Nipper, worried, looked at him.
“It’ll be all right, son,” Mr. Spinner added as he wound an extension cord around his arm. “I’ve hired a babysitter for you.”
“What? Dad!” Nipper cried. “I’m not a baby!”
“We both promised your mother that we wouldn’t set off any explosions,” said Mr. Spinner, “and that I wouldn’t leave you alone.”
Nipper stomped his foot. “I said I’m not a baby.”
Mr. Spinner zipped up the duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder.
“Look,” he said. “I did some research and hired a woman from the neighborhood.”
“What woman? What neighborhood? Who?” Nipper asked, following him into the living room.
“She has a sterling reputation,” his father insisted. “I won’t be gone very long. Just do everything she tells you to do, and we’ll be fine.”
He gave a quick thumbs-up and stepped out of the house, pulling the front door closed behind him.
Nipper stood alone in the living room. He crossed his arms. Then he uncrossed his arms. He’d be fine without his dad for a while.
He looked around the room. A professional marker set with 256 colors rested on a high shelf. The vacuum cleaner leaned against the wall. Nipper had always suspected those strange-shaped hose attachments would be good for launching things.
The doorbell rang. Nipper heard the screen door swing. Slowly, the front door creaked open.
“Hello, Jeremy Bernard.”
It was Missy Snoddgrass. She grinned menacingly, holding something behind her back with one hand.
“Don’t come in, Missy,” he said. “There’s a sitter on the way, and she’s…she’s…”
Missy nodded slowly, still grinning.
His voice trailed off.
“Oh, I know,” she said.
“You?” Nipper asked, although it really wasn’t a question. “You can’t be my babysitter.”
“Just relax,” she said calmly. “I promised your father that nothing would get broken…inside this house.”
She stepped forward.
“Now you’re going to do whatever I tell you.”
“Hold on!” said Nipper. “There’s no way I’m going to— Hey! Stop it! What are you doing?”
Missy held an industrial cone of brightly colored yarn in one hand. She reached out with her other hand and gave him the end of the yarn. Then she began quickly walking around him.
Nipper looked left and right. Everything was happening so fast. Missy darted back and forth, winding the yarn around his body as she went. Before he knew it, his arms were pinned to his sides.
“Waitaminute, waitaminute, waitaminute!” he yelled.
“Don’t struggle,” said Missy. “It’ll only make it tighter.”
She kept going. Skipping now, she went round and round and round. Nipper couldn’t move his arms at all. Suddenly, his legs were tied together, too.
“Help!” Nipper cried.
Missy stared into Nipper’s eyes for a moment. Then her mouth twisted in a hideous grin. Slowly she turned her head and looked around the living room. Nipper could tell she had spotted the stack of papers resting on the coffee table.
His Yankees!
Missy sneered at him and nodded slowly. Then she scooped up the papers and tucked them into her blouse.
There was nothing Nipper could do about it.
“Oh, you be quiet,” said Missy, wrapping yarn across his face.
The room tilted. No. Nipper tilted, trapped inside a big ball of yarn!
“Let’s roll,” said Missy.
Nipper couldn’t see anymore. He rolled, head over heels. He heard a door open and close. He continued rolling.
“Let’s roll! Let’s roll! Boo! Boo! Boo!” a high-pitched voice squawked.
Nipper still couldn’t see. He still kept rolling. He tried to think, but he felt really dizzy now.
Nipper tried to remember what Uncle Paul had said, just as the elevator doors closed. What was it? A warning? What did he say?
“Bird brain! Bird brain!” a voice squawked.
“Wait. I got it,” Nipper struggled to say. Yarn pressed against his lips. “Watch out for the—”
John Lennon was a member of the Beatles, one of the most popular rock groups of all time. He was known for wearing glasses with small round lenses. A pair of his sunglasses once sold for $87,000.
Leo Zimmerman was a trombone player in the early 1900s. He composed many hits in his day and was part of John Phillip Sousa’s famous marching band. A trombone owned by Zimmerman once sold for $250,000!
The 1913 Liberty Head “V” nickel is one of the rarest coins in U.S. history. Only five of them were made. If you find one, it might be worth more than $3 million.
John James Audubon was a naturalist and artist who specialized in birds. One collection of his illustrations was combined to create a giant book called Birds of North America. This one-of-a-kind volume sold for $3.77 million.
Fabergé eggs are sculptures by the artist Peter Carl Fabergé. He created many of them for the rulers of Russia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These highly detailed treasures are covered with precious metal and gems. Some have sold for more than $9 million.
Word Whammy! cards don’t cost anything at all. You can go to samanthaspinner.com/wordwhammy and print them out for free.
Samantha’s on a roll, and Nipper can’t stop rolling! Don’t miss the next super-secret adventure, filled with odd orbs, mysterious marbles, strange spheres, and, of course, unusual uncles.
Coming
Spring 2020
You’ve probably guessed that this book is full of super secrets. So take a closer look at things and find these hidden puzzles and codes:
An Important Message: Do you remember the secret word search from Samantha Spinner and the Super-Secret Plans? Try the same trick here! Copy all the ID tags that appear at the top-left corner of Samantha’s journal entries. Put them in order by section number, and they will spell out something you should know.
The Snoddgrass Code: Once again, there is a secret message hidden in everything Missy says. Follow the numbers at the bottom of every page where she speaks. There’s one digit for each of her words. The number tells you which letter to look at in the word. For example, the number 3 and the word the means the letter E. If the number is 0, there’s no letter for that word.
The Breakfast Machine: Reread Section 09, about the waffle iron, and make sure you find the secret message. It’s too bad Samantha didn’t figure it out before they rode the slidewalk to the wrong country!
The Umbrella/Hand Lens Enigma: Each chapter has umbrellas and/or hand lenses at the beginning. It turns out there’s a point to them. A point. Get it?
Use these super-secret decoders to discover the message.
This is R, for example. (The handle is pointing to the right and the tip is pointing to R.)
This is K. (The handle is pointing to the left and the tip is pointing to K.)
And this is U. (The handle is pointing to U.)
To learn more about all these puzzles, and a whole lot more secrets, go to samanthaspinner.com.
And if you can’t get to a computer, or just want some help, keep reading!
Everyone needs a little help sometimes!
Here are the answers to the puzzles hidden in this book.
AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE
The Puzzle:
If you put all the journal entry ID tags together in order by section number, they will spell:
TH3R3 1S N0 S3CR3T W0RD S34RCH H3R3
G0 L00K F0R PUZZL3S S0M3PL4C3 3LS3
Now replace all the numbers with letters:
Change every 4 to an A.
Change every 3 to an E.
Change every 1 to
an I.
Change every 0 to an O.
The Answer:
The complete message is:
THERE IS NO SECRET WORD SEARCH HERE
GO LOOK FOR PUZZLES SOMEPLACE ELSE
THE SNODDGRASS CODE
The Puzzle:
At the bottom of any page where Missy speaks, you will find a row of numbers. Each number signifies which letter in each of Missy’s words to keep.
For example, when Missy says: “I’m keeping an eye out for all kinds of suspicious characters,” the numbers at the bottom of the page are 07001000000. Each digit coincides with a word Missy says. The number refers to the position of the letter in that word to use to solve the puzzle. For example, 7 means the seventh letter of the word, and 0 means no letter. Thus, the hidden word in this example is GO.
The Answer:
The complete message is:
GO TO MY WEBSITE SNODDGRASS DOT COM
TAP THE SKULL
THE BREAKFAST MACHINE
The Puzzle:
Take the letters from Nipper’s gibberish on this page.
Write them into the spaces on the waffle iron diagram.
The Answer:
The letters in the shaded squares spell out this message:
DON’T GO TO MALI
HEAD TO PERU
THE UMBRELLA/HAND LENS ENIGMA
The Puzzle:
Just like in book one, every chapter in this book begins with an illustration of umbrellas and/or hand lenses. If you can break the code, you’ll find that they continue the secret message that started in the first book.
The object’s orientation and the direction in which its handle points secretly indicate a letter. (To decode them, use the instructions and the decoder wheels on this page.)
When you’re finished, add this message to the one you found in the last book. A double-triple super-secret development in the Spinner saga will be revealed!
The Answer:
NELLY MCPEPPER HAS LEFT THE UNITED STATES AND GONE TO ENGLAND
SHE IS NOW IN LONDON WHERE SHE IS BUSY ASSEMBLING A TEAM OF WARRIORS AND PIRATE HUNTERS AND ART FORGERY EXPERTS
Thank you, Julian Vecchione, for telling me this book needed a betrayal, and for all your encouragement and advice along the way.
Of course, this book, just like the first one, happened because of Team Spinner: Krista Marino, Kevin O’Connor, Kelly Schrum, and Dr. Carole Karp. This book is yours, too!
And what about Andy Norman, Sean Bond, Mary Travaglini, Nathan Beeler, Peter Sarrett, Mose Milburn, and Marta Scully-Bristol? You all deserve strawberry waffles.
And let me say gracias, merci, i ni che, spasiba, terima kasi, xie-xie, and domo arigato to Kathy Dunn and Kristin Schulz. Your support and enthusiasm have helped so much to make sure that Samantha’s story isn’t super-secret.
Finally, I am way, way overdue for thanking Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett. Samantha’s story began when you guys encouraged me to be creative long ago!
Charles von Bagelhouven III is a writer, breakfast historian, and musical theater critic.
His first book, Famous Art You Should Know from Around the World, sold only one copy, and that customer used it as a stretcher on which to carry her injured capybara to an animal hospital in Seattle. The customer left it on the waiting room table.
Mr. von Bagelhouven is the writer and producer of the documentary Breakfast Machines. It sold less than ten tickets in its initial run. He is confident that the movie will, over time, become a landmark work of breakfast history.
Recently, he obtained a license to be a theater critic and embarked upon a career as a reviewer of fine dramatic entertainment.
Russell Ginns is a writer, composer, and game designer who specializes in puzzles, songs, and smart fun. He is, of course, the author of Samantha Spinner and the Super-Secret Plans and Samantha Spinner and the Spectacular Specs.
Russell lives and writes in Washington, D.C. To learn more about him, visit samanthaspinner.com.
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Samantha Spinner and the Spectacular Specs Page 23