In the book I read and used for this writing, The Code of Silence, there are many things to prove and many things to use as evidences. However, i decided on this particular topic since it's the main thing the author emphasizes on.

There are times when secrets must be told. The Code of Silence, a book by Tim Shoemaker, proves this point. Cooper MacKinnon, a 13 year old boy, has witnessed a robbery with his friends, Hiroand Gordy. They find themselves tangled in a web of mystery and deceit that threatens their lives. After being seen by the criminals, Cooper makes everyone promise never to reveal what they have seen.  Telling the truth could kill them, but remaining silent means an innocent man takes the fall and a friend never receives justice. The three friends, trapped in a code of silence, must face the consequences ofchoosing right or wrong when both options have their price.

Cooper makes his friends follow the code of silence, except that Hiro doesn’t seem to like the idea. Her opinion is that even if they have to take a risk, telling the truth to the police is better than keeping the secrets themselves and keep lying to other people. Nevertheless, she didn’t break the code, either. She knows that Cooper chose the code of silence because of the fact that one of the criminals had Cooper’s house key. Cooper tries his best to look calm at school, but he can’t stop himself from looking behind his back. Besides, Cooper had accidently left his school backpack with an English book from school inside at the robbery scene. Therefore, the police were tracking down the unknown witness in Cooper’s own school, for Cooper’s school was the only school that were using the same type of English book that they found at the robbery scene. Hiro was convinced that all three of them should tell the truth and go to the police. On the opposite side, Cooper saw that the robbers wore cop pants and thought, ‘What if the police and the cops were involved in this robbery?’(p.258) He was especially suspicious with detective Hammer, who was so into finding the unknown witness, Cooper. He thinks occasionally about what Hiro had said to him.

Gordy tries to make peace between Hiro and Cooper who started fighting after the code of silence appeared to their lives. He says all the time that friends are not supposed to fight with each other. Except that the whole reason that Hiro and Cooper fight is because of the code of silence. It made their relationship worse than ever and they started not trusting each other. Hiro thinks that the code of silence is making all of them lie to other people. But, in Cooper’s opinion, the code of silence was the only way to protect them even if it meant that they needed to lie more. However, Cooper started feeling afterwards that he WAS sick of lying himself. It was just that he didn’t say it aloud. When Gordy started agreeing with Hiro, Cooper finds him lost in the tangle of lies while his friends are trying to cut through their way in the tangle of lies. Even Gordy thinks the best way out of this is to tell the truth. Gordy realizes that he and Hiro are the only people who could tell Cooper that lying has to be stopped.

Hiro likes her only two friends, Cooper and Gordy. But, she started to notice that Cooper has changed after the robbery. She thinks that Cooper lies without feeling guilty. He tries to hide his secret (that he was the unknown witness) even to his family. Hiro thinks that secrets must be told, or at least to close friends or family. At the end, she states her feeling to Cooper that it’s wrong to lie and saying it’s a white lie, or half-truth. Cooper, at that point, has figured it out and told his friends that he was sick of lying and wasn’t going to lie ever. Hiro is happy to hear that and feels safe again. She realizes that she was right the whole time about lying. She had rebuilt her friendship with Cooper again and they started trusting each other.

Usually, secrets must be revealed. Cooper tells to the detective at the end, “The truth? That’ll be easy. It’s the lies that are really hard.” (p. 327) Most people don’t realize that truths are the best after
they experience it. In my opinion, I think that people can keep secrets, except people can’t lie because of secrets. Really, just as Cooper said before, telling the truth is the easiest thing to do, for there are many evidences. Telling a lie is just making us use our brain. So, why don’t we start to tell the truth instead of lies?