Samantha Spinner and the Super-Secret Plans

by Russell Ginns

  Nipper was pointing at that very rivet. “I think it’s a button,” he said.

  “Be careful,” Samantha cautioned. “Before you press it, we should try to—”

  Before she could finish, Nipper reached out with his index finger and pushed the button.

  There was a loud click.

  She started again: “We should try to figure out what—”

  Several loud thumps came from deep inside the pillar.

  “Never mind,” she said.

  A soft, low humming sound began. They waited for a little while. The hum continued, but nothing happened.

  Nipper pushed the button again. This time, the humming stopped. He reached out once more and pushed the button. The click, thumps, and hum happened again. He pushed the button again and the noises stopped.

  “Now it’s my turn,” Samantha announced, nudging her brother out of the way before he could get in another press.

  Samantha pressed the button and they heard the same pattern of noises. Nipper was about to reach out and press the button again, but Samantha grabbed his finger.

  “Can we please wait and see what happens?” she said, annoyed.

  The hum continued. Samantha counted to ten and let go of Nipper’s finger. They both waited while the sound went on for a full minute. Finally, it stopped, and there was a loud clunk and the sound of grinding gears. A panel in the girder swung out toward them like a refrigerator door.

  Samantha looked around and was again surprised to see that no one else on the platform appeared to notice a thing. Everyone was simply too busy gazing out at the surrounding view of Paris to look at the Eiffel Tower itself.

  Samantha turned back to the door and peered over her brother’s shoulder into the opening. Inside was a hollow shaft, about four feet from side to side. It sloped down to the left at an angle that followed the tower’s leg and disappeared out of sight. On the wall to the right of the door, a metal ladder ran up and down.

  “Do you think we should just climb in?” Nipper asked. “Not that I’m scared, but, well, it’s really dark in there.”

  Samantha opened her mouth to answer and a cloud of stink hit her. The scent of glue, moldy peanut butter, and a hundred uncapped whiteboard markers filled the air.

  Samantha looked at Nipper. Hands over their noses, they ran to the staircase they’d just climbed and peered over the railing. Four figures dressed in black were making their way up the tower. They were only three flights away from where the Spinners stood on the first platform.

  “I don’t mind the dark so much,” Nipper said quickly. He spun around and ran back toward the pillar.

  Samantha followed him to the pillar and got there just as he hopped through the opening, grabbed the ladder, and began to descend, disappearing rapidly.

  Samantha was right behind him. She paused for a moment to secure the umbrella over her shoulder. Then she stepped forward into the opening and grabbed a metal rung with both hands.

  “Stop!” someone shouted. “Don’t move.”

  Samantha couldn’t help it. She turned around. She saw the same smelly ninja they’d encountered outside the Louvre just as he stepped onto the platform. And he was even filthier than before. He had a fresh layer of bread crumbs covering his front, from where he had fallen onto the sidewalk. Several wads of gum stuck to his shrouded face—including one big pink blob directly in the center of his forehead. The three other black-clad figures stood a few feet behind him, and they were just as dirty.

  Her brother’s voice drifted up from inside the shaft. “Are you still coming, Sam?”

  The ninja looked past Samantha into the shaft beyond.

  “Hey, boy! Is that you?” the crumb-and-gum-covered ninja shouted to Nipper. “Come back up here so we can finish that friendly chat we were having about—”

  Samantha spotted a handle on the back of the iron door, grabbed it, and pulled the door shut as hard as she could. A loud clang reverberated up and down the shaft.

  She was in the dark.

  Samantha clung to the ladder in the silence. Suddenly there was a tap-tap-tapping on the other side of the iron door. She stayed frozen, holding on tight to the metal rung, breathing out when it finally stopped. Then frantic pounding erupted. Then the pounding ended and the muffled sound of four really unhappy ninjas yelling at each other trickled into the chamber.

  Samantha relaxed. “I think we’re safe, Nipper,” she called downward. “They saw the door, but I don’t think they know about the secret button.”

  “Come on!” she heard her brother shout. “There’s more light down here.”

  Carefully, Samantha reached out her toe until she felt the next rung under her foot. She moved one hand at a time and began to follow her brother down the slanted shaft.

  As she descended, narrow slivers of light began to seep in through the edges of the structure, cutting through the darkness. Samantha could see the rungs of the ladder, and, far below, she saw her brother looking up, waiting for her. She could also feel a gentle breeze.

  At first she thought air was coming through the same gaps as the light. As she continued, however, the breeze became stronger.

  She stopped and shifted her shoulder to make sure her umbrella was secure. Then she resumed her downward climb.

  “Sam,” she heard her brother calling. “This is getting weirder.”

  He was about twenty feet below her. His hair was swirling around wildly.

  As she moved toward her brother along the ladder, the breeze grew stronger with every step. It was so windy that gusts of air whipped Samantha’s hair in front of her face; she had to move slower and with more care.

  It was getting harder to hear, and it took more and more strength to stay on the ladder.

  “Sam!” she heard Nipper shout over the sound of the rushing air. She was sure that he was only a few feet away.

  She lowered herself down one more rung and felt her shoe press into something soft and handlike.

  “Yow!” her brother screamed over the roar of the wind.

  She looked down to see him yank his hand out from under her foot. Then his other hand slipped off the ladder. For a split second, she saw her brother’s startled expression as he frantically looked up, hands out, desperately trying to grab on to something.

  Then he was gone.

  “Nipper!” Sam screamed.

  She waited for a crash or a thump or some other terrible sound of an eight-year-old going splat.

  But there was nothing. Just the roar of the gale-force winds that tugged at her like some giant, invisible vacuum cleaner. She clung to the ladder with all her might.

  Her knuckles turned white as she strained to hang on. The shuriken slipped out of her front pocket. She heard it ricochet off a metal rung as it dropped away. She felt her journal slide slowly from her back pocket, but there was nothing she could do about it. Gone.

  She felt the umbrella slipping off her shoulder and down her right arm. She took her left hand from the rung to try to shove the strap back in place. A gust of air yanked at her with such force that she couldn’t hold on with just one hand.

  And then she was airborne.

  Helplessly, Samantha fell. The mighty suction pulled her downward so fast that the ladder and the walls of the shaft became a blur. She gritted her teeth and waited for impact.

  And then her direction changed—and she was moving sideways!

  It was getting brighter.

  Curved walls shot past her on all sides. Every ten yards or so, a ring of lights flush with the walls flashed past. It took her a moment, but she realized she was rocketing through a giant pneumatic tube.

  She heard the sound of ruffling pages, and something fluttered around her head. It was her journal! She snatched the book and shoved it back into her pocket.

  Far ahead of her, she could s
ee Nipper.

  He waved to her with both hands as he zoomed along through the tube. In one hand, he held the ninja throwing star.

  “Hey, Sam!” he shouted cheerfully. “I think you were right. I think we’re on our way to Italy!”

  Section 04, Detail LINDIAKNEA

  The Mona Lisa

  The best-known, most visited, most written-about portrait in the world is a painting of a smiling woman by Leonardo da Vinci.

  It is an oil painting on a poplar wood panel. Most experts believe it is a picture of Lisa Gherardini, a woman who lived in Italy in the 1500s. Almost nothing else is known about her or her famous smile.

  The Mona Lisa has been on permanent display in the Louvre Museum in Paris since 1797.

  * * *

  • • •

  The directors of the Louvre have been covering up a secret for several years: someone stole the Mona Lisa.

  Visitors who go to the famous museum to view the portrait are now staring at page 967 of Famous Art You Should Know from Around the World.

  No one has any idea where the real painting is, or how thieves were able to break into the museum. There were no clues other than a terrible, terrible smell.

  French authorities, art experts, and customs agents have been searching the globe for the original masterpiece for many years.

  Every museum guard in the world secretly hopes to be the one who rescues the Mona Lisa.

  Normally, Nipper was not the first person Samantha would want anywhere near her as she flew through a giant pneumatic tube. Yet there they were, sailing on a blast of pressurized air from France to Italy. Every now and then they bumped into each other.

  “Watch out,” said Samantha when his elbow glanced off her ear. But she knew there really wasn’t much Nipper could do about it.

  There also wasn’t much to see inside the long tunnel, but it sure zoomed by fast!

  Samantha wondered if Uncle Paul traveled by pneumatic tube. It didn’t seem like a smart way to go, tumbling from place to place. And did he get chased from place to place, too?

  The tube suddenly banked left and then right, and Samantha could feel herself slowing down. Then the tube curved up and over in a big loop-de-loop.

  “Crazy straw!” shouted Nipper.

  They did two more loops, and they slowed down a bit more each time. As the last of the pressurized air swirled around them, they tumbled out onto the floor of a small chamber, landing in a pile.

  “Not as smooth as the magtrain,” Samantha muttered as she untangled herself from her brother and got up off the floor. She spotted the umbrella and picked it up quickly.

  Nipper hopped to his feet beside her and they looked around. They stood in the center of a narrow space, lit by torches on three of the four walls. The flickering light illuminated a checkerboard pattern in the large, square floor tiles.

  “Here we go again,” said Nipper. “Check the Plans and see how many steps or stomps or skips we have to do to unlock the secret exit.”

  Samantha walked to the large wooden door in front of them and turned the handle. She pushed the door open slowly and light flooded the room.

  “That works, too,” said Nipper, and he followed her outside.

  They stepped out into a wide plaza surrounded by ornate buildings and towers. A cathedral with a gigantic eight-sided dome loomed over them.

  Samantha recognized their location immediately. Night after night, Uncle Paul had talked about the Italian Renaissance, a time of great artists and architects. The huge terra-cotta-tiled dome was the top of the Duomo, the great Florence cathedral. They were standing in the historic center of Florence, Italy.

  Samantha gazed up at a high structure next to the cathedral. It was a slender, square tower covered in white, green, and red marble and decorated with row upon row of arches, pillars, sculptures, and colorful shapes. She remembered her uncle looking upward and waving his hands happily as he described the bell tower.

  Then she looked around the plaza. There were statues and fountains and, of course, visitors from around the world. Everyone was excited and looking up and down and sideways. Samantha could tell that many of them were having trouble deciding what to see first.

  Nipper tapped her on the shoulder and held out the ninja throwing star.

  “Get us home before more of these start flying at us,” he said, and handed it to her.

  Of the many places she’d heard about from Uncle Paul, Florence was high on the list of cities she’d hoped to visit one day. Now she was there—and she already had to leave!

  “How long do you think we have until the ninjas get here?” asked Nipper.

  “I don’t know if they followed us,” said Samantha. “And I’m not even sure how they found us in the first place.”

  She took the star from him and adjusted the umbrella on her shoulder. Then she led him into the narrow alley that ran between the Duomo and the bell tower. If there were ninjas around, she didn’t want to draw their attention. She knelt down, opened the umbrella, took the magnifying glass from Nipper, and began to look for a way home.

  She couldn’t find any lines pointing to the mailbox in Seattle, but next to the little boot shape of Italy, she saw a letter U with the number 16 in its center.

  A wavy line from the U led across the lining, back to the France shape, and connected with the dotted magtrain line.

  “What could that possibly mean?” asked Nipper, kneeling and peering over her shoulder.

  “Well, what starts with U?” she asked him.

  “Underwear,” said Nipper quickly. Then he rubbed his chin and continued slowly. “Unusual uncle…unexplained umbrella…uptown umpires, unfortunately unseen unless…”

  Samantha took a closer look at the letter U and noticed that there were four tiny white dots on each side.

  “Hold on,” she said. “It’s a horseshoe.”

  “Okay,” said Nipper, rising to his feet. “Let’s go find a horse and kick it sixteen times, and—”

  “Nipper!” she cut him off. “First, that’s awful. And second, that’s a horse’s shoe, so maybe you get kicked sixteen times.”

  She stood up, closed the umbrella, and led him back onto the plaza.

  They walked around the outside of the cathedral looking for a horse statue, or a horse painting, or even a real live horse.

  They noticed a tall man standing on the steps of the Duomo, watching them closely.

  “Leave this to me,” said Nipper. He walked up to the man.

  “Hay!” he shouted. He looked back at Samantha and winked. Then he started waving at the man and began to speak very loudly and slowly. “Is…there…a…horse…here?”

  Expressionless, the man stared at him.

  “Horsey? Yes?” Nipper continued. “Giddyap?” He held up his fists as if they were hooves. Then he began to prance around the man, stomping his feet in rhythm.

  “Ne-heh-heh-hey! Ne-heh-heh-hey!” he whinnied, and shook his head from side to side while blowing loudly through his flapping lips.

  Samantha grabbed her brother by the shoulder and stopped him.

  “That’s my brother,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He wants to know if there is a horse nearby. Or maybe a statue of a horse.”

  “I know, young lady,” the man said in English. “But that was hilarious!”

  He chuckled, and pointed past them to a corner of the plaza.

  “The Piazza della Signoria is that way,” he said. “Very famous place, with very famous sculptures.”

  They gazed across the plaza. Many people were entering and exiting.

  Samantha turned back toward the man.

  “Grazie,” she said.

  “Prego,” he replied, and nodded warmly.

  Samantha and Nipper walked to the edge of the plaza and followed the throng. Couples h
olding hands, parents with kids, and tour groups in matching T-shirts all funneled into the street beyond.

  “How did you know that guy spoke English?” Nipper asked as they moved with the crowd down the cobblestoned street.

  “He was wearing a badge that said ‘Museum Security,’ ” she answered. “He probably talks to visitors from around the world all day long.”

  Samantha thought about Olivia Turtle, the guard at the museum in Seattle. She could probably name all the statues in Florence. Just like Uncle Paul.

  Five blocks later, the street opened onto a vast L-shaped plaza. Statues, vendors, and even more visitors filled the expanse. Samantha and Nipper stopped and gazed up at a stone fortress. It was a square, eight-story castle with a tall clock tower perched on top. Then they looked down again to the street and the entrance to the massive stone building.

  Just to the left of the fortress door, they saw a huge white statue, almost twenty feet high. It was a young man, completely nude. He held a sling over his shoulder and looked off into the distance with a wary expression on his face.

  “I know that one,” said Nipper proudly. “That’s David.”

  “Michelangelo’s David,” Samantha added.

  Last year, Uncle Paul had given the Spinner family a magnet set. It included a magnet depicting the famous statue of the biblical king David by the artist Michelangelo, plus shirts, boxer shorts, hats, and a lot of other funny clothes to stick on it and dress it up. It was on their refrigerator right now. Everyone still took turns switching the clothes around.

  Samantha looked farther to the left, over to the corner of the fortress, where a fountain bubbled. A giant stone man wearing a crown—and nothing else—stood on a pedestal in the center of a wide octagonal pool.

  “The Fountain of Neptune,” said Samantha.

  Whenever Uncle Paul talked about Florence, he talked about Michelangelo’s David, and he always mentioned the Fountain of Neptune, too.

  Samantha looked down at the feet of Neptune, the god of the sea. Four enormous marble horses appeared to splash in the water.