Chapter 11

With two minutes to spare before the first bell, Cody and M.E. stopped by the girls’ bathroom to clean off the soot. After the fifteenth paper towel, Cody knew it was a wasted effort. All they’d managed to do was smear the black spots into gray streaks. Lucky for M.E., she was wearing red tights. The gray stripes just made them look cool, like an abstract painting. Unfortunately, the stripes on the back of Cody’s shorts made her butt look like a mutant zebra’s.

“Hee-haw!” Matt the Brat snorted at Cody. “Awesome stripes. Is there a zebra missing from the zoo? Or did you escape from Alcatraz?” He laughed, sending drops of flying spit everywhere.

Cody glared at the school bully as she passed him on the way to her seat. Today his green-sprayed buzz cut looked like a lawn in desperate need of a mowing. The color matched the fake tattoo of a two-headed snake on his puffy arm. His oversize skull-and-crossbones T-shirt barely reached the waistband of his sagging, baggy jeans, and every now and then Cody caught an unwelcome glimpse of his tighty whiteys. It was enough to make her lose her breakfast.

Even though Matt the Brat acted like a jerk and smelled like peanut butter and called everyone names, he didn’t really scare Cody. She’d seen him cry once, after he’d come out of the principal’s office. In fact, he’d been in trouble so many times, he had his own special chair there. Cody knew if Matt the Brat even burped too loud these days, he was apt to be expelled from Berkeley Co-op Middle School.

As soon as she sat down in her assigned seat behind Matt, Cody checked her backpack. She unzipped the largest compartment and felt around inside, bypassing her school notebook, codebook, pencil, and other supplies.

She shuddered.

The case the kids had found at Skeleton Man’s house was gone.

Quickly, she unzipped another compartment and jammed her hand inside. Nothing except some ABC gum and a few cat-shaped erasers. She tried another compartment, then another. In the last compartment, the smallest one that she rarely used, she felt the cold hard metal against her fingertips.

She breathed a sigh of relief. The case! Thank goodness.

If she lost Skeleton Man’s metal box—the one they’d discovered hidden behind the certificate— she’d never hear the end of it from the Code Busters. Luckily, she’d had the presence of mind to stuff it into her backpack when Jezebel and Jasper had arrived—even if she’d forgotten exactly where.

She pulled the case from its hiding place and turned it over in her hands. Ms. Stadelhofer was busy calling roll, so Cody didn’t have to pay close attention until her teacher got to the Js. She checked the case more closely. While the box resembled a mint container, it appeared to be handmade. The metal—dark and rusty—reminded her of the kind of metal Skeleton Man used for his yard sculptures. Turning it over again, Cody searched for a way to open it.

“Dakota Jones?” Stad called.

Cody was so deep in thought while trying to open the box, she was startled to hear her name. Matt the Brat turned around in his chair, grinning wetly.

“Uh, here,” she said, raising her hand.

Before she could lower her hand, Matt made a swipe at the case, knocking it to the floor with a loud clink!

The whole class turned toward Cody. She blushed as she leaned over to retrieve the case.

“Dakota?”

Cody looked up at the face of Ms. Stadelhofer looming over her, frowning.

“I…dropped my…,” she started to say.

Stad held out a freckled hand. “I’ll take that. You may have it back at lunch. Until then, it remains on my desk with the other confiscated objects. You know the rules.”

Cody slowly placed the case in Ms. Stadelhofer’s outstretched hand. Matt the Brat snorted, and Cody knew he was enjoying her humiliation immensely. Matt’s philosophy was: If Matt the Brat couldn’t have it, nobody could. No matter what it was.

As Stad walked back to her desk, Matt whispered, “What’s so special about that stupid box anyway? Do you keep your little treasures in there? Or is that your makeup case—”

“Matthew Jeffreys,” Ms. Stadelhofer called from her desk. “Turn around. Eyes front. Pencil in hand.”

Cody gave Matt a wicked smile as he turned to face the teacher. She’d have to keep an eye on the Brat until she got that case back.

Worried about the metal case, Cody could hardly keep her mind on her social studies the rest of the morning. Luckily, Matt the Brat seemed to have forgotten all about it. He was busy bugging other kids and hadn’t paid much attention to her after the incident.

All during a long and boring “trip” to some ancient civilization, Cody kept shifting her attention from the other confiscated items on Ms. Stad’s desk— a silver iPod, a charm bracelet, a headset, some gummy worms, and a coded note that Samantha the Snoop had intercepted between Cody and M.E.—to the classroom clock hanging on the wall by the door.

On the dot of 11:59 a.m., she checked to make sure the metal case was still on Ms. Stad’s desk. Quickly, she lifted the top of her desk, retrieved her books and papers, unzipped her backpack, stuffed everything inside, closed the desktop, and sat up straight to wait for the lunch bell. She stared intently at the clock, willing the long hand to click over to 12:00 noon.

The bell rang. Along with everyone else in class, Cody stood up and hoisted on her backpack. She ran for the teacher’s desk, through the crowd of kids all trying to exit at the same time.

When she reached Ms. Stad’s desk, she blinked in disbelief.

The case was missing.

And so was Matt the Brat.

“It’s gone!” Cody said, grabbing M.E. on her way out of her classroom.

“What’s gone?” M.E. frowned at Cody’s worried face.

“The case! Ms. Stadelhofer took it and put it on her desk with the other stuff, but when I went to get it, it was gone!”

“Oh no,” M.E. said. She waved over Quinn and Luke, who were headed for the cafeteria.

“’Sup?” Luke asked, as he and Quinn joined the two girls.

“The case. It’s gone!” Cody squealed.

“Skeleton Man’s case?” Quinn asked, lifting his sunglasses to eye Cody. He didn’t look happy.

“Duuude,” Luke said, which could have meant “No way” or “Not good” or any number of things.

“I know,” Cody said, near tears. “I think Matt the Brat stole it!”

M.E. scanned the school grounds, then turned back to the group. “We’ve got to get it back. Let’s spread out and see if we can find Matt. Cody, you try the cafeteria. Luke, check out the playing field. Quinn, he might be in the boy’s bathroom, so look there. I’ll see if he’s hiding in back of the school.”

The other three nodded and took off for their assigned areas. Cody headed for the cafeteria.

The noise level inside the large cafeteria was deafening, but Cody hardly noticed, intent on searching for Matt the Brat and getting back the case. After scanning the room twice, she finally spotted Matt sitting at a table with a tray full of food. His plate was untouched, definitely not normal for him. Cody immediately saw why. He was fiddling with something small in his hand.

Skeleton Man’s case.

Cody moved in closer to make sure, being careful to keep herself hidden behind some other kids in case Matt looked up. At the moment, he was too busy trying to pry the metal box open with a fork to notice her. Luckily, it was a plastic fork. One of the tines broke off and flew across the table, landing in Samantha the Snoop’s apple crisp opposite him.

“You dork!” Samantha said.

She shoved the dessert over to Matt to show him what he’d done. He ignored her and continued trying to open the case with the broken fork.

“What are you doing?” Samantha asked. “You can’t open that with a plastic fork, dork. Try this.” She pulled something out of her backpack.

A knife?Cody wondered. Boy, was she going to be in trouble.

Cody inched closer. She was only two tables away.

It wasn’t a knife. It was a protractor from math class. Matt the Brat snatched the math tool from Samantha and began digging at the side of the case with the sharp end.

Great!Cody thought. He’s going to break it open

with that thing!Frantically, she looked around for some way to stop him. She knew she couldn’t do it alone.

That’s when the idea hit her.

Cody ran out of the cafeteria, nearly knocking over a kid carrying a tray full of meat loaf and potatoes, and sped around the corner toward the school office.

She peered in and found the room empty. The secretary must have been on a bathroom break. Yes!

She ducked into the supply room, where the public address system was kept. Every morning the principal made announcements on the PA system—upcoming events, changes in the daily schedule, honorable mentions—along with a couple of lame jokes. Otherwise, it was used only in case of emergency.

That would be now, Cody thought.

Cody closed the door and sat down in the chair opposite the microphone. She’d have to work fast before the secretary heard the sounds over the loudspeaker and came back to see Cody making them—that would mean detention for sure. And then her mother would kill her.

But she had to get that case back.

Switching on the “All-Campus” button, she turned the volume to high and began tapping on the head of the mic.

Code Buster’s Key and Solution found on pp. 202, 207.