DTB Codes

As mentioned in a previous post, my cousins and I used to send coded letters back and forth in the mail. Usually a code would last for a couple of letters back and forth before we gave up because it took too long to write and translate. Then one of us would invent a new code that revived our interest for a while before that code too lost its luster. We probably had three different codes that we used in real life. Two of them were featured in the "DTB Prologue" post - using numbers in place of letters, and spelling everything backwards. Of course, anyone with any imagination could have cracked those codes in less than a minute. A third code that we used was slightly more inventive. I featured it in one of my earlier versions of Chapter One of the Narrows Escape. Eventually it was cut as the story took a different turn. Like most of my "cuts," I saved it in case I wanted to go back to it. I thought I'd share it with you now so that you could get a flavor of what our letters looked like:

“Brady, you got a letter!”

Brady Allred jumped up from his bed and hurried down the hall to where his mother stood sorting through the stack of bills and junk mail. He hoped it was from one of his cousins. Since they were the only ones who ever wrote him, he wasn’t disappointed.

“It’s from Devin!” Brady exclaimed joyfully as he tore open the envelope. He pulled out the letter and scanned it over. Just as he suspected, it was in code:

Wvzi Yizwb,

Sld ziv blf wlrmt? R’n wlrmt tllw. Rm uzxg, R’ev tlg hlnv tivzg mvdh! Nb wzw qfhg tlg z qly zh z xlfmhvoli zg Sroohrwv Srts, hl dv’ev tlrmt gl nlev gl Xzorulimrz! R xzm’g dzrg! Rg’h tlrmt gl yv zdvhlnv. Dv xzm tl gl gsv yvzxs, zmw tl hdrnnrmt zg Givb’h slfhv, zmw tl gl yzhvyzoo tznvh, zmw szev dvvpvmw kzigrvh zmw kozb Zgzir zoo mrtsg. Rg’h tlrmt gl yv hl xllo. Zmbdzbh, dv’iv tlrmt gl yv wldm gsviv uli gsv 7gs lu Qfob hl dv xzm ollp uli z slfhv hl R tfvhh R’oo hvv blf zg Givb’h slfhv uli gsv yrt kzigb. Dvoo, R tlggz tl. R szev gl dirgv Givb zmw gvoo srn, vevm gslfts sv kilyzyob zoivzwb pmldh xzfhv Fmxov Nzierm svokvw nb wzw tvg gsv qly zmw zmbdzbh, R’oo gzop gl blf ozgvi.

Hrmxvivob, Wverm

Luckily, Brady had invented the code himself. He had sent a secret decoder to each of his cousins so that they could write to each other back and forth without anybody knowing what they were saying. This was particularly important when you had three younger siblings as Brady did. And since he shared a room with his brother Jared, he had to be especially careful not to leave the decoder lying around where Jared could find it.

Brady quickly shut the door to his room so that nobody could see him pull out and open the secret box he kept hidden in the back of his underwear drawer. He sat down at the desk, opened the box and pulled out the decoder. It read:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A

Brady diligently translated the letter, word for word. After a few lines, he shouted, “All right!” He excitedly translated the next few words before his bedroom door burst open.

“What are you yelling about?” asked Lindsey, his nine-year old sister.

“Hey, get out of here! You didn’t knock!” accused Brady, quickly hiding his decoder so that she couldn’t see it.

“I just wanted to see what you’re yelling for,” pouted Lindsey.

“Devin’s family’s moving to California!” exclaimed Brady, momentarily forgetting that he was upset at her for barging in.

P.S. I put the translation in the comments section.