Samantha Spinner and the Spectacular Specs

by Russell Ginns

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Mom?” Samantha asked, pointing to the sign as she followed her mother inside.

  “I know how to care for all kinds of animals,” she replied.

  Nipper looked at his sister, then back at his mom. They were staring at each other.

  “That includes dogs…and you two,” Mrs. Spinner finished.

  Nipper held out the pug.

  “Okay,” she said, heading to the far end of the waiting room. “You two wait here, and he’ll be just fine in a few minutes.”

  She took Dennis and carried him through a metal door at the end of the room. It swung shut behind her, and Samantha and Nipper were alone.

  It had been a long time since Nipper had visited their mom at work. It definitely looked like a grown-up kind of place. There were no toys, only magazines about golf and houses. He was playing with a box labeled “Powdered Nondairy Creamer” when a massive hardcover book with the title Famous Art You Should Know from Around the World caught his eye.

  Nipper sat down on the floor and began flipping through the book from back to front.

  “Page nine hundred sixty-seven is missing,” he said. “Do you think one of Mom’s patients ate it?”

  “I doubt it,” said Samantha, standing over him. “I can’t imagine any situation where a lizard would bite a book. And it’s not like you could teach a lizard to read or—”

  Nipper had already lost interest in the giant art history book. He got up, walked across the room, and stared at a framed poster on the wall. It had a colorful illustration of a tropical island surrounded by clouds. Jagged mountain peaks and bubble-gum-colored beaches dotted the island, and sparkling rivers wound through lush forest valleys.

  With dinosaurs!

  Below the drawing, a poem read:

  The Lost Island of Dinosaurs

  In a mist-covered ocean

  Far, far from home,

  There’s a mountainous island

  Where dinosaurs roam.

  While it sounds like a place

  To amuse and delight you—

  Watch out! Hungry creatures

  Are waiting to bite you.

  The rexes all roar

  And the raptors attack,

  While a lythronax wanders

  In search of a snack.

  If you climb up a tree

  From the pink sandy beach,

  The last thing you’ll

  Hear is a pterosaur screech.

  A tar pit’s a terrible

  Thing to get trapped in.

  It’ll swallow you whole

  And it won’t need a napkin.

  So be good, little children.

  Remember that when you

  Are not—there’s a place that

  Your parents might send you!

  Nipper squinted at an illustration on one corner of the poster. A T. rex battled a triceratops. He looked at another corner. A maiasaur hovered over her nest of baby dinosaurs.

  “Whoa, Nelly,” he said slowly and quietly. “Where is this place?”

  “What are you, five years old?” Samantha replied. “That’s a silly poem to get little kids to behave.”

  Nipper held up both fists in front of her face and began to count his fingers.

  “Five…six…seven…”

  “And some eight-year-old boys, too,” she said, cutting him off.

  Nipper frowned.

  Samantha leaned in and squinted at the poster.

  “It’s not a very good poem, either,” she added. “Trapped in? Napkin? Is that supposed to be a rhyme?”

  “Okay, okay, I get it,” said Nipper.

  Samantha walked away and Nipper read the poem again. At the bottom of the poster a ferocious dinosaur towered over treetops as it reared back on its hind legs, baring its deadly teeth.

  Nipper mouthed the word lythronax silently to himself.

  Something squeaked, and he turned.

  Samantha was leaning over a small cage that rested on a shelf in the corner.

  “Oh…so cute,” she said breathlessly.

  A furry animal gazed up at her. It looked a little bit like a rabbit, or maybe a huge mouse. It had a bushy tail, round pink ears, and a pointy, furry gray nose. A small tag was wrapped around one of the animal’s front legs. Nipper walked over and tilted his head sideways to read it.

  “ ‘Chinchilla lanigera. Temuco, Chile,’ ” he said.

  The animal stood up on its hind legs and stared at both of them with big round eyes. It wiggled its nose and made a soft chittering sound.

  “I love chinchillas,” said Samantha.

  “Really? Since when?” Nipper asked.

  The door to the back room swung open and their mom entered, carrying Dennis. She spotted them by the cage.

  “You don’t want a chinchilla, kids,” she said. “They need a lot of special care. You have to give them dust baths.”

  Dennis wore a white plastic cone around his neck. He looked at them mournfully.

  “It took a while to get this collar to fit just right,” said Mrs. Spinner. “It was meant for a capybara.

  “That should keep him away from his bandages for a month or so,” their mom added.

  Nipper noticed Dennis’s tail, wrapped tight with white tape. The dog was busy looking left, right, up, and down, trying to see beyond the cone.

  “What a nightmare,” said Nipper.

  His mom nodded and shot a glance at Samantha. Samantha gulped.

  “Let’s go,” said Mrs. Spinner. She walked across the waiting room and out the door, the pug in her arms.

  Nipper watched his sister as she followed Mrs. Spinner to the door. Samantha looked back longingly at the small metal cage. Then she turned and headed out.

  Nipper looked down at a stack of brochures on the shelf beside the cage. He picked one up and opened it.

  “ ‘Chinchillas Direct,’ ” he read out loud. “ ‘Delivery service.’ ”

  In the past few weeks, Samantha had saved Nipper’s life twice. First, she’d whacked a ninja in the face with a stale loaf of bread, protecting Nipper from being chopped into little pieces. Second, she’d used her umbrella to pin him to the floor of an Egyptian tomb, keeping him from being flushed into a bottomless pit. Samantha was turning out to be a cooler kind of eleven-year-old sister than he’d thought. Of course, he was still going to give her a lifetime of woe, wisecracks, and interruptions. And he would always need a test subject when he invented new booby traps. But first, she definitely deserved a special thank-you-for-not-letting-me-die-twice present.

  “Are you coming?” his mother called from outside.

  Nipper folded the brochure in half, tucked it into his pocket, and left the office.

  Buffy was in Manhattan, surrounded by luxury and city lights.

  Samantha was in Seattle, surrounded by an annoying brother, an injured dog with a cone around his head, and rain. Not the RAIN—she’d taken care of them—just ordinary stuck-in-the-Pacific-Northwest rain.

  Day after day, she’d overhear her mom or dad on the phone with Buffy. Buffy was decorating her fabulous three-level penthouse apartment. Buffy was hiring musicians and performers. Buffy was doing great. Buffy was having fun. Buffy. Buffy. Broadway. Buffy.

  Every day, her older sister spent time with “Horace Temple” to work on her big musical play. Every night, she called her parents to talk and talk about Secret of the Nile. Samantha overheard them discussing costumes, sets, red-carpet parties, menus for award banquets—it never ended. But she didn’t hear a single super-secret clue.

  Meanwhile, Uncle Paul (aka Horace Temple) was ignoring Samantha. He didn’t answer the message she sent through the pneumatic tube. He didn’t send any new messages. Her uncl
e had given her glasses, warned her to “watch out for the SUN,” and clearly wanted her to know about Cleopatra’s Needle. But what did it all mean? And as long as she was stuck in Seattle, what could she do about it anyway?

  Samantha even reached out to Buffy. Unfortunately, when she asked about Horace Temple, her sister only said, “Horace says not to miss opening night,” and hung up the phone. Her sister was exactly as helpful as she expected her to be—not very helpful at all.

  Samantha asked her parents every day and every night if they would send her to New York City. They told her—every day and every night—that she would have to wait until school was out. Then they would take a trip together to the East Coast.

  But Samantha knew that she needed to get there now!

  She walked into the kitchen. Her mother stood at the counter, sifting through the mail. Before Samantha could say anything, she heard her mother’s voice.

  “The answer is still no, Samantha,” said Mrs. Spinner without even looking up.

  Samantha sighed.

  She heard a rattling sound and looked down. Dennis was trying to eat from his food dish as his cone bumped it along the floor. The pug stopped near Samantha’s feet and looked up at her with a tragic expression on his face.

  “I feel for you, pal,” she told him. “It’s awful to be trapped, trapped, trapped, isn’t it?”

  “You are so dramatic, Samantha,” her mother told her. “You should audition for a role in your sister’s play.”

  “Okay,” said Samantha. “Then let me go to NYC.”

  “Plane tickets are two billion, four hundred million dollars,” said Mrs. Spinner.

  “Very funny, Mom,” Samantha replied.

  There had to be something she could do to get to New York. She let out a soft groan. She felt like power moping. Maybe it was time for her to return to her gloom journal and write sad entries about unfairness, misery, and gray, drizzly skies.

  She closed her eyes and started to compose a poem.

  Nelly McPepper met a terrible fate,

  But we all can get trapped in a place that we hate.

  “Well, look what came in the mail,” said Mrs. Spinner.

  Samantha opened her eyes. Her mother held out a neon-green postcard. Samantha could see a glittering gold unicorn and a mummy.

  “ ‘Pre-order your tickets to Secret of the Nile,’ ” her mother read. “Admit it, dear,” she added. “Your sister is taking this very seriously.”

  “Seriously?” asked Samantha. “An Egyptian unicorn?”

  She turned away from her mother and the postcard. She shut her eyes and went back to her poem.

  I’m a gloomy sad egg. I’m a chicken of woe.

  I have so much to do, but they won’t let me…

  Samantha stopped. She opened her eyes…and smiled. It was definitely time to do some writing, but not in her journal.

  She walked quickly to her dad’s office.

  Samantha moved two lightbulbs out of the way and placed them gently on a corner of her father’s desk, on top of a box labeled “Miniaturized Infrared Diodes.” As Senior Lightbulb Tester for the American Institute of Lamps, her dad always had experimental gadgets and electronic equipment lying around. She adjusted the purple sunglasses on the top of her head and started typing on the computer.

  “Dear Mr. von Bagelhouven,” she said out loud.

  “Bagelhouven? What’s that?”

  She turned around. It was Nipper.

  “Good,” she told him. “I was just about to look for you. I’ve come up with a way to— What’s that in your hand?”

  Her brother held out a small flat item.

  “Here,” he said. “I figure this might protect your specs.”

  Samantha took the object from him. It was a leather eyeglass case.

  “Where did this come from?” she asked.

  “Uncle Paul gave me some sunglasses last year,” he said. “I took them to the beach and they washed out to sea while I was making a sandcastle.”

  Samantha opened the case and examined it. It had nice padding, but it was designed for small round glasses. Her octagonal lenses were too big. She put it down on her father’s desk and turned back to the computer.

  “The case is too small, but thanks anyway,” she said. “Now look at this.”

  Nipper leaned in to see what she was typing.

  You are invited to a SPECIAL performance of SECRET OF THE NILE!

  Don’t miss this EXCLUSIVE one-night preview!

  You will be AMAZED by what you see!

  “I used a lot of extra capitalization and exclamation points,” said Samantha. “It makes it seem Buffy-like, don’t you think?”

  “You’re inviting someone to Buffy’s play?” Nipper asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I know it’s cruel. But I think this will get us to New York.”

  “Okay…and why this guy?” he asked.

  “I did some research,” she answered. “He’s a theater critic who hates every play he ever sees.”

  “Okay…,” said Nipper, sounding confused. “Exactly how is this helping us find Uncle Paul?”

  “Just watch what happens next,” she answered, and hit send.

  The doorbell rang.

  “Wow! That was fast,” said Nipper.

  “Don’t be silly,” Samantha answered. “Go see who that is.”

  Nipper left. Samantha heard him answer the door. A minute later, he came back into the room carrying a large cardboard box. It had animal tracks printed on each side. Rows of holes, about the size of quarters, lined the top. Little twitching pink noses poked out from several of the holes. The package shook in Nipper’s hands. The contents were moving…and squeaking.

  “ ‘Chinchillas,’ ” he said, reading from the top of the box. “ ‘Twelve count.’ ”

  Over the course of two days, twelve boxes arrived from Chinchillas Direct. Each one squeaked and buzzed like a crazy cardboard beehive. By the time Samantha came home from school on the third day, the Spinner house was overrun by chinchillas.

  “Why did you do this?” asked Mrs. Spinner.

  “It was a present for Sam,” Nipper answered as he brushed a chinchilla away with one foot.

  “Chinchillas Direct is a bulk rodent-delivery service,” said Mrs. Spinner. “I sure wish more people paid attention.”

  Samantha thought her mother sounded unusually frustrated with Nipper. It certainly wasn’t the first time he had done something that messed up the house. Or nearly destroyed all the furniture.

  “Chinchillas are crepuscular,” Mrs. Spinner added. “They’re most active around dawn and twilight.”

  She set a bowl of pasta salad on the table and sat down.

  Everyone began to eat, pretending not to hear the squeaks, the chirps, and the little claws scratching.

  “I don’t love chinchillas,” said Samantha.

  “Really? Since when?” Nipper asked.

  He scooped up some pasta with his fork and was about to take a bite when a chinchilla hopped onto the table and scurried to the center of his plate. It stood up, looked at him, and made a chittering noise. Then it snatched the pasta off the end of the fork and scampered away.

  “Gross,” Samantha said.

  “Well, Nipper did order a gross of chinchillas,” said Mr. Spinner.

  “Huh?” Nipper said.

  “A dozen dozens is a gross,” his father replied. “One hundred and forty-four.”

  Samantha ignored her father’s math fact and her brother’s grossness. It was impossible, however, to ignore twelve dozen chinchillas.

  When she’d seen one in her mother’s office, she’d thought it was cute. She liked the soft sound it made. Now rodents were everywhere—squeaking, scratching, and chewing. Little gray hairs covered the furniture.

  Samant
ha got up to help clear the table. Two chinchillas chased each other around and around the sink, so she set her plate on the counter.

  Snap!

  She looked above the refrigerator. Last fall, her dad had helped her build a tongue-depressor suspension bridge for the science fair. Now a pair of chinchillas gnawed the sticks, snapping them one by one. Her dad had been correct. You could take away half the supports and the structure would still stand.

  She noticed a trail of droppings along the floor.

  “This is exceptionally gross,” said Samantha, watching her step as she headed out of the kitchen.

  “Well, you know, Sam,” Nipper called, “a dozen dozens is the same as—”

  “I know!” she shouted, and headed up the stairs to her room.

  * * *

  —

  Samantha sat down at her desk. Her notebook lay open to the sketch of Cleopatra’s Needle. The note from Uncle Paul sat beside it. If she ever did get to New York, what would she find there?

  Chinchilla noises began to fill the air.

  “Just great,” Samantha muttered.

  She rubbed her forehead and tried to ignore the sounds. She looked again at the note.

  “ ‘Watch out for the SUN,’ ” she read.

  She heard a chirp and turned. A chinchilla inched slowly toward her purse, which was hanging on the desk chair.

  “Oh no,” she told the rodent, and grabbed the purse. “That’s not for you.”

  She checked to make sure her purple sunglasses were still inside. Then she draped the straps over her shoulder.

  “Any progress, Sam?” asked Nipper, walking into her room.

  “Not really,” she answered. “Come take a look at my sketch of Cleopatra’s Needle.”

  The chinchilla hopped from her chair to her open journal.

  “Just knock it on the floor,” said Nipper.

  “Nipper! Don’t you dare,” Samantha scolded. “They’re defenseless rodents.”

  She gently nudged the animal off her book.

  “Hey, look, Sam,” said Nipper, pointing across the room. “A defenseless rodent is chewing on your Super-Secret Plans.”