All About Sam Read online

  "Nope," Sam said, dragging his spoon through his oatmeal. He liked the way he could open up a ditch and then watch it fill gradually with milk. Sometimes he made Drowning Men out of raisins.

  "Why not?" Anastasia asked.

  "Because," Sam explained impatiently, "Nicky will be there with a dumb blue ribbon for Most Pets. And Adam will bring his First Prize for Cat with Fattest Tail. Everybody will be doing pet show stuff at Show-and-Tell today."

  "Oh," said his mother. "I hadn't thought of that. But you're absolutely right."

  "What are you going to take?" Anastasia asked.

  "Secret," said Sam.

  But he was fibbing. It wasn't a secret at all. The truth was, Sam couldn't think of anything to take to school for Show-and-Tell. He had this problem almost every single Monday morning.

  Sam was good at a lot of stuff. He could count higher and recognize more words than any other kid at nursery school. He knew more songs than almost anybody; he even knew all the words to the songs on his father's Billie Holiday records. (Sam especially liked the part that went, "I get no kick from champagne, Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all"; he always sang that part very loud, even though his parents said, "What will the neighbors think?")

  And he was good at somersaults, and coloring, and building very tall castles out of blocks, and bashing the castles to the ground afterward.

  But he just wasn't any good at all at Show-and-Tell.

  Other kids were. A girl named Rosie had brought, one Monday, her new baby brother to Show-and-Tell. Of course her mother had to come along; but Rosie got to hold the baby all by herself, in front of the other kids. She got to tell the baby's name—Henry—and when Henry cried, she let all the other kids look into his mouth, so they could see how he had no teeth.

  A kid named Kevin had brought things back from a trip to Disney World and took up almost the whole Show-and-Tell time, wearing his Donald Duck hat and telling about the rides and stuff. Kevin had official pilot wings that he got on the airplane; he had them pinned to his sweater, and he wouldn't let the other kids wear them, not even for one minute.

  Every Monday, Sam worried about what the other kids would bring to Show-and-Tell. And what he would bring. Nothing he had ever brought seemed to be very good.

  Today, after he had finished his oatmeal, he went back up to his bedroom to look around.

  There was nothing there but the same old stuff: same old toys, same old books, same old clothes. He didn't even have his pet worm anymore. He and Anastasia had decided that King of Worms probably liked living outdoors, underground, better than in a box in Sam's closet.

  Sam wandered down the hall into his parents' bedroom. Maybe they had something that would be interesting at Show-and-Tell.

  "Sam!" his mother called from downstairs. "Do you have your jacket on? Your carpool will be here in a few minutes!"

  "Yes," Sam called back. "I'm coming!"

  He looked around. His father's pajamas were on the floor.

  Sam imagined himself standing in front of the circle of children at nursery school, holding up big striped pants with a drawstring at the waist. "These are my daddy's pajamas," he imagined himself saying.

  No. That was no good. Probably everybody's daddy had big striped pajamas.

  He looked around some more. On the table beside the bed was something that belonged to his father. Sam picked it up.

  "Sam!" his mother called from downstairs. "Time to go! Your ride is here!"

  Sam put his Show-and-Tell surprise into the pocket of his jacket. He headed for the stairs. Then he turned back, grabbed something else that was on the table, and put that into his other pocket.

  He ran downstairs, kissed his mother good-bye, and headed off to the waiting station wagon.

  ***

  It was Circle Time. Skipper had pasted a fat smiling yellow sun on the calendar's Monday, and Mrs. Bennett had played "You Are My Sunshine" on the piano while all the children sang. Altogether, they had stood in the circle and said the Pled Jelly-juntz. "I pled jelly-juntz to the flag," Sam had said in his most grown-up voice, with his hand over his heart. His other hand was in the pocket of his jeans, holding on to his secret for Show-and-Tell.

  Everyone called "Me! Me!" when Mrs. Bennett said, "Who has something for Show-and-Tell today?"

  Mrs. Bennett looked around the circle and said, "Let's let Amy go first. Amy?"

  Sam made a face. He didn't like Amy much. She had a long ponytail, which was perfect for pulling, especially if she flipped it around right in front of your face. But if you pulled it, Amy cried and told on you.

  Amy stood, flipped her long ponytail, and held up a postcard. "My grandma sent me this," she said. "From Florida."

  Everybody stared politely at the picture of a palm tree. "My grandma sent me a postcard from Florida," Rosie said, "and it had an alligator on it."

  "I saw a real alligator at the zoo!" Adam yelled. "Two alligators I saw!"

  All the children began making alligators out of their hands, snapping them like big jaws, grabbing each other's sleeves and pulling fiercely, the way they imagined real alligators would.

  Sam didn't. Sam was still holding his surprise inside his pocket.

  "Thank you, Amy," Mrs. Bennett said. "That's a lovely postcard. Quiet, children! No more alligators, please! Who's next? Leah? How about you? Do you and Rollie have something to show us today?"

  Leah nodded her head shyly, and Mrs. Bennett pushed her to the center of the circle. Rollie was Leah's wheelchair. Once, when Leah first started school, her mother had been there with her. Her mother had lifted Leah out of the wheelchair and held her on her lap, so that each of the other children could have a turn in Rollie.

  Sam hoped that Leah's Show-and-Tell would be that everybody could try Rollie again.

  But Leah put her finger to her lips and said, "Shhh. Everybody be quiet so you can hear what I learned to do. Zip your lips."

  Everybody zipped their lips, even Sam. He had to let go of his secret in order to zip his lips.

  When they were all very still, Leah took a deep breath and swallowed. Then she gave an enormous burp. She grinned.

  "Fake burp," Leah said. "My daddy taught me."

  All of the children forgot that their lips were zipped. They shrieked with laughter.

  "Do it again!" Sam called, and Leah did it again, very loudly.

  "Show us how! Show us how!" The kids were calling all together.

  So Leah sat up very straight in her wheelchair and gave burping lessons. Fake burping wasn't easy. Skipper finally managed a pretty good one, but most of the children simply giggled and sputtered, and Nicky got the hiccups.

  Mrs. Bennett was the most successful at it. She did a huge loud fake burp on her second try, and everybody clapped.

  "Okay," Mrs. Bennett said, laughing. "Time for just one more person before we go out to the playground." She looked around the circle.

  "Sam," she announced. "Your turn."

  Sam stood up. He knew his was better than the palm tree postcard. But the fake burps—well, it would be tough to be more interesting than fake burps.

  He took his father's pipe out of his pocket and put the stem of it into his mouth. Then he took the lighter out of his other pocket and tried to push hard on the little ridged wheel that would make the flame appear. All of the children were watching in amazement.

  "HOLD IT!" said Mrs. Bennett in a loud voice. "Stop right there, Sam Krupnik. What on earth are you doing?"

  That was a strange question, Sam thought. Anybody could see he was lighting a pipe. But he took the pipe out of his mouth and explained to his teacher.

  "I'm lighting my pipe. I'm showing how I smoke my pipe."

  "Not in this nursery school, you're not. I'm ashamed of you, Sam. Does your father know that you took his pipe?"

  Sam hadn't even thought about that. When he took the pipe, he'd been thinking about being interesting at Show-and-Tell. He hadn't thought of it as taking. As stealing.

  He wished he
had been the one to do fake burps instead of Leah. He wished Mrs. Bennett's angry face would go away.

  "It's not my daddy's pipe," Sam said. "It's my pipe. My daddy has a different pipe. We sit around and smoke our pipes together at home."

  "Oh?" Mrs. Bennett said. He could tell that she didn't believe him.

  "And my mom and my sister, they both smoke big cigars," Sam added. His voice was a little quavery. It was quavery because he was lying. But he couldn't seem to stop.

  Mrs. Bennett took the pipe and the lighter from Sam. She knelt beside him and put her arm around his waist. Sam felt terrible. All the kids were staring.

  "I'm very glad Sam decided to give us all a lesson about health and safety," Mrs. Bennett said. "You taught us all an important thing, Sam."

  "I did?"

  "You certainly did. We all need to be reminded about how dangerous fire can be, right?"

  "Right," said Sam.

  "And we should never, ever play with lighters or matches?"

  "No," Sam said in a loud voice. "Don't anybody ever play with lighters or matches!"

  "And what do we think about smoking?"

  "YUCK!" Sam shouted. The kids in the circle all clapped their hands and yelled "YUCK!"

  Sam looked around and grinned. He was being a bigger hit than Leah.

  Mrs. Bennett kept the pipe and the lighter. She said she would send them back to Sam's father with the carpool driver.

  Sam decided, as he was putting on his jacket for the playground, that when he got home he would have a serious talk with his mom and daddy and Anastasia, too, about safety and health. He would also teach them how to do fake burps.

  11

  Sam sat on Anastasia's bed and watched his sister brush her hair. Anastasia had long hair and every night she tried to brush it, she had told Sam, one hundred strokes.

  "Eighty-two, eighty-three, eighty-four," Anastasia was saying softly as she brushed.

  "A hundred and forty-nine," Sam said loudly.

  Anastasia stopped brushing and glared at him. "Don't, Sam," she said. "You'll get me all mixed up."

  He waited quietly until she got to one hundred and put the brush down.

  "Now do me," he said.

  "Your hair looks fine," Anastasia said. "You don't have oily hair like I do."

  "I just have dumb curls," Sam muttered.

  "You have great curls, Sam. I'd give anything to have curls like yours. In fact, you know what? I'll tell you a secret."

  "What?" Sam asked. He loved secrets.

  "Well," his sister confided, "when I was younger, I used to be jealous of you. Sometimes when people would come to visit Mom and Dad, they would all start talking about what pretty curls the baby had."

  "What baby?" Sam asked.

  "You, when you were little. When people started talking about how cute you were and what pretty curls you had, I would get so jealous and mad that I would leave the room. I would go sulk."

  "Did you cry?"

  "No, of course not," Anastasia said. Then she added, "Well, sometimes I did. Once or twice."

  Sam sighed. "I was such a cute baby," he said with satisfaction. "Very, very, very cute."

  He raised himself to his knees so that he could look across the room into Anastasia's mirror. He frowned at himself. "Now I hate my curls," he said. "I wish I had punk hair."

  "Punk hair?"

  "Yeah. My friend Adam has punk hair. His hair all sucks up like a porkypine."

  "Porcupine," Anastasia corrected him automatically. "Is it dyed orange or green or anything?"

  "No, it's just a plain brown porkypine. And he has a little tail at the back." Sam felt the back of his own head. "I wish I had a little tail like Adam."

  "Well," Anastasia said, "I think it's very weird for a three-year-old kid to have a punk haircut. When you're big, you can get one if you want to. Although to be honest with you, I think it would freak Mom and Dad out if you did."

  Sam grinned. He pictured his mom and dad freaking out. They would probably scream and faint. Maybe ambulances would have to come, with their sirens going. He would stand there with his punk haircut and direct the ambulance people and tell them what to do.

  "Sam, would you go downstairs, please? I have to do my homework now," Anastasia said. "I can't concentrate when you're fooling around in my room."

  "I'll go if you give me five brushes. You don't have to do a hundred."

  So Anastasia picked up her hairbrush again, brushed Sam's curls carefully five times, and patted him on his behind fondly. "You're still cute, Sam," she told him.

  "Yeah, but I have these dumb curls," Sam said glumly. He left his sister's room.

  Sam could hear his parents talking quietly downstairs. He could hear the television news in the background. If he went down to where they were, they would make him be quiet while they watched the news and talked.

  He wandered into the bathroom instead. If he stood on the closed toilet seat, he could open the medicine cabinet, and there was interesting stuff in there.

  First he took out his dad's shaving cream and pushed the button on top so that it foamed out into his hand.

  He smeared it on the bottom of his face so that he had a beard. Then he closed the medicine cabinet and leaned over so that he could see his white-bearded face in the mirror.

  Sam giggled.

  Still wearing his foam beard, he opened the cabinet again. This time he noticed his mother's perfume. He sprayed it across his chest and sniffed.

  Next, he thought he would try the hairspray. But as he reached for it, he noticed the small pair of scissors that his father used to trim his beard.

  Sam wondered if you could trim a foam beard. He fitted his fingers into the scissors handles and tried.

  But it didn't work very well. Part of his beard fell into the sink.

  He closed the mirrored door again and looked at himself to see if his beard was still okay, even if a piece of it had fallen off.

  But when he looked, he found himself looking more at his hair than at his beard. He found himself looking at his curls. His dumb curls.

  Very carefully he reached up with the scissors and snipped at a curl. It fell into the sink on top of the foam. Where the curl had been, there was now just a small tuft of hair. It was sticking up. Straight up.

  He stared at it. It was the beginning, he realized, of a punk haircut.

  He snipped another curl and watched it drop into the sink.

  And another.

  He began to wonder whether, when he finished the top, he would be able to figure out how to make the little tail in the back.

  He snipped again.

  ***

  Twenty minutes later, through the closed bathroom door, Sam could hear his mother's footsteps coming up the stairs. He could hear her voice.

  "Anastasia?" she was saying. "Sam? It's awfully quiet up here. What are you guys doing?"

  "Homework," Sam could hear his sister call.

  Sam put his scissors down. He looked around the bathroom. The beard foam had dissolved and was mostly gone. But there was hair everywhere.

  "Is Sam in your room?" he heard his mother ask.

  "No, he went downstairs a long time ago," Anastasia replied.

  "Sam?" his mother called.

  Sam leaned over the sink and looked once more into the mirror. Foam had dried on his chin and cheeks, and snippets of hair had dried in it, so he had a fuzzy beard. His curls were mostly gone. Here and there a curl remained, but most of his head was—well, it wasn't what he had hoped.

  He had hoped for little tufts and spikes, like Adam's hair, and a small tail in the back.

  But something had gone wrong. It was chunks. And there was a bald spot right in front. He hadn't wanted a bald spot at all.

  "Are you in the bathroom, Sam?" His mother's voice was louder.

  He looked at himself again. The head looking back at him didn't look like Sam Krupnik at all.

  "No," he called. "Someone else is in the bathroom."

  H
is mother knocked on the door. "I beg your pardon?" she said.

  "Are you looking for your cute little boy, Sam?" Sam called nervously.

  His mother chuckled. "Yes, I am," she called through the door. "It's his cute little bedtime."

  "Well," Sam replied very slowly, "Sam has disappeared. He turned into someone else, I think."

  His mother opened the door. She opened her mouth, as if she were going to say something, but no words came out. She stared.

  "I'm not Sam anymore," Sam whispered miserably.

  His mother's mouth remained open, but she didn't speak.

  "I'm a porkypine," Sam wailed. "An ugly one!"

  For a very, very long moment his mother still said nothing. They stared at each other in absolute silence.

  "Sam," she said at last, "I have never ever wished to have a porcupine instead of a son."

  "I know," Sam said, sniffling.

  "And for the very first time, I feel a terrible desire to spank you," his mother said. "An urge—an almost uncontrollable urge—to spank you. A need to spank you."

  Sam poked out his tongue to catch a tear that was coming down his sticky cheek. He tasted hair and dried foam.

  "I don't think," his mother continued, "that I am actually going to spank you. But I want you to know that I would like to."

  Sam nodded. "Me too," he said miserably. "I want to spank myself."

  "Do you think," his mother asked, "that we could try to laugh, instead?"

  "I don't feel like laughing," Sam said, spitting out some stray bits of hair.

  "Neither do I," said his mom. "But here are the choices. You could cry. I could spank you. If I spank you, then I will cry, too. Or we could both laugh."

  "Let's try to laugh," Sam said sadly.

  "Ha ha," they both said, and turned the corners of their mouths up very slightly.

  Sam's lower lip was still quavering. He laughed again. So did his mom. At first it wasn't easy. But after a moment, the laughter was real. It got louder and louder. Anastasia came running in to see what was going on. Sam's father came upstairs with the newspaper in his hand.

  For a very long time, all four Krupniks stayed in the small bathroom together. Sam's father was sitting on the edge of the tub. Sam was still standing on the closed toilet seat. His mother and sister leaned against the wall where the towels hung.