✨📓📝"Every great thinker keeps a journal, you know."📝📓✨
Mr Curtain glanced up, his lenses gleaming like polished chrome in the sun.
"Sorry to bother you," Reynie said quickly." But I couldn't help noticing that your book has a lot of dog-eared pages. I must say I was surprised."
Mr. Curtain seemed unsure whether to be angry or incredulous. "You're surprised I have pages to which I often refer?"
"Oh, no, sir! I'm surprised nobody has ever given you a suitable present." Reynie showed Mr. Curtain what he'd been holding behind his back - a fistful of thin blue ribbons. "Book markers! I thought they should be special, so I asked a laundry Helper for some sash material - I'm sure you recognize that shade of blue - which she cut into ribbons and sewed up nicely along the edges." Reynie held out the ribbons, which were indeed elegantly stitched. "I hope you like them."
Mr. Curtain was taken aback. He was flattered, it was true, yet his expression clearly showed that he agreed with Reynie, that he rather thought someone should have given him such a present before now. It was a proper attention that had been lacking. "Thank you, Reynard," he said with a tight nod. "An appropriate gift indeed, from one young scholar to his superior. I shall put them to good use." Mr. Curtain returned to his newspaper.
"Sir?" Reynie said. "Aren't you going to put them in?"
Mr. Curtain grunted impatiently, his expression darkening. The boy was a nuisance. And yet the nuisance had flattered him, and the ribbons would be useful. Finally he signed and set aside his newspaper. Flipping his journal back to the first dog-eared page, he slipped a ribbon inside.... He began paging through the rest of his journal, inserting the ribbons.
Pages 260-262 of the paperback edition of The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart