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THE CRYPTIC CASE OF THE

CODED FAIR

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organiza-tions, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, in the case of historical events or persons, used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is likewise intended fictitiously.

Copyright © 2013 Barbara Tinker & Pendred Noyce

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or in any manner whatsoever without written per-mission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For further information, contact: Tumblehome Learning, Inc.201 Newton StreetWeston, MA 02493, USA http://www.tumblehomelearning.com

Library of Congress Control Number:

Tinker, Barbara & Noyce, PendredThe Cryptic Case of the Coded Fair / Barbara Tinker & Pendred Noyce - 1st ed

ISBN 1. Children - Fiction 2. Science Fiction 3. Mystery

Illustrations: Chin Yu Yu (金祐羽)Cover art: Chin Yu Yu (金祐羽)Cover design: mighty media®

Printed in Taiwan

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THE CRYPTIC CASE OF THE

CODED FAIR

By Barbara Tinker, Robert Tinker and Penny Noyce

Illustrated by Chin Yu Yu

Copyright 2013, All rights reserved.

TUMBLehoMe l e a r n i n g

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Chapter 1 A Fair Challenge

Chapter 2 The Roman General -Julius Caesar and the Shift Cipher

Chapter 3 The Shift

Chapter 4 The Scholar of Baghdad -Al-Kindi and Frequency Analysis

Chapter 5 Frequency and Confusion

Chapter 6 A Renaissance Man -Alberti’s Disk and Ciphered Codebook

Chapter 7 The Grumpy Mathematician -Cardano and His Grille

Chapter 8 Turning the Grille

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Chapter 9 The Inventor President -Thomas Jefferson and the Wheel Cipher

Chapter 10 The Vinegar Table

Chapter 11Pioneer Codebreakers -Elizebeth and William Friedman and the Science of Cryptanalysis

Chapter 12 Enigma -Alan Turing and his Computers

Chapter 13 The Crib

Chapter 14 Eureka in California -Whitfield Diffie and the Public Key

Chapter 15 Public and Private Key

Chapter 16 The International Science Fair

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Chapter 1

A Fair Challenge

The front door flew open with a bang, and four friends piled into Benson Griffin’s house, dropping their backpacks and umbrellas in the hallway. Benson locked the door as fists hammered against it from outside. he and his friends ella Summerlin, Anita Pacheco, and Shomari Braxton stood panting and looked at each other aghast.

“That was close,” said Shomari, wiping the rain off his glasses. “Benson, if you and Anita hadn’t come along, ella and I would have been toast. They really wanted to beat us up.”

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ella shook her blonde frizzy curls, spraying drop-lets of rain in all directions. “Just because we found out they were cheating in math class. We didn’t even tell on them.” She frowned. “Could you believe they thought no one would notice?”

“Mr. Lubin sure didn’t notice, even though they were tapping so loudly,” said Shomari.

“how did you know they were cheating?” asked Benson.

“It was so obvious. 1 tap for a, 2 for b, 3 for c. Lucky for them the test was all multiple choice.”

“We should have reported them to Mr. Lubin,” said ella. “That way if someone found us all murdered, at least they’d know why.”

Shomari flung an arm around her shoulder. “Come on, don’t be so dramatic.”

Just then, a stone struck the window, and both Shomari and ella jumped. Benson yanked the curtains shut. “If those guys break a window, I’m calling the police.”

“Let’s get away from the window,” said Anita. “Sho-mari and ella, I’ve been meaning to ask you something. You know how the International high School Science Fair is being held here this year? Benson and I volunteered to be local hosts helping out, and they’re still looking for more middle school kids. You guys want to come along?”

ella glanced at Shomari, who shrugged one shoulder.

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“Why not? It’s in a couple of weeks, right?” “Dab decision,” said a new voice.The kids whirled around. In front of the fireplace

stood a teenage boy in a blue and gray jumpsuit. his blue hair shot out in spikes, making him look like a walking ex-clamation point, and the air around him smelled faintly of ozone.

“Who are you? how did you get here?” ella cried out.

Anita waved and called out cheerfully, “hi, Quar-kum.”

“hey, man,” Benson said. “We weren’t sure we’d ever see you again.”

“Greetings, dudes,” said Quarkum. “You’ve done a good job keeping our work secret. But times have changed, dudes, times have changed. We need more kid power. Now’s the time to share G.A.S. with your friends -- we’re in recruiting mode. We need all four of you for this one. Glad to meet you, ella and Shomari.”

“Share gas?” ella asked, turning from Benson to Anita. “What for? Are we going on a road trip?”

Quarkum laughed. “Not gas, G-A-S, the Galactic Academy of Science. our motto is ‘Defending Scientific Integrity Through the Ages.’ I am Quarkum Phonon, Dude from the Future.” he jabbed a thumb toward Anita and Benson. “These two have helped the Academy in two mis-


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sions already. They’ve traveled through time, interviewing experts and solving mysteries.”

“No way. everyone knows time travel is impossible,” Shomari said, putting his hands on his hips.

“Time travel?” ella chimed in. “You’re pulling our leg.”

Quarkum looked confused. “Why would I drag on one of your limbs?” he turned in a circle with his arms spread, offering himself for view. “I’m from the future my-self, and yet here I am standing right in front of you.”

Quarkum pulled from his belt what looked like a smartphone. “Armed with an X-PA, an expedition Personal Assistant like this one, Anita and Benson have visited the past, and their wit and courage have even won them some pretty dab medals. The X-PA directs time travel. It also has a very useful translation function that works so quickly it creates the illusion that the user is speaking in another lan-guage.”

“You’ve got to try it, Shomari,” Benson said. “It’s really cool.”

Quarkum turned to Benson. “I came to ask you and Anita to recommend two students for our next mission, but from what I’ve seen, we have them right here.”

Anita nodded emphatically. “ella won second place at the state science fair, and Shomari’s fast as a whip in math. he knows all about weird stuff like imaginary num-bers and different kinds of infinity.”


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Quarkum looked relieved. “That’s good to hear, be-cause we have an emergency and need you all to help us.”

on full alert now, all four looked at him. “The last International high School Science Fair was

a total disaster. Dr. G, with whom you, Benson and Anita, tangled once already, almost destroyed it. This year it’s be-ing held right here in your own city, and we can’t let that happen again.”

“Wait,” said Shomari. “We’re willing to help, but what kind of difficulties do you expect?”

Quarkum tipped his head to the side. “The organizers have tried to keep this quiet, but last year students were in tears, saying that data had been erased and their equipment broken. Some students found errors inserted in their soft-ware, and one project caught fire. It was chaos!”

“Judges gave prizes to students who showed why the world had to be flat, and prizes to those who demonstrat-ed that dinosaurs lived at the same time as people. They even gave a prize to a student who proved that we exist by breathing Co2! They argued that we should consider more Co2 in the atmosphere a good thing.”

“That makes no sense,” ella said. “Projects like that should never make it into any science fair.”

“Yet somehow their names and entries appeared on the list. You can imagine the crowding and confusion in the hall. And not only were these wrong-headed projects graded highly, good projects were marked down.


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“Some judges stated that any uncertainty in science was bad, and that all winning science exhibits had to be one hundred percent certain, with no variations in their data.”

Benson moaned. “I could never ever be one hundred percent certain in science.”

“That’s the point,” said Quarkum. “Good science is almost never absolutely sure. There’s always something more to learn and more questions to be answered.”

Shomari shook his head. “Besides, some things are just by nature chaotic, and therefore impossible to predict perfectly. Think about the weather. It’s never one hundred percent certain, but that doesn’t mean the weatherman is just guessing.”

Quarkum continued, “The judges refused to award any prizes to projects in environmental science. They were heard snickering among themselves about ‘green goof-balls.’ Climate change was ruled out as a topic because it was ‘anti-progress.’ They even gave demerits to any kids who collaborated with someone from another country, and called this showing ‘traitorous unpatriotic tendencies.’”

Anita was horrified. “I hope they all got fired.”“I think our problem is more than just bad judges,”

Quarkum said. “I think they were being controlled by Dr. G. I saw some kind of message on a couple of judges’ Greenberry 99 tablets and copied it down. Look at this.” he pulled four neatly folded squares of paper from his pocket and handed them out.


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“This message makes no sense.” ella said, staring at her paper.

PBABNBPQZQYBLMXFKBFXJGOOKLLPRPILR-BXZMBJXPLZROOPOXQBBQXBLRPKPJRPAKFILZKNB-MKPBLKBRYBFBABKPBBBJMKFQQBAKIXKQFABAXIXIFN-BAXOLPKOOFZJBSBRBLKLIKDBRZKROXZFJLBPKBZ-IZFLLCKXLFFJQKLQXIYLQNRBRJOOZFQKZLLMXKXVN-RZIXMFKIXBXSBLBKBOXFPXAPIBIXLLBLOZBQCPKPQPP-FKFABBPLLPRQAZYZBKZKLBIZFORLCZZPRXLDOXCPX-WQOMFBQPTE

Quarkum nodded. “Yes, it could be nonsense, but it could be code. Your mission is to try and see if it is code, and decode it using any help you get from visits to experts from the past.”

ella frowned, “Who is this Dr. G and why does he want to wreck science fairs?”

Quarkum scratched his head, and a couple of blue sparks flew from his hair. “Dr. G heads our rival organization, S.A.G., which stands for Supreme Applications Group—that’s Slimy Awful Goons to us. The man is a mystery. he comes from the same future I do, but he wants everyone to be stupid and unquestioning. That way he can spread his power, frighten people, start wars, and make money clean-ing up those same wars in all sorts of dishonest ways.


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“he’s decided the way to destroy freedom in his fu-ture is by spreading ignorance in your present time. he’s convinced the fair is too dangerous to his plan -- all those talented young minds in one place, thinking and question-ing authority. A dictator wants to control thinking and hates questions.”

Quarkum paused and looked from Shomari to ella. “We really need your help. Will you sign on?”

ella glanced at Shomari. “We were just saying in school yesterday that we were bored. This sounds pretty challenging. Shall we do it?”

Without taking his eyes off Quarkum, Shomari nod-ded. ella gave a thumbs-up and Quarkum did a little dance. “YeS! Congrats, dudes. Now, this is a two-part assign-ment:

“First, you have to break Dr. G’s code so you can be ready for whatever tricks he lines up for this year’s fair.

“Second, you’ll need your own code for messages you send to one another and to any trustworthy judges and fair participants. An unbreakable code would be best.” he laughed.

Benson spoke up. “Where do we go first?”Quarkum turned to him with a regretful look. “Sorry,

Anita and Benson, but you have to stay home for this ad-venture. We’re pretty sure Dr. G. has your number after the hackensack hacker mission. If that’s true, he can track your


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time travel and send agents to pursue you. But he doesn’t know about Shomari and ella yet.”

Benson groaned, but Anita was more philosophical. “our two G.A.S. adventures were amazing, Quarkum. But Benson just signed up for Model U.N., and I’m playing oboe in the pit orchestra for the class musical. We really don’t have lots of time for travel anyway.”

“But that’s the whole point,” Benson said. “Time travel doesn’t take any time.”

Quarkum said, “I know it burns, man. Get yanked from a job just when you’ve shown you’re a hero. hap-pened to me too. After our last mission, I was benched, as you might say here in one of your games where you throw balls around. But I thought you two could use your com-puter sleuthing skills to help out the time travelers. Take the info they bring home and experiment with making and breaking codes.”

Benson and Anita nodded.“Also, you have to find a trustworthy judge to whom

you can explain your observations of the sabotage and cheating in the last science fair. You don’t have to mention the future. Get an honest judge to pass on any nonsense-looking messages Dr. G might be sending out in code.”

Anita said, “What about Ms. Spears, the high school computer teacher? I saw her on the judges’ list, and she helped us when our Greenberry got hacked.”


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“Try her.” Quarkum turned back to the others. “ella and Shomari, you’ll visit thinkers throughout history to learn how to make and break codes and ciphers. Are you brave enough?”

“Is it safe?” asked ella. “Chill, guys,” Anita said. “It’s pretty safe.”“one hundred percent safe?” asked ella.“Nothing in science is a hundred percent,” Benson

reminded her. “But this will be a once-in-a-million-life-times experience for you.”

“Um, I guess I’m brave enough,” said ella, while Shomari nodded enthusiastically.

Quarkum reviewed the rules. “Rule 1: Verify your identities. You are Shomari

Braxton, African-American, and ella Summerlin, half-Jew-ish, half-Scandinavian ancestry, right?”

They nodded again.“Rule 2: I can’t help you with the mission other than

by providing the X-PA.“Rule 3: I can’t tell you any more about the future,

because that would mess up your judgment.“Rule 4: You cannot bring anything from or leave

anything in the time in which you visit. obviously that in-cludes leaving yourself! You must return within the allotted


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time. Your X-PA will alert you when Site energy is getting short. Let it run out and you’ll get stuck in the past.”

“Wait a minute, you said we can get back home, right?” asked ella, anxiously.

“And not late for dinner, or my parents will kill me,” Shomari added.

Quarkum assured him, “Your parents will never know you’ve been away. You can come home anytime you choose by pressing the Zoom button along with the home destination. You might want to come home once in a while to give Anita and Benson clues for figuring out the codes.”

he showed them how to scroll through the Candi-dates for Interview. “I suggest that you visit the people in the order in which they appear on your screen so your knowledge can build in a logical way. You should start by visiting Julius Caesar.”

“Caesar?” asked Shomari. “The Roman conquer-or? The ruler who was assassinated on the Ides of March? That’s so cool!”

Quarkum nodded. “Learn his first cipher, and find out if he had ideas for others.”

ella took a deep breath. “Right, then. on to adven-ture. You ready, Shomari?”

Shomari gave her a high-five.Quarkum handed Shomari the X-PA. “Loop it like

this around you and ella and then—wait, let me back


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away—press the Zoom button. What are you waiting for? Great Galactic Fortune go with you!”

Shomari looked at the X-PA in his hand. The name of Julius Caesar stared up at him, and a net made of pixels shimmered over an image of the two time travelers. his finger hesitated over the red Zoom button, but ella nudged him, and he pressed it. Immediately a sense of spinning grabbed him. his friends, Benson’s house, and even the three kids still lurking outside the house shrank quickly out of view.

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About the Author

Barbara Tinker is a PhD psychologist with twelve years of clinical practice and a strong interest in cognitive science. She helped run the Global Lab project at TeRC and remained working at TeRC. She helped Concord Consortium get established and was on the board, where she managed a number of molecular modeling projects.

Robert Tinker is a physicist and pioneer of the use of technology in education in ways that enhance exploration and discovery. he developed the idea of using computer-connected probes for real time data measurement and using networks to allow students to share data. he co-founded the Concord Consortium and the Virtual high School.

Penny Noyce is a physician, children’s author, and supporter of science and math education.

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Clinton and Mae's Missions:The Desperate Case of the Diamond ChipThe Vicious Case of the Viral VaccineThe Baffling Case of the Battered Brain

G.A.S. SERIES

Anita and Benson's Missions:The Furious Case of the Fraudulent FossilThe Harrowing Case of the Hackensack Hackerand coming soonThe Curious Case of the Climate Caper

... and more G.A.S. adventures on the way!

Ella and Shomari's Mission:The Cryptic Case of the Coded Fair

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