The Mysterious Benedict Society: Pencils, Erasers, and Disqualification–The Trouble with Children

If he happened to be late, or bring two pencils, or forget his eraser, or in any other way deviate from the instructions, he would not be allowed to take the test, and that would be that.

Miss Perumal gave him a wry look.

They were gentle and lilting, these sighs, and despite their melancholy Reynie loved to hear them.

“I don’t know, sir,” Reynie said, his hopefulness slipping into dejection.

“Thanks so much for everything, Miss Perumal,” said Reynie, earnestly taking her hand.

(This last question Reynie answered with a thoughtful frown, noting in the margin that since the two trains were approaching each other on an empty stretch of track, it was likely the engineers would recognize the impending disaster and apply their brakes, thus avoiding the collision altogether.)

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.”

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.

She stared wistfully through the grate a moment, then looked up at Reynie as if surprised to see him still standing there.

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.

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.

He had only just circled the last answer, placed his test on the pencil woman’s desk, and looked around at the other children (some were furiously circling numbers at random, hoping to get lucky; and some were not to be seen at all, having crept out of the room in bleak despair), when the pencil woman shouted: “Pencils! Time’s up, children. Lay down your pencils, please.”

After a certain amount of blubbering and wiping away tears, the children stacked their tests on top of Reynie’s and returned to their seats.

Reynie’s musings were interrupted by the pencil woman poking her head in through the doorway: “We’ve finally gotten rid of the other children, Reynard. Had to give them consolation doughnuts and hugs and whatnot. Only a few more minutes now to wait.”

The pencil woman seemed unperturbed.

The woman scratched her head, and Reynie began to suspect that she was either a little daft or a little deaf.

"...It was terrifying, though, I don’t mind admitting it, hanging upside down, scrabbling around in the dark. I think something even nibbled at my finger, but maybe I imagined it. I can get a little mixed up when I’m scared.”

And everybody turned and pushed against one another to see—except Old Yellow Suit, of course, who made a beeline for the exit.

His ruddy cheeks were dark with whisker stubble, while his hair (what little peeked from beneath his hat) was yellow as flax.

“Then let’s begin. When I tell you to, each of you must go through this front door. At the very back of the house is a staircase. You’re to reach the staircase as quickly as possible, hurry up the stairs, and ring the bronze bell that hangs at the top. Speed is important, so don’t dawdle. Any questions?”

“Will this test be any harder than the last one?” Kate asked, with a show of bravado.

But he was only thinking of Sticky to take his mind off himself, for the prospect of groping about in the darkness intimidated him more than he cared to admit.

“Well,” he said aloud, to bolster his courage, “there’s no time to waste, so here goes.”

In answer to her question, the bell rang—only once, and almost imperceptibly, as if Sticky had just tapped it with his fingernails.

Through the closed door they heard the pencil woman speaking in her brusque way, then an embarrassed murmur that must have been Sticky’s response.

“But you still passed?” Sticky asked, heartened to learn of someone else having difficulty with the maze.

As he had already admitted, Sticky often got mixed up when he was excited, and in this frenzy of mysteries and revelations, he could hardly think straight.

“Why, Bembi,” Rhonda answered, taken aback. “And how on earth did you know that? Do you speak it?”

On four chairs arranged before an oak desk rested still more books—which Rhonda and the pencil woman removed so the children could sit—and on the desk itself, piled in precarious, leaning towers, were even more.

He gave a ferocious yawn and ran his fingers sleepily through his hair, as people often do when they first awake, which likely accounted for its disheveled state.

“This is another thing I need to explain to you,” said Mr. Benedict. “I have a condition known as narcolepsy. Are you familiar with it?”

I remember a particularly felicitous rhyme between ‘flaky bereft’ and ‘bakery theft.’

I remember a particularly felicitous rhyme between ‘flaky bereft’ and ‘bakery theft.’

“My young friends,” he said, his face growing solemn, “let me cut to the chase. I wish I could tell you that, having passed these tests, you are now to enter into a pleasant period of education. On the contrary, what I have to tell you is extremely unpleasant, extremely unpleasant indeed.”

"...They have stayed on with me as assistants—and indeed their prodigious gifts have helped me tremendously—but like myself, they cannot form a part of the team.”

Mr. Benedict smiled kindly down at him and said, “Sticky, never fear, you aren’t compelled to join the team. I hope to explain a bit more about it, and then you’ll be given the choice to stay or go. Fair enough?”

“You’ve got more gumption than I realized, pal.”

You’ve all shown ingenuity in one form or another—and yes, in one form or another, you’re all alone.

He felt a keen desire to see Miss Perumal again.

Before any more could be said, Mr. Benedict opened his eyes, blinked a few times, and ran his fingers through his tousled white hair.