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L I T T L E , B ROW N A N D C O M PA N Y
N ew Yo rk Boston
n a city called Stonetown, near a port called Stonetown Harbor, a boy named Reynie Muldoon was preparing to take an important test. It was the second test of the day the rst had been in an ofce across town. After that one he was told to come here, to the Monk Building on Third Street, and to bring nothing but a single pencil and a single rubber eraser, and to arrive no later than one oclock. 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
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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 nished his sandwich and rose from the park bench. If the doors to the Monk Building
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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 teachers 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 wouldnt 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. Im 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? Its important to be relaxed when taking such an extremely difcult test as this, especially considering how long it is and how very little time youll have to complete it. In the back of the room someone groaned in distress. You there! shouted the pencil woman, pointing her nger. Every head in the room swiveled to see who had groaned.
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C. Vanuatu, which having been administered (until its independence) by an Anglo-French Condominium, retains both French and English as ofcial languages (in addition to Bislama, or Bichelama); and Portugal, whose explorer Pedro Fernandez de Quiros became in 1606 the rst European to discover the islands Vanuatu comprises.
Although there were two more answers to choose from, Reynie didnt 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 rst page! All around him children were shivering, sighing, grinding their teeth. Reynie felt like joining them. So much for those special op-
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eynie, alone in the room now, was trying to make sense of what had happened. Why hadnt Rhonda Kazembes name been called? Was it because she cheated? Did she have the wrong answers, after all? And where did she get those answers in the rst place? It was all very mysterious, and not the least intriguing was Rhondas behavior when she was dismissed along with the others: Well, best of luck, kid, shed chirped, playfully mussing his hair and scudding from the room in her cloud-dress, apparently not the slightest bit confused or disappointed that she hadnt passed.
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he room was on the seventh oor, as Reynie had suspected. The door had no sign on it, but after roaming the empty hallways and looking at all the other door signs (there was a 7-A, a 7-C, a 7-D, and a 7-E), they returned to the unmarked door, upon which Kate knocked boldly. After a pause, she knocked again, still more loudly. This happened several times before they got a response which, as it happened, came not from beyond the door, but from directly behind them. Thats enough with the knocking, said a deep voice, quite close.
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What I dont understand, Sticky was saying to Reynie as they followed Milligan down a dark stairway, is how you passed that test. Im glad, of course, but I dont see how you did it. I crossed on my hands and knees so my feet didnt touch any blue or black squares, and Kate did her acrobat tricks, but you just walked right across the room. You were stepping on dark squares left and right! They had reached the bottom of the stairs now. Milligan ushered the children into a damp, dimly lit underground passage, where centipedes twisted away at their approach and other slithery creatures they heard but didnt see retreated into the shadows. By this gloomy route, he was leading them to what he had called their nal testing place, which struck Reynie as having a particularly ominous sound.
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Text copyright 2007 by Trenton Lee Stewart Illustrations copyright 2007 by Carson Ellis All rights reserved. Little, Brown and Company Hachette Book Group USA 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 Visit our Web site at www.lb-kids.com First Edition: March 2007 The characters and events portrayed in this book are ctitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stewart, Trenton Lee. The mysterious Benedict Society / by Trenton Lee Stewart ; illustrated by Carson Ellis. 1st ed. p. cm. Summary: After passing a series of mind-bending tests, four children are selected to go on a secret mission that requires them to go undercover at the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, where the only rule is that there are no rules. ISBN-13: 978-0-316-05777-6 ISBN-10: 0-316-05777-0 [1. Adventure and adventurers Fiction. 2. Schools Fiction. 3. Science ction.] I. Ellis, Carson, 1975- ill. II. Title. PZ7.S8513My 2007 [Fic] dc22 2006009925 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Q-MT Printed in the United States of America The text was set in Janson Text.