Chapter 1
Dakota “Cody” Jones sat in her class reading a biography of Samuel Morse, the scientist who invented Morse code. Since the Berkeley Cooperative Middle School Science Fair was coming up, Cody’s teacher, Ms. Stadelhofer—Ms. Stad for short—had asked the students to read a biography of a famous scientist to give them ideas for a project. Cody thought if she learned more about her second-favorite code—American Sign Language was her very favorite—maybe she would come up with a good idea to submit. She found the idea of using Morse code in different ways, such as tapping a sound, tapping a person, using a flashlight, and blinking her eyes, interesting and fun.
But Cody was more interested in visual communication, like sign language. She wondered if there were any scientific studies on body language and facial expression as a means of communicating hidden thoughts and feelings.
Cody felt a tap on her back. She turned around. Stephanie slipped her an intricately folded note from her best friend, M.E.—MariaElena Esperanto. Glancing at Ms. Stad to see if she was watching, Cody quickly took the note. Tucking it in her hand, she pretended to read her book, sensing the teacher’s intense gaze on her.
Tiny beads of sweat broke out on her forehead.
Please don’t let me get caught! Cody thought.
After a few moments, she took a chance and glanced up. Thankfully, Ms. Stad was busy correcting papers at her desk.
Whew! Cody thought. Close one. Ms. Stad had caught Cody and M.E. passing notes a couple of times in class, so the girls had to be extra careful when communicating through secret messages. Whatever M.E. had written to her this time must be important or she wouldn’t have taken the chance of getting caught again.
While Ms. Stad continued to correct papers, Cody carefully unfolded the origami note behind her open book. It had been folded so many times, she fumbled a few times opening it.
“I said SILENT READING!” Cody started at the sound of Ms. Stad’s loud voice.
Cody glanced up, feeling her face turn red. Ms. Stad was looking right in Cody’s direction, but she quickly realized Ms. Stad was staring at Matt the Brat, who sat in front of her. Cody hadn’t noticed, but apparently Matt had been reading his book aloud—or else talking to himself—instead of staying silent.
Maybe I should read the note later, Cody thought, as Ms. Stad returned to her work, but her curiosity got the better of her. Still pretending to read her book, she scanned the note she’d hidden inside. The message was written in Egyptian Hieroglyphic Code, one of M.E.’s favorites.
Cody carefully pulled out her hieroglyphics decoder card from her backpack pocket. She kept all the decoder cards in a special origami-folded packet and had decorated the outside with “Keep Out” and “Top Secret” stickers she’d made using the computer.
With half an eye on her teacher, Cody began cracking M.E.’s coded message, replacing the tiny drawings with alphabet letters.
Cody frowned at the message. M.E. must be in some kind of trouble. She turned around and saw the urgent look on M.E.’s face. But there was nothing she could do until class was over.
“Cody,” Ms. Stad called out. “Focus on your reading, please.”
Cody nodded and quickly returned to her book. She wanted to do well on her Science Fair project—maybe even have a shot at winning the top prize this year. Like her other school subjects, she viewed science as simply another code to crack.
But she still hadn’t decided on the perfect project. Maybe the four other Code Busters Club members—Quinn Kee, Luke LaVeau, Mika Takeda, or M.E.—could give her some suggestions at their clubhouse meeting after school. Quinn was brilliant at math and science. His parents were math professors at the University of California, Berkeley, and he planned to create computer games when he grew up. Luke was more into sports, so his project would probably be related to that. As for Mika, their newest club member, she was really good at combining art with codes using something called steganography, which is a way to hide a secret message within a message—like how Leonardo DaVinci hid letters inside the painting of Mona Lisa’s eyes. And no doubt M.E. would create a project that had to do with fashion, which was her passion.
Since Cody had been reading about Samuel Morse, she decided to write back to M.E. using Morse code, hoping to find out what was up.
Cody started to pass the note to Stephanie behind her, who would pass it to M.E. in the back, but suddenly Matt the Brat turned around and snatched it out of her hand.
Cody’s eyes went wide. Oh no! she thought, her empty hands suddenly damp. He’s going to tell on us! Cody poked him in the back and whispered, “Give that back! It belongs to me!”
Matt shook his head, but instead of telling Ms. Stad, he unfolded the piece of paper and began to write on it. A few minutes later, he wrinkled the paper into a ball and tossed it over his shoulder to Cody. It landed in the middle of her open Samuel Morse biography.
Cody glanced at Ms. Stad, certain she would be in trouble any minute. But her teacher was still busily marking papers.
Whew! Cody said to herself for the second time that morning, as she sunk back into her chair. She decided to wait to give the note to M.E. after class. It was just too risky to do it now. But what did Matt write on it?
She smoothed out the paper and saw a drawing had been added at the bottom of her reply to M.E. It looked like a mousetrap contraption sprawled across the page, with lines, squiggles, holes, ramps, ladders, spirals, ledges, and levers, all leading into the mouth of an ugly monster with sharp teeth, drooling lips, and bulging eyes. Inside the wide-open mouth were five stick figures, their arms outstretched, their faces twisted in terror.
Underneath, Matt had written something in Anagram Code, where the order of letters in a word are scrambled up:
Stamt trinblial doce betruss nicesce raif part.
Code Busters Key and Solution found on p. 160.
Real mature, Cody thought, after deciphering it. She rolled her eyes at the gory drawing. What was Matt the Brat planning to do to the Code Busters this time?
The bell rang and Cody slammed her book shut with the note inside.
“Cody!” Ms. Stad said, shooting her a tense look. “That’s not necessary. We treat our books with respect.”
Cody felt her face flush. “Sorry, Ms. Stadelhofer.”
Matt turned around and gave her a look that pretty much resembled the monster face he’d drawn on her paper.
* * * * *
At the end of the school day, Matt stood in the aisle, blocking Cody’s fast escape from the classroom. He was taller and bigger than the rest of his classmates, and his overloaded backpack took up more than his share of space. Every time he turned around, his backpack knocked over something, sometimes even a kid.
As soon as he was out of the way, Cody slipped out the door and met up with M.E., who was waiting for her in the hallway. As usual, M.E. was dressed creatively, from her Dr. Seuss socks and pink Crocs, to her bedazzled jeans and tie-dyed top, to the pink strands in her dark hair. Cody felt nearly invisible in her simple red sneakers, plain jeans, and “I Escaped from Alcatraz” souvenir T-shirt.
“I got your note,” Cody said to her, “but Matt the Brat stole it out of my hands and messed it up. Sorry I didn’t answer, but it seemed like Ms. Stad was watching me the whole time. You said you needed help. What’s wrong?”
M.E. shrugged. “I’m worried about my Science Fair project. I don’t know what to do.”
“That’s it? You’re worried about your project?” Cody said. “I thought something was seriously wrong.”
Moments later, Matt lumbered out of the classroom, his backpack swinging from side to side as he walked. As usual, he wore an oversized T-shirt, this time with a picture of Godzilla on the front, as well as his usual baggy jeans and his black hoodie.
“I got your note,” Matt said to M.E. in a singsong voice. “I wrote you back. Cody has it, don’t you, Cody?”
“Grabbing it away from me wasn’t cool, Matt,” Cody said angrily. “You almost got us all in trouble.”
He grinned. “How did you like my Science Fair project idea? Pretty awesome, eh?”
“You mean the Monster Mousetrap? Good luck with that,” Cody said.
M.E. looked up at Cody. “What’s he talking about?”
“I’ll show you later,” Cody answered her.
“Actually, my real Science Fair project is top secret,” Matt said. “And it’s totally awesome. I’m gonna win the prize this year, so you Code Losers don’t have a chance. Might as well give up now and just grow moldy bread.”
He laughed at what he thought was a hilarious joke. Cody knew growing moldy bread was about the most boring project you could do for the Science Fair. No way would she do something that simple. Besides, Matt’s “top secret” project was probably just another batch of failed Flubber like he’d tried to make last year.
“Well, good luck beating Bernie Bunsen this year,” M.E. said to Matt. “He’s won the Science Fair two years in a row, you know.”
“Yeah, that’s only because he’s the science teacher’s kid,” Matt said. “He probably had lots of help. Not gonna happen this year. Just watch.”
Mika appeared from the classroom, dressed in matching yellow pants, top, and shrug. She broke into a smile when she saw Cody and M.E. “You waited!”
“Of course,” M.E. said. “We wouldn’t leave without you.”
Matt shook his head and wandered off, no longer the center of the girls’ attention. Cody wondered what Matt had up his sleeve this time, but he wasn’t their main worry. Bernie Bunsen was supersmart, and no wonder, with a scientist for a dad. The Code Busters would have to up their game if any of them wanted to win the prize, which was awesome this year—free tickets to the San Francisco Exploratorium and Tactile Dome. Plus, the winner of the Science Fair was allowed to take up to five friends or relatives and a chaperone, so if any of the Code Busters won, they’d all get to go.
All they had to do was beat Bernie.
Cody wondered what the kid genius planned to do this year that would top last year’s experiment. Bernie had asked, “How do you test for ozone in the air?” He’d hypothesized that since ozone is harmful to humans, we should test our neighborhoods to check the levels. He’d had a whole bunch of supplies on display—water, cornstarch, coffee filter, paintbrush, a little stove, and something called potassium iodide—to create an ozone test paper. Then he’d hung the papers around town to see how much the color changed. The darker the purple, the more ozone there was in the neighborhood.
Of course, he won first prize.
The girls headed up the hill to the eucalyptus forest where they’d built their secret Code Busters Clubhouse. The four-sided wooden structure was made of old billboards tied to trees and hidden by a ginormous camouflage parachute. At least, it was supposed to be hidden from spying eyes, but somehow Matt the Brat had found his way there on more than one occasion. He loved to spy on the kids and leave mysterious coded messages that usually meant nothing. Cody hoped today he’d be too busy with his science project to bother them.
They arrived at the clubhouse to find they’d been beaten by the boys again. Cody gave the secret knock (her initials in Morse code) and the secret password (the day of the week said backward). Quinn opened the door, let the girls inside, then chained it up again.
“Our Science Fair questions are due tomorrow,” M.E. said, removing her backpack and sitting down crisscross style on the floor. “And I have no clue what I’m going to do. Why can’t it be a Fashionista Fair instead of a Science Fair? That would be way more fun.”
“At least this year they’re including inventions too,” Cody said. “Maybe you could invent some kind of fashion gizmo.”
The others joined M.E. on the floor. Cody pulled out her Top Secret Notebook from her backpack. She’d jotted down some ideas for her own project she’d gotten while reading the Samuel Morse biography, but she still wasn’t enthusiastic about anything. If only she could think of a project that involved sign language.
“Dude, we’d better come up with something if we want to beat Bernie,” Luke said. “I really want to go to the Exploratorium.”
“Well, I need help, big time,” M.E. said, sighing. “Otherwise, I’m back to moldy bread. At least maybe I can beat Matt the Brat.”
The kids laughed, but Cody turned serious when she remembered that Matt said he was up to something “top secret.” She wondered if he really had a good idea this year. Or was he somehow planning to make sure the Code Busters didn’t win?
“Maybe we should write down our Science Fair questions in code,” M.E. suggested, “just in case Matt gets ahold of them.”
The others nodded.
“Hey, I know the perfect code!” Quinn said. He pulled out his notebook and began to write down a bunch of letters—some capitalized, some lowercased. When he was done, he held it up for the others to see.
“Cool!” Cody said.
Now all I have to do is think up a project that will beat Matt the Brat’s. And maybe even Bernie’s . . .