“Watch out for the SUN!” Nipper shouted.

Light poured in as the rocket screeched to a stop.

Looking up through the cockpit opening, Samantha saw a metal grate above them. Sunlight shined through. She shielded her eyes from the glare and watched the bottoms of shoes going by overhead. Whatever was up there, it was crowded.

Groaning, she lowered her legs, rolled over, and sat upright in the seat. She looked straight ahead. She was wet and extremely uncomfortable. Water dripped down her face as she gathered her thoughts. She heard squishing sounds as Nipper climbed up and out of the rocket.

Samantha looked over at the space between the two padded seats. Her heart started pounding. The umbrella was gone!

She searched all around the cockpit, under both seats, and in all the spaces where an umbrella might fall. She didn’t see it. She scurried over her side of the rocket. She checked the ground, and in all the gaps where the metal floor met the sides of the silver vehicle.

It wasn’t anywhere.

She staggered around the front of the rocket, her left sock squishing on the floor.

Nipper stood smiling. Patches of brown paste clung to his face and neck. He held the umbrella out for her.

“Here you go, Sis.”

Samantha adjusted her purse on her shoulder and snatched the umbrella. She bent down. With her free hand, she removed her remaining shoe. As she stood back up, she whacked Nipper on the side of the head with it.

“Hey!” he shouted, rubbing his temple. “What was that for?”

Spice globs sprinkled the floor as he rubbed.

“That was to get your attention,” she growled.

Samantha put the shoe back on her right foot. Then she popped open the umbrella. When Nipper held out the magnifier, she snatched that, too. The handle was sticky.

“Let’s get back to work,” she said impatiently.

She examined the drawing of Indonesia on the Super-Secret Plans. She saw a circle inside a circle inside a circle. She looked closer and saw that each circle was made up of tiny dots. One dot in the center circle wasn’t filled in like all the rest. From there, a line stretched across the umbrella, all the way back to Seattle.

She closed the umbrella. When she started to hand the magnifier to Nipper, he flinched.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not going to hit you. We need it to get home.”

“So, where are we?” he asked.

“Somewhere in Java, Indonesia,” she answered.

She tried to run her fingers through her hair to flatten it, but it was so twisted and knotted that she gave up. The splashing, spraying, upside-down rocket ride had left her with crazy hair. And only one shoe. Samantha pointed at narrow steps along the wall.

“Let’s go find something with circles and dots,” she said. “It’s our slidewalk home.”

Nipper hurried up the stone staircase in front of Samantha. At the top, he pushed aside a metal grate and climbed out onto the street. As he disappeared into the sunlight, Samantha caught a whiff of his cumin-and-chili coating. She thought of the strange clowns again, and how they’d backed away when she stood near the table of spices.

She adjusted her umbrella, followed Nipper up the stairs, and climbed out. She used her left foot—the one with a shoe—to shove the grate back into place.

Immediately, Samantha was hit by a warm, humid breeze. It was much hotter here than in the clammy rocket tunnel. She looked around and realized she stood in a crowded plaza. Two children raced by, playing tag. Backpackers in heavy boots trekked in the other direction. A vendor pushed a cart with sizzling sticks of meat. A dozen people with cameras and phones snapped pictures of themselves, one another, and their surroundings.

A stone mountain towered overhead. At first, she thought it might be a pyramid. Then she noticed that it was covered with sculptures. She saw lions, elephants, monkeys, birds, and trees. There were human figures, too: men and women, kids and babies, warriors, workers, dancers, and kings. Samantha guessed that the ones shown floating in clouds represented gods. Every few feet, stone figures sat nestled in arches along the side of the monument. Columns and intricate carvings covered every surface.

The structure had even more images on it than the Super-Secret Plans.

Samantha shielded her eyes and gazed up. She counted nine levels. Each one swarmed with tourists. Way up at the top level, she saw a huge pointed dome.

More people milled about.

Teenagers in matching shirts took pictures of one another in front of carvings. Parents grabbed at toddlers standing too close to ledges. Couples in shorts and hiking boots sat on steps, thumbing through guidebooks. She scanned the crowd. There was no sign of an annoying spice-covered boy with a bruised face.

“Over here, Sam!”

She turned again. Nipper stepped out from around a corner, smiling and waving.

“I found a sign,” he told her. “We’re in a place called Jagalah Kebersihan.”

“Not you’re not,” said a bearded man with a backpack. “Jagalah kebersihan means ‘Keep clean.’ ”

He sniffed Nipper and frowned.

“Or at least ‘Don’t litter,’ ” he added.

Based on his accent, Samantha thought the man might be a tourist from Sweden or some other Scandinavian country.

The man adjusted his bulky backpack and turned to face the wide stone steps leading to the top.

“I don’t know how anyone could get here without knowing this is Borobudur Temple,” he muttered, and walked away.

Samantha looked at her brother. He smiled and shrugged. He was about to say something else, but she held up a hand to stop him.

“Gedung tertinggi,” she said, and pointed to the temple. “That’s ‘the tallest building’…in Indonesian. It’s definitely the tallest building around here.”

Samantha and Nipper joined the throng of tourists marching up a central staircase. They climbed past a second level, then a third.

As they continued up the temple stairs, Samantha noticed people staring at them. It wasn’t hard to figure out why. When they’d gone to Paris, Florence, and Edfu, they’d blended in with the other tourists. And in any case, everyone was busy looking at the Eiffel Tower or the other attractions, so no one really looked at them. At this moment, blending in was not possible. A boy smeared with spicy brown sludge, and a girl with crazy hair and one shoe, did not blend in.

When they reached the sixth level, Samantha stopped and looked around. The view could not have been more different from the cities in Mali. In every direction, the world was lush and green. Crystal blue lakes dotted the landscape. Tropical trees covered rolling hills. Some looked familiar. Samantha recognized palm trees. Others seemed more like giant flowers than trees. Over the tops of the statues and domes, she could see more forests and, far in the distance, jagged mountains. Steam rose from one of the larger peaks—perhaps an active volcano.

Samantha took out the purple glasses and put them on. Slowly, she panned left and right, examining walls and steps and sculptures.

Nothing turned yellow. Nothing said PSST.

That didn’t surprise her. They weren’t here because of any clues from Uncle Paul. She was using the Super-Secret Plans on her own now, and she was confident that the circles and dots on the umbrella held the path home.

The top three levels of the temple were circular and ringed by large, bell-shaped domes. Each dome stood at least six feet tall.

“Here we go,” said Nipper, peeking through diamond-shaped openings. “I bet we’re looking for something inside one of these bells.”

“Stupa,” said a girl holding a brochure in one hand.

She seemed about the same age as Samantha. She was wearing jeans and a yellow T-shirt. Stenciled on the front of her shirt were the words Tour du Jour.

Nipper frowned at her.

“What did you call me?” he asked.

“You said ‘bells,’ ” she replied. “It’s not a bell. It is called a stupa.”

The girl smiled at Nipper. She unfolded her brochure and held it up for him and Samantha to see. It showed a view of the temple from above. Three rings of dots surrounded the central dome. The words on the page were in French, but an arrow pointing to one of the dots said “stupa.”

The girl lowered the brochure and turned to Samantha. She looked at her, up and down. She studied the red umbrella, then looked over her shoulder.

“Excusez-moi,” she said quickly. “I must go.”

Samantha watched the girl skip off to join a crowd of teenagers, all wearing matching yellow T-shirts. The girl pointed back at her and Nipper, and everyone in the group turned quickly to see. When they noticed that Samantha was watching them, they all looked away in different directions. They began to point at sculptures around the temple, pretending to study them. Several pointed with loaves of French bread. It all seemed very odd.

“Did you see that?” she asked Nipper. “Really strange.”

“I’m getting used to it,” he replied. “We’ve been to a lot of strange places full of strange people.”

Samantha shook her head.

“That’s not true at all, Nipper,” she said. “Some places just seem strange because we haven’t been there yet.”

She noticed the Tour du Jour teenagers again. They were still pointing loaves of bread in all directions. Every now and then, one of them snuck a glance at her and Nipper. What did they want? She didn’t have time to find out.

“Never mind,” said Samantha. “Let’s move on…and go home.”

She pulled up her right sock and used the umbrella to wave her brother onward to the top of the temple.