Part 5 (1/2)

001110111100011000101000001001000001100001010101110001111110001111010100101

”I don't think it's numbers. There's 00111011110, then a comma.”

It took them about half an hour to come up with a combination that worked, but when it did, it was obviously correct.

”G U E S T-guest!” Rebecca said with relish.

Tane was still puzzling over the next section. ”Does 'Compton1' mean anything to you? That's the only combination that seems like a word.”

”Yes!” Rebecca exclaimed. ”The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, remember? That's where they pick up the BATSE data!”

”Of course.” He rubbed at his temples. ”My head hurts.”

”Not much to go now,” Rebecca said brightly. ”I'll take the next bit, and you do the last sequence.” She smiled sympathetically. ”My bit is longer.”

Tane looked at his segment. ”0101.” It made just a few combinations: NN, KE, TR, TETE, TEN, NN, KE, TR, TETE, TEN, or simply just a or simply just a C. C. He discounted the He discounted the TEN. TEN. All the other numbers had been represented in digits, not spelled out. For reasons that he couldn't quite fathom, he decided that All the other numbers had been represented in digits, not spelled out. For reasons that he couldn't quite fathom, he decided that TR TR was the most likely. was the most likely.

He looked over at the section Rebecca was working on.

111000111111000111

She already had half a page worth of combinations scribbled out.

”I'm getting there,” she said. ”I think I, A, M, S, I, I, A, M, S, I, maybe a maybe a J J...”

”I am Sij,” Tane laughed, but the laugh suddenly died on his lips.

Rebecca noticed Tane's expression. ”Why do you look so worried all of a sudden?”

”It's much simpler than that,” Tane said strangely. ”Every Boy Scout in the world knows that one. Dot, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash, dot, dot, dot. Then it repeats.”

”Yes?” asked Rebecca, who had never been a Boy Scout.

”SOS!”

MR. DAWSON'S T TREE M MUSEUM The four science buildings at West Auckland High School formed a huge cross. Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Geography, two-story gray concrete structures with a cla.s.sroom on each level. The blocks were surrounded by the concrete of the playing courts and the asphalt of the teachers' parking lot. West Auckland High School formed a huge cross. Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Geography, two-story gray concrete structures with a cla.s.sroom on each level. The blocks were surrounded by the concrete of the playing courts and the asphalt of the teachers' parking lot.

In the center of the cross was an open courtyard where the corners of the four buildings touched, and in the 1990s, Mr. Dawson, a forward-thinking biology teacher, had claimed the area for his department. He had ripped up the cobblestone paving, thrown out the wooden bench seats, and wheelbarrowed in, with the help of a tenth-grade biology cla.s.s, a load of fertile earth.

Then, with the blessing of the princ.i.p.al, he had planted the courtyard with New Zealand native plants. His aim was to re-create the wilderness of New Zealand as it had been two hundred years ago. Before Western civilization with its six-lane motorways and oxidization ponds and two-story gray concrete cla.s.srooms. He installed a small pump and piped in water from his biology cla.s.sroom-carefully filtered to remove the chlorine and fluoride-and irrigated the plants with a small stony-bottomed brook that babbled happily across the courtyard and into a drain on the other side.

Mr. Dawson was only forty-two when he died of a ma.s.sive stroke caused by a heart attack. There was neither rhyme nor reason for it. He wasn't overweight or unfit.

Some people just die young.

But Mr. Dawson's death, just a few months after completing his garden, ensured that the project, which had never been intended to last more than a couple of years, became a permanent fixture at West Auckland High School.

Students were not usually allowed in the Fred Dawson Memorial Garden, except when they were working on biology or environmental projects. The last thing the school wanted were chewing gum and chip packets destroying the carefully maintained environment.

Rebecca Richards was one of the few exceptions to this rule, but then, she was an exceptional student in many ways. The courtyard got a willing caregiver, and Rebecca got a quiet place to get away from the other fourteen-year-old girls discussing makeup and hair and fas.h.i.+on and bra sizes and the current romances of their favorite singers and TV stars.

Rebecca loved the peace and the seclusion of the garden. Tane, however, thought it was somehow sad in a small way that he did not quite understand.

Tane sat on a punga log, strategically placed as a seat, and stared quietly at the clear water of the brook, chewing slowly on a peanut b.u.t.ter sandwich. Rebecca, on the other hand, could not stay still for a second. She sat down; she jumped up. She found a weed and pulled it out; she fidgeted. She picked her nails; she scratched her head. She didn't touch her lunch at all. Tane had never seen her like this.

Oddly, Tane wasn't thinking about the Lotto numbers, and he wasn't thinking about the SOS. Both of them had talked and thought about little else over the past week, and Tane had found it almost impossible to concentrate on his studies, which was becoming a serious problem with final exams now so close. It was November 20, and the exams started on the 30th.

But just at that moment, he was thinking about chess. Not the game in general, but one chess set in particular. The chess set in question was extraordinarily beautiful. It was made of marble and all the pieces were famous sculptures. The king was Michelangelo's David, David, and the rook was Rodin's and the rook was Rodin's Thinker. Thinker. Tane had been saving for most of the year to buy the chess set and had only one payment left to make. It wasn't for himself. It was for Rebecca. For Christmas. And he knew she'd love it, and he knew that she would know that he had saved for most of the year for it. Tane had been saving for most of the year to buy the chess set and had only one payment left to make. It wasn't for himself. It was for Rebecca. For Christmas. And he knew she'd love it, and he knew that she would know that he had saved for most of the year for it.

But strangely the Lotto numbers changed all that. If they really were Lotto numbers, then he and Rebecca were about to be rich beyond anything they could have imagined. And the fact that he had saved all year for the chess set would be meaningless. Rebecca would be able to buy twenty marble chess sets if she wanted.

He supposed it was a small price to pay. The sudden wealth would mean they could buy anything they wanted and, more importantly, that Rebecca and her mother could afford to buy a new house in Auckland and not move to Masterton.

But all that depended on whether they were right about the Lotto numbers. And then there was the question of which draw. Tane had had a moment of panic, worrying that the draw with their numbers might have already come and gone, but they had found an Internet site with all the Lotto results on it and had checked back six months. To their great relief, their numbers hadn't yet come up, so they resolved to buy a ticket every week until they did.

There was also the problem of the section of the cryptic message they had not yet solved. And the worrying SOS in the tail of it.

”The next Lotto draw is tomorrow night,” Rebecca said. ”What are we going to do about the problem?”

Tane looked up from the brook. Rebecca was pacing around the moss-covered dirt in small, darting movements, like a bird. ”Sit down,” he said, patting the log next to him.

She sat but kept twitching as if she wanted to keep pacing.

The problem. They had been discussing They had been discussing the problem the problem almost since they had realized what the numbers meant. There was a Lotto draw every Sat.u.r.day night. The almost since they had realized what the numbers meant. There was a Lotto draw every Sat.u.r.day night. The problem problem was that to buy a Lotto ticket, or claim a prize, you had to be sixteen years or older. And Tane and Rebecca weren't. was that to buy a Lotto ticket, or claim a prize, you had to be sixteen years or older. And Tane and Rebecca weren't.

It was a real problem. Tane's parents were out of the question. They didn't believe in gambling. Tane's mum believed that it was introduced by the pakeha, the European settlers, to keep the Maori people debt-ridden and downtrodden. There was no chance there.

Rebecca's mum was another possibility, but she hadn't left the house in over a year and wasn't likely to anytime soon.

Tane continued, ”We have to do something. What if the numbers come up tomorrow night and we miss it! The Powerball Jackpot is up to six million dollars. How many adults would you trust with that kind of money? They could just claim the prize and keep it for themselves. We would never be able to prove that we gave them the numbers.”

Rebecca stopped fidgeting for a while and said, ”Then it has to be Fats.”

Tane turned away from her and said softly, so that his words were almost swallowed by the muttering of the small brook and swept away downstream, ”Fatboy is the last person I would trust with six million dollars of my money.”

”But at least he's family!”