Chapter One
Joe’s Inheritance
A green blob wobbled from the end of Mr. Grant’s nose. He waved his hands about as he explained the results of his scientific experiment, and the blob fell to join the puddle of algae soup on his desk.
This experiment failed to grab me. I looked around at the sterile grey walls, microscopes, Bunsen burners and test tubes of the science lab. It all seemed like a giant waste of time. I’d never need this stuff to make a living.
The tension built in the room. Feet shuffled and pens tapped out a rock beat on the desks. It was two minutes to bell time last period on Friday, and all but a few of the class planned to go to a rock concert that evening to see Take No Prisoners. They were the hottest band around.
A paper plane circled and landed on top of my book. It slid off onto Fatty Graham’s desk. He snapped it up with a look of glee and crumpled it, throwing it under the desk in front. I slid down in my seat and herded it towards me with my shoe. Leaning down, I batted it with my ruler and picked it up.
Fatty Graham sniggered. Nobody liked him much, not because he was fat, but because he threw his weight around. And no one was convinced it had been an accident when he sat on Tabitha Hewitt’s pet lizard.
I smoothed out the note in my lap: Bus stop 7-30. 2 nite. Be there. Unsigned. Mr. Grant’s voice droned on and I scanned the room. I immediately dismissed a group of girls who stuck together like Superglue. At this moment, they were ogling the teacher, who they thought was hot. “Looks a bit like that actor, Brad Grant,” I heard one say in the canteen.
Colin Bowls sat alone in a corner. Everyone called him “Bowels” behind his back. What can I say? The guy had some pretty unattractive habits. In front of Bowls sat Sam Chen, head down writing furiously. Beside him, Ben turned with a grin and I gave him the thumbs up.
My gaze came to rest on Annie Larson, her red hair swinging over her book as she copied Mr. Grant’s notes from the blackboard. Annie hadn’t been at Northumber High for long, but long enough for her to have made some friends. For some reason she wasn’t having it.
Small and neat with shiny red hair, Annie had this cute habit of pushing it back behind her ears. We lived close, in the same part of town. I often rode past her cycling home on her bike and we’d just say hi or wave. I would’ve liked to stop and talk, but I sensed that for some reason it wouldn’t be welcome.
At last, the final bell rang and the class moved in a noisy mass towards the door. The fire alarm wouldn’t have cleared the room any faster. Within minutes, the teacher and I were alone. I pulled the book from my backpack and cleared my throat.
“Can I have a minute, Mr. Grant?”
“Of course, Joe.” He looked surprised and pleased. “Questions about the experiment?”
“Er, no.” I laid the heavy, leather-bound book on his desk. “This is a book my Great-Uncle Jake left me in his will. It’s written in a weird language. I wondered if you could tell me what it is.”
Mr. Grant polished his glasses again with a handkerchief stained green from an experiment, which had smelt like rotten eggs. A nasty memory that still floated in the air. He shoved it back in his pocket without a glance. “What’s this?” He turned the pages with care. “Extraordinary. Some sort of hieroglyphics. Not an ancient language of note.”
“Are you sure, Sir,” I asked, my heart sinking. I’d been hoping for a mystery from the past.
“It’s not Arabic or Hebrew, nor Aramaic or Ancient Greek, and not Latin. It’s not Etruscan or Middle Persian. In fact, nothing I’ve ever come across.” He looked at me over the top of his glasses and smiled. “Of course, there are other famous writing systems from the past that are yet to be solved. This is made up of a lot of strange symbols–possibly some kind of cipher.”
“What’s a sifer, Sir?”
“Well, it’s just a form of secret writing really. Codes and ciphers have been around since ancient times. They were of vital importance in the American civil war and the two world wars. Governments used machines to decode them.”
“Oh, you mean like the decoder machine James Bond stole in From Russia with Love? I have the video game at home.”
“Ah, yes. Taken from the movie and the book by Ian Fleming. But I digress, any group who needed to keep their messages secret used some kind of code. Have you heard of the Enigma code?”
“Mom watched a movie about it. It was in World War II. They cracked it, didn’t they?”
“Not until quite recently.”
I took in this in with a jolt of disappointment, and Mr. Grant turned again to the book. My pulse quickened when he found the last page. “Look at this,” he said. “It appears to be the map of an island. See?” His finger traced the outlines of the coast and the island. “It’s much like a pirate’s map, showing where the treasure’s buried. “X” marks the spot, or in this case, two of them.”
My voice came out in a squeak. “Uncle Jake lived on Dog Head Island.”
“Dog Head Island? Curious name. Where is it?”
“I’ve never been there. It’s off the west coast about one thousand miles from here.” Mr. Grant closed the book. He studied the cover with its faint engravings and inlaid red and blue-green gemstones. “They’d have to be glass, I guess.” He shook his head and handed the book back to me. “I wish I could help you, Joe. I find it astonishing, but as to what it is, I’m afraid I have no idea.”
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