Mission Unstoppable by Dan Gutman Page B

code , Pep and Coke bolted up from their bunks. If somebody left a message with a secret code on the windshield, it was meant for them , not for their parents.
    Coke ran outside in his pajamas and bare feet to snatch the piece of paper out of his father’s hand. He glanced at it for a few seconds—long enough to commit it to memory. Then he ripped up the paper and threw the pieces in the garbage can at the side of their campsite.
    “It’s probably just some kids pulling a prank,” he said. “So, what’s for breakfast? And what fabulous place are we going to visit today? Maybe a museum devoted to Mr. Potato Head?”
    “Oh, you’ll see,” his mother replied. “All I can tell you is this—it has something to do with singing.”
    While the others got dressed and brushed their teeth over the little sink, Coke carefully rewrote the message from the windshield on a sheet of paper. Even people who have photographic memories know that photos fade in time.
    “Somebody left us another cipher,” he confirmed to his sister while their parents prepared breakfast. “If it’s anything like the last one, you should be able to solve it.”
    Pep looked at the letters and then wrote them down in reverse order on her pad, the same way she did with the first cipher. Only this time the message didn’t make any sense. It didn’t look anything like English.
    Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/).
    Click Get Directions.
    In the A box, type Truckee CA.
    In the B box, type Fallon NV.
    Click Get Directions.
    “What’s wrong?” Coke asked his sister after she had been staring at the pad for five minutes.
    “Nothing,” she replied. “It’s just a different kind of cipher. Give me a little time. I’ll crack it.”
    When everyone had eaten and the dishes were washed, Dr. McDonald started the RV and jumped back onto I-80 heading east. In about an hour they crossed the state line.
    “Did you guys know that the word nevada means ‘snowcapped’ in Spanish?” Coke announced.

    “Very impressive!” Mrs. McDonald said.
    “Thank you, Mr. Show-off,” said Pep.
    Less than ten miles from the California border is the big city of Reno. The flashing lights of the casinos were beckoning, but Dr. McDonald barely glanced at them.
    “Hey, gambling is legal here, Dad,” Coke hollered from the backseat. “We should hit the slots. Play some blackjack.”
    “You’re too young to gamble,” Dr. McDonald hollered back, “and I’m too smart.”
    Coke shared a smile with his sister. They had been attacked by guys in golf carts with blow guns, jumped off a cliff, been locked in a burning school, and had their heads stapled, but putting coins in a slot machine was considered too dangerous for kids. Go figure.
    As the buildings of Reno disappeared behind them, Pep worked feverishly on the cipher. She jumbled the letters on her pad every which way, trying to make sense of them. She grew increasingly frustrated.
    The family continued east on I-80; and shortly after passing Wadsworth, Nevada, the road split. Mrs. McDonald instructed her husband to take the Reno Highway, which is also called Route 50 East. It wasn’t long before they reached the town of Fallon and a sign . . .

    They had driven another twenty-five miles east when Mrs. McDonald suddenly shouted, “There it is!”
    In the distance, nestled between two mountain ranges, out in the middle of nowhere, was a gigantic mountain of sand.
    A beach at the edge of the ocean is no big deal. But a beach in the middle of Nevada was just plain strange.
    To make things even stranger, as the McDonalds got closer, they could hear the sand singing .
    Sand Mountain Recreation Area is famous out West because it gives off an odd, otherworldly moaning sound, like the soundtrack to a horror movie. Dr. McDonald pulled onto a dirt road that brought them to the edge of the dune. Theirs was the only vehicle in the parking lot.
    Even the kids, who liked to pretend that nothing impressed them, climbed out