6 The Battle of Cedar Mountain

Chapter 6 THE BATTLE OF CEDAR MOUNTAIN A cipher is a secret message, usually one that can be decoded by substituting or changing the order of the letters. Ever since Coke and Pep left California, they had been receiving a new cipher every few days. At first the ciphers were coming from Dr. Warsaw. After his "accident," they were sent by his young madman-in-training, Archie Clone. But Dr. Warsaw was on his honeymoon, and Archie Clone was dead. Who could be sending the twins ciphers now? And what could LEVEL VIS I possibly mean? Pep wasn't very good at remembering vast quantities of information like her brother. But

she was excellent at analyzing data, and she made a study of it. She had an uncanny ability to take a series of seemingly random letters, numbers, or symbols and rearrange them to reveal their secret meaning. "What does LEVEL VIS I mean?" Coke whispered impatiently as they followed their parents to the Metro station. "I don't know yet!" Pep replied. "Give me a break, will you? I need to work on it." By the time they took the train back to the campground, checked out, and made it through the traffic jam getting out of Washington, it was past midnight. The kids had nearly fallen asleep. But they both woke up when the RV crossed the Arlington Memorial Bridge and a sign appeared at the side of the road.

Welcome to Virginia "Woo hoo!" Coke hooted. "The Old Dominion State! Did you guys know that the Revolutionary War and the Civil War both ended in Virginia?" "I actually did know that," said Dr. McDonald from the driver's seat. "The Revolution ended with the surrender of Cornwallis in Yorktown. The Civil War ended at Appomattox." "But I'll bet you didn't know that eight presidents were born in Virginia, Dad," Coke continued. "Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Harrison, Tyler, Taylor, and Wilson." "Thank you, Mr. Boring," Pep told her brother.

"And the state beverage of Virginia is milk," Coke added, just to annoy her. "Nobody cares, doofus." "Don't call your brother a doofus," said Mrs. McDonald. With Coke's help, Pep wrote LEVEL VIS I down in her notebook. She began to work on it, juggling the letters around in her head. This was a hard one. It was very late, and Pep was too tired. Soon the notebook and pen had dropped from her hand. Coke was just about asleep too when Dr. McDonald pulled the RV onto Route 66 heading west. He drove silently for nearly an hour and a half, passing very close to the battlefield of Bull Run and Manassas, splitting off south on Route 15 and 29. Can you find it on the map? Go ahead, I'll wait. It was close to two o'clock in the morning when the RV turned onto the gravel road at Cedar Mountain Campground in Culpeper,

Virginia. Coke and Pep didn't wake up. Dr. McDonald parked the RV and checked in at the office. Then he climbed back in and was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. "Rise and shine!" Mrs. McDonald hollered cheerfully the next morning, July 5. "C'mon, kids," Dr. McDonald said, clapping his hands. "We've got three thousand miles to drive before we get back home again!" Coke and Pep groaned and stumbled out of the RV, plopping themselves down at a picnic table for breakfast. Mrs. McDonald had prepared instant oatmeal. There is a fishing pond and other amenities at Cedar Mountain Campground, but it didn't look like they would get the chance to use them. Dr. McDonald had spread out a road map of the United States that covered half the table. He leaned over it, stabbing his finger at the state of Virginia. He looked like a general planning out his next battle. "Okay, we took a northern route from

California to get to Washington," he reminded the twins. "So we're going to take a southern route going back home. That way we can see a lot more cool stuff." He traced a potential route with his finger down through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and across Texas through the west. "Are we going to visit any more giant balls of twine?" Pep asked wearily. "Of course not!" her mother replied. "Been there, done that. I just want to make sure we get to Paris, Texas, where they have a replica of the