by Lois Lowry
"Sam?" his mom asked again. "Do you need some help getting dressed?"
Sam shook his head slowly. "No," he said gloomily, and slid down off the bed.
Are we having fun yet? he asked himself as he trudged down the hall to the closed door of his bedroom.
No, he answered himself silently. We sure aren't.
Anastasia took Sam aside privately before she left for school.
"The cake's all set," she told him. "It's on a high shelf in the pantry, and Mom swore a solemn oath she wouldn't look.
"And Dad'll be home early—he promised—and he's bringing flowers. And scrod, too. He's picking up fresh scrod at the fish market because it's Mom's favorite dinner."
"Did Daddy make Mom a present?" Sam asked.
Anastasia shrugged. "He told me he did, but he sounded kind of embarrassed about it. I think maybe it didn't turn out real good."
Sam was silent. He knew exactly how his dad felt. It was a feeling much, much worse than embarrassed.
"I know how he feels," Anastasia said, almost as if she had read Sam's mind, "because my poem is really not turning out too great. Do you mind helping me some more with it?"
"Nope," Sam said. It felt good to be able to help someone. "Read it to me."
Anastasia took the paper from her bookbag, unfolded it, and cleared her throat. "I'll read the whole thing, okay? Even though you've already heard the first part?"
"Okay," Sam said.
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.
Sam grinned. He liked Anastasia's poem now. In the beginning he had thought it was sort of stupid, but she seemed to have gotten the hang of it.
"It's good," he told his sister.
"Wait," she said. "It's the next verse I'm having trouble with. I wrote this last night. Listen." She began to read on:
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.
Sam cringed.
"It's awful, isn't it?" Anastasia wailed. "I knew it was awful!"
"We can fix it," Sam told her. "It just needs a little fixing."
"Sam!" Mrs. Krupnik's voice called from the kitchen. "Hurry up, sweetie! Your carpool's here!"
Anastasia looked at her watch. "I gotta go, too," she said. "I'm going to be late for school. I don't know when I'll have time to fix it, Sam," she added in a dejected voice. "The birthday party's tonight!"
"SAM!" his mother called again.
"Coming," Sam called back. He trotted off down the hall to get his jacket and say good-bye to his mom.
Anastasia was right. Time had pretty much run out.
9
Sam helped his mom that afternoon as she cleaned up the first floor of the house and set the table in the dining room for dinner.
"You shouldn't have to clean up for your own birthday party," Sam told her. "You should make us do it."
But Mrs. Krupnik laughed and said she didn't mind. "Anyway," she pointed out, "Anastasia isn't home from school yet, and neither is your dad." She looked at her watch. "They should both be here pretty soon, though. How are we doing with the table? About finished?"
Sam looked at the dining room table. Usually the family ate in the kitchen, but this was, of course, a special occasion.
They had set five places because Gertrustein was coming for dinner. It had only taken a few minutes to arrange the placemats—Sam had chosen his favorites, the yellow ones with blue flowers—and the silverware and plates.
But then Sam and his mom had spent at least an hour figuring out how to fold the yellow napkins so that they looked like swans. Mrs. Krupnik had a magazine article with instructions. But it was hard.
"I could make them into hats," Sam muttered as he tried for the millionth time to make a swan.
"I think I could make them into snails or slugs," his mother said. "Shall we give up?"
"Let's try one more time," Sam said. So Mrs. Krupnik read the instructions one more time, very slowly, folding as she did. Sam folded his at the same time. "Corner B halfway in so that it is perpendicular to side two—"
Finally they each had a swan—a little wrinkly, a little misshapen, but a swan nevertheless.
Carefully they made three more before they forgot how. They set a yellow swan on top of each dinner plate. Mrs. Krupnik said that that was how they did it in fancy restaurants.
Sam had never been to a fancy restaurant. His favorite restaurant was Chuck E. Cheese, and he also liked the Ground Round okay. But neither of those places had napkins folded into swans.
"I think it's all ready," Sam said, looking at the table. "We have to leave the middle empty because Dad's bringing flowers."
"And fish," his mother said. "Gosh, I hope he doesn't forget the scrod. Everything else is ready: salad and potatoes and veggies. Mrs. Stein said she'd walk over around six o'clock. She's bringing some nice fresh rolls."
"I hear the car," Sam announced. "Dad's home."
The car clattered into the driveway, its engine sputtering, and they could hear it backfire after it entered the garage. In a moment they heard Myron Krupnik slam the garage door.
Sam's mom giggled. "That's the only time your dad ever gets mad," she said. "He really hates that car."
"I saw him kick it once," Sam told her, "but he hurt his toe when he did. Then he said the S word."
"Well," Katherine Krupnik said, "if I ever get rich, I'll buy him a new car for his birthday."
"A Lamborghini," Sam suggested.
"Anybody home?" Anastasia's voice came from the kitchen. "Me and Dad just got here at the same time!"
"Dad and I," Mrs. Krupnik called back, correcting her. "We're in the dining room. Come see how the table looks, all set for the party!"
Anastasia, her arms full of books, came to the door of the dining room. She looked at the table. "Neat," she said. "And Dad has flowers for a centerpiece.
"But what did you do to the napkins?" she asked, puzzled.
"Guess," Sam said.
"Can't you tell what they are?" Mrs. Krupnik asked.
Anastasia walked around the table slowly, examining the napkin swans. Finally she shook her head.
"Sailboats?" she guessed uncertainly.
"Rats," Mrs. Krupnik said. "After all that work."
"They're supposed to be rats?" Anastasia asked. "Why on earth would you want rats at your birthday dinner?"
"No, no," said her mother. "I didn't mean that they were supposed to be rats; I meant—"
"Hi, guys," Myron Krupnik said, appearing at the dining room door. He held a bouquet of flowers wrapped in twisted green tissue paper. "Hey, great — I got just the right color. Yellow chrysanthemums—they'll go with the napkins. What did you do to the napkins?" He peered at the table. "Oh," he said politely, "that's really clever, folding them into the shape of mushrooms."
Mrs. Krupnik and Sam looked at each other and sighed. Silently they collected the napkins and began to fold them into boring rectangles.
"I want to talk to you guys before dinner," Mr. Krupnik said in a serious voice to Anastasia and Sam. "Can we meet privately in my study?"
"About what?" Anastasia asked. "Are we in some kind of trouble?"
"No," her father reassured her. "But we need to talk about the birthday gifts."
For a moment Sam, in the fascination of folding napkins and the anticipation of a party dinner, had forgotten about the gifts part. Now his heart sank. There really was no time left. If his perfume hadn't turned to perfume by now—or didn't turn to perfume in the next hour—he was in serious trouble.
"I need
to check on something," Sam said. "I'll be back in a minute for the meeting."
He scooted up the stairs to his room. But he knew it was no use. He knew it before he opened the door, and he certainly knew it after he opened the door, because the smell almost knocked him down. The kitten, hearing him, looked up with its head turned sideways as Sam entered the room. It came to him and rubbed itself against his leg.
"Poor kitten," Sam murmured. "Do you feel okay? It really smells yucky in here."
The kitten seemed all right, but Sam was worried. He remembered that once, a while ago, he had felt just fine one day, but the next day he itched all over and his head was hot, and he had chicken pox. Things like that could take a person by surprise.
So Sam decided to move the kitten to a new location, one with fresh air, before it was too late. Stealthily he crept down the hall to the guest room, making several trips, with the kitten, its towel bed, its food, bowl, sandbox, and toys.
He patted its head, apologized to it for the move, and went back downstairs.
While Katherine Krupnik busied herself in the kitchen, Sam and his sister and father met privately in the study.
Myron Krupnik, sitting at his desk, spoke in a very solemn voice. "I have to tell you kids," he announced, "that I really tried very hard to follow your mother's wishes, which were, as you know, to have homemade birthday gifts."
"Me too," Anastasia said gloomily.
"Me too," Sam said nervously.
"But," their father went on, "I am, frankly, not very good at arts and crafts. And so, while you kids were working hard and turning out nifty gifts for your mother—"
"Hah," Anastasia whispered.
"Hah," Sam said under his breath.
Their father didn't hear them. "I was trying just as hard as you did, I think. But—well, this is hard to admit—I made a real botch of it."
He reached over and picked up a large wrapped package that was leaning against the bookcase. He looked at Anastasia and Sam. "I am very, very embarrassed about this," he said. "It's horrible.
"I'm going to unwrap it and let you see it, and I'll understand when you laugh, but I want you to promise that you'll continue to love me even when you see what a mess I made of your mom's birthday gift." Looking absolutely miserable, Mr. Krupnik began to untie the knot in the string.
"Wait, Dad!" Anastasia said.
Her father looked up.
"Before you unwrap it, Dad," Anastasia said, "I want to tell you that you're not the only one. I'm not much good at that stuff, either, and I tried, but I really made a mess of my present, too. And I'm just as embarrassed as you are. Sam's the only one who succeeded in making Mom a great gift. Mine's in my bookbag. Wait, everybody, and I'll get it and bring it in here and show it to you, so you don't have to feel bad. And Dad, I'll understand when you laugh, but you have to promise that you'll still love me, even when you see what a mess I made."
Anastasia started toward the door.
"Wait!" Sam said in a loud voice.
His father and sister stared at him, and he scrambled down from the couch. "You get yours, Anastasia," Sam said. "And Dad, you bring yours. And both of you come to my room so I can show you mine."
"You mean we finally get to see the big secret you've been working on in your room?" Anastasia asked.
"Yes," Sam told them. "And I'll understand when you laugh, but you have to promise that—"
"We'll love you anyway," his father said, smiling.
"Okay," Sam said. "You'll get to see it. And hear it. And smell it."
10
"We'll be down in a few minutes, Katherine!" Mr. Krupnik called. "We have some last-minute birthday things to attend to!"
"We won't be long, Mom!" Anastasia called. They were standing in the upstairs hall, outside Sam's room. Mr. Krupnik held his large package under one arm, and Anastasia had her green notebook in her hand.
They could hear Mrs. Krupnik down in the kitchen, where she was arranging the yellow flowers in a vase. "Okay!" she called back cheerfully. "Don't be long, though! Mrs. Stein will be here soon!"
Carefully, as if the door might be holding back a ferocious monster, Sam turned the knob. Then he pushed the door open very slowly and stood aside so that his father and sister could enter his room.
His father coughed.
Anastasia made a gagging sound.
Both of them blinked in confusion.
Sam, by this time, was so accustomed to the condition of his room that it no longer surprised him. But he tried to imagine how it might seem to people entering for the first time.
The smell was overwhelming. It smelled like—
Well, Sam couldn't even describe what it smelled like.
"What do you think it smells like?" he asked his father and sister nervously. Somewhere, way back in his imagination, a tiny bit of hope still lingered. He hoped that just maybe his father and sister would say, "It smells like the finest, most unusual perfume in the whole world. The finest perfume ever invented."
Myron Krupnik sat down on Sam's bed with his package on his lap. He considered Sam's question carefully, sniffing occasionally to test the scent again as he thought. Now and then he coughed.
Finally, he said, "Once, in 1981, I attended a conference in New York during a week when the New York garbage collectors had been on strike for seventeen days. So garbage was piled up in the streets. It was August—very hot.
"Just outside my hotel, in front of a Thai restaurant, was a particularly awful pile of green plastic garbage bags. They had split open, and the stuff had oozed onto the sidewalk, and flies had laid eggs on it, and the eggs had hatched, and—are you sure you want to hear this?"
Sam shook his head. "I don't think so," he said.
Sam's dad reached over and took Sam's hand, to show that they were still pals. "Anyway," he said. "This smells like that."
Sam, holding his dad's hand, looked at Anastasia. "What do you think it smells like?" he asked miserably.
She had been thinking. "Well," she said finally, "once, at school, an eighth-grade girl named Martha Holmes was coming down with the flu. And after lunch she felt really crummy, like she was going to throw up. And she was standing in the hall, in front of her locker, with the locker open, and she felt embarrassed because everyone was walking past—even boys—and so she stuck her head inside her locker and barfed egg salad sandwich and tomato soup and chocolate pudding on top of her gym suit and a math book. Then she closed her locker and locked it and went right home and didn't come back to school for five days. But on the fourth day, when she wasn't back yet, the principal told the janitor to open up the locker because everybody was noticing that something was wrong, and—
"Are you sure you want to hear the rest of this?"
"No," said Myron Krupnik firmly.
"No," said Sam in a small voice.
Anastasia reached over and took his other hand, to show that they were still pals.
"Anyway," she said, "this smells like that."
The three of them sat silently for a moment. They breathed little choking breaths. No one even said anything about the sound—a sound like bubbling lava—that was coming from the toybox.
"Sam," his dad asked at last in a sympathetic voice, "what is it?"
Sam tried to speak very matter-of-factly. Though it wasn't easy, he tried to use a brave and self-confident voice.
"It's perfume," he told them, "Homemade."
"I see," Mr. Krupnik said after a long silence. "Well, I can't sit in here very long because it's tough to breathe. But I promised I would show you mine."
He untied the string around his package.
"Let me explain it before I show you," he said. "First of all, I used my favorite photograph of your mom—a black-and-white one where she was wearing a sweater, and her hair, back when she had long hair, was blowing in the wind. Remember that picture? I had it framed, and it was on the desk in my office?"
Anastasia and Sam nodded. They had both visited their dad's office at Harvard, s
o they knew the picture he was talking about.
"Well, I had that photograph enlarged until it was enormous. Poster size. Then I glued it to a piece of plywood so that it was nice and sturdy. Then I borrowed some paints from my friend Morris Castillo, who teaches in the Art Department. And in the hours when I wasn't busy teaching or grading papers, I worked on painting that photograph.
"I was going to make it into a gorgeous portrait," he said unhappily. "I wanted to show her beautiful blue eyes, and how the sunshine made golden streaks on her hair, and—"
He sighed and looked miserably at the package still on his lap.
"Show us, Dad," Anastasia said sympathetically.
"Yeah, show us," Sam urged.
Mr. Krupnik slid the picture out of its paper wrapping and stood it against the side of the toybox where they could see it.
Sam gulped. It was terrible. Scary. It looked like a Wild Thing from one of his favorite books. It was almost as terrifying as a hammerhead shark.
If it were hanging on your bedroom wall, Sam thought, you would never ever be able to close your eyes and go to sleep.
He glanced at his sister. Her mouth was open in astonishment as she stared at the hideous painting.
"What does it look like to you guys?" Mr. Krupnik asked. And Sam knew—because Sam had experienced it—that deep down in his dad's imagination was one teeny-weeny bit of hope that maybe the painting was okay after all.
They didn't answer for a moment.
Finally Anastasia said, "Dad? You know what it looks like? Once this eighth-grade girl at school, Martha Holmes, barfed egg salad sandwich and tomato soup on top of a green gym suit—"
Sam began to giggle. He didn't want to hurt his dad's feelings, but he couldn't stop giggling.