The Haunted Lighthouse

by Penny Warner

  On the ride home, Ms. Stad made sure Cody and M.E. were seated separately from Quinn and Luke—no doubt as punishment for their sneaking off together in the cell block during the ranger’s talk. No biggie, Cody thought. The Code Busters had ways of communicating, even from a distance.

  Sure enough, a few minutes later a folded note arrived in Cody’s hands. She glanced behind her to see Quinn give a brief wave, letting her know the note was from him. She’d already guessed it was, because the paper was intricately folded—origami was something Quinn liked to do with his secret messages. This one looked like a square, but when Cody pulled out the tucked corners, the paper unfolded into a large sheet of paper. Inside, Quinn had written a code.

  Cody recognized it immediately as the zigzag code, because at the very end was the letter V, which stood for “zigzag.” At first glance she saw a string of random letters.

  Since this was a zigzag code, she knew to divide the letters in half and write the second half underneath the first, after moving it one space to the right.

  Once she’d done that, she added the zigzag lines to connect the top and bottom letters, beginning with the letter M.

  Code Buster’s Solution found on this page.

  Cody shared the note with M.E. Tomorrow would be Saturday—her day to be with her dad—but she’d think of some reason she needed to meet with her friends. They’d have plenty of time to explore the Campanile tower on the Berkeley campus and see if they could find more clues to the hidden diamonds—or the diamonds themselves. The girls finger-spelled OK to Quinn and Luke.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Cody saw a hand trying to imitate her message.

  Matt. He’d caught her signal.

  Uh-oh. Now that he knew the Code Busters were up to something, he’d be all up in their faces, asking questions and trying to trick them into spilling their plans.

  He might even follow them to the campus …

  Cody knew they’d better be on the lookout tomorrow, or Matt the Brat might be the one to find the lost diamonds.

  You’re late,” Quinn said, checking his military watch. Cody had just arrived at the Campanile tower on the University of California, Berkeley, campus at two minutes past ten. She’d asked her dad if he’d drive her to the campus to meet up with the Code Busters for a special project they’d been working on. She knew he’d let her go if her plans had anything to do with schoolwork. She’d just failed to mention that this was extracurricular.

  M.E. and Luke grinned at Cody. They all knew Quinn was a fanatic about time. They usually just ignored his comments.

  “Sorry. My dad has been acting strangely lately. He keeps asking me weird questions, and hovering. He even asked if I wanted him to come along today,” Cody said, rolling her eyes. She was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved white T-shirt, as well as her usual red hoodie, ready for the morning chill that was rapidly burning off. She looked at M.E. in her shorts-over-tights outfit and extra-long T-shirt that featured a picture of Tigger. Nothing matched, especially not with the Alcatraz socks she’d pulled on over the tights. But Cody knew M.E. didn’t care. Her friend enjoyed being different from everyone else. In Berkeley, nearly everyone seemed to have their own style.

  Quinn wore khaki slacks and a button-down madras shirt, while Luke was dressed in his usual sweats with the New Orleans Saints logo. New Orleans was Luke’s hometown, but he’d moved to Berkeley to live with his grand-mère after the big flood. He never talked about his parents, who had died in the flood, and none of the Code Busters asked him about it.

  Cody noticed a note in Quinn’s hand.

  “What’s that?” she asked, nodding toward it.

  “I was going to leave you a coded message, in case you were late,” Quinn said.

  “What does it say?” Cody asked.

  Quinn offered her a brochure about the Campanile. On the back were a series of letters that made no sense:

  GVVX TFQXBSNQ SK XMLVN C&P — Z

  Cody recognized the code as Caesar’s cipher, and pulled out her decoder wheel from her backpack. The letter after the dash at the end of the code—Z—meant she was supposed to line up the outer letter A with the inner wheel Z to decipher the message. Then all she had to do was find each outer letter and write down the corresponding inner letter. She quickly began to decode the message, starting with the outer letter G, which corresponded to the inner letter M. Next came V, which meant E, and so on, until she had finished.

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

  Cody handed the brochure back to Quinn.

  “I was going to tape it to the wall next to the door, but now you’re here …,” Quinn said, then he unfolded the brochure. “This tells everything there is to know about the Campanile. Ask me anything.”

  “Okay,” Luke said. “What does Campanile mean?”

  “It’s Italian for bell tower,” Quinn said. “Guess which bell tower is the most famous?”

  “The Leaning Tower of Pisa,” M.E. called out, as if she were on a game show.

  Quinn looked surprised. “Right.”

  Luke asked another question, reading from the brochure: “So what are carillons?”

  “A bunch of bells,” Quinn said, “connected to a keyboard, like a piano or organ. This one has been here long enough to hide those diamonds.”

  The Code Busters headed for the entrance to the Campanile. Luke pulled open the heavy glass door and held it for the others.

  “Welcome to the Campanile,” a young college student manning the tall desk said in greeting. He had black hair, covered by a blue and gold Cal Bears hat and matching jacket. “Here to take a tour?” he asked.

  The kids nodded.

  “Everyone under eighteen?”

  Duh, Cody thought, but said yes, along with the others.

  “Okay, it’s a dollar per person.”

  The Code Busters handed over their money and listened to the introductory spiel as they waited for the elevator in the tiny lobby to arrive. After the car arrived and let out half a dozen passengers, the kids stepped in. They listened to another short lecture from the operator, a female student in jeans and a gray sweatshirt. She recited most of the information Quinn had already shared from the brochure, but added a few extra details about the tolling of the bells. “They ring on the hour, seven days a week, from eight in the morning till ten an night, and on the last day of class, at noon. Then the bells are silent until the end of finals.”

  That sounded foreboding to Cody. Finals must be tough at the university if they couldn’t even play the bells.

  The student continued reciting her memorized lines: “Although the tower is three hundred feet high you’re going up two hundred feet to the observation deck. From there you’ll be able to see the entire campus and all the way to San Francisco.”

  Luke raised his hand to ask a question, as if he were in school.

  “Yes?” the student asked.

  “I heard bones were kept in this tower. Is that true?”

  The girl grinned as if Luke had said something funny. “I get that question a lot. As a matter of fact, yes, the paleontology department keeps fossils from the La Brea Tar Pits here because it’s cool and dry and helps preserve them.”

  “Sweet. Can we see them?” Luke asked.

  “I’m afraid not. Access to those floors requires a special key, and I don’t have one. Sorry.”

  Luke pressed his lips together, looking disappointed, Cody thought. It would have been fun to see some old bones, but at the moment, they were on a different mission.

  The elevator doors opened, and the kids stepped into a stairwell. Cody spotted a bronze plaque mentioned in the brochure, hanging on one of the walls.

  “You may stay as long as you like,” the girl said. “I come back every few minutes to pick people up and take them back down.”

  The Code Busters headed up the stairs and out onto the observation area that surrounded a small, enclosed room. The wind whipped through Cody, much like it had a
t the top of the lighthouse on Alcatraz. She zipped up her hoodie and pulled the hood over her head. Peering inside the tiny inner room, she saw a few of the massive steel bells, along with a row of horizontal bars that looked like giant organ pedals.

  The kids had the place to themselves, so they could take their time and examine every accessible inch of the area. “You check that side, Cody,” Quinn said, indicating the east side. “M.E., there.” He pointed to the south side. “Luke, the west. I’ll check out the north side.”

  The Code Busters spent several minutes exploring their assigned areas, searching for anything that might be a clue from one of Diamond Dave’s gang—or even a diamond. After ten minutes or so of exploration, Quinn said, “I got nothing. You guys find anything?”

  “Nope,” Luke said. M.E. and Cody shook their heads.

  Cody felt as if she would freeze to death if she stayed up in the tower much longer. Between her chattering teeth, she said, “Let me check one more place.” She returned to the side of the tower that faced Alcatraz. “Anyone have a mirror?”

  “Cody, this isn’t really the time to check your face,” Quinn said.

  “It’s not for that, Quinn. Wait, I have one! I almost forgot.” Cody pulled out her iPhone and tapped on her mirror app. A picture of her face appeared, looking red and splotchy from the cold wind. She held the mirror out over the ledge and moved it around to see if she could spot anything on the outside.

  “I think I see something!” Cody said, as she held the cell phone as steady as she could in her freezing hand. “Letters, and some numbers …”

  The kids gathered around. “What does it say?” Quinn asked, straining to see the reflection in the phone mirror.

  “I’ll take a picture of it,” she said, and clicked the phone’s camera button. She pulled her hand in from the bitter cold and displayed the photograph she’d just snapped.

  Sure enough, words and numbers had been carved underneath the ledge. She read them aloud: “ ‘We ring, we chime, we toll: 9-18-36-3-2-12-17-5-16 10-17-16-2-18.’ ”

  “That’s from the plaque inside,” Quinn said. “It’s written in the brochure.” He pulled the brochure from his pocket, opened it, and read the words: “ ‘We ring, we chime, we toll, Lend ye the silent part, Some answer in the heart, Some echo in the soul.’ ” He looked at the others with raised eyebrows.

  “What about the numbers?” Cody asked. “That has to be some kind of code.” She pulled out her notebook and wrote down the numbers, then tried to match them to letters in the alphabet. But the alphabet had only twenty-six letters. “It has something to do with the quote. Quinn, what’s the ninth letter in the quote?”

  “C,” he said.

  She wrote it down. “Okay, what’s the eighteenth letter?”

  “L.”

  She continued counting off the numbers for Quinn to decipher. The thirty-sixth letter was A. The third letter was R. And so on. They looked at the word Cody had spelled out.

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

  “Well,” Quinn said, his face lighting up with recognition. “I guess that’s where we’re going next.”

  M.E.’s eyes grew wide with excitement. “This is so fun! A treasure hunt—for diamonds!”

  “Look,” Quinn said, heading for the other side of the Campanile tower. “You can see it from here.” He pointed toward the foothills behind the campus, where a white hotel was nestled. “See that big tower?”

  This was the third tower on their treasure hunt, Cody realized. This one belonged to the historic Claremont Hotel. Her mother had taken Cody there to celebrate her thirteenth birthday, and they’d had an afternoon tea party. The hotel had been built back in the early 1900s, and Cody had heard rumors that the hotel had been won in a checkers game by a miner—and was supposedly haunted.

  But those weren’t the only rumors associated with the hotel. Cody had also heard that the Claremont Hotel had a special fire escape—a spiral slide—so guests could get out quickly in case of an emergency. Years ago, kids from all over Berkeley would sneak into the hotel and ride the slide. But Cody’s mom had told her that the hotel had destroyed that fire escape and replaced it with outdoor ladders.

  “I’ll bet there’s something up there,” Quinn said.

  “Diamonds?” M.E. suggested.

  Luke frowned. “I don’t know, dude. Maybe someone’s just playing with us.”

  M.E. ignored him, clearly excited. “I heard it used to be a castle. I’d love to check it out.”

  Quinn typed something into his iPhone, then read. “Says here some old gold prospector struck it rich in the Mother Lode and built the place for his wife. She wanted it to look like an English castle. But when she died, he sold it and then it burned to the ground.”

  “How sad!” M.E. said.

  Quinn continued reading. “That’s when the guy won the property from the new owners and rebuilt it.”

  So that rumor is true! Cody thought. Hard to believe someone would gamble away his property.

  “It also says sailors used to signal their loved ones who were staying at the hotel, using semaphore code. Look! It shows an example of a message that a guest received from her sea captain husband.”

  Quinn held up the message for everyone to see.

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

  Cody recognized the flag code and translated each letter aloud.

  “Cool,” Luke said.

  “Yeah, but does the article mention the spiral fire escape?” M.E. asked.

  Quinn nodded. “But it was torn down in the seventies.”

  Luke frowned again. Cody knew he would have loved to go down that multistory slide.

  “Listen to this,” Quinn added. “Some kids started using the laundry chute as a slide instead.”

  Luke perked up. “Dude, that’s awesome! Is it still there?”

  “No. Says it’s all boarded up. And get this. The hotel is supposed to be haunted!”

  M.E.’s eyebrow shot up. Cody wished Quinn hadn’t said anything about the place being haunted. She hadn’t said anything because she knew M.E. would want to back out.

  Quinn continued. “Says here the ghost of a young girl who died in the hotel haunts the fourth floor, and especially Room Four twenty-two. People who’ve stayed there say the TV turns on by itself and the chandelier lights flicker.”

  “That’s just another legend,” Luke said. “They probably made it up for the tourists.”

  “Maybe,” Quinn said. “Anyway, the Claremont is right there if we take this shortcut. Let’s go check it out.”

  “But we don’t know where to go when we get there,” M.E. said.

  “We’ll try the tower first,” Quinn suggested. He took another look at the photo Cody had taken. “Hey, wait a minute. Did you guys see that?” He showed them the screen. “It looks like faint letters.”

  Before Cody could study the picture, a female student entered the glassed room in the center of the tower. Cody watched as she sat down on a bench, stretched and twisted her wrists, and then began to play the carillon. With her hands curled inward, she pressed on the large rectangular “keys” with the sides of her wrists.

  Cody didn’t recognize the tune, but the sound was deafening. All four of the Code Busters plugged their ears.

  Cody finger-spelled to the others,

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

  They nodded and rushed down the stairwell to the waiting elevator. By the time they reached the bottom of the tower, they were able to remove their fingers from their ears, but the bells were still loud. Once outside, Cody listened to the haunting sound of the ringing bells. It gave her goose bumps.

  It must take years to learn to play the carillon, she thought, remembering the years she’d spent learning to play the family piano. But since Tana had been diagnosed with severe hearing loss, Cody had given up playing. It wasn’t much fun since she couldn’t share the songs with her
deaf sister. In fact, no one in the family had played the instrument since then, not even her mother, who was a good pianist and could play just about any song by ear. Now the keyboard was closed up and the piano held a permanent display of knickknacks and photos.

  Quinn pulled Cody from her sad memory. “Cody, let me see your phone again. I want to check that picture you took.”

  Cody handed her phone to Quinn. He studied the snapshot, then said, “These are letters!” With a flick of his fingers, he enlarged the screen so he could see the letters better, and read them aloud.

  “E-T-U-H-C-Y-R-D-N-U-A-L.”

  “Read them again,” M.E. said, pulling out her notebook.

  Quinn repeated the string of letters.

  “Et-uh-cyrd-nual?” M.E. asked, sounding out the letters like syllables.

  “Sounds weird. Maybe it’s someone’s name,” Luke offered. “Etuh Cyrdnual.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a name,” Quinn said. He squinted at it. “It’s got to be some kind of code.”

  “Let me try,” Luke said. He got out his own notebook and turned to the page with the reverse alphabet code. After trying to match the first few letters of the message with letters of the alphabet, he gave up. “That’s not it.”

  “Maybe it’s an anagram,” Cody suggested.

  Luke tried rearranging the letters to see if they’d spell any recognizable words. He came up with THE CRY LAND but had two U’s left over. He tried again and wrote LACY THUNDER with one leftover U. Finally, he wrote UNDER CUT HALY using all the letters, but that still didn’t make sense.

  M.E. tried it but only managed to come up with more nonsensical phrases like CHURN LATE DUY, DUEL YARN THUC, and CLUE RAD HUT NY.

  Then Cody remembered using her mirror to see under the Campanile ledge, which gave her an idea. She took the notebook from M.E. and wrote the letters down in reverse.

  L-A-U-N-D-R-Y-C-H-U-T-E

  Code Buster’s Solution found on this page.

  “That’s it!” Quinn said. “That’s where we have to go when we get to the hotel!”