Four months ago, Nipper’s uncle had disappeared for the first time. Uncle Paul had left some money to Nipper’s sister Buffy, and an umbrella to his sister Sam. But Nipper had gotten the most special, most precious gift of all: the New York Yankees.

And then…he lost them!

While he was showing off the contracts to his neighbor Missy Snoddgrass, she asked him for a trade. He didn’t pay attention and agreed to swap his Yankees for an old hand lens. By the time he realized his mistake, it was too late. His Yankees were gone, and every time he tried to get them back, he failed miserably.

But that was only half of the horrible story.

After Nipper traveled with Sam to a secret tomb in Edfu, Egypt, he brought back an emerald scorpion ring. His sister didn’t believe in evil magical curses, but she was completely wrong about a lot of things. The ring had an ancient Egyptian curse.

Nipper gave it to Missy as a “present,” to get revenge on her for stealing his Yankees…and it backfired completely. Missy was so evil that the curse had no effect on her. His Yankees, however, began to lose, and lose and lose.

Now they were on the edge of disaster, just one game away from doom. It was time to set things right.

Nipper Spinner had a plan.

Standing beside Dennis at the corner of Thirteenth Avenue and Aloha, he opened and closed the metal mailbox drawer three times. The steel chamber rose from the street. When the staircase locked into place, Nipper led Dennis down the stairs with him into the magtrain station. Minutes later, they were on the high-speed magnetic train cruising toward Edfu, Egypt.

As he sat in the center seat of the magtrain, racing along at ten thousand miles per hour, Nipper took the emerald scorpion ring from his pocket and studied it. The rear six legs of the figurine curved to form the hole, waiting for an unlucky finger to go through it. The tiny green pincers twinkled with the passing light of the tunnel.

“Wruf! Wruf!” Dennis barked from the train bench behind him.

“Don’t worry, pal,” Nipper replied. “I’m not going to put this on again. It’s evil…and dangerous…and a destroyer of Major League Baseball teams.”

Samantha said the curse was all in his mind, and that his Yankees were just having a bad season. But she was too distracted about their missing uncle to understand the record-breaking sports tragedy. It was exactly the kind of thing that comes from ancient curses. The team was facing ultimate doom, and it would be all his fault.

It was up to Nipper Spinner to save his team…and he had a plan.

“Yankees are the best. The best. The best,” Nipper chanted quietly as the magtrain motors hummed.

Dennis stared at him, his ears flapping in the breeze from the tunnel.

Nipper set the ring beside him on the seat and reached over his shoulder. He pulled the deck of old playing cards from a side pocket of his backpack.

“I’ve got twenty minutes to kill,” he said. “I might as well have some fun and…”

Just as he fanned the cards out on the dashboard of the train, a sudden gust of air rushed over the train’s windshield and swept the cards away. They fluttered into the air like a swarm of mad butterflies, and he watched them disappear into the tunnel behind him.

He looked down at the ring.

“See that,” he said to Dennis. “Just being close to the ring might have made that happen.”

He unzipped the top of his backpack and looked at the old board game.

“Nah,” said Nipper. “It takes too long to set up that game.”

He closed his pack and faced forward as the wind whipped at his hair. It felt odd to be headed back to Edfu, Egypt, without Samantha. The last time he’d been there, she’d saved him from sliding into a horrible bottomless pit. She’d also tried to stop him from taking the evil scorpion ring home with him. He should have listened, but that was ancient history.

The train began to slow. He shoved the ring back into his pocket and peeked into the backpack again.

“Headlamp…check,” he said. “Granola bars…check.”

“Wruf! Wruf!” barked Dennis, causing his collar light to turn on and off quickly.

“Dog…check,” said Nipper.

He patted the baseball bat on one side of the backpack, held in place by bungee cords. “Check.”

He had lights, a snack, a dog, and extra protection. He was ready. He would travel to the deepest, creepiest part of the tomb beneath the Temple of Horus. There he’d toss the evil ring into the bottomless pit. The emerald scorpion would be gone forever, and the curse would be lifted from his Yankees.

The magtrain came to a stop. Nipper slung the backpack over his shoulder, hopped onto the Edfu station platform, and headed up the ramp.

He smiled and looked back to make sure Dennis was following him.

“Come on, pal,” he said. “This is going to be—”

“Wruf!” barked Dennis.

“Nah,” said Nipper, shielding his eyes from the dog collar’s light. “This’ll be easy.”