text plain and some in bold?”
Olivia pushed her glasses up on her nose and examined the paper. She shrugged. “Sloppy design job, I guess.” She snorted. “I could do better than this.”
“Why would they print it like that? What’s the point?”
Olivia shook her head. “In a rush, maybe?”
“Maybe,” Sébastien echoed. But something told him there was more to it than that.
He went back upstairs and stared at the paragraph. There didn’t seem to be any pattern to the bold and plain letters: Sometimes the bold letter appeared at the beginning of a word, sometimes in the middle, sometimes at the end. There would be a stretch of several plain letters, then two or three bold letters in a row. Some of the bold letters were capitals, but most were lowercase.
What possible reason could there be for writing the sentences so that some letters jumped out at you and other letters didn’t?
Could it be, he wondered, that the differently written letters, when put together, spelled out a secret, some kind of message that only some people were supposed to know? Like a secret code?
Sébastien grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down the bold letters in order.
t I a d m m i g e I t w b g e a f e e o t l s e h e d h i t n m i r j e t p r i s i p t s h p e f b i s w d
He looked at the list. Written like that, the letters sure didn’t spell out anything that made sense. He could pull out a few smaller words from the string of letters: ad, fee, hit, jet, sip. But they didn’t say anything.
What if he rearranged the letters? Maybe that was the trick. He started scrambling letters and jotting down words. He came up with
age, feet, steal, hope, fill, heat, reason, head, hide, neat, road, foal, dish, jeep, read, ape, prison
.
He sighed. None of those conveyed a message.
So maybe the secret was in the plain, unbolded letters. He started copying these into a much longer list.
T h e O t e r s l n t a n t a l u i n e s r e n i l l e r t o r t h n v i r n m e n F u l p e d a a o n t i s e x c i g n e p o c t h a t o m s e f a n t as t c r o f i w i l e r o t c t i n g i s h r d a n d i l l i f e
Taken together, they were gobbledygook. Reading in order, he could form smaller words:
The, tan, ant, ill, men, on, sex, that, hat, rot, tin, and, life
.
He could form words by mixing up the letters:
heart, thin, nest, vine, full, excite, path, fantastic, file, hard, tone, demand, remain, flog, reap, sleet, grow, sandy, minced, poor, mention, spell, while, newsreel
.
So what? None of those said anything. If they spelled out a secret message, he sure couldn’t see it. He threw down his pencil. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe there was no secret message and he was just imagining things. So why was he so bothered by it?
Just then, a loud rumble from outside broke his thoughts.
Kicking a soccer ball back to Claire, Alex heard a loud noise. A Tantalus Mining truck was coming up the driveway.
Shouting for the others to come, he ran to the studio to fetch Grandma. Red-tipped paintbrush in hand, she hurried outside with him just as Sébastien barreled down from upstairs.
Four workers, two men and two women, all wearing baseball caps bearing the familiar lake-and-mountain logo, were setting up tripods. One pair set their tripod up on the shoulder of the driveway beside the cottage, while the other moved into the beach grass on the seaward side. They started looking through viewfinders.
Grandma waved her paintbrush. “Excuse me. Just what do you think you’re doing?”
Whew
, Alex thought. He hadn’t been sure if the “real” Grandma was back, or if the sad, weak one was still around.
A fifth person climbed out of the truck with a clipboard under his arm. He strolled over with a pleasant smile. “Good afternoon, ma’am. We’re the Tantalus Mining survey crew, and we’re here to survey for the access road to the mine.”
“I never gave anyone permission to tramp around my property,” Grandma said.
“With respect, ma’am, we
Olivia pushed her glasses up on her nose and examined the paper. She shrugged. “Sloppy design job, I guess.” She snorted. “I could do better than this.”
“Why would they print it like that? What’s the point?”
Olivia shook her head. “In a rush, maybe?”
“Maybe,” Sébastien echoed. But something told him there was more to it than that.
He went back upstairs and stared at the paragraph. There didn’t seem to be any pattern to the bold and plain letters: Sometimes the bold letter appeared at the beginning of a word, sometimes in the middle, sometimes at the end. There would be a stretch of several plain letters, then two or three bold letters in a row. Some of the bold letters were capitals, but most were lowercase.
What possible reason could there be for writing the sentences so that some letters jumped out at you and other letters didn’t?
Could it be, he wondered, that the differently written letters, when put together, spelled out a secret, some kind of message that only some people were supposed to know? Like a secret code?
Sébastien grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down the bold letters in order.
t I a d m m i g e I t w b g e a f e e o t l s e h e d h i t n m i r j e t p r i s i p t s h p e f b i s w d
He looked at the list. Written like that, the letters sure didn’t spell out anything that made sense. He could pull out a few smaller words from the string of letters: ad, fee, hit, jet, sip. But they didn’t say anything.
What if he rearranged the letters? Maybe that was the trick. He started scrambling letters and jotting down words. He came up with
age, feet, steal, hope, fill, heat, reason, head, hide, neat, road, foal, dish, jeep, read, ape, prison
.
He sighed. None of those conveyed a message.
So maybe the secret was in the plain, unbolded letters. He started copying these into a much longer list.
T h e O t e r s l n t a n t a l u i n e s r e n i l l e r t o r t h n v i r n m e n F u l p e d a a o n t i s e x c i g n e p o c t h a t o m s e f a n t as t c r o f i w i l e r o t c t i n g i s h r d a n d i l l i f e
Taken together, they were gobbledygook. Reading in order, he could form smaller words:
The, tan, ant, ill, men, on, sex, that, hat, rot, tin, and, life
.
He could form words by mixing up the letters:
heart, thin, nest, vine, full, excite, path, fantastic, file, hard, tone, demand, remain, flog, reap, sleet, grow, sandy, minced, poor, mention, spell, while, newsreel
.
So what? None of those said anything. If they spelled out a secret message, he sure couldn’t see it. He threw down his pencil. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe there was no secret message and he was just imagining things. So why was he so bothered by it?
Just then, a loud rumble from outside broke his thoughts.
Kicking a soccer ball back to Claire, Alex heard a loud noise. A Tantalus Mining truck was coming up the driveway.
Shouting for the others to come, he ran to the studio to fetch Grandma. Red-tipped paintbrush in hand, she hurried outside with him just as Sébastien barreled down from upstairs.
Four workers, two men and two women, all wearing baseball caps bearing the familiar lake-and-mountain logo, were setting up tripods. One pair set their tripod up on the shoulder of the driveway beside the cottage, while the other moved into the beach grass on the seaward side. They started looking through viewfinders.
Grandma waved her paintbrush. “Excuse me. Just what do you think you’re doing?”
Whew
, Alex thought. He hadn’t been sure if the “real” Grandma was back, or if the sad, weak one was still around.
A fifth person climbed out of the truck with a clipboard under his arm. He strolled over with a pleasant smile. “Good afternoon, ma’am. We’re the Tantalus Mining survey crew, and we’re here to survey for the access road to the mine.”
“I never gave anyone permission to tramp around my property,” Grandma said.
“With respect, ma’am, we
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