The Smoky Corridor

60

In history class, Ms. DuBois showed the class a picture of Horace P. Pettimore’s headstone.

“This is his grave marker in the cemetery out back.”

CAPTAIN HORACE PHINEAS PETTIMORE

1825–1900

ALL THAT I HAVE

I LEAVE FOR HE

WHO COMES AFTER ME

“What does it mean?” asked Benny.

“Well,” said Ms. DuBois, “the eye floating above the inscription means he was a member of a group called the Freemasons. What about the epigraph? The bit between the decorative lines? The actual words?”

Zack did not raise his hand. He glanced at Malik. There was an anxious look on his friend’s face. Maybe a wild glint in his eye. Wild? Malik? Impossible. Maybe he had gas.

But he was breathing kind of fast and sweating, too.

Then he started writing. Dots and dashes.

“I think,” said Andrew Oldewurtel, a boy who always sat in the second row, behind Azalea, “that Mr. Pettimore is, like, you know, talking about how generous he was and how he left everything he had to us, the children who would, like, come after him, and how everything he did …”

While Andrew kept prattling, Malik kept writing.

Now letters under the dots and dashes.

“Interesting, Andrew,” said Ms. DuBois. “Anyone else?”

“Well,” said Sam Maroon, a guy whose guardian ghost used to play football back in the days when they didn’t wear helmets, “I think …”

Zack didn’t pay attention to what Sam Maroon thought.

While Ms. DuBois was looking the other way, Malik handed him a slip of paper.

“Those aren’t ‘decorative lines,’” Malik whispered. “It’s Morse code. Think like a sailor! Like Captain Pettimore!”

Zack studied what Malik had written, ran the eraser end of his pencil along the line:

Zack realized that on the headstone, the lines above and below the letters were exactly the same.

He didn’t know Morse code but Malik, of course, did. In fact, he had it memorized, and this is what both lines said:

Find the second stone

Zack folded up the note so nobody else could see it.

Malik was beaming.

They had found the “second stone,” the doormat for the secret entrance to Horace Pettimore’s treasure tunnel, the hiding place for his gold! That was why there was a huge hole in the foundation wall just above the stone! It was the gateway to riches.

And, of course, zombie hell.