Read Online The Secret of the Skeleton Key by Penny Warner - Free Book Online

and weeds that clung to her dress, but he couldn’t reach the ones stuck in her big bouffant helmet hair. The red lipstick smudge on her cheeks and chin matched the streak on Cody’s arm, and gave Jezebel a hideous, deformed-looking mouth.
    The four club members began backing up to the front gate. “Sorry to bother you, ma’am,” M.E. called. “We’re leaving now. No need for the police.”
    She made a dash for the opened gate, followed by the others. They broke into a run toward school and away from the angry glares coming from Jezebel and Jasper.
    Cody glanced back just before she turned the corner at the end of the street and caught a last glimpse of the couple. They were still standing in the yard, their arms crossed over their chests, their eyes intent on the kids.
    Cody looked down at her outfit. She wondered if they had noticed that her clothes were covered in soot. If they had, they’d know the truth: that the kids had been inside the house.
    Snooping.

Chapter 11
    W ith two minutes to spare before the first bell, Cody and M.E. stopped by the girls’ bathroom to clean off the soot. After the fifteenth paper towel, Cody knew it was a wasted effort. All they’d managed to do was smear the black spots into gray streaks. Lucky for M.E., she was wearing red tights. The gray stripes just made them look cool, like an abstract painting. Unfortunately, the stripes on the back of Cody’s shorts made her butt look like a mutant zebra’s.
    â€œHee-haw!” Matt the Brat snorted at Cody. “Awesome stripes. Is there a zebra missing from the zoo? Or did you escape from Alcatraz?” He laughed, sending drops of flying spit everywhere.
    Cody glared at the school bully as she passed him on the way to her seat. Today his green-sprayed buzz cut looked like a lawn in desperate need of a mowing. The color matched the fake tattoo of a two-headed snake on his puffy arm. His oversize skull-and-crossbones T-shirt barely reached the waistband of his sagging, baggy jeans, and every now and then Cody caught an unwelcome glimpse of his tighty whiteys. It was enough to make her lose her breakfast.
    Even though Matt the Brat acted like a jerk and smelled like peanut butter and called everyone names, he didn’t really scare Cody. She’d seen him cry once, after he’d come out of the principal’s office. In fact, he’d been in trouble so many times, he had his own special chair there. Cody knew if Matt the Brat even burped too loud these days, he was apt to be expelled from Berkeley Co-op Middle School.
    As soon as she sat down in her assigned seat behind Matt, Cody checked her backpack. She unzipped the largest compartment and felt around inside, bypassing her school notebook, codebook, pencil, and other supplies.
    She shuddered.
    The case the kids had found at Skeleton Man’s house was gone.
    Quickly, she unzipped another compartment and jammed her hand inside. Nothing except some ABC gum and a few cat-shaped erasers. She tried another compartment, then another. In the last compartment, the smallest one that she rarely used, she felt the cold hard metal against her fingertips.
    She breathed a sigh of relief. The case! Thank goodness.
    If she lost Skeleton Man’s metal box—the one they’d discovered hidden behind the certificate— she’d never hear the end of it from the Code Busters. Luckily, she’d had the presence of mind to stuff it into her backpack when Jezebel and Jasper had arrived—even if she’d forgotten exactly where.
    She pulled the case from its hiding place and turned it over in her hands. Ms. Stadelhofer was busy calling roll, so Cody didn’t have to pay close attention until her teacher got to the J s. She checked the case more closely. While the box resembled a mint container, it appeared to be handmade. The metal—dark and rusty—reminded her of the kind of metal Skeleton Man used for his yard