sunlight.
These days a steady stream of agents and officers flowed through Mr. Benedict’s doors, gathering details and scribbling furiously in notebooks (and often getting lost in his maze). They wanted to catch Mr. Curtain, though for this Mr. Benedict held out little hope. Mr. Curtain, he said, was too smart to be outfoxed by adults. Only children could have accomplished it.
Still, there remained the important problem of all those who had been robbed of memories: the “recruited” children; the secret agents who’d been retrained as Helpers; Mr. Bloomburg, of course; and a good many of the Executives, who not so long ago had been hapless orphans in search of purpose and a home. It would be Milligan’s task to lead the search for all the unfortunates who had ever set foot upon Nomansan Island; it would be Mr. Benedict’s to restore their memories. Already Mr. Benedict was hard at work modifying his twin’s invention with the aim of reversing its brainsweeping function — instead of covering up old memories, it would coax them into the open again — and when pressed, Mr. Benedict admitted he thought it rather likely he would succeed. To those who knew him, this meant there was no doubt he would.
Mr. Benedict firmly insisted, however, that modesty had nothing to do with his opinion that the children had been the real heroes in this adventure. It was they, he argued, who took the risks to discover Mr. Curtain’s dark secrets; they who overcame Mr. Curtain in the Whispering Gallery; they who primed the Whisperer for shutdown; and they who figured out how to unlock the secret exit — something that could only have been done from the inside.
“How did you even know about that secret exit, Mr. Benedict?” Kate asked one night, some weeks after their return. Though everyone in the house had been talking nonstop, it had mostly been to government agents, not to one another, and their own curiosities had yet to be satisfied. This night happened to be the first that they all sat down together with no one to interrupt them. Everyone in the dining room cradled a mug of steaming hot chocolate, for autumn had now given way to winter, and everyone — even Constance Contraire — wore an expression of profound relief to find themselves alone together at last.
“Again I must defer the credit,” said Mr. Benedict. “It was Milligan who found it.”
Everyone looked to Milligan, who was seated at the table beside Kate.
“I just felt sure Mr. Curtain would have built a secret escape route for himself,” Milligan explained. “So after I joined you on the island, I searched every night under cover of darkness. Even then I was lucky — I only found the entrance the night before I was captured.”
“It’s always about entrances and exits with you, isn’t it, Milligan?” Kate teased.
Milligan laughed — it was a hearty, booming laugh — and everyone at the table jumped. They were still getting used to his laughter. After all these years of acting like the saddest man alive, Milligan now acted as if he were the happiest man alive — and perhaps he was. Having so long ago exited his life as a father, he had now, at long last, entered it again.
Milligan reached over and plucked Kate’s chin, which for the first time in weeks was not greasy with ointment. (Her cuts and bruises were long since healed, having been constantly overattended to, not only by Milligan but by everyone else in the house as well.) Kate beamed, swatting playfully at his hand. The next moment she realized the marshmallow was missing from her hot chocolate. She looked up to see him pop it into his mouth.
“You thief!” she said, giggling.
Milligan gave her a wink and a fresh marshmallow.
At the other end of the table, meanwhile, Reynie was preoccupied with a curious question: What should he call the person beside him? He was seated next to Miss Perumal, of course. They’d been reunited at last — with much hugging and great quantities of tears — and she sat by him now with one hand resting on his shoulder. But would he continue to call her Miss Perumal? What would he call her? This is a pressing question for all children who find themselves with a new parent, and so it was for Reynie, whose absence had impressed upon Miss Perumal how dear to her he was: At their reunion, she had lost no time asking what he might think of her adopting him.
At first Reynie had been unable to answer her, only threw himself into her arms and hid his face.
“Oh dear,” Miss Perumal had said, bursting into a fresh bout of tears. “Oh dear, I hope this means yes.”
It had, of course, meant yes, and the two of them sat now with the odd sense — very much like that experienced by Milligan and Kate — of having been family for ages, yet somehow having only just met. An odd sense, but extremely pleasant.
“Mom” didn’t feel quite right, Reynie decided. Why not use the Tamil word? He’d heard her refer to her own mother as “Amma,” but whether this meant “mom” or “mother,” he wasn’t sure. Reynie felt a flutter of happy anticipation. He would ask Sticky.
At that moment, Sticky happened to be the only unhappy person in the entire group. He was trying valiantly not to show it, though. Instead he pressed Mr. Benedict with another question: “But how did you finally disable the Whisperer?”
“I only finished what you children had already begun,” replied Mr. Benedict. “I persuaded the Whisperer that I was Curtain, then gave it orders that more or less baffled it out of operation. But had Constance not already thoroughly discombobulated it, and had I not possessed a brain so very much like my twin’s, we might never have succeeded.”
“Three cheers for Mr. Benedict’s brain!” cried Kate. Everyone laughed and cheered.
“And three cheers for Constance,” said Mr. Benedict, then grew thoughtful as the others cheered and Constance blushed. “That reminds me. Constance, my dear, would you please step into the kitchen and retrieve the small box on the table there?”
Constance nodded and went into the kitchen.
“I can’t believe it,” Sticky said. “She went without even grumbling. It’s almost like she’s growing up.”
“That is precisely to the point, Sticky,” said Mr. Benedict, with a nod to Rhonda Kazembe, who went to a cabinet and produced an enormous birthday cake that had been hidden inside.
“Thank goodness,” said Number Two. “I’m starved.”
Constance returned to find the others beaming at her and pointing to the cake. She blushed yet again. “But my birthday isn’t until next month!”