Samantha Spinner and the Spectacular Specs

by Russell Ginns

  “Major mosque at twelve o’clock!” Nipper called.

  From his seat in the motorcycle’s sidecar, he pointed at a huge tan structure rising ahead.

  “Now, that is the Great Mosque of Djenné,” Seydou told Samantha.

  The mosque resembled the one in Mopti but was much bigger. Three rectangular towers rose above a main entrance. High walls connected many other towers and entrances. A curved wall surrounded the building, separating it from a busy market outside. Wooden posts stuck out from all sides. Just like the building in Mopti, it reminded Samantha of a porcupine.

  “The towers are over fifty feet high,” Seydou told them as they approached. “It’s the tallest building in the city, and the tallest mud-brick building in the world.”

  As they drove closer, he pointed up.

  “Look carefully,” he said. “Each tower has a real ostrich egg on top.”

  Samantha squinted at the tiny white dots on the tips of the towers.

  “Wonderful,” she said. And it was. The shapes of the towers and along the top of the mosque walls made her think of sandcastles.

  “I never thought you could make something so beautiful out of mud,” she added.

  “Well, it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere,” said Nipper.

  “No place is in the middle of nowhere,” said Seydou.

  Samantha nodded in agreement. Then she stopped and stared at Seydou.

  “Wait,” she said. “Did you just make that up, or did you hear somebody else say—”

  Honk! Honk! Honk!

  Behind them, a very loud horn blared. It sounded like that of a huge truck. Samantha turned to see a tiny car speeding toward them. The horn kept honking as the car gained on them. There were balloons and angry clown faces pressed against the windows inside the car. A huge shoe, caught in the passenger-side door, flapped in the wind.

  Samantha had no idea how many clowns were inside the little car. She guessed at least five. They screamed and pointed at her and Nipper, but she couldn’t hear their words over the roar of the motorcycle engine and the honking horn. Seydou looked at the car, then at her. She looked at him.

  “Clown car,” they both said at the same time.

  Seydou nodded, faced forward, and revved the engine. Samantha held on tight.

  The motorcycle blasted ahead, leaving the tiny car behind. They sped along the highway, weaving past cars, buses, and goats, and pulled off, coasting into a crowded neighborhood. They continued on, coming to a market swarmed with merchants and shoppers. It was as big as the one in Mopti. Seydou steered the bike around food carts and pedestrians. They skidded into a space between two parked buses and came to a stop.

  “Hop off here,” said Seydou. “I’ll lure those goons out of town.”

  Samantha nodded and climbed off the bike. She put the helmet back on its hook and smiled at him.

  “Thanks for all your help,” she said. “I really mean it.”

  “That goes double for me,” said Nipper.

  He hopped out of the sidecar, gave Seydou a thumbs-up, and joined his sister.

  “I hope you find your uncle—I mean, oval,” Seydou said.

  Then he revved the engine and took off around a corner.

  Seconds later, Samantha heard the tiny car’s loud horn again. Then the sound of shouting clowns and a rumbling motorcycle faded into the distance.

  Samantha and her brother stood between two buses. She opened her umbrella. Then she turned it over and lowered it gently to the ground. Nipper passed her the magnifying glass, and she knelt down to search.

  “The line next to the oval looks like waves,” she said, squinting through the lens. “I’m going to guess that means it has something to do with water.”

  She thought about the water slide in Florence, Italy. That started at a big fountain. Little by little, she was figuring out how to decipher the Plans.

  She closed the umbrella and used it to help her stand up. She stepped out from between the buses and looked around.

  “Let’s go…there,” she said, and pointed to a narrow side street.

  A block away, it sloped down and ended at a river.

  Walking side by side, they headed toward the water. As the river grew closer, she could tell that Nipper was on the lookout for clowns.

  A woman carrying an empty woven basket in each hand passed them, heading in the opposite direction. A boy—who looked about Nipper’s age—walked beside her, dragging a stick along the dirt road.

  The woman stopped and barked at the boy. Samantha couldn’t tell what language she spoke, but she clearly told him to stop fidgeting and poking things with sticks. “Some things are truly universal,” said Samantha.

  “Did you say something, Sam?”

  She shook her head and pointed down the road. The smooth dirt street ended, becoming a rocky slope. She hopped down a few feet and landed on the sandy shore of the river. Nipper skidded behind her.

  “Hold on,” she said, and took in the scene.

  A man was using a long pole to push his boat through shallow brown water. A dog and two goats rode in the boat with him. He smiled and waved as he passed. To their left, a dozen yards away, a paved street extended all the way to the water’s edge. Cars and pedestrians boarded a bright blue river barge. To their right, a sandy strip separated the water from the slope up to the town.

  Samantha took the sunglasses from her purse, put them on, and looked around. The world grew purple, but nothing else changed. She squinted at the man in the boat, now coasting away. He smiled and waved again. One of the goats bleated.

  “Nothing there,” she said.

  “Great, Sam,” Nipper replied.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” she asked, putting the glasses back in her purse. “There’s nothing. I’m not even sure we’re supposed to be in Mali. You didn’t pay attention when you picked up the letter cards, so we—”

  Nipper tapped her on the shoulder.

  “One more time,” he said, pointing to the embankment a few yards to their right. “Grate, Sam.”

  A metal grate was set into a steep section of the embankment. It was shaped like an oval.

  “Great,” said Samantha.

  “I told you,” said Nipper.

  She walked up to the grate. A screen of crisscrossed metal bars was about her height. She pulled on one bar and the grate swung open like an oval screen door.

  “That was easy,” she said to Nipper.

  “Not if you count getting attacked by clowns and chased through a crowded market,” he replied. “Did I mention that I got hit in the face with a rubber duck?”

  Samantha nodded and examined the grate more closely.

  “Oh, yeah,” Nipper continued. “There was a two-hour motorcycle ride. Tiny car, angry clowns. You know. That kind of easy.”

  She ignored him and leaned forward to peek inside the oval doorway. A narrow staircase curved down to the left.

  “Come on,” she said, and held the grate open for her brother to climb through the entrance.

  Then she followed him. She heard the grate clang shut behind her as she went down the steps.

  Light filtered in through the grate, so the way was easy to see as she marched downward. As she descended, she realized that the staircase hugged a curved wall of thick brown glass. She paused and examined the wall. No. It was clear glass, filled with brown water, probably from the river outside.

  “Nipper,” she called. “We’re walking around the outside of a giant glass water bottle.”

  He was already around the bend ahead of her and didn’t answer.

  As she continued down the steps, she could hear the huge tank creaking. She stopped and listened. The whole big thing seemed to be under tremendous pressure. This didn’t feel especially safe. She walked faster down the steps.

  The longer she walked, the
farther she got from the grate above, and the darker it became, making it more and more difficult to see. She pressed forward and discovered only more curve. In near-total darkness, she stepped down onto a flat surface. A light came on.

  Nipper stood beside a panel of light switches. He was grinning from ear to ear.

  Samantha gazed up. They had walked down and around a glass tank of brown river water. The tank, about four stories high, narrowed at the bottom and connected to a pipe that ran past them into a chamber beyond. She had been right. They were standing at the base of a giant upside-down bottle.

  The huge glass tank creaked once more. Samantha guessed it held a million gallons of water. She looked around nervously—and saw Nipper.

  He stood there, watching her with a half-crazy smile. Samantha could tell he was waiting for her to ask him something.

  “Okay. I’ll bite,” she said. “What did you find?”

  “Nothing much, Sam,” he answered calmly. “Just…this!”

  He flipped another light switch with one hand while waving dramatically with the other.

  He stood beside a shiny silver vehicle. It looked like a jet fighter without wings—or maybe a rocket lying on its side. A hole on top revealed an open cockpit. Inside, two seats faced forward. There was no canopy or cover. A thick metal pipe connected the back of the vehicle to the bottom of the giant bottle.

  With the lights on in the chamber, Samantha could see that the strange rocket pointed at the entrance to a tunnel. A sign dangled over the entrance.

  JAVA

  Nipper scampered into the cockpit.

  “This is going to be great,” he said.

  Samantha definitely didn’t like the sound of that.

  A little over a year ago, their dad had given Nipper a Hydro Howitzer for his birthday. It turned out to be one of George Washington Spinner’s worst decisions ever. He warned Nipper not to turn the power up past level five. Nipper insisted that because he was seven years old, he should be able to fire the water gun at level seven. Then, when no one was looking, he turned it all the way up to ten. When he fired it, the water blasted a hole in their back fence. Kids ran for their lives. The cake disintegrated. The birthday party ended early that day. And half of their lawn furniture was gone.

  “Hurry up!” Nipper shouted.

  He was already strapped into the left seat, adjusting a headrest behind him.

  Samantha climbed over the side of the rocket and settled into the cockpit on the right. The spongy padded chair fit snugly around her body. She checked for her purse, wedged the umbrella between the two seats, and tugged to make sure that it was secure. Then she reached for the safety belt. It snapped together across her chest, holding her tight under a big orange X.

  “Pilot to copilot,” said Nipper.

  Nipper stared at a glowing red button on the dashboard. It had one word: Push. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. His finger moved toward it.

  “Wait a second,” said Samantha.

  She glanced around the cockpit, looking for anything that said Roof or Close hatch. She peeked out over the top.

  The connection between the bottom of the giant bottle and the metal pipe was vibrating, and a fine stream of mist hissed from the joint. There was a lot of water pressure between the bottle and the rocket. She scanned the chamber quickly.

  Along the wall, behind where Nipper had stood, Samantha noticed a row of hooks with orange jumpsuits, helmets, and boots. A sign above them said:

  SURVIVAL SUITS

  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

  “Ten. Nine. Eight,” said Nipper in a robotic voice.

  “Wait,” said Samantha.

  She unsnapped her X restraint and stood up. With both hands, she started to pull herself out of the cockpit.

  “Three-two-one…blast-off!” Nipper shouted quickly, and pressed the button.

  Boom!

  In Samantha’s history class, they’d learned about atomic bombs the United States tested over islands in Micronesia in the 1950s. Those tests probably sounded half as loud as this did.

  Wham!

  A shock wave knocked Samantha backward into the cockpit. She landed on her back as the rocket shot forward. She was pinned to the padded seat, with her feet where her head should have been! As she looked up through the cockpit opening, the top of the tunnel became a blur.

  The rocket blasted into the mouth of the tunnel and everything went black. Water gushed into the cabin.

  “Hydropower is so awesome, Sam,” Nipper called.

  Samantha tried to move her arms, but the force of acceleration was too strong. She grasped a strap of her purse and held on tight. The rocket rumbled as they continued to speed up. She shut her eyes tight and gritted her teeth, as wave after wave of swirling spray whipped at her face and hair.

  Her left shoe flew off. Her sock was instantly soaked, and water began to pour down her leg.

  “Hey, Sam!” Nipper shouted. “Did you notice the sign over the tunnel before we took off? It said ‘Java.’ ”

  The rocket roared again. Water soaked Samantha from every direction.

  “Maybe that was a clue we’re headed to Seattle,” Nipper continued. “You know…java is another name for coffee.”

  Samantha had already told him they were going to Java, Indonesia. There didn’t seem to be much point to repeating it.

  The rumble grew louder, drowning out the sound of her brother’s voice.

  It was probably a good thing, thought Samantha. If she heard him say “great,” “cool,” or “awesome” one more time, she would have to summon superhuman strength, overcome the force of the acceleration, and strangle him.

  The vehicle rattled as they zoomed onward in the dark.

  Lying on her back with no way to move, Samantha thought about how she wound up there. She was absolutely sure that going to Mali was a mistake. There was no sign of Uncle Paul, and nothing showed up through the purple glasses. Either her brother had missed some cards or A, L, I, and M spelled something different.

  The rocket’s acceleration pinned her hands to her sides.

  Now they shot through a tunnel on their way to Java. Samantha knew that it was an island in Indonesia with a slidewalk to Seattle. She’d go home and start over.

  Of course, there were those awful clowns. What were they doing? What was all that coughing and sneezing about? And why did they mention Dynamite and Zzyzx?

  “Holy cowabunga!” Nipper shouted. The rumbling of the rocket had begun to fade. “This is great, cool, and really awesome!”

  The rocket slowed down.

  Now that she could move freely again, it took all of Samantha’s self-control not to grab her little brother by the neck.

  Section 05, Detail RCHH3R3

  The Great Mosque of Djenné

  The Great Mosque of Djenné, in Mali, is the world’s largest mud-brick building.

  It was originally constructed in the thirteenth or fourteenth century and rebuilt as recently as 1907. It is one of the most famous landmarks in Africa.

  It is considered by many to be the finest example of adobe architecture. Because it is constructed entirely of local mud, clay, and straw dried in the sun, many modern builders praise it as a model of sustainable design.

  The mosque’s three largest towers have spires topped with ostrich eggs. These eggs are symbols of good fortune. The distinctive wooden poles projecting from the building are used for decoration and also as scaffolding for repairs.

  * * *

  • • •

  A few blocks from the Great Mosque is an underground, high-power water rocket that can transport one or two passengers to Java, Indonesia, in less than an hour.

  Search the embankment between the south side of Djenné and the Bani River for an oval grate. It opens freely, leading to a secret staircase. The stairs wrap around a huge t
ank, filled with water from the nearby river.

  Be sure to take advantage of the survival suits stationed conveniently beside the rocket. Otherwise, the ride to Indonesia will be wet and extremely uncomfortable.

  “Watch out for the SUN!” Nipper shouted.

  Light poured in as the rocket screeched to a stop.

  Looking up through the cockpit opening, Samantha saw a metal grate above them. Sunlight shined through. She shielded her eyes from the glare and watched the bottoms of shoes going by overhead. Whatever was up there, it was crowded.

  Groaning, she lowered her legs, rolled over, and sat upright in the seat. She looked straight ahead. She was wet and extremely uncomfortable. Water dripped down her face as she gathered her thoughts. She heard squishing sounds as Nipper climbed up and out of the rocket.

  Samantha looked over at the space between the two padded seats. Her heart started pounding. The umbrella was gone!

  She searched all around the cockpit, under both seats, and in all the spaces where an umbrella might fall. She didn’t see it. She scurried over her side of the rocket. She checked the ground, and in all the gaps where the metal floor met the sides of the silver vehicle.

  It wasn’t anywhere.

  She staggered around the front of the rocket, her left sock squishing on the floor.

  Nipper stood smiling. Patches of brown paste clung to his face and neck. He held the umbrella out for her.

  “Here you go, Sis.”

  Samantha adjusted her purse on her shoulder and snatched the umbrella. She bent down. With her free hand, she removed her remaining shoe. As she stood back up, she whacked Nipper on the side of the head with it.

  “Hey!” he shouted, rubbing his temple. “What was that for?”

  Spice globs sprinkled the floor as he rubbed.

  “That was to get your attention,” she growled.

  Samantha put the shoe back on her right foot. Then she popped open the umbrella. When Nipper held out the magnifier, she snatched that, too. The handle was sticky.