Answer: Secret Code #285

The secret message says:

PEACOCK

The secret note decoded: PEACOCK
The note, decoded.

Decode it with Python

This program does the decoding for you. Change the secret and the code to crack other messages!

secret = "16-5-1-3-15-3-11"
letters = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
words = []

for word in secret.split(" / "):
    decoded = ""
    for number in word.split("-"):
        decoded = decoded + letters[int(number) - 1]
    words.append(decoded)

print(" ".join(words))

When you run it, it prints:

PEACOCK

Did you know? Number codes are easy to use but also easy to crack, because A is always 1. Real secret codes used by computers today are much, much harder to break.