Samantha Spinner and the Perplexing Pants

by Russell Ginns

  “But you’re right,” he said. “It’s quite hot in here.”

  “Where’s Mom?” asked Samantha.

  “Your mother went to the store to pick up an ice scraper. Just in case,” said Mr. Spinner. “She’s stopping at her clinic on the way home. Half her patients are cold-blooded, you know.”

  “I know,” said Samantha.

  Nipper entered through the back door and stopped in his tracks.

  “Whoa!” he said. “Why is it so incredibly hot in here?”

  “Okay, you’ve convinced me,” said Mr. Spinner, pulling off the mitten and handing it to Samantha. “Take over while I go turn off the heat.”

  Before she put it on, Samantha noticed that something was trickling out of the mitten. She let a little bit collect in her open palm. It looked and felt like sand, but it was white.

  “Salt?” she asked.

  “I prefer my waffles unsalted, thank you very much,” Nipper said, sitting down at the table.

  Samantha tossed the mitten onto the counter. Then she carried the plate full of fresh waffles to the table. Nipper watched eagerly, but she didn’t set it down.

  “I need your help finding Uncle Paul,” she told him. “So I have a deal for you.”

  She waved the plate of waffles in front of his face.

  “I’ll give you all these waffles. Unsalted. Then we start making a plan to find Uncle Paul. Along the way, you can complain about the Yankees losing…for a whole five minutes.”

  Nipper bit his lip. He seemed to be considering it.

  “Fifteen minutes?” he asked.

  “Okay. Fifteen. That’s the maximum time limit, though,” said Samantha.

  Nipper sniffed the air.

  “Can I complain a bit about the waffle that’s starting to burn over there, too?” he asked.

  Samantha turned to see smoke billowing from the waffle iron on the counter. She dropped the plate in front of her brother and dashed to the counter. She picked up the mitten, put it on, and lifted the lid to the waffle iron. With her other hand, she used the tongs to save the waffle. It was still mostly golden brown.

  “Yes, Nipper,” she said. “It includes this— Ouch!”

  The hot lid touched her hand through a hole in the faded yellow mitten. She loosened her grip on the tongs, and the waffle fell to the floor.

  “Wruf!” barked Dennis, suddenly alert.

  The Spinners’ pug darted across the floor, grabbed the waffle, and disappeared through the doorway. Samantha heard his plastic cone rattling down the hall.

  She set down the tongs, removed the mitten, and examined her hand.

  The waffle iron lid wasn’t hot enough to have burned her badly, but it had left a little red mark on the edge of her right palm, just below her thumb.

  She carried the mitten over to Nipper and sat down next to him.

  “See this hole?” she asked, pointing to a tiny circle below the thumb. “I think Uncle Paul made this on purpose.”

  Nipper looked at the mitten, too.

  “Why would Uncle Paul leave a mitten in the kitchen, especially one with a hole in it?” asked Nipper.

  He took a big forkful of waffle and chewed. He paused and looked thoughtful. He chewed some more.

  Samantha didn’t have an answer. Her uncle was mysterious, but he always did things for a reason.

  “Shake a little more of that salt onto my waffles,” said Nipper. “It tastes surprisingly good.”

  Samantha started to get annoyed, then stopped.

  She looked at the red dot on her open hand again…and smiled.

  “Finish your breakfast,” she said. She dangled the mitten and shook it, sprinkling salt onto his waffles as she spoke.

  “I’ll go get my umbrella,” she told him.

  She turned off the waffle iron and unplugged it.

  “And then we’re going to find Uncle Paul…”

  She held up her right hand, with the palm facing her brother.

  “…in Michigan,” she finished.

  “Why Michigan?” Nipper asked. “And how are we getting there? No more traveling in a ball. I’m done with that.”

  Samantha had already decided not to say much more before they reached their destination. She wanted to make sure this truce with Nipper would last.

  She left her brother with his waffles and went to fetch her umbrella—her red umbrella with the super-secret plans on the inside. It was the special gift her uncle had left for her when he’d disappeared the first time—and the best, most important tool she had for finding him. By the time she came back, Nipper was just finishing his breakfast.

  “Do you have your hand lens with you?” she asked.

  He reached into his pocket and held up his magnifying glass.

  “Almost always,” he said through a mouthful of waffle.

  “Good,” she told her brother. “Let’s go.”

  “Go?” asked Nipper, swallowing with a gulp. “Go to Michigan? Why?”

  “Whoopsy,” said Samantha. “Your fifteen minutes just started. Come on.”

  She folded the yellow mitten in half and slid it into her back pocket. Then she crossed to the back door, opened it, and walked out.

  On the walk to downtown Seattle, Samantha heard all about the wonderful New York Yankees, the lousy Los Angeles Dodgers, the rotten Boston Red Sox, how Missy Snoddgrass had stolen his Yankees, and the three games that stood between the Yankees…and doom.

  “I knew it,” said Nipper, looking up at the elephant-shaped neon sign. “You’re putting me back into a ball.”

  “Well…yes,” said Samantha. “But I’m going with you this time.”

  “You’re putting us back into a ball,” Nipper complained.

  This was exactly why Samantha had decided not to tell Nipper exactly where they were headed.

  A little more than a week ago, their very unpleasant neighbor, Missy Snoddgrass, had trapped Nipper inside a giant ball of yarn. He’d rolled away and ended up inside the kogelbaan, a huge, underground, person-sized marble machine. Monkeys and daredevils had chased him. A French detective had arrested him. A thief with rainbow hair had thrown metal boomerangs at him, too. Clearly it had been a rough experience. Every time her brother talked about it, the story grew more dramatic and dangerous, and took longer to tell.

  Samantha was pretty sure her brother’s complaining wasn’t really about the kogelbaan. Nipper loved roller coasters. Sometimes he rode them until he barfed! He was actually just upset about the Yankees, and it was turning him into a major-league whiner about everything.

  But the kogelbaan had definitely been an amazing discovery. And it was a super-secret way for them to travel to Michigan…and look for Uncle Paul.

  Samantha spotted the hidden button on the side of the Elephant Car Wash.

  “I’m doomed,” Nipper said quietly, staring at his shoes. “Everyone is doomed.”

  “You have exceeded your maximum time limit for whining,” said Samantha. “Besides, we’re not riding this for long—we’re just taking the ball to the next station.”

  He shook his head and seemed to snap out of it a little.

  “Okay, Sam,” he said. “I’m ready for this ball game.”

  “Good,” she said. “Now stand back.”

  She reached out with her umbrella and tapped the button. A section of wall slid sideways. Water splashed around the entrance, but they stood far enough away to stay dry.

  “Follow me,” she told Nipper.

  Samantha slung the umbrella over her shoulder and glanced at her hand. A few stray salt crystals sparkled on her palm. She was pretty sure it was Uncle Paul who had put salt into the mitten before he’d left with the SNOW. But why?

  In a spray of mist, she began to slide forward on the slick tile floor. As if balanced on an invisible s
urfboard, Samantha put her hands out and coasted down the long, wet passageway.

  “Foul balls,” she heard Nipper mutter behind her as she slid into the secret underground lobby leading to the kogelbaan station.

  When Nipper had gotten lost inside the kogelbaan, Samantha had had to recruit several friends and roll across the country to save him. She’d even had to defeat the CLOUD along the way.

  It had been an amazing adventure, but the kogelbaan was an unpredictable and confusing way to travel. Samantha hadn’t planned to explore the marble coaster again for a while—at least until after she’d saved Uncle Paul. And yet there they were, rolling under the United States, inside a giant sphere.

  Ten minutes after they’d boarded their ball, they exited out of the kogelbaan station at Allen Park, Michigan. Above them, a colossal car tire rose into the sky.

  “The hole in the mitten was right here,” said Samantha.

  She held out her open hand for her brother to see and pointed at the tiny red dot where she’d gotten burned.

  “If my hand were a map of Michigan, this dot would be just outside Detroit. Allen Park is just outside of…”

  Her brother wasn’t looking at her hand. He was staring past her, over her shoulder.

  “Whoa, Nelly!” said Nipper. “It’s the world’s biggest tire!”

  Samantha had forgotten that this was new for Nipper. When he’d first stumbled into the kogelbaan, his trip had been a tumbling out-of-control ride. Nipper had rolled past this stop on the marble coaster. He’d been too out of control to take a closer look at things, even if he’d wanted to.

  Samantha, on the other hand, had used a map and then changed course to reach this exact spot to help her brother find his way home.

  “The Uniroyal Giant Tire is eighty-six feet high and weighs eleven tons,” said Nipper.

  But of course her brother knew all about it. He was a member of WRUF—the Worldwide Reciters of Useless Facts—and a colossal tire was exactly the kind of thing that a WRUF member would memorize and recite.

  Samantha looked to her right. In the field close by, she knew they’d find a pit with monocycles—electric, one-wheeled vehicles. She and her friends had ridden them from here to Kansas. The SNOW, however, probably didn’t know about the monocycles, and she doubted that her uncle would let them in on that super secret. If there were any clues about the SNOW, they had to be nearby.

  “Let’s look for any sign that Uncle Paul or the SNOW have been here,” she said.

  A busy, six-lane freeway ran along one side of the giant tire. Samantha decided they should head in the other direction. But she also didn’t want her brother to get distracted by the monocycles. He had enough trouble keeping focused without seeing a cool new vehicle. She led him away from the freeway, steering clear of the monocycle pit, and continued across the field.

  They reached a clearing at the edge of the field that Samantha hadn’t noticed the last time she’d been in this location. A dirt path lead to a cluster of single-story, industrial-looking buildings.

  Something sparkled. Samantha looked down and stopped. Nipper bumped into her.

  “What gives, Sam?” he asked. “Did you find something?”

  “Maybe,” she answered.

  Samantha knelt and ran her finger across the path. It felt sandy. She held it out for her brother to see.

  “Salt?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  The sparkling grains continued along the trail and disappeared into a building.

  “Let’s go there,” she said, pointing to the structure.

  They followed the salt to a corrugated aluminum building with a sign stenciled over the door:

  SALT NATIONAL OVERSTOCK WAREHOUSE

  “The SNOW?” asked Nipper.

  “Seems like it,” said Samantha. “But I don’t think that’s what the acronym stands for.”

  She jiggled the door handle. It wasn’t locked. She pushed, and the door creaked open. A small cloud of dust drifted out from the doorway. She coughed.

  “I guess nobody’s home,” she said.

  “Snowbuddy?” asked Nipper. “Did you just say ‘snowbuddy’s home’?”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Samantha. “Come on. We have to find Uncle Paul.”

  “Have it your way, Sam,” said Nipper. “I’m just trying to inject a little humor into this adventure.”

  Samantha didn’t respond. She wanted to get busy saving her uncle. She didn’t need anyone to inject any humor. She held the door open and waved for her brother to enter the building.

  Samantha and Nipper stood, alone, in a strange store. Propped on a counter, a handwritten sign said:

  BACK SOON

  OUT BUYING SNOWSHOES

  They were in a long room, lined with shelves and display stands filled with row upon row of boxes, bags, and other containers. Some of the containers were small, the size of a bag of flour. Others, resting on the floor, were as tall as Samantha, or even taller.

  “Rock salt,” she said, reading one of the boxes.

  “Table salt,” said Nipper, reading a large can.

  On every shelf there was some type of salt.

  Samantha coughed gently. The air was thick with salt dust.

  “De-icer is nicer,” said Nipper, reading a painted sign above a rack of saltshakers.

  “Unfreezing is pleasing,” replied Samantha as she read a carved salt plaque.

  “Prints in the salt. I think it’s a clue,” said Nipper.

  “Is that supposed to rhyme?” asked Samantha.

  “No, Sam,” he answered, pointing to the floor. “I think I found a real clue here on the floor.”

  Samantha looked down. Nipper was right. Dozens of footprints snaked along the salty floor. Most of the prints were from boots or sneakers. These soles were filled with patterns. One set of prints, however, left no pattern on the floor. They were just solid shapes.

  Samantha and her brother both said it at the same time.

  “Flip-flops.”

  Their uncle wore bright orange flip-flops all day, every day. Nipper actually had found a real clue. They were definitely on Uncle Paul’s trail.

  Nipper got down on his hands and knees and used his hand lens to study the footprints. As he moved about the floor, he stirred up a cloud of salty dust.

  Samantha felt dirty, and sticky. She licked her lips and they tasted salty.

  “When I get home, I’m going to spend an hour scrubbing off all this salt,” she said.

  She watched Nipper, crawling on the salty floor.

  “You should, too,” she told him.

  “I can’t really see that happening,” said Nipper.

  “Oh, come on,” said Samantha. “Do you always have to be exceptionally gross?”

  “No, Sam,” Nipper replied. “These footprints lead over here, and they just stop. I really can’t see how it’s happening.”

  Samantha squinted at the trail of flip-flop prints. They led up to a wall and stopped. She followed the prints to the wall and took the umbrella from over her shoulder.

  “Close your eyes,” said Samantha.

  “Why?” Nipper asked.

  “It’s about to get even saltier,” she said, and she began to open and close the umbrella. It kicked up a breeze, sending salt flying everywhere.

  Samantha closed her eyes and counted to ten, then stopped pumping the umbrella.

  “Okay,” she said. “You can open your eyes now.”

  Just as she’d hoped, the breeze had cleared most of the salt away from the wall, revealing the outline of a rectangle.

  “A secret door?” asked Nipper.

  Samantha nodded.

  “Sometimes you have to take a closer look at things,” she answered. “And clean up a bit, too.”

  She reached
out and pressed the wall, and it swung forward. Beyond, a staircase led down into some kind of a cave.

  “Let’s go,” she said to Nipper as she wiped her hand on her pants. She was definitely going to clean up when she got home. She had no idea how long from now that would be, though.

  Samantha and Nipper stopped at the bottom of the stairs. They stood at the entrance to a long, wide cavern. The walls sparkled. The huge space seemed to have been carved from salt.

  “Whoa,” said Nipper, pointing at the sides of the cavern with both index fingers. “We’re in a treasure chest.”

  Samantha looked around. The walls of the chamber were lined with statues. People, animals, obelisks, and other shapes stood every few feet. Some of them looked like stone; others were glasslike. Some of the statues looked as though they had been painted with gold.

  “It’s Neptune again,” said Nipper.

  A statue of a large man and four horses stood in a space close to one of the chamber walls. It looked just like the statue that Samantha and her brother had seen in Florence, Italy. Except that this one was only half as big, and it looked like it was made of glass, not white marble.

  “Somebody copied the one in Florence,” she told Nipper.

  As she continued looking around, Samantha began to recognize a lot of the other statues. She saw a small version of the Statue of Liberty. It was white, not green. She also spotted a miniature arch, like the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis, Missouri. But this one was white, too, not silver.

  “I think these things are made of salt,” said Samantha. “Or some other kind of crystals. And I think everything here is a copy of something famous.”

  Here and there, baskets of gems rested on the ground. Nipper bent down and picked up a big blue gem.

  “A diamond?” he asked. “Hope?”

  Suddenly the gem crumbled between his fingers.

  “Nope,” said Samantha.

  “This reminds me of that tomb in Egypt,” said Nipper. “The one with all the treasures…And that big pit.”