Bad News and Bad News
- Sticky locates a plant called wild chuck-root that, when ground up and added to the cafeteria food, will make everyone who eats it ill.
- While Sticky, Kate, and Constance finish grinding up the plant and discuss how they will distract the Helpers while Kate adds it to the food, Reynie goes to leave a note for Milligan so he can help them.
- He's so nervous though, that he leaves a sketch he drew under the two rocks instead of the note.
- When he realizes what he's done, he goes back to switch the papers, and in his hurry, he leaves a corner of the note sticking out.
- S.Q., who's been patrolling the shore in an attempt to make up for his footprint fiasco, finds Reynie's note.
- In the cafeteria the MBSers are excited: Kate was able to add the powder to the food without anyone noticing. They're starting to feel hopeful.
- Then Jillson gives them some bad news: S.Q. found a note on the beach. He didn't get to read the note, because a man dressed like a Helper snatched it from him and ate it. But they caught the man, and he confessed to being the spy they've been looking for.
- The MBSers are distraught because they know who this "man dressed like a Helper" must be: Milligan.
- Sure enough, a minute later, "a half-dozen Recruiters and Executives (including a very proud Martina Crowe)" (33.63) march Milligan through the cafeteria, his hands and ankles cuffed.
- Reynie, Kate, and the others know that Milligan couldn't have been apprehended easily, and they realize that he must have sacrificed himself for them. When he saw S.Q. discover the note, he must have allowed himself to be captured in order to take suspicion off the kids—after all, as Kate recalls, "Milligan had said he would die before he let any harm come to them" (33.67).