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Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Mysterious Benedict Society, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Confidence and Growing Up
Deception vs. Truth
Loneliness vs. Friendship
Control vs. Freedom
Hope
Summary
Analysis
Reynie waits in the testing room, puzzling over why Rhonda didn’t pass the test. The administrator rejoins Reynie. He asks for her name, but she doesn’t tell it to him. Reynie asks to call Miss Perumal, but she tells him that Miss Perumal has been called and all is taken care of. Reynie politely asks if the administrator is lying to him. He explains that the administrator previously told Miss Perumal that he could use the telephone, then she told Reynie that there was no telephone, so he is concerned. The administrator assures Reynie this is a “perfectly reasonable question,” but she does not answer it. When Reynie asks again, she tells him that she is about to call Miss Perumal, before saying she has already called her and relaying Miss Perumal’s congratulatory message to prove it.
Reynie continues to display his gifts for observation and critical thinking. He does not believe everything he is told, and instead recalls previous evidence to assess if he is being lied to. Even in the face of potential dishonesty, however, Reynie remains polite. He respectfully explains his concerns to the test administrator, despite the woman’s consistently bizarre behavior. The test administrator continues to display this strangeness as she rapidly changes her story regarding Miss Perumal. The test administrator is openly confusing and dishonest, but she seems to respect Reynie, since she acknowledges that his question is “perfectly reasonable.” Her refusal to answer the question hints that she is deliberately acting unreasonably.
Themes
The administrator leaves. Reynie is confused by her behavior, but his thoughts are interrupted by a “timid knock” at the door. A boy with spectacles and a bald head comes in and asks if this is where he is supposed to wait. Reynie doesn’t know, but he welcomes the boy to join him and introduces himself. The other boy, who is fidgety and shy, tells Reynie his name is Sticky Washington.
Before he even enters the scene, Sticky’s anxiety is apparent. He knocks before entering the room, and he does so “timid[ly],” indicating that Sticky is unsure if he has a right to be there. He looks to Reynie for assurance, and though Reynie doesn’t know more than Sticky, he takes the lead in the situation and welcomes Sticky inside. This establishes Reynie’s unknown and untapped capacity for leadership.
Themes
Sticky and Reynie discuss the test. Sticky was not the only child in his group to pass; a tiny girl about half his size also passed the first section, but he hasn’t seen her since. He was the only child to pass the second test, which surprised him. Reynie asks if a girl cheated, and a surprised Sticky says yes. Sticky reveals that he was the only child to help Rhonda after she dropped her pencil. He is skinny enough to fit through the bars of the grate, so Rhonda held his feet and he searched the drain. He didn’t find the pencil, but Rhonda revealed afterwards that she had another one and offered to help him cheat for his trouble. Reynie speculates that refusing Rhonda’s help was part of the test.
Sticky is surprised that he was the only child to pass the second test, which demonstrates that he does not perceive his intelligence as remarkable. He also proves to share Reynie’s kindness, which many other children lack, since Sticky was the only child in his group to help Rhonda. His willingness to dive into the drain hints that Sticky may be braver than he lets on. Meanwhile, Reynie continues to put together the puzzle of the tests by realizing that Rhonda herself is a feature of the exam.
Themes
Sticky nervously polishes his spectacles. He comments that it’s creepy to be tricked by the test administrators, but he is grateful that they let him pass the second stage even though he missed a few questions. Reynie is confused how Sticky could have missed any, and Sticky is embarrassed, assuming that Reynie knew all the answers to all the questions. He says that time ran out before he could read the last three, so he circled answers at random. Reynie is stunned to realize that Sticky didn’t notice the trick of the test: he simply knew all the answers. He expresses his amazement to Sticky, who brightens and reveals that his nickname comes from how everything he reads “sticks” in his head.
While discussing the second test, Sticky simultaneously demonstrates his brilliance and his insecurity. Unlike Reynie, Sticky knew the answers to every question on the exam, but he doesn’t think this feat is extraordinary. In fact, he assumes that Reynie is smarter than him, and he’s pleasantly surprised to learn that Reynie passed for an entirely different reason. Their different strategies for the test highlight that the two boys are equally intelligent, but their intelligence manifests itself differently. Reynie can solve problems and riddles, including riddles of human behavior, while Sticky is academically brilliant and has a photographic memory.
Themes
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As the two boys wait, they continue talking, and they enjoy each other’s company. When Reynie describes the administrator’s strangeness about Miss Perumal, Sticky slips back to his anxiety and claims he tried to call his parents, too. Reynie can tell Sticky is hiding something, so he kindly tries to change the subject. He asks Sticky where he lives, but that only makes Sticky more nervous.
Reynie is observant and emotionally intelligent, so he can easily tell that Sticky is hiding something. Instead of pressing the matter, Reynie tries to change the subject to put Sticky at ease. This effort fails, however, and Sticky’s nervousness around the subjects of his parents and his home hints that some of his anxiety may have roots in genuine hardship.
Themes
The awkwardness is ended when the door bursts open and a blond girl with a red bucket races into the room. Sticky jumps, asking what the girl is running from. She explains that she wasn’t running from anything; she was simply running to the room, since the test administrator told her to come. She introduces herself as Kate Wetherall, and Reynie introduces himself and Sticky. He asks why Kate was running, and she says it’s faster than walking. She is interested in Sticky’s nickname. She has always wanted a nickname and has tried to get people to call her “The Great Kate Weather Machine,” but no one ever goes along with it.
Kate immediately introduces a new energy to the room. Unlike the quiet, academic boys, she is rambunctious and talkative. Kate views running as a sensible mode of transportation because it is faster than walking; this indicates that her unusual behavior is motivated by logic, but that this logic is not the same rationale that governs most people’s actions. She has come up with her own (overly-long) nickname that no one ever calls her, which establishes her as creative and outgoing––but also, to some degree, misunderstood.
Themes
Reynie asks what Kate’s bucket is for. She explains that it is for carrying things, and she opens it up to show the boys its contents. Inside the bucket, Kate carries a variety of things: some are practical, like a flashlight and a magnet, while others seem more random, like a bag of marbles and a kaleidoscope. Kate adds that without her bucket, she wouldn’t have been able to retrieve Rhonda’s pencil. With the tools from her bucket, Kate unscrewed the grate and fashioned sticky twine to reach the pencil. As she tells the story, she reveals that she can always intuit the precise measurement of any distance or object.
Kate carries everything she might need in her bucket, which establishes her self-reliance. She also explains the bucket’s importance in overly simple terms: just as she runs because it is fast, the bucket is for carrying things. This indicates that Kate perceives most of her reasoning as self-explanatory and straightforward, even when it might be confusing to other people. In other words, like Reynie and Sticky, she does not see herself as remarkable. She also shares the boys’ kindness, as she helped Rhonda, and their unusual skills––in Kate’s case, a natural knowledge of measurements.
Themes
Unlike Reynie or Sticky, Kate didn’t pass the second test, since she didn’t notice the puzzle or know the answers, and she refused Rhonda’s help to cheat. Instead, the test administrator let Kate pass because she distracted the angry parents long enough for the administrator to escape. Just then, the administrator pops in and tells the children to report to Room 7-B for the third test. The three new friends, chatting among themselves, make their way down the hall.
Kate offers a third type of intelligence to the group of children. She does not share Reynie’s penchant for riddles or Sticky’s collection of facts, but she can navigate social situations, and the contents of her bucket hint at her resourcefulness. She is moral and honest, as she refused to cheat, and she helped the administrator with no ulterior motive. The three children recognize their similarities and quickly form a bond.
Themes
