Traps and Nonsense
- Thankfully Kate has good reflexes, so when the plant starts to engulf Sticky, she drops to the ground and manages to grasp his hand.
- Working together, the kids manage to pull Sticky back out of the plant and realize that it was a (dun-dun-dun) trap. Underneath the plant, there's a pit twenty feet deep. But why?
- The kids go back to their rooms to meet up with the Executives for their tours.
- Kate and Constance are retrieved by Jillson who wonders aloud why their TV is off. Is it broken?
- Kate assures her it's fine and says they just turned it off. Because they were leaving the room. This seems to mystify Jillson, but she lets it go and leads them to the corridor where they meet up with Jackson and the boys.
- The two Executives show the kids around, singing the praises of Mr. Curtain and the Institute at every opportunity.
- They also tell them that the workers in white uniforms are called Helpers, and that Helpers do all the unimportant tasks at the Institute: cooking, cleaning, laundry, and maintenance. (Shmoop would just like to note that cooking, cleaning, laundry, and maintenance are far from unimportant tasks—they're pretty much essential in our book.)
- According to Jackson and Jillson, the Institute has virtually no rules: "You can wear whatever you want, just so long as you have on trousers, shoes, and a shirt. You can bathe as often as you like or not at all, provided you're clean every day in class. You can eat whatever and whenever you want, so long as it's during meal hours in the cafeteria. You're allowed to keep the lights on in your rooms as late as you wish until ten o'clock each night. And you can go wherever you want around the Institute, so long as you keep to the paths and the yellow-tiled corridors" (11.70).
- Yep, that's right. No rules whatsoever… or, you know, tons of rules.