Nipper strolled down the driveway to his neighbor’s side porch.
“Lucky, lucky day,” he said softly.
Missy Snoddgrass stood just inside the screen door, waiting. She folded her arms across her yellow polka-dot blouse as she watched him climb the steps. The moment he reached the porch, she pushed the door open with one hand and leaned forward.
“Hello, Jeremy Bernard Spinner,” she said. “I don’t remember inviting you.”
Nipper ignored her. This was his lucky day. He patted his front pocket and felt his lucky nickel.
“Hi, Missy,” he said cheerfully. “I’m here to talk about my Yankees.”
“Those losers?” she snapped, twisting her face into a weird half-grin.
Nipper did his best to keep smiling.
“At first, I worried that nobody would take them at all,” said Missy, rubbing her chin. “It’s been so long since they won a game.”
“Take them?” said Nipper. He forgot to keep smiling.
“I had to keep lowering the price,” she said. “Eventually, I found a buyer.”
Nipper heard a loud fluttering noise. A large red-and-blue parrot flapped through the open side door and landed on Missy’s shoulder.
“I used the three hundred bucks to buy Sammy here.”
“Three hundred bucks, three hundred bucks,” the bird squawked.
“Sammy?” Nipper asked. He watched the parrot as it picked at Missy’s blouse with one dirty gray claw. It reached out with its beak and tapped twice at the scorpion ring on the end of Missy’s finger. Then it stopped tapping and picking and stared at him.
Slowly, Nipper began to realize what happened. His eyes went wide and his heart raced.
“You sold my Yankees for three hundred dollars and bought a dumb bird?” he screamed.
“Sammy’s not a dumb bird,” said Missy calmly. “I like to think of her as my discomfort pet.”
“Discomfort pet? What does that mean? Whose ‘discomfort’ is it?”
She glanced at the parrot on her shoulder and turned slowly back to Nipper.
“Yours,” she said in a low voice. She grinned and stared directly into his eyes without blinking. “And I wouldn’t make her mad if I were you.”
Nipper scowled back at her.
“I’m not scared of a—”
“Not scared. Boo! Not scared. Boo!” the parrot shrieked, and it leaped forward.
“Boo! Boo! Boo!” it squawked, flapping its wings in Nipper’s face.
Nipper tried to bat it away, but all he could see was a blur of blue and red feathers.
“Who’s the bird brain now?” asked Missy.
The parrot found a small hole in Nipper’s collar and worked its beak into it.
“Bird brain!” it squawked. “Boo! Boo! Boo!”
It scratched at Nipper’s neck through the hole. He shoved at the awful creature with his elbow until it let go of his collar. Then he stepped backward down the stairs, shielding his face and neck with both arms.
When his feet touched the pavement, he turned and uncovered his face.
He didn’t look back.
Nipper walked down the Snoddgrass driveway, silently picking feathers from his hair as he went.
He stopped and reached into his pocket. His lucky nickel was gone.
“Boo! Bird brain! Boo!” the parrot screamed in the distance.
The walk to his house seemed like fifty-nine miles.
Samantha felt energized. She sat at her desk, tapping the yellow notepad with a pencil. The closed umbrella leaned against the wall near her. She had a hardcover book—the Encyclopedia Missilium—open on the desk. This huge book about weapons and projectiles came from her uncle’s apartment.
Nipper staggered in through her bedroom door.
“I clearly heard one of the clowns say ‘Dynamite’ and ‘Zzyzx,’ ” she said, not looking up from her notes. “Do those sound familiar to you?”
Nipper didn’t answer.
“Well, they’re both stops on the magtrain line, remember?” she asked.
“Three hundred dollars,” Nipper muttered.
“Whatever,” said Samantha without looking at him.
She had written a list of all the magtrain destinations from the station under their mailbox. She drew a circle around the word Baraboo.
“I tried to use the computer in Dad’s office, but chinchillas had chewed through the power cord,” she continued. “So I used Mom’s laptop, and I researched all the places on the magtrain line. And guess what? Baraboo! That’s what.”
“Boo,” said Nipper softly.
“There used to be a clown school in Baraboo where all the big circuses practiced.”
“Boo,” Nipper said again.
Samantha looked at her brother. His hair was a mess. His shirt collar was twisted. Small blue and red feathers stuck to his face.
“You are double-triple kid-brother-strange today,” she said. “Work with me here. Uncle Paul is counting on us.”
She put down the notepad and held out the encyclopedia.
“I still don’t know what A-L-I-M means,” Samantha said. “But look at this.”
She pointed to a spot on the page for Nipper to read.
RUBBER PANCAKES
Ranging from thin and bendy flapjacks to steel-rimmed, armor-piercing johnnycakes, rubber pancakes are the projectiles of choice for slapstick pranksters and comic vandals.
Breakfast historians believe airborne faux consumables date back to the nineteenth century, beginning with the cultivation of rubber trees for commercial use.
In modern times, antisocial clowns often employ rubber pancakes, most notably the organization known as the Society of Universal Nonsense.
See also: LEAD BALLOONS, CANDY PEANUTS
“ ‘The Society of Universal Nonsense,’ ” Nipper repeated. He had snapped out of his stupor and nodded enthusiastically. “Watch out for the—”
Samantha raised one hand and cut him off. She glanced left and right. The squeaky, chittering noises had stopped.
“Weren’t there a bunch of chinchillas up here?” she asked.
Samantha got up and started looking around. The room seemed remarkably quiet. She bent down to peek under her bed, and then stood up again. She spotted a thin blue strip of tape lying in a corner and picked it up.
“ ‘Chinchilla lanigera. La Paz, Bolivia,’ ” she read.
The tape had big teeth marks through it.
She studied the bite. Then she glared at Nipper.
“Show me what you’ve been hiding,” she said. “Show me now!”
Section 06, Detail GOLOOKF
Baraboo, Wisconsin
Founded in 1838, the city of Baraboo, Wisconsin, takes its name from the nearby Baraboo River.
Conveniently located only a few miles from Interstate 90 and the train station at Wisconsin Dells, Baraboo features many fine restaurants, a dozen outdoor recreation attractions, and the Circus World Museum.
From 1884 to 1917, Baraboo was the headquarters of the Ringling Brothers circus as well as several other circuses. This earned the town the nickname Circus City.
Officially, the population of Baraboo is about twelve thousand.
* * *
• • •
The official population count does not include one hundred clowns who live in secret buildings beneath the streets of Baraboo.
The Society of Universal Nonsense (aka the SUN) is an army of failed circus performers. Every member of the SUN has hyperosmia, meaning that their sense of smell is super-powerful. They are so sensitive to smells that they cannot spend much time close to people or animals. Thus, they can never join the circus.
They wear special red ball nose filters to protect themselves from odors. They wear enormous shoes to
keep people at least twenty inches away from their faces.
Since they are unable to entertain, these clowns have banded together to annoy. They interrupt music festivals and sabotage parades. They ruin parties and vandalize art fairs. They play mean-spirited pranks on unsuspecting people around the globe.
Until very recently, the SUN has been crepuscular, choosing to stage most of its pranks around dawn and twilight. Now that the foul-smelling ninjas of the RAIN have been caught, the SUN has stepped up its attacks during all hours of the day and night.
Governments worldwide are trying to put a stop to the SUN and their cruel tricks. The New York City Police Department has assigned twenty-two officers to hunt them down.
“What have you been hiding?” Samantha repeated.
Nipper led her across the hall. He stopped just outside his bedroom door and held a finger to his lips.
“Shhh,” he whispered excitedly. “We don’t want to wake her if she’s sleeping.” He gently pushed open the door.
“She? Who’s she?” asked Samantha.
Her eyes went wide.
A giant, greenish-gray lizard moved around the room. Its feet thumped against the wood floor as it darted back and forth. A chinchilla scampered under Nipper’s bed.
The lizard knocked over a chair and stopped at the foot of the bed. It hissed loudly and tried to jam its head between the bed and the floor, but it didn’t fit.
“It’s a baby dinosaur,” said Nipper giddily. “I found her on a mountainous island, in a mist-covered ocean far, far from home.”
Samantha looked at the animal. It was at least three feet long.
“See, Sam? I remembered what you told me yesterday,” he said.
“Remembered what?” she asked.
“You said that we’re both explorers,” he answered. “And you said we shouldn’t come home empty-handed. Didn’t you?”
Samantha slapped her forehead and let out an exasperated sigh.
“I think she’s a lythronax,” he said happily.
“A lythro-what?” asked Samantha.
“A lythronax,” he answered. “That means ‘king of gore.’ Lythronaxes are the largest carnivorous dinosaurs ever discovered.”
Samantha glanced across the room. The creature had stopped trying to get under Nipper’s bed. It moved slowly toward them, sniffing the air as it crawled.
“She’ll be house-trained, soon,” Nipper continued. “Then I’ll teach her how to hunt for birds.”
“Birds?” Samantha asked.
“Oh yes,” he answered, rubbing his hands together and grinning fiendishly. “Sammy the parrot is in big trouble.”
Samantha looked down. The giant lizard was slinking close to Nipper’s feet. Its forked tongue flicked in and out of its mouth quickly. The creature tilted its head up and stared at Samantha with jet-black eyes. It hissed.
Samantha groaned. She took another look at the lizard. Then at her brother. She stepped backward into the hallway.
“Wait right here,” she said, and shut the door.
Samantha quickly walked down the stairs and into the living room. She saw her parents in the kitchen and turned the other way. They were talking loudly to hear each other over the sound of chinchillas. She left through the front door instead. She sped around the house, down the driveway, and up the steps to Uncle Paul’s apartment.
The door was still unlocked. She turned the knob and entered. No one had been inside for several months now, except for her and Nipper. Samantha had been there earlier that day, when she borrowed the Encyclopedia Missilium. She headed back to the tall bookcase.
Among the atlases and dictionaries, a set of thick, leather-bound books stood where she remembered. Each one featured the words THE WORLD’S DEADLIEST ANIMALS on the spine in red-and-gold lettering. She reached for the third book in the set.
VOLUME III
HIPPOPOTAMUS TO POISON DART FROG
“ ‘King cobra…Kodiak bear,’ ” she read out loud as she flipped through the pages.
She stopped at a photo of a giant, greenish-gray lizard.
“ ‘Komodo dragon.’ ” Samantha sighed, shaking her head. She snapped the book shut and raced back to the house.
A minute later, she pushed open the door to her brother’s room.
Nipper held one end of a pillow. The lizard’s mouth was clamped tightly onto the other end. They were engaged in a tug of war.
“Nipper,” she said, holding up the book. “You’ve done a lot of incredibly dumb, dangerous things, but this is the worst!”
The lizard let go of the pillow and turned to look at Samantha.
Samantha started thinking about some of the incredibly dumb things her brother had done. A little over two months ago, he’d tried to loot a secret tomb and it almost got them drowned in ancient Egyptian sewage. A little over ten months ago, he’d tried to build a roller coaster in the backyard and—no. No. This was much worse.
She raised the leather-bound book, opened it, and read loudly.
“ ‘Komodo dragons are giant lizards native to several islands of Indonesia. They can grow to be ten feet long and weigh up to one hundred and fifty pounds. They are venomous, and they dominate their ecosystem, feeding on bugs, birds, mammals, and each other!’ ”
She lowered the book and glared at her brother.
“That is not a baby dinosaur,” she said. “It’s a teenage Komodo dragon. And it’s venomous!”
Nipper mouthed the word venomous. He looked down at the very large lizard, then back at his sister.
“That means their bite is poisonous!” she added angrily.
The lizard hissed loudly and bared a set of gleaming white teeth. It stuck out its long, forked tongue and wiggled it at Samantha. She noticed a glistening drop of clear goo dangling from one tooth. Slowly, the creature began to slink toward her. She took a step back. It continued moving in her direction. She stepped sideways around the room and kept reading.
“ ‘Komodo dragons have a powerful sense of smell,’ ” she continued. “ ‘They can detect their prey up to six miles—’ ”
The lizard lunged at Samantha. She closed the heavy book quickly and swung it, smacking the beast hard across its snout. It jumped back and retreated behind her brother.
“Watch out,” said Nipper. “You could hurt her.”
The Komodo dragon poked its head through Nipper’s legs and looked up at Samantha again. It hissed fiercely. A thin strip of blue tape fell from its mouth and fluttered to the floor. Nipper picked it up and read.
“ ‘Chinchilla lanigera. Lima, Peru.’ ”
He tilted his head thoughtfully.
“Lima…Lima…Lima. That sounds familiar.”
His eyes widened.
“Oh. Yeah. Now I remember,” he said. “Those cards in the hallway read L-I-M-A.”
Samantha scowled at him.
“As in Lima, Peru,” he repeated, and handed her the scrap of tape. “I guess we were really close. Weren’t we, Sam?”
A hiss rang out. It wasn’t a lizard. It came from an angry, angry sister whose brother didn’t pay attention to things.
They had another full week of school before they could head out on their next super-secret journey. Samantha made the most of the afternoons to get ready. She planned to be prepared for Peru.
She already knew a little bit of Spanish. On Monday, she started practicing phrases that might come in handy. She wanted to say a lot more than “Please,” “Thank you,” and “Where’s the tallest building?” She also found a pocket guidebook to Peru—for any not-super-secret places they needed to find.
After school on Tuesday, they biked downtown to an international currency exchange. Samantha traded in sixty dollars of birthday money for one hundred and ninety-five Peruvian nuevos soles. Nipper contributed a ten-dollar bill, too, but she kept i
t separate, just in case it turned out to be a rare, collectible bill from Uncle Paul.
“Beautiful,” said Samantha, smiling and fanning out the colorful currency.
She stopped smiling. That was something her big sister would say. At least Samantha didn’t have the urge to go buy a thousand pairs of shoes or invent a goofy, movie-star name.
On Wednesday, Samantha sat at her desk, carefully stitching the umbrella, repairing the hole that the chinchilla had made, when she heard a loud ripping sound in Nipper’s room. She stood up quickly and walked across the hall.
Nipper sat on the edge of his bed, cradling a huge hardcover book in his lap. It was over two feet tall and more than a foot wide. The words Birds of North America were engraved on the cover.
“Where did that book come from?” she asked him.
The Komodo dragon hunched on the floor, watching Nipper carefully.
“Uncle Paul gave it to me to learn about birds,” her brother answered. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
Suddenly, Nipper tore a page from the book and held up an illustration of a speckled bird.
“Starling!” he announced.
The lizard reached up and snatched the page with its mouth. It chewed furiously and swallowed.
“What on earth are you doing?” asked Samantha.
“I already told you,” said Nipper. “Kym is going to be an awesome bird hunter.”
“Kym?”
“Yeah,” he said, grinning. “And, Sammy, the three-hundred-dollar parrot, is in big trouble now.”
He tore another page from the book and held up an illustration of a bright red bird.
“Cardinal!”
The Komodo dragon snatched it from him and chewed ferociously.
Samantha had absolutely no idea what this was all about. She left the boy, his lizard, and his giant bird book and went back to repairing her umbrella.
Samantha Spinner and the Spectacular Specs Page 13