Attaboy, Sam! Read online

  He looked over and saw that Myron Krupnik's shoulders were shaking, and he realized that his dad was laughing, too.

  Anastasia halted her description. She picked up her green notebook and opened it to a folded piece of paper. When she unfolded the paper, Sam could see that Anastasia had used her calligraphy pen and lettered her poem carefully onto the page.

  "Here's mine," Anastasia announced. She began to read.

  Sam had heard the poem before—all but the last part that Anastasia had added only that afternoon—so it didn't really surprise him anymore. He watched his father's face. His father was an expert on poetry. He taught poetry at Harvard. He wrote poetry that was published in books, and people—sometimes people who didn't even know his father—bought the books.

  Anastasia read aloud:

  I'm glad that you are 38.

  I'm glad you're Katherine, not just Kate.

  I'm glad our father is your mate.

  Your size and shape are really great.

  You have a daughter and a son

  Who think you are a lot of fun,

  As mothers go you're second to none.

  In fact you are a perfect one.

  Your favorite food is broiled scrod.

  You never ever are a clod.

  Your haircut is a little odd.

  It doesn't seem to match your bod.

  You don't like mice or rats or bugs

  But for money you paint slugs.

  I hope you like your birthday cake.

  And that your stomach will not ache.

  Anastasia looked up. Very slowly she folded the paper. But instead of returning it to her notebook, she leaned down and placed it in front of her father's painting, which was leaning on the toybox.

  Then, in a very grown-up and dignified voice, Anastasia said, "I know it's not very good. But please feel free to tell me what you think."

  Sam could tell, watching her, that Anastasia, like himself and his father, still had a teeny bit of hope about her poem. Sam didn't say anything but watched his father. His father had once won the National Book Award for a volume of poetry. Sam didn't know what the National Book Award was, but he knew that it was important, and that his father was important, at least in the world of poetry.

  Mr. Krupnik cleared his throat. Then he said, very slowly, "Once, in 1981, I attended a conference in New York. It was a hot week in August and the New York garbage collectors had been on strike for seventeen days. And in front of a Thai restaurant, near my hotel—"

  Anastasia started to giggle.

  So did Sam.

  Their father did, too.

  The three of them—Myron Krupnik, Anastasia Krupnik, and Sam Krupnik—laughed and laughed. They sat side by side on Sam's bed in the most foul-smelling room in Massachusetts, looking at the worst painting in Massachusetts and the worst poem in Massachusetts, which were both resting against the only toybox in Massachusetts that made a rumbling, spurting sound that, as they laughed, grew louder and louder.

  They were still laughing when the perfume exploded.

  11

  Myron Krupnik used the corner of Sam's sheet to wipe the thick purple liquid from his beard and mustache.

  Anastasia used Sam's pajamas to clean her glasses, which were coated with purple and had flecks of tobacco stuck to the lenses.

  Sam couldn't see at first. Then he realized that his eyelashes were coated with small soggy clumps of purple Kleenex. Bits of seaweed and noodles slid down his forehead and cheeks.

  No one spoke for a moment. Then Mr. Krupnik said in a very serious voice, "It may be that what my painting needed was a little more purple."

  Sam looked, after he got the last of the Kleenex out of his eyelashes, at his father's painting. The thick perfume liquid slid slowly in purple streaks down his mother's face, across the bright blue eyes that his father had painted, and into smears on the red-painted sweater.

  Anastasia leaned down and picked up what was left of her calligraphed poem. It was a limp, wet sheet of purple paper now, and the ink had run in black curlicues across the page.

  "Greatly improved," she commented cheerfully, and wadded the paper into a ball.

  It was amazing, Sam thought, how much better he felt. All week, when his perfume had been brewing, he had felt more and more scared and uncomfortable.

  But now, when his room was ruined, when his wallpaper was splotched with purple and his hair was dripping with noodles and he had baby-poop in his eyelashes, and his dad's painting had turned into a giant smear, and his sister's poem was gone entirely, reduced to a little wet spitball, now he felt wonderful.

  Sam grinned, looking at his wrecked perfume.

  He noticed that his father, looking at his ruined painting, had a cheerful smile.

  And Anastasia, too, holding her destroyed poem in her wet, purple hand, was absolutely beaming.

  The three of them sat happily and silently for a minute.

  Suddenly, they heard Katherine Krupnik's voice coming up the stairs and through the door.

  "Are you guys about ready?" she called. "Mrs. Stein's here! Myron, you promised you'd grill the scrod! What's holding everything up?"

  Their grins disappeared.

  "We just need a few more minutes!" Mr. Krupnik called down to his wife. But he looked panic-stricken. There were still purple streaks dripping in his beard and huge splotches on his shirt.

  "Bathroom!" Anastasia ordered. "All of us. Quick. Soap and water! Clean shirts!"

  They scurried around, gathering shirts, running water in the bathroom, scrubbing the purple from their faces and hands. They moved in fast-motion like an old Three Stooges movie, when Larry and Curly and Moe would go in and out of doorways, bumping into each other with little yelping sounds.

  "Now," Anastasia said when they all had clean faces and clean shirts and freshly combed hair, "what on earth are we going to do about a present?"

  Her father shook his head in despair. "We blew it," he muttered.

  "I know," Sam said suddenly. The idea had come to him exactly the way ideas come in comics, when a light bulb appears over someone's head.

  They looked at him suspiciously. "No arts and crafts," his dad said. "Please. We don't have the time."

  "And let's face it," Anastasia added, "we don't have the talent."

  "Nope," Sam promised, shaking his head. "Listen." He whispered his idea to them.

  They listened, at first with surprise, then with interest. They asked a few questions, made a few suggestions, and agreed that it was not only a good idea, it was a great idea, and they had just enough time if they hurried.

  "Attaboy, Sam!" said his sister and father together.

  "That was a wonderful meal, Katherine," Mrs. Stein said, wiping her mouth with her napkin. "Or perhaps it's you I should say that to, Myron, since it was you who broiled the fish."

  "And it was Anastasia who baked that delicious cake," Mrs. Krupnik pointed out.

  "Sam helped," Anastasia said.

  "And you made the rolls, Gertrustein," Sam pointed out. "With yeast," he added.

  Katherine Krupnik smiled. She looked at the birthday cards, including the one that Sam had made at nursery school, which were propped up in a circle around the flowers in the center of the table. "I have such a wonderful family," she said. "That includes you, of course, Gertrude," she added fondly, patting Mrs. Stein's hand. "We think of you as one of the family.

  "I don't even mind being thirty-eight anymore," she went on. "Now that I've been thirty-eight for a whole day, I'm getting used to it. It feels okay."

  "Your haircut helps, of course," Anastasia pointed out.

  "It certainly does, Katherine," Mrs. Stein agreed. "I'm thinking of getting one just like it myself."

  "Thank you," Mrs. Krupnik said, and ran her hand over her bristly hair.

  Mr. Krupnik rose from his chair at the end of the table and tapped on his coffee cup with a fork.

  "Speech, speech!" said Anastasia.

  Sam wiggled in his chair with
excitement. He knew that they were going to give the present now.

  His father beckoned for Sam and Anastasia to come and stand with him, one on either side.

  Sam felt very proud to be part of such an important ceremony. He practiced his part in his head and hoped that he would remember to say it correctly. They had had only a very few minutes to memorize their parts.

  And Sam knew that his was the most important part.

  Mrs. Krupnik and Mrs. Stein were both watching with interest, smiling and waiting to see what would happen.

  "Ready?" Mr. Krupnik whispered to his children. They nodded. "Okay, go ahead." He nodded at Anastasia, who was standing on his right.

  Anastasia cleared her throat, straightened her shoulders, and spoke her lines in a clear voice.

  Because we could see that you needed a lift,

  We looked all around for a lovable gift—

  She looked at her dad and nudged him a little with her elbow to remind him that the next lines were his. He cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders.

  It comes with free food and it doesn't have fleas,

  And though I'm allergic I'll try not to sneeze—

  Myron Krupnik looked at Sam, who was already standing very tall and straight, waiting for his turn, the most important part.

  Sam leaned down, reached under the table, and lifted the box that was waiting there. He handed it to his mother, who lifted the lid and then gave a startled chuckle as the kitten popped its gray head up and looked around.

  Finally Sam said his lines:

  It was all my idea, so I'll take the blame.

  And if you just ask me, I'll tell you his name.

  His mom was smiling and stroking the kitten's head with her finger. She looked over at Sam quizzically.

  "Tell me, Sam," she said.

  Sam beamed. "Purrfume," he announced proudly.