The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages

He said that he doesn’t believe we become different people as we age. No, he says he believes that we become more people. We’re still the kids we were, but we’re also the people who’ve lived all the different ages since that time.

There are empty rooms, and then there are rooms that feel crowded, corner to corner, with absence.

But special people tend to go and do special things,” he continued, “and one must accept it as best one can. Whenever I miss old friends, I remind myself that this very act makes them a part of my life. We may be separated by time and distance, and very often by the lack of hours to write each other proper letters, but we remain friends, and I remain grateful.

She needed to judge her friends and family by their actions, not by their thoughts, for thoughts are fleeting and temperamental, the reflection of a moment, and are very often confused and misleading.

One painting was of an observatory, the other of a boy on a bluff. Both featured starry skies—and both, Mr. Benedict had told them, were the work of a childhood friend.

Constance, meanwhile, was slipping a forkful of goopy casserole onto Sticky’s plate. It was the third such forkful, and Sticky (who was just as distracted as Reynie) had yet to notice. He just kept glancing down at his plate with concealed dismay, continuing to eat what was in front of him.

You’re dwelling on your mistakes again,” his mother had said to him not long ago, and not for the first time. “It’s good to acknowledge them, but I do wish you’d not forget everything you get right.

So what do you think, Reynie? And by that I mean, think, Reynie." Reynie did. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and thought. Reynie opened his eyes. "Okay," he said. "I have it." "What took you so long?" asked Kate.

You look ridiculous. You’re like a human kite. Good to know.

Kate’s going to guide you in, came Constance’s voice in his head. That would be great. Please tell her thank you.

surrounding the courtyard, an old iron fence quite overgrown with roses. From his study window Reynie might easily have been looking out upon that tree or those flowers, or he might have lifted his gaze to the sky, which on this fine spring morning was a lovely shade of cobalt blue. Instead, he sat at his desk in an attitude of attention, staring at the door, wondering who in the world could be standing on the other side. For a stranger to be lurking in the hallway should have been impossible, given the fact of locked doors, security codes, and a trustworthy guard. Yet Reynie’s ears had detected an unfamiliar tread. His ears were not particularly sharp; indeed, his hearing, like almost everything else about him, was perfectly average: He had average brown eyes and hair, an average fair complexion, an average tendency to sing in the shower, and so on. But when it came to noticing things—noticing things, understanding things, and figuring things out—“average” could hardly describe him. He had been aware, for the last thirty seconds or so, of something different in the house. Preoccupied as he’d been with urgent matters, however, Reynie had given the signs little thought. The shriek and clang of the courtyard gate had raised no suspicions, for not a minute earlier he had spied Captain Plugg, the diligent guard, leaving through that gate to make one of her rounds about the neighborhood. Hearing the sounds again after he’d turned from the window, Reynie had simply assumed the guard forgot something, or was struck by a need for the bathroom. The sudden draft in his study, which always accompanied the opening of the front door downstairs, he had naturally attributed to the return of Captain Plugg as well. He had wondered, vaguely, at the absence of her heavy footsteps below, but his mind had quickly conjured an image of that powerfully built woman taking a seat near the entrance to remove something from her boot. Too quickly, Reynie realized, when he heard that unfamiliar tread in the hallway. And now he sat staring at the door with a great intensity of focus. A knock sounded—a light, tentative tapping—and in an instant Reynie’s apprehension left him. There were people in Stonetown right now who would very much like to hurt him, but this, he could tell, was not one of them. “Come in?” said Reynie, his tone inquisitive.

packed and loaded into taxicabs. A stream of farewells were made to Captain Plugg, who promised to do her utmost to safeguard their homes. (It was understood that if any Ten Men entered

All these new possibilities, so pleasing to contemplate on their own, had sent everyone's minds spinning, for every possibility came at a cost. Even a single departure spelled the end of the Society as they had known it, and each of its members felt a kind of horror at the prospect of being the first to open the door--the one responsible for ending what they had.

raised no suspicions, for not a minute earlier he had spied Captain Plugg, the diligent