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(Cont'd) Crack the Code!The Code The Message The ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphics as their alphabet. Each symbol stood for a word, idea or sound. Eric wrote a message in the endpapers for you to read. He also put the key to the code in the endpapers to help you decipher the message.
Eric wrote the following instructions to help you decipher the code: "When Zoom the cat went to Egypt to find his friend Maria and his uncle Captain Roy, he stumbled upon an incredible archaeological find. Deep under a pyramid was a burial chamber filled with mummies in the shape of cats. And the walls were covered with fantastic carvings and hieroglyphics.
Luckily, one of the carvings contained a key to the hieroglyphics on the walls, so Zoom, with Maria's help, was able to decipher the meaning of the story told in the carvings. You, too, can use the key printed here to read the story of the Pharaoh Preposterous, Egypt's first feline pharaoh. Clue: Every symbol represents a letter, and they are in alphabetical order. This key is like the Rosetta stone which was discovered in Egypt by a member of Napoleon's army in 1799. In 1822, a French scholar, Jean-François Champollion, solved the problem of how to read the Egyptian hieroglyphics on the stone." Are you having trouble trying to decode the message? The first thing you have to do is decipher the code. Here's a hint… Look in the top left-hand corner of the endpaper for the table with the sleeping cat under it. Count the number of symbols on the table. Does that make you think of something? Think about it for awhile. If you still can't quite figure it out, check under The Code.
There are 26 letters in the alphabet, and there are 26 symbols on the table. Each symbol represents a letter of our alphabet. Starting at the left, a = asp (a poisonous snake), b = bee, c = cat, d = dog, e = eye, and so on. Now that you know the code, see if you can read the message that Eric has left for you. If you give up, check under The Message. 
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