Moving from statue to statue, the Spinners made their way around the dome.

They squeezed behind a replica of the Statue of Liberty, then behind one of the Greek goddess Selene. Samantha recognized about half the sculptures she saw. She had heard about them in school, seen pictures of them in books, or learned their stories from her uncle during one of his storytelling nights on the garage steps. Was Uncle Paul somewhere in this cavern?

Samantha and her father slid behind a statue of a man. The figure sat, bent over, measuring the ground with a compass.

“Isaac Newton,” said Mr. Spinner. “A great mathematician, and an expert on light and lenses, too.”

Samantha smiled. Of course her father knew that one.

Crouching, and peeking around the side of the statue, they began to get a more complete view of the SNOW headquarters. It was even bigger than Samantha had guessed, and it was much busier!

Men and women swarmed about the chamber. Some were carving and measuring new statues. They mostly worked using hammers and chisels, but a few SNOW agents chopped at the statues with strange tools. The devices looked like chainsaws but had blades of blazing blue-white light. Blue sparks flew around the agents as they worked, their green visors lowered to protect their eyes.

“What are those machines, Dad?” asked Samantha.

“I think…they’re carving sculptures using some kind of high-energy plasma tools,” he answered.

Samantha nodded. Did that count as another lightbulb challenge?

In the center of the dome, a dozen SNOW members stood before a billboard-sized whiteboard. They wrote and erased and chatted with each other. Samantha couldn’t make out what they were writing, or hear what they were saying, but they seemed to be repeating long, complicated math formulas.

“That math class looks tough,” said her father.

Farther across the dome, mine carts rolled in and out of the chamber. Samantha recognized the rolling metal bins from the ride through the salt mine. All along the tracks, SNOW members chopped at white boulders using picks and shovels. They filled bags with salt and tossed them onto passing trains.

Samantha tried to watch all the activity in the room, but she found it hard to keep track. There was so much going on.

“Let’s keep moving,” she told her father.

They slipped behind a replica of the famous Little Mermaid from Denmark and continued their path around the SNOW dome.

After a dozen more statues, a shower of blue-white sparks stopped them in their tracks.

Samantha peeked out from behind a statue of a little girl who stood bravely with her hands on her hips. A few feet away, six SNOW men and women sat at workbenches, operating miniature versions of the high-energy plasma carvers the statue-makers used.

She squinted at one of the tables. A SNOW member focused on carving big blue gems the size of walnuts!

“So this is where the fake Hope Diamond came from,” she told her father.

Mr. Spinner crinkled his nose, looking confused.

“Someone stole the Hope Diamond from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC,” she explained. “They never got caught because they replaced it with a fake like these.”

“No. It’s not that,” said her father.

He was squinting far into the distance. She turned to see what her father was looking at and…

Something skittered across the floor and rolled to a stop at Samantha’s feet. She picked it up.

It was a ring with a green emerald scorpion.

“Nipper’s bug ring?” Samantha asked out loud. “How did this get here?”

She looked left and right. There was no sign of her brother. This was very strange.

“It’s Paul!” Mr. Spinner said. “Look over there!”

Her father pointed to the opposite side of the dome, where a small alcove had been carved into the side. A glass booth stood in the alcove, close to a wall. It reminded Samantha of one of the museum cases displaying a suit of armor.

Inside the case was a figure, but it wasn’t shiny and silver. It was a man wearing green plaid pajamas and bright orange flip-flops.

It was Uncle Paul.

Samantha took another quick look at the ring. She didn’t have time to figure out how it had wound up in this place. She shoved it into one of her pockets and called to her father.

“We’ve got a Spinner to save,” she said, hands on her hips.

Mr. Spinner looked at her, then at the statue of the brave girl.

He smiled.

“Come on,” she said, pointing with her umbrella.

She led him back around the SNOW dome.