The Mystery of the Pirate's Treasure Read online

  Quinn reached for the paper.

  “Don’t touch it!” Chad said sharply, his eyebrow raised.

  Quinn withdrew his hand.

  “I’ll put it under glass so you can see it, but it’ll still be protected.” Chad untied the string around the map and gently unrolled it, then placed a sheet of glass on top of it. The Code Busters crowded around. A real treasure map! thought Cody.

  “What’s up?” Luke asked, coming up behind them.

  “Check it out, dude!” Quinn said. He could hardly contain his excitement. Luke looked over Quinn’s shoulder.

  “Awesome!”

  Quinn gazed up at Chad. “Can we copy it?”

  “You mean, photocopy? No. Too delicate.”

  “No, I mean take a picture of it, with a cell phone?”

  “I suppose that would be all right,” Chad said.

  Quinn turned to Cody. “You take the picture. I’ll sketch it on a piece of paper and make it larger.”

  Cody focused her cell phone over the map and took a couple of pictures. Meanwhile, Quinn got out his Code Busters notebook, flipped to a blank page, and drew the map, adding all the marks and symbols.

  “Hurry,” Luke said to him. “We don’t have much time until Stad comes after us.”

  Quinn nodded as he sketched the map.

  “Could we see his notebook, too?” Cody asked, still holding her cell phone.

  Chad smiled. “I think it’s great when young people take an interest in this old stuff.” He untied the leather string of the notebook and opened it to show the kids some of the entries. Turning the pages carefully, he explained what he knew about the contents. It was mostly the ramblings of Franco Bouchard—descriptions of the area, details of the pirate Hippolyte de Bouchard, his own musings about chasing after the treasure.

  When Chad turned to a page that looked different from the others, Cody raised her hand and said, “Stop!” She caught herself and blushed, then said, “Please.”

  Chad left the notebook open to the page Cody had indicated. The message that had caught her eye was printed differently from the other entries in the notebook. There were strange numbers underneath.

  All I can find around this place is the path made of cobbler’s stone. There’s a bench that’s carved with the form of a monkey that I have chased until I’ve tired.

  The only friend a weasel who thinks I’m the one acting the monkey, but my own thought is, that soon it will, I hope, all be worth it. In fact, though not fun, I shall see Pop when the man goes with me into the mouth of the weasel.

  10-19-12-4-23-22-19-17 4-10

  13-14-23-12-22-13

  “Cody! MariaElena! You two boys! It’s time to go!” Ms. Stad stood in the doorway, arms crossed, summoning them. Cody knew they had to leave.

  “We’re coming,” she promised. She turned to Chad and quickly asked, “Do you mind if I take a picture of this part? It’s really interesting.”

  “Be my guest,” he said. “Just don’t touch the notebook.”

  Cody snapped a couple of pictures, hoping the passage would be legible on such a small screen. As soon as they went to lunch, she’d copy down the page onto paper so they could see it more clearly.

  “Now!” Ms. Stad commanded.

  Cody turned to Chad. “Thank you so much,” she said.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Quinn added, closing his notebook with a copy of the map.

  “Let me know if you come up with something,” Chad said.

  Cody put her cell phone back in her backpack while Quinn returned his notebook to his. All four headed for the door where Ms. Stad stood waiting for them. Cody turned to give Chad a last wave of good-bye, but he was bent over the map, still propped open on the display case. She watched as he ran a finger over the glass … as if he were following a path.

  Why, Cody wondered, is he frowning?

  During the lunch hour, Cody copied the odd passage into her notebook. While the others ate their sandwiches, she read her reproduction aloud.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” M.E. said, after taking a bite of her cheese sandwich. Everyone had gotten the same bagged lunch. Cody wasn’t a fan of cheese, but the school didn’t allow peanut butter and jelly—her favorite—because too many kids had allergies. She’d traded M.E. her sandwich for her friend’s apple.

  “Yeah, just sounds like a bunch of jibberish,” Luke added.

  Cody read the first sentence out loud again. “ ‘All I can find around this place is the path made of cobbler’s stone.’ ” She shrugged. “I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. There are paths all over this place. And they’re all made of stone.”

  Luke leaned over her shoulder and read the second sentence. “ ‘There’s a bench that’s carved with the form of a monkey that I have chased until I’ve tired.’ Kind of a funny way to talk,” he said, “but maybe that’s how they said things back in the day. Anyone seen a bench carved with a monkey?”

  The others shook their heads. Cody continued the excerpt from the notebook: “ ‘The only friend a weasel who thinks I’m the one acting the monkey.’ ” Cody paused. “Wait a minute! Listen to these words: ‘monkey,’ ‘weasel,’ ‘cobbler’ … Ring a bell?”

  “It sounds like the nursery rhyme ‘Pop Goes the Weasel,’ ” M.E. said.

  Cody studied the page a few more seconds, then began circling more key words, including “chased,” “fun,” “Pop.”

  “Look! ‘Pop,’ ‘goes,’ ‘the,’ ‘weasel’—there are three words in between each of those key words.” Working backward, she began circling every fourth word. She held up the paper for the others to see.

  “You’re right!” Quinn said. “All … around … the … cobbler’s … bench … Every fourth word is part of the rhyme!”

  Code Buster’s Solution found on this page.

  Luke lifted his baseball cap and scratched his head. “So you think this treasure hunter wrote down a coded nursery rhyme? But that still doesn’t make any sense.”

  Cody’s shoulders sagged. Luke was right. What did “Pop Goes the Weasel” have to do with treasure?

  “Let’s ask Chad when we go back in after lunch,” M.E. said, wrapping up the crusts of her second sandwich. She never ate crusts. She’d heard they made hair curly, and she thought her hair was curly enough.

  Ms. Stad called the students to attention once again. “All right, everyone. I want you to stay with your buddy and follow me. Our docents have a few activities planned for you in the museum before we head back to camp. As Chad mentioned, the mission was mostly self-sufficient, and they made almost everything themselves. Now you’re going to learn how to make hardtack bread, drip candles, knotted lanyards, and writing utensils. We’ll divide you into small groups so you’ll all get a chance to do everything. Everyone ready?”

  Cody loved crafts and was glad she got to do the lanyard activity first. The students filed back into the museum and headed for their assigned stations. Four docents, including Chad, stood in four different areas, waiting to share their crafty knowledge. Cody and M.E. gathered with several other kids at a table filled with bowls of colorful twine. A docent name Cheri Eplin showed the group how to knot the twine into a kind of necklace, and soon Cody and M.E. each had a lanyard to wear around her neck. Cody planned to keep her pen in her lanyard.

  At the next table, they learned how to make hardtack, a kind of cracker/bread made from flour, water, and salt, and baked four times to make it hard and long-lasting on sea voyages. But it wasn’t easy to eat, and many of the sailors called the bread “molar breakers” because they’d crack their teeth on it. The docent, Brian Ostrewski, encouraged the kids to try a small bite, but Cody thought it tasted like a rock, and decided the hardtack might be better to throw at critters who tried to enter her tent at night. She didn’t have plans to ever make hardtack again.

  Candle making turned out to be the most fun. Tammy Gaylord, the docent manning the table, showed them how to dip string into melted wax—over and over again—to make a multi
layered, multicolored candle. After the candles cooled, the students would get to take them home.

  Cody was glad to find Chad at the final table, teaching students how to make their own writing utensils and invisible ink. “Do you kids know how to make invisible ink like the pirates did?”

  Cody raised her hand. “I wrote a secret message with a white crayon on white paper and it looked invisible. But when you colored over the paper with another crayon, the words would appear.”

  “Aye, that’s a great idea. But the pirates didn’t have crayons, so they used lemon juice. After they wrote a message, the person who received it held it over a lantern, and the words magically appeared. That’s what we’re going to do today.”

  The students were given pointed sticks made from a tree branch and then asked to write a short note on a piece of paper using lemon juice in small bowls.

  “Let’s write ours in reverse alphabet code,” Cody suggested to M.E.

  The girls pulled out their notebooks and turned to the page with the reverse alphabet code. In the first line, the letters were in order—A to Z—from left to right. Underneath that line, the letters were written in the opposite direction, from Z to A.

  Cody and M.E. began writing their secret, coded messages, matching the first letter of the first word on the top line with the letter directly underneath on the bottom line. Since the first letter of Cody’s message was T, she found the letter T on the first line and wrote down the letter that was underneath—G—using the invisible ink.

  G-S-R-H R-H H-L U-F-M!

  When Cody finished, she traded messages with M.E., blew on the message until it was dry, then held it over a lightbulb. Both girls squealed in delight as the invisible words became visible. Cody quickly translated M.E.’s message:

  R D-Z-M-G G-L Y-V Z K-R-I-Z-G-V!

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

  When the activities were over, Ms. Stad let the students visit the museum store to buy souvenirs. But once again, the Code Busters hung back to talk to Chad as he cleaned up the secret-message supplies.

  “Mr. Bour?” Quinn said.

  “Aye, call me Chad. Oh, it’s you guys. Did you make anything out of that map or the message?”

  “Well,” Quinn said, “we figured out the message. It’s that nursery rhyme, ‘Pop Goes the Weasel.’ Every fourth word is part of the rhyme. We just can’t figure out why he wrote it.”

  Chad nodded. “Ah, mates, you see, back in the days of yore, pirates often sent coded messages in rhyme. There were lots of things they didn’t want anyone to know about, as you can imagine.”

  “That’s what Ms. Stad said about the nursery rhyme we read in class.” Cody looked at the others.

  “So there’s another meaning?” M.E. asked Chad.

  “That there be,” Chad said, with a twinkle in his eye. “I’ll give you a hint, but the rest is up to you.”

  The Code Busters nodded, eager to get a clue to the message.

  “I’ll tell you this—the word ‘monkey’ isn’t about a monkey at all.”

  “What’s it mean?” Luke leaned in, frowning.

  “It means ‘cannon,’ ” Chad said simply.

  “Cannon?” Quinn repeated.

  “Can’t you tell us more?” M.E. pleaded.

  Cody noticed the gleam in Chad’s eye suddenly disappear. His face darkened, and his deep frown returned. He was staring at something behind the kids. Thinking it might be Ms. Stad, Cody whirled around, ready with an excuse for why they were hanging back.

  But in the doorway stood the man with a long gray beard and a woman with a long salt-and-pepper braid down to her waist. Both were thin, had dark, piercing eyes, and wore baggy shirts and jeans.

  Cody immediately recognized them from the basilica. The sour expressions hadn’t left their faces.

  “Howdy, Chad!” the man said, around the toothpick hanging out of his mouth.

  Chad stomped around the table in his cowboy boots toward the pair.

  “Get out of here, you slimy bilge rats, before I call the cops!”

  I mean it, Longbeard, you bilge rat. Get out! And take your old sea hag, Jolly, with you. Or I’ll—”

  “Or you’ll what, Bour?” the man called Longbeard asked. “Keel haul me? Make me walk the plank? Ha! I see you’re still filling these youngsters’ heads with yer fish tales about hidden treasure.” The scraggly old man turned to the kids. Even from a few feet away, Cody could smell his foul breath when he spoke to them. “Don’t believe a word this landlubber spews, kiddies. He’s been lying about a so-called hidden treasure for decades. Just telling tall tales—that’s what he does best.”

  “You got that right,” the woman named Jolly added. She was staring at Chad in a peculiar manner, one eyebrow raised, a smirk on her face.

  “Get out, the pair of you!” Chad shouted. He grabbed an antique sword from the wall and held it high.

  The hairs on the back of Cody’s neck stood up. What is going on between these three? Is Chad really a liar? Why is he so angry at the old couple? Will he really use that sword?

  “Ha!” Longbeard laughed. “I’d like to see you try.” He spat his toothpick on the floor, then grabbed Jolly’s bony arm and pulled her back.

  “You haven’t seen the last of me, Bour,” he called. Then he and the woman retreated outside.

  Chad slammed the door shut on the couple. Cody saw the sword in his hand shaking. The kids were too terrified to move—M.E. appeared frozen to her spot—but Cody figured they’d better get out of there. She glanced around, wondering how they would escape the museum with Chad blocking the door.

  And holding a sword in his hand.

  To her surprise, Chad turned around and faced the kids, grinning like a happy dolphin.

  “All part of the act!” Chad said as he returned the sword to its place on the wall. “Just rehearsing one of our upcoming scenes. Hope we didn’t really scare you.”

  Cody let out a breath. She saw M.E. visibly relax.

  Luke forced a laugh. “Cool,” he said, but to Cody, he didn’t sound or look as if he meant it.

  “Yeah,” Quinn repeated solemnly. “Cool.”

  Cody and M.E. were too stunned to say anything.

  “Were they actors?” Quinn asked.

  “Not real actors,” Chad said. “Old friends of mine. We used to go treasure hunting together, years ago. Just a hobby. Nothing serious. Never found much of anything.”

  Hmmm, thought Cody. If they aren’t actors, they sure did a good job. But they don’t seem like old friends. Before she could ask a question about the odd couple, the door swung open again. Cody spun around, expecting Longbeard and Jolly to be standing in the doorway armed with their own swords—or worse.

  But it was just Ms. Stadelhofer.

  “Oh, you’re still here,” Ms. Stad said to the Code Busters. She turned to the students who were lined up behind her. “All right, class. Come in quietly. Mr. Bour is about to give you the answers to the pirate puzzle, so get your papers out and be ready.”

  Chad Bour was back to his old friendly self as he welcomed the students into the museum and explained the meanings behind the pirate expressions. When he was done translating, Chad continued with his presentation by holding up a black flag that featured a skull and crossbones in the center.

  “The flag is called a Jolly Roger,” he said. “It comes from the French term jolie rouge, which means ‘happy red.’ But this ain’t a happy flag, not with a skull and crossbones on it. That symbolizes death. Pirates used the symbol to frighten other ships, thinking it would make them easier to conquer. Even the colors of the flag are codes. Black means death, white means surrender, and red means ‘show no mercy.’ Flags have been used to communicate between ships for centuries.”

  Cody and her club members already knew semaphore code, where each letter of the alphabet was represented by the positions of two flags. The first letter of her real name—Dakota—was made by holding one flag straight up and one straig
ht down. Sometimes the Code Busters just used their arms to communicate in semaphore code, when they didn’t have any flags.

  Cody turned to the other Code Busters and spelled out four letters using the semaphore code.

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

  “So you already know semaphore, eh?” Chad called out to Cody. She blushed. “Well, here are three flags you might want to learn, in case you’re ever in danger,” Chad said. He held up the first flag, yellow with a blue horizontal stripe in the middle. “This means ‘watch out!’ ” He held up a second flag, a red triangle on top of a yellow triangle. “This means ‘man overboard!’ And this one—white with a red X—means ‘help!’ ”

  Cody jotted down the flags and their meanings in her Code Buster notebook, thinking they might need them someday if they were ever in real danger at sea. She thought it would be fun to make the flags at their next club meeting.

  “That concludes your tour this afternoon, students from Berkeley Cooperative Middle School,” Chad said. The crowd gave him an enthusiastic round of applause.

  He bowed in thanks. “You’re all welcome to peruse the rest of the museum. Pleasant voyage!” With that he disappeared behind the door in the back, where Cody had seen him retrieve Franco Bouchard’s knapsack, map, and journal.

  The kids shuffled off, free to investigate the museum. After fifteen minutes, Ms. Stad collected all the students in the main room. Suddenly, the lights went out, plunging the windowless room into darkness. Cody froze. M.E. grabbed her arm and held it tight.

  “What happened?” someone whispered. Cody heard students repeat the question.

  Just then, an ear-piercing foghorn sounded at the back of the room.

  Then came the loud boom of a cannon being fired.

  Several students screamed. M.E. tightened her grasp on Cody’s arm.

  “Calm down, everyone,” Ms. Stad whispered to the group. “It’s all in fun.”

  Cody turned in the direction of the noise and saw a strange glow, like lighted fog. The eerie cloud filled the back of the room. A ghostly image rose up from the fog, unfurling a red-lined white cape with dramatic flair.