Samantha Spinner and the Spectacular Specs

by Russell Ginns

  “I count only thirty-seven people today,” said Mr. Spinner as he looked around at the seats. “I think this team could use Buffy’s help selling tickets.”

  “Oh, George,” Mrs. Spinner replied. “You’d be sound asleep before you finished half of your deep-fried ice cream sundae and lobster pot pie.”

  “Well, I know this team could use Dennis’s help catching some of those balls,” said Mr. Spinner.

  Nipper sat in his seat and gazed longingly at the owner’s box. Samantha sat next to him, opening and closing her umbrella.

  “Don’t distract my Yankees,” he told her.

  Samantha closed the umbrella. She looked at Nipper. For a boy with the attention span of a chinchilla, he could certainly focus on a baseball game.

  The Yankees set a new major league record with eighty-three errors in a single game. The Red Sox won, 19–0. The Spinners filed out of the stadium with the dozen other people who had stayed until the end.

  “I’m sure there must have been a point to that game,” said Mrs. Spinner.

  Samantha started to open the Super-Secret Plans again.

  “And be careful with the point of that umbrella, too, dear,” she added.

  Samantha stopped. She made eye contact with her mother. Was she onto her plan? She smiled meekly and closed the umbrella.

  They rode the subway to Grand Central Station together, before Mr. and Mrs. Spinner announced they were heading to the American Museum of Natural History.

  “You really should come with us to see the new pangolin exhibit,” said Samantha’s mother.

  “True,” said her father. “There’s something very special about those creatures and the way that they defend themselves by rolling into a—”

  “Sorry,” said Samantha, cutting him off. “I have many places to go and a lot to do!”

  They agreed to split up, have dinner separately, and meet at the theater at showtime.

  “It would be nice if you didn’t open and close your umbrella during the performance,” Mrs. Spinner said to Samantha.

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” she answered. “I’ll leave it at Buffy’s apartment.”

  Samantha and Nipper spent the rest of the day wandering around Manhattan. They walked through Midtown and down to Greenwich Village. She kept the sunglasses stowed in her purse, but every four or five blocks, she stopped to open and close the umbrella.

  “Don’t tell me,” said Nipper. “You have a plan.”

  Samantha thought she heard a duck quack, but she wasn’t sure. There were too many buses, cabs, and chattering people.

  “Let’s keep going,” she said.

  They reached Buffy’s place by six p.m. Nathaniel had prepared a stew with spicy fish, yams, and rice. Once again, it was delicious. And once again, he scowled at them throughout the meal.

  After they ate, Samantha changed into nicer clothes for the theater, but she still wore her sneakers. She didn’t bother saying anything to Nipper about changing his outfit. She was pretty sure he didn’t have any more clothes in his duffel bag. She secured her umbrella in the trombone case and buried it under shredded newspaper in the stables.

  It was time to leave for the theater. Nathaniel watched them closely, so they went straight to the freight elevator. Samantha pushed the button for the ground floor and started down.

  She smiled.

  “Did you have time to digest?” Samantha asked.

  “Sure. I guess so,” said Nipper. “Why?”

  They reached the ground floor.

  “Because my plan is to…”

  The doors slid open and they faced a loading dock full of clowns.

  “…run for it!” she shouted.

  Samantha and Nipper bolted from the freight elevator. The dozens of clowns were busy juggling and practicing bad jokes, so the breakout took them by surprise. The Spinners ran through the crowd, zipping between stunned pie throwers and shocked pancake flingers. They threaded through the hallway, into the lobby, and onto the street before the first peanut gun fired. They heard screams and a few quacks, but didn’t look back.

  They ran for fifteen blocks, zigzagging around traffic. Finally, they stopped to catch their breath. Up ahead, the lights of Times Square blazed. Far in the distance, amid the giant video screens and sky-high advertisements, they spotted a neon sign.

  SCARLETT HYDRANGEA’S

  SECRET OF THE NILE

  “Stick with me,” said Samantha, heading toward the sign.

  “I’m right behind—waitaminute, waitaminute, waitaminute!” Nipper yelled.

  Near them on the sidewalk, a vendor stood next to a colorful food cart. In rainbow letters, the sign above him read:

  SUPER

  FRUITY

  SLUSH

  BOMB

  Samantha was about to pull her brother away from the cart, but she paused and let him speak.

  “Make it super-hot cinnamon,” said Nipper.

  Samantha smiled

  “It’s your tongue, buddy,” said the vendor.

  He picked up a bright red bottle and squirted it three times into a big plastic cup. Then he turned to start his ice grinder. While the man chopped ice into snow, Nipper reached over the counter and grabbed the bottle. Samantha didn’t say anything. She just stood and watched as her brother squirted an almost-full bottle of super-hot cinnamon syrup into the cup.

  The vendor turned back, mixed in the ice, and snapped on a lid.

  Samantha heard ducks quacking in the distance.

  “That’ll be ten dollars and five cents,” said the vendor, sliding a straw through a hole in the lid.

  The sound of quacking ducks grew louder.

  “Sam,” said Nipper, “can I have my ten-dollar bill back?”

  Samantha reached in her pocket and found the bill she had been holding since Peru. She handed it to the vendor. The duck sounds were getting close.

  “It’s five more cents, buddy,” said the slush vendor.

  Nipper reached into his pocket and took out his lucky nickel. He held it up between his thumb and index finger.

  “Hmmm,” said the man, staring at the coin. “That looks valuable. I wonder how much it’s worth?”

  “Hurry up,” said Samantha. The quacks were too close. She could hear clown shoes slapping.

  “Maybe I should throw in a souvenir crazy straw,” said the vendor. “That might make it a fair agreement or trade. Don’t you—”

  Samantha snatched the coin from Nipper and slapped it on the cart.

  “Oh, just take it!” she said, and grabbed the double-triple-cinnamon Super Fruity Slush Bomb. She shoved the drink into Nipper’s right hand. Then she grabbed his left hand and began to drag him along the sidewalk.

  “No backsies!” the vendor shouted behind them.

  “What did you do that for?” Nipper asked as they moved through the crowd.

  “You were going to lose it anyway,” said Samantha.

  Nipper didn’t have time to answer. He followed her as they ran down Broadway and turned right at Forty-Sixth Street. In the distance, the word Hydrangea flashed in neon. They sped up the street and stopped outside the entrance to the theater. People waited in line to enter. Five women in blue dresses with pom-poms, aprons—and bright red nose filters—watched the crowd from across the street.

  “Pie clowns,” said Nipper. “Yuck.”

  One pointed at Nipper and grinned.

  “Who wants the blue plate special?” she croaked, adjusting her blue wig and raising a pie tin piled with gray goo and squirming blue shapes.

  The other four pie clowns smiled, too. They adjusted their frizzy blue wigs and raised their horrible pies.

  “This way,” said Samantha.

  They ran past the theater, sped to the end of the block, and turned south. Halfway down the block, they made another
left turn, into an alley. A sign swung from a pole.

  SCARLETT HYDRANGEA’S

  SECRET OF THE NILE

  LOADING DOCK

  NO PARKING

  EXCEPT FOR UNICORNS

  From the other end of the alley, an army of clowns approached.

  Samantha and Nipper ran straight for the loading dock behind the theater. Samantha grabbed the handle of the enormous sliding door and pulled, but the door was locked.

  “SUN-set!” a voice called out.

  She and Nipper turned. One hundred horrible clowns of every ridiculous type surrounded them. Pie clowns, peanut clowns, pancake clowns. The tall woman with the gold crown towered in back.

  A clown in a top hat cleared his throat. His immense shoes slapped the street as he stepped forward and adjusted his nose ball.

  “Excuse me, young lady,” he said, in a creepy, fake-friendly voice. “If you’d be so kind as to tell us where your uncle is vacationing, then I’m sure we could—”

  “Watch out!” one of the clowns screamed, as loud as any clown has ever screamed. “The boy has the super weapon!”

  Samantha looked over at Nipper. He was sipping his cinnamon slush. His fingers covered two of the words on the cup, which now read:

  SUPER

  —

  —

  BOMB

  “Stop them,” yelled another clown, “before they destroy us all!”

  Whap! Wham! Crunch! Crack!

  A storm of pancakes and candy peanuts sailed at Samantha and Nipper. A rubber flapjack smacked her ear. Hotcakes flew by and thumped against the door behind her. Steel-rimmed johnnycakes splintered wood.

  Clank!

  A johnnycake hit the metal roller at the top of the door, snapping it in half. The door wobbled and tipped backward, then fell straight into the building.

  “Go!” Samantha shouted to Nipper.

  Nipper didn’t have to be told twice. He ran through the open doorway, with Samantha on his heels, into the back of the theater.

  “I’m glistening, now start listening!” shouted Buffy Spinner, adjusting a green glow-in-the-dark rhinestone atop her pink Egyptian headdress. “Charles von Bagelhouven is coming to see the show tonight, and we’re going to prove him wrong. Scarlett Hydrangea’s Secret of the Nile will survive!”

  She strode up and down before the rows of dancers, musicians, makeup artists, accessory porters, and stagehands. Onstage behind her, a scale replica of Cleopatra’s Needle towered over a shiny golden sphinx and two neon-pink pyramids.

  She turned to admire the set. It was extremely realistic. Hopefully, the audience wouldn’t notice that there weren’t any unicorns.

  “We are going to make it, everyone,” said Buffy, waving a silver scepter in the air triumphantly. “We’ve encountered obstacles along the way, but we’re not going to miss opening night!”

  The makeup artists standing closest to Buffy watched the shiny stick nervously. It had an ibis head on the end, with a long, pointy, razor-sharp bird beak.

  Like a royal Egyptian warlord, Buffy walked among her subjects and inspected the neon-pink hooves of the bright blue giraffes. No one would know they weren’t real animals. The human pyramid of bagpipe players was so stable it could stand forever. The monkey seemed calm.

  “Nothing strange will happen,” she continued. “The Great Flingo will keep his cool. There will be no surprises. Not tonight.”

  She slid her dangerously sharp scepter into a scabbard on her belt. Everyone in the cast and crew breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens tonight without my permission,” she ordered.

  Suddenly, loud banging and smashing sounds filled the air. Everyone looked around. With a thundering crash, the loading dock door fell forward.

  Samantha and Nipper raced inside, chased by a mob of angry clowns.

  Samantha and Nipper burst into the building.

  “Watch out for the SUN!” Nipper screamed.

  Rubber pancakes and candy peanuts rained in behind them.

  Buffy stood backstage, surrounded by her cast and crew. She was dressed like a weird combination of a princess, an elf, a lighthouse, and an Egyptian royal court jester. She was busy whining at the cast and crew about unicorns.

  “Buffy!” Samantha yelled, as she and Nipper pushed through a line of extremely fake-looking giraffes. “Call the cops!”

  Everyone turned to see what was happening, without Buffy’s permission.

  Clowns poured in through the open door.

  “Get the girl!” someone screamed.

  “Get that boy, too,” shouted someone else. “He’s so annoying!”

  Everyone was confused. The giraffes craned their necks, as the people inside struggled to see what was going on. A human pyramid of bagpipe players began to play. Confusion turned to panic.

  Ka-snappp!

  A black balloon whipped one of the fake giraffes on its rump.

  From inside the costume, someone howled in pain.

  All the fake giraffes started to stampede in a way that was very realistic.

  “Call the cops!” Samantha shouted again.

  “Breeep!” screeched a monkey.

  Swi-thunk!

  A johnnycake sailed past Samantha’s nose and sliced into a mermaid cave made of mattresses.

  Samantha grabbed her brother’s hand again and ran for one of the stage wings. Ahead, she saw a narrow spiral staircase leading up to the rigging.

  All of the SUN was backstage now. As Samantha and Nipper reached the base of the staircase, several clowns pointed at them.

  “SUN-burst!” barked the clown in the top hat. “Round up everyone in this theater and—”

  “I said NOT TONIGHT!” Buffy screamed at the top of her lungs.

  Everyone froze.

  Buffy began pointing at everyone with two fingers. Samantha recognized it as the same two-finger point their mother used to calm down rodents, lizards, and children.

  “Musicians. Start your fog machines,” her sister shouted. “Grab your instruments. Get in the pit and play!” she yelled. “Mermaids. Turn on the lights on your fins and go…to…your…cave!”

  Everyone in the production shuffled away quickly and quietly.

  With both hands, Buffy pointed to the crowd of stunned clowns.

  “All of you,” she said. “Stay out of my way…until you get…a makeover!”

  She walked to the curtain, slipped under it, and disappeared.

  The orchestra began to play.

  “Did she go to get the cops?” Nipper asked.

  “I don’t think so,” said Samantha.

  The drone of bagpipes drifted from beyond the curtain.

  “Who saved room for pie?” a chorus of voices rang out.

  In a V formation, seven pie clowns skipped toward Samantha and Nipper, pans of goo held high.

  “Start climbing,” Samantha told Nipper. “I’ll catch up.”

  Nipper raced up the staircase and Samantha reached for a large power switch dangling near the wall.

  “Order up!” croaked the seven clowns in unison.

  Samantha flipped the switch. An engine roared to life.

  The pie clowns let loose their volley of greasy pies.

  Samantha aimed the wind machine and a great gust caught the horrible desserts, flinging them back at the clowns and splattering them with oily muck.

  Samantha turned up the dial on the mighty fan. The clowns sailed across the floor, tumbling under the curtain and onto the stage.

  Over the roar of the machine, Samantha heard screaming clowns and wailing bagpipes. Then: Smack! Smack! Smack!

  From the opposite side of the theater, a dozen clowns flung rubber pancakes at Samantha. She ducked and dodged to avoid the barrage.

  “Batter up!”
a clown hollered.

  Another swarm of fake flapjacks sailed overhead.

  Low to the floor, she noticed smoke seeping under the curtain from the stage.

  Fire? Samantha wondered.

  She sniffed. It wasn’t smoke. It was artificial fog. She spotted one of the big black barrels of fog-machine juice from the loading dock at Buffy’s apartment.

  Smack! Smack! Smack!

  Another storm of pancakes sailed past, inches from her head.

  Samantha reached forward and grabbed a thick rope hanging from the ceiling. Hand over hand, she pulled, raising the curtain. A dense fog bank billowed in from the stage. It swirled around Samantha.

  The pancakes came again, but this time they were way off target.

  “No fair!” a clown shouted.

  A loud horn honked. Two beams of light cut through the fog. A clown car! Samantha sprinted for the spiral staircase as the tiny car drew near.

  A truck engine roared, and a monster truck appeared, emerging from the fog.

  “I said NOT TONIGHT!” Buffy yelled from behind the wheel, aiming straight for the clowns.

  There was an incredibly loud crunch as she rolled the massive pickup truck over the hood of the tiny car, flattening the engine and pinning it to the floor. The clowns seemed okay, but the squashed front kept the car doors from opening. Trapped inside, they pounded on the windows angrily, shouting.

  Buffy hopped out of the cab of the truck, walked over to the screaming clowns, and gave them a double-triple super frown. They all went silent. Then she walked to the side of the stage and tugged the rope. The curtain between Buffy and backstage dropped. She was back in front of the audience and out of sight.

  Samantha looked at the tiny car. The clowns—at least five of them—started banging on the windows and screaming again. They were stuck for now. She let out a sigh of relief. Then she started up the staircase to find Nipper.

  She climbed the spiral stairs so quickly she felt dizzy. At the top, she looked around as she caught her breath. A catwalk stretched across the theater from where she stood. It was a narrow bridge about two feet wide. A few lights hung from it, along with a massive wooden model of the Temple of Horus.

  From her perch, Samantha had a view of Buffy’s whole show. The stage set featured a gleaming white three-story obelisk. It would have been a very convincing scaled-down replica of Cleopatra’s Needle—if neon-pink pyramids, a glittering gold sphinx, and a trio of mermaids dancing around a glowing cave didn’t surround it.