Children

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When my sister was young she was given a diary in which she recorded her daily happenings, conversations, all secret stuff--and I, being a mischievous brother, was always trying to find it and read it. So she started to write it in code, a secret formula of backward numbers and letters which no one else could read.

A code is a system in which one letter, number or word can stand for a complete message. With a cipher, another letter, number or symbol replaces each letter of the alphabet.

Here are two simple cipher alphabets:
1. A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S Ò U V W X Y Z.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

2. 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 Ñ Â À

You could make up a cipher of your own using either of these suggestions, or make one up all your own, and write secret messages in it, but meanwhile see if you can decipher the following message.
8 1 22 5-1
8 1 16 16 25
5 1 19 20 5 18

SECRET CODES
Communicate with your friends! Confound your enemies! Write in code!

There are many kinds of codes, and it's fun to make one up.

* One way to start is to substitute one letter in the alphabet with another.

Fold a piece of lined paper in half the long way; in the left column, write the alphabet beginning with A. Then choose a letter say H and write the alphabet in the right column as if H was the first letter H, I, J, and so on.

Write A after Z and end with G (the letter before H in the real alphabet).
In this code A=H, B=l, C=J, and so on.

Using this code, you might write FVB HYL TF MYPLUK*.

If someone cracks your code, it's easy to make a new one. Change the letter that you start wit, reverse the order of the code alphabet, or use random letters that don't have an obvious order.

* You can also make a code by using a number for each letter, with A=1, B=2, and so on.

In this code, you might write 12-5-20-19 7-5-20 20-15-7-5-20-8-5-18**

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