by Barbara Dee
“Do you know anything about the Mayan glyph?” she asked. “Did they figure it out yet?” She looked Signe right in the eye, just as Mackenzie had advised.
“Yes, I believe they have,” Signe replied. “But of course, Mayan writing is not my particular passion. What intrigues me is the process—how they arrived at the translation.”
She wiped her glasses with her sleeve, and then put them back on.
“Do you remember,” she added pleasantly, “I once said to you that any real achievement requires three things: precision, patience, and intuition. Intuition is the most precious, of course, but it’s no use until you trust it. But why am I telling you all this, Zoe? You should be telling me.”
Telling her what? Zoe wondered.
She waited for Signe to speak again. But when Signe just returned to her desk and started shuffling papers around, Zoe picked up her backpack and quietly left the classroom.
26
That afternoon Zoe went to the Hubbard library. She found a carrel near the windows and carefully unfurled the little roll of notebook pages. Then she began playing with the crazy symbols, rewriting them, reversing them, trying to detect patterns or keywords. But without Lucas sitting beside her to give her hints, she wasn’t getting very far. All she’d figured out was that the word she’d read—“Zoe”—was somehow the number 553415. Six numbers, and there were three letters in her name. So maybe Z=55, O=34, and E=15. But why? What sense did that make? And what could she do with this, anyway?
Then she noticed that a certain sequence of numbers always seemed to appear right next to “Zoe:” 14114211. The second pair of numbers was the same as the fourth. Obviously, this had to be “Dara.”
Oh, joy, Zoe thought. So I guess this means I’ve finally solved Dara Grosbard! Well, at least she’d gotten three good letters out of her former friend: D, A, and R. And if she added them to the letters in her own name, she could use the cipher to encrypt zillions of important words. Like “read.” And “doze.” And “daze.”
She looked out the window. It was early November, and the almost-winter afternoon was already turning dark. Streetlights were coming on, and she could see various theater-types milling around on the sidewalk in front of the lobby, rehearsals apparently over for the day. She wondered when the musical was opening. Whenever Isadora had the lead, Mom would always tape a big gold star on the refrigerator calendar for Opening Night, so that there was no chance that anyone in the family would make other plans. But of course Isadora wasn’t in the play this time. The Bennetts would probably go anyway, to cheer her on as she assistant stage-managed, but so far the calendar was empty, and the family hadn’t even bought tickets.
Zoe picked up her pencil again, a blue mechanical pencil she’d lately begun using. “Zore,” she wrote in number-cipher. “Rezo.” And then she thought of an actual word she could make: “zero.” That sure seemed fitting: “Zoe + Dara = zero.”
She wrote the equation in cipher: “553415 + 14114211 =55154234.”
But even as she carefully traced the funny math of Lucas’s cipher, she knew she hadn’t solved anything. Because really, after all this time, how could her friendship with Dara equal zero? Zero meant there was nothing between them, and maybe there never had been. But in her heart she knew this wasn’t true. The equation was logical, but it wasn’t the whole story.
And then she looked up. Someone was pulling a chair over to her carrel. Dara.
“Hey,” Dara was saying in a library voice. “Okay if I join you?”
Zoe nodded uncertainly. “Why not.”
“Rehearsal just ended, and Mackenzie told me she saw you coming here. So, what are you doing?” Dara glanced blankly at the encrypted “Zoe + Dara” equation.
“It’s a cipher,” Zoe said, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I’m just kind of messing with it, actually.”
“Yeah, I heard you were obsessed with all that.”
“You did? Who told you?”
“Signe. She’s telling the whole school. She’s like your personal publicity department.”
Zoe giggled nervously. “Really? That’s weird.”
“You think so?” Dara shrugged. “You know what’s really weird, Zoe? That I never got any of this about you.”
Zoe flinched. Was that an accusation? Was she saying Zoe had kept it from her? Or was she maybe blaming herself for not seeing things better?
“It’s not your fault,” Zoe said quickly.
“Oh, I’m not saying it is! I’m just saying it’s weird. I mean, I always knew you were a little warped, but…”
“Gee, thanks.”
Dara gave a short laugh. “Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I think it’s incredibly cool.”
“Okay. Well, thank you. I mean it, Dara.”
There was an awkward pause, and Zoe thought, Okay. Now it’s my turn to say something about her. “So when’s Opening Night?”
“Friday. I’m incredibly nervous. Leg says—” Dara stopped. “Sorry. You don’t want to hear what Leg says, I bet.”
Zoe smiled. “It’s okay, Dara. Really.”
“She says if you’re not scared, that’s a bad sign.”
“She’s probably right.”
“Yeah. She’s not totally stupid, Zoe.”
“I never said she was.”
Then Dara started chewing her cuticles, and Zoe thought, Well, maybe I haven’t solved Dara after all. Because why is she even here? Is she waiting for something?
Okay, talk! she yelled at herself. Just do it! Now! “Listen, Dara, I’m not really sure what happened with us, but—”
“Don’t worry,” Dara interrupted. “I’m not even mad at you anymore. About the play or Lucas.”
“You’re not?”
“Well, I still think he’s obnoxious. And the notes were definitely psychotic, but at least he admitted he wrote them. Oh, and he apologized to me. Did he tell you that?”
“No, actually. I’m glad he did.”
“Anyway,” Dara said, sighing. “I wanted to apologize too. I should have talked to you more. About the notes and everything else.”
“That’s okay,” Zoe answered. And then before she had time to choose the perfect words, she said, “Listen, Dara. I’m really, really glad you’re in the play. I just didn’t understand before how something could be so important to you, and maybe you didn’t even know it. And then when you finally figure it out, it kind of shakes you up, and you feel completely different, but also like yourself. And you expect everybody to just get it and be happy for you. But how can they, if you never share it, and you always keep everything all locked up—”
“Hey, Zoe, forget it,” Dara said gently. “Let’s just say we both messed up, okay? Besides, things are better like this. We needed to make new friends, didn’t we?”
“I know.” Zoe swallowed. It was true; she understood it now, but that didn’t make it easier. “Anyway, I’m incredibly sorry.”
Dara widened her big gray-blue eyes. “But maybe we can still hang out sometime? I don’t mean like before, but…”
“I’d really like that,” Zoe said quickly.
Then Dara grinned. It was the old Dara grin, as easy to read as a traffic sign. Maybe she hadn’t totally changed after all, Zoe thought. And maybe the equation had been wrong. Maybe “Zoe + Dara” didn’t equal zero. Maybe it equaled three or eleven or thirty-six billion. Or maybe it wasn’t even a number. Maybe it was something else entirely, like green.
“Oh, there you are,” a voice called. It was Paloma, who was taking big, impatient steps toward them. Zoe could see Leg standing at the circulation desk, talking on her cell phone. “We were downstairs waiting for you. Remember, Dara?”
“Sorry,” said Dara. “I was just coming.” Suddenly she jumped up. “Gasp,” she cried. “I almost forgot!” She unzipped her backpack and handed Zoe a glossy-looking publication. “This just came out,” she said hurriedly. “The December issue. Hot off the presses.”
Zoe glanced at the cover: the Hu
bbard News. That horrible, braggy magazine Owen kept in his office. “Why are you giving me this?”
“Check out page thirteen.”
“So you’re ready?” Paloma asked loudly. “Leg has a doctor’s appointment. Her mom’s waiting.”
“I said I’m coming.” Dara looked at Zoe. “See you at Opening Night?”
“Of course,” Zoe said. But suddenly she remembered something. “I haven’t bought a ticket yet.”
“That’s okay,” Dara replied. She rolled her eyes. “My parents bought like twenty extra. I’ll give you one.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem. Well, see you later, Zoe. Wave.” And then Dara followed Paloma and Leg out of the library.
Zoe waited for the library doors to close. She sat back down at her carrel, opened the Hubbard News, and flipped to page thirteen.
This fall, twelve-year-old Lucas Joplin identified an ancient Mayan hieroglyph as part of a writing system centuries older than previously discovered glyphs. The meaning of the glyph has not yet been determined, but archeologists speculate that it might be an early representation of a certain sky god thought to reside simultaneously in all four corners of the earth.
“Lucas’s contribution to our understanding of the ancient world may be truly remarkable,” Ancient Civilizations teacher Signe Sorenson explains. “But he couldn’t have done it without the extraordinary collaboration of Hubbard sixth grader Zoe Bennett.” Herself a promising cryptanalyst, Zoe is now in her seventh year at the school.
“Four blue,” Zoe whispered to herself. “Four blue.” She sat there for a moment, feeling her heart race.
Then she ran upstairs to the third floor and banged on Signe’s door.
ANSWER KEY
Chapter 4
The first cipher is a basic substitution cipher—it simply substitutes nonsense letters for the letters of the alphabet, as follows:
Many ciphers are substitution ciphers. This particular one was used by Mary, Queen of Scots, to secretly communicate her plot to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I. When it was deciphered, she was convicted and beheaded for treason.
Lucas has written: “I hate this stupid place. What am I doing here, wasting my time?”
The second cipher was invented by the nineteenth-century American writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe. In an essay titled “A Few Words on Secret Writing,” he provided this substitution cipher:
Translated, Lucas’s second message is “I should be in Guatemala.”
Chapter 6
The first part of Lucas’s writing is more of the Mary, Queen of Scots cipher. It says: “The one named Dara just said sigh.”
The second part is a Caesar cipher, used by the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. To fool his enemies, Caesar shifted the Latin alphabet three spaces. Of course, here Lucas is shifting the English alphabet as follows:
Plain:
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
Cipher:
X
Y
Z
A
B
C
D
E
F
Plain:
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
Cipher:
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
Plain:
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
Cipher:
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
Lucas’s message reads: “Leg said blah, blah, blah. I don’t like her.”
The third part is based on the Polybius checkerboard, or Greek square, invented by the ancient Greek historian Polybius more than 2,200 years ago. Each letter of the alphabet is represented by two digits according to its place on this checkerboard:
For example, the letter S is represented by the number 43—4 for the row across, 3 for the column down. E is 15, 1 for the column across, 5 for the column down. So the word “see” is enciphered: 431515. The letters I and J share the number 24—you’ll need to figure out which is the right letter.
Here Lucas has written: “I think the girl named Zoe looks interesting.” He’s written Zoe as 553415, but she’s read her name without realizing it. She begins to understand how this cipher works in the last chapter, when she figures out her name and also “Dara.”
Chapter 11
This is the Pigpen cipher, which Lucas explains on Chapter 22. Originating during the Crusades, it was further developed in the eighteenth century by a secret society called the Freemasons. This message reads: “Hey, Zoe, what does this say?”
Chapter 19, 22
Pigpen again: “The gecko never blinks…but Zoe never opens her eyes.”
SOURCES
Books About Codes and Ciphers
Paul B. Janeczko, Top Secret: A Handbook of Codes, Ciphers, and Secret Writing, Cambridge, Mass.: Candlewick Press, 2004.
Karin N. Mango, Codes, Ciphers, and Other Secrets, New York: Franklin Watts, 1988.
Mark Fowler and Radhi Parekh, Codes & Ciphers, Usborne Superpuzzles—Advanced Level, Tulsa, Okla.: EDC Publishing, 1995.
Joel Rothman and Ruthven Tremain, Secrets with Ciphers and Codes, New York: Macmillan, 1969.
Simon Singh, The Code Book, New York: Anchor Books/Random House, 1999. This isn’t a kid’s book and it’s hard, but if you’re fascinated by codes and ciphers, give it a try!
Books About Mayan Civilization and Writing
There are many great books in the adult section of your library. To learn how Mayan scholars try to decipher Mayan writing, read Michael D. Coe’s Breaking the Maya Code (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1992). For a more general look at Mayan civilization, try The World of the Ancient Maya by John S. Henderson (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1981) and Everyday Life of the Maya by Ralph Whitlock (New York: Dorset Press, 1987, © 1976). A word of warning, though: The photos in these books are amazing, but the text can be pretty challenging.
Two fun and kid-friendly books are:
Nancy Day, Your Travel Guide to Ancient Mayan Civilization, Minneapolis: Runestone Press, 2001.
Elizabeth Baquedano, Aztec, Inca & Maya, Eyewitness Books, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.
