The Code

Aidan Dankworth spent the time in his bed thinking about the next day. He wasn't sure if his plan would actually work. They planned to trick the au pair Lucy to sneak in their mom and dad's secret closet. The plan did seem simple when he mentioned it to the other two. But now it seemed kinda silly to him.

Maybe thinking too much about something makes it seem silly. He thought. Or maybe it is silly.

The plan was simple. They planned that they will go out of the house saying that they wanted to spend some sibling time in the mall. They would convince Lucy that they will be back before 19:00 and that she could do whatever she wanted. They would somehow convince her that they will go to the mall on their own, but if she insisted on dropping them then they would have to come back using a taxi or something. But what if Lucy insisted that she comes and pick them up? This thought was what bothering him sooo much. What would they do then? He had to think but his mind was getting dizzy from lack of sleep. It was almost 3 o'clock. His eyelids felt heavy. How long will it take for them to decode the morse? With this question still floating in his brain, his eyelids dropped and his brain finally gave in to tiredness and he was in deep sleep,snoring within 5 minutes.

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Madison Dankworth was not actually sure if she was ready to do this search of their parents' secret. It felt like betraying her parents clearly. Bray's voice was ringing in her ears I don't get it!This closet must be here for like ages. For all, we know even before you were born Maddo! But we never heard anything until today. Why did we hear the beeping today? This was really a confusing thing. But at the same time she heard Aidon's voice in her head saying: Hey listen you two. I was thinking about it for like 20 minutes. But the only solution for this is to decode the code. Only that will help us understand what is actually going on. She was sooo confused. Everything was messed up in her brain. She didn't know what to do for real this time.

When the Aidan told them there plan, there was an argument between her, Bray and Aid. Aid insisted that they should go check the files and decode the morse. While Bray and herself were against it.

C'mon Madison! We have done a lot more than this. You know it! Remeber the time when we stole Dad's car keys and hid them for like 4 hours just before he was going to attend an important meeting?You were with me. Bray was wayyy too young to be involved. But now he's grown up. We are three. We can do it much better. He said.

Yeah I remember Aid. But that was different and this is different. Then, we were just a couple of stupid kids. And now, well now we are a couple of years older then that time. Also I am the eldest. Its my responsibility to do the right thing. What if this is dangerous. What if its a secret mission meant for mom and dad? She'd replied

Exactly my point! What if someone is in danger and they need help. Mom and Dad are unavailable.What if someone's life is depending on this code. What if we could save them. Did you think of it? He replied in urgent whisper

Bray what do you think? Should we do this? She had asked the youngest

Ugh!! I don't know. I will leave the decision making to you. He said shrugging.

Madison was sooo confused. She didn't know what was right and what was wrong. She wanted to think. But even she was feeling sleepy. She decided that she would leave thinking for the morning and sleep rn.

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Braylon Dankworth couldn't sleep. He agreed with his sister Madison and his brother Aidan. But he thought that Aidan made his point clearer. Like what if someone's life really counts on this code. Or maybe the person who sent this code thought mom and dad were already home.

Maybe they were suppose to be back by now and were caught in trouble. He thought.

Being in trouble is not necessary. He told himself sternly. We don't know where they are. Maybe their flight delayed or they cancelled this flight. There are hundreds of possibilities.

But the beeping and secret room kept on popping in his mind. He was kinda excited for the next day. He always loved exploring. When he was 4, he used to play secret agent with Aid and his dad. He smiled to himself remembering those silly missions they would accomplish in their games. And then after thinking about some random stuff, he finally drifted into a restless sleep.

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Lucy Fernsby had a hard time waking the kids up.

"C'mon kiddoooos! I know its Saturday. But wake up seriously. Its almost 10. Get up now please." She shouted in the corridor. Aidan was first to wake up probably because his room was near the stairs and Lucy's voice was like enough to wake up a hibernating bear. He sat on his bed struggling to wake up completely. Slowly, his mind came into focus and once he recalled his plan, sleep vanished from his eyes, replaced by an undescribable excitement.

"MORNIN LUCYY!" He shouted." HEYYYYYYYY SLEEEPYYY HEADS!!" He shouted again. "Wake up its mall dayyy. Wakeee UP NOWWW"He said running from room to room.

"Umm Mornin Aid. Looks like you were pretending to be asleep." Replied a smiling Lucy. "Okay guys.Down to dining hall in 15 minutes for breakfast. Be quick"She continued in a commanding tone.

"Are you sure about this?" Asked Braylon yawning freely without covering his mouth

"Yikes Bray! Your breahe stinks" Said Madison appearing behind him. "And yeah! Are you sure About this Aid?" She asked.

"Well, let's try and see what happens, shall we?" He replied in what he thought would be a casual voice. He really was feeling like he just swallowed a bunch of living, squirming worms and they were still squirming in his stomach. But he was also determined to decode the code.

20 minutes later three of them were attacking nutella pancakes. In just 5 minutes all the plates were clean.Aidan and Braylon was straing Madison, who, as the eldest amongst the three would ask for permission first. Madison was staring out of the window.

Three minutes passed and nothing. Both Aidan and Braylon kicked her under the table at the same time which brought her back to the present.

"Ummm... Lucy.." she spoke in a tiny timid voice which made the boys groan under their breath. The only flaw in forcing Madison speak a lie to some elder was she lost her voice. But they had no other choice. Actually they had. But they thought it would be better if the eldest asked.

"Hmm.. Listening" replied Lucy.

"Do you think you can leave us on our own today and like um.. you.. um.. hang out.. with.. with your friends or um.. family or um.. do whatever you want... Like you know you can take a day off.." She said in a pretty lame voice.

"And what will the three lil monsters sitting in front of me do?"" She asked

"Well..you see.."

"We are planning to go to the mall and then to Central Amusement Park.It is near to the mall." Aidan said cutting Madison in mid-sentence. "Then I guess we would go for a walk and be back to home b.. umm.. lets say 19:00." Said Aidan

"Only if its fine with you." added Braylon

"You don't bother to pick and drop us."said Madison with some confidence back in her voice.

"Aaaahhh... I see. Basically you are trying to get rid of me." said Lucy nodding and the siblings felt their hopes go underground. "But who am I to say NO to such an offer? I think I am leaving in 20 minutes." she said. And the siblings cheered. " But I will be home by 18:30 and I want you to be back by 19:00 without fail." she ordered. "No ex.cu.ses." She said looking into each one of their eyes and putting a lot of emphasis on the word"excuses". "Also Behave yourselves. I don't want any complains and don't fight either. I don't want injured au pairees." she added hurriedly.

"Yo Lucy chill! We are not gonna blow up something or ruin the house." As Lucy was about to give more instructions, Braylon assured her and they all nodded.

In no time the siblings were back in the secret closet pouring their eyes out on some really old files.It was never this quiet when all the three were sitting together. But today it was different.

The files were on people, countries, companies and what not. There was nothing that seemed really important to the siblings except that the word "MAP" kept popping in random places and made absolute no sense.

For example, MAP is trying to improve the status of NRS with the help of LS.

TY proved as MAP's antagonist.

MAP is trying to figure out the situation of ELR.

MAP was successful in recovering SU.

ANd the list went on. Aidan asked his siblings if they had MAP all over the place and they said that it was mentioned in almost every file.

"I think I've got enough of background reading. I seriously think we should focus more on the code."said Madison stretching her hands.

"Yeah lets do it."agreed Braylon stretching himself in the same way.

"Okay so who is fast enough to copy the di dah du accurately among us??" asked Aidan.

"First of all its not di dah du, its di dit dah. Its the way of pronouncing morse cuz morse was like all dots and dashes. So the figured that they would use dah for dashes and di for the dots that are like in the middle of the letter and dit for the dots that are like at the end of letter. We learnt about it in the school last year. When we were reading about WWII. I took the privilege of collecting more info." said Madison breathlessly.

"Thank you Maddo! That was indeed enlightening, but I think we were asking about someone fast enough to copy the cde accurately." hissed Bray lazily.

"That would also be me cuz I write more than you two ever wrote in your lives." said Madison turning slightly pink.

"Even though the insult was not true, we are allowing you to write Ms Dankworth."said Aidan so formally that Braylon giggled and Madison smiled.

After hearing the code 5 times, they were sure that they got it all right.

"Okay! So you know I just googled morse code plus dit dah and I found this" said Aidan showing the two what he found.

"Would help us in decoding." he added.

It took the 2 hours to decode the message. But they were sooo hungry by now that they didn't bother to read the message. After eating 2 large pizzas and some fries, they entered the closet to read the message.

"U..R..G..E..N..T..M..E..S..S..A.G..E..N..O..4..A..N..D..N..O..8..I..N..G..R..A..V..E..D..A..N..G..E..R.., a fullstop," read Madison from the paper "then J..D..S..R..E..A..C..H..L..S..N..O..W,again a full stop and then a K."

"Ok so Maddo are you so dumb. It says 'Urgent message no 4 and no 8 in grave danger. Jds reach LS now. K' So I am guessing that 'no' refers to number. So basically two people 4 and 8 are in grave danger. And also i am guessing that JDs refers to mom and dad as in Jasper Dankworth and Jasmine Dankworth as it is like a message to them. But what or who is LS. Also what does 'K' mean??" said Aidan without pausing.

"Look," said Braylon scrolling through the page with which they solved the code "maybe its like end of message or something. Have a look yourselves." He said turning the screen towards the two.

They were congratulating each other when suddenly the same device that beeped yesterday started beeping again. The siblings sat there motionless and wide-eyed, making no sounds. The beeping was stronger here in the closet and after 3 minutes of beeping, the same mechanical voice asked the messenger to record the message. They recognized the voice. it was the same person who delivered a message yesterday. But this time his voice was urgent. He was speaking very fast, but clearly. And the siblings didn't know what to expect this time.