Samantha hated being called Sammy. She liked Samantha or Sam, or even the occasional Mantha. The name Sammy, though, had always bothered her.

Three years ago, the Snoddgrass family had gotten a puppy. As a prank, Nipper convinced them to name it Sammy. For an entire summer, various family members would lean out a window and shout, “Sammy! Come here, Sammy. Good girl, Sammy!” several times a day. It drove Samantha crazy.

Samantha got revenge on her brother three months later. The night before school started, she filled in all of his permission slips using the first name “Pynchon.” Nipper handed in the forms without noticing. For the entire school year, whenever a teacher, coach, or chaperone called out “Pynchon Spinner,” the kids would shout, “Yes, sir!” or “Yes, ma’am!” And they’d give Nipper a pinch.

Nipper never called his sister Sammy again…until now.

The mummy from the coffin was standing upright, with both of its arms stretched out toward Nipper. It was seven feet tall, and it was a shambling mess. Putrid fingers poked through snarls of crusty linen strands. Mustard-colored soot leaked from the bandages that wrapped its face. It was the twenty-fifth-worst-smelling creature Nipper had ever encountered.

“Move away!” Samantha shouted as she jumped sideways and then dashed across the room.

“Wait, Mummy!” Nipper shouted up at the moldy figure. “I have money!” He reached into his pocket and held up the bill Uncle Paul had given him.

The mummy continued sliding forward. Just as it was about to reach him, its arms fell from their sockets. Then its head turned upward, rolled backward, and dropped from the shoulders.

“Yaahhh!” Nipper shrieked, letting go of his bill.

Samantha caught a glimpse of President Woodrow Wilson as the money fluttered into the air.

The mummy fell forward, lifeless, and was propelled past Nipper by the stream of crud that now sprayed from the hole in the wall behind the casket. Then the wall started to crumble and the hole became wider. The slimy spray became stronger.

“Sam!” Nipper shouted, watching the bill flutter. “I lost my—”

With a sudden loud, belching sound, a jet of crud spewed forth, gushing from the opening in the wall. It knocked Nipper down and swept him up in a gooey brown tide.

“Saaa-meeeeee!” he screamed.

Samantha hugged the wall on the far side of the room. She looked all around, trying to think of a way to help her brother.

The filthy avalanche rumbled across the room, pushing aside the treasures and dragging Nipper along with it. His sunglasses fell off. Trapped in the sludge, he struggled to keep his face above the muck as it carried him out of the treasure room.

“Ahh!” Nipper screamed. “Ahh-ack!”

Something round and slimy slipped into his mouth. He pushed it around with his tongue. It might have been a big gem or one of the disintegrating mummy’s eyeballs—he couldn’t be sure. He spit it out as fast as he could.

He kept thrashing about in the sludge, but he couldn’t get free as he slid through the doorway and into the round chamber.

Dennis looked up from his empty plastic bag and saw the approaching wall of dust, mud, mummy parts, screaming boy, and slimy goo. He scampered quickly along the curved wall and out through the doorway on the opposite side of the chamber.

The gushing, grimy river banked along the walls and swirled around the edges of the room like a giant toilet bowl flushing. Green and brown crud covered most of Nipper’s face, and he could only see out of one eye. His desperate breath bubbled out of his nostrils and into the gooey muck.

In his heart he knew that if anyone ever wrote a book about his life, the title of this chapter would be “Exceptionally Gross.”

He watched helplessly as the patterns on the ceiling spiraled above him. The raging river of sludge swirled faster and faster and began to drain into the pit in the center of the room—dragging Nipper toward it as well. Flat on his back, he flowed along with the muck. Unable to escape, he gritted his teeth and prepared to tumble into the awful darkness.

“Nipper!”

He heard his sister shout and squinted with his one clear eye.

Samantha was above him, leaning in from the wall. With one hand she hung on to one of the brackets that held the shiny metal panels. Her other hand gripped the umbrella by its handle high above her.

“Saaaam-meeeeee!” Nipper screamed.

She plunged the umbrella down toward his neck. The metal tip pierced his shirt collar and drove into the floor like a magic spear.