The Dance children all arrived home
after school with the anticipation of code solving brewing in their veins. Once
their homework was completed they would be ready to tackle the challenge with
the full force of a pro football player on Super Bowl Sunday.
Their aunt’s car was in the
driveway, so Rebecca ran upstairs to see if their mom was also home.
Their aunt was folding clothes in
the parents’ bedroom. She asked her, “Is mom home yet?”
“She’ll be home in about half an
hour, or so,” Aunt Sara replied, “If you guys are hungry I can fix dinner now.”
“Thanks, Aunt Sara,” she replied,
“that would be nice. We’re all in the basement.”
“OK, honey.”
Rebecca hurried down the basement
stairs to inform her siblings that they could work on the code a bit longer
while their aunt prepared dinner.
“We probably have a half hour to
work on this.”
“Great,” said Robert, “Maybe we can
figure out something in that time.”
Kelly added, “I sure hope so.”
As Rob and Kell went over the code,
took notes and searched their codebook for answers, Becca entered the
information into documents on the computer.
“I see why Uncle Jim said to make
copies of this,” Rebecca said, “Once you start replacing letters they become
the same as other existing letters that you haven’t figured out yet.”
“What do you mean?” Robert asked.
“I changed those ‘W’ letters to ‘I’
and the ‘U’ letters to ‘N’ but there are already some of those letters in the
code. Now there are more of them.”
“I know,” responded Kelly, “Use a
different color for the letters on the computer, the ones that we have answers
for, and then we can print everything out in color. You can also create a line
of our letters directly under the code letters in a different document.”
“Great ideas, sis,” replied Robert.
“I think the letter ‘E’ is supposed
to be an ‘A’ according to this book,” Kelly stated, “It seems to be in the
correct placement pattern.”
Time passed by all too quickly for
the trio of code breakers before they realized it was almost time to go
upstairs for dinner.
“What do we have so far, Becca?”
asked Robert.
“Well, besides the ‘W ’, ‘U ’, and
‘E ’, we also have the possibility that ‘C ’ is really ‘A’, ‘S ’ is ‘R’, ‘F ’
is ‘L’ and ‘Y ’ is probably ‘T’ I think.”
“It looks like that if a letter is
recurring often, as the second letter in the word, that it may be the letter
‘H’,” Kelly remarked, as she read from the book, “like: that, then, they, you
know.”
“OK,” Robert replied, “I’ll check
and see what I can find.”
As Robert was looking through the
page, they heard the all too familiar voice at the top of the stairs.
“Dinner,” Aunt Sara yelled down, “in
five minutes.”
It felt as though they had just
started and now it was time to quit already.
“OK,” Rebecca shouted back, “We’ll
be up in a moment.”
“We’ll have to double check later,
but I think that letter is an ‘A’ here,” Robert said frantically, pointing it
out. “So, ‘A’ may equal ‘H’ then.”
The kids rushed upstairs quickly so
as not to be late for dinner because dinners are too good to miss around their
home. Their mom and dad had recently arrived home, unfortunately, Aunt Sara had
to leave to go home. She had a family of her own to watch over.
“So, everybody had a good day at
school I hope,” asked dad. “Anything special going on at school these days?”
Kelly jumped right in, “We had a
career day today and lots of people from different careers came in to speak and
answer questions.”
“That sounds great, Kell,” dad
replied, “I wish we would have had a lot of those types of things at school
when I was young. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job, but I know so many people
that wished they had chosen another line of work too many years too late.”
Kelly added, “This way we can start
to explore a lot of different jobs and figure out what we really enjoy instead
of waiting until the last moment before we graduate from high school to find
something to do.”
“Yes,” agreed Robert, “you can study
in the areas you want to learn about before even getting to college.”
“The more information the better,”
blurted Rebecca, “I always enjoy learning multiple ways to do things and what
the various opinions are on topics. That way I can better understand why people
think and behave the way they do and why they become so opinionated.”
“Those that do not think critically
and with a multi-level approach have a difficult time in life making
intelligent decisions for themselves,” mom added, “We see so many ‘followers’
go through our courts; people who just do what other people do and believe
whatever they are told. They are unable to analyze things and come to their own
conclusions.”
“It must be hard for a lot of kids
who are in families that just don’t care about education, or their own kids,”
said Rebecca sadly.
“It is,” dad interjected, “but,
occasionally, there are those who break out of the mold of ignorance and
dependence and make their way to a successful career and lifestyle despite the
circumstances they were surrounded by.”
“I think more could do that if they
only tried,” remarked Kelly.
“I think you’re correct,” Mrs. Dance
agreed.
Kelly continued, “We also met a
Marine who is stationed in Rome, Italy, but he was stationed in Oslo, Norway
before that. That is where Uncle Jim told us he may go,”
“I think your uncle will learn where
he is going this week while he is attending the conference,” dad remarked, “He
called and told me that today.”
“He did?” questioned Mrs. Dance.
“He sure did,” replied Mr. Dance,
“He also said we can definitely come this summer to visit him no matter where
his work assignment is.”
“That’s great!” exclaimed Robert.
“We get to go to a foreign country,”
Rebecca said happily, before taking a drink from her glass.
“And we get to be the foreigners for
a change,” Kelly added, with a smile.
“So, dear,” Mr. Dance
addressed his wife, “we need to put in our vacation requests as soon as
possible.”
Mrs. Dance replied cheerfully,
“Absolutely, my love. There is nothing better than vacation time.”
“How’s the code coming along?”
questioned their dad. “All figured out yet?”
“Not quite,” replied Rebecca, “but
we have a pretty good idea about a number of the letters in the code, but it
seems to take a long time to figure things out.”
“I wish the paper could just talk to
us and tell us what it means,” Kelly said jokingly, “but, it just lies there
remaining silent.”
“I guess that the saying ‘Silence is
Golden’ doesn’t apply here at all,” joked dad.
“We will keep working on it until we
know exactly what it says,” a confident Robert replied.
Mrs. Dance encouraged her children,
“Great, keep us filled in on your progress, ok, it must be so exciting for you
kids.”
Rebecca replied, “It sure is!”
“On Saturday we are all going to San
Francisco for an outing with your uncle, don’t forget,” Mrs. Dance reminded
everyone.
“We will meet at the Palace of Fine
Arts and from there we will do some sightseeing around the City,” informed dad.
“Can we visit the Exploratorium?”
asked Kelly. She has always loved visiting the museum of science, art and human
perception.
“I think Uncle Jim would like to see
some of the out-of-doors sites around the City this time, Kell,” dad said,
“but, that is an excellent suggestion.”
“Oh, I forgot, how selfish of me.”
“We can visit the Cannery,
Fisherman’s Warf, and Pier 39 and maybe take a Cable Car to Chinatown,”
suggested mom, “if that sounds good to everyone.”
Robert interjected more of his
thoughts, “It sure does, and all of those places are close enough to visit
without losing a lot of traveling time.”
With a glimmer of hope in her voice,
Kelly asked, “Do you think we could go to Golden Gate Park if we went on Sunday
and have a picnic with Uncle Jim?”
“That would be a great idea,”
replied dad, “We’ve sort of discussed that option already. I’ll suggest it to
your uncle when I call him later tonight.”
“Maybe we can invite the police
cadet we met at our school,” Rebecca suggested cautiously.
“I don’t see why not,” replied mom.
With dinner completed, the kids
cleared the table while their mom and dad retired to the living room to discuss
the plans for the weekend.
“It seems the kids like that police
cadet, Jim Connors,” commented Mr. Dance. “He sounds like a very serious and
dedicated person. I guess one day our kids will be out there in the real world.
It makes me worry sometimes.”
“Don’t worry, Jonothan, my dear.
Anyway, there are many years ahead before they are out of high school and college.”
“You’re right, dear, as always.”
“As always!” Mrs. Dance said with a
laugh.
“I have an idea.”
“What, Jonothan?”
“I will invite Suzie, my partner
from work, to come along with us for the day.”
“Do I smell some matchmaking going
on here?”
“You sure do, she and my brother Jim
are about the same age and share some of the same interests. Suzie is very
intelligent and a very kind and understanding person at the same time,”
“I think that is a great idea dear,
you better give Jim a call before we get our hopes to high,” she advised.
As the parents readied the weekend
plans, the Dance kids returned to the basement to go over the code one last
time before bed. The hours seemed like minutes, but the trio was able to make
some more progress on the illusive spread of alphabetic oddities. Finally, the
time had arrived for a good night’s sleep and the kids hurried up the basement
stairs turning off the lights as they left. Another time will come and more of
the secret code will become exposed to their curious, prying eyes.
Next Chapter
Chapter Nine: Good Friday
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