The Haunted Lighthouse (16 page)

Meet at the Campanile tomorrow at ten
.

Chapter 9

Caesar’s cipher:

MEET UPSTAIRS IN TOWER L & K

Alphanumeric code (2):
Claremont Hotel

Chapter 10

Semaphore code:
Constance - arriving tomorrow noon - Edward
.

Finger spelling:
Let’s go
.

Mirror code:
E-T-U-H-C-Y-R-D-N-U-A-L

LAUNDRY CHUTE

Chapter 11

Telephone code:
We were followed! Man standing in doorway!

Chapter 12

Finger spelling:
I’ll make a run for it
.

Chapter 13

Hidden Word Search Puzzle:

WHO WANTS TO VISIT THE CARMEL MISSION WHERE PIRATES SEARCHED FOR TREASURE?

Finger spelling:
Chapter Title Translations

Chapter 1
The Shadow Knows

Chapter 2
The Torn Message

Chapter 3
More Pieces to the Puzzle

Chapter 4
The Search for Two Seats

Chapter 5
To Be or Not to Be?

Chapter 6
The Haunted Lighthouse

Chapter 7
No Admittance—Keep Out!

Chapter 8
The Zigzag Puzzle

Chapter 9
Carillon at Campanile

Chapter 10
The Haunted Hotel

Chapter 11
Someone Is Watching

Chapter 12
Room 422

Chapter 13
Diamond in the Rough

Kids love codes. They will want to “solve” the codes in this novel before looking up the solutions. This means they will be practicing skills that are necessary to their class work in several courses, but in a non-pressured way.

The codes in this book vary in level of difficulty so there is something for students of every ability. The codes move from a simple code wheel—Caesar’s Cipher wheel—to more widely accepted “code” languages such as Morse code, semaphore and Braille.

In a mathematics classroom, the codes in this book can easily be used as motivational devices to teach problem-solving and reasoning skills. Both of these have become important elements in the curriculum at all grade levels. The emphasis throughout the book on regarding codes as
patterns
gives students a great deal of practice in one of the primary strategies of problem solving. The strategy of “Looking for a Pattern” is basic to much of mathematics. The resolving of codes demonstrates how important patterns are. These codes can lead to discussions of the logic behind why they “work,” (problem solving). The teacher can then have the students create their
own codes (problem formulation) and try sending secret messages to one another, while other students try to “break the code.” Developing and resolving these new codes will require a great deal of careful reasoning on the part of the students. The class might also wish to do some practical research in statistics, to determine which letters occur most frequently in the English language. (
E, T, A, O
, and
N
are the first five most widely used letters and should appear most often in coded messages.)

This book may also be used in other classroom areas of study such as social studies, with its references to code-breaking machines, American Sign Language, and Braille. This book raises questions such as, “Why would semaphore be important today? Where is it still used?”

In the English classroom, spelling is approached as a “deciphering code.” The teacher may also suggest the students do some outside reading. They might read a biography of Samuel Morse or Louis Braille, or even the Sherlock Holmes mystery “The Adventure of the Dancing Men.”

This book also refers to modern texting on cell phones and computers as a form of code. Students could explain what the various “code” abbreviations they use mean today and why they are used.

—
Dr. Stephen Krulik

Dr. Stephen Krulik has a distinguished career as a professor of mathematics education. Professor emeritus at Temple University, he received the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
.

S
tudents, your attention, please,” Ms. Stadelhofer announced to her class. “Do any of you recognize this book?”

Dakota—Cody—Jones was about to raise her hand to answer when Matt the Brat, the kid who sat in front of her, turned around in his seat.

“Is that your baby book, Cody-Toady?” Matt teased. His breath smelled of peanut butter.

Cody glared at him.

“Matthew Jeffreys, turn around and pay attention,” Ms. Stad said sharply.

“Sorry Ms. Stadelhofer,” Matt said.

Ms. Stadelhofer held up the book again. “How many of you learned Mother Goose nursery rhymes when you were little? Do any of you remember this rhyme?”:

Cody’s best friend, M.E.—MariaElena Esperanto—waved her hand. M.E. loved poetry. It wasn’t surprising she’d know nursery rhymes.

“Yes, MariaElena?” said Ms. Stad.

“I know the whole thing by heart,” M.E. said proudly.

“Would you like to recite it for us?” Ms. Stad asked.

M.E. cleared her throat:

“Nice job, MariaElena,” Ms. Stad said. “Now, do you know what the rhyme means?”

M.E. frowned. “Uh … somebody baked a pie full of birds for the king? Sounds yucky to me.”

“Believe it or not,” Ms. Stad said, “many nursery rhymes are about real historical events and have secret meanings.”

Cody’s ears pricked up.

“Coded references in the rhymes are about
wars, plagues, and injustice. Most people didn’t read or write, so they memorized rhymes. Even pirates used rhymes to pass on secret messages,” Ms. Stad continued.

“Pirates?” Matt the Brat blurted, forgetting to raise his hand. Ms. Stad shot him a look.

Cody could picture Matt wearing an eye patch and swinging a sword—right before he tripped and fell into crocodile-infested waters.

But the word
pirate
had definitely caught Cody’s attention, too.

As Ms. Stad gave Matt her usual lecture, Cody jotted down a coded note for M.E. using her Caesar’s cipher wheel. M.E. and Cody were members of the Code Busters Club, along with Quinn Kee and Luke LaVeau from Mr. Pike’s class. They all loved creating and cracking codes, and they had built their own clubhouse in a nearby eucalyptus forest. The four kids had made their own ciphers by cutting out two circles, one larger than the other.
They’d written the alphabet around the edge of the outer circle, and then they’d done the same on the rim of the inner circle but had mixed up the letters. After lining up the letter Z on the inner circle with the letter A on the outer circle, Cody quickly coded the message by substituting the corresponding letters. That way no one could read it if it fell into the wrong hands—like Matt the Brat’s.

She located the first letter of her message on the outer circle—I—then wrote down the corresponding letter underneath it—X. She continued to code each letter until the sentence was complete:

X HBRVDC XP UJDCD’I Z KXCZUD LBVD?

Code Buster’s Key and Solution found on
this page
.

Using origami, Cody folded the sheet of paper into a hidden square within a square. She passed the palm-sized note to Becca, who passed it to Stephanie, who passed it to M.E.

“Quiet down, please,” said Ms. Stad. “You might be surprised to learn that the nursery rhyme ‘Sing
a Song of Sixpence’ was a message that pirates used to recruit crew members for their ships. ‘Sing a song of sixpence’ refers to the amount of money the pirates would earn for the trip. ‘A pocket full of rye’ is about how they spent their money. ‘Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie’ meant the pirates planned to lure other ships in range, then launch a surprise attack. ‘When the pie was opened’ meant the attack itself, and ‘the birds began to sing’ was about the pirates who fought in the attack.”

Ms. Stad paused for a moment and grinned. “Can anyone guess who ‘the king’ refers to?”

A few hands went up. “The king of England?” asked Bradley in the back row.

“No,” said Ms. Stadelhofer.

“The king of Spain?” asked Jodie.

Ms. Stad shook her head.

Hands slowly went down. “Give up?” she asked. “Actually, ‘the king’ doesn’t refer to a real king at all. It refers to Blackbeard the Pirate!”

Cool
, Cody thought.
Too bad there aren’t any pirates like Blackbeard anymore
.

“Class,” Ms. Stad said. “I have a special ‘pie’ to share with you. But this will be a good surprise.”

Everyone sat waiting. Cody’s wondered what it could be. A Pirate Day? A lesson on how to talk like a pirate? Maybe Ms. Stad planned to teach them a
real
pirate code?

“Did you find an envelope inside your backpacks yesterday?” Ms. Stad asked.

Cody nodded and noticed the other students nodding as well.

“What was inside?” Ms. Stad asked.

Hands shot up. Ms. Stad called on Becca.

“There was a long, rectangular piece of paper shaped like a mission building,” she answered, “with small windows and a bell tower.”

“Was anything written on the paper?”

“No, it was blank,” answered Bradley.

“Was there anything else in the envelope?”

“Yeah,” answered Lyla. “A pen, but the ink was dried up. I tried to write with it, and there was nothing there.”

Cody’s hand went up. “It was an invisible-ink decoder pen. If you colored over the paper, letters showed up.”

Ms. Stad held up a larger version of the grid that had been written on the mission-shaped paper.