The Perilous Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart Read Free Book Online Page A

past the man to see, standing in the front doorway, a lovely young woman with coal-black skin and braided hair. It was Rhonda Kazembe, of course, and as she hurried down the steps she seemed greatly dismayed to see them. “You came? You didn’t get my telegram?”
    Kate tried to press past the man, but he took her roughly by the shoulder and held her back. “Who are these children?” he asked Rhonda.
    “It’s all right, Mr. Bane, they’re friends. In fact, the girl you’ve grabbed so rudely is Milligan’s daughter.”
    With a start, the man released Kate (who at any rate had been about to release herself), and Rhonda gestured toward the government officials. “Everyone here but you knows these children,” she said. “Feel free to check with your superiors.”
    As Mr. Bane stalked off to do just that, Rhonda opened the gate and embraced them all at once. “Oh dear,” she said again, squeezing them tightly. “You shouldn’t have come, but now that you have, at least I can stop worrying about you.”
    “What’s happened, Rhonda?” asked Reynie.
    Before Rhonda could answer, Miss Perumal and her mother came up, followed by the Washingtons. Rhonda greeted them with apparent relief. “Come inside,” she said soberly. “Come inside and I’ll tell you everything.”
    “Tell us everything about what?” Kate insisted.
    “Mr. Benedict and Number Two,” Rhonda replied, and her eyes suddenly brimmed with tears. “They’ve been taken.”
    The children stared at her in shock. Taken?
    “But… but who —?” Sticky began.
    Rhonda angrily wiped her eyes. “Who do you think?”
    They all knew the answer at once. Reynie said it aloud. “It’s Mr. Curtain, isn’t it?”
    “I’ll explain everything when we’re in the house. I don’t know if you’re safe out here. Someone had to deliver it, after all. They may yet be close by, and who knows what they intend?”
    “Deliver what?” Reynie asked, but Rhonda wouldn’t say more until she had ushered them inside.
    Gone were Reynie’s visions of a happy reunion inside Mr. Benedict’s old house. The rambling, three-story stone building was perfectly familiar, yet the knowledge that Mr. Benedict and Number Two were missing gave the place an alien feel. As Mr. Washington helped his wife up the front steps and Rhonda carried up her wheelchair, Reynie and his friends kept casting anxious looks all around.
    Through the front door they entered Mr. Benedict’s maze, which Rhonda and the children knew by heart. The maze had been the last of Mr. Benedict’s tests, as well as a line of defense against intruders. Together they moved quickly through its many identical rooms, up the staircase at the far side, and at last into a sitting room, where their entrance surprised another group of officials, all of whom turned toward the doorway with apprehensive expressions.
    “Oh, it’s just you,” a silver-haired woman said to Rhonda. “Sorry, we’re a bit on edge.” She glanced inquiringly at the children. “I take it these are —?”
    “Yes, Ms. Argent,” Rhonda said. “And I would like for them to see it.”
    Exchanging uncertain looks, Ms. Argent and the other officials nevertheless stepped aside to let the children approach. On a table in the center of the room sat a brown box.
    Rhonda gestured toward the box. “What happens to Mr. Benedict and Number Two depends on that,” she said grimly. She sounded as if she still couldn’t believe it, and indeed, as if speaking to herself, she repeated in a whisper, “Everything depends on that.”
    The children moved closer. It was an ordinary-looking box, about the size of a fruit crate, with several holes punched into it. Together they peered through the holes into the box’s dark interior, anxious to see just what it might be — what the box might possibly contain that would determine the fate of those they held so dear.
    It was a pigeon. Only that. A pigeon.

The Society Reconvenes
    What can this bird have to do