by Dan Gutman
“Yeah, lighten up, Mom,” Coke agreed. “Cannibals are cool.”
“It was educational,” Dr. McDonald admitted. “Because of what happened to the Donner Party, Californians sent relief teams with food and water for people who were heading west during the gold rush a couple of years later. So in the long run, they saved a lot of lives.”
After a few wrong turns, the McDonalds found a campground where they could spend the night. They had driven more than two hundred miles, almost all the way across California. Mrs. McDonald baked some freeze-dried chicken in the RV’s little microwave oven, and the family eagerly wolfed it down while sitting at a picnic table next to their campsite.
“Do you want me to do a dump here, Dad?” Coke asked, remembering that his chore for the trip was to empty the holding tank below the toilet.
“No, we can wait a few days for that,” Dr. McDonald replied. “Let the tank fill up a little.”
It was a simple campground. Once the sun went down, there wasn’t a whole lot to do. Without any wood to make a campfire, the McDonalds climbed into their four sleeping nooks and curled up with books. One by one, they dropped off to sleep.
Around three o’clock in the morning, a man wearing a black suit and a bowler hat tiptoed over to the RV. He had a piece of paper with him, about three inches by seven inches, which he carefully slipped under the left windshield wiper. Then he crept away silently in the night.
This is what it said on the piece of paper:
JNTET FFHNO LCDNB LTYUL
VSEED NTHTU EWNYI TOECO
KOTEA EORIEDPNOITOR
Chapter 14
The Singing Sand
The twins woke up the next morning—June 20—to hear their father ranting to nobody in particular.
“A ticket?” Dr. McDonald bellowed. “I can’t believe the cops gave me a parking ticket. In a campground! That’s un-American!”
Coke buried his face in his pillow and tried to go back to sleep.
When Dr. McDonald went outside and peeled the “ticket” off the windshield, he realized it wasn’t a ticket at all. No ticket would say
JNTET FFHNO LCDNB LTYUL
VSEED NTHTU EWNYI TOECO
KOTEA EORIEDPNOITOR
“What do you make of this, Bridge?” he asked.
“It’s not a ticket,” Mrs. McDonald replied. “Maybe it’s a new kind of sudoku puzzle or some word game. It looks like some sort of a code.”
With the word code, Pep and Coke bolted up from their bunks. If somebody left a message with a secret code on the windshield, it was meant for them, not for their parents.
Coke ran outside in his pajamas and bare feet to snatch the piece of paper out of his father’s hand. He glanced at it for a few seconds—long enough to commit it to memory. Then he ripped up the paper and threw the pieces in the garbage can at the side of their campsite.
“It’s probably just some kids pulling a prank,” he said. “So, what’s for breakfast? And what fabulous place are we going to visit today? Maybe a museum devoted to Mr. Potato Head?”
“Oh, you’ll see,” his mother replied. “All I can tell you is this—it has something to do with singing.”
While the others got dressed and brushed their teeth over the little sink, Coke carefully rewrote the message from the windshield on a sheet of paper. Even people who have photographic memories know that photos fade in time.
“Somebody left us another cipher,” he confirmed to his sister while their parents prepared breakfast. “If it’s anything like the last one, you should be able to solve it.”
Pep looked at the letters and then wrote them down in reverse order on her pad, the same way she did with the first cipher. Only this time the message didn’t make any sense. It didn’t look anything like English.
Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/).
Click Get Directions.
In the A box, type Truckee CA.
In the B box, type Fallon NV.
Click Get Directions.
“What’s wrong?” Coke asked his sister after she had been staring at the pad for five minutes.
“Nothing,” she replied. “It’s just a different kind of cipher. Give me a little time. I’ll crack it.”
When everyone had eaten and the dishes were washed, Dr. McDonald started the RV and jumped back onto I-80 heading east. In about an hour they crossed the state line.
“Did you guys know that the word nevada means ‘snowcapped’ in Spanish?” Coke announced.
“Very impressive!” Mrs. McDonald said.
“Thank you, Mr. Show-off,” said Pep.
Less than ten miles from the California border is the big city of Reno. The flashing lights of the casinos were beckoning, but Dr. McDonald barely glanced at them.
“Hey, gambling is legal here, Dad,” Coke hollered from the backseat. “We should hit the slots. Play some blackjack.”
“You’re too young to gamble,” Dr. McDonald hollered back, “and I’m too smart.”
Coke shared a smile with his sister. They had been attacked by guys in golf carts with blow guns, jumped off a cliff, been locked in a burning school, and had their heads stapled, but putting coins in a slot machine was considered too dangerous for kids. Go figure.
As the buildings of Reno disappeared behind them, Pep worked feverishly on the cipher. She jumbled the letters on her pad every which way, trying to make sense of them. She grew increasingly frustrated.
The family continued east on I-80; and shortly after passing Wadsworth, Nevada, the road split. Mrs. McDonald instructed her husband to take the Reno Highway, which is also called Route 50 East. It wasn’t long before they reached the town of Fallon and a sign . . .
They had driven another twenty-five miles east when Mrs. McDonald suddenly shouted, “There it is!”
In the distance, nestled between two mountain ranges, out in the middle of nowhere, was a gigantic mountain of sand.
A beach at the edge of the ocean is no big deal. But a beach in the middle of Nevada was just plain strange.
To make things even stranger, as the McDonalds got closer, they could hear the sand singing.
Sand Mountain Recreation Area is famous out West because it gives off an odd, otherworldly moaning sound, like the soundtrack to a horror movie. Dr. McDonald pulled onto a dirt road that brought them to the edge of the dune. Theirs was the only vehicle in the parking lot.
Even the kids, who liked to pretend that nothing impressed them, climbed out of the RV to listen to the sand. A sign stuck in the ground read Take only photos. Leave only footprints.
The dune is two miles long and six hundred feet high. There was no sign of a human being for miles around, but the sand was talking, singing, moaning. Pep felt goose pimples on her arms. This was a noise she had never heard before.
“It sounds like somebody who’s wounded,” Dr. McDonald observed, “but not quite dead yet.”
“It’s because of the size of the grains of sand and the way the grains bump into each other,” said Coke, who had once read an article on the topic in a science magazine while he was getting his hair cut.
Coke told the others that in order to “sing,” the grains of sand have to be very dry, round, and polished; and they have to move, either because of the wind or some geological force. There are twenty-seven areas in the world where there are singing sand dunes, and only four of them are in the United States.
“I don’t like that sound,” Pep said quietly. “It’s creepy.”
“I think it’s marvelous!” Mrs. McDonald gushed, reaching for her laptop. “I’m going to tell my readers all about it!”
“In that case, I’ll be taking a snooze,” Dr. McDonald said as he climbed into the RV and reclined the driver’s seat back as far as it would go.
“Hey, you wanna hike up there?” Coke asked his sister. “I wonder what it sounds like at the top.”
“No thanks,” Pep replied.
“Come on, you afraid?”
“No, I’m not afraid,”
Pep insisted. “I just don’t want to.”
Coke proceeded to make chicken noises, which prompted Pep to start sprinting up the sand dune ahead of him.
“Last one to the summit is a rotten egg!” she yelled.
“You kids have fun,” Dr. McDonald yelled after them. “The old fogies will stay in the RV and listen to the sand singing from the parking lot.”
“Here,” Mrs. McDonald said as she flipped a little glass jar to Coke, “fill this with sand from the summit. There’s no gift shop here. You gotta bring home a souvenir.”
He stuck the jar in his pocket and chased Pep up the steep slope of Sand Mountain.
As the twins climbed, they could hear the pitch of the “music” change and feel the vibrations in their bones. It was an eerie feeling. Coke looked up in the sky for a plane. It was hard to believe that the sound he was hearing was made by the sand alone.
It was still morning, but the surface was already hot. They could feel the sand through their sneakers.
“We should have brought a water bottle,” Pep said when they were halfway to the top, “and the Frisbee. This would be a good place to throw it.”
“I don’t want to chase your wild throws all over this mountain,” Coke replied.
The sand was soft, and their feet sank into it with each step. They turned to wave at their parents down in the parking lot, but the RV was already a dot on the horizon. They were so far away.
“I know this is gonna sound crazy,” Pep suddenly said, panting as she climbed, “but I have the feeling that somebody is following us.”
“Oh, please,” Coke replied. “Will you relax? How could somebody follow us? There’s nobody around for miles. See? The parking lot is empty. Nobody’s here but us.”
As they neared the top of the mountain, Coke took out the jar his mother had given him. Pep got down on her hands and knees to help him fill it with sand.
Coke had just screwed on the top and stuck the jar in his pocket when he heard a voice. It wasn’t the voice of the sand.
“Don’t stand up,” a man ordered.
The twins turned around quickly to look. There was a man standing about ten feet behind them. He was wearing a black suit and a black bowler hat. In his hand was a long, shiny sword. The sun reflected off of it.
“Who are you?” Pep asked, shielding her eyes from the glare. “How did you get up here?”
“Who I am or how I got up here is not important, sweetheart,” the man told her.
“I know who you are!” said Coke, who recognized the man right away. “You’re one of the guys in the golf carts! The dudes with the bowler hats and the blow guns.”
“Very good,” bowler dude said. “That was clever the way you two jumped off that cliff to get away from us the other day. It took me by surprise. But it won’t happen again.”
“What are you doing here?” Pep asked, squeezing her brother’s hand tightly.
“I thought you were supposed to be so smart, sweetheart,” the bowler dude said, holding up his sword. “It’s obvious what I’m doing here. I’m going to kill you. You know what they say: if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. But I won’t make the same mistake this time. No cliffs.”
“You’re going to kill us with a sword?” Coke asked.
“Of course not!” the bowler dude replied. “That would be . . . uncivilized. Come with me.”
“What did we do?” Pep asked, tears in her eyes. “We didn’t hurt anybody. We’re just—”
“Shut up, sweetheart.”
Holding the sword over their heads, the bowler dude marched the twins up to the very top of Sand Mountain and then a few yards farther, where there was a pit that had been dug into the dune on the other side. It was seven feet deep and about the size of a pool table.
“You’ll die from dehydration,” the bowler dude informed them. “It’s far more humane.”
“I’m not getting into that pit,” Pep said defiantly.
“Me nei—”
The bowler dude held his sword sideways in front of him and used the flat side to shove both of them backward. They lost their balance and tumbled into the pit.
“Owwww!” Coke said, landing hard on his side. Pep popped up right away. She got on her tiptoes and jumped, half expecting Mya and Bones to suddenly show up and save them again. But the pit was too deep to see out of, and there was nobody else around, anyway.
“Your friends aren’t here to help you this time, sweetheart,” the bowler dude told her. “My good friend Mrs. Higgins has taken care of them. They won’t be saving your lives anymore.”
“Help!” Pep screamed. “Mom! Dad! Help!”
“Save your energy, sweetheart. They can’t hear you,” the bowler dude told her. “The singing sand is drowning out your voice. That’s why I chose this as the perfect spot to kill you.”
“You’ll never get away with this!” Pep shouted.
The bowler dude chuckled to himself.
“Without any water, your bodies won’t be able to cool off. Your muscles will start cramping. You’ll get heat exhaustion and then heat stroke. You’ll feel dizzy and weak. Your temperatures will go up to 107 degrees. And then you’ll die. Hey, do you kids play golf? Sand traps have been the graveyard of many great golfers. And now one will be yours.”
He chuckled at his little joke.
“As soon as our parents realize we’re missing, they’ll be up here,” Coke said. “They’ll rescue us.”
The bowler dude shook his head and laughed.
“Your parents are used to you two running off,” he said. “By the time they get up here, you’ll be dead. I’ll simply cover your bodies with sand, and they’ll find nothing. You will have vanished without a trace.”
Pep was crying now. Coke was on the verge. He looked around desperately for a way to get out of the pit.
“What did we ever do to you?” Pep sobbed.
“Nothing. I do what I’m told, sweetheart.”
“By who?” Coke asked. “Who’s paying you?”
“That’s my business,” the bowler dude said.
Coke eyed the sword in the bowler dude’s hand. If only he could get hold of it.
“What’s with you and the old-time weapons?” Coke asked. “Swords. Blow guns. What, are they afraid to trust you with a real gun?”
“I’m kickin’ it old school,” the bowler dude explained. “There was something elegant in the weapons before the age of gunpowder. Killing with guns and dropping bombs from planes is too easy.”
“You’re crazy!” Pep shouted through her tears.
The bowler dude ignored her. He took a plastic water bottle out of his pocket and made a little show of leaning his head back to drain it slowly.
“Pretty hot up here today, eh?” he said, tossing the empty bottle into the pit. “Must be over a hundred degrees.”
“That’s littering!” Pep hollered at him. “Don’t you care about the environment?”
“Uh, I don’t think that should be our highest priority right now,” Coke told his sister.
“Don’t worry; the bottle will decompose in a few hundred years,” the bowler dude told them, “around the same time they find your bones. Ha-ha! They say life is the pits; but, in your case, death turned out to be the pits. So long, kiddies.”
As he slid his sword into his belt and turned to walk away, Coke yelled, “Wait!”
He realized that this assassin was, ironically, the only person who could save them. If the bowler dude left, there would be no way to get out of the pit. As long as they were talking, there was a chance to survive.
“Did you send us a coded message?” Coke asked. “Something about meeting you at a house on a rock?”
“If I have something to say to you, I’ll say it to your face,” the bowler dude replied. “I don’t send secret messages. Now, is there anything else you request? I’m a busy man.”
“Yeah,” Coke said, “could you help us out of this pit? We’re kinda stuck down here.”
The bowler dude laughed and clapped his hands. “I like that,” he said. “You retain a sense of humor even as you are going to die. I’m sure that we would have become friends if I hadn’t had to kill you. Ha-ha-ha!”
“I told you we should have brought the Frisbee,” Pep said to her brother.
“Yeah, a lot of good that would have done.”
“We could have thrown it at him,” Pep said, “or something!”
Coke was going to insult his sister’s Frisbee skills, but she had given him an idea. As the bowler dude turned to walk away again, Coke reached into his pocket. He pulled out the jar of sand he had collected for his mother. It was his only chance. He reared back, wound up, and heaved it at the bowler dude.
The jar hit him directly on the back of his head.
The bowler dude let out a brief yelp of pain and staggered backward a step. There was blood running down his neck. He went to put a hand on the wound, but it never got there. His knees buckled, and he fell backward and slid headfirst into the pit, next to the McDonald twins.
“Good throw!” Pep hollered.
“Quick! Grab his sword!” Coke said.
Coke was about to punch the bowler dude, but there was no need. He was out. The blow to the back of his head, combined with the fall into the pit, had knocked him unconscious. Pep grabbed the sword just to be on the safe side.
“Do you think he’s dead?” she asked.
“What am I, a doctor?” Coke said. “Who cares if he’s dead? Let’s get out of here!”
There was just one problem. They couldn’t climb out. The pit was too deep. When they tried to grab hold of the side and pull themselves up, they just got handfuls of sand. They tried making a foothold with their hands. They tried using the bowler dude’s unconscious body as a step. Nothing worked.
“Try using the sword!” Pep said desperately.
“What? You want me to carve steps into the sand?”
“No, dope!” she replied, taking the sword herself.
Pep made a mark on the side of the pit about three feet above the bottom. Then she stabbed the sword into the wall, hard. It slid into the sand about a foot deep.