Chapter 6

After dinner with her mother and Tana, Cody went outside to search in her front yard again for her adopted cat. She checked some bushes and behind her ash tree, then called across the street, “Punkin! Here, kitty, kitty!” Still no sign of the orange tabby. Cody hoped he—she?— was just hiding somewhere safe and would turn up soon.

Remembering Quinn’s plan to contact the club members, she looked inside the knothole of the ash tree as she passed by. Nothing. Maybe Quinn had texted her. She headed inside and climbed the stairs to her bedroom to check her cell phone. Two messages were waiting. She sat on her bed to read them.

SUP Red.
GL on SP test.
YGG. TTYL.
POP. (((H)))

Her dad was so funny, trying to sound cool when he texted her. It always made her laugh.

Hi Pop.
THNX.
CUL8R.

(Red)

Code Buster’s Solution found on p. 206.

The next message was not as clear.

MTTTHLBRRYT 1900HRS

Cody recognized the consonant code. It was a message composed of words that were all run together, minus the vowels. When she first read it aloud, it sounded like mumbo jumbo. But after repeating the syllables a few times, Cody began to hear familiar words. She wrote down her best guesses in her Case Files Codebook. “MT” became “meet,” “T” had to be “at,” “TH” was obviously “the,” and so on.

Code Buster’s Solution found on p. 206.

As usual, Quinn had used the military time code for the meeting time. Nineteen hundred hours meant 7:00 p.m.

Cody checked her watch. That was in fifteen minutes!

She quickly texted him back:

CN I RIDE W/ U?

Seconds later, a letter popped up: y

Since the September nights were cooling off, Cody changed out of her shorts and tank top. She searched her room for something to wear, but the piles of clothes strewn over her bed and floor didn’t make it easy. After digging through the clothing, she found her favorite jeans and red hoodie, slipped them on, and gathered her backpack. She headed downstairs to get her mom’s permission.

Of course, Cody couldn’t tell her mother the real reason she wanted to go to the library: to meet with the Code Busters Club and make plans to look for Skeleton Man’s treasure—if there was one. She’d have to come up with a good reason for going out on a school night. As usual, she found her mom on the cushy couch watching another rerun of CSI.

She was wearing her blue sweats, her hair in a twist, and was eating carrot sticks dipped in hummus. How can she eat that stuff?Cody thought. Her mom had really gone Berzerkley since they’d moved here.

“Mom, I need to go to the library. Just for an hour, okay?” Cody tried to sound casual.

“It’s a school night,” her mother said, glancing over at Cody. “You have homework.”

“I’m working on a project with Quinn.” She wasn’t exactly lying. She just wasn’t overexplaining.

Her mother glanced at the clock. “It’s almost seven.”

“I’ll be home by eight. Promise.”

“Okay, but I can’t take you. Tana’s in bed, and you can’t walk there at this time of night.”

“Quinn’s mom is driving. They’re picking me up in a few minutes.”

Her mom sighed in defeat. “Okay, but take your cell phone and call when you get there. And when you leave the library.”

Her mother, being a cop, had seen a lot of bad stuff on the job, but Cody wished she would relax a little. Cody could take care of herself. She’d learned that After the Divorce.

Checking to make sure her Case Files Codebook was in her backpack, she stood at the front window and watched for Quinn’s SUV to back out of his driveway.

Cody headed for the front door. “Bye, Mom!” she called out.

“Got your spelling list?” her mom asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

“Right here.” Cody tapped her backpack. “Quinn will test me.”

Cody didn’t really need to be quizzed on her words. Learning to spell was like deciphering a code. Some words were phonetic, like “man-dator-y” or “as-ton-ish.” All she had to do was sound out each syllable. Some she broke into separate smaller words, like “book-worm” or “sleep-less.” If the word had a silent letter, she’d pronounce it, as if speaking a new language, like “ga-nat” for “gnat” and “ni-ece” for “niece.” And if it was a really hard word, such as “vacuum,” she’d create an acronym for the letters: “Vicky ate cookies under Utah mountains.” She almost always got 100 percent.

Just to make sure, she’d look over her new words at the library—twice—and again later that night when she was in bed. But first, there was the matter of supposedly hidden money in a supposedly haunted house where a supposedly crazy man lived.

And that note warning them to stay away.