by Penny Warner
“I love aquariums!” said M.E., who got excited about almost everything. “I wish we could go there on the field trip. I want to see the penguins and the stingrays and the eels and the octopuses.”
“I think it’s octopi,” Cody said, correcting her.
“I hope there aren’t any mountain lions at the campsite,” M.E. said, glancing nervously behind her and quickening her step. Cody sped up to keep pace with M.E. The girls had never actually seen a mountain lion in the eucalyptus forest, but others had spotted the big cat, so they were always on alert.
Moments later they reached the clubhouse. The original building had been destroyed by an evil pair of crooks who had tried to steal from Cody’s neighbor, but the Code Busters had rebuilt it out of torn-down billboards, wood planks, and a camouflage parachute they’d bought at the army-navy supply store. Cody glanced around to make sure no one had followed them. She knew Luke LaVeau and Quinn Kee, the other two club members, were already there, because the outside lock was open. Then she gave the secret knock, tapping out two letters in Morse code:
M.E. did the same:
Code Buster’s Key and Solution found on this page, this page.
Once they’d tapped out their initials, they leaned in and said the secret word of the day: “Yadnom,” which wasn’t very easy to say. But then, it wasn’t easy to say any of the days of the week backward.
Code Buster’s Solution found on this page.
Cody heard the wooden two-by-four scrape across the inside of the paneled door. Someone was lifting the bar that blocked the entrance. Seconds later, the clubhouse door swung open.
“About time,” Quinn said, backing up to allow the girls to enter the tiny room. He checked his military watch to stress his point.
Cody shrugged. “We’re sorry, guys. We would have been here sooner, but Stad kept M.E. after class for passing notes.”
M.E. rolled her eyes. “Yeah, thanks, Cody.”
Cody smiled guiltily as she set down her backpack and sat on the cool sheet metal floor. The kids kept their treasures—night goggles, flashlights, and other gear—hidden underneath the floor. Soft light filtered in through the translucent parachute roof.
The others joined her on the floor, sitting cross-legged, almost knee to knee.
“Dude,” Quinn said to Cody, “are you psyched for the field trip on Friday?”
She nodded. “I love pirates. I bet there’s a pirate code we can learn before we go.”
“ ‘Hornswoggle’ means cheating someone out of money or treasure and stuff,” Luke said.
“Where’d you learn all that?” Quinn asked.
“Yosemite Sam cartoons,” Luke replied.
Quinn and Cody laughed, but Cody noticed M.E. had a distant look in her eyes, as if she hadn’t been listening. Cody sensed something was up with her friend.
“Aren’t you excited about the field trip, M.E.?”
M.E. came out of her daydream and shrugged again. “I’ve never been away from home before without my family. At least, not overnight.”
Cody frowned. This was the first time her class had gone on an overnight trip. She had to admit she was a little nervous about it, but the idea of going on an adventure excited her. “Yes you have, M.E. You spend the night at my house all the time.”
“That’s different,” M.E. said. “Your house is only a couple of blocks away from mine. And I can go home any time I want.”
“So what are you afraid of?” Luke asked. Luke, who was always doing crazy, daring stunts on his skateboard, didn’t seem to have any fears. He was always the first one to take a chance or try something new. In the short time that Cody had known him, he’d gone zip-lining, entered a haunted house, competed in extreme skateboarding competitions, and had even eaten a live bug. Cody couldn’t help but admire his courage. Maybe losing his parents back in New Orleans and having to move in with his grand-mère had made him tougher.
“I’m not afraid!” M.E. argued. “I just haven’t slept away from home much.”
Cody put an arm around her friend. “You’ll be fine. I’ll be right there with you, and there will be tons of other people around. Plus, I don’t think there are any mountain lions in Carmel, like there are around here.”
“No mountain lions,” Luke added with a grin. “Just a few sharks in the bay.”
M.E. broke into a smile.
“Well, I can’t wait to get on that bus at eight a.m. on Friday,” Quinn said, then turned to M.E. “And we’re not going without you.”
Luke adjusted his New Orleans Saints cap. “Okay, now that that’s settled, let’s compare the maps we got in our classes and see if there are some clues to this so-called treasure our teachers were talking about.”
Quinn and Luke were in a different class from Cody and M.E., but Mr. Pike and Ms. Stadelhofer used the same curriculum and had passed out maps to both classes. The Code Busters pulled out their copies from their backpacks and began studying the area that featured San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo Mission, aka the Carmel Mission, and the Mission Trail Nature Preserve nearby.
“Check it out!” Quinn said, smoothing his rumpled map. “It actually looks like a pirate’s treasure map. Pretty cool.”
Cody studied her copy of the map. Quinn was right. The area was laid out like a pirate map, with strange symbols and letters in a box on the side. The only trouble was, the key had been replaced with fill-in-the-blank lines.
Code Buster’s Key and Solution found on this page, this page.
Quinn scratched his head. “It says at the bottom that we’re supposed to decode the symbols.”
Cody looked over the symbols and letter pairs next to them: ca, po, st, br, ro, ga, be, tr.
“So what do they mean?” M.E. asked, perking up at the idea of solving a code.
“That’s the thing,” Quinn said. “We have to figure them out.”
“Where’s the instruction sheet?” Luke asked, turning the paper over to see if there were any clues written on the back. It was blank.
“The teachers are handing that out tomorrow,” Cody said. “This is all we have right now.”
Quinn got a pencil out of his backpack, along with his Case Files Codebook. “Well, this is what we Code Busters do best, so let’s get to it.”
“All right,” said Cody, focusing on the symbols. “We know these are letters. So what do they stand for?”
“They sort of look like they’re from the periodic table,” M.E. suggested.
Quinn flipped over to the periodic table chart he kept in his codebook. He was a whiz at science and considered the table to be a code. Cody couldn’t figure out why he needed it, since he’d already memorized the whole thing.
“Look,” he said, showing the table to M.E.
M.E. leaned over. “There’s ‘Be’ for ‘beryllium,’ ‘Ca’ for ‘calcium,’ and ‘Ga’ for something called ‘gallium,’ whatever that is.”
“Right,” Quinn agreed, “but what about st, ro, and tr? There are no elements that match those letters.”
M.E.’s shoulders sank. “I don’t know, then.”
“Maybe we can take a clue from the chart,” Cody said. “Some of these elements are coded by using the first two letters of the words, like ‘Ca’ for ‘calcium.’ We can try doing the same thing for these map letters. Maybe the first two letters stand for words.”
“How about ‘ca’ stands for ‘camp,’ since those marks on the map look like little tents?” Luke offered.
Quinn wrote “camp” next to the letters “ca” on the map. “What about ‘po’ … ‘poop’?”
Luke laughed.
M.E. sat up. “How about ‘pool’ or ‘pond’?”
The others looked at the map. “I think she might be right,” said Cody. “That area over there looks like a water hole with a stream running through it. I think she nailed it.”
Together, the Code Busters deciphered the rest of the symbols, until they’d solved the key. At least, they hoped they’d solved it right. They’d find
out when their teachers checked their answers. Cody loved that Ms. Stadelhofer made so many of their lessons a game—especially when she used codes. It made learning stuff a lot more fun.
Cody was about to fold up her map when she spotted two more pairs of letters at the bottom of the page. Next to them was another question mark.
“What about these?” she asked the others, pointing to them. “ ‘Au’ and ‘Ag.’ ”
“Auto?” M.E. guessed, wrinkling her nose.
“Agate?” Luke said. “Although that makes about as much sense as ‘auto.’ ”
M.E. elbowed him playfully in the ribs.
“I think we were right the first time with this one,” Quinn said, one eyebrow raised mysteriously. “On the periodic table, ‘Au’ is the symbol for gold, and ‘Ag’ is the symbol for silver.”
Cody lay awake in her bed that night, staring at the map. She loved making treasure maps for her friends to follow. She filled them with twists and turns, dead ends, cryptic clues, and challenging symbols. Each time she created a map quest for the other Code Busters, she led them on a hunt through the neighborhood, often directing them with compass orientations and codes, like “Go NW, 10 paces, TR, make a UT, go L90 degrees,” and so on. And she always had a “treasure” waiting for them at the end—some candy, small school items, or puzzles downloaded from the Internet.
Code Buster’s Solution found on this page.
That night Cody dreamed of pirates and ships, treasure chests and gold coins, and mystifying maps that kept leading to dead ends. The only things missing from her dream were Peter Pan, Captain Hook, and Tinkerbell. When she woke the next morning and remembered it was only Tuesday, she thought Friday—Field Trip Day—would never come. She couldn’t wait to learn more about California’s only real pirate: Hippolyte de Bouchard.
Not to mention the possibility of finding hidden treasure.
Friday took forever to arrive—at least in Cody’s mind. The trip to Carmel was all she could think about. Her mom had bought her new pajamas (Minnie Mouse), a robe (red), and slippers (black) for the overnight stay, and a dark sleeping bag decorated with glow-in-the-dark stars.
Cody had already packed her clothes in her small suitcase and added a bunch of stuff to take with her—snacks, games, and of course her Code Busting supplies, including an invisible-ink pen, her Code Busters notebook, and a mini-flashlight/whistle/keychain she might need in an emergency. All that was left to pack was her cell phone, her mini-tablet, and her toothbrush.
M.E. arrived at her house a little past seven a.m., towing her Hello Kitty suitcase and matching sleeping bag. After the two girls listened to Mrs. Jones’s lecture about safety—the same lecture she’d heard over the phone from her dad—Cody kissed her sister good-bye and they headed for school. Cody felt like running. She was that excited about the field trip. If she didn’t have to drag her suitcase and sleeping bag, she probably would have.
“What did you pack?” Cody asked M.E. as they walked along the tree-lined street.
“Everything,” M.E. said. “My hair bands, my lucky socks, three pairs of shoes, my sleeping kitty, my cozy blanket, my jewelry box, a first-aid kit, some candy, chips, an apple—”
“You’re right,” Cody said, interrupting her friend as they reached Berkeley Cooperative Middle School. “You really did pack everything. I’m surprised you didn’t bring your hamster.”
“I would have, but I didn’t want the bears to eat him.”
“There aren’t any bears in Carmel, silly. Only whales, sea otters, seals, sea lions …”
“And bats,” M.E. added. “I heard there were lots of bats.”
“Well, just don’t make any high-pitched noises and they’ll leave you alone,” Cody teased.
The girls went to meet their classmates at the front of the school, where the bus was waiting. Most of the kids were already on board. Ms. Stad stood at the bus door, checking in students, sticking on nametags, helping stow suitcases, and looking overwhelmed, even though the trip hadn’t even begun.
Cody and M.E. climbed on and headed to the back, where Quinn and Luke already sat.
“We saved you a place,” Quinn said, removing his Cal-Berkeley hoodie from the seat across the aisle.
Cody and M.E. took off their backpacks and scooted in, then shoved their packs under the seat.
“Did you bring your notebook?” Quinn asked, adjusting the aviator sunglasses that rested on his spiky black hair. He’d dressed in a black T-shirt that read SPECIAL FX, jeans, and black-and-white-checkered Vans.
“Of course,” M.E. said, clicking her seat belt over the rhinestone-studded T-shirt that matched her glittery jeans. She looked like she was going to a party, not a campsite.
Luke, wearing gold and black Saints athletic pants and a sweatshirt, leaned around Quinn to talk to the girls. “I brought a snakebite kit,” he said, proudly.
Quinn turned to him and shook his head. “Dude, there aren’t any poisonous snakes in Carmel, only ring-necked snakes, and they aren’t dangerous. And even if you do get bitten by a poisonous snake, you probably aren’t going to die. Just don’t go looking under rocks and logs. That’s where they like to hide.”
Cody saw M.E. shiver at the mention of snakes. While M.E. loved animals, she preferred the tame ones, not the ones that might bite or eat you. Cody couldn’t blame her. Death by snakebite sounded pretty awful.
Once everyone was on board, including the four parent chaperones, Ms. Stad stood at the front of the bus to make her usual announcements.
“All right, listen up, please. We’re about to head out, and I want to go over a few rules.”
Some of the students groaned, but most were quiet as Ms. Stad reviewed her list. They knew the sooner Ms. Stad finished her lecture, the sooner they’d be off on their adventure. After she covered the basics, she gave a little history about the Carmel Mission. Back in fourth grade, when they’d studied the missions, Cody had been a little bored. But now that they were actually going to a real mission instead of building one out of Popsicle sticks, she found herself interested.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Ms. Stad’s mention of the Carmel Mission pirate.
“… Hippolyte de Bouchard was an Argentinean ship captain who attacked several California missions, including the one in Carmel, back in 1818. Did he find the treasure he was looking for?” she asked. Hands went up, but Ms. Stad shook her head. “You’ll have to wait until we get to the mission museum to find out. For now, each of you will get a sheet of instructions that goes along with the map I handed out on Monday. If you follow all the instructions, you just might discover where the treasure is—if there is one.” She smiled at the end of her mysterious lecture.
The teachers and parent volunteers passed out the papers to the students. When Cody got hers, she pulled out the map Ms. Stad had given everyone earlier, and set them side by side on her lap. The instruction sheet listed a number of step-by-step directions, along with familiar-looking icons— for “tent,” - - - for “trail,” h for “bench,” H for “gate”—and one new one: # for “danger.”
She glanced at the map and located the icons, then turned her attention back to the directions.
1. Find your and set up.
2. Gather at the beginning of the - - - .
3. As you walk, watch for hidden messages near each h.
4. Gather at the H.
5. Keep an eye out for #!
Code Buster’s Solution found on this page.
That sounded easy enough, but she wondered where, exactly, the path would lead. And what hidden messages they were supposed to find? Ms. Stad had hinted that there would be clues along the way. Cody hoped so. That would make it even more fun! Only one thing bothered her.
Why was there a # symbol?
Cody and Quinn texted each other during the nearly two-hour bus ride to Carmel. At one point, Quinn said, “Check your mini.” Cody pulled out her mini-tablet and saw an e-mail from Quinn, but when she opened it, it was totally blank.
She turned to Quinn, who was holding his own mini-tablet, and said, “There’s nothing in this message!”
Quinn smiled. “It’s invisible,” he said mysteriously. “So no one can read it without knowing how to translate it.” He shot a look over at Matt the Brat, who’d been staring at the kids.
“So how do you read it?” Cody whispered so Matt wouldn’t hear.
Quinn leaned in. “Select the message, then click ‘Black’ for the font color.” He sat back.
Cody did as she was directed. Magically, words appeared on the screen: “I just wrote you an invisible note!”
“That is so cool!” she said, delighted to learn a new secret method of communicating. “How did you do that?”
Quinn held up his tablet. “Write your message, like normal. Then select it and change the font to white. Then send the message.”
The kids spent the rest of the trip sending invisible messages back and forth.
As the scenery changed from tall city buildings and busy streets to wind-swept cypress trees and rolling sand dunes, she imagined what life must have been like two hundred years ago. There would have been no malls, no movie theaters, no parks or playgrounds—just the mission, surrounded by miles and miles of trees, bushes, rivers, and lakes.
Before she knew it, the bus pulled to a stop. Cody looked out the window and saw the mission on one side of the street and the campground on the other. She stepped out and surveyed the small city of tents, all empty and waiting for them to move in. Cool.
As she stepped out of the bus with her backpack, she glanced back at the mission. A man with a long beard, dressed in baggy clothes, and a woman with her hair tied in a scarf, also in baggy clothes, stood near the entrance. Cody wondered if they were tourists there to see the mission, too. But instead of heading inside, the couple turned and stared at the bus. Weird.
“Welcome to the Mission Trail Nature Preserve,” Ms. Stad said as the sixth-grade students began gathering their backpacks. “Collect your things and drop them off at your assigned tents. Then we’ll meet at the camp amphitheater in twenty minutes.”
