The Hunt for the Missing Spy Read online

  To Yuka Hayashi, the inspiration for the

  new Code Buster, Mika —Penny

  Copyright © 2016 by Penny Warner

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  Darby Creek

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

  For reading levels and more information, look up this title at www.lernerbooks.com.

  Cover art by Victor Rivas.

  Interior illustrations © Laura Westlund/Independent Picture Service.

  Main body text set in Gazette LH Roman 12/21. Typeface provided by Adobe Systems.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Warner, Penny.

  The hunt for the missing spy / by Penny Warner.

  pages cm. — (Code Busters Club ; #5)

  Summary: During a class trip to Washington, D.C., the Code Busters have many opportunities to hone their sleuthing skills as they explore the International Spy Museum, the White House, and more, but when a classmate goes missing, a mysterious figure in a trench coat may be the key to solving the case.

  ISBN 978-1-5124-0304-6 (th : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-5124-0305-3 (EB pdf)

  [1. Cryptography—Fiction. 2. Ciphers—Fiction. 3. Missing children—Fiction. 4. Spies—Fiction. 5. Washington (D.C.)—Fiction. 6. Mystery and dectective stories.] I. Title.

  PZ7.W2458Hun 2016

  [Fic]—dc23

  2015017911S

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – SB – 12/31/15

  eISBN: 978-1-51240-305-3 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-51240-769-3 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-51240-768-6 (mobi)

  CODE BUSTERS CLUB RULES

  Motto

  To solve puzzles, codes, and mysteries and keep the Code Busters Club secret!

  Secret Sign

  Interlocking index fingers (American Sign Language sign for “friend”)

  Secret Password

  Day of the week, said backward

  Secret Meeting Place

  Code Busters Club Clubhouse

  Code Busters Club Dossiers

  IDENTITY: Quinn Kee

  Code Name: “Lock&Key”

  Description

  Hair: Black, spiky

  Eyes: Brown

  Other: Sunglasses

  Special Skill: Video games, Computers, Guitar

  Message Center: Doghouse

  Career Plan: CIA cryptographer or Game designer

  Code Specialties: Military code, Computer codes

  IDENTITY: MariaElena—M.E.—Esperanto

  Code Name: “Em-me”

  Description

  Hair: Long, brown

  Eyes: Brown

  Other: Fab clothes

  Special Skill: Handwriting analysis, Fashionista

  Message Center: Flower box

  Career Plan: FBI handwriting analyst or Veterinarian

  Code Specialties: Spanish, I.M., Text messaging

  IDENTITY: Luke LaVeau

  Code Name: “Kuel-Dude”

  Description

  Hair: Black, curly

  Eyes: Dark brown

  Other: Saints cap

  Special Skill: Extreme sports, Skateboard, Crosswords

  Message Center: Under step

  Career Plan: Pro skater, Stuntman, Race car driver

  Code Specialties: Word puzzles, Skater slang

  IDENTITY: Dakota—Cody—Jones

  Code Name: “CodeRed”

  Description

  Hair: Red, curly

  Eyes: Green

  Other: Freckles

  Special Skill: Languages, Reading faces and body language

  Message Center: Tree knothole

  Career Plan: Interpreter for UN or deaf people

  Code Specialties: Sign language, Braille, Morse code, Police codes

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Code Busters’ Key Book & Solutions

  *To crack the chapter title code, check out the CODE BUSTERS’ Key Book & Solutions on 157.

  READER

  To see keys and solutions to the

  puzzles inside, go to the Code Busters’

  Key Book & Solutions on page 148.

  To see complete Code Busters Club

  Rules and Dossiers, and solve

  more puzzles and mysteries, go to

  www.CodeBustersClub.com

  Chapter 1

  “Does anyone know what this code is?” Ms. Stadelhofer asked her sixth-grade students. She had just written ten unfamiliar curious symbols on the board.

  Cody (Dakota) Jones, a member of the Code Busters Club, frowned at the characters. She guessed they were some kind of language, maybe Chinese or Japanese, but she didn’t know which one.

  Mika Takeda, the quiet new girl who sat across from Cody, slowly raised her hand. Cody was surprised. This was the first time Mika had volunteered an answer since she arrived last week.

  “It’s Japanese,” Mika said.

  “Correct,” Ms. Stad said, smiling warmly at the girl with short black hair. When Mrs. Stad had introduced Mika to the class, she had explained that the girl had recently come from Japan. But Mika hadn’t said much in class and Cody didn’t know much more about her. Cody remembered how shy she had felt when she was the new student at Berkeley Cooperative Middle School, and she planned to invite Mika to join her and her Code Busters Club members at lunch. It would be cool to get to know someone from another country.

  “Do you know Japanese, Mika?” Cody asked.

  The girl nodded. “Of course. I spoke it when I lived in Japan.”

  Ryan raised his hand, and Ms. Stad called on him.

  “Chinese and Japanese kind of look the same.”

  “To people unfamiliar with the languages, they might, Ryan,” Ms. Stad said. “The characters used are similar. But the vocabulary is different, and the grammar is different.”

  To Cody’s surprise, Mika raised her hand again. “My Japanese books are different, too. They open from the back and are written in columns from top to bottom and right to left.”

  Interesting, Cody thought. She’d never seen a book written in Japanese.

  “Mika speaks Japanese and English. How many of you can speak a language besides English?” Ms. Stad asked.

  Half the class raised their hands. Cody’s teacher asked which languages the students knew. M.E. said Spanish. Samir said his family spoke Hindi at home. Cole was learning Irish Gaelic from his grandfather. Jodie knew some Vietnamese, and Josh was studying Hebrew.

  “Wow, I’m impressed at how multilingual you all are,” Ms. Stad said.

  Matt the Brat raised his hand. “I can speak Pig Latin. Is-say it-tay ime-tay or-fay ecess-ray?”

  Code Busters’ Solution found on p. 153.

  The class laughed. Cody rolled her eyes. Ms. Stad looked at him sternly.

  When the students finally quieted down, she announced, “Today I’m going to teach you a new code.”

  The class murmured their excitement.

  Cody loved discovering new codes. That�
�s why she and her friends, M.E. (MariaElena) Esperanto, Quinn Kee, and Luke LaVeau were in the Code Busters Club. Quinn had started the club by posting a sign in code, asking interested kids to contact him. Luke joined first, then M.E. and finally Cody. Together they had learned Morse code, Semaphore, Braille, hieroglyphs, and a bunch of other codes. They were also learning some different languages.

  Cody had shown her friends American Sign Language (ASL), which she used with her deaf younger sister, Tana. M.E. had taught the group a few words in Spanish. Cody could already count to twenty, and say ¡hola! (hello), ¡adiós! (goodbye), and ¿Dónde está el baño? (Where’s the bathroom?). Quinn was showing them how to write Chinese characters, such as , ni hao, which meant “hello.” And Luke had shared some words in Cajun French he’d learned while living in New Orleans, like bonjour (“bone-jur”) for “hello,” c’est bon (“say bone”) for “that’s good,” and gris-gris (“gree-gree”) for a “magic charm.”

  “I’m going to teach you some Japanese,” Ms. Stad said.

  “That’s not code,” Matt the Brat blurted out without raising his hand.

  “Actually, it is,” Ms. Stad said. “All languages are codes, including English. The letters stand for sounds and the words stand for concepts. It’s just not a secret code if you know the language.”

  Cool, Cody thought. She could add Japanese to her list of languages she’d be learning.

  “Why do we have to learn Japanese?” Matt the Brat whined. “I already have enough trouble speaking American. Besides, we’re going to Washington, D.C. next week, not Japan.”

  Matthew Jeffreys was always complaining about something. Cody had learned to tune him out---most of the time, anyway. Unfortunately, he was a big guy—almost as tall as the teacher—and he sat right in front of Cody, so he wasn’t that easy to ignore.

  Ms. Stad sighed. “Because, Matthew, it will be cherry blossom time in the nation’s capital when we arrive. The cherry blossom Festival is an important event that’s been going on since the first cherry trees were brought from Japan in 1912—over a hundred years ago.”

  “What’s so great about a bunch of trees?” Matt argued.

  “The trees were a gift from the mayor of Tokyo, Japan, to the United States,” Ms. Stad said, “to celebrate friendship between the two countries. Every year, we exchanges gifts with Japan. They shared their cherry trees with us, and we’ve shared our dogwood trees with them. And since we’ll be in Washington, D.C. at cherry blossom time, we’ll get to enjoy the festival.”

  “But I don’t want to go to a tree festival!” Matt complained. “I just want to see the Spy Museum!”

  “That’s enough, Matthew,” Ms. Stad said, crossing her arms in front of her. If you don’t want to come on the trip, you can stay home, and I’ll leave you plenty of homework to do. It’s up to you.”

  Matt slumped down in his seat. That should keep him quiet for a few minutes, Cody thought. She was really looking forward to the spring trip to D.C. The sixth graders had worked hard to earn enough money for the trip. First, the Code Busters had gotten reward money for helping with a theft at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. To get the rest of the money they needed, the sixth graders had done odd jobs like dog-walking and bake sales and car washes. While Cody was looking forward to seeing the Smithsonian museums, the presidential monuments, and the White House, she was pretty sure that the International Spy Museum would be the most exciting part of the trip.

  She’d been checking the Spy Museum website every day for the past week, looking for information about the code-busting displays, notorious spies and their gadgets, and the cool stuff they could buy at the Spy Store. She wanted to get some supplies for the Code Busters Club, including a real decoder ring, a Caesar’s Cipher wheel, and some invisible ink pens.

  “Yes, class—and Matthew—the Spy Museum will be a fun part of the trip,” Ms. Stad continued. “But back to our lesson. As you know, spies often communicated in code. And if you know a language that other people around you don’t know, you can use it as a code. And knowing some Japanese will come in handy while we’re in Washington, D.C. You’ll see many signs in Japanese when we visit the Cherry Blossom Festival. That’s why I’m going to teach you some Japanese characters.”

  “Cool,” a couple of students said.

  “Now, for homework . . .” Ms. Stad began.

  Several students groaned.

  “Your assignment will be to use these Japanese characters to crack a coded message.” She pointed to the markings on the board.

  Matt grumbled under his breath. Cody couldn’t make out his words—not that she wanted to. She was excited to learn a new code and language. She and the other Code Busters Club members would definitely use it to send secret messages to each other.

  “There’s no direct translation for the English alphabet,” Ms. Stad said, addressing the class, “but these are the numbers in Japanese from zero to nine.”

  Ms. Stad pronounced each word as she pointed to it and the students repeated after her. “Zero, ichi, ni, san, yon, go, roku, nana, hachi, and kyuu.”

  Cody carefully copied down the information from the board, trying to memorize the numbers as she went along. The zero was just a circle, just like in English. Easy-peasy. The number one was a dash—another easy one. The number 2 was made up of two dashes, the bottom one a little longer than the top one. And the number 3 was three dashes. So far they made sense.

  The number 4 was a little harder. It looked like a square window made up of four lines, with curtains on either side. Relating the character to something would help her remember.

  She counted the lines for the number 5—five!—then memorized how they were put together—a lower case h inside a capital I, like “hI!”

  Six looked like a person—head, arms, and two legs. Seven looked like a combination of L and t. Eight was easy—just two legs. And nine looked like a lower-case t and a backward capital J together.

  The Japanese numbers wouldn’t be too hard to memorize. And once she and the Code Busters learned them, they could write down meeting times and other numbers, and keep the information secret from snoops like Matt the Brat. She doubted Matt would bother to learn the lesson, so their messages would be safe from his prying eyes.

  “Now,” Ms. Stad said. “Can anyone of you figure out what this means?”

  She drew four numbers in Japanese on the board.

  Gabriella raised her hand. “One-eight-five-five.”

  Ms. Stad nodded. “Those are the right numbers, but what do you think they represent?”

  M.E.’s hand shot up. “The year 1855?”

  “Very good! Now what was significant about that year?”

  A few hands went up but no one got the right answer. Finally Ms. Stad said, “That’s the year the first Smithsonian Museum opened. I’ll teach you some new words in Japanese every day until we leave for Washington, D.C.,” Ms. Stad announced. “We’ll also be learning some acronyms. An acronym is usually formed using the first letters of several words, such as ASAP, which stands for “as soon as possible”, or BFF, which is “best friends forever.” Today we’ll start with the acronym FBI Does anyone know what FBI stands for? I’ll give you a hint: its headquarters is located in Washington, D.C.”

  Cody raised her hand. This was an easy one for her. “Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  “That’s right,” Ms. Stad said, “but there’s also another meaning. Here’s a list of acronyms you can figure out for extra credit homework.”

  Ms. Stad passed out a sheet of paper filled with capital letters. Cody looked it over and recognized most of them from texting.

  APB

  AWOL

  BLT

  BOLO

  BRB

  DIY

  EMT

  FAQ

  FYI

  LOL

  OMW

  PBJ

  P.I.

  S&R

  UFO

  The bell rang, dismissing the class for the day. “Hav
e a great afternoon, everyone!” Ms. Stad called out as the students began gathering their papers and backpacks. “Remember! Your homework is due tomorrow.”

  Cody and M.E. grabbed their backpacks and headed for the flagpole to meet the other Code Busters, Quinn and Luke. The boys were also in the sixth grade but in a different class. They had Mr. Pike.

  “Six more days!” Cody announced as she and M.E. caught up with their friends. “I can’t wait!”

  “Me either,” Quinn said. “I want to see the Washington Monument while we’re there. Mr. Pike told us how George Washington used to write coded messages to his soldiers during the Revolutionary War. He gave us a copy of Washington’s code. We’re supposed to decipher a message for homework.”

  “Cool,” M.E. said. “We learned how to write numbers in Japanese, and we’re going to learn some acronyms, like FBI Let’s write some codes for each other to solve when we get to the clubhouse.”

  As the Code Busters started walking in the direction of the Eucalyptus Forest, where their clubhouse was located, Quinn pulled out something dangling from Cody’s backpack. “You almost lost your homework,” he said, handing the paper to her. “It was about to fall out.”

  Cody frowned. She glanced at it, then shook her head. “This isn’t my homework.” She studied the cartoon drawings on the paper, wondering who had put the paper in her backpack.

  After glancing at the artwork, she held up the paper for the others to see. “That’s weird. It’s just a bunch of random drawings.”

  “Maybe it’s a coded message,” Luke offered. “Like one of those rebus puzzles.”

  “What’s it supposed to mean?” M.E. asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Cody answered.

  “Let me see,” Quinn said. He took the paper and studied it. “I think Luke’s right. It looks like some kind of rebus code, where the pictures are supposed to represent words. The first one looks like the Eye of Horus. We learned about that when we went to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum.”