“Truck fourteen! Truck fourteen!”

Buffy watched her mother struggling with the wheel of the giant eighteen-wheel flatbed.

“Truck fourteen! Truck fourteen!”

“Oh, Mother,” said Buffy, ignoring the blaring radio. “I feel like Nelly McPepper.” She raised a hand to her forehead dramatically. “My life has become drab and tragic,” she whined.

“Truck fourteen! Do you copy?”

“Someday, a bestselling author is going to write a book about my life,” she continued. “I know exactly what I’m going to call this chapter.”

“Let me guess,” said her mother, working the truck controls. “How about…‘I Was in Big, Big Trouble for Skipping School’?”

The radio crackled and blared again:

“Truck fourteen! The Dazzling Dozen is at the rendezvous point near Atlantic City! Trucks will be loading soon and ready to go!”

“Dazzling Dozen?” Dr. Spinner asked Buffy.

“Yes, Mother,” she answered. “Those trucks hold thousands of exquisite shoes and accessories…enough to fill a museum. I simply had to give them a fabulous Broadway-star name.”

“Broadway?” asked Dr. Spinner. “Trucks don’t star on Broadway.”

“Of course they do,” said Buffy. “Didn’t you see Scarlett Hydrangea’s Secret of the— Oh. I forgot. You were busy saving Samantha from clowns and a giant lizard. You missed the whole thing.”

“Your father and I were kidnapped, and we were tied up with yarn,” said Dr. Spinner.

“That’s a bizarre and improbable tale,” said Buffy.

Her mother didn’t answer. She concentrated on steering the truck as they turned off the Atlantic City Expressway.

Buffy looked at herself in the rearview mirror. She started to adjust her hair when something caught her eye. For a split second, she thought she saw a boy…running around an elephant…chased by a monkey.

“How awful,” she said. “Mustard yellow is a hideous color to wear any season of the year.”

They reached the warehouse complex where the Dazzling Dozen waited in a long rumbling line. Minutes later, they were in the lead truck of a mighty truck convoy, rolling out of Margate City.

“Buffy, I’ve been wondering about something,” said Dr. Spinner. “Why are we truck fourteen when there are only thirteen vehicles?”

“Muh-thurrrrr,” said Buffy. “Everyone knows that thirteen is an unlucky number. We can’t drive all the way back to the West Coast in a bad-luck truck!”