All About Sam

by Lois Lowry

  Daddy's school was not called junior high. Daddy's school was called a very complicated name: Harvarduniversity. Daddy had gone to Harvarduniversity a million years ago, when he was young and didn't have a beard. And later he had gone to another school called Yaleuniversity, and later he had gone to another school called Columbiauniversity; and now that he was an old guy with a beard, he was back at Harvarduniversity again. Sam had been there to visit Daddy at his office. Daddy's office door had his name on it.

  "Can I go to Harvarduniversity? Can I have my name on my door?" Sam asked. "Like Daddy?"

  But his mom laughed and said no. Sam would not be going to Harvarduniversity.

  She tied Sam's shoe. "Sam," she said, "your shoes are always untied. I think I'll get you some of those sneakers that have fasteners made out of—what is that stuff called, the stuff that sticks together?"

  Sam shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know," he said.

  "Xerox?" asked his mother. "No, that's not it." She gave him a cookie. "You're going to nursery school," she told him.

  Sam picked the raisins out of his cookie, to save them till last, and thought about that. Nursery school.

  "Is it Rolex?" his mother asked. She was still thinking about the sneakers. "I think that's it. I'll get you sneakers with Rolex fasteners, so that when you're in nursery school—no, darn it. Rolex isn't right."

  Nursery school. Sam thought about it some more. Sam knew about nurses. Every time he went to the doctor, there was a nurse there. She was a pretty nice nurse, and Sam liked her just fine, and sometimes she gave him a lollipop before he went home.

  "Spandex?" his mother said. "Lastex?"

  Sam wondered if he would wear a uniform at nursery school. He didn't want to wear a white dress, the way the nurse in the doctor's office did. But he liked the idea of a uniform. He would like an army uniform, maybe. Or a Red Sox uniform.

  "Lego? No, Lego is that toy," Sam's mom said. "What the heck is that sticky stuff called?"

  Sam ignored his mother and continued thinking about the nurse. She did give lollipops, that was true. But she did something else, something Sam didn't like to think about very much.

  She gave shots.

  Sam hated shots.

  But now that he thought about it, he liked the idea of being the guy who gave shots to other people. And after he went to nursery school and learned how, he would be able to do that.

  He wasn't sure that he wanted to be a nurse because he still thought he would like to be a mover. And lately he'd been thinking about airplane pilot. But he would go to nursery school anyway, he decided, to learn to give shots.

  "Okay," he said to his mom. "Let's go have a look at nursery school."

  "Velcro!" his mother said.

  Mrs. Krupnik pushed Sam in his stroller to the school. He carried his newest favorite book on his lap—the one with airplane pictures in it. Anastasia had told him that there would be lots of books at nursery school, but he was afraid that there might not be one with airplane pictures.

  "I'm not going to do anything at the school," he told his mother before they left home. "I'm only going to sit and look at my airplane book."

  "Well," said his mom, "that would be okay, I guess. But I'm sure they'll have toys there. I would think you'd like to play with the toys."

  "No," said Sam. "I wouldn't."

  "And there will be other children, too. Maybe you'd like to play with them."

  Sam shivered. He was accustomed to playing by himself at home. He didn't want to play with other children. They always grabbed things. And here at nursery school, probably all the children were learning to be nurses, and that meant—oh, no...

  They would have to practice giving shots. They would want to give shots to him.

  "NO," he said loudly to his mother. "I AM NOT GOING TO GO NEAR THE OTHER CHILDREN."

  His mom sighed. "Okay," she said.

  Now, as they approached the school, Sam held on very tightly to his airplane book. He could see stuff in the fenced yard. Interesting-looking stuff. A big swing made out of a truck tire. A whole climbing thing painted different colors. A slide shaped like a giraffe. Sam could see that you climbed up the giraffe and slid down its long neck, and that it would probably be a whole lot of fun.

  "I'm not going to do that giraffe slide," Sam said to his mother. "I'm only going to do my airplane book."

  "Okay," said his mom.

  "Even if they make me," Sam said. "Even if they tell me I have to do the giraffe slide, I'm not going to do it."

  "They won't make you. No one will make you do anything."

  "Even," Sam said, "if they tell me that they'll hold my airplane book very carefully for me while I do the giraffe slide, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to say, 'You can't make me.'"

  His mom lifted him out of the stroller. She folded it into its umbrella shape. "Sam," she said, "I promise you that no one will make you go down that slide."

  "Well," said Sam, looking back at the playground as they went through the door, "I might go down the giraffe slide just one time to be polite."

  "It's better than junior high, and it's better than Harvarduniversity," Sam announced at dinner, "and it's the best school in the whole world, my school is. There is a slide like a giraffe, and there are a million books, and some of them have airplane pictures, and there are paints that you can moosh around, but you have to put on a smock first. And I'm going to have lots of new friends, and one of them is named Adam."

  "That's nice, Sam," said his dad. "Katherine, would you pass the salad?"

  "Adam plays rough," Sam said, "and the teacher has to say 'Time Out, Adam!'"

  "Go ahead and finish the salad, Myron," Mrs. Krupnik said. "Otherwise, I'll just have to throw it away. Eat your veggies, Sam."

  Sam took a bite of string beans. "No uniforms," he announced with his mouth full. "But everybody wears OshKosh, same as me. And there's a dress-up corner," he continued, "with a big box of clothes you can put on. And hats. There's a policeman's hat, but if a girl puts it on, then it's a policewoman's hat, and there's an army helmet, and—"

  "Great, Sam," Anastasia said. "Mom, you know what I did today? I—"

  "And there's a big Mexican hat, called a somberro," Sam went on.

  "Sombrero," his mother corrected.

  "Right. Somberro. That's what I said. And my friend Adam put on the somberro—"

  "Sombrero," his father said.

  "Does anybody want to hear what I did today?" Anastasia asked. "We had an English test, and I—"

  "So my friend Adam put on the somberro," Sam continued, "and he took a block from the block area and pretended the block was a gun, and he was aiming it and shooting it, but the teacher took it away and said 'Time Out, Adam.' So then Adam—"

  "Sam," said his mother. "Eat."

  Sam put a forkful of potato into his mouth. He swallowed it hastily without chewing. "So then Adam took a toy airplane, and he was zooming it around, and he pretended that it was dropping bombs on the cooking corner. That's where the little sink is and the stove, and you can run real water—they let you do that—and you can use an eggbeater in the water and make soapsuds if you want. These other guys, Jeremy and Skipper, they were making soapsuds, and Adam came by and bombed their soapsuds. But the teacher took the airplane away and said to Adam, 'No bombs,' so then Adam—"

  "Sam," Anastasia said, "could you be quiet, please?"

  "That's what my teacher said," Sam told her, "when it was Quiet Time. We all had to do this." Sam put his fingers to his lips and said "Ziippppp." After demonstrating, he added, "And then our lips were zippered and it was Quiet Time. When it's Quiet Time you can color or look at books, but you can't talk or sing or yell for a little while. That's the rules. My friend Adam—"

  Anastasia put her fingers to her lips.

  Dr. Krupnik put his fingers to his lips.

  Mrs. Krupnik put her fingers to her lips.

  "Zzzziiippppp," they all said together.

  Sam looked up. He closed hi
s mouth. He was very quiet.

  Then he whispered, "And they don't give shots. I love my school."

  7

  Sam and his mom were at the supermarket. It was one of Sam's favorite places, because he got to ride in the cart with his legs dangling, and he got to point at things.

  "I want that," he would say, pointing at bananas. And usually his mom would say, "Okay," and she would put bananas into the shopping cart.

  "I want that," Sam would say, pointing to orange juice and to chocolate milk. And those things would go into the shopping cart.

  "And I want that," he said, pointing, but he always knew she would shake her head and say no in that aisle. It was the cookies-cakes-candies-sugary cereal aisle. She always whizzed through that one, pushing the shopping cart very fast, grabbing a bag of flour or some oatmeal, but nothing else.

  Sam didn't mind. He waited for the yogurt department and pointed again, because his mom always said yes to yogurt.

  Finally, with a very full cart, they got to the check-out line. Sam looked up to see which line they were in. There was one that he hated.

  It was the No Candy line.

  For a long time, when he was smaller, he hadn't understood about the No Candy line. Then, after he turned two, and then two and a half, and was big and going to nursery school, he began to understand about letters and about reading.

  At home, he had plastic alphabet letters that stuck to the refrigerator door. He could spell his name and Mom and Dad. He couldn't spell his sister's name, but that was because she had a name that was longer than the whole alphabet.

  One day he realized he could spell no. His mother had found him playing with her jewelry box and trying on her earrings. She had knelt down on the floor, picking up all the necklaces and earrings that he had scattered about. She was very angry.

  "No, Sam," she had said in a loud voice. "No, no, N-O, NO!"

  Sam listened carefully. N, she had said. And 0. He had both of those letters on the refrigerator. While his mother was still looking for the last of her jewelry, he had scampered away to the kitchen and spelled NO on the refrigerator.

  Later, his mother had shown him how to spell yes. But he liked no better.

  Not long after that, he had seen the word No at the supermarket. It had another word after it, but he didn't know what the other word was. He asked his mom. He pointed to the sign.

  "Candy, that says," his mom explained. "The sign says, 'No Candy.' If you go through this line, there won't be all those candy bars and things. Some people like this line better. I like this line better, as a matter of fact."

  Sam scowled. He didn't like the No Candy line at all.

  And today she was at the No Candy line again. Rats.

  "Can I get down and walk?" Sam asked his mom. She was putting the groceries onto the counter so that the woman in the pink smock could drive them over the beeping thing with the green and red light. Usually Sam liked to watch that. But today he wanted to get down.

  His mother was counting the yogurts as she took them out of the cart. She nodded. Then, after she had the seven yogurts on the counter, she lifted Sam out of the carriage and down to the floor. "Stay right here," she said. "Don't run off."

  "I won't," Sam told her. He had no intention of running off. He was simply going to walk four steps sideways over to the next line, one that had candy bars and things. Just to look.

  An old man was there, buying a lot of frozen dinners and toilet paper. He didn't even glance down at Sam. If he had, Sam would have said "Excuse me."

  Sam wiggled past the old man and stood in front of the rows of candies. There were all kinds: Hershey bars, gumdrops, chewing gum, licorice. Milk Duds and Chuckles and Baby Ruths and M & M's.

  Sam wanted one very badly. It didn't even matter which one.

  He looked over at his mother. Her shopping cart was still half full. She was lifting a bag of oranges to the counter. She wasn't watching Sam at all.

  He looked up at the old man. The old man had his wallet in his hands and was counting out dollar bills. He wasn't noticing Sam at all.

  The lady in the pink smock was putting the old man's frozen dinners into a bag. She didn't even know Sam was there.

  Very quietly Sam reached up and took a bright red giant-sized package of Dentyne gum.

  Very quietly he put it into his pocket.

  He looked around. No one had seen him do it. No one at all.

  Quickly Sam scurried back to the No Candy line and stood beside his mother.

  "I'm just standing here," he said to her in a loud voice. "I'm not being naughty or anything. I'm not doing anything at all."

  She looked down and smiled. "Good," she said. "I'm almost through."

  When his mother had paid for the groceries, the lady in the pink smock looked down and said "Have a good day" to Sam.

  Sam didn't say anything. He reached for his mother's hand.

  He had been having a good day. He had had a good morning in nursery school, playing with Adam. He had gone down the giraffe slide headfirst. Nobody had shoved him in line. Nicky, who usually bit everybody, had been absent. He hadn't spilled his juice. He knew all the words to the "Eensy-Weensy Spider" song. He had been the one chosen to put the gray cloudy face on the big calendar today. He had successfully zippered his lips at Quiet Time.

  He had had a very good day coming home from nursery school in the carpool car. They had had a flat tire. Flat tires were among Sam's very favorite things. And this was an especially good flat tire, because there were seven kids in the car-pool station wagon, and four of them started to cry—not Sam, of course. The carpool driver, Skipper's mom, got very flustered and kept telling the kids to zipper their lips, but none of them did.

  Sam tried to tell Skipper's mom how to change a flat tire, but she didn't seem to want to listen.

  Finally a police car had stopped, and a policeman had changed the tire. He made all the kids get out of the station wagon first. He had let Sam squat down very close and watch.

  So Sam had had a very good day on the way home from school.

  And he had still been having a good day at lunch time, at home. Mom had taken his painting of a rainbow and hung it on the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a strawberry. He and Mom had had hot dogs. Peter and the Wolf was on the radio, and they had listened to it all the way through.

  And he had had a good day at the supermarket, pointing at things and helping his mom choose vegetables. She hadn't put broccoli in the shopping cart, only carrots and string beans, Sam's favorites.

  But now, suddenly, he wasn't having a good day anymore.

  His good day had ended, Sam realized, when he took the bright red giant-sized pack of Dentyne gum and put it into his pocket.

  "You're being very quiet, Sam," his mom said on the way home from the store. "Are you tired?"

  "No," Sam said in a small voice.

  "Is something wrong?" Mom asked.

  Sam reached into his pocket and very quietly felt the package of gum. "I'm not having a very good day," he told his mom.

  "Oh? Why not?"

  A tear slid down Sam's cheek. He pulled his hand, in a fist with the gum inside, out of his pocket. He looked at it and felt all choky.

  "Sweetie? What's the matter?" his mom asked.

  It was because she said "sweetie." That was the worst. Lots of kids at school cried for dumb reasons: because they didn't get to be first for graham crackers at snack time, or because Nicky bit them, or because the carpool car had a flat tire. Sam never cried at things like that. But when your own mother said "sweetie" and you didn't feel like a sweetie at all because you had this bright red giant-sized pack of Dentyne gum in your hand, and you didn't even like Dentyne gum, or want Dentyne gum, and you weren't having a good day at all, well—

  Sam began to sob. He handed the gum to his mother.

  And after they returned to the supermarket, found the manager, explained about the gum, apologized about the gum, paid for the gum, and then went outside and threw the
gum away in a big trash can, it began, finally, to be a good day again.

  8

  "I want a pet," Sam said one evening at dinner.

  His mom reached over and patted his cheek. "Oh, Sam," she said, "you know how much we would love to have a dog. But Daddy's allergic to dogs."

  "My eyes get all itchy, and I sneeze and feel terrible if I'm anywhere near a dog," his dad said. "And I turn grouchy. I snarl at everyone."

  "What about—" Sam began.

  "Same with cats," his dad said.

  "I had a cat once, Sam," Anastasia told him, "when I was younger, before you were born. And Dad was sick for two whole months before we realized it was the cat causing it."

  "Was he sneezy?" Sam asked.

  "Yes."

  "And grumpy?"

  "Just like the Seven Dwarfs," Anastasia said.

  "Did you have to kill the cat?" Sam asked. He sort of hoped they had. He didn't want anybody's cat to be dead, especially, but for some reason he was very interested in shooting guns and dropping bombs. At nursery school, Sam and his friend Adam always dropped a lot of bombs on stuff until the teacher said, "Time Out, guys," and made them stop. Now Sam was kind of wondering about how you would get rid of a cat that was turning you into a Sneezy and a Grumpy. Maybe you would have to drop a bomb on it.

  "Of course not," Anastasia said. "We gave the cat to my friend Jenny. Later it got run over by a car."

  "Squooshed flat?" asked Sam.

  "Yuck," Anastasia said. "I suppose so. But I don't want to think about it while I'm eating."

  "Eat your dinner, Sam," his mom said. "Chicken's your favorite."

  "Could I maybe have an alive chicken?" Sam asked. "I really want a pet."

  "No, sweetie. People raise chickens on farms. I think your school is going to have a field trip to a real farm some time soon. So you'll get to see lots of live chickens. But you won't be able to keep one, I'm afraid. A chicken wouldn't be a good pet, anyway."

  Sam scowled and drove his spoon around his plate, pushing a trail through some peas into a mound of squash. Oh, yuck. Now there were some peas touching his squash. He hated when his foods touched each other. The worst was when spinach juice got onto mashed potatoes and turned them green.