Dennis sat in the doorway.
“Wruf! Wruf!”
The bright light went on and off.
Dennis barked at the boy and the monkey.
He wanted to help the boy….
But the boy had told him to stay.
He wanted to help the boy….
But the boy had put granola bars on the floor.
Dennis stayed and ate the granola bars.
* * *
—
The granola bars were sweet.
The granola bars were gone.
The boy was gone.
Dennis waited for a while.
The boy didn’t come back.
* * *
—
Dennis went into another room.
Shiny things were everywhere.
Dennis licked a shiny thing.
It was salty.
Dennis licked another shiny thing.
It was salty, too.
Dennis licked.
Dennis licked and licked.
Nipper dashed after the monkey into a new room—and stopped. The monkey was gone.
Nipper bent forward, resting his hands on his knees, and tried to catch his breath.
“How…incredibly…awful,” he panted.
But this was more than awful. It was a catastrophe. He’d been so close to saving his Yankees. And now this! He stood up straight and caught his breath.
He remembered this room well. It was the place where he and Samantha had thought Uncle Paul had exploded. Here they had opened the secret panel and discovered a letter written for his sister.
“I didn’t miss opening day,” Nipper said, remembering the instructions from his uncle when he’d gotten the team as a present.
But now Nipper was missing closing day. This was going to be the last time his Yankees took to the field. Nobody would wear the awesome pin-striped uniforms again. Nobody except for…
“Musical theater!” he said loudly, and as his words echoed back to him, he began to survey all the walls of the room.
Nearly every surface was covered in hanging fabric.
He took a closer look.
Below one tapestry, close to the wall, two circus peanuts lay on the floor.
Nipper smiled.
He walked over and tugged on the tapestry. It snapped free from the ceiling and fell to the floor, revealing a wall covered in a grid of square white stones. Each square looked to be about two feet across, and featured a different strange carving: sea creatures, anchors, parrots, skulls, swords, and boats. None of them seemed very Egyptian at all.
Nipper ran his fingers across the panels as he explored. Samantha always complained that he poked and touched everything, and that it was super-annoying, but this was serious business.
When he touched the panel featuring a sailing ship, he stopped. It looked like it was made of white stone, but it felt different. This square was made of wood.
He pressed his ear to the panel.
Nothing.
He stepped back from the wall and stared at the square. It was definitely a different color from all the others. He reached out and banged on the panel.
Knock-knock!
He waited.
“Breep, breep?” a muffled voice squeaked from behind the panel.
Nipper thought about it for a second.
“Hugh,” he answered.
“Breep breep?” the voice squeaked from behind the panel again.
Nipper pushed one side of the panel, and the other side swung outward.
“Hugh better give me back that ring!” Nipper shouted.
Swish!
A ninja throwing star flew from the opening in the wall, and sailed directly past Nipper’s head, so close that he felt the rush of air against his cheek.
“Yaaaah!” Nipper screamed as he dove headfirst through the open panel.
Wham!
He tackled the monkey and grabbed on to it with both arms. The impact knocked off his dad’s headlamp, and they tumbled over each other, a ball of ninja monkey and true Yankees fan, and rolled into the darkness.
Nipper felt the monkey slipping through his grip. Then wham!
Nipper landed on his back…hard! His backpack cushioned some of the blow, but it still hurt a lot. And it really hurt where the Mickey Mantle bobblehead jabbed into his shoulder.
He heard footsteps and sat up quickly. The monkey was scampering away.
“Hello?” he called.
Silence.
It was too dark to see much of anything. He felt around with both hands.
Wet sand.
He stood up.
“Hello?” Nipper called again.
Nothing.
This was a strange new room. It had a muddy floor of some kind.
He listened carefully and heard the sound of rushing water.
Nipper stepped forward and stopped. His foot sank into shallow water.
He looked around again.
A few feet away, a glowing rectangle caught his eye.
“Headlamp…check,” said Nipper with a sigh of relief.
His dad’s headlamp rested, lens-down, in the sand. Nipper walked over, picked it up, and put it back on his head.
With the bright lamp lighting the space around him, he could see that he wasn’t in just another room at all. He had tumbled into some vast underground cavern. Nipper was standing on the bank of a wide underground river.
And, in the distance, the monkey was paddling away in a canoe!
Quickly Nipper took in his surroundings. A second canoe lay beached on the shore. Wasting no time, he dragged the boat into the water, picked up an oar, and began paddling as hard as he could after the monkey thief.
The current was stronger than Nipper had expected. It took a lot of strength to keep from being swept sideways and carried away from the monkey. But his Yankees needed him, so he stayed focused.
Water swirled and splattered as Nipper paddled furiously.
“Come back!” he shouted at the monkey in the distance.
He wanted to turn the radio on to check the game, but he didn’t dare stop paddling. The monkey was almost to the other side, and Nipper couldn’t let it get away. Sweat rolled down his forehead as he moved furiously, fighting the strong current.
Ahead he could see that the monkey had reached the shore of the river and was now climbing onto something shaped like a long rectangle. Just as it started to inch forward, Nipper realized what it was. The monkey had boarded a double mine cart. It looked a lot like the one that he and Sam had ridden in the salt mine under Detroit. The monkey was rolling away!
A bright green dot blinked in the distance. The ring was rolling away, too!
“Come back!” Nipper shouted again as he hopped out of the canoe and splashed ashore.
Once again, the monkey didn’t answer him. It didn’t really matter, though. Nipper was pretty sure that if it had, the reply would have been: “Breep!”
Nipper scrambled up the muddy shore and reached the tracks.
The double cart with the monkey was almost out of sight, but he could still see the blinking green dot of the evil scorpion ring.
He spotted a side branch of the rail system with a single mine cart parked on it.
He raced up to it and peeked inside. The cart was similar to the one he and his sister had ridden in the salt mine. But this one didn’t have a motor.
“Never mine,” said Nipper.
He started to chuckle to himself about his joke, then stopped. Would Samantha have thought it was funny? She probably wouldn’t have. She’d probably say it was “kid-brother funny,” which really meant, “I can’t tell if it’s funny or not because I’m too busy trying to save my uncle to laugh at anything.” Nipper plann
ed to test it out on her after he saved his Yankees.
He grabbed on to one side of the cart and began pushing it forward. It rolled onto the main track and started to accelerate. Nipper pulled himself up the side of the rolling cart, but as he climbed over the edge, his muddy wet shoes slipped.
Whomp!
He flopped into the cart.
As he lay on his back, his headlamp illuminated the ceiling of the cavern, or tunnel, or whatever he was rolling through. He watched it pass faster and faster as the cart accelerated. Everything rattled around him. It made his teeth hurt. He pulled himself up and faced forward.
His headlamp illuminated the track and—
Nipper gasped. About thirty feet ahead, the rails stopped, jutting out into the air. The track was about to end!
“I’m on a train to—”
There was no time to jump out…but there was plenty of time to scream.
“No-o-o-o-o-o…,” Nipper shouted as the cart zipped off the end of the track, “…whe-e-e-re!”
Gripping the sides of the rolling metal bin, he dropped like a big screaming bag of salt.
Clank!
The cart slammed down onto a new set of tracks. Nipper fell forward and crashed onto the cart’s metal flooring. Slowly he stood back up and steadied himself by holding on to the sides of the cart.
Sparks flew as it skidded down a new, even steeper incline. Wind whipped at his hair as he zoomed along. Glancing over the side of the cart, he saw that the tracks ran along the riverbank. The water churned and roiled.
He looked ahead again. In the distance, the double mine cart rolled in front of him—about thirty feet ahead on the track! The monkey was in the front cart, jumping up and down, waving the green emerald ring. Nipper thought he saw it flash between two hairy fingers.
Jeremy Bernard Spinner, also known as Nipper, knew more than anyone else on planet Earth about accidently dropping valuable items. From old comic books to fancy pocket watches to big blue diamonds, he had lost them all. And now, as the monkey jumped and flailed in the cart ahead, Nipper knew one thing for certain: that animal was going to drop that ring any second!
He had to catch up with the monkey. But how?
The wind whipped at his hair as he raced along. Nipper thought about all the magtrain and pneumatic tube travel he’d done recently. If he had learned anything, it was…
“Watch out for the WIND!” shouted Nipper.
He ducked low so he could just barely peek over the front of the cart. With less air resistance, he sped up and began gaining on the monkey.
Thirty feet…
The monkey was still facing forward. He didn’t seem to notice Nipper approaching—or maybe he didn’t care. He waved the ring, hopping up and down in his cart.
Nipper stared at the scorpion ring with a feeling of dread. That animal was really being careless!
Beyond the monkey, something caught Nipper’s eye. In the distance, the track divided into two, and the paths curved away from each other, leading into two different tunnels. And standing on the side of the tracks up ahead was a big metal arrow on a pole pointed to the left. Lower on the pole, a bright orange handle stuck out, ready to switch the direction of the track.
Nipper looked ahead to the tunnel on the right. Over the entrance was a sign:
WATCH OUT FOR THE WIND!
“I know that already,” said Nipper.
Another banner came into view. It was a white skull with bones sticking out of it in eight directions, on a black background.
Nipper recognized it immediately. It was the same banner he’d seen in Missy’s creepy basement, flying from the mast of the pirate ship in the painting.
Was it something important? Did that symbol have something to do with the WIND? Samantha was going to really want to know about this! He stuck out his hand, ready to grab the handle and make the track point to the right.
“Breep!”
He looked to his left. The double cart with the monkey had already rolled past the junction. Nipper watched the monkey disappearing into the left-hand tunnel. The green ring flashed in the darkness.
Then he looked back at the sign.
Twenty feet…
Nipper flipped the switch on the radio.
“Home run! It’s the top of seventh inning, and the Red Sox continue to lead, four to zero!”
Nipper let out a heavy sigh, switched off the radio, and shoved it into a side pocket of his backpack. He couldn’t go both ways, and his Yankees needed him.
He watched the lever go past.
“Sorry, Sam,” said Nipper as the cart zoomed past the junction into the left-hand tunnel.
He glanced at the mysterious skull and the warning about the WIND. He watched them disappear behind him as he rolled farther into the dark tunnel.
Then he faced forward again.
Ten feet…
“Breep!” the monkey howled.
Nipper climbed up onto the front of his rolling metal vehicle. The extra weight on the front caused sparks to spray up from the wheels like fireworks.
He took a deep breath….
And jumped.
Thump!
Nipper landed on his feet in the back half of the monkey’s double cart.
“Give me that ring!” he shouted over the roaring wind.
The monkey stared back at Nipper, then looked down at the connector between the two mine carts. It reached forward and yanked out the metal pin that had held the two together, and the vehicles began to separate.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Nipper shouted, and sprang forward again.
This time he didn’t slip. He grabbed the back of the cart and swung his legs up and over the edge, and landed right in front of the monkey.
Without the weight of the second cart, the front cart with the boy and the monkey began to speed up.
Nipper stepped forward and…
SCRA-A-A-A-A-PE!
The cart tilted forward with Nipper’s weight, and its rear wheels left the track, sending him sliding into the hairy beast.
“Breep!” the creature screamed, less than an inch from Nipper’s face.
Nipper smelled candy peanuts on the monkey’s breath, along with smoldering paint and metal from the sparks that were flying everywhere. He closed his eyes and imagined the smell of popcorn and soft pretzels on a sunny day in Yankee Stadium. A crowd was cheering and the organ played as…
Nipper opened his eyes.
No. If he didn’t save his Yankees now, that could never, ever happen again!
He reached out, placed an arm on either side of the monkey, and pushed against the front of the cart, shoving himself backward.
Clang!
The mine cart’s rear wheels slammed back onto the track.
“It’s a high fly ball…and it’s caught!”
The jolt had bumped the switch on the radio. It blared from the side pocket of Nipper’s backpack.
“Seventh-inning stretch! Let’s all sing a rousing chorus of ‘Take Me Out to the—’ ”
Ka-clunk!
The mine cart rolled over a bump in the track, and the radio turned off.
Nipper didn’t know if he should panic because his Yankees only had two and a half innings left, or if he should cheer because he didn’t have to sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” He really hated that song!
His knees shook. Nine more outs until his Yankees were done. He stared into the monkey’s reddish-brown eyes and then at the bright green ring in its hand. Somehow the creature still held it between its hairy thumb and index finger.
The monkey growled.
No. It wasn’t the monkey. It was Nipper’s stomach. He began to think about the granola bars in his backpack.
“Maximum time limit exceeded!” he shouted.
The monkey stared, looking puzzled.
Nipper reached over his shoulder and tugged the backpack zipper open with one hand. He fished around inside, grabbed a granola bar, and held it out in front of him.
“Take this,” he said.
When the monkey reached for the treat, Nipper pulled his hand back.
“Ring,” he demanded.
“Breep,” said the monkey.
Nipper pointed to the emerald scorpion in the monkey’s other hand.
“Ring,” he repeated.
“Breep,” repeated the monkey, dangling the ring.
Slowly Nipper held out the granola bar.
The monkey licked its lips…and snatched it!
Nipper watched silently as the monkey shoved the whole granola bar into its mouth, chewed furiously, and swallowed.
“Ring,” Nipper said once again.
The monkey picked a few granola crumbs from the corners of its mouth and stared.
“May I have the ring now?” asked Nipper.
The monkey stared at him.
“Please,” Nipper added.
The monkey swung his head from side to side.
Nipper’s stomach growled.
No…, it wasn’t his stomach. It was Nipper, growling with rage!
“A granola bar wasn’t enough for you?” he shouted.
He reached behind his back.
“Well, that’s okay! I have a whole pack!” he shouted.
“Bree—”
Wham!
Nipper whirled around, swinging the backpack with one hand and slamming it into the monkey.
A cloud of board game parts, tokens, and dice erupted from the pack. Colorful play money swirled and fluttered. Arms, legs, and the head from the Mickey Mantle bobblehead flew out, too.
The monkey tumbled out of the cart…and the ring sailed up into the air!
Nipper shot out his free hand.
He grabbed the ring and held tight!
“Gotcha,” said Nipper.
He looked down and saw the monkey plunge into the raging river below. Quickly, Nipper shoved the ring into his pocket and put the pack on his back again.
Samantha Spinner and the Perplexing Pants Page 12
