Samantha Spinner and the Perplexing Pants

by Russell Ginns

  “They must be using crystals to transfer light from the surface,” said Mr. Spinner. “A high-tech alternate lighting system.”

  Samantha could tell that her father was both fascinated and delighted by the overhead lights, of course. But she was focused on the activity in the cavern. The chamber buzzed with motion. People in white coats and bright sneakers milled about.

  “These are the strangers who took Uncle Paul, aren’t they?” asked Samantha.

  Her father nodded. Then he pointed to the rows of statues that continued all around the curved walls of the great dome. There were dozens of them, possibly more than a hundred.

  “Let’s do our best to keep out of sight,” Samantha told her father.

  They heard footsteps. A woman walked past the mouth of the tunnel and stopped. She stared at the open math wall. Samantha guessed she was trying to decide if it was supposed to be open or not.

  Samantha and her father crouched lower behind the statue. The woman was close enough for them to read the writing on her coat:

  yt + A(y)yx = 0

  “That’s the formula for fluid under pressure,” whispered Mr. Spinner.

  “That’s nice,” Samantha whispered back. “But how are we going to go in there without being noticed?”

  The SNOW woman shrugged, then scurried back to the center of the dome.

  “Hold on,” said Mr. Spinner.

  He reached into his pocket and took out a small gadget. He flicked a button with his thumb, and it began to glow.

  “We’re under pressure, so we’ve got to be fluid,” he said.

  He pointed the self-powered light behind the lion and studied the distance of the space between the statue and the wall of the tunnel.

  “The gap is about two feet wide, enough for a person to pass through to the other side,” he said.

  He turned off the bulb, squeezed past the lion, and headed into the chamber.

  “We can walk behind all these statues without getting stuck, and make our way around the dome without being seen,” he said. “Follow me.”

  Okay, thought Samantha as she followed him. That might have just been a lightbulb challenge. She was glad she’d asked her father to come along…maybe.

  Section 4, Detail thel4dy1nth3h4t

  The Detroit Salt Mines

  In 1895, a huge deposit of rock salt was discovered beneath the city of Detroit, Michigan.

  For over a century, workers have tunneled more than one thousand feet down and carved out a network of chambers covering more than five thousand acres. The vast excavation stretches all the way under the city, including downtown.

  The mine is still active today, owned and operated by the Detroit Salt Company. Most of the salt harvested is sold as halite, rock salt used to de-ice streets during the winter.

  * * *

  • • •

  The Detroit Salt Company is not the only organization tunneling under Detroit. A short distance from their salt mine, the Super-Numerical Overachievers Worldwide have carved out their own headquarters in the salty earth.

  These math-minded criminals have created a huge subterranean dome where they can meet, exchange formulas, and practice making copies of valuable treasures.

  The SNOW built their headquarters close to the salt mine so they can park their phony salt trucks without attracting attention. So far, no one has taken a closer look at the trucks. If they had, they would have found that the trucks around the museums have no salt inside them. They are filled instead with statues, artwork, and jewels—real ones coming out of the museums, and fake ones going in.

  Moving from statue to statue, the Spinners made their way around the dome.

  They squeezed behind a replica of the Statue of Liberty, then behind one of the Greek goddess Selene. Samantha recognized about half the sculptures she saw. She had heard about them in school, seen pictures of them in books, or learned their stories from her uncle during one of his storytelling nights on the garage steps. Was Uncle Paul somewhere in this cavern?

  Samantha and her father slid behind a statue of a man. The figure sat, bent over, measuring the ground with a compass.

  “Isaac Newton,” said Mr. Spinner. “A great mathematician, and an expert on light and lenses, too.”

  Samantha smiled. Of course her father knew that one.

  Crouching, and peeking around the side of the statue, they began to get a more complete view of the SNOW headquarters. It was even bigger than Samantha had guessed, and it was much busier!

  Men and women swarmed about the chamber. Some were carving and measuring new statues. They mostly worked using hammers and chisels, but a few SNOW agents chopped at the statues with strange tools. The devices looked like chainsaws but had blades of blazing blue-white light. Blue sparks flew around the agents as they worked, their green visors lowered to protect their eyes.

  “What are those machines, Dad?” asked Samantha.

  “I think…they’re carving sculptures using some kind of high-energy plasma tools,” he answered.

  Samantha nodded. Did that count as another lightbulb challenge?

  In the center of the dome, a dozen SNOW members stood before a billboard-sized whiteboard. They wrote and erased and chatted with each other. Samantha couldn’t make out what they were writing, or hear what they were saying, but they seemed to be repeating long, complicated math formulas.

  “That math class looks tough,” said her father.

  Farther across the dome, mine carts rolled in and out of the chamber. Samantha recognized the rolling metal bins from the ride through the salt mine. All along the tracks, SNOW members chopped at white boulders using picks and shovels. They filled bags with salt and tossed them onto passing trains.

  Samantha tried to watch all the activity in the room, but she found it hard to keep track. There was so much going on.

  “Let’s keep moving,” she told her father.

  They slipped behind a replica of the famous Little Mermaid from Denmark and continued their path around the SNOW dome.

  After a dozen more statues, a shower of blue-white sparks stopped them in their tracks.

  Samantha peeked out from behind a statue of a little girl who stood bravely with her hands on her hips. A few feet away, six SNOW men and women sat at workbenches, operating miniature versions of the high-energy plasma carvers the statue-makers used.

  She squinted at one of the tables. A SNOW member focused on carving big blue gems the size of walnuts!

  “So this is where the fake Hope Diamond came from,” she told her father.

  Mr. Spinner crinkled his nose, looking confused.

  “Someone stole the Hope Diamond from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC,” she explained. “They never got caught because they replaced it with a fake like these.”

  “No. It’s not that,” said her father.

  He was squinting far into the distance. She turned to see what her father was looking at and…

  Something skittered across the floor and rolled to a stop at Samantha’s feet. She picked it up.

  It was a ring with a green emerald scorpion.

  “Nipper’s bug ring?” Samantha asked out loud. “How did this get here?”

  She looked left and right. There was no sign of her brother. This was very strange.

  “It’s Paul!” Mr. Spinner said. “Look over there!”

  Her father pointed to the opposite side of the dome, where a small alcove had been carved into the side. A glass booth stood in the alcove, close to a wall. It reminded Samantha of one of the museum cases displaying a suit of armor.

  Inside the case was a figure, but it wasn’t shiny and silver. It was a man wearing green plaid pajamas and bright orange flip-flops.

  It was Uncle Paul.

  Samantha took another q
uick look at the ring. She didn’t have time to figure out how it had wound up in this place. She shoved it into one of her pockets and called to her father.

  “We’ve got a Spinner to save,” she said, hands on her hips.

  Mr. Spinner looked at her, then at the statue of the brave girl.

  He smiled.

  “Come on,” she said, pointing with her umbrella.

  She led him back around the SNOW dome.

  Samantha and her father moved from sculpture to sculpture, hurrying along the wall of the SNOW dome.

  They passed the entrance, slipped behind the second lion sculpture, and kept going. Ten statues later, they reached a quartz statue of a man with one hand raised over his head. In his fist he held a long, jagged spear.

  “Zeus,” whispered Samantha, and she smiled. “Ready to throw a lightning bolt.”

  A few yards away, she saw the man who had taught her all about that famous Greek statue: Paul Spinner.

  Her uncle stood inside the glass case. Samantha thought he looked remarkably cheerful for someone trapped in a box.

  Two SNOW agents were busy taking turns asking him questions. Samantha couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could see the frustration on their faces.

  Each time one of them asked a question, her uncle smiled and answered, and then the SNOW agents looked angrier. They banged their fists on the glass and stomped around the case several times.

  Finally the two SNOW people left the case and walked off toward the center of the dome.

  “This is our chance,” whispered Mr. Spinner.

  Samantha looked around the dome quickly. There were so many people, so many criminals. She couldn’t risk letting them get their hands on the umbrella. She reached up to the statue of Zeus and pulled the lightning spear free from the god’s raised hand. She set it on the floor and pressed her umbrella into his hand instead.

  “You think it’ll be safe there?” asked her father.

  “Let’s hope nobody takes a closer look at things,” Samantha answered.

  She stepped back to examine her work.

  “If something happens to me, make sure you get the umbrella,” she said grimly.

  Her father nodded.

  “Okay,” said Samantha. “Let’s crack this case.”

  She gestured for him to follow her, and they made their way to the case.

  “Hi, Samantha. Hi, George,” Uncle Paul said cheerfully, his voice muffled from inside the glass booth.

  “Hello, Paul,” said her father.

  Samantha looked back and forth at the two men. How could they be so calm at a time like this?

  “Don’t worry,” she said to her uncle. “We’ll get you out as soon as we can.”

  She searched the structure for a way to open it, until her uncle tapped the glass and pointed to a nine-digit pad of glowing buttons along the back side.

  “Here’s hopin’ the flannel can open the panel,” said Samantha’s father.

  “Did you just make that up?” asked Uncle Paul through the glass.

  Samantha’s father nodded and waved at his brother. Her uncle gave him a thumbs-up back.

  She ignored them both and started pressing the buttons on the side of the case. One…one…two…three…five…eight…

  Beep. Click.

  The buttons stopped glowing, and the door swung open.

  “Fibonacci,” said Samantha.

  “Nice work,” Uncle Paul said. “Where’s your red—”

  Slam!

  Before her uncle could get out of the booth, a big hand reached over Samantha’s shoulder and pushed the door shut again.

  “Not so fast!” said a booming voice.

  Samantha turned and looked up. Way up.

  A new SNOW agent stood before her. His visor was red instead of green, but that’s not what set him apart from the rest of the mathematicians.

  He was huge!

  A full foot taller than the other SNOW men and women, he wore the same white coat and the same bright white sneakers, but his sleeves were strained at the seams, and his neck was thick and bulging with muscles.

  Samantha’s eyes moved down to his coat pocket:

  | X |

  “Absolute value,” said Samantha’s father, reading the symbol out loud.

  “Everyone just calls me Absolute,” the SNOW man replied. “As in…” He switched to a high, trembling voice. “Absolute-ly, sir. I—I’ll do exactly what you tell me to do,” he sang, imitating other members of the SNOW.

  The hulking mathematician glared at Samantha and her father for a long moment. Then he looked around the dome and shouted, “Agent 33rpm! Agent 45rpm! Where did you go?”

  The SNOW agents who had been questioning Uncle Paul scurried back to the alcove.

  “Sorry, boss,” said the faster of the two, nervously. “We needed a break.”

  “Yeah,” said the second. “Our brains were getting mushy.”

  Absolute sneered at them. Then he pointed at Uncle Paul.

  “Get back to work!” he bellowed. “We need to find out all that man’s secrets!”

  Samantha tried to look serious, but she couldn’t help the smile growing on her face. They were trying to find out her uncle’s secrets!

  “What’s so funny?” Absolute demanded.

  “Nothing,” said Samantha, trying not to laugh.

  “Let’s just slice him to pieces,” one of the agents said quickly.

  “Yeah,” said the other. “Long division.”

  The two agents both smiled and held up razor-sharp rulers.

  “Put those away,” said Absolute. “We have to find out everything he knows.”

  “That’s proving…to be…difficult,” said one agent nervously.

  “I don’t care!” barked the SNOW boss. “Make him answer—and make him give us a clear, straightforward answer!”

  The two underlings both sighed. They turned to face the booth. One of them wrapped his knuckles against the glass.

  Uncle Paul smiled at her and nodded.

  “How are you able to travel from Seattle to the middle of nowhere?” asked the other agent.

  “No place is in the middle of nowhere,” Uncle Paul answered, his voice muffled from inside the booth.

  “Gah!” the SNOW woman yelled, and she turned back to Absolute. “Did you just hear that? We’re learning nothing.”

  “This man is one hundred percent mysterious,” her partner whined. “And it’s double-triple super-annoying!”

  Samantha smiled again. She had spent four months trying to discover Uncle Paul’s secrets. Every clue she’d found had always led to more questions. Getting straight answers out of him was nearly impossible, especially when you questioned him directly. If she couldn’t do it, there was no way these people were going to learn her uncle’s super secrets.

  She fought back another laugh.

  “I don’t know what you think you’re chuckling about,” snapped Absolute. “We’re never letting you have your uncle back.”

  Samantha stopped laughing. How were she and her father going to get Uncle Paul out of there? She listened to the sound of mine carts rolling in and out of the chamber. She heard the buzzing sound of plasma carvers and SNOW workers chipping away at blocks of salt and stone. Then she turned her back on Uncle Paul’s booth and faced Absolute Value.

  “You need to recalculate,” she said.

  The big man stared down at her, his face creased in confusion.

  “He is my uncle,” said Samantha, “but that’s not why I’m here.”

  “So why are you here?” the enormous man demanded.

  “I am a numerical overachiever, too,” Samantha called loudly to everyone in the dome.

  “What?” Absolute asked.

  Several math agents st
opped what they were doing and turned to watch Samantha. Samantha put her hands on her hips like the proud-girl statue again.

  “I’ve come to join the SNOW!” she announced.

  “What?” Absolute barked, louder than before. “Is this your idea of a joke?”

  He sneered down at Samantha, and she looked up at his face, trying not to peer into his nostrils.

  “I’m one hundred percent serious,” she answered. “I’ve always been a fan of addition, subtraction, multiplication…and imitation.”

  “Really?” Absolute said slowly, watching her carefully. “And why would we want you to join us?” he asked.

  Samantha smiled and pointed over her shoulder, gesturing toward the case with Uncle Paul.

  “Because,” she replied, “if you let me join, I’ll help you get information out of that guy.”

  “That guy?” blurted Absolute. “Your uncle?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “I can help you learn all his secrets.”

  Samantha was lying. She’d been trying to get answers from Uncle Paul forever, with no luck. But she wasn’t going to tell that to the SNOW.

  Absolute continued looking down at her. He seemed to be thinking things over.

  “Hey, boss,” said a SNOW agent, reaching up—way up—and tapping Absolute on the shoulder.

  Samantha recognized the agent right away. It was 1+1=2, one of the SNOW agents who’d attacked her and Nipper in the museum.

  “Go away,” said Absolute, his gaze fixed on Samantha. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  “But, Absolute,” said 2+2=4, joining her partner behind the big math boss. “That’s the girl we saw in the museum carrying the red—”

  Absolute turned around to face the agents.

  “I said, don’t bother me!” he roared.

  1+1=2 and 2+2=4 quickly scurried off to another part of the dome.

  “All right,” said Absolute, turning back to face Samantha. “You can join us…if you can pass the test.”