She could also see dozens of SUN clowns running around backstage, yelling at one another and pointing up at her.
Nipper stood at the far end of the catwalk. For the first time in Samantha’s life, her brother was the least ridiculous person around her.
“Over here, Sam!” he called.
She looked at the catwalk again—wooden planks separated by two-inch gaps. There were no handrails. Samantha took a deep breath. She was afraid to cross. Then she remembered looking down at the mountains around Machu Picchu and realized in an instant that this was nothing. She let out her breath and started to walk.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
Four peanut clowns stood below her, firing their guns.
Cra-tack!
A candy peanut hit one of the planks in front of Samantha, blasting it away.
Cra-tack!
Another candy peanut hit the bridge and another plank came loose. It dropped to the stage below and banged against something.
“Hey!” shouted a voice. “I’m getting battered!”
Samantha was sure the person was one of the pancake clowns she’d seen in Mali. She kept moving along the catwalk. She passed the model of the Temple of Horus, dangling from the bridge beneath her.
“You forgot to say duck!”
Cra-tack!
“Ouchie!” cried another clown.
Cra-tack!
“Wahoo! That hurt!” cried another.
Cra-tack!
“Wagga Wagga!” wailed another clown. “My noggin!”
As scared as Samantha felt, she still took a moment to reflect on the absurdity of these clowns.
Cra-tack! Cra-tack!
The bridge planks were disappearing, and she was only halfway to the other side. In front of her, Nipper watched with a terrified expression. She gritted her teeth and kept walking, taking extra-long steps to avoid missing-plank spaces. More clowns gathered on the floor, thirty feet below Samantha and the disintegrating catwalk. They grinned up at her as they eagerly awaited her doom.
Cra-tack! Cra-tack!
Planks, splinters, and candy peanuts flew by. Even more clowns came to watch.
“Hey, girl,” a clown shouted. “Drop by anytime!”
The clown standing beside him laughed as if this was the funniest joke in the history of the world.
Cra-tack!
Samantha stopped walking. The bridge had become unstable. It wobbled each time a plank flew away.
Samantha thought of the tongue depressor suspension bridge her dad had helped her build. The one that the chinchillas chewed. How many more planks could the catwalk lose before it came crashing down?
She knew the entire SUN stood below wondering the same thing.
Samantha looked over at her brother. And smiled.
“Nipper!” she called. “There’s a New York Yankees logo on the bottom of your slush cup!”
“What?” Nipper called back. “There is?”
He flipped over his plastic cup and inspected the bottom.
“Liar!” he shouted.
The top came loose. An almost-full bottle of super-hot cinnamon syrup fell thirty feet into the center of the SUN.
The cinnamon explosion sent bright red droplets in every direction, splattering the clowns. Cinnamon mist mixed with artificial fog, forming a spicy crimson tornado. A hot red cloud rolled across the floor.
No red ball nose filter has ever been invented that can withstand contact with a double-triple super-hot cinnamon cloud.
The clowns wheezed. They sneezed and coughed. Some dropped to their knees. Others fell, face-first, on the floor. They rolled, moaned, and whimpered. None remained standing.
Samantha started moving across the catwalk.
“Turn back, Sam,” Nipper yelled. “This is a dead end!”
Samantha stopped. “Seriously?” she replied. “You couldn’t tell me that before I walked halfway across this death bridge?”
“Which one of us told a big fat lie about the Yankees logo on a cup?”
Samantha held out her hand. Carefully, Nipper crossed to Samantha. When he got to her side, she helped him step over the gaps in the catwalk and they slowly made their way back to the spiral staircase. Before they reached the end of the bridge, they both stopped and looked down. They took a moment to glance at the SUN, still on the floor below.
Quack-quack!
Samantha and Nipper were only a few feet from the end of the catwalk. The duck-foot clown blocked their path, towering over them. She looked down, seething with rage. She wheezed heavily. A sticky red drop of super-hot cinnamon syrup dangled from a spike on her crown.
There was no way to get around her. Samantha looked back at the wobbling catwalk and then down to the floor thirty feet below.
“Clown seasoning!” Nipper shouted suddenly.
Samantha watched as Nipper pulled out the plastic bag of blue powder. He threw it on the bridge between them and the huge clown. Then he stuck out his foot and brought it down on the bag with a mighty stomp.
The bag didn’t break open. Instead, it slipped through a gap between planks and disappeared. Samantha heard a faint thud as it landed on a clown far below.
She saw the tall woman give Nipper a double-triple super-evil look and raise one of her huge legs, aiming a big yellow webbed foot at his face.
Samantha took a deep breath. She leaned in, grabbed hold of the duck shoe, and yanked it from the woman’s foot. It quacked once in her hands.
Standing on one foot, the clown tried to snatch the shoe back, but Samantha dodged to her right. The woman lost her balance and fell forward. She crashed onto the bridge, snapping three planks at once.
Samantha and Nipper dove over her to the top of the staircase as the catwalk gave out.
Boards and duck-foot clown tumbled down, taking lights and the Temple of Horus with them, and crashing backstage on top of the rolling, coughing SUN.
A loud creaking sound filled the theater. Samantha looked at the stage in time to see the model of Cleopatra’s Needle begin to wobble. Three mermaids noticed it, too, and dove from their lair in the nick of time. The obelisk toppled onto the foam-mattress mermaid cave, crumbling into a thousand pieces.
A ripping, crackling noise rang out. Samantha watched as the glittering Sphinx split in two and collapsed, crushing a pair of neon-pink pyramids. In a matter of minutes the entire set disintegrated. A new cloud rose above the stage—plaster dust, bits of foam, and flecks of gold paint.
“Hey, Sam,” said Nipper, tapping her on the shoulder. “If you’re not going to say ‘That was to get your attention,’ can I?”
“I think the moment’s passed,” she answered.
Just as she spoke, Samantha spotted a man, center stage, rising from the wreckage. Covered in plaster dust, he was white as a ghost.
Calmly, he began to brush himself off. The mermaid trio shuffled over and fanned him with their light-up tails. Dust swirled away.
The man wore a tuxedo T-shirt.
His pants were plaid.
He wore bright orange flip-flops.
It was Uncle Paul!
Samantha gasped. She turned and raced down the spiral staircase. Halfway to the bottom, she spotted Buffy pulling the curtain rope.
“Wait!” Samantha cried, as she reached the bottom of the staircase.
She hopped over a coughing, cinnamon-covered clown and raced toward the stage—but she wasn’t fast enough. The curtain dropped. Uncle Paul was gone again!
Buffy poked her head through an opening in the curtain and pointed her deadly sharp ibis scepter at Samantha.
“Stay away from my stage,” she barked, and disappeared behind the curtain again. The orchestra began to play.
Samantha searched for another path to the front of the theater. Then she noticed the floor, covered with
groaning clowns.
“We’ve got to find a way to keep them here until the cops arrive,” she told Nipper.
In a corner, on the far side of the building, she spotted the rolled-up flag of the Federated States of Micronesia.
“Help me wrap them up,” she said.
Samantha and Nipper ran to the giant spool of fabric and began pushing. They rolled it to the middle of the backstage area and lined it up next to the SUN. Together, they grabbed one corner of the fabric, draped it over two clowns, and tucked it beneath them. The clowns were too incapacitated by the cinnamon to argue. Or even to make bad puns. Within minutes, they had the clowns tied up inside knots of blue fabric and white stars.
“There they are!” someone called.
Samantha recognized the voice immediately. It was their mom.
She looked at the loading dock door and saw twenty-two police officers following her parents to the SUN pile. They began to tug at the fabric.
“We’ve been tracking these clowns for a long time,” one of the officers said to Mrs. Spinner. “How did you know to contact us?”
“We were up in the mezzanine,” she answered. “I clearly heard my daughter asking for someone to call the authorities.”
“Well…good job paying attention and listening, ma’am,” he said.
Samantha noticed her mom looking around at her family.
Mr. Spinner stood by the big wind machine, inspecting it closely.
Nipper kicked a little gold crown.
“I sure wish more people paid attention and listened,” Mrs. Spinner said to the officer.
“Spectacular,” said Mr. Spinner, fiddling with the fan controls. “I’d like to see the specs for this device.”
Something squeaked.
“Up there!” Samantha shouted, pointing to the rafters.
The balloon clown hovered close to the ceiling. He dangled from a dozen colorful balloons.
“You can’t catch meeeeeeeee!” he squealed.
Nipper picked up the bag of sparkling blue powder.
“Here’s detergent, Dad,” he called, tossing him the bag. “There’s a barrel of glycerol behind you…and a great big fan!”
Mr. Spinner caught the bag and looked over his shoulder, and then back to Nipper. He nodded. He turned on the wind machine; then he pulled the lid off the barrel of glycerol. He scooped the clear liquid into the bag, shook it, and poured it in front of the vibrating, roaring fan. Soapy bubbles swirled into the air, rising to the ceiling.
Samantha looked up. Bubbles swirled around the clown. As he tried to bat them away, they popped, coating his hands with goopy foam.
“Eeeeeeeeeeek!” the clown screamed, and the balloon strings slipped through his soapy grip. In a flash, the balloons disappeared into the rafters.
Whomp!
The clown landed on the SUN pile. Before he could move, two police officers stepped forward and quickly pulled a corner of the Micronesian flag over him. They tucked it under and twisted the bundle twice, securing him to the big blue clown collection.
The balloon clown’s voice buzzed and squeaked from inside the pile, like a shipment from Chinchillas Direct.
Mr. Spinner turned off the fan and walked over to Nipper.
“I’m proud of you, son,” he said, patting him on the shoulder. “Good job paying attention and listening when I used glycerol for the super-bubble science show at your birthday party a little over two years ago.”
Samantha saw their father wink at their mother. He kept patting Nipper on the shoulder. Or maybe he was wiping glycerol and dishwasher soap from his hand.
As she headed over to congratulate them, she heard the curtain rustling.
“Uncle Paul?” she asked, excited.
But it wasn’t Uncle Paul who poked a plaster-covered, paint-flecked head through the curtain. It was Buffy.
“Mom! Dad! Why aren’t you in your seats?” Buffy screamed, looking past Samantha.
Buffy shook her head angrily, sprinkling bits of glitter from her Egyptian fairy-tale headdress.
“Hi, dear,” said Mrs. Spinner. “We had to call the police and help stop some clowns.”
Buffy looked at Samantha and glared. Then she turned back to her parents.
“How much of the show have you seen so far?” she asked suspiciously.
“We’ll go up to our seats in a minute,” Mrs. Spinner replied. “Your father and Nipper just used bubbles to stop a strange flying clown and—”
“Oh, mother!” Buffy groaned. “You and your Seattle excuses. You’re missing my play. So many things are happening without my permission. I’m trying to make Scarlett Hydrangea’s Secret of the Nile survive.”
“Excuse me,” said Samantha. “Where did Uncle Paul go?”
“Uncle Paul?” Buffy shot back. “Uncle Paul? I’m working my fingers to the bone, watching every nickel and dime, herding all the people and animals, and all you care about is Uncle Paul!”
Samantha waited.
“Horribly dressed people are all over my theater and—”
Buffy stopped and inspected Samantha’s shirt. Her eyes came to rest on a spot of cinnamon slush.
“It’s true,” she said. “There are actually people out there who look worse than you do!”
Samantha didn’t respond.
Buffy stepped away from her sister and pulled back the curtain, revealing the stage and the audience beyond it, and raised her voice even louder.
“My sets are destroyed! The Great Flingo isn’t calm! I’m trying to tell the story of the magical eternal battle between good and evil, nobody can find any unicorns for me to buy, and all you care about is Uncle Paul!”
Samantha listened to her sister breathe heavily for a few seconds.
“So…do you know where Uncle Paul went?” she asked again.
“Can’t you pay attention to anything ever?” Buffy howled. She pointed at the audience. “Look at that crowd! Everyone came to see my show. Everyone got dressed up to look fabulous and—”
She glanced up at the mezzanine.
“Well, almost everyone. There’s a fashion disaster in row HH, seat 115.”
Samantha looked out at the theater. Nearly two thousand people sat in the audience. Some wore suits, some wore tuxedos, some wore ball gowns. The man in row HH, seat 115, wore a tuxedo T-shirt.
Samantha let out a loud gasp.
“Okay, so there’s Uncle Paul,” Buffy said quickly. “Happy?”
Samantha was frozen. She could barely breathe.
Buffy turned to her parents.
“Now…are you two finally going to watch my show?” she asked.
“Buffy,” said Mrs. Spinner. “Did you just find your missing uncle?”
“He didn’t need any finding, Mother,” Buffy snapped. “He was with me in New York, calling himself Horace Temple. I didn’t care what he wanted to call himself until he disappeared and I had to make this whole play survive on my own.”
She glanced sideways and brushed a chunk of plaster from her shoulder. Then she turned back to her parents.
“Are you…going…to watch…my show?” she asked forcefully.
“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Spinner.
“Good,” Buffy snapped.
She took a quick step backward out toward the audience and yanked the curtain shut in front of her.
Samantha heard the muffled sound of her sister shouting. Music started again.
“I’m going to see Uncle Paul right now,” Samantha told her parents.
“Come sit with us for the rest of the performance,” said Mrs. Spinner. “I’m sure your uncle can sit through a few more…Wait—where’s your brother?”
Samantha looked around.
“That’s odd,” said Mr. Spinner, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “He was located adjacent to me, and then he ju
st vanished.”
Samantha shrugged calmly. “It happens all the time, Dad.”
Mrs. Spinner wasn’t thoughtful or calm.
“This is New York City, George,” she said firmly. “We’ve got to find him before he does something foolish, reckless, or unwise.”
Holding hands, Mr. and Mrs. Spinner walked quickly through the backstage area of the theater and left through the loading dock’s smashed doorway.
Samantha sped to the theater’s side stairs and raced to the second balcony.
Before she’d caught her breath, she began searching for row HH, seat 115. There sat Paul Spinner. Explorer, billionaire, fashion disaster. Waffle maker, storyteller, sticker collector, fugitive, linguist, Hula-Hoop champ, hieroglyphics forger, note writer, flip-flop aficionado, code crafter, flea market trader, art and architecture enthusiast, flannel maven, dog walker, raccoon inflator/deflator, brochure hoarder, Word Whammy! player, exploding-sandals survivor, invisible-ink scribe. Unexplained vanishing person, lavish gift giver, super-secret traveler, and uncle.
She stood at the end of the row and observed. He sat, leaning back, with his arms behind his head, watching her sister’s crazy show.
“Psst,” she said finally.
Uncle Paul turned and saw her. He gave her a big smile, stood up, and squeezed his way to the aisle.
“I was just starting to enjoy this show,” he said. “It looks much better from out here.”
Samantha wanted to yell at her uncle. And ask why he had to be so mysterious. And complicated. She thought she might even tell him that this was the last time she’d ever talk to him. She decided she wanted him to be punched squarely in the face.
She clenched her fists.
No. That was not going to make her feel better.
She unclenched her fists and gave him a big hug instead.
“I’ve really missed you,” she said.
Uncle Paul let the hug go on for a good long time. Then he took her hand and led her downstairs to the lobby, where they didn’t have to shout over bagpipes, monkey screams, and explosions.
Samantha Spinner and the Spectacular Specs Page 20
