It seemed like it would be fun to write secret, encoded messages to my friends. It seemed like it would be even more fun to leave them in public places, so that everyone could see them, but only we could read them. We left them everywhere - the local library, the school hallways, and even on the playground (although it only took one rain for us to realize not to leave paper notes outside.)

Here is how we encoded our messages: we shifted each letter four letters forward, circling back around at the end of the alphabet. For example, A became E, Z became D, and Dog became Hnk.

It was so awesome! Now we could finally communicate at school without getting in trouble for passing notes and without other kids eavesdropping on our conversations. For about a month, it worked perfectly. A few times, we even had the satisfaction of seeing one of the meaner kids at our school pick up a note that they knew wasn’t for them, see that it was encoded, and throw it down in frustration.

Then, one day, our fears were realized. Alfred, the kid who always got an A+ on his tests when he wasn’t suspended for bullying, found one of our notes.The decoded content of this particular note was: Meet me @ (the @ symbol wasn’t encoded) the Grace Park Bush-Fort @ 4:00 Thursday (the numbers weren’t encoded either) To Hawthorn, from Jona. My name is Jona, by the way.

It turned out Alfred had heard of our cipher. During math class, which Alfred never pays attention to, because in his words, “I’m the smartest kid at the school! I already know all of this!” I noticed two pieces of paper on his his desk, neither of which seemed to be related to math class. One of them looked suspiciously like our note, and the other one looked suspiciously like an attempt to decode it. I could only see this because, by a stroke of bad luck, my desk was right next to his.

At 4:00 pm the next day, our suspicions were confirmed.

When Hawthorn and I (see, Mrs. Rose, I wrote “Hawthorn and I”, not “Me and Hawthorn”) entered our secret Grace Park Bush-Fort, we saw dozens of mean notes written in Alfred’s perfect handwriting: Hawthorn, how did you manage to get that amazing D+? It makes me understand more why you thought that you were the first one to discover the Caesar cipher. It is literally the most elementary cipher!  (D+ was literally Hawthorn’s worst score ever. Her average was a B, which is pretty good even though it is worse than Alfred’s scores.)

Another, shorter note: izivcfshc lexiw csy.

Other notes referenced things that students definitely aren’t supposed to know, including teacher’s notes from parent-teacher conferences, notes about us from the school counselor, and even “I now understand you much better, Jona. I bet if my parents had criminal records, I’d be like you.” My parents were both in jail for a month after protesting the treatment of  the animals at our local zoo while it was closing. Then, along with other protesters, they had stolen two meerkats from the zoo.

There were many more notes, some of which had words not fit for publication, both encoded and not.

When we had both looked at the notes for a minute, I quietly said, “Is Alfred a hacker, too?”

“Maybe,” replied Hawthorn. “Should we report this?”

“No.” I said after some thought. “That would be giving away too many of our secrets.”

We crumpled up the notes, but as we went to put them in the trash bag we keep in the bush-fort, we noticed all the things we keep in the the bush-fort - pencils, paper, headlamps, and many other things in the trash bag, with a note that said “you belong in here too.” We had been so dismayed at the the discovery of the bush-fort and at the notes that we hadn’t noticed that they weren’t in their normal places.

But the notes weren’t the worst part. And neither was the fact that the contents of the bush-fort had been put into the trash bag. The worst part was: our secret bush-fort had been discovered!

“What should we do?!” Hawthorn whispered frantically.

“It wouldn’t be too hard to make another bush-fort and not write notes about it,” I replied. “It wouldn’t be the same, but it’s better than Alfred knowing where it is.”

We called our friend Faith, the only other person who was supposed to know about our bush-fort, and decided on a location for our new one. I will not write it here because it is a secret. We talked briefly about the possibility that Alfred had hacked our phone connection, but we decided that if he did that, that would be a real crime that we could probably prove he had done, which would give him more than a suspension.

Then, we realized the worst part. I had forgotten the new code to enter a safe that we kept in another one of our forts (we change it every once in a while in case someone discovers it. Again, I will not give you the details of because it is secret.) In that safe, we keep many of our prized items, including diaries, an expensive watch that had been given to Hawthorn when her grandma died, and many other things. Faith had apparently written a note to remind me of the code (in notes where we wanted to encode numbers, we wrote them as words, as in two instead of 2.)

The thing was, I hadn’t seen that note. That was one of the flaws of our system - sometimes we just didn't notice the notes. Maybe Alfred had decoded that note, too!

We all ran to the fort (including Faith, who, never a procrastinator, was doing her homework at her house.) Just as we got to the ladder (I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but the fort is a treehouse,) we noticed Alfred behind us. We all scrambled up the ladder, and pulled it into the treehouse just in time.

Alfred swore.

This would now come down to a waiting competition. The thing was, we had the advantage: we kept things to do in the fort, and he didn’t have anything to do other than wait.

After two hours, Alfred gave up.

Once he was out of earshot, I whispered, “Let’s change the code.” We did.

Later, we built another bush-fort, and we all lived happily ever after.

Okay. We didn’t actually live happily ever after, because this isn’t a fairy tale, and that’s not how real life works. Maybe we lived happily mostly after?

Anyway, take this as a lesson. Make sure no one has figured out (as far as the public knows) how to solve your cipher before you use it to write secret information.