Zooman Sam (8 page)

"Hi," Sam said.

"Is your sister around?"

"No, she had to stay at school for Chorus."

"What're you doing?" Steve came through the gate and into the yard. He scratched Sleuth behind the ear. "Hi, Sleuth," he said.

"Animal training," Sam explained. "It's the kind of thing a zooman has to do."

"Sit, Sleuth," Steve said. Sleuth sat abruptly and looked up.

"Down, Sleuth," Steve said. Sleuth wiggled himself into a lying-down position and looked up through his fringe of hair.

"He's already trained, Sam," Steve said.

"Yes, but he does a bad thing if you say a food word."

"A food word?" Steve asked with a puzzled look.

"Yes. The name of a food. Almost any food. Try it," Sam said.

Steve looked at Sleuth, who was still obediently lying on the grass. He thought. "Cheeseburger," Steve said loudly.

Sleuth leaped up, woofed, and threw himself at Steve.

"Down!" Steve shouted. Sleuth reluctantly lay down again.

"What about a food that tastes horrible?" Steve asked Sam.

"Nothing tastes horrible to Sleuth," Sam explained.

"Brussels sprouts!" Steve tried. Sleuth looked up but didn't move.

"Brussels sprouts taste horrible to everybody, even dogs," Steve explained. Sam nodded. Actually, Sam kind of liked Brussels sprouts. He liked the way they looked like little cabbages. And his mom put lots of butter on them, so they tasted good.

But Sleuth did not react to Brussels sprouts.

"Spaghetti!" Steve said. Sleuth leaped forward and almost knocked him down.

"You got a problem here," Steve told Sam.

Duh,
Sam thought, but he didn't say it. His mom thought saying "duh" was very rude.

"We need a gun," Steve said. Then he looked at Sam's face, and laughed. "No, Sam," he reassured him. "Not that kind of gun."

Sam sank to his knees beside Sleuth. He put his arms around the dog, and Sleuthie licked Sam's face.

"We can't shoot him," Sam said emphatically to Steve. "We love him!"

Steve Harvey laughed. "No, Sam," he explained. "You didn't let me finish." He sat down on the grass beside Sam and the dog.

"You probably know this already, being a zooman," Steve said.

"I'm only a
beginning
zooman," Sam pointed out.

"Well, the thing that animal trainers all know is that you have to reward good behavior and punish bad behavior."

Sam thought about that. It made sense. "
Moms
do that," he said. "And dads. And teachers." He thought about Mrs. Bennett sending Adam to the time-out chair. And Becky. And Tucker. And Stephen with a PH. Even Sam had to go to the time-out chair occasionally.

"That's right, Sam." Steve scratched Sleuth behind his ear, through the thick white hair. "Now: we need to teach Sleuth that certain behavior isn't acceptable. So we need to think of a way to punish him when he does it."

"A time-out chair," Sam announced. "That's the best way."

But Steve shook his head. "Dogs don't understand time-out chairs. Time-out chairs are a place for humans to sit and think, but dogs don't do that. What we need is a quick
physical
thing: something that will hurt a little, but only for a second."

"Not a gun," Sam said warily. Suddenly he remembered something. It was something that had happened quite recently. "I know!" he said. "Anastasia did it to me! A quick thing that hurt for a second!"

"Your sister? She did something that hurt?" Steve looked surprised.

"Yesterday, when we went to your house to say thank you to your dad for the hats? Every time I said something dumb, Anastasia poked me with her finger. Like this." Sam leaned over and poked Steve hard, in the middle of his back, with his index finger.

Steve jumped. "Ouch!" he said. "I see what you mean. But you didn't say anything dumb, Sam. You said thank you to my dad. That was all."

"But I kept
starting
to say dumb things. And Anastasia kept poking me. I started to say about flecks."

"Flecks?"

"Yes. Anastasia told me that you had beautiful flecks in your eyes. So when we were in your yard, I started to say about the flecks, and she poked me really hard."

Steve was grinning. "Beautiful flecks? Your sister really said that?"

"Yeah. She said that they were the same color as the highlights in your hair. But she would
really
have poked me if I said about highlights."

Steve ran his hand through his thick hair. Sleuth looked up and woofed slightly. "She likes my hair?" Steve asked.

Sam nodded. "So we need to poke Sleuth, huh? When he's bad?"

"What else did she say about my hair?" Steve asked.

"Nothing. That was all." Sam was impatient. He didn't want to talk about hair. He wanted to start training his dog.

"You want a hat?" Sam asked Steve. "I've got my Timberwolves cap, for when I train dogs. I could get you some kind of animal hat."

Steve was patting his hair, still, and arranging it with his hand. "No, I think a hat might mess up my hair. What time is your sister getting home?"

Sam was getting
very
impatient now. He tried to think of a way to bring Steve's attention back to dog training. "She won't be home till late," Sam said. "She's probably going to stop on the way home and have a—" He looked at Sleuth, who was sound asleep on the grass. "A
hamburger
" Sam said loudly.

At the sound of the H-word, Sleuth woke suddenly and jumped up. He pawed at Sam and Steve in excitement.

"Poke him with your finger!" Sam said.

But it was clear that a finger poke would have no effect on a jumping, woofing dog. Steve scolded Sleuth firmly and finally got him back to a sitting position. "We really need a gun, Sam," Steve said, and then, when he saw Sam's face, explained, "I mean a water pistol."

"I'm not allowed to have guns," Sam said sadly. "Not even toy ones." Sam's parents had the same rule as Mrs. Bennett. They didn't even like it when he aimed a stick and said, "Blam." Sometimes Sam secretly made his fingers into guns and shot things that way, but he didn't let his parents see.

Steve was thinking. "How does your mom wash windows?" he asked.

Sam tried to remember. "Well, first she talks about it a lot. Every day she says, 'Those windows are dirty.' Then after she says that for about a hundred days, she finally says, 'Okay, I'm going to do it. Today I'm going to wash the windows.' And then she looks at my dad, but he says he has to go take the car to be repaired. And then she looks at Anastasia, but Anastasia says she has homework. And then she looks at me, and I say, 'I'll help,' but she says I'm too little. So she does it by herself."

"But what does she use to wash them?" Steve asked.

"Rags," Sam said.

"But doesn't she have a squirt bottle of blue stuff?"

Sam nodded.

"Great," Steve said. "That's what we need. Can you borrow that bottle?"

"Okay. But what're we going to do with it?"

"Squirt Sleuth," Steve said.

"Bulls" was a hit at school on Thursday. Sam pawed the floor with one foot, indicating how ferocious a bull could sometimes be, and how important it was for a zooman to be brave and alert. Then, as Sam had predicted, Mrs. Bennett read
Ferdinand
to the class. Instead of standing in front of the circle to talk about zookeeping one more time, he adjusted his Bulls cap and sat down to listen to the story. When they read it at home, sometimes his dad pretended to be a matador. He used a towel for a cape, and Anastasia blew a pretend trumpet when Myron the Matador entered the ring.

Becky whimpered, but didn't cry, because Mrs. Bennett let her be in charge of the flowers. Becky held a bouquet of artificial flowers, and raised one each time the story talked about how beautiful they smelled to Ferdinand.

On Friday, with his zooman coverall newly washed once again, Sam wore his Bears cap. He demonstrated hibernation (Sam was pretty good at snoring) and showed how a zookeeper tiptoes quietly while his bear sleeps. Then Mrs. Bennett read
Blueberries for Sal.

"We're a pretty good team, Sam," Mrs. Bennett said. "What cap will you wear on Monday?"

Sam thought about the caps he had not yet worn. There were some scary ones that he wasn't eager to wear. But others were easy. "Colts," he decided.

"Good," Mrs. Bennett said. "I have some nice books about horses."

Throughout the weekend, Sam wore his Timberwolves cap and worked with Steve on training Sleuth. They had refilled the Windex bottle with a mixture of vinegar and water. It smelled terrible.

"But it won't hurt him," Steve had explained. "That's the important thing. He won't like it, but it won't hurt him."

They took Sleuth to the yard. Sam's sister sat
on the porch steps to watch. Anastasia had become very interested in dog training.

"Sit," Steve commanded. And Sleuth sat.

Steve arranged the small bottle in his hand, with his finger on the trigger. "Hamburger," he said loudly. Sleuth leaped toward him, and Steve squirted the dog in the face. "No," he said loudly at the same time.

Sleuth yelped and sat back down, looking puzzled. His nose wiggled, trying to make some sense of vinegar.

"Hamburger," Steve said, again, and the same things happened. Sleuth leaped; Steve squirted; Sleuth sat.

"Now you try it, Sam," Steve said, and handed Sam the bottle.

Sam arranged himself in front of the dog, and when he was ready, he said, "Hamburger!" Sleuth leaped. Sam squirted. Sleuth sat.

From where she sat on the steps, Anastasia applauded.

Sam tried again. "Hamburger!" he said loudly. This time, Sleuth got to his feet, hesitated, and then sat back down.

And one more time. Sam said, "Hamburger!" He held the bottle where the dog could see it. Sleuth didn't move.

From the porch steps, where he had gone to sit beside Anastasia, Steve called, "Hamburger!" Sleuth sat very still.

"
Cool,
" Sam said. "We did it! It worked!"

He turned toward the porch, planning to bow theatrically if his sister applauded again. "Yea, Sam!" Anastasia called. "You guys are great dog trainers!"

She turned to Steve. "You want to stay for lunch?" she asked. "We can make sandwiches out of leftover meatloaf."

At the sound of "meatloaf," Sleuth jumped up, knocked Sam over, and dashed to the porch with his ears napping. He thudded into Anastasia, one eager paw on her shoulder.

Steve stood up with a sigh. "We have more work to do, Sam," he said. "Let me have the squirter."

It was a long process. All weekend they worked. When they got meatloaf under control, they had to start on peanut butter. With peanut butter done, there was still spaghetti.

It was a tiring job, Sam realized, being a zookeeper. His book didn't show the exhausting parts. His book showed Zookeeper Jake smiling while he pushed a wheelbarrow filled with silvery fish to the seal pool. It showed Jake washing an elephant with a hose. In his book, all of the animals looked happy and well behaved. The elephant lifted one ear so that Jake could wash behind it. The seals cheerfully caught the fish that Jake threw. In one picture, a chimp with a huge smile sat very still while Jake brushed his teeth with a special brush.

Also, Jake's suit, the one that said
ZOOKEEPER JAKE
in red letters on the chest, always seemed to be clean. Sam's suit wasn't. Sam's coverall had muddy paw prints all over it, and egg yolk from breakfast. His mom had washed it at least ten times, but every day it got dirty again. Every night at bedtime, Sam's mom groaned when he took off his zooman suit and she saw how dirty it was. Every night she asked, "Sam, do you think that maybe tomorrow—"

But every night Sam said no. There were twenty-eight more hats. Then there were twenty-seven. And then twenty-six. Sam still had a lot of zooman time left to do.