The Haunting of Mystery Mansion

By Penny Warner

Cody, Quinn, Luke, M.E., and Mika are the Code Busters—clever clue hunters with a passion for puzzles.

It's Luke’s birthday and the group of friends are thrilled to be going to the Winchester Mystery House. They look forward to touring the mansion with over one hundred rooms, doors that lead to nowhere, and possible ghosts. But when the Code Busters search for a girl who’s lost in the mansion, they must avoid getting caught! Will the Code Busters be able to find the girl and avoid getting caught by the supposed security guard?

Can you crack the code? Test your brain with the Code Busters to see if you have the right stuff to be an ace detective. Answers are in the back, if you ever get stuck.

For more code-breaking fun, visit www.CodeBustersClub.com and join the club!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lerner Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798765612125

Penny Warner

Penny Warner has published more than 60 books for both adults and children. She teaches child development at a local college in California. You can join the Code Busters Club at www.codebustersclub.com.

Book preview

Code Busters Club Rules

Motto

To solve puzzles, codes, and mysteries and keep the Code Busters Club secret!

Secret Sign

Interlocking index fingers (American Sign Language sign for friend)

Secret Password

Day of the week, said backward

Secret Meeting Place

Code Busters Club Clubhouse

Code Busters Club Dossiers

Identity: Quinn Kee

Code Name: Lock&Key

Description

Hair: Black, spiky

Eyes: Brown

Other: Sunglasses

Special Skills: Video games, Computers, Guitar

Message Center: Doghouse

Career Plan: CIA cryptographer or Game designer

CodeSpecialties: Military code, Computer codes

Identity: MariaElena—M.E.—Esperanto

Code Name: Em-me

Description

Hair: Long, brown

Eyes: Brown

Other: Fab clothes

Special Skills: Handwriting analysis, Fashionista

Message Center: Flower box

Career Plan: FBI handwriting analyst or Veterinarian

Code Specialties: Spanish, I.M., Text messaging

Identity: Luke LaVeau

Code Name: Kuel-Dude

Description

Hair: Black, curly

Eyes: Dark brown

Other: Saints cap

Special Skills: Extreme sports, Skateboard, Crosswords

Message Center: Under step

Career Plan: Pro skater, Stuntman, Race car driver

CodeSpecialties: Word puzzles, Skater slang

Identity: Dakota—Cody—Jones

Code Name: CodeRed

Description

Hair: Red, curly

Eyes: Green

Other: Freckles

Special Skills: Languages, Reading faces and body language

Message Center: Tree knothole

Career Plan: Interpreter for UN or Deaf people

CodeSpecialties: American Sign Language (ASL) and fingerspelling, Braille, Morse code, Police codes

IDENTITY: Mika Takeda

Code Name: Senjin to honor ancestors

Description

Hair: Black, short, straight

Eyes: Brown

Other: Petite

Special Skills: Origami, Haiku poetry, Drawing Manga characters

Message Center: Under front door tatami mat

Career Plan: Artist, Poet, Anime illustrator

Code Specialties: Japanese language, Puzzles, Puzzle boxes

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Invitation to a Haunted House

Chapter 2

A Mysterious Message

Chapter 3

A House Full of Codes

Chapter 4

Suddenly There Came a Tapping

Chapter 5

The Undiscovered Room

Chapter 6

Gone Girl

Chapter 7

Seeing Spirits

Chapter 8

Look Out behind You

Chapter 9

Winchester Escape Code

Chapter 10

Your Number Is Up

Chapter 11

Keep Your Traps Shut

Chapter 12

Can You Hear Me Now

Chapter 13

Thirteen

*To crack the chapter title code, check out the CODE BUSTERS’ Key Book & Solutions on page 158.

Reader

To see keys and solutions to the puzzles inside, go to the Code Busters’ Key Book & Solutions on page 158.

To see complete Code Busters Club Rules and Dossiers, and solve more puzzles and mysteries, go to www.CodeBustersClub.com.

Chapter 1

Dakota Jones—Cody to her friends—was filling a scrapbook with secret codes, strange messages, important clues, and other memorabilia she’d collected over the summer. She wanted to capture the best parts of her Code Busters Club adventures in a memory book before their fall break was over.

But she stopped when she heard a sharp sound at her bedroom window. Clink!

She jumped up, dropping the scissors and tape on her bed, and flew to the window. She stuck her head out and looked around.

Nothing.

A bird must have hit the glass, she thought. She started to close the window and then glanced down at her secret message spot—a hole in the large ash tree—just in case. A bright red piece of paper was sticking out of the hole. A message from one of the Code Busters!

Cody darted from her room, down the stairs, and out the front door to the tree. After making sure no one was watching her—like Matt the Brat, her annoying classmate who was always trying to spy on the Code Busters—she pulled the red origami-folded paper from the hole. She unfolded the paper, revealing a coded message inside. This one was written in Alphanumeric Code, where numbers corresponded with letters of the alphabet.

Code Busters Key and Solution found on pp. 159 and 168.

She took the note back to her bedroom and got out her Alphanumeric decoder card. It only took her a few minutes to decipher the message.

A séance party? How fun!

She checked the date and time—Friday, October 13, at 7:00 p.m. The note was signed, Kuel-Dude, Luke LaVeau’s code name in the club.

Luke had mentioned he was going to have his birthday party at the strange and possibly haunted house that Sarah Winchester began building in 1884 to ward off evil spirits. The eccentric woman supposedly attended a séance where she was told to keep construction going if she wanted to stay alive . . . so she did!

Although Cody didn’t believe in ghosts, just the thought of the old mansion gave her the shivers. She had never been to the Winchester Mystery House, a popular tourist attraction in San Jose, California, but she’d heard it was super weird. It supposedly had 160 rooms, including 40 bedrooms! It was said that Sarah Winchester slept in a different room every night to avoid the evil spirits.

She built these switchback staircases that lead nowhere and doors that open to dead ends and a bunch of secret passageways to fool the evil spirits, Luke had said when he’d talked about his party plan. He had used air quotes for evil spirits, but Cody remembered that another member of the club—M.E.—MariaElena Esperanto—was totally creeped out after hearing the details of the place.

Cody got out her laptop and looked up more information about the Winchester Mystery House. The more she read, the weirder the house sounded. Stuff like how Sarah had installed listening tubes so she could listen in on her servants. And that she’d hidden the number thirteen and other secret messages throughout the house.

But the creepiest thing was the Séance Room she’d had installed. There were rumors that’s where her medium—kind of like a fortune teller—supposedly contacted the woman’s dead husband.

Brrr.Cody felt a chill run down her spine.

When she folded up the invitation, she noticed something written on the back—the number thirteen. What was it supposed to mean? Did it stand for the letter M in Alphanumeric Code? Or did it have some other significance? She keyed the number into her laptop.

The number thirteen is the sixth prime number . . .

Cody shrugged. That didn’t exactly explain anything. She read on.

Thirteen is part of the Fibonacci sequence, which states that every number after the first two is the sum of the two preceding ones. Example: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, and so on.

Interesting, Cody thought, but not exactly a secret code or explanation of the number’s meaning. She studied the diagram that showed a Fibonacci spiral. To Cody it just looked like a snail shell.

She read on.

The number thirteen is considered unlucky in some cultures, and lucky in others.

Hmmm. She knew that hotels often didn’t have floors labeled thirteen and airplanes skipped the row thirteen, in case people thought they were bad luck. Some people even had triskaidekaphobia—a fear of the number thirteen—but that didn’t mean the number was actually bad luck. In fact, when they’d studied the dollar bill in class, she’d learned there were thirteens hidden all over it, representing the thirteen colonies. That had nothing to do with bad luck.

Cody felt a sudden tingle at the back of her neck. She reopened the invitation and checked the date