The Science Fair Scheme, page 5
“How are you going to include a code?” M.E. asked.
Quinn nodded. “I’m going to write the topic on the chart backwards, then have people read it with the glasses!”
“Fun!” Mika said.
Luke sat up suddenly, not moving. “Listen!” he whispered, placing his finger to his mouth. Eyes wide, the kids sat still and tried to hear what Luke was referring to.
The noise came again. It sounded like something scratching the floor near the door they’d just repaired.
Luke slowly stood up and peeked out the peephole they’d made in the door.
Cody tapped him and signed “See anything?” by pulling out two fingers from her eyes, then holding her palm up.
Luke shook his head. Moving slowly, he opened the clubhouse door.
“What is it?” M.E. whispered, clinging to Cody. “A mountain lion?”
After hesitating a moment, Luke took a step, then looked down at the floor. He kneeled and picked up what appeared to be an ordinary ballpoint pen.
“It’s a secret listening device!” Luke announced. “When I was starting my project, I found one just like it online for twelve bucks. Someone put it there to listen in on us!”
“How can they hear us through a pen?” M.E. asked, shaking her head.
“Whoever it is must be wearing earbuds!” He searched around the area, then kneeled and plucked something from the bushes. He held it up.
“Earbuds!” Cody said.
“Someone has been bugging us!” Quinn added.
“Probably the same person who broke into our clubhouse,” Mika said.
“It’s got to be Matt the Brat,” M.E. suggested.
The kids went back inside the clubhouse to talk about what had happened—in Pig Latin, just in case someone was still listening.
“I-yay ink-they em-ee-yay is-yay ight-ray. It’s-yay robably-pay att-May,” Cody said.
“E’s-hay uh-thay only-yay un-way oo-hay ows-knay about-yay our-yay ubhouse-clay,” M.E. added.
Cody shook her head. “Aybe-may ot-nay,” she said, her eyes narrowing, “ow-nay at-thay e’s-hay ound-fay a-yay ingman-yay.”
“Ou-yay ean-may uh-tha ew-nay id-kay?” Mika said. “Ev-day umar-kay?”
Quinn nodded. “I-yay ink-thay att-may ut-pay im-hay up-yay oo-tay is-thay oo-tay ind-fay out-yay at-whay e’re-way oing-day and-yay ry-tay oo-tay abotage-say our-yay rojects-pay!”
Code Busters Key and Solution found on pp. 159 and 162–163.
Chapter 6
So, what do we do about Matt the Spy and Dev the Sidekick?” Quinn asked, forgetting to use Pig Latin. “We can’t just let them get away with this.”
Luke shrugged. “Even if it’s them, we can’t prove anything. We didn’t catch them in the act.”
“But we have evidence,” Quinn argued, holding up the mic and earpiece.
M.E. shook her head. “It’s not enough. And the Science Fair projects are due in two days!” M.E. reminded them. “We’re still not done with our experiments and our charts and stuff. How are we supposed to keep all of this secret until then?”
The group sat quietly for a few minutes, trying to come up with a plan. Cody snapped her fingers. “I have an idea.”
She told them her plan, switching back to Pig Latin, just in case anyone was outside the door listening—or had planted more hidden microphones around the clubhouse.
“I’ll-yay ell-tay att-May and-yay ev-day I’m-yay inter-yay iewing-vay em-thay or-fay y-may roject-pay. En-thay I’ll-yay ask-yay em-thay estions-quay and-yay atch-way eir-thay ody-bay anguage-lay oo-tay ee-say if-yay ay-thay are-yay ing-lay.”
Mika tried out her newly learned Pig Latin. “I-yay ope-hay ey-thay aren’t-yay ood-gay iars-lay.”
Code Busters Key and Solution found on pp. 159 and 163.
The kids finished brainstorming ideas for Luke’s remote-controlled robot race car. Luke thought he might be able to use the mic and earpiece they’d found outside the clubhouse for his project. Finally, he decided his question would be, “If you eavesdrop, are you likely to find out important information?”
Quinn asked what codes he planned to use.
“Morse code. That way, I can send a message in code while I’m listening to a conversation.”
“Cool,” Quinn said.
Luke held up his phone. “Dudes, I just looked up the instructions on how to eavesdrop. You just need two walkie-talkies, some duct tape, and a paper clip. First, you press down the Talk button on one of the walkie-talkies and tape it down. Then you put a paper clip on top of the Talk button and tape it to keep the button on. Then you hide the walkie-talkie in something and spy on the conversation. I’m going to attach it to a remote-controlled car.”
“Okay,” Quinn said, wrapping up the session. “Our next meeting will be in the multipurpose room at school tomorrow when we set up our projects.”
The kids gathered their things, locked up the clubhouse, and kept an eye out as they walked down the hill, in case Matt or Dev was hiding in the trees. Seeing no one, they said their goodbyes and headed for their own homes.
After dinner, Cody practiced trying to tell if people on TV were lying, but it wasn’t easy, since most of them were actors and acting was practically lying. She worked on her chart, writing the heading in sign language with emoticons to express feelings. Now if she could just make sure nothing happened to her project before the Science Fair.
* * * * *
The next day at school, Cody nailed down her plan to catch Matt and Dev in a lie. After lunch, she found the two boys sitting on a bench outside. From their body language, they looked like they were arguing. They stopped when they saw Cody approach.
“Hi, guys,” Cody said to the boys.
Matt frowned while Dev just stared at her.
“I was wondering if I could interview you for my Science Fair project,” Cody went on.
“Why us?” Matt said, raising an eyebrow suspiciously.
“Why not?” Cody replied. “I think you’d be good subjects for my experiment.”
“I don’t want anyone experimenting on me,” Matt said, shaking his head.
“I’m not Dr. Frankenstein,” Cody said. “I’m not going to turn you into a monster. I just want to ask you a couple of questions and write down your answers.”
Matt and Dev looked at each other. “What do you think, Devster?” Matt asked his new sidekick. Dev shrugged. His body language was clear to Cody. He was cool with it.
“Okay, shoot,” Matt said. “But if you ask stupid questions, we’re done.”
Cody sat down and got out her notebook. She studied Matt’s face and body language for a few seconds, then explained the instructions. “I’m going to ask you three yes-no questions. I want you to tell the truth for two of them, and lie about one, okay?”
Matt gave a half grin. “Sure. That’s easy. As long as you don’t ask anything too personal.”
“Deal,” Cody said. “First question: Are you excited about your Science Fair project?”
“Duh!” Matt practically shouted.
“It has to be a yes or no answer,” Cody reminded him.
“Okay, yes,” Matt said.
Cody knew he was telling the truth because he didn’t even hesitate—he just blurted out the answer. Plus, the way he sat up and the grin across his face confirmed it. She wrote down notes using the Body Code she’d created.
“Next question,” Cody said, “but remember, you have to tell at least one lie.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Matt said. “I know. Go on.”
“Question number two: Do you know what the Code Busters are doing for their projects?”
Matt shrugged, tilted his head, then said, “Maybe,” without making eye contact.
Cody sighed. “It has to be a yes or no answer.” She noted his body language.
“Okay, uh, yeah, I think I know.” She noticed his small frown and his wiggling feet. He was lying, she decided, and wrote that down.
“Last question for you, Matt: Do you think you’re going to win the Science Fair?”
Matt broke out in a big smile. “Definitely.” His body was relaxed, his feet calm, and his smile seemed confident. He was telling the truth—or at least he thought he was.
“Great! Thanks.” She turned to Dev. He sat up from his slouched position, as if preparing himself for battle. From her research, she knew that in Indian culture, avoiding eye contact was a sign of respect and side-to-side head nods that looked like a no in American culture actually meant yes in Indian culture.
“Okay, Dev, first question: Are you excited about the Science Fair?”
Dev nodded and said, “Oh yes.” Cody knew he meant what he said and made notes in Body Code that he was telling the truth.
“Great. Question number two: As a new student, do you like Berkeley Cooperative Middle School?”
He smiled, gave the same head nod, and said, “Yes, very much.”
Again, the truth. Cody noted the gestures and added + signs.
It was time for the last and most important question: “Dev, do you know what the Code Busters are doing for their Science Fair projects?”
Dev glanced at Matt as if looking for the answer. Since this was the third question and she figured he’d already answered truthfully the first two times, it was time for him to tell a lie. Would he lie?
“No, not at all,” Dev said. Cody studied him and noticed he wasn’t making eye contact. Was it a sign of respect or a sign of telling a lie?
She frowned, stared at him for a few more seconds, then wrote a question mark in her notepad. “Thanks, guys. I need to take a picture of you for my chart. Hope that’s okay.”
The boys nodded and Cody snapped a shot of each one—Matt making a funny face and Dev smiling with his mouth closed.
The bell rang, and she headed to class with the rest of the students, a little unsure of Dev’s answers. As soon as she sat down at her desk, she opened her notebook. Next to Dev’s name she wrote the word “inconclusive.”
Chapter 7
At the Code Busters Clubhouse after school, Cody shared her “inconclusive” findings about her test. “Matt was pretty easy to figure out. I can always tell when he’s lying. But it was hard to read Dev. And now I’m kinda worried about my project. It’s not that easy to know if someone is lying or telling the truth.”
“That’s okay,” Luke reassured her. “You’re just supposed to report the results you get. It doesn’t matter if your hypothesis is wrong or right. And besides, I’ll bet you can tell most of the time when someone is lying.”
“You haven’t tried it on us yet,” M.E. said. “We could be a part of your experiment.”
Cody nodded. “That would be fun. M.E., you want to be first?”
“Sure!” M.E. said, sitting up. “Ask me anything.”
“Okay, remember, you have to tell at least one lie. First question,” Cody began. “Do you love animals?”
Cody studied M.E.’s reaction to the question. M.E.’s face lit up and she nodded vigorously. It was an obvious statement of the truth, but Cody already knew that. She made a note.
“Do you like school?”
M.E. paused, then nodded, but not as enthusiastically as before.
Cody laughed. “I can tell you’re trying to lie, but I know you too well. I’ll think of better questions to ask you guys—things I don’t already know.”
Cody proceeded to ask each of them a series of questions. When she was finished, she took pictures of them. She was about to head home when there was a knock on the door.
Cody twisted her index finger at her mouth, then pointed to the door, asking in sign language, “Who is it?”
The others shrugged.
Luke stood up and pressed his eye to the peephole. He shook his head, then called out, “Who’s there?”
No response.
“I’m coming out!” Luke called. He picked up the heavy military flashlight the kids kept, not just for seeing in the dark but as a weapon in case of intruders.
He listened a few seconds, then unbolted the door.
“Don’t go out there!” M.E. half whispered, half cried. “You don’t know who it is! It could be a runaway convict or a burglar or a kidnapper or mountain lion.”
“Mountain lions don’t knock,” Cody whispered to her, but M.E.’s body language was clear. Her friend was terrified. But then, M.E. was easily scared. Cody turned to her and fingerspelled:
Code Busters Key and Solution found on pp. 155 and 163.
Luke jerked open the door and lunged out in an effort to surprise—or scare off—the would-be intruder. But he quickly relaxed as he looked around the area.
“No one here,” he announced to the others. The kids got up and followed him outside.
“Are you sure?” M.E. asked, standing behind Cody. “They’re probably hiding in the bushes or trees.”
Luke shook his head. “Nah, whoever it was is gone. I don’t see or hear anything.”
Cody turned around—and froze when she saw the front of the clubhouse. Someone had written a bunch of random-looking numbers using a red marker:
“What the heck?!” Quinn sputtered.
Everyone stared at the graffiti, motionless. After a few moments, M.E. said, “What does it mean?”
“And who did it?” Cody asked, shocked that someone had graffitied the wall of their clubhouse while they were inside.
Luke narrowed his eyes. “When I find out who did this . . .” He shook his head, not finishing his sentence.
“Obviously it’s a coded message,” Quinn said. “We can decipher it and figure out who did it.”
“You mean,” Cody said, “if we can decipher it.” She took a picture of the graffiti and entered the clubhouse hoping to figure out a way to translate it. The others followed her in—all except Luke, who remained outside staring at the wall.
Cody got out her notebook and copied the numbers from her cell phone snapshot. She set the notebook down for the others to see.
“It’s definitely not Alphanumeric Code,” M.E. said, “because the numbers are higher than the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.”
“True,” Mika said. “But there does seem to be a pattern. Two numbers, then three numbers, then one, two, three, three, three, two. If these numbers represent letters, then there’s an awful lot of small words in the message.”
“Look for repeated numbers,” Quinn suggested. “The letter ‘E’ is the most common letter, so it should be the most repeated.” He studied the numbers on the paper for a few moments. “That’s weird. Only one of the numbers repeats—number fifty-three.”
“But if that’s the letter ‘E,’ ” Mika said, “then two of the words have an E in the middle.”
Cody shook her head. “Something’s off. This isn’t like any code we’ve ever seen before.”
Quinn tapped his pencil. “Okay, if Matt the Brat wrote it, he could be just playing us.”
“But what if it wasn’t written by him?” M.E. said. “What if Dev wrote it? He’s supersmart. He always gets the best grades on his papers. Maybe it’s a fancy mathematical equation.”
Quinn tapped his pencil, then mumbled, “Hmmm.”
Cody looked at him. “You’ve got an idea?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, “but some of the numbers relate to elements in the periodic table.”
“What do you mean?” M.E. asked.
He pointed to the number 92. “That’s the atomic number of uranium.”
“Dude, you think someone’s sending us a message about the elements?” Luke said. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Quinn frowned, deep in thought. After a couple more pencil taps, he said, “Maybe it’s not the word uranium, but its symbolic letter—‘U.’ ”
“Hmm,” M.E. said. “What’s the element for 18?”
Quinn pulled out his periodic table decoder card and looked it up. “Eighteen is the atomic number for argon. The symbol is Ar.”
“So the first two numbers could stand for U Ar,” Mika said.
“You are!” M.E. squealed. “Keep going!”
Quinn continued to look up the numbers and write down the correlating symbols. Once he was finished, he read the message aloud—all except the last two words:
“You are losers. You can never win,” M. E. read aloud. “But what about the last line?”
Quinn scratched his head. “I can’t figure out the word ‘Cu I Uut.’ Is it supposed to mean ‘cute’?”
Cody smiled when she figured out it said quit now. “Sound it out and run it all together when you say it.”
Quinn did, then smiled too. “Aha! There’s no letter ‘Q’ so whoever did this wrote it phonetically and used ‘CU’ to substitute for the letter ‘Q.’ ”
“Which means,” Luke said, “somebody wants us to quit the Science Fair.”
“It’s got to be Matt the Brat,” M.E. said.
Cody frowned. “Maybe not Matt this time. Last time he sent a message he used a code he’d made up. Maybe Dev did it. Maybe he’s the quiet, stealthy type that no one suspects.”
“Well,” Quinn said, “we have to watch out and keep everything top secret from now on.”
“But setup is tonight,” Mika said. “How are we going to keep our projects secret when everyone else is there setting up their projects too?”
Quinn closed his notebook. “By then it’ll be too late for anyone to steal our ideas. If they don’t turn in their projects tonight, they can’t compete. And they can’t copy us right in front of everyone else. I think we’ll be safe. Plus, they’re locking up the room overnight so no one can get in.”
Quinn adjourned the meeting, and the kids headed for home. Cody wolfed down her dinner, then went up to her room to finish her project chart. She added pictures of the Code Busters, explained the meaning of their body language, included a bunch of emojis, then wrote her conclusion: “I believe you can tell at least 80 percent of the time when a person is lying based on their body language.”
She cited evidence and current research on semiotics and explained how it could include expressions of thoughts, feelings, and intentions. “Even animals use body language,” she added.
