Sam Wu Is Not Afraid of Sharks

by Katie Tsang

  Lucy turned back toward me, the water up to her ankles and the shark fin right behind her! She was holding a squiggling Butterbutt in her arms.

  “I’m okay, Sam,” she said. “Why are you yelling?”

  “GET OUT OF THE WATER, LUCY!” I yelled. “THERE’S A SHARK RIGHT BEHIND YOU!”

  “I’m not even in the water!” Lucy said, running up on the sand.

  I was so happy she hadn’t been eaten by a shark!

  “Where is it? Where is the shark?” she asked, looking out at the ocean.

  At this point I was so out of breath from all my running and yelling that I couldn’t even talk. Instead I just pointed at the fin that was still right in front of us!

  “Oh my gosh! HE’S RIGHT. THAT’S A SHARK!” said Zoe.

  “Are you sure?” asked Lucy, still squinting at the water.

  “I don’t want to stick around to find out!” said Zoe. “COME ON! Sam, you take Butterbutt!” She took Butterbutt out of Lucy’s arms and thrust the cat at me, then took Lucy’s hand.

  Butterbutt yowled and scratched me. “Why do I have to carry Butterbutt?” I said between gasping breaths.

  But Zoe and Lucy had already gone around the rocks and couldn’t hear me. I looked back out at the water, looking for the shark fin.

  I couldn’t see it. But I knew that didn’t mean it was gone.

  “I’m NOT afraid of you!” I yelled at the water.9

  8Weeding a garden is much more dangerous than you would think. Especially since Na-Na started growing SUPER-HOT CHILI PEPPERS that can probably burn your face off.

  9This story might NOT be 100 percent true, but don’t tell Ralph Philip Zinkerman that. Or his twin sister, Regina.

  “You didn’t see a shark,” said Na-Na. She was setting up a grill on the sand to cook our lunch.

  “Yes, we did!” I said. “Zoe, you tell her!”

  “I think we saw a shark,” said Zoe.

  “Yes, you think you did,” said Na-Na. “There aren’t sharks here.”

  “I SAW A FIN!” I yelled. “Those are SHARK-INFESTED WATERS.”

  Na-Na looked up and sighed. “Oh, Sam, you have such a great imagination.”

  “I KNOW WHAT I SAW. Tell her, Lucy.”

  Lucy was sitting next to Na-Na, playing with Butterbutt in the sand. She shrugged. “I didn’t see a shark,” she said.

  “That’s because you don’t know what a shark looks like! We just saw one at the aquarium.”

  Bernard leaned toward me. “Was it really a shark?” he asked, eyes wide.

  “YES!” I said.

  Bernard’s eyes got even wider.

  Na-Na put some food on the grill. “If you say so, Sam.” But then she looked up and smiled at me. “Good job going after Lucy,” she said. She turned and frowned at Lucy. “You know not to run off like that,” she scolded.

  “But I had to chase Butterbutt!” said Lucy.

  “I can’t believe you brought Butterbutt in your backpack!” I said. “WHO BRINGS A CAT TO THE BEACH?”

  “Of course I brought Butterbutt! He’s a beach kitty,” said Lucy, stroking Butterbutt behind the ears.

  “He was almost SHARK-FOOD KITTY,” I said.

  “Sam, stop scaring your sister,” said Na-Na.

  “I’m not scared!” said Lucy.

  Zoe eyed the grill. “What . . . what exactly are you putting on there?” she asked.

  “Squid!” said Na-Na. “I used to have grilled squid all the time back in Hong Kong.”

  Bernard, who had been pretty quiet ever since we got back, nudged me. “But we aren’t in Hong Kong,” he said.

  I sighed. “Just try the squid,” I said. Ever since Zoe and Bernard came over to my house for dinner, tried my favorite dish10 and liked it, they’ve been better about trying new food. But I can understand why they thought the squid looked weird. It did still have tentacles.

  “Don’t worry,” I added. “We’ve also got hot dogs.”

  “Of course we have hot dogs!” said Na-Na. “I love hot dogs!”

  “Thank GOODNESS,” said Zoe. Then she looked up at me and smiled. “But I’ll try the squid, too.”

  We sat in a circle in the sand eating our hot dogs, squid, and corn on the cob.

  “What do you think of the squid?” I asked.

  Bernard poked his with a plastic fork. “It looks . . .”

  I tensed.

  “It looks like A SQUID,” he said. “Like one we saw at the aquarium.”

  “Of course it looks like a squid!” said Na-Na. “You don’t want it to look like a squid? Give it to me.” She reached over and took Bernard’s plate out of his hands, then cut his squid into small pieces. “Now it doesn’t look like a squid. Eat it.”

  Nobody says no to Na-Na.

  Bernard looked at me and then took a bite. He chewed, and chewed some more.

  “I know it’s a little chewy,” I said apologetically. I should have never let Na-Na bring squid to a beach picnic with my friends.

  “I LIKE IT!” Bernard declared.

  “You do?” I said.

  “You do?” asked Zoe, who still hadn’t touched her squid.

  “Of course he does,” said Na-Na. “You always say he’s a smart boy.”

  Bernard beamed.

  “I’m smart, too!” said Zoe, shoveling her squid into her mouth.

  “Not TOO much!” I said, but Zoe was already chewing away.

  “I like it, too!” she said with her mouth full of squid.

  Na-Na nodded approvingly, and I ate my own squid with a smile.

  After lunch, while Zoe, Bernard, and I were plotting what to do about the SHARK, Lucy came over and tapped Bernard on the shoulder.

  “Can you swim?” she asked.

  “Of course he can swim,” I answered. Everyone I knew could swim.

  “Obviously,” added Zoe.

  “Um,” said Bernard.

  “WHAT?” I said. “You can’t swim?”

  “Shh! Keep it down! I don’t want anyone to know!” said Bernard. “It’s embarrassing.”

  “I knew it!” said Lucy. She really is an excellent spy.

  “How did you know?” asked Bernard.

  “Because you didn’t want to go in the water. And because I saw you try on my armbands.”

  Bernard BLUSHED. “Oh.”

  “Wait,” said Zoe. “You really can’t swim?”

  “Lots of people can’t swim!” Bernard blustered.

  “So that’s why you didn’t want to go in the water? Not because of the shark?” I asked.

  “Statistically speaking,” said Bernard, because he loves to quote statistics, “the chances of me—or any of you—drowning in the ocean are much higher than any of us getting eaten by a shark.”

  I frowned. “I don’t believe you,” I said. “I’m an EXCELLENT swimmer.” I might have been exaggerating a little bit. By excellent swimmer, I meant I could doggy-paddle.

  “Show-off,” muttered Bernard.

  “Why don’t you know how to swim?” asked Lucy.

  Bernard shrugged. “I never learned. I was busy learning other things. And my parents never took me to a pool or to a beach, so I never needed to know how to swim.” Then he looked anxious. “Until now.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “We aren’t going to go to the party anyway. Not just because of you, but because of the SHARK.”

  “What? We aren’t going to the birthday party?” asked Zoe.

  “Nope,” I said firmly. “Between the shark sighting, and Bernard’s situation . . .”

  “You already didn’t want to go! Don’t blame me!” said Bernard. “BLAME THE SHARK!”

  “Anyway, it’s all, too dangerous,” I said. “As your friend, I can’t let us go. As Captain Jane would say, it’s for the good of the ship.”

  “We aren’t on a spaceship!” sputtered Zoe.

  “Zoe,” I said seriously, leaning toward her. “You saw that shark fin, right?”

  She bit her lip. “I think so.”

 
; “Do YOU want to go swimming in shark-infested waters?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did you really see it, too?” asked Bernard.

  “Yes,” admitted Zoe.

  “Exactly! It would be MADNESS to go to this birthday party,” I said. “So we’re agreed?” I put my hand out for our signature ’ handshake.

  “Agreed,” said Bernard, extending his hand.

  “But the piñata . . .” said Zoe.

  I demanded.

  “Okay, agreed,” said Zoe, putting her hand out, too.

  “For the good of the ship!” and then we shot our hands up into the air like spaceships.

  Lucy laughed. “You guys are so weird,” she said. “Come on, Butterbutt, let’s go and play in the sand.”

  “Don’t let Butterbutt run away again!” I called after them.

  10Roast duck and turnip cake.

  In the car on the way home, Na-Na made us PROMISE not to tell my mom and dad that Lucy had run off.

  “They’ll overreact,” she said, quite rightly. “It can be our little secret, right?”

  We all nodded.

  “Is this a good time to try to get out of weeding her garden?” Zoe whispered.

  Apparently her whisper wasn’t quiet enough.

  “You all still have to weed my garden!” said Na-Na. “A deal is a deal!”

  “A deal is a deal,” we chorused back.

  “Good,” said Na-Na. “To seal the deal, I’ll even order PIZZA for dinner.”

  We all cheered.

  Then Zoe whispered again, this time more quietly. “But there won’t be any squid on it, right?”

  “I heard that!” said Na-Na. “Who puts squid on pizza? We’re getting pepperoni and pineapple.”

  “Na-Na hears everything,” I whispered as quietly as I possibly could.

  “He’s right, I do!” said Na-Na. “I’m always listening.”

  “Your grandma is pretty COOL,” said Zoe.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

  Back at my house, after we’d weeded the garden and had our promised pizza for dinner, we went up to my room to strategize.

  “Sam,” said Bernard, “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Of course you have,” I said. “You’re always thinking.”

  “I know we can’t go to the party because it is too scary—”

  “Too DANGEROUS,” I interrupted. “Not too scary. I’m NOT scared.”

  “Right, too dangerous. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “But how are we supposed to go back to school if we aren’t going to the party?” asked Bernard. “Everyone will make fun of us!”

  “He’s right,” said Zoe. “Nobody will ever invite us to birthday parties again!”

  They had a point.

  “I can’t believe it has come down to this,” I said, shaking my head. “Get eaten by actual sharks, or get eaten by the sharks of the playground.”

  “There are sharks in the playground?” asked Zoe.

  “It’s a metaphor,” I explained. I’d recently learned about metaphors on .

  “It means that Ralph and his friends are like sharks, but not real ones.”

  Bernard nodded. “A shark could NEVER actually exist in the playground,” he said.

  “Can we get back to the actual problem?” asked Zoe.

  “We definitely can’t go to the party,” I said. “We’ll think of something.”

  “Sam, what would the do?” asked Bernard.

  This was a big moment. My friends never usually ask me what the would do. I just tell them about the without them asking.

  I thought hard. “Well, once, when there was an intergalactic plague, they went into quarantine.”

  “What’s QUARANTINE?” asked Zoe.

  “It’s when you have to lock yourself up in a small space for the greater good, or because the outside world is too dangerous.”

  “Can you EVER go back outside?”

  “Once the danger has passed—in our case, after the birthday party,” I said.

  “That sounds . . . pretty extreme,” said Zoe.

  “I think it’s our only option,” I said. “Since we’re already at my house, we should probably quarantine ourselves in my room. Tonight.”

  Zoe looked at Bernard. “What do you think?” she said.

  Bernard nodded. “Sam’s right. It is our only logical option.”

  Zoe frowned. “I don’t know,” she said. “It doesn’t sound that logical to me . . .”

  “If it’s good enough for the , it’s good enough for us,” I said. “Now come on—we’ve got to sneak down to the kitchen to get supplies! We’re going to be here for a while, so we’d better stock up.”

  We sneaked down into the kitchen and grabbed all of our favorite snacks. Or at least, all of my favorite snacks.

  “Do you have goldfish crackers?” asked Bernard.

  I shook my head. “We’ve got prawn crackers!” I said.

  “Prawn crackers sound WEIRD,” said Bernard dubiously.

  “How do they sound weirder than goldfish crackers?” I asked.

  Bernard nodded and took the bag of prawn crackers. “Good point.”

  “Zoe, what do you want?” I asked.

  “Do you have cookies?”

  “Of course,” I said. My family doesn’t have all the normal snacks, but we always have cookies. “Oreos?”

  “PERFECT.”

  I grabbed some apples and carrots because I knew in order to survive we’d need nutrients. On they had special nutrient packs, but we’d have to manage with what we had.

  “This . . . is what we’re going to live on?” said Zoe, eying everything we’d gathered.

  “What else do you want?” I replied.

  Her eyes lit up. “Let’s get the leftover pizza!”

  So we also grabbed the pizza box. And a big bottle of lemonade.

  Back up in my room, we put EVERYTHING on the floor.

  “Well, we’ve got enough food to last us a while,” I said.

  “But what are we going to do?” asked Zoe.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Won’t we get bored? Maybe we should get your TV.”

  I looked around my room. I didn’t think it was boring. It had everything I needed! My books and magazines and toys, and even Fang!

  “Fang!” I said suddenly.

  “What about Fang?” asked Bernard.

  “What is Fang going to eat?”

  “What does he usually eat?”

  “LIVE MICE.”

  Zoe frowned. “Where does he get them?”

  “We get them from the pet store,” I said.

  “I have to feed him once a week.” At first, I was a little nervous about feeding Fang, but now I’m used to it. All part of being brave.

  “Well, maybe we can let him out and he can find his own mice,” said Zoe.

  “But what if he can’t find mice and then he eats us?” asked Bernard.

  “He WON’T eat us,” I said with as much authority as I could muster.

  “Are you sure about that?” said Zoe.

  “Yeah, how sure are you?” said Bernard.

  I went over to Fang’s cage and looked him right in the eye. “You won’t eat us, right, Fang?” He looked back at me. We had a staring contest for a while.

  He won—he ALWAYS DOES. Then he stuck his tongue out at me. He always does that, too.

  “I’m pretty sure he won’t eat us,” I said, turning back to my friends.

  “But how do you know?” wailed Bernard. “I need PROOF!”

  “We just spoke in our secret language,” I said.

  “What secret language?” asked Zoe as she opened the pack of Oreos.

  “I can’t tell you because then it wouldn’t be a secret!” I said. “And stop eating the Oreos—we need those to last a whole week!”

  “Sam,” said Bernard in an urgent whisper, “what if we need to go to the BATHROOM?”

  “Hmm . . .” I said. I hadn’t t
hought about that.

  “And what am I going to tell my mom?” said Zoe.

  “Calm down! Calm down! We’ll figure it out,” I said. This wasn’t going well AT ALL.

  “You don’t sound very calm,” said Bernard.

  My door opened. “Are you guys playing a game? Can I play?” It was Lucy. And Butterbutt.

  “Lucy! Close the door! We’re in quarantine!”

  Lucy ignored me of course, and put down Butterbutt, who promptly raced over to Fang’s tank. “And watch Butterbutt! Make sure he doesn’t open Fang’s tank again!”

  Butterbutt pawed at the tank. Fang hid behind a rock.

  “Lucy! Get out of here and take Butterbutt with you!” I said.

  “Sam!” Now my mom was at the door! Doesn’t anybody know what quarantine means? “Be nice to your sister.” She frowned at all the food on my floor. “And you know you aren’t allowed to eat in your room.”

  “WE’RE IN QUARANTINE!” I yelled. I really need a lock on my door. “CAN EVERYBODY PLEASE LEAVE?”

  My mom raised her eyebrows.

  “WU GABO!11 , why are you in quarantine? Is this a thing?”

  I couldn’t think of an answer. I looked over at Zoe and Bernard and telepathically asked them to help me out. Zoe nodded, and I knew she had received my telepathic message.

  “It’s just a game, Mrs. Wu,” she said. “Nothing to worry about!”

  “Okay . . .” said my mom, looking unconvinced. “But Sam still isn’t allowed to have food in his room . . .”

  “Just this once? Please?” I asked.

  “Yeah, please, Mrs. Wu? Please?” added Bernard.

  My mom sighed. “Fine. I’m not going to be the mean mom today. I’m too tired.”

  “HOORAY!” we all shouted.

  “Thanks, Mom!” I said.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Wu!” said Zoe.

  “Oh and, Mom?” I said.

  She turned back. “Yes, Sam?”

  “Can you bring the TV up into my room? Since we’re in quarantine?”

  My mom scowled. “No, Sam. You can’t have the TV in your room.” She looked at Zoe and Bernard. “And your parents will be here soon.”