The Mummy's Curse (3 page)

Ms. Stad smiled patiently. “There are lots of ways to hide messages. I could even be hiding one in the scarf I'm wearing today. While you're looking at the Egyptian symbols on the scarf, the real message could be hidden by tying knots into the strands of yarn using Morse code. Spies used to knit the knotted yarn into a sweater or scarf, and the person who received the item simply unraveled it to decode the knotted message.”

Awesome
, Cody thought. She would have to try that. As soon as she learned to knit. She glanced back at M.E. and finger-spelled:

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

“Now, I've got a surprise for you, class,” Ms. Stad announced, interrupting M.E.'s message back to Cody.

The buzzing students quieted down and waited for their teacher's announcement.

“We have a special guest. I've invited the curator from the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum to come and tell you all about puzzles, codes, and messages that are hidden in art—another form of steganography.”

Ms. Stad turned to a woman who had just entered the classroom. She was tall and thin, with white-blonde hair twisted up at the back, vivid green eyes thickly outlined in black, and bright red lipstick. She wore a black turtleneck, black slacks, and black high-heeled shoes, but what caught Cody's attention was the pendant she wore around her neck. It was a large golden “eye,” about the size of an Oreo cookie, heavily outlined in black, much like the woman's eyes. Her hands were covered with large gold rings, one in the shape of an eye that nearly matched the one on her necklace.

Cody was intrigued by the woman's exotic looks, clothes, and jewelry—especially the eye that hung
from her neck. The woman played with her necklace nervously as she faced the class. Cody wondered if she wasn't used to speaking to school students.

“Everyone, this is Ms. Mirabel Cassatt. Please welcome our special guest!”

The students greeted her in unison.

“Hello, students.” Ms. Cassatt stepped forward on her tall, spiked heels and spoke softly as she continued to fuss with her pendant.

Ms. Stad grinned at the class. “Do any of you know what a museum curator does?”

No one answered.

“Well,” Ms. Stad began, “a curator is generally in charge of the museum. She obtains art and antiquities, authenticates them to make sure they're real, sets up the exhibits, and plans educational programs for students and the public.”

Ms. Cassatt nodded. “That's right. Plus, there's a lot of paperwork,” she added.

“Does anyone know what we call the object on Ms. Cassatt's necklace?”

“A mutant cyclops?” Matt the Brat called out. The class laughed.

“No,” Ms. Stad said, after giving Matt a stern look. “Anyone else?”

A girl named Iman raised her hand. “It looks like an eye.”

“That's right,” Ms. Cassatt said. “It's a replica of an amulet called the Eye of Horus. The real ones were considered to be magic charms in ancient Egypt and symbolized the ability to see wisdom and truthfulness. The All-Seeing Eye was often buried with its owner to protect him or her in the afterlife. Mine is similar to one of the many artifacts you'll see when you come to the Egyptian Museum later this week.”

“Is that really from ancient Egypt?” Matt blurted out.

Ms. Cassatt clutched the pendant. “No, as I said, this is a replica. The real ones are in museums. I'd have to have an armed guard with me if this one was authentic, or someone might steal it.”

“Is it worth a lot of money?” Matt asked, ignoring Ms. Stad's glare.

Ms. Cassatt laughed. “Not this one. But the ones in the museum are priceless.”

Cody wondered whether she would get to see
some really valuable artifacts when they visited the museum. And whether the artifacts would be under armed guard to protect them from thieves, like Matt the Brat. Last year, he'd stolen a kid's bike and had been suspended from school for a whole week.

“Today, class, Ms. Cassatt is going to show you another reproduction—a famous painting,” Ms. Stad continued. “Look at it carefully. It contains a secret message.”

Ms. Stad pressed a button on her projector remote, and the large image of a painting appeared on the whiteboard. Cody recognized the work of art immediately. The painting was one of her favorites because of the woman's mysterious smile.

“Does anyone know what this is?”

Several hands shot up, including Cody's. Ms. Stad called on Miranda, who sat in the front row. Miranda was a good artist herself. Cody had seen her anime drawings in class and wished she were as talented. The best Cody could do was draw regular old stick figures.

“That's the
Mona Lisa
by Leonardo da Vinci,” Miranda answered. “I saw it in person when my
family went to the Louvre during our vacation in Paris last year.”

“Yeah?” said Matt the Brat. “Well, I saw it in a cartoon, and when she smiled, she didn't have any teeth.” He laughed loudly at his own joke.

Ms. Stad eyed him. “Matthew, please raise your hand if you have something to say.” He quieted down under her glare.

“You're right, Miranda,” Ms. Cassatt said. “This work is known as the
Mona Lisa
and is probably the most famous painting in the world. There's a lot of mystery about it. Who is the woman? And why is she smiling like that?”

Matt turned in his seat and whispered to Cody, “She has to fart!” Cody rolled her eyes.

Ms. Cassatt continued unaware of Matt's latest interruption. “Did you know that the
Mona Lisa
was stolen about a hundred years ago from the Louvre? Someone who worked at the museum hid in a broom closet until after the exhibits closed, then walked out with the painting under his coat! But when he tried to sell it, he was caught and sent to jail. Now it's kept under bulletproof glass.”

“Wow,” said a couple of kids.

“Is it at your Egyptian Museum?” Avery asked.

“No, we only collect things from ancient Egypt,” Ms. Cassatt said.

Avery raised her hand again. “Have you ever had anything stolen from
your
museum?”

Ms. Cassatt frowned. “I certainly hope not. About a year ago, we hired a forgery expert named Malik Jordan, so I doubt we'll have any problems like that, since security is strong.”

There were a few more oohs and aahs from the class. Then Ms. Cassatt said, “Now, back to the painting. I have a puzzle for you. Do any of you notice anything strange about Mona Lisa's eyes?”

The students shook their heads. Cody stared at the dark, deep-set eyes in the reproduction but didn't notice anything unusual.

Ms. Stad pushed a button on her device. An enlargement of one eye appeared on the whiteboard.

Ms. Cassatt pointed to the pupil, the darkest part of the eye. “This is Mona Lisa's right eye, close-up. Experts believe there's a message hidden in the eyes of the portrait. But you can only see it when the
eyes are enlarged. Look closely. See if you can find anything in this eye.”

A few seconds later, Cody raised her hand. “Are they letters?”

“Yes,” Ms. Cassatt said. “Can you tell me which ones?”

“It looks like an
L
and a
V
.”

“Right again,” Ms. Cassatt said. “Now, do any of you know why Leonardo da Vinci might have painted those letters inside the pupil of Mona Lisa's right eye?”

To Cody it was obvious. “Because they're his initials?”

“Very good,” Ms. Cassatt said.

“Are there initials in the other eye?” a student named Ryan asked.

Another enlarged photograph of an eye appeared on the whiteboard. To Cody, it looked very similar to the first one, but this time, the letters weren't as clear.

“Yes,” Ms. Cassatt said, “but no one has ever figured out what they are or what they mean. Does anyone here think they know?”

Hands went up. “The letters
C
and
E
?” Ryan offered.

Ms. Cassatt shook her head.

“The letter
B
,” guessed a boy named Ty.

“See, that's the problem,” said Ms. Cassatt. “We don't know, because the portrait is old and the paint has deteriorated over time. It remains a mystery.”

Cody wondered if she and the Code Busters could solve the puzzle of Mona Lisa's left eye. But if experts had been trying for years, it was very unlikely.

Ms. Cassatt showed several more paintings and artifacts and explained the symbols in them.

“If you look around carefully, you can see alphabet letters in everyday objects, and you can use them to send hidden messages,” Ms. Cassatt said. “For example, a chair can look like the letter
h
, a pole can look like an
i
, and so on.” She showed the students drawings of a chair, a pole, two musical notes, a shelf, and a tunnel entrance. “Each one could be viewed as a letter if you looked at them just the right way. What do these letters spell out?” she asked the class.

It took a few seconds before the letters jumped out of the drawings. Once Cody saw them, she wondered
why it had taken her so long. Before she could raise her hand, M.E. beat her to it and gave the answer.

Code Buster's Solution found on
this page
.

“Right,” Ms. Cassatt said. She outlined the letters in each drawing with an electronic pointer so that the rest of the students could
see
the message. “Sometimes you have to look at something for a while to really see it!”

Clever
, Cody thought. She glanced around the room and began to notice letters everywhere. She saw the letter
C
in the stand that held the world globe, an
O
in the clock on the wall, a
D
in the musical note on the whiteboard, and an
E
in the small bookshelf. Using her cell phone camera, she snapped a picture of each one so she could create a coded message for the Code Busters later.