Zooman Sam (6 page)

Mrs. Bennett adjusted his hat a little. She glanced over at the large trash bag behind the
piano. "How many do you have, Sam?" she asked.

Sam and his mom had counted them that morning, in the kitchen. "Thirty," Sam said.

Mrs. Bennett sighed. He could see her thinking. At the first table, Becky was starting to cry because she'd already cut her orange paper wrong. Miss Ruth was trying to comfort her, but Becky wanted Mrs. Bennett.

"Tell you what, Sam," she said, leading him to his place at one of the tables. "You've done two. Cubs and tigers. Why don't you wear one hat each day, and tell us about one animal each day? You have twenty-eight more. That's almost six weeks of animals!"

Sam brightened. For six weeks he could stand in front of the circle and feel that feeling of being the most interesting person in the room.

"Okay," he agreed. He sat down in the small chair that Mrs. Bennett had pulled out for him. He picked up his scissors and looked around at the other children, each of them carefully cutting orange paper. Sam made a small starting snip.

"Tigers are sort of the same color as pumpkins," Sam announced to his friends.

"Yeah," Eli said. "And with big giant teeth. I'm going to make big tiger teeth in my pumpkin."

Sam ran his tongue over his own small teeth. He cut meticulously around the side of his circle. He thought about teeth, how interesting they were, and about all of the hats he had left.

"Speaking of teeth," Sam announced to the table, "tomorrow I'm going to talk about gators."

The other children at the table stared at him. "Gators?" repeated Becky, in her beginning-to-be-a-crybaby voice. "
Alligators?
" she asked. She put her half-finished pumpkin down.

"Yes," Sam told her. "But don't be scared. I'm going to tell about how zookeepers capture alligators. And how we wrestle them. And how—"

Sam noticed that none of the children at his table were cutting out pumpkins anymore. He noticed, too, that Mrs. Bennett was looking over with a small warning frown on her face.

"Children," Sam said, in his stern but kindly teacher voice, "let's get back to work now. Let's pay attention to our pumpkins."

"Don't you want to change your clothes, Sam?" Mrs. Krupnik asked. She was folding clean laundry on the kitchen table. "Here. How about this?" She held up a pair of denim Osh-Kosh overalls.

Sam shook his head. "I'm going to wear my zooman suit all the time."

"All the time? Even to bed?" His mom laughed.

"No, I'll wear my stars-and-planets pajamas to bed. But I have to wear my zooman suit every day because that's what zookeepers do."

"And the hat, too?"

"I have to wear a different hat each day," Sam explained. "But maybe I don't have to wear it at home." He shook his head inside the Tigers cap. He had discovered quite by accident that if he shook his head fast, sometimes the cap, because it was so large, wouldn't shake. The cap would continue pointing straight ahead even though Sam's head was turned to the side. It was a very interesting phenomenon, Sam thought. But it wasn't very comfortable.

For now, he took the Tigers hat off. He could see better with it off. At school, his paper pumpkin had been a little lopsided because he hadn't been able to see well while cutting.

His mother finished folding the underwear and lined everything up neatly in piles; then she put it all into the straw laundry basket and carried it upstairs. Sam followed her.

"I'll make us each a you-know-what in a minute," she said, as she put the folded towels on shelves in a hall closet.

"What's a you-know-what?" Sam asked.

"I don't want to say it because of the dog," his mom explained.

"He's asleep in the kitchen," Sam pointed out. "He can't hear you."

"Well, I meant sandwich. I'll make us each a sandwich."

They heard a crash downstairs. Sam's mom
groaned. "Here he comes," she said. "And he knocked over the wastebasket on his way. What on earth are we going to do about this dog?"

Sure enough, Sleuth came bounding up the stairs. From a deep sleep in a corner of the kitchen, half a house away, Sleuth had heard the word
sandwich.

Sam scratched the dog behind one ear. Sleuth wiggled his behind happily.

"We have to talk in code," Sam suggested to his mother. "No food words."

"Well, I was about to ask if you would like a you-know-what."

Sam knew what. "What kind of you-know-what?" he asked. "Not the kind I hate, that comes in a can with a picture of a mermaid on it."

"No, not that kind," his mom replied. She knew he meant tuna fish. She also knew that Sam hated tuna fish. "I was thinking of the kind that..." She thought for a minute, figuring out how to say it in code. Sleuth watched her. So did Sam.

"The kind that comes chunky or smooth?" Sam suggested.

"Yes, that's it."

"Yes, I'd like a chunky you-know-what," Sam
said, "with, ah..." Now
he
was trying to come up with a code word.

"Begins with J?" his mom asked.

"Right. Begins with J. That's what I want for lunch." Sam followed his mom as she carried the laundry basket down the hall. Sleuth ambled along behind, listening to their conversation.

"Mom?" Sam asked.

"What?" his mother asked. She turned into Sam's bedroom.

"Tell me how to spell
Gators,
" Sam said.

Mrs. Krupnik opened the top drawer of Sam's bureau and stacked his socks and underwear inside. "G," she said. "It makes the sound of 'guh.'"

"Then A, of course," his mother said. Sam followed her down the hall toward his parents' bedroom. "You can hear the A."

"Gaaaators," Sam said to himself. "Yes," he said. "I can hear the A."

He watched as his mother put his dad's undies away. "Your father is a messy guy," she said. "Look at this. His socks are all in a big jumble." She shook her head the way she sometimes shook it when she looked at Sam's room with toys all over the floor.

"
Jumble
has a J," Sam announced. "I always know J because of Jell-O. Oh, no!" He clapped his hand in front of his mouth. "I said a food word!"

They both looked at Sleuth warily. But he hadn't reacted. Sleuth didn't like Jello-O.

"That's true. Jumble has a J. Let me see, now. Look: he has a green sock matched up with a brown." Mrs. Krupnik sighed and began to rearrange Sam's dad's socks.

"T comes next," Sam said suddenly.

"Tea comes next? You don't even like tea, Sam. I was going to give you chocolate milk with your sandwich. Oh,
no!
Now
I
did it!
Down,
Sleuth!"

Gradually they calmed the dog, who had begun to leap around the room at the sound of "sandwich."

"No," Sam said, when Sleuth had finally relaxed, "I meant T comes next in
Gator!
After the A! I can hear it! Listen: GaaaaTTTTTor!"

His mom began to laugh. "You sound like a cheerleader, Sam. Gaaaatttor! Gaaaatttor!"

Sam hurried down the stairs and back into the kitchen. The big green plastic bag was still on the floor beside the back door, where he had set it down when he got home from school.

Sleuth followed him, turned around in a circle, and lay down on his folded rug in the corner. Sleuth knew that Sam often slipped him a few treats during lunch. Bread crusts, usually. Sam didn't like the crust. But Sleuth did.

"Right now I'm looking for my hat," Sam explained to the dog.

When Mrs. Krupnik returned to the kitchen with the empty laundry basket, she found Sam waiting in his special chair at the table. His head was tilted back so that he could see from below the bill of the huge Gators cap. Only the tip of his nose and his mouth showed. His mouth had a huge smile.

"I found it all by myself," Sam said, "because I knew the letters."

"Would you like to take a walk over to the Harveys" house, Sam?" Anastasia asked. It was late afternoon, and his sister had come home from school and dropped her books on the hall table.

"Why?" Sam asked.

"Well, you could say thank you to Mr. Harvey for the hats."

"Didn't you say thank you when you went and got them?" Sam asked.

"Of course I did. But you should, too. And I
know he's home now. He's flying to San Francisco tomorrow, but today he was going to rake the leaves in their yard. He told me that last night when I picked up the hats. And I saw him out there when I came in from school."

Sam went to the living room window and peered out. Down the street, on the other side, in the front yard of a large brick house, he could see the sportscaster raking leaves. Working beside him was his teenage son.

"Steve is helping him," Sam told his sister.

"Oh?" Anastasia said. "I didn't notice."

"Steve's wearing a dumb yellow sweater," Sam said. He turned his Gators hat around on his head so that he could press his nose against the window glass.

"He is not," Anastasia said defensively. "It's cashmere. I think he got it for his birthday. And it really looks nice with his eyes. His eyes have kind of yellow flecks in them."

Sam wondered what flecks were. It sounded painful, having yellow ones in your eyes. He breathed lightly on the glass. Then he made a mark with his finger on the fogged place. "G," Sam wrote, for Gators. He moved slightly to the left, breathed on the glass again, and wrote, "A."

"Come on, Sam," Anastasia said. "Let's walk over there while they're still outside."

"You just want to see Steve," Sam said. "What are flecks, anyway?"

"I do not. Steve is completely irrelevant to me. I just want you to exhibit some manners. It's very important to learn to say thank you for things."

Sam knew that. Sam had learned to say thank you when he was one year old. He fogged another section of window glass and wrote "T" with his finger.

"Mr. Harvey ought to see how great that hat looks on you, Sam," Anastasia suggested.

"Oh, all right." Sam smeared the places on the window, to erase the letters. He turned his hat back around, tilted his head so that he could see, and followed his sister through the front door.

"Don't say anything stupid," Anastasia whispered to him as she took his hand and led him across the street. Sam liked the feel of the dead leaves whooshing around his feet in the gutter.

"I won't." Sam didn't know what she was talking about. Why would he say something stupid?

They approached the large brick house, and
Sam could hear the scraping sound of the rakes in the yard.

"Say hello," Anastasia whispered. She poked him in the back. His sister was acting very weird, Sam thought. He tilted his head back as far as he could, so that he could look up and see Mr. Harvey's face.

"Hello," Sam said loudly. "I came to say thank you for the hats."

The sportscaster squatted in front of him. "You look great, Sam. It's a little big, but it looks good on you." He straightened the hat a bit on Sam's head. "I'm glad we could find a good use for all those hats."

"What does it say on your suit, Sam?" Steve asked. He knelt beside his dad and looked at Sam's coverall. "Zooman Sam," he read. "
Cool.
"

"Tomorrow at school I tell about gators," Sam explained. "Today I did cubs and tigers."

"The Gators are two and one," Mr. Harvey said. He sounded just the way he did when he talked on TV about teams. He was using his "Harv" voice. "Their best running back is out with an injury, though."

Sam smiled politely. He didn't know what Mr. Harvey was talking about.

Anastasia poked him in the back again. He couldn't figure out why she kept doing that. He tried to think of something to say to the Harvey's.

"I like your sweater," he said, finally, tilting his head back to look at Steve. "It looks really nice with your flecks."

Before he knew what had happened, Sam found himself heading home. Anastasia was practically dragging him by one arm. "I'm humiliated," she muttered.

"Why? What did I do wrong?"

"You wouldn't understand," his sister said angrily.

And that was true. Sam didn't understand at all.

"That dog is getting worse and worse," Mrs. Krupnik said at dinner.