The Science Fair Scheme, page 4
“Uh . . . bet you don’t know the periodic table code,” Bernie replied.
“Yep,” Luke said.
“Computer code?”
Quinn nodded.
“DNA code?”
“I do!” Mika said.
“Bar codes?”
M.E. nodded. “I call them shopping codes.”
Bernie ran his hand through his curly hair. “Okay, how about the Greek Alphabet? It’s, like, one of the oldest alphabets ever invented, and scientists use it a lot. Bet you don’t know that one.”
Cody opened her backpack and got out a small decoder card and her notebook. Using the card, she began writing a message on a blank sheet of paper. Under each word, she drew the symbols.
Code Busters Key and Solution found on pp. 156 and 162.
Bernie frowned, then stood up with his tray of untouched food. “All right. If you don’t want to win, that’s fine. I just thought I’d ask you guys first. But there are a couple of other kids who really want to win, so I guess I’ll go help them instead.”
Bernie glanced around the cafeteria, then spotted his next stop.
“By the way,” he added, “my experiment this year has to do with saving the environment again, and maybe the world. Just so you know.” With that, he turned and headed over to sit with Matt the Brat and Dev Kumar, who were huddled over a sheet of paper looking very intense.
“Uh-oh,” M.E. said. “Maybe we should have paid him the five dollars just to keep him too busy to help Matt.”
“I’m not so sure,” Cody said. “Did you notice the way he kept licking his lips and stabbing his food with his fork instead of eating it and not really making eye contact with any of us? Could have been signs he was lying about really wanting to help us.”
“Wow,” Mika said. “You got all that just now from watching him?”
Cody shrugged. “Well, I’m not an expert on body language—yet. But something’s going on with him. I mean, he seems like a nice guy and all, but why would he want to help us—or anyone? Even Matt the Brat?”
“Especially since he plans to save the world,” Quinn said, rolling his eyes. “Who does he think he is—Super Scientist? I can’t wait to see what he comes up with. An ice maker to replace the melting ice caps? Detergent for cleaning up the oceans? Earth-size air-conditioning for global warming?”
“What did he do to win before?” Mika asked.
“Dude,” Luke said, “last year he figured out how to test for ozone, and the year before that he made a bunch of compost piles to see which decomposed the fastest, and which ones grew the best plants.”
“Seem like good ideas,” Mika said.
“Yeah,” Quinn said, “except no one wanted to eat any of the beans because they were grown in garbage, and they stank up the place. But he still won the prize.”
“He sure seems to know a lot of codes,” Mika added.
Cody nodded. “We’d better get to work on our own projects. I don’t know what he’s up to this year—or Matt and Dev—but one of us Code Busters has to win. The Exploratorium is awesome.”
Cody glanced over at Matt and Dev, who were now talking to Bernie. The three of them were huddled together like spies discussing a top secret mission. Suddenly, they looked her way and caught her staring at them. Matt broke into a grin, Bernie’s eyes narrowed, and Dev just sat there, wide-eyed.
Their body language was clear enough. They must have been talking about the Code Busters. Maybe they were in cahoots. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.
* * * * *
After school, Cody invited M.E. and Mika to come over so they could work on M.E.’s project. They had a quick snack of popcorn and lemonade, then headed to Cody’s bedroom to get started.
“Okay,” M.E. began, “I found out that you can write SOS with lipstick if you ever get trapped somewhere. And you can use tweezers to pick up trace evidence, like I thought. But I want to try lifting fingerprints. Does your mom have any clear polish we can use?”
“I’ll ask her,” Cody answered.
“Wait!” M.E. said, glancing at her notes. “I also need some blush or face powder. And some clear tape.”
Cody nodded. “Be right back.” She left the room and returned a few moments later with a bottle of clear polish, a compact, and some tape. She handed everything to M.E.
“Awesome,” M.E. said. She reached for Mika’s empty glass of lemonade, holding it carefully at the bottom. Opening the compact, she took out the powder puff and gently tapped it on the side of the glass. To Cody’s amazement, Mika’s fingerprints appeared, visible and clear.
“Wow,” Mika said, “it worked!”
“Cool!” M.E. held up the glass to admire it. “Okay, hand me a piece of tape.”
Cody pulled off a couple of inches of tape and handed it to M.E., who carefully applied it over the powdered fingerprints. She lifted off the tape and held it up to the light.
“So awesome!” Cody said. “You can really see them!” She handed M.E. a sheet of black paper, and M.E. pressed the tape onto it. Then she got out a computer printout of a fingerprint identification sheet and compared it to the fingerprint she’d lifted.
“Yours is an arch,” M.E. said to Mika. “See how it goes up in the middle like a little hill?”
“Wow,” Mika said. “But I thought no two fingerprints were alike. Are there only four types?”
“True,” M.E. confirmed. “There are four basic categories, but there are minor differences in each one, which makes them unique.”
“What do you do with the nail polish?” Mika asked.
“It’s for preserving the evidence,” M.E. answered. “I found a great hack showing how to use it. If you find a fingerprint or an important message you want to save, you can cover it with clear polish. Cody, do you have a note I could experiment on?”
Cody looked around, then spotted a school notice about the Science Fair. She handed it to M.E., who brushed one of the lines with polish. After blowing on the paper until it was dry, she took it to Cody’s bathroom and ran water over the paper. The ink had bled over the paper, making the message hard to read—all except the area covered with clear nail polish. It was as clear as the original.
“Awesome!” Mika exclaimed again. “M.E., you’ve got a great project!”
Cody asked M.E. what code she would use with her experiment.
“I want to keep it simple,” M.E. said, “and just use a two-letter code, like ‘LS’ for lipstick, ‘NP’ for nail polish, ‘TZ’ for tape, ‘PW’ for powder.”
“You could add a + or – to mark if the experiment worked or didn’t,” Cody said, thinking of her own code for lie spotting.
When the girls finished their work, M.E. and Mika got ready to go home for dinner. Cody started to close her laptop when it pinged. The girls waited while Cody opened the message.
“Uh-oh,” she said after reading it. “Come check this out.”
Mika and M.E. leaned over Cody’s shoulder and studied the coded message.
Hulk-Optimus-Wolverine-Sasquatch
Yeti-Optimus-Underpants-Robot
Monster-Optimus-Lugey-Dragon-Yeti
Bigfoot-Robot-Earwax-Alien-Dragon?
Code Busters Key and Solution found on pp. 157 and 162.
“What kind of code is that?” Mika asked.
Cody rolled her eyes. “That’s the Matt the Brat Code.”
“You’re kidding! He has his own code?” Mika asked, frowning. “What does it say?”
“It’s like the Phonetic Alphabet Code, only he made up his own words for each alphabet letter.”
Mika read the decoded message out loud, then scrunched up her face.
M.E. shook her head. “Don’t worry. He’s just trying to bug us.”
Cody nodded, but deep down she wondered if Matt was upping his game. He didn’t usually send them so many coded messages like this. Oh well. She couldn’t worry about it now. She had other things on her mind—like beating Bernie, winning the Science Fair, and bringing her friends to the Exploratorium.
The girls said their goodbyes, and Mika and M.E. headed home. Half an hour later, Cody’s cell phone rang.
It was M.E. “Cody!” She sounded upset.
“M.E.? Are you all right?”
“No!” she said. “I mean, I’m fine, but my project . . .”
“What about it?” Cody asked.
“When I got home, I left my backpack on the porch for a few minutes so I could help my tía carry some things from her car into the house. When I went back and got it, I noticed it was unzipped.”
“Uh-oh,” Cody said, sensing what M.E. was about to say.
“All my project materials are gone!”
Chapter 5
Cody reassured M.E. that they would help her collect the materials again and redo the experiments, but she had trouble reassuring herself that everything would be all right. Someone was messing with them and wanted them to lose the Science Fair—enough to wreck M.E.’s project. The Code Busters would have to be hypervigilant.
The next day at school there was an assembly featuring local scientists talking about how science had changed their lives. The event was hosted by the school’s science teacher and Bernie’s dad, Dr. Philo T. Bunsen.
“Good morning, Berkeley Cooperative Middle School students.” Dr. Bunsen smiled. “Welcome to Meet the Scientists Day! I hope one of our three special guests will inspire you to create an important Science Fair project on Friday!”
The crowd gave a lackluster round of applause, more interested in whispering to their friends, watching the clock, or fidgeting with their backpack charms than listening to the teacher.
“Please welcome our first scientist,” Dr. Bunsen continued, “a young high-school student who invented a glove that lights up when signaling turns when riding a bike at night—Andy Dela Cruz!”
The student walked to the middle of the stage wearing gloves. Suddenly, the lights went out in the auditorium—and the gloves lit up. He waved them around, showing how to signal with each hand. The kids were impressed.
“And now,” the principal said, “please welcome Olive Fitzpatrick, who created a lunch-box alarm that goes off when an unauthorized person opens the box!”
A college-age woman approached the stage holding a plastic lunch box. She explained how she got the idea when another kid in class kept stealing her food. Then she opened the box and an alarm sounded, startling the students into silence. When she closed it, they gave a big cheer.
“Last but not least,” Dr. Bunsen said, addressing the now enthralled crowd, “here is our own Berkeley Cooperative Middle School student who came to us from Japan last year—Mika Takeda—who invented flat chopsticks for those who struggle with regular chopsticks, making it much easier to eat. Please give it up for Mika!”
The Code Busters turned to Mika in surprise. She had said nothing about her invention to Cody or the others. Mika stood up slowly, her faced flushed. Students fist-bumped her as she made her way down the aisle, headed for the stage. The Code Busters and the rest of the students cheered her on.
“Thank you, Dr. Bunsen,” Mika said softly into the mic. “When I moved to the United States, my grandmother came to visit. She has arthritis, which causes her fingers to be stiff, so it’s difficult for her to use chopsticks. I got some bamboo sticks and sanded them flat to make them easier to hold and pick up food, then added a spring mechanism so they would open and close more easily. That’s really it.” She bowed her head and darted for the stage exit, but not before the crowd rose to give her a standing ovation.
When Mika returned to her seat, her friends welcomed her back with grins, pats on the back, and more fist bumps. “That was awesome,” Cody whispered to Mika as she sat down. “I had no idea you were an inventor too!”
“I was so nervous!” Mika said, holding her shaking hands out in front of her.
“You didn’t look nervous,” M.E. said. “You were great!”
Dr. Bunsen took the mic again and recapped what the three scientists had contributed to the world through science. “Each invention was different and important in its own way,” he said. “Students, I look forward to seeing your creations, experiments, inventions, and discoveries at the Science Fair on Friday!”
* * * * *
“You were awesome!” Cody said to Mika as she and M.E. headed for the Code Busters Clubhouse after school.
Mika shrugged and giggled. “I just wanted to help my grandmother.”
“I wish I could invent something,” M.E. said. “Then I’d be rich.”
Cody laughed at her friend. M.E. was always trying to think of easy ways to make money. She’d done everything from selling Popsicles until they all melted, to walking pets until she had to chase a runaway dog, to raising bunnies she planned to sell to her friends until her parents found out and put a stop to it.
As for inventions, Cody wished she could invent something to help Tana and other Deaf people. Luckily, people were coming up with new ideas all the time to help people with disabilities. Maybe she’d think of something someday.
When they reached the clubhouse, the girls found the boys standing outside, their arms crossed. The door stood open and leaned crookedly. It took Cody and the others a moment to realize what had happened.
“Did someone break in?” Cody asked the boys, her eyes wide with surprise.
“Yep,” Quinn said, shaking his head.
Cody pushed back the wobbling door and peered inside. “Did they take anything?”
“None of our hidden stash,” Luke said, indicating the floor. A large piece of carpeted sheet metal covered a hidden hole where they kept important code-busting supplies.
“But whoever it was stole the race car I was working on for my project,” Luke added. “I don’t know how I’m going to finish it in time for the Science Fair.”
Cody shook her head. “This is outrageous! Breaking and entering and illegal trespassing is a misdemeanor.” She knew this because her mom had taught her about some of the crimes she had investigated.
“You should tell your mom,” M.E. said. “Maybe the police could figure out who did this, arrest them, and get Luke’s car back.”
Luke sighed. “I doubt they’ll catch the dude before the Science Fair.”
“Well,” Cody said, “I don’t think the thief knows who he’s dealing with. We’re the Code Busters—all for one and one for all.” She turned to Luke. “We’ll help you redo your project in time.”
While Luke and Quinn worked on fixing the door with a roll of duct tape, the girls asked Luke what he needed to complete his projects again. They all agreed to work on it at the next meeting. When the boys were finished with the door, Quinn turned to Mika.
“By the way,” he said to her, “that was a cool presentation you did.”
Mika flushed red and bowed her head.
“Dude, why don’t you invent some chopsticks that I can use,” Luke said. “I look like a dork because I always end up stabbing my food.”
“They’ve already been invented,” Quinn said. “They’re called kid chopsticks.” He laughed.
Cody turned to Mika and M.E. “So how are your experiments going?”
“Mine was fine until my stuff got stolen,” M.E. said. She explained to the others what had happened.
“Not cool,” Luke said, shaking his head. “Someone is actually trying to wreck our projects.”
“How about you, Mika?” Cody asked.
Mika shared a picture she’d sketched with a secret message added, using the Birds on a Wire Code. But instead of her own signature, the artwork was signed Poe. It looked like a random picture filled with birds, but the kids quickly recognized the code and deciphered it.
—Edgar Allan Poe, from “The Raven”
Code Busters Key and Solution found on pp. 155 and 162.
“What if the kids don’t know the Birds on a Wire Code? They won’t figure it out. Maybe you should draw something and add some hidden words, like those hidden-word pictures in kids’ magazines. It would sort of be a Where’s Waldo? with words.”
“Hmm,” Mika said softly. “Good idea.”
“Hey, maybe you could do a self-portrait and hide words in the picture,” M.E. suggested. “You’re such a good artist.”
“Or, dude, you could draw a dollar bill and write a secret message on it that kids would have to find,” Luke said. “The words could be all scrambled, and they’d have to put them in the right order to figure out the message.”
“You could even use a real dollar bill,” Cody offered.
Mika nodded. “Thanks. These are great ideas. I’ll work on them.”
“Quinn,” Cody asked, “how’s your project coming? Have you done an experiment yet?”
Quinn nodded. “It’s going well so far. Let me know what you think of this.”
Quinn opened his backpack and pulled out a small box. He opened it and withdrew a pair of what looked like ordinary mirrored sunglasses. Then he opened the glasses and showed the kids what he’d made. The lenses on the inside had been covered with some kind of reflective material that looked like a mirror. “Ta-da! Eye-Spy Glasses.”
“Dude, how can you see?” Luke asked.
Quinn explained his newly created contraption. “It’s like a two-way mirror on those TV cop shows when the cops are interviewing a suspect and a bunch of guys are secretly watching them. I got some old sunglasses, cut out mirror paper from the craft store the size of the lenses, then glued them on. The mirror reflects what’s on the side and behind me, but I can also see through it, because light passes through in both directions. When one side is brighter than the other, the darker side is hard to see and looks like a mirror.”
“That is so cool!” Cody said.
“My question is,” Quinn added, “Can you spy on people using two-way mirror glasses? And my hypothesis is yes! I haven’t tested them out much yet, but I will. I want to see if anyone can tell I’m spying on them.”
“How will you test them?” Mika asked.
“I’ll find a kid who wants to be my subject for the experiment and turn my back to them, then ask them to do something, like move a hand or make a face. I’ll see if I can tell what they’re doing while wearing my Eye-Spy Glasses. Then I’ll ask if they know how I could tell.”
