Sticky told him, and Reynie looked at Kate. “Which door would that take us to?”
Kate asked Sticky to take a few steps while she watched. Then, one by one, she studied the Institute buildings. Finally she shook her head. “Based upon the length of your stride, that many steps wouldn’t take you to any door of any building in the whole Institute, front or back.”
“Oh,” Sticky said, certain he had disappointed Reynie somehow. “I’m sorry. I was so nervous, you know. I guess I’ve misremembered.”
“I don’t think so,” said Reynie, who, far from looking disappointed, was growing more and more excited. “We left the plaza, remember? Went down a walkway — and then across grass.”
“Grass?” Sticky said. “Hey, that’s right! I was so anxious I didn’t even think about that. And you know what? It was the same when Jillson took me to the Waiting Room.”
Reynie nodded. “When Mr. Benedict said we must exit to enter, he meant we must exit the buildings to enter someplace else — a place we can’t get to from inside!”
Kate’s face broke into a grin. “It’s the traps, isn’t it? The number of steps you took would bring you almost exactly to the one behind the Institute Control Building.”
“But why would we want to enter the traps?” Constance asked doubtfully.
“Not the traps themselves,” Reynie said. “Remember how we thought the boulders were to help hide them? I think it’s the other way around. The traps are there to keep us away from the boulders — because the boulders are hiding secret entrances!”
“Secret entrances!” Constance said, trying hard not to look impressed. “How did you think of that?”
“Actually I should have thought of it sooner,” Reynie said. “Sticky had already told me Jillson took him outside and blindfolded him. Obviously the Executives wanted to keep something hidden — something other than the Waiting Room, I mean, because no sane person would ever want to find that place. I’ll bet you anything the next line of Mr. Benedict’s message was going to be something like ‘Where one of you has been before.’”
Sticky was mystified. “But how would Mr. Benedict know?”
“They’re watching the Institute through their telescopes, remember? And the plaza’s in plain sight of the mainland. They must have seen Jillson blindfold you and take you behind the Institute Control Building. That’s how Mr. Benedict knew about it.”
“So you mean something good came out of that?” Sticky asked, his eyes suddenly shining with tears. “I didn’t go to the Waiting Room for nothing?”
“You aren’t going to start crying on us, are you?” asked Constance rudely.
“Not now,” Sticky growled, removing his spectacles and swiping at his eyes. “I believe you’ve cleared me right up.”
“Anyway,” Reynie said, “the passages that lead to the Waiting Room and the Whispering Gallery may also lead somewhere else. Somewhere important. We need to get inside them and find out.”
“So what’s next?” Kate asked. “Sneak around to the boulders behind the building? We still have a few minutes before class.”
Reynie considered. “I think the ones up behind the dormitory would be safer. There’s too much activity down here.”
“Safer is good,” Sticky said.
Kate was bouncing on the balls of her feet. “So what are we waiting for?”
“The right moment,” Reynie replied.
As it happened, Reynie had a particular “right moment” in mind — the moment the day’s classes had ended, when all the Recruiters and most of the Executives would be in the gym, marking the steps of their eerie dance. There would be far less of a chance of bumping into someone in the secret passages, he pointed out. But they would only have a few minutes. They needed to hurry.
Luckily hurrying was something at which Kate excelled. By the time the others had made it halfway up the hill to the stretch of path nearest the drapeweed patch, Kate had already reached the hilltop well above them. A quick check to make sure no one was coming up the other side of the hill; a quick scan of the plaza to see if anyone was looking this way; then Kate gave the “all clear” sign, and the others ran over to hide behind the boulders. A minute later she joined them.
“We’ve found the entrance,” Sticky told her, pointing to a barely detectable outline in the stone. “The question is how to open it. We’ve already tried pushing it, sliding it, and begging it. No luck.”
“Open Sesame!” Constance cried, then scowled at the unmoving boulders as if she hated them.
At the moment Reynie wasn’t particularly fond of them, either. He hadn’t considered that it might be difficult getting into the secret entrances once you’d found them. Now here they stood, thwarted, while precious seconds ticked away.
Kate glanced around to be sure they couldn’t be seen, but Mr. Curtain had placed the entrance very carefully. The back of the boulders couldn’t be seen from anywhere below — not from any window or door in the Institute. The same was true for the boulders behind the Institute Control Building. If students stayed on the paths and walkways as they were supposed to, they would never spot an Executive using a secret entrance.
Reynie, meanwhile, was casting about for a hidden lever or knob — anything that might open the door. Finding nothing, he growled, “Come on! We don’t have time for this!” He gave the door a frustrated kick.
To the amazement of all, the stone door immediately swung up and away, revealing an open archway.
“You kick it?” Sticky cried incredulously.
Reynie nodded, finally understanding. “Mr. Curtain likes to ram through doors,” he said. “Have you noticed?”
The children hurried through the archway into a small, empty foyer. The wall swung closed behind them, and immediately a light came on overhead. It was so bright they almost had to squint. Before them an equally bright passageway curved away in a steep descent. Reynie had thought to post Constance near the entrance as a lookout, but he saw now that a lookout was pointless. After the passage curved away from the foyer, it descended for quite some distance uninterrupted by other doorways or passages. If someone came in through the foyer, there would be no place for a lookout to hide. The children had no choice but to keep together and hope for the best.
Quickly, quietly, they moved down the passage. Constance was riding piggyback, Kate and Reynie were tiptoeing, and Sticky, who was bad at tiptoeing (he brought his knees rather too high, so that he looked and sounded like a prancing horse), carried his shoes and walked silently in his socks. In the bright light, with no nooks or crannies to duck into, they all felt quite vulnerable.
Near the bottom of the hill they came upon another passage that branched off to their right and slanted steeply downward. They wouldn’t need to investigate it, though; they knew at once where it led. A remarkably foul odor hung in the air, and the passage descended to a lonely black door with an iron padlock. Near the door the stone floor was slick with black mud, and from beyond it came a high-pitched humming noise, punctuated with little clicks and scratches. Reynie turned. Sticky stood a few paces behind them, trembling and closing his eyes.
“Let’s move on,” Reynie said quickly. He and Kate took Sticky by the arms just as his knees appeared ready to buckle. He leaned on them gratefully as they hurried on.
A dozen paces more and the children had come to another passage that branched off to the left. This one led to a simple metal door.
Regaining his composure, Sticky quit leaning on Kate and Reynie and set his shoulders. Whatever the door concealed, he wanted to confront it bravely — or at least more bravely than he’d handled the Waiting Room. And so, while Kate and Constance looked questioningly at Reynie (who seemed hesitant to be the one to open it), Sticky took the opportunity to press forward and give the door a sharp kick. This produced a sound very much like that of a hammer coming down upon a finger — a sort of dull donk — and Sticky fell to the floor, clutching his foot.