Partly out of curiosity, and partly because she loved Mr. Benedict even though she was furious with him, Constance looked up. Mr. Benedict had removed his spectacles and was looking steadily at her with his bright green eyes. Constance’s first reaction was to wonder if he was about to fall asleep; her second was to wonder why she’d wondered that.
“You often pretend not to know certain things,” said Mr. Benedict, “because you don’t see how you possibly could know them, and this disturbs you. But you do know things, Constance, and right now I want you to pay attention to that fact. When you looked up at me just now, I saw a question in your eyes. You formed an opinion, did you not, about what I was feeling or thinking?”
“I wondered if you were about to fall asleep,” Constance murmured, “but I didn’t know why I thought that.”
Mr. Benedict smiled. “No doubt you noticed something familiar about my expression — something others wouldn’t see. Leaving aside explanations for now, let us focus on one thing only, which is that you can know things if only you’ll allow yourself. Can you agree to do that? Just for a moment?”
Constance hesitated, then nodded. “I’m not sure what you mean . . . but fine, I’ll try.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Benedict. “While I have your complete attention, then, I’ll speak frankly. I have something I want to say to you, and I want you to keep looking at me as I say it. Are you ready?”
Constance braced herself. Her heart was skipping inside her chest, for she had no idea what was coming. “I’m ready.”
“Then what I want to say is this: Every person in this family loves you. Rhonda loves you, Number Two loves you, and I love you. We already consider you as much a part of our family as any of us, and we would do anything — no, we will do anything —”
Mr. Benedict’s eyes closed before he could finish his sentence, and he slumped forward onto the table, upsetting Constance’s cereal bowl and spilling milk onto the folders and charts.
“Oh dear,” Number Two said, hastening to soak up the spill with her shirt sleeve before it ran into Mr. Benedict’s hair. “I should have seen that coming.”
Constance was blinking in amazement — because she had seen it coming. Just before Mr. Benedict fell asleep, the thought “Here he goes now” had flashed into her mind. Mr. Benedict was right. She could know certain things . . .
“I hope you realize he meant it,” said Number Two. Despite her brusque tone — or perhaps because of it — Constance could tell she’d been touched by Mr. Benedict’s words.
“I do,” said Constance, recalling the feeling of certainty she’d had while Mr. Benedict was speaking. “At least . . . I mean, I think I do.”
“Good. You should. And now for heaven’s sake, are you going to help me clean this up or do you mean to just sit there and watch?”
Constance slowly broke into a grin — she was feeling very happy all of a sudden — and said exactly what Number Two had expected her to say, which was that she did indeed mean to just sit there and watch.
Lying in her bunk in the Shortcut, remembering the events of that morning, Constance felt every bit as sad now as she had felt happy then. She had no idea where she came from and no idea where she might be headed. In what little she could remember of her life, the only constant thing — the thing she depended on above all — had been Mr. Benedict’s presence. And now she had lost even that. Constance sniffled as quietly as she could.
Reynie knelt beside her bunk. “They’re going to be all right.”
“How do you know?” said Constance, rubbing her stinging eyes. “How do you know that awful man hasn’t already done terrible things to them? How do you know they’re not . . . not . . .”
“I just do,” Reynie said, and Constance realized that he was speaking with a conviction he didn’t actually feel. But it was something, anyway, to hold onto, and she gazed at him with as much hopefulness as she could muster.
“I just do,” Reynie said again, and both of them hoped with all their hearts that he was right.
The Significance of Weather
The hours crawled by as the children waited for Captain Noland. With the exception of one brief spell during which Cannonball thought it safe to allow them on deck (it was raining and the company owners were all below), they’d spent the entire time confined to their cramped quarters. Nor had their appearance on deck, during which they were compelled to hold a tarpaulin over their heads to keep the rain off, proved to be anything like a pleasant diversion. At least it hadn’t lasted long: there’d been time enough for Constance to compose a rhyming complaint about bullfrogs and tarp hogs (by which she meant the boys, whom she accused of crowding her); time enough for the boys to observe how much more miserable a cold wet night could be made by a poetic companion in a foul mood; and time enough for Kate to summon Madge from the bridge tower and smuggle her down to Cannonball’s cabin (a courtesy Cannonball insisted upon, since their own cabin was so crowded) — but all of this took less than five minutes. Afterward the children had retreated belowdecks, and since then had done nothing but wait.
Constance had finally given up and dozed off, while in the bunk above her, Sticky sat with his feet dangling over the edge, absently rubbing his scalp (which had begun to feel sandpapery with new stubble) and expounding — rather too loudly and at great length — upon modern ocean vessels. Initially Sticky had limited his speech to what he’d read in the newspapers about the Shortcut, but once he’d exhausted that topic he had expanded to include all things nautical.
Reynie lay in the other top bunk, propped on an elbow, thinking less about structural innovations than about his friend’s recent tendency to show off. It used to be that Sticky couldn’t bear to be looked at or listened to. Now it seemed the opposite was true, and the effect was more than a little tiresome. Even a naturally curious person like Reynie disliked hearing lectures that hadn’t been asked for. Reynie yawned and stretched — then glanced down at Kate, wondering how she was bearing up. Kate was as good-natured as could be, but she’d also been cooped up for hours. She was sitting on the floor with her legs elaborately crossed and intertwined (in what for most people would be an excruciating position), making sure her bucket’s contents were properly secured. By Reynie’s count she’d done this five times already, and he suspected she was tolerating Sticky’s speech by ignoring it.
At that very moment, however, the speech drew to a sudden, unexpected close, and Sticky — mumbling something indistinct about having a rest — turned onto his side to face the bulkhead. He was burning with embarrassment, for it had just sunk in to him how long he’d been talking and how pompous he must have sounded.
Sticky would have found such behavior distasteful in another person, and indeed it was a far cry from how he used to act. Lately, though, he couldn’t seem to help himself. It was hard to resist the pleasure he felt when others were impressed by him — and they did so often seem impressed. (Cannonball’s exuberant demonstrations of approval, for instance, had made Sticky feel positively rapturous.) And yet, when his efforts fell flat — when he bored people to death or, worse, when he was proven wrong — he either flew out in anger or withered in humiliation. He envied Reynie’s calm, imperturbable manner, to say nothing of Kate’s unshakable bravado and good cheer. Even Constance inspired some jealousy, for at least she had an excuse for her behavior. Sticky covered his face with his pillow. Was he really jealous of a three-year-old? There must be something seriously wrong with him.