Samantha hid behind a tree at the edge of Volunteer Park and watched the two dozen members of the RAIN as they huddled together.
She also noticed a woman in a bowler hat and a green T-shirt sitting on a park bench a few yards away, sniffing the air and eying them carefully.
Crumb-Gum addressed the group.
“First, we’ll go in and take the diamond back,” he said, pointing to the museum.
One of the ninjas was holding an electronic device with an antenna. He gave everyone in the group a thumbs-up.
“While we’re there, check to see if there are any paintings worth stealing.”
He made eye contact with several of the other ninjas and patted the rectangular shape on his back.
“There might be one or two guards inside,” he added. “So chop first, ask questions…never.”
They all drew their swords and tiptoed off to the museum.
Samantha waited until they’d disappeared through the front door. She figured Nipper would have lost the big blue gem by now. She headed after the RAIN, up the stairs and into the lobby.
Just as she had hoped, the museum was full of security guards. As soon as she stepped into the crowded lobby, she spotted Nipper. He was standing by the information kiosk with Olivia Turtle and two women in gray business suits. He was waving his arms and talking excitedly about something.
“That sounds very much like the Hope Diamond,” Samantha heard one woman say in a thick French accent.
The other woman started to speak, but stopped suddenly. She sniffed and looked around.
The smell of stale cheese, rotten hot dogs, oil paint, ashtrays, and two hundred baby-changing tables filled the lobby.
The two women glanced at each other quickly.
“Les Bandits Putrides!” they both shouted.
“Watch out for the RAIN!” shouted Nipper.
Samantha smiled.
She had lured the twenty-four members of the Royal Academy of International Ninjas into a room with two hundred of the world’s most dedicated security guards.
The battle was over before it had really begun.
Most of the ninjas decided they were hopelessly outnumbered and dropped their swords. One got clobbered with a banjo.
As she watched a ninja banging his sword uselessly against the side of a guard’s giant soup-can costume, Samantha thought about the entry in the Encyclopedia Missilium. Without the Plans, the RAIN was truly a mediocre outlaw gang!
Samantha heard a howl. She turned and saw the shortest ninja scampering around the room. He ripped off his ninja slippers and started leaping from statue to statue and swinging from light fixtures.
No one was able to catch the monkey until he stopped at the table with the frosted cookies. He picked up one that looked like Michelangelo’s David. Then he dropped it and picked up one shaped like the Fountain of Neptune. He licked it three times, took a bite, and then put it back on the table. He used a foot to pick up another cookie, shaped liked The Thinker by Rodin, and began to rub it between two of his hairy toes.
Six security guards from Machu Picchu tackled him.
Crumb-Gum didn’t give up. Samantha saw him slashing his samurai sword back and forth wildly. People began to panic. A crowd stampeded across the lobby, pushing Samantha backward toward the exit.
She peered over someone’s shoulder and watched Crumb-Gum stop as he spotted Nipper.
“I’ll make it easy for you to be on both sides of the Atlantic at the same time,” he said, and charged. With both hands, he swung his sword down at Nipper’s head.
Samantha pushed forward and burst from the crowd. She grabbed the ninja’s sleeve, stopping the silver blade inches from Nipper’s forehead. Then she pulled as hard as she could and yanked the ninja away from her brother.
Crumb-Gum’s smelly black shirt came untucked and the heavy object hiding on his back came loose. A wood panel stuck out.
He jerked free and spun around, sending the board sailing through air. It arced up—and then down toward the punch bowl.
Olivia Turtle lunged forward. She pushed the clown out of the way, reached up, and snatched the tumbling object just before it splashed into the foamy red beverage.
She held it out before her, showing a full view of the painting. It was a portrait of a smiling woman.
“Whoa, Nelly!” shouted a visitor who was dressed like The Scream by Edvard Munch. “It’s the Mona Lisa!”
Olivia cradled the painting gently in her arms, as if it were a newborn Italian baby from the 1500s.
Crumb-Gum whirled back around, looking for an escape route.
Samantha stood between him and the lobby exit. Hands at her sides, she blocked his path.
“Stop right there…please,” she said. “That’s English for s’il vous plaît.”
She raised her left hand, holding up a red umbrella.
“What?” the ninja screamed. “How?”
The umbrella in her hand was old and worn, and unlike her parents’ black-handled umbrella—now lying crushed in the magtrain tunnel—it had a wooden handle.
It was the Super-Secret Plans.
“When? Who? Where?” asked the ninja.
“I’ve learned something very important,” Samantha said. “I’ve learned to take a closer look at things.”
The stink-bandit stepped toward her.
“And to watch out for stale bread, too!” she shouted, and swung at him with her other arm.
In her right hand she clutched a long, hard, three-day-old baguette she’d purchased outside the Louvre for fifty cents. She used it to smack him on the side of the head so hard that it dislodged several clumps of dried gum from his forehead. He fell to the floor, knocked out cold.
Nipper ran to his sister. For a second, she thought he was going to give her a hug. Then he stopped. He smiled and put one hand on her shoulder lightly.
“Shukraan,” he said in perfect Arabic.
“You’re welcome,” said Samantha.
A few people congratulated a Norwegian woman in a big fake mustache for using her banjo as such an effective weapon. Many more people gathered around Olivia Turtle. They congratulated her for moving so quickly and saving the Mona Lisa.
“It’s a good thing I recognized that famous painting right away,” she announced. “I was able to do that because I heard so much about it from Pajama—”
She looked at Samantha and stopped herself.
“From Paul Spinner,” Olivia finished.
Samantha stood with Nipper in the doorway and watched the STARCH conventioneers march the stink-bandits out of the museum and through the park. They continued down the street toward downtown Seattle.
Samantha knew that when they went back to school, Morgan Bogan Bogden-Loople would tell everyone that he’d seen the world’s strangest parade. More than two hundred people walked down Thirteenth Avenue. Some were dressed like ninjas. Others were dressed like police officers. A few were dressed like famous works of art. A monkey screeched at everybody and swung from lamp to lamp all the way through the neighborhood. A woman in a uniform carried the Mona Lisa.
She was sure nobody would believe him.