The Mummy's Curse (5 page)

Ms. Stad called on Spencer, Connor's twin brother, who gave the answer.

“But I still don't know what it's supposed to mean,” Spencer said, frowning.

“There's more to it,” Cody said to the class. “You're supposed to look at the title of the picture, too.”

The students continued to study Cody's picture, but no one said anything more.

“How about another hint?” Ms. Stad said.

“Okay, um … remember what Ms. Stad taught us during handwriting: Don't forget to dot your
i
's and cross your
t
's.”

After a few minutes, one hand went up.

“MariaElena?” Ms. Stad said. “Do you know the answer?”

She nodded, grinning. “The title is actually written in
hidden
Morse code.”

“Nuh-uh,” said Matt the Brat, raising his hand. “There's no dots or dashes.”

M.E. stood up and moved to the front of the room. She pointed to the first word,
artistic
, then said, “Do you see any dots or dashes in that word?”

“Ooh!” said several class members, as they realized what she meant.

Connor raised his hand. “The
t
's and
i
's are supposed to be dashes and dots! The code hidden in the word
artistic
is actually
t i t i
—dash, dot, dash, dot. That's the letter
c
in Morse code!”

“Very good, Connor!” Ms. Stad wrote the dots, dashes, and letters on the board above the picture as the students called them out.

t i t i -.-. t t t - - - t i i - . . i .

Using their Morse code decoder cards, the students quickly deciphered the hidden message.

Code Buster's Key and Solution found on
this page
and
this page
,
this page
.

“Nice work, Cody!” Ms. Stad said. “You hid the message well, yet it was still right in front of our eyes. I love the way you used pictures and words to hide two different messages. That's a perfect example of steganography.”

Cody felt her face flush hot. She was glad her teacher liked her work, but she was embarrassed
to receive such praise in front of everyone. She returned to her seat and sat down, hoping the other students would stop looking at her.

“All right, class,” Ms. Stad said, drawing attention away from Cody. “There's one last picture. Does anyone know what the concealed message is here?” She pointed to the image.

The students grew silent as they gazed at the picture of a triangle with an eye in the middle. To Cody, the drawing sort of looked Egyptian, reminding her of the pendant Ms. Cassatt wore around her neck, but she had no idea what it was supposed to mean.
It didn't appear to have any letters or symbols, other than an eye and a triangle. Was there really a message hidden in the picture? She worked on translating the Egyptian hieroglyphs underneath, but the letters formed nonsensical words.

For the first time in a long while, Cody was completely stumped.

M
s. Stad waited a few more seconds to see if anyone could decipher the last picture. When no one raised a hand, she announced, “It seems as though we have a real mystery here. I think we need a clue. Who did the picture?”

She glanced around the room, searching for a raised hand. No response. “Anyone?” Frowning, she turned back to the last picture on the board. “That's very strange. Well, since we haven't figured out the hidden message, I'll make that your assignment for
Friday. If you can decipher the meaning behind the image, you'll get extra credit. Perhaps then we'll find out who created it!”

While most of the students, including M.E., copied the drawing on paper, Cody and a few others got out their cell phones and snapped pictures of the mysterious eye-in-a-triangle design. Cody planned to take the snapshot to the Code Busters Clubhouse after school and share it with Luke and Quinn. This mysterious message obviously required all four of their code-busting brains.

When the three o'clock bell rang, Cody and M.E. met outside of class and headed for their clubhouse. It was hidden in the eucalyptus forest nearby.

“Figure out the message yet?” M.E. asked as they trudged up the densely forested hill.

“No, you?” Cody asked, pulling out her phone to look at the picture. “I thought maybe it was a rebus—one of those messages written mostly in pictures. Like, the eye could stand for the letter
i
. But what would the triangle stand for?”

M.E. shrugged. “Maybe we can do a Google
search for the different meanings of the word
triangle
when we get to the clubhouse.”

Cody nodded. She took one last look at the puzzling picture, then returned her phone to her pocket for the rest of the short climb. “Come on. I'm sure the guys are already waiting for us. They always beat us there.”

“That's because they run here right after they get out of Mr. Pike's class,” M.E. said. “I'm too tired after school to run anywhere.”

Several minutes later, they arrived at the small shack the Code Busters had made out of old wooden billboard panels. Over the top they'd spread a camouflage parachute, which formed the roof and disguised the rest of the clubhouse.

Cody gave the secret knock, tapping out her initials in Morse code, followed by M.E.

Code Buster's Key and Solution found on
this page
,
this page
.

Then she said that day's password: “Yadnom.”

Code Buster's Solution found on
this page
.

Cody heard scuffling behind the door. Finally, Quinn opened it, letting Cody and M.E. inside before replacing the board that kept out snoops, mountain lions, and Matt the Brat. The girls unloaded their backpacks and joined Luke and Quinn on the newly carpeted floor. They'd found the large remnant behind the school and had carried it up the hill to place over the cold sheet-metal floor.

The boys appeared to have been working on some kind of picture puzzle. Quinn held his cell phone over a sheet that featured both sides of a dollar bill.

“What are you guys doing?” M.E. asked, glancing at the paper that lay in front of them.

“Homework,” Luke said. “We're studying steganography. Our teacher wants us to find all the hidden symbols on a dollar bill. Quinn's using the magnifying glass app on his phone.”

“We're studying steganography, too,” Cody said. “But Ms. Stad gave us a different drawing to figure out—not a dollar bill. We're hoping you can help us crack it.”

“Sure, after you help us with ours.” Quinn pulled out a real dollar from his pocket and held it up to the light coming in through the thin fabric roof.

“What are you doing?” M.E. asked.

“Just checking to see if this has a watermark. It's one of those invisible images you can only see when you hold paper up to the light. That way, you can tell if it's counterfeit.” He stared at the bill. “This one doesn't have a watermark. It doesn't even have a security thread.”

“What's a security thread?” M.E. asked.

Quinn pulled another bill out of his pocket, this
time a five. He held it up to the light. “There's the watermark,” he said, pointing to a faint circle that had been pressed into the bill. “See that line down the side? That's the security thread.”

“Cool!” M.E. said, holding up the bill and examining it. “I never knew that was in there!”

Quinn nodded. “My dad showed me. I guess it's only in bills that are worth more than a dollar, because dollar bills don't have them.”

“But we did find some hidden stuff on the one-dollar bill,” Luke said. “Like this hidden spider.” He pointed to a tiny dot near the number
1
in the upper right corner of the illustration.

“I think it looks like an owl,” Quinn said. “And the number
thirteen
is hidden all over the place. See? The eagle on the back is holding thirteen arrows. The branch in its right foot has thirteen leaves. The shield has thirteen stripes, and there are thirteen stars over the eagle's head. Even the pyramid has thirteen steps.”

“Why are there so many thirteens?” M.E. asked. “Isn't that supposed to be an unlucky number?”

Quinn shook his head. “Our teacher said it represents the original thirteen colonies.”

“Wait a minute!” Cody said, raising her head. She'd been studying the back of the one-dollar bill intensely. “Check out the pyramid. There's an eye at the top, inside a triangle! Just like the one in that picture, M.E.!”

She tapped the photo icon on her phone to retrieve the snapshot she'd taken of the mysterious drawing. “M.E., get the picture you drew of that triangle/eye.” While M.E. pulled out her drawing, Cody showed the boys the photo of the puzzling artwork. It still had her stumped.

“You're right,” Luke said. “It does look like the same symbol as the one on the dollar bill. What do you think it means?”

“That's a good question,” Cody said. She clicked a search engine icon on her phone, then typed in the words
triangle eye.
After reading the information, she looked up at the other Code Busters. “It's Egyptian!”

“That's weird,” M.E. said. “We're studying
Egyptian stuff right now. What else does it say?”

“It says here the symbol is called the All-Seeing Eye of Providence or the Eye of Horus. We learned about that in class. It's like a lucky charm that's supposed to watch over everyone.”

“That doesn't tell us much,” Luke said.

“Look up ‘Eye of Horus,' ” Quinn said to Cody. “Maybe that will give us more information than what our teachers told us.”

Cody typed in the words, then read from the entry. “It says, in ancient Egypt, the Eye of Horus was a symbol of protection, power, and good health. They used to make amulets—jewelry—in the shape of the Eye, and bury them with people to protect them in the afterlife and ward off evil spirits.”