The Mystery of the Pirate's Treasure (9 page)

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 multilayered, 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 straight 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.

There stood a pale-faced pirate, dressed all in white except for the inside of the cape.

The ghost pirate laughed, a booming hollow laugh that sounded as if it came from an echo chamber.

And then the ghost spoke: “Beware the spirit of
Hippolyte de Bouchard, who haunts the mission in search of a long-lost treasure …”

The spooky fog faded away, along with the pirate.

The museum lights flickered back on.

“That was awesome!” Jody said.

“What was that?” M.E. asked.

“Did you see his face?” a student named Maile questioned.

Cody smiled. She knew the ghostly pirate had been Chad. She'd recognized his cowboy boots under the white bell-bottom pant legs. She wished docents on other field trips were as entertaining and exciting as he was.