Samantha Spinner and the Spectacular Specs Read online

  BOOKS BY RUSSELL GINNS

  Samantha Spinner and the Super-Secret Plans

  Samantha Spinner and the Spectacular Specs

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Russell Ginns

  Cover and interior illustrations copyright © 2019 by Barbara Fisinger

  Image Credits: this page (top), this page (left): Getty Images; this page (bottom left and right): Kartapranata, Gunawan, “Borobudur Mandala.” Wikimedia Commons. 17 December 2009, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Borobudur_Mandala.svg, and “Borobudur Cross Section.” Wikimedia Commons. 6 November 2011, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Borobudur_Cross_Section_en.svg; this page (right), this page, this page, this page (top), this page, this page: public domain; this page (left), this page: Shutterstock; this page: Bedaux, R., and Diaby and P. Maas, L’Architecture de Ddjenne, Snoeck-Ducaji & Zoon, January 1, 2009; this page (bottom): Zamani Project; this page: EVOlution Graphics

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! rhcbooks.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Ginns, Russell, author. | Skorjanc, Barbara Fisinger, illustrator.

  Title: Samantha Spinner and the spectacular specs / Russell Ginns; illustrated by Barbara Fisinger.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Delacorte Press, [2019] | Summary: “Uncle Paul is still missing. And Samantha just received a new gift from him: a pair of strange purple sunglasses. Are they another powerful present? A clue to his whereabouts? Or just a bad fashion choice? Samantha and Nipper need to figure it out fast, because here comes the SUN!” —Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018028042 (print) | LCCN 2018034932 (ebook) | ISBN 978-1-5247-2006-3 (el) | ISBN 978-1-5247-2004-9 (hardback)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. | Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | Missing persons—Fiction. | Uncles—Fiction. | Family life—Fiction. | Mystery and detective stories. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Action & Adventure / General. | JUVENILE FICTION / Family / General (see also headings under Social Issues). | JUVENILE FICTION / Girls & Women.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.G438943 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.G438943 Sam 2018 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9781524720063

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v5.4

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  Books by Russell Ginns

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One: A Tail of Woe

  Chapter Two: Poster Boy

  Chapter Three: It wasn’t Fair

  Chapter Four: A Special Case

  Chapter Five: Cheepers by the Dozen

  Chapter Six: Rough Riders

  Chapter Seven: Penny-Pinching

  Chapter Eight: Brother, Can You Spare a Diamond?

  Chapter Nine: Unexplained Vanishing Producer

  Chapter Ten: Manhattan Haystack

  Chapter Eleven: Lock Me Out of the Ball Game

  Chapter Twelve: “No” Business

  Chapter Thirteen: Plane Samantha

  Chapter Fourteen: The Trouble with Kibbles

  Chapter Fifteen: Whoa, Nelly!

  Chapter Sixteen: Neighborhood Watch

  Chapter Seventeen: Under

  Chapter Eighteen: Hydrant-Go-Seek

  Chapter Nineteen: Slip, Slide, and Away!

  Chapter Twenty: Speed Bumps

  Chapter Twenty-one: On Your Market, Set, Go

  Chapter Twenty-two: Duck Season

  Chapter Twenty-three: Flee Circus

  Chapter Twenty-four: Say, Do You?

  Chapter Twenty-five: Road Worriers

  Chapter Twenty-six: Bottle Rocket

  Chapter Twenty-seven: Jagalah Kebersihan

  Chapter Twenty-eight: I’m with Stupa

  Chapter Twenty-nine: Down, Down, and Away!

  Chapter Thirty: Off to See the Lizard

  Chapter Thirty-one: Have a Ball

  Chapter Thirty-two: Counting Cheeps

  Chapter Thirty-three: Lucky Day

  Chapter Thirty-four: Bird Brain

  Chapter Thirty-five: Watch Out for the Sun

  Chapter Thirty-six: Ferocious Beasts and Where to Hide them

  Chapter Thirty-seven: Book Club

  Chapter Thirty-eight: Operation Flapjack

  Chapter Thirty-nine: How Now, Brown Cloud?

  Chapter Forty: Dog Run

  Chapter Forty-one: Pep(Per) Talk

  Chapter Forty-two: Plan, Pug, Parasol

  Chapter Forty-three: Plan B

  Chapter Forty-four: Happy Trails

  Chapter Forty-five: One of a Kind

  Chapter Forty-six: Jerk in the Box

  Chapter Forty-seven: The Middle

  Chapter Forty-eight: Bar None

  Chapter Forty-nine: No Place

  Chapter Fifty: A Fine Line

  Chapter Fifty-one: Hungry, Hungry Hisses

  Chapter Fifty-two: Of Math and Menus

  Chapter Fifty-three: The Lost Island of the Dinosaurs

  Chapter Fifty-four: Nutrition

  Chapter Fifty-five: Strangers on a Train

  Chapter Fifty-six: Start Spreading the News

  Chapter Fifty-seven: Circus City

  Chapter Fifty-eight: Opening Night

  Chapter Fifty-nine: Broadway Smash

  Chapter Sixty: Squeaky Clean

  Chapter Sixty-one: Fashion Disaster

  Chapter Sixty-two: West Side, Sorry

  Chapter Sixty-three: Heaven Scent

  Chapter Sixty-four: Warts and All

  Chapter Sixty-five: Contracts

  Chapter Sixty-six: The Flying Dutchman

  Chapter Sixty-seven: Lights Out

  It’s Too Bad Nipper Didn’t Know All These Amazing Facts

  Whoa, Nelly! This Book is Full of Super-Secret Secrets

  Super-Secret Answers

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  About the Other Author

  TO KEN WESTERMAN

  Teachers launch us on amazing adventures.

  They broaden our horizons and expand our world in ways we never expect.

  Section 01, Detail TH3RE

  Borobudur

  Borobudur is the world’s largest Buddhist temple. It was built in the fifteenth century in central Java, Indonesia.

  The structure consists of nine platforms with a big dome on top. The lower six platforms are square. The top three platforms are circular and ringed with stone statues of the Budd
ha, each seated inside a small domed chamber called a stupa.

  Borobudur is Indonesia’s most visited tourist attraction. Millions of people climb the temple each year to marvel at its three thousand relief sculptures, its seventy-two stupas, and the panoramic view of forests and volcanoes.

  * * *

  • • •

  One of the stupas isn’t really stone. Look for the dome that’s darker than all the others. If you take a closer look, you’ll see that it’s really an industrial-strength balloon filled with helium. Ropes tether it to the center of a shallow pit.

  Push the balloon aside and hop into the bucket below. Your weight will pull the balloon down and you’ll sink into a vast cavern…inside a volcano!

  You’ll drift down past razor-sharp stones and blazing-hot columns of steam. Keep your arms and legs inside the bucket at all times—if you lose your balance, you’ll tumble into a river of hot lava.

  “Look here!” Samantha shouted from under the kitchen table. “Now!”

  She shoved a chair out of the way with one foot to make room for her brother.

  “What? Where?” said Nipper, bending down quickly.

  He misjudged the height of the table and banged his head.

  “That hurt,” he said, rubbing his forehead and inching in beside her. “You forgot to say duck.”

  “All right,” she replied. “ ‘Duck.’ Now look here.”

  Samantha removed the purple sunglasses Uncle Paul had given her. She put them on Nipper’s face and pointed at a table leg.

  “PSST?” Nipper asked.

  “That’s right,” she answered, taking the glasses from him and putting them on again. Through the octagonal lenses, she saw four yellow letters glowing on the leg:

  P

  S

  S

  T

  “And watch this,” she told him.

  She reached out and grabbed the leg where it met the table.

  “Gotcha,” said Samantha.

  Click!

  A section slid downward, revealing an opening. It hissed as a stream of air rushed into the hollow leg.

  “Whoa,” said Nipper. “A second secret pneumatic tube.”

  Samantha nodded. They had already found one pneumatic tube under the table when she’d gotten the glasses. She pointed at that hissing table leg on her right with one hand.

  “Into Seattle,” she said.

  She pointed at this new opening with her other hand.

  “Out of Seattle,” she said, and let out a big, satisfied sigh.

  At long last, this was a major breakthrough.

  When Samantha’s uncle Paul disappeared, he left presents for his nieces and nephew. Samantha’s sister, Buffy, got $2,400,000,000. Samantha’s brother, Nipper, got the New York Yankees. Samantha got an old rusty umbrella. Of course, it seemed terribly unfair—until Samantha started taking a closer look at things. She discovered that the umbrella was a super-secret map of the world! Samantha and her brother traveled to France, Italy, and Egypt, and defeated the RAIN—the Royal Academy of International Ninjas. They even rescued the Mona Lisa. But Uncle Paul was still missing.

  Then a mysterious pair of sunglasses arrived with a note.

  Watch out for the SUN.

  —Horace

  For Samantha, this was proof that Uncle Paul was alive.

  She also had a sketch of an obelisk that she’d copied from a picture she found in the Temple of Horus in Egypt. When she discovered the obelisk was a monument in New York City called Cleopatra’s Needle, Samantha suspected that Uncle Paul was alive and also in New York.

  Then a message came from her older sister. Buffy had written to tell the family that she had moved to Manhattan to work on a play with help from “the famous Broadway producer Horace Temple.”

  After that, Samantha knew that Uncle Paul was alive, in New York…and with Buffy Spinner.

  Unfortunately, Samantha couldn’t get there. The magtrain she’d found with the Super-Secret Plans didn’t go to New York, or anywhere near it. Her parents promised they would visit New York after school ended in a month, and no amount of asking could make them go sooner.

  So, since she couldn’t explore New York, she explored Seattle with the purple glasses.

  First, she’d used them to inspect her umbrella—the Super-Secret Plans. They didn’t do anything special. She’d searched Uncle Paul’s apartment above the garage, and around the house. Nothing. Everywhere she’d stared, things turned purple, but that was it.

  When she went to the mailbox at the end of her street, she’d found her first clue. She stared at the outside of the box through the glasses and saw glowing yellow letters just like the ones on the legs of her kitchen table:

  PSST

  But that was a dead end, too. Next, she’d spent days searching the secret magnetic railway station beneath the mailbox. She’d found nothing. She’d doubled down and explored every wall, floor, and object in their house. Still no clues.

  Why did Uncle Paul have to be so mysterious about everything? And why didn’t he just come home?

  Which had brought her back to the kitchen table, where she’d received the glasses in the first place.

  “We’re going to find Uncle Paul now,” she told Nipper. “I’m sure of it.”

  Samantha took out a slip of paper and scrawled a note with a pen.

  Paul/Horace:

  Where are you?

  She stuffed the note into the opening in the “out of Seattle” leg. A gust of air caught it, and it shot down and out of sight.

  “Where do you think it went, Sam?” Nipper asked.

  “I’m not positive,” she answered. “But my guess is that—”

  Crack!

  Samantha looked over. A plastic sea salt grinder hit the kitchen floor and started to roll across the tiles.

  Cra-tack!

  A pepper mill dropped on the floor and shattered.

  Samantha looked up. Their pug, Dennis, was walking along the kitchen counter, sniffing everything in his path.

  “Uh-oh,” said Nipper, pointing at the chair Samantha had shoved across the kitchen so she could inspect the table legs.

  She looked at the chair, then back up at Dennis. He approached the open waffle iron.

  “Watch out!” Samantha shouted.

  “What? Duck?” asked Nipper.

  “Not you,” she replied, pointing to the counter.

  “Dennis!” she shouted, even louder. “Get away from that!”

  The dog turned quickly, bumping into the hot breakfast appliance.

  Ka-snappp!

  The waffle iron closed on his tail.

  Dennis howled in pain.

  “Try to keep our poor baby from moving, Jeremy,” said Mrs. Spinner.

  Nipper looked around. It took a minute to remember that his real name was Jeremy Bernard Spinner. People always called him Nipper because he used to bite people when he was a baby. He didn’t do that much anymore, but everyone still called him Nipper. His mother only called him Jeremy when she was really angry.

  He sat in the backseat of the car with Dennis whimpering in his lap.

  “Stay still,” he said. He held the pug’s face to keep him from licking his wounded tail.

  Dennis began to lick Nipper’s hand instead.

  “Hee-hee—stop that!” Nipper giggled, but he didn’t let go of the dog’s face.

  Samantha sat up front with their mom. She had the sunglasses on, and Nipper could tell she was looking out the window for clues.

  “It was careless and forgetful, moving the chair next to the counter,” said Mrs. Spinner. “That dog waits for waffles all day long and— Are you listening to me?”

  “I already said I was sorry, Mom,” Samantha said, still staring out the window. “I needed something under the table. I did
n’t think it would be a big deal.”

  “Little things,” her mom sighed, “can have big consequences.”

  Nipper was relieved that everything wasn’t his fault for a change. It was a weird feeling.

  They drove toward the drawbridge connecting Capitol Hill with North Seattle. Samantha continued staring out the window. Nipper could see that she was watching the blinking red light of the Space Needle. Then they were over the bridge and he lost sight of Downtown.

  “Any sign of the SUN?” he whispered to her.

  She looked back at him and shook her head. She took off the glasses and put them away in her purse.

  “We’ll be there in just a few more minutes,” said Mrs. Spinner as they pulled into her reserved parking space at the North Seattle Animal Hospital.

  As soon as the car stopped, Samantha got out and opened the door for Nipper. Nipper climbed out with Dennis in his arms.

  “This way,” said Mrs. Spinner. She waved them up the steps to her clinic on the second floor. At the top, she unlocked a door with words etched into frosted glass.

  RODENT AND LIZARD WARD

  DR. SUZETTE SPINNER, DVM

  It was after hours, so the hall was dark. Mrs. Spinner flipped on the lights.