Camp S.O. Cool: July 2013

GUILTY!

Sophie collapses under intense interrogation and calls out for her loving friend Olivia.

The Little Sherlockians (minus an ill Gus) celebrate their capturing of the nefarious Sophie, who had planned the entire affair out of a misguided love for her dear friend Olivia.

Clearly, this was a case of love gone wrong, where the virtue of friendship turned into the vice of greed. Hoping to give Olivia a surprise present of a trip to Paris, Sophie devised this devilish kidnapping scheme to raise in days what would take years to obtains: $8000 for travel expenses, lavish hotel rooms, fantastic shopping sprees, and luxurious dinners along the Seine. But her clever attempts to implicate Maggie, (her arch enemy she calls Poopy) failed. Sophie will be spending her holiday in prison!

Olivia: the Cool Cucumber in the Case

Olivia gave a convincing and thorough, if not a tad over-confident, interview to us. She admitted to being around Sophia's house all week, but seemed to have no awareness or connection to any of the events that had happened. It soon became clear that Olivia was the innocent dupe to Sophie's nefarious plans for the two of them to travel to Paris. When asked if she would do anything for Sophie, she said she didn't know. When we had asked Sophie that same question, she was quick to respond "Yes, anything!"

Despite being found not guilty in this case, the prosecutor has decided to investigate further Olivia's actions and whereabouts on Monday, and Olivia may be facing charges of accessory after the fact.

Lisa Confirms Maggie's Innocence

To confirm Maggie's account, we needed to interview Lisa about the source of a mysterious letter that arrived in the mail for Olivia. Maggie had claimed it came from Lisa (M = Mom) and not herself (M = Maggie). Lisa admitted to writing the letter and that confirmed our impressions of Maggie.

Maggie Clears Herself in Her Interrogation!

Giving confident, clear answers to our questions, Maggie quickly showed herself to be a typical sister, not an abductress. Demonstrating sisterly disaffection for Olivia, she answered all questions forthrightly and always had a means of proving her alibi. She even confessed to entering Olivia's room after having promised Olivia, before the kidnapping, that she wouldn't. 100% trustworthy was our conclusion, and 100% innocent--of the crime.

Sophia Interrogated Second

Sophie turned out to be surprisingly nervous about the interrogation. She constantly looked to the left (her right) when answering questions, and touched her face a couple times, two signs of being in distress, making things up, or lying. She was hesitant in answering questions and was unable to convincingly explain her strange phone call. She was obviously lying when she claimed not to have seen Olivia all day Monday, after Olivia went missing.

After the interview, we still felt Maggie was our prime suspect, and decided to look for ways she was working with Sophia.

Jamie Interrogated First

Jamie, a longtime friend of Maggie, was interrogated first to see what connections she had to the case and to Maggie, our prime suspect. She was found with one of Olivia's shoes. Jamie gave a good interview, showing a calm, confident demeanor, except for the topics of Olivia's height, clothes, and shoes. She gave no clues about any plans Maggie may have had, and showed no signs of any connection to the case. If Jamie is guilty of anything, it is of envying Olivia's height and taste in dress.

Prepping for Our Interrogations

The Sherlockians spent the morning preparing questions for each of our suspects: Jamie, Maggie, and Sophie, who are our lead suspects. We came up with the most questions for Maggie, who is the prime suspect. Her intimate knowledge of events and proximity to the clues, as well as her cavalier attitude toward her missing sister make her the most suspicious. Next of importance is Sophie, whose suspicious phone call started the case off on another tangent than a straight kidnapping case. We could never get past that inscrutable "Shhhhh. . . " at the beginning of her call, right when we had discovered the note. Finally, there was Jamie, who had a shoe of Olivia's in her purse for some reason. Her ill-timed visit during tea time of this week also seemed more than a coincidence.

We await the interrogations!

Olivia Discovered in Own Room!

Olivia Claims to Be at Sophie's House All Week, Unaware of Any Problem!

Olivia was discovered this morning when Maya and Hannah hid in her room during their faked death. Olivia was cool and blasé about events as she rubbed her sleep out of her eyes. She claimed to have spent the week at Sophie's house. Her interrogation will follow at noon.

Sherlockians Plan Own "Deaths"

We planned (and executed) our own fake deaths today. Just as Holmes did in "The Final Problem," we planned our own deaths incase we needed to lay low for several years.

Hannah and Maya worked together to "die" from food poisoning. While I was talking to Gus and Holden in the kitchen, Hannah and Maya went to the dining room to eat some pretzels and play a logic game. Then we started to hear some choking and saw that Maya and Hannah had gone into the living room, had fallen on the couch, and were expiring! I quickly covered them with blankets and then hurried Holden and Gus back to the phone in the kitchen.

We finally started a "call" to 911. Then we went back to the living room to wait for the ambulance, and Holden lifted a corner of a blanket and we discovered pillows where the two girls had been. We raced to the front door, which was open, and ran outside. Holden went one way and Gus went the other. But we found nothing!

After Maya and Hannah returned we sat down to review the points of the case about the Missing Olivia, and Holden asked to run outside for a second to check on a detail that had just occurred to him. We started reviewing the case when Hecate (aka Grandma) started to scream in her room.

Lisa was terrified for her. We rushed to her room and she said she just saw a man hit Holden over his head, cut his through, toss him into the trunk of his car, and drive off. She was in a panic. We ran outside to look and didn't see Holden anywhere, or any car. We were stunned. We went back inside to "call" the cops. Later, Holden came out of hiding.

Gus was feeling ill, so he didn't act out his fake death right away. Later he called for his mother to pick him up. He went outside to wait for her, having collect his decoder dial and lock and Sherlockian magnifying glass. While outside he disappeared. We thought that he too had been kidnapped, but then Jamie showed up for her interrogation (more about that later), and she saw Gus around the cars, and he was discovered. Apparently he failed for some reason to finish his disappearance by reentering the house quietly at the front door and hiding up stairs. But we all bought the sick act!

For each of these faked deaths, we learned that an accomplice helps, that surprise is important, and that hiding near the place one is last scene can make it all the harder to find you. Maya and Hannah's accomplice was me: I covered their bodies before calling 911 and left the room which gave them time to fake one get away and go for another (hiding). However, we all would know they were really alive. Holden's accomplice was Grandma, who turned in an astonishing act that terrified her own daughter! And Gus's accomplice was Lisa, who helped him devise the plan. The surprise element for Maya and Hannah was that we were supposed to do the fake deaths later on. For Holden, it was Grandma's cry out of nowhere. And for Gus it was his acting like he wasn't playing when he was. Each of the Sherlockians hide nearby, but only Holden pulled off a total missing body. If you cannot make one's body disappear, then one has to look really, really dead, and your accomplice will probably be a medical person.

A Review of the Case

Shortly after camp began, we found taped to the front door a ransom note.

"No Cops

$8000 by Friday or O dyes. Give to old woman ["woman" pasted over "girl"]

then ["teen" with an "h" pasted over "e"] wait at Borden park.

No cops"

During our discussion of this Lisa gets a call on her phone from Sophie, Olivia's friend, saying that Olivia is not on the train. Sophie begins her message with, "Shhh. Okay, um yeah . . ."

When Maggie, Olivia's sister arrives home from work and we tell her about the note, she says she needs $8000 for college.

Olivia doesn't come home that night. Next day, clothes are found on her bed. [It turns out Maggie put them there. They are clothes she wants to give to Olivia.]

While Lisa is teaching us about ciphers, Maggie comes in and tells us another way to learn how to code messages.

Next day we find an orange tool box on the front porch and a partial footprint in the dirt. The partial footprint is large, like that of a man or a tall woman. The tool box is locked with a padlock. Underneath the box we find a folded piece of paper with a code on it.

We receive in the printer directions on how to open a padlock, with cipher in Dancing Men code, which we have been studying.

Fortunately we are practicing deciphering codes and picking padlocks.

We deciphered the code first, and it said: "Put this on the front porch."

We learn how to open padlocks, and find inside the tool box a burned book entitled "Teach Yourself French." There are gray hairs inside it, but rather obviously put there.

At tea time Jamie, a friend of Maggie's, comes for tea and we find one of Olivia's shoes in her bag. She will not explain why it is in her bag and leaves after getting upset.

Wednesday we find a bloody knife and another ransom note in Olivia's room. The blood turns out to be fake, but we do get a couple fingerprints. The note says, "No cops. Keep your head and pay or we cut toe and fingers." Later we find a jar of fake blood in the fridge and a recipe for fake blood and a list of ingredients on the cabinet.

Later that day we find a note in the mullions of the side door. We decipher the note to read: "only eight k more to go. Here we come Fr"

When Maggie comes home we get her to give us a finger print. It is inconclusive that Maggie's finger print matches the one on the bloody knife.

In the mail came a letter for Olivia, that reads: "I find I have to communicate to you formally now about your requesting money for Paris. Or else I feel I will do something drastic. The answer is NO. M."

Thursday, while working in the basement, we hear the printer printing: it is a picture of Olivia on the train. Later that day we find another note by the side door. It is only in numbers. We decipher it as reading: "Last Tuesday"

In the mail comes a note from Rutgers, informing Maggie of her college bill.

Disguises 2: How to Talk in Character

Each Little Sherlockian had to also speak in character. Let's see how they did.

Sherlock Goes, But Then Comes Back

Sherlock Holmes is seen here writing his farewell letter to Watson. Moriarity, Holmes avowed arch enemy awaits to throw him over the edge and to his death in the Reichenbach Falls.

The Little Sherlockians watched both "The Final Problem" and "The Empty House" episodes from Grenada TV to see how Sherlock met his end, but then was brought back by Arthur Conan Doyle when public pressure demanded more sleuthing from the world's most famous detective.

Friday we will be faking our own deaths. I can't wait!

Disguises!

As part of their training to be like Sherlock Holmes, the Little Sherlockians had to prepare a disguise that changed their clothes, hair, face, speech, body, character, and intellect, and to use a prop.

What appears to be a top, French chef by the name of Amie, is actually Hannah! As with each of the Little Sherlockians, they chose to cover their eyes to make themselves less recognizable. I had no idea it wasn't a French lady talking to me during the interview with the chef!

You may think you are on the Jersey Shore dealing with a bored and mean lifeguard, but you are really looking at Maya! The attitude in her pose totally threw me off, as well as the valley speak and the mean dark glasses.

I was reaching into my pocket to give this poor Mexican boy some change when Gus let out a laugh. As soon as I heard his laugh I saw again a poor boy with his hand out and saying in a very broken and shy voice, "Ola." Where had Gus gone? I felt bad for the bum leg, but then the kid did a dance and I knew it was Gus!

I was rushing into the dining room to set out some extra chairs, especially for this very grumbly old man, when I heard a voice I could have sworn was Holden. I looked closely at the old man, and he grumbled some more and shook his fists at me. Then off comes his hat and hair and there's Holden. Wow!

I think our Sherlockians will do well as Consulting Detectives!

(Lying) and Yet Another Cipher!

While researching how to tell if someone is lying (link here and here), the printer printed this photo of Olivia. Again, the wireless printer was hacked and we had a clue on our hands. Now we have realized that there are two kinds of clues we have been dealing with: clues about Olivia being missing, and clues deliberately sent or mistakenly left for us about the people involved in the case. It is getting hard to figure out what is what.

In this picture, a non-chalant, even bored, Olivia is seen safe and soun--and apparently not underguard--on a train. Who sent it and why? When was the photo taken?

Later in the day Holden found on the floor by the side door the following cipher:

103-6-1-2 120-4-9-6

What could that mean? We looked at what Lisa had taught us, and all those codes involved numbers and letters. So we asked ourselves where do we find numbers and letters: the phone didn't work out. A typewriter didn't help. Finally Holden suggested a book. We looked in the two-volume Sherlock Holmes book, using the 3-digit number for a page, the second for a paragraph, the third for a line, and the last for the word in the line. It didn't work for the Holmes books, but it did work for "The Annals of London" book. But the code read

Last Tuesday

We couldn't figure out what it meant, until Lisa returned from being out and thought the code and picture were related. It made great sense: the picture was taken last Tuesday, the day after she went missing. Clearly Olivia must be involved in the kidnapping in some way!

Evidence Piles Up against Maggie

Maggie said she needed $8000.00 for college, and today a bill came for her. It is not looking good for the elder sister.

We can't wait to interview her on Friday!

An Even More Difficult Cipher!

Yet another cipher! This one was stuck in the door behind the mullions.

Unlike the other ciphers, this one is not a letter replacement version. Each section is 6 letters long so we can't use our knowledge of the English language.

It turns out to be a code in which you have to arrange the rows in the correct order to read the message. These usually have a code word to tell one how to arrange the rows, but this one didn't. After about an hour, we hit upon the correct rows and then aligned them by reading for a word across the top.

The message: Only eight k more to go here we come Fr You can see the first word in the first letter of the third, first, fourth, second groupings.

We think that we intercepted this message, which could implicate Olivia in her own kidnapping. The mystery deepens.

Combination Busting

The Little Sherlockians learned how to discover the combination for a lock when they don't know it. This skill was required to unlock the mysterious orange box that appeared the other day on the front porch.

Gus practiced opening his lock the rest of the day. He is fully ready for Middle school, at least as far as school lockers go.

Here is a link to a video explaining how.

Mind Development Games

These are some of the activities and games we have been drilling ourselves in this week to sharpen our minds. The games on the left require one to fit all the pieces into the game space. The game Mastermind requires one to decipher a color code based upon feedback about the pegs being the right color and in the right place. The book "Five-Minute Crimebusters" and the deck Bella's Mystery Deck (not pictured) have required us to identify evidence and find the logical implications of that evidence in solving crimes.

Shocking New Developments in Missing Olivia Case

Maya and Hannah discovered this bloody knife and a threatening note on the dresser in Olivia's room early Wednesday.

A close look at the plate and note revealed that there were finger prints on each

The note threatened to cut off Olivia's toe and fingers if we did not keep our head.

Our little Sherlockians, lead the the gustatorily grave Gus, tasted the seeming blood and quickly discovered it was sweet-tasting fake blood.

Attention quickly turned to Maggie as the prankster behind the note and threat.

New Suspect!

Jamie, a family friend, stopped by for tea and to see what we have heard about Olivia. We filled her in on our notes:

and sought her advice.

Later, Lisa discovered one of Olivia's shoes in her purse:

Jamie was very agitated and quickly left the party. Perhaps an accomplice? A new prime suspect?

A Look Behind the Scenes

We thought it might be interesting to see the time schedule we try to follow for each day of camp.

Here, on its side, is the week's schedule of events. The Blue is lunch, the green boxed out area is swimming or games or a movie, and the pink boxes are the running mystery. The orange boxes are the different activities and crafts.

More Ciphers!

Lisa showed us how to make a simple substitution cipher, in which one lettter has a corresponding letter to make a key for deciphering a phrase, like the one below the cipher wheel.

Here is BenFranklin's cipher he used while ambassador to France. He used a French text to tie the letters to for translating the message.

Here is a grid code.

And here is a simple method of wrapping paper around an item and writing the code across the paper. When unrolled it is unable to be read, and can only be read when wrapped around a cylinder of appropriate width.

Clues inside Clues!

While practicing our analytical ability this morning when I discovered that there was a print out in the printer. Lisa said she had not printed it. It was directions on how to open a dial combination padlock. While we were working on this dancing men cipher, Lisa informed us that this box

had arrived on the front steps.

We also discovered that there was a partial footprint nearby.

We determined it was a large foot, and could have been a male or a tall female. Hannah accidentally stepped into the print, but we couldn't do much with it anyway.

The box was locked by a padlock, so we decided to continue deciphering the directions so we could open the box

Inside the box we found a book, Learn French, and it was burnt and had gray hairs in it. What could it mean.

When we pick up the box, we discovered another cipher, perhaps dropped by mistake.

So far, the prime suspect is Maggie, with an unknown accomplice.

Maggie is the stylish woman in the middle picture. I am the hunky hat-wearing guy in the lower left.

Other suspects are, clockwise, from top left: Hecate, Olivia's grandmother, who likes old books and is to hold the $8000 dollars for the kidnappers. Olivia, in league with her friend Sophie, who may have faked a kidnapping to raise money for a trip to Paris. Lisa, Olivia's mother, who is tired of telling Olivia she can't go to Paris. And Woody, who is so handsome, he must be up to something! In the center is the prime suspect: the sister, who admitted she needs $8000 dollars for college!

Dancing Men Cipher

One of the first things the Sherlockians did was to solve a cipher: a code in which one alphabet is replaced by another. Here is a scene from the British Grenada TV series in which Holmes and Watson decipher a message.

Here is a link to a web page that explains the dancing men font and one in which you can download the font.

Shhhh! Sherlock Holmes Week Has Begun!

Sherlock Holmes and his literary side kick have arrived at Camp SO Cool.

And the first thing we did was to study analytical thinking, until this arrived!

We analyzed the ransom note and put our little Holmes' to work to solve the Mystery of Missing Olivia.

Our Ethics about Nature

One of the last experiences we had this week was to recall and discuss all the experiences we had and what we felt about them. After listing our several walks, drawings, observations, conversations, and dining experiences, besides swimming nearly every day and some staying home sick, we discussed what was natural and what was not. Several campers noted that going to the pool was somewhat natural; that it was not non-natural. Some campers pointed out that humans are animals too, and live on the planet too. We also discussed what we didn't like about the week: sweating, mosquitos, flies, scratchy grass, birds pooping in our shoes, etc. Then we made a list of our value statements toward nature, based upon an activity from the Walden Woods Project. Here's what the campers all believe:

People are responsible for taking care of the earth.
People need to share the earth's resources with all life on the planet.
People are no more important than insects, plants, bacteria, and all the other forms of life on earth.
It is possible for people to live in harmony with nature and without hurting the environment.
Conservation is important because nature has value in itself despite how it might be useful to people.
People are part of a complex ecosystem.
Everyone is equally responsible for reducing his/her impact on the planet.
Future generations have a right to a clean, healthy environment.

The campers did not believe the following:
Humans are separate from the environment.
It is more important to meet people's basic needs than to protect the environment.
The earth's resources are there for people to use for whatever purpose they want.

We hope the campers have started their personal journey of discovering their changing ethics to nature, and that they appreciate how hard it is to make happen what they would like to have happen. We talked about food packaging, for example, and how that can have a negative impact on their goals. We talked about political decisions: decisions that involve heterogenous populations and limited resources, and how some people do not get what they want, and sometimes the environment loses. We hope the campers don't have a simplistic attitude toward nature and conservancy, but begin to open themselves up to the complexity of sustaining the world they live in.

Thoreauvians Finish off Week with Home Made Root beer Floats

What a better way to wrap up the 19th century of Thoreau than to have a 19th Century treat, the root beer float. After making our root beer on Monday, we cooled down on Friday by having it poured over ice cream.

Here is some mugwort tea we brewed up today as well.

More Inspiration from Goldsworthy

Hannah's wreath art.

Hannah strung together leaves and let them float in the water.

Here a friendly dragonfly helps her carry the wreath to the water.

The wreath made a great background edge to her cairn near the water.

Woody also made a wreath and Holden helped him position it.

Inspire by Goldsworthy, Thoreauvians Make Art at the Falls

We worked on cairns at the base of the falls.

Here's Holden's first, simple one, that attracted some of the dragonflies that were buzzing around. You can see one faintly on the top rock of the cairn. I like how it feels like the cairn will fall over.