Samantha’s brother’s real name was Jeremy Bernard Spinner, but everyone called him Nipper. That was because when he was little, he used to bite people all the time. Never hard enough to break the skin, but it sure hurt! Now he was eight, and he didn’t do that very much anymore. Actually, it had been three years, seven months, and twelve days since he’d bitten anyone. Everyone still called him Nipper.
With his very own baseball stadium and professional ball club, Nipper was looking forward to the best summer ever. He might even be getting an awesome magical ring on his finger—a World Series ring!
Meanwhile, Samantha’s older sister, Buffy, was already having the time of her life. As soon as she deposited the check for $2,400,000,000 in her bank account, she rode her bike to her favorite boutique in Seattle and bought the fanciest, most expensive handbag she could find. She went back to the store an hour later in a cab and bought an even larger handbag to carry the first one in. Then she returned in a stretch limo and bought the store. A great, grand shopping spree had begun.
Buffy headed to the mall early Saturday afternoon and came back home five hours later with a convoy of tractor-trailers. Each truck was filled with scarves and sunglasses.
“When is this going to stop?” Nipper shouted to Samantha.
“I can’t hear you,” she replied, looking down at the umbrella.
Big rigs rolled past them for the rest of the day, dumping crates of accessories in the backyard.
Sunday was all about sweaters and belts. A fresh column of trucks rumbled down the Spinners’ narrow side drive, and crews added the cargo to the rising pile of crates, which was now almost as tall as the Spinner house itself.
There was no school that Monday because it was parent-teacher day. So Buffy woke up and started shopping all over again. For decades to come, that day would be remembered as Shoe Day in malls and department stores throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Wearing her most expensive scarf and designer sunglasses, Buffy went to every shop within twenty-five miles of Seattle and systematically purchased every pump, sneaker, and boot in sizes 9-½ and 10. Meanwhile, a squad of foot proxies—teenagers with the same size and shape feet as Buffy’s—visited stores in all the major cities of Oregon, Idaho, and Washington State, buying footwear on her behalf.
By Tuesday morning, Buffy’s wardrobe was as fabulous as it was ever going to be. So she shifted gears. She announced that her destiny was to be a movie star and that she had set her sights on Hollywood.
Mr. and Mrs. Spinner said it was fine that Buffy wanted to become an actress but that she absolutely could not leave school.
Buffy listened to her parents and agreed she wouldn’t leave school. She paid for a team of engineers to raise Lake Union High School, including its football field, parking lot, and flagpole, onto a caravan of two dozen massive flatbed trucks, and she took the school with her. Students, teachers, books, band instruments, cafeteria food, and all began the journey south.
They left behind an empty dirt field, a row of lockers that were permanently rusted shut, and a girl named Nelly McPepper, who Buffy refused to bring because she wore white after Labor Day.
No one heard from Buffy for two weeks. Then, one afternoon while Samantha was moping in the living room, Nipper walked in waving an envelope.
“Mom just gave me this letter to share with you,” he said.
The envelope was addressed in ornate calligraphy drawn with gold ink. It was from Scarlett Hydrangea, in Beverly Hills, California. There was at least ninety-seven dollars in stamps on it.
“Who the heck is Scarlett Hydrangea?” asked Nipper.
Samantha opened the letter and read it out loud.
“Dearest Sammy and Little Nipper,
I’m the star of my own big-budget movie, and it’s going to be a blockbuster. No one seems impressed yet, but once I learn my lines, I know that the world will appreciate my brilliance.
My 550-room mansion is delightful. Uncle Paul was right—I finally have space for all my accessories! I even have space for both of you when you come to visit. There are two empty stalls in the stable behind my waterfall. I’m planning to keep a pair of rainbow unicorns there, but no one has been able to find any for me to buy yet. Come soon and you are welcome to them. (The stalls, not the unicorns.)
Write back, but please don’t rattle on about your boring lives!
Kisses,
Scarlett Hydrangea
PS: That’s my new stage name.”
“Okay. Got it,” said Nipper.
Samantha dropped the letter on the floor. “I’m just like poor Nelly McPepper,” she moaned, and flopped facedown on the couch. “I have nothing to do and nowhere to go.”
Nipper was about to point out that she could go to California and stay in Buffy’s stable, when Dennis trotted in. Samantha looked up from where she lay to see that the dog had a shiny new collar. A gold band sparkled with colorful gems ranging in size from tiny rubies to a huge blue diamond about the size of a walnut. Uncle Paul had even left a fabulous present for their dog!
“Even you got something amazing!” she said to the pug.
Dennis stepped forward and sniffed Samantha’s hand, but she didn’t move. He was getting petted a lot less often lately.
Since Uncle Paul had disappeared, power moping now took the place of petting, and just about everything else, for Samantha. Come to think of it, other than going to school, doing homework, and snooping for signs of Uncle Paul, lying around feeling blue had become her main activity.
For weeks, Samantha kept hoping that there was something more to the rusty old umbrella. She inspected it several times a day. Maybe there was a key to a secret bank vault hidden inside the handle. There wasn’t. She peeked through a tiny hole in the cloth near the center. Nope, there was nothing to see. The whole rickety thing seemed like it was about to fall apart. She fiddled with it over and over again and finally gave up.
Uncle Paul had taught Samantha about archaeology and how to ride a bike. Samantha had helped him solve puzzles and found interesting stickers and buttons for his collections. On the day before he disappeared, she gave him a set of scratch-and-sniff stickers that smelled like fruit.
“You know, Samantha, people can remember smells two hundred and fifty times better than sights or sounds,” he’d told her. “Smells have the power to unlock important memories.”
He scratched at one of the stickers.
“Berry important,” he said.
If memories were so important, then why did Uncle Paul forget about her? Why would he just go missing without telling her? And how could he give her silly big sister all that money and her brother a major-league baseball team and give her nothing more than a piece of junk and a note about the weather?
The fact remained: it wasn’t fair.
Samantha looked at Nipper. He was still standing there, waiting for her to say “Watch out for the rain.”
“Watch out for the rain,” she said gloomily, and rested her head back down on a cushion. Samantha had begun to mutter the phrase to everyone several times every day.
With that out of the way, Nipper turned to leave. His thoughts were on his franchise.
The Spinners lived in Seattle, but his parents had promised that the whole family could take a trip to see his Yankees in New York City as soon as school ended. It might even help Samantha focus a little bit less on her moping.
“Cheer up,” said Nipper as he crossed the living room. “You can sit with me in the owner’s box. Sooner or later there are going to be some rain delays, and that old umbrella will come in handy.”
He left her, walked through the kitchen, and grabbed his folder full of contracts from the counter. Then he headed outside to see if any friends, neighbors, utility workers, or passersby were around to hear more about his baseball team.