50 Fun Facts About The Mysterious Benedict Society

The Mysterious Benedict Society ends with which surprise about the cranky, sleepy Constance Contraire?

She is two years old, which explains the naps, the tantrums and the clumsiness the others grumble about. Mr. Benedict insists all along that she may be the most important member of the team.

In The Mysterious Benedict Society, the test supervisor's yellow suit and red hair remind Reynie of which object?

A pencil is what Reynie thinks of the moment he sees her, which is the joke behind the name she goes by, Number Two. She runs the tests with a stiff back, snacking steadily all day long.

What does Kate Wetherall of The Mysterious Benedict Society carry everywhere, packed with rope, marbles and a slingshot?

A red bucket hangs from her belt, and it also holds a Swiss army knife, a horseshoe magnet and fishing twine. Kate rigs the contents into a tightrope during one of Mr. Benedict's tests.

When the children first meet Mr. Curtain in The Mysterious Benedict Society, he turns out to be Mr. Benedict's what?

Twin brother is the answer the children piece together from a riddle sent from the mainland. The pair were separated just after birth, when their parents died.

Mr. Curtain, villain of The Mysterious Benedict Society, drops into a sudden sleep whenever he feels which emotion?

Anger knocks him out cold, which is why Reynie goads him at the climax until he slumps. Mr. Benedict nods off too, but with him a good laugh is what does it.

Sticky, the boy with the flawless memory in The Mysterious Benedict Society, shares his real name with which president?

George Washington is his real name, but everyone calls him Sticky. That comes from the way everything he reads stays stuck in his head.

Milligan, the gloomy bodyguard in The Mysterious Benedict Society, is revealed to be which relative of Kate Wetherall?

Her father was once a secret agent whose memory was stolen by Mr. Curtain's henchmen, which is why he never came home. It floods back while he is held prisoner on the island, desperate to get back to the children.

How do the four children of The Mysterious Benedict Society secretly report from the island to Mr. Benedict on shore?

Morse code, flashed at night with a flashlight from the dormitory window, carries every report. The replies come back as riddles the children have to untangle.

Before joining The Mysterious Benedict Society, where did the orphaned Kate Wetherall run away to live and perform?

The circus took her in after a few years in an orphanage, and its tricks stayed with her. She walks tightropes, crawls through heating ducts and runs everywhere.

Reynie passes a test in The Mysterious Benedict Society by spotting that the 'squares' he must avoid are really what?

Rectangles cover the whole floor, so a sign banning blue and black squares bans nothing and Reynie simply strolls across. Sticky, missing the trick, crawls over instead.

In The Mysterious Benedict Society, which condition makes Mr. Benedict collapse into sleep in the middle of a laugh?

Narcolepsy sends him to sleep whenever a strong emotion hits, which is why his two assistants are so protective of him. In the second novel he goes looking for a cure.

How does Mr. Curtain speed around his island school in The Mysterious Benedict Society?

In a motorized wheelchair he comes roaring into the classroom on the children's first day. He can walk, though, as the children learn when he stands up at the climax.

How do the four children celebrate in the final scene of The Mysterious Benedict Society, watched by Mr. Benedict?

A snowball fight breaks out once every one of them has found a family. It comes a few days after the escape, with Sticky reunited with his parents.

Which habit betrays the nerves of bald, bookish Sticky throughout The Mysterious Benedict Society?

Polishing his spectacles is what he falls back on whenever he is frightened. Once he finds his courage near the end of the first novel, the habit drops away for the rest of the story.

The TV version of The Mysterious Benedict Society, first developed for Hulu, premiered on which streaming service?

Disney+ took the show over from its sister service and opened with a two-episode premiere. It was cancelled after two seasons.

Which actor stars as the kindly Mr. Benedict in the TV series The Mysterious Benedict Society and also produced it?

Tony Hale was a producer as well as the star, and said reading the novels showed him how much warmth and compassion the character needed. The role won him a Children's and Family Emmy.

Which character, Reynie Muldoon's tutor at the orphanage, adopts him at the end of The Mysterious Benedict Society?

Miss Perumal spotted the newspaper advertisement that started everything and took him to the first test. He composes letters to her in his head whenever life at the Institute gets hard.

What does Constance Contraire write instead of answers on the entry tests in The Mysterious Benedict Society?

Poems, and rude ones, are her reply to every question, because she will only take part on her own terms. Mr. Benedict finds it so funny that he laughs himself to sleep.

What does Mr. Curtain call his method of wiping people's memories in The Mysterious Benedict Society?

Brainsweeping does not destroy memories but hides them where their owners cannot reach them. The sad, silent workers at his school have all been through it.

Students who break the rules at Mr. Curtain's school in The Mysterious Benedict Society are sent to which dreaded place?

The Waiting Room leaves Sticky shaking and plastered in black mud after he is caught cheating. Milligan is later locked in there too, and escapes.

What does Milligan fire to knock out the kidnappers in the maze in The Mysterious Benedict Society?

Tranquilizer darts drop the two men who have stuffed Constance into a duffel bag. He fires three more at the climax, at the Executives who have Kate cornered.

Rhonda hints that the maze of identical rooms in The Mysterious Benedict Society can be finished in what way?

With their eyes closed is the clue, because one arrow on each doorway panel can be felt with the fingertips. Reynie works it out, and all three children get through in different ways.

On which island in the city's harbor does Mr. Curtain run his school in The Mysterious Benedict Society?

Nomansan is joined to the mainland by a bridge, which the children cross to enrol. Several years earlier Milligan escaped from it by swimming to shore.

Mr. Curtain's school in The Mysterious Benedict Society is the Learning Institute for the Very what?

Enlightened completes the name and gives the initials L.I.V.E., which spell something far less friendly read backwards. The lessons are slogans learned by rote.

What title do top students hold at Mr. Curtain's school in The Mysterious Benedict Society, earning secret privileges?

Messengers have their thoughts fed through the Whisperer, though they are never told what they are really sending. Reynie and Sticky reach the rank after some cheating that Mr. Benedict himself suggests.

What are the silent adults in white uniforms who cook and clean at the school in The Mysterious Benedict Society called?

Helpers may not speak to students or even look at them, and they are people who crossed Mr. Curtain and had their memories erased. Reynie recognises one as a school inspector he used to know.

What do newspapers in The Mysterious Benedict Society call the worldwide panic that Mr. Curtain is secretly causing?

The Emergency is a vague dread that everything is going wrong, stirred up by hidden messages in television and radio signals. Mr. Curtain plans to step in as the man who ends it.

When Reynie loses heart in The Mysterious Benedict Society, Mr. Benedict tells him to remember which chess piece?

The white knight comes from a puzzle on the entry test that only Reynie ever solved, about a piece moved out and straight back. The reminder tells him that doubt is no reason to retreat.

After Milligan takes away her rope in The Mysterious Benedict Society, how does Kate finally cross the checkered floor?

On her hands she walks the whole way across, since the rule only bans feet from the wrong tiles. Her first crossing was along a tightrope she rigged from her own rope.

Where does Reynie find the answers to the impossibly hard second test in The Mysterious Benedict Society?

In the exam paper itself is where each answer hides, so question 21 gives away question 1 and so on to the end. Sticky misses the trick and simply knows everything.

Reynie's gift of ribbon bookmarks in The Mysterious Benedict Society lets Sticky secretly read what of Mr. Curtain's?

His journal falls open page after page as he slots the ribbons in, while Sticky, hidden behind a cactus, memorises all he can glimpse. The notes show how near the villain's plan is.

How does Milligan destroy Reynie's secret note when an Executive finds it in The Mysterious Benedict Society?

He eats it, snatching the message from S.Q. before a word can be read, then lets himself be caught as the spy. The sacrifice keeps suspicion off the children.

Kate's kaleidoscope in The Mysterious Benedict Society fools a suspicious Executive because it is secretly what?

A spyglass is built into the toy casing, so Jackson takes it, laughs at her kaleidoscope and tosses it back. The children use it to study the school from a hilltop.

What does the Whisperer ask each child to reveal in The Mysterious Benedict Society before a session begins?

Their greatest fear is the bait: the machine insists it is not real, and the relief is so sweet that Reynie is ashamed of how much he enjoys it. His is being alone.

Which quality of Constance Contraire finally overloads the Whisperer at the climax of The Mysterious Benedict Society?

Her stubbornness lets her refuse the machine's every command until it is thoroughly confused and Mr. Curtain is worn out. She jumps into its seat herself while the other three are struggling to hold out.

Mr. Curtain's door password in The Mysterious Benedict Society is the Dutch spelling of which word, his favourite?

Control, spelled the Dutch way with an extra e, opens the door for Milligan and the rescuers. Reynie guesses it, knowing the villain spent his childhood in Holland.

In The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey, Mr. Curtain kidnaps Mr. Benedict to find which rare plant?

Duskwort can put a whole city to sleep, which is why the villain wants it, yet it might also cure the condition both men suffer from. The trail runs through Portugal and Holland.

In the sequels to The Mysterious Benedict Society, Mr. Curtain's briefcase-carrying henchmen go by what name?

Ten Men earn the name because each knows ten ways to hurt someone, and those elegant briefcases are packed with weapons. In the first novel the same thugs were called Recruiters.

In the later Mysterious Benedict Society novels, Kate Wetherall trains what kind of bird, named Madge?

A peregrine falcon is the bird she trains, and Madge turns out to be short for Her Majesty the Queen. By the fourth novel Kate is training to be a secret agent herself.

In the prequel to The Mysterious Benedict Society, the orphanage's legendary hidden treasure turns out to be what?

A library is all young Nicholas finds at the end of his hunt, and he comes to see why its owner counted it as riches. He roamed the manor at night with a key he had copied in candle wax.

Trenton Lee Stewart, author of The Mysterious Benedict Society, grew up in Hot Springs in which US state?

Arkansas drew him back in 2006 after years of studying and teaching in Iowa and Ohio, and he settled in Little Rock. He wrote short stories for a decade before the novels took off.

Which comic actress plays the ever-hungry Number Two in the TV series The Mysterious Benedict Society?

Kristen Schaal plays her opposite MaameYaa Boafo as Rhonda and Ryan Hurst as Milligan. Haley Joel Osment guest-stars as One Two, the happy-go-lucky member of her family.

The grand title Mr. Curtain plans to claim in The Mysterious Benedict Society has initials spelling which word?

MASTER stands for Minister And Secretary of all the Earth's Regions. The children find the plan in press releases he has already written, each dated in the future.

Which artist illustrated the first Mysterious Benedict Society novel, before Diana Sudyka took over for the next two?

Carson Ellis illustrated the opening volume. A third artist, Manu Montoya, illustrated the fourth novel when the series returned a decade later.

The Mysterious Benedict Society won a read-aloud award for older readers named after which children's author?

E. B. White gives his name to the Read Aloud Award, one of several honours the novel collected while it spent more than a year on the New York Times bestseller list.

Rhonda Kazembe, Mr. Benedict's assistant in The Mysterious Benedict Society, comes from which African country?

Zambia is her homeland, and she is a grown woman small enough to pass for a child, which is how she slips in among the test-takers. Mr. Benedict adopted her years before the story begins.

Which invention powering his island school does Mr. Curtain sit and admire in The Mysterious Benedict Society?

Tidal turbines supply all the Institute's power, and Reynie sees that they will let the hidden messages be broadcast far more strongly. Their maker counts them among his proudest inventions.

Besides writing The Mysterious Benedict Society, Trenton Lee Stewart has contributed what to The New York Times?

Crosswords suit a writer whose novels run on riddles and hidden clues. He has said that if he were not an author he would probably be a secret agent, or a shepherd.

Before The Mysterious Benedict Society, Trenton Lee Stewart's first published novel was which Southern Gothic tale?

Flood Summer came out from a university press two years before his children's debut. It follows its characters as rising water covers the countryside.

Why is Sticky completely bald when the others first meet him in The Mysterious Benedict Society?

He used hair remover as a disguise after running away from home and the academic contests his parents kept entering him in. They searched tirelessly for him the whole time he was gone.