The Smoky Corridor

58

Fifteen minutes later, Zack, Malik, and Zipper were upstairs in Zack’s bedroom.

Zipper hopped up to the computer desk by way of Zack’s swivel chair so he could take the best angle to lick Malik’s face.

“He does this every time I come over here!” Malik laughed as Zipper’s tongue slurped across his face.

“Okay, Zip,” said Zack as he sat in his chair and pulled over a second one for Malik. “Off!”

Zipper bounded to the ground, making sure he was close enough to Malik’s legs for the visitor to scratch him behind his ears.

“Shall we get cracking?” said Malik.

“Sure.”

Malik spread out the rubbing he had made off the stone.

“Yes,” said Malik, studying the sharply angled figures in the cryptogram. “Definitely a pigpen cipher.”

“How’s it work?” asked Zack.

“First, you make a tic-tac-toe grid and an X.”

Malik found a blank sheet of paper. Plucked a marker out of a cup. Drew the grid and the X.

“Next,” he said, “fill in each space with two letters.”

“The letters in each space are represented by the angled shape around them. The first is just the shape. For instance, an A would look like this.” And he drew:

“The second letter gets the same shape but with an added dot. Therefore, B would be—”

See? Likewise, S and T would be—”

“Wow,” marveled Zack. “It’s simple.”

“Sure. Once you know the secret.”

“So what does it say?”

Malik handed Zack the marker. “You tell me!”

“Okay.”

First Zack looked at the rubbing of the coded message.

His eyes bounced back and forth between the paper he was writing on and Malik’s code key. He spelled out the first line:

A ZOMBIE GUARDS MY TREASURE WELL

Uh-oh, the zombie.

“Treasure!” said Malik. “Awesome.”

Okay. Zack understood why Malik might be more interested in that part. Then again, he hadn’t been the one talking with Davy and Mr. Willoughby.

“Of course,” Malik continued, “whoever wrote it was most likely attempting to scare off any would-be treasure hunters. There are no such things as zombies in real life.”

Zack just sort of nodded.

“It works quite nicely with the second line,” Malik noted. “Interesting.”

“What?”

“The ‘turn back now’ phrase suggests the stone we uncovered is situated close to the entry point for finding the treasure.”

“The hole in the wall?”

“Precisely! Do the next bit, Zack.”

“Okay.”

Zack translated and then he and Malik read the entire inscription:

A ZOMBIE GUARDS MY TREASURE WELL

TURN BACK NOW OR DESCEND INTO HELL

NEXT STAND WATCH LIKE A SAILOR SHOULD

AND YOUR PROSPECTS SHALL BE VERY GOOD

“Well, that makes no sense,” said Zack.

“Yes, it does,” said Malik.

“What does it mean? ‘Stand watch like a sailor should’?”

“It means one must look at the world as Captain Pettimore would have—if you want to find all his gold!”