“Won’t she get lonely?” Sam asked.
“A little bit, maybe,” Mrs. Kerner said. “But it’s better than getting pecked.”
Sam was happy to see that the crate was big. If Helga wanted to hop around, she would have plenty of room. The crate didn’t have a bottom. When Sam put Helga inside, she began to peck at the dirt.
The other chickens looked very interested in Helga. They rushed to the edge of the coop nearest Helga’s crate and clucked. The biggest chicken flapped her wings and shook her head. Sam thought she seemed mad.
He had never thought about chickens getting mad before. He didn’t know that chickens had any emotions at all.
“Do you want to stay with Helga for a little while?” Sam’s dad asked when he was ready to leave. Sam nodded.
“I want to see if she lays an egg,” he said.
“She might not lay any eggs for a few days,” Mrs. Kerner said after Sam’s dad left. “She needs to settle in. But we’ll get her a nest box to sit on, just in case.”
“I have a box at home we could use,” Sam said.
“It’s probably not the right kind for laying eggs in,” Mrs. Kerner said. “You can use one of mine.”
Soon, Helga’s crate was outfitted with a water bowl, a food trough, and a nesting box. Sam thought it looked like a comfortable setup. He pulled a lawn chair down from the deck and settled in next to Helga. He wondered if she would lay an egg if he sang to her.
Probably not, he thought.
Besides, he would feel silly singing to a chicken.
“Take your time, Helga,” he said, even though he was curious to see what a blue egg would look like.
He wondered how much money people would pay to see a blue egg?
He wondered how much money people would pay to eat a blue egg?
He leaned back in his chair and smiled.
Sam the Man had just come up with a how-to-pay-back-his-dad plan.
A Change in Plans
A week had gone by, and Helga still hadn’t laid an egg.
“Be patient,” Mrs. Kerner told Sam. “A girl needs time to settle in.”
Normally, Sam was a very patient person. But now he needed money to pay his dad, and twenty bucks was a lot of money.
On Friday night he knocked on Annabelle’s door. “Would you like to buy back your box?” he asked. “I’ve only used it a couple of times.”
“Sorry, Sam the Man, but I’ve got all the boxes I need,” Annabelle said.
“Could I take one of your lawn-mowing jobs?”
Annabelle shook her head. “You’re too small to mow the lawn. Maybe in three years.”
“I need twenty bucks,” Sam said. “And I need it before three years from now.”
“That’s a problem,” Annabelle said. “You should ask Mrs. Kerner for a job. You know a lot about chickens now.”
“I’m already working for Mrs. Kerner,” Sam said. “Just not for money.”
“Maybe we have another neighbor who needs help with something,” Annabelle said. “Everybody needs help from time to time.”
Sam went back to his room and sat on his bed. Who did he know who needed help?
He bet some of his neighbors needed help walking their dogs, and Sam liked dogs a lot. But all the dogs he knew on his street were bigger than he was. Ferguson, the Landrums’ bullmastiff, weighed over a hundred pounds. Sam imagined himself flying in the air as he held tight to the squirrel-chasing Ferguson’s leash.
That might not be the right job for him.
Did cats take walks? Maybe his neighbor Judy needed someone to walk her cat, Wally. Sam tried to picture a cat on a leash, but he realized he’d never seen one.
But maybe Judy would pay Sam to take her dad, Mr. Stockfish, on a walk! Even very old people like Mr. Stockfish needed exercise, didn’t they? And Judy might like to get her dad out of the house, so she could take a turn sitting in his puffy armchair and turning the knob to make it go up and down.
Sam knocked on Judy’s door. When she opened it, Sam could hear the all-day news channel in the next room. The newscaster was reporting on a story about a new polar bear at the zoo.
“Who’s at the door?” Mr. Stockfish called to Judy. “Did my package get here?”
“It’s Sam from across the street,” Judy called back.
“Oh,” Mr. Stockfish said. He sounded disappointed.
“Can I get you a glass of lemonade, Sam?” Judy asked.
Sam nodded and then followed Judy to the kitchen.
“Mr. Stockfish watches a lot of TV,” he said, sitting down at the kitchen table. “Maybe he should take more walks.”
“Yes, he should,” Judy agreed. “Only whenever I ask him to take a walk, he refuses. He says walks make his knees hurt. But his doctor says walking would make his knees feel better.”
“Maybe I could get him to take a walk,” Sam said.
“I wish you’d try,” Judy said. “That would be really nice of you.”
Sam realized he had made a mistake. Judy thought he was offering to do her a favor. She didn’t realize he was asking for a job. Now, if he asked her to pay him, she might get mad.
“Okay,” Sam said. He guessed he was stuck with taking Mr. Stockfish on a walk for free.
“In fact,” Judy said, handing Sam a glass of lemonade, “I’d pay you to get my dad out of the house. I could use a little ‘me time’ now and then. How does two dollars a walk sound?”
Sam did the math. Two bucks a pop wasn’t twenty bucks a pop, but if he took Mr. Stockfish on ten walks, he’d make twenty bucks in no time and could pay back his dad. So, really, two dollars a walk sounded great.
“I’ll take your dad on a walk every day,” he said.
“The only problem is you’ll have to convince him to get out of that chair.”
“Not a problem at all,” Sam said. His voice sounded sure, but he didn’t feel sure. He had never seen Mr. Stockfish out of his chair. Sam wondered if he slept there. Maybe he never got up!
Then Sam remembered that everyone has to get up to go to the bathroom, even if their knees hurt.
Outside was just a little farther away than the bathroom. If Mr. Stockfish had to walk to the bathroom sometimes, then Sam could get him to walk outside.
At least that was the plan.
No Talking
Sam had learned an interesting thing about blue eggs.
Everybody wanted to see one.
When Sam got on the bus Monday morning, Miss Louise asked, “Has Helga laid a blue egg yet?”
When he walked into Mr. Pell’s classroom, all the kids yelled, “Do you have any blue eggs yet, Sam?”
Every night at dinner his mom said, “I guess you would have told us if Helga had laid a blue egg today.”
Even cranky Mr. Stockfish wanted to see a blue egg.
Sam tried all sorts of ways to make Mr. Stockfish take a walk. He told him walking was the best form of exercise ever. He told him walking would add years to his life. If you had aching joints, taking a walk was a great thing you could do to make them feel better.
Mr. Stockfish wasn’t interested. “Walking’s boring. I’d rather sit in my chair and watch the news.”
Finally, just when he was about to give up, Sam had a brainstorm. “We could walk over to Mrs. Kerner’s house and see my chicken, Helga. She lays blue eggs.”
That got Mr. Stockfish’s attention. “I had a girlfriend named Helga once,” he told Sam. “And her favorite color was blue.”
“Then you should come see my chicken,” Sam said. “She hasn’t actually laid any eggs yet, but she’s going to any day. You could be the first person in our neighborhood to see one of Helga’s blue eggs.”
Mr. Stockfish raised an eyebrow. “I bet a lot of people would like to see that egg first.”
“Everybody is very excited about it,” Sam said. “The other chickens who live on our street only lay white and brown eggs.”
“How many chickens are there on our street?” Mr. Stockfish asked.
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“Six besides Helga,” Sam said. “They’re nice, but their eggs are boring.”
Mr. Stockfish reached down and twisted the knob on his chair. Very slowly the back of the chair inched its way up. “Judy!” Mr. Stockfish yelled. “I need my hat! I’m going to visit a chicken.”
That had been on Monday. On Thursday, Sam and Mr. Stockfish were going for their fourth walk, which meant Mr. Stockfish’s fourth visit with Helga. Mr. Stockfish, it turned out, liked chickens much better than he liked people.
“Chickens are useful,” Mr. Stockfish said as they crossed the street. “People? Not so much.”
“Judy’s useful,” Sam pointed out. “She takes care of you.”
“Let me tell you a secret, Sam,” Mr. Stockfish said. He leaned down like he was going to whisper in Sam’s ear. “I’m the one who takes care of Judy. Sure, she cooks and cleans and does the laundry. But I provide the commentary.”
Sam had no idea what Mr. Stockfish was talking about, but he nodded anyway.
When they reached Mrs. Kerner’s yard, Sam grabbed two lawn chairs from Mrs. Kerner’s deck, so he and Mr. Stockfish could sit by Helga’s crate.
“When are you going to put her in the coop with the other chickens?” Mr. Stockfish asked as they sat down. “I bet she’s ready.”
“As soon she starts laying eggs,” Sam said. “I’m afraid if we put her in before she lays an egg, it will take her weeks to calm down.”
After that, Sam and Mr. Stockfish didn’t say a lot.
Sam was getting used to the fact that Mr. Stockfish didn’t like to talk. At first, he thought Mr. Stockfish was going to be like his grandfather—Pop—who took a while to warm up. But once Pop got going, he was hard to stop, especially if he was talking about his favorite topic, tropical fish.
But Mr. Stockfish didn’t have a favorite topic. Mostly he just liked watching the chickens. Sam did too, so he didn’t mind being quiet. He’d rather listen to Helga cluck. She clucked a lot when she was digging in the dirt for bugs.
Today she was clucking more than usual. Maybe she had found a worm, Sam thought. The most excited he had ever seen Helga was on Tuesday, when she pulled a worm out of the dirt. Sam thought the stretched-out worm looked gross, but Mr. Stockfish clapped his hands and yelled, “Eat him up, Helga!”
“There she goes,” Mr. Stockfish said now. Sam turned around. He had been watching the coop, where Queen Bee, the top chicken, seemed to be arguing with Pretty Girl, the second-chicken-in-command, about whose turn it was at the water dish.
“Look,” Mr. Stockfish said. “She’s heading for her box.”
Helga’s box was filled with straw. The open side faced out, so it was like a little house with the front part missing. Helga climbed in and began rocking back and forth.
Sam had seen Helga walk into her box, but she had always walked right back out.
This time it looked like she planned to stay.
Sam and Mr. Stockfish looked at each other. Mr. Stockfish put a finger to his lips. Sam nodded.
Now was definitely not the time for talking.
Sam the Man and the Blue Egg of Happiness
A few minutes later Helga stood up, shook out her feathers, and exited the nesting box. Sam looked at Mr. Stockfish. Mr. Stockfish looked at Sam.
“Should we check?” Sam asked.
“Crawl on in there!” Mr. Stockfish said. “Take a look!”
“But what if Helga pecks me?”
Mr. Stockfish thought. “I don’t think she will, but you could take her out, just in case. She can sit with me.”
“Okay,” Sam said. “But I should warn you. She likes to hop.”
“I know how to control a chicken,” Mr. Stockfish said.
Helga seemed happy to sit in Mr. Stockfish’s lap. Mr. Stockfish seemed happy to be holding a chicken. Sam was excited to crawl into Helga’s crate. He was nervous, too. Maybe Helga hadn’t laid an egg after all. Or if she had, maybe it wouldn’t be a blue egg. Or maybe Sam would drop it.
“Quit stalling, Sam!” Mr. Stockfish said. “I want to see an egg, pronto!”
Sam got down on his hands and knees and crawled into the crate. The ground was covered with straw, and the dirt under the straw was a little bit wet. He could feel the knees of his jeans getting a little bit wet too. He tried not to think about the fact that Helga pooped in her crate and that right now he was probably crawling across chicken poop. On the other hand, who cared about chicken poop? Sam was sure it washed right out.
Sam liked being inside Helga’s crate. It was cozy. Maybe he could spend the night here sometime.
But first things first. Carefully reaching into the nesting box, Sam felt around in the straw. His fingers touched something hard and smooth. He knew that feeling.
It was the feeling of an egg.
Carefully, Sam picked the egg up and pulled his hand out of the box.
He was holding an egg.
A blue egg!
Sam couldn’t believe it! He had waited and waited for Helga to lay an egg, and now she finally had. She was the best chicken ever!
He turned around and proudly showed Helga’s egg to Mr. Stockfish. “Ta-da! One blue egg, fresh from the nest! And it’s warm!”
“Good girl,” Mr. Stockfish told Helga, patting her wing.
Sam scooched backward out of the crate, cradling Helga’s blue egg in his right hand, careful not to break it. When he got back to his chair, he showed it to Helga, but she didn’t seem interested. Sam was happy. Now, he wouldn’t feel guilty about taking Helga’s egg away from her.
He and Mr. Stockfish admired the egg. It was light blue and the size of a small avocado. Everything about it was perfect. It was perfectly smooth and perfectly oval. Sam sniffed it and thought it had a perfect nonsmell.
“Do you have a way to carry it home?” Mr. Stockfish asked.
Sam did not. He’d forgotten to think about that. He couldn’t put the egg in his pocket, and he was afraid if he carried it home in his hand, he would drop it.
There was only one solution. Sam untied his shoe and pulled off his sock.
“How about this?” he asked Mr. Stockfish.
“Does it stink?”
Sam sniffed his sock. “I don’t think so. It mostly smells like my shoe, and my shoe doesn’t stink. It smells like shoe, too.”
“Then I think putting Helga’s egg in your sock is a good idea,” Mr. Stockfish said. “Just don’t forget it’s in there and put your sock back on your foot.”
“I won’t,” Sam promised.
Sam put Helga back into her crate, and he and Mr. Stockfish walked back to Judy’s house. Sam was so excited about Helga’s blue egg, he could feel himself wanting to go fast.
He was glad Mr. Stockfish was there to slow him down.
When Judy opened the door to let Mr. Stockfish in, she was delighted to see the blue egg. “Would you like me to scramble it for you, Sam?”
Sam backed away from the door. “No thank you.”
Judy smiled. “I was just kidding. I know you want to show everyone. Don’t forget to take a picture, so you’ll always remember Helga’s first egg.”
That was a great idea. Now, Sam had to try extra hard not to run home.
“Annabelle!” he yelled as soon as he got inside his house. “I need to borrow your phone!”
Sam took seventeen pictures of Helga’s egg with Annabelle’s phone.
He took a picture of his mom holding the egg and a picture of Annabelle holding the egg. Then he put the egg on a pillow on the couch and took eight pictures of it.
“Do you want me to take a picture of you holding Helga’s egg?” Annabelle asked, and Sam nodded. He thought that was a good idea. He cradled the egg in his hands and stood very still. Annabelle snapped three pictures.
“You should print one of these out and take it to Helga tomorrow,” Annabelle said when she was done taking Sam and the egg’s picture. “You could hang it up in her crate.”
Sam thought that was a good idea too
.
Now, all he had to do was figure out how he was going to carry the egg to school tomorrow without breaking it. He needed something better than his sock. He needed something soft and cushiony. Something that made it 100 percent certain Helga’s egg wouldn’t break.
Sam knew just the exact right thing.
The Most Famous Egg in the World
The next morning Sam’s mom walked out of the downstairs bathroom. “Who used up all the toilet paper?” she asked. “I just put a new roll in yesterday.”
“I needed some for my egg,” Sam told her. He was eating his breakfast. A few tiny waffle crumbs sprayed from his mouth as he spoke.
“Gross, Sam,” Annabelle said, peering over the sports page. “Clean it up.”
Sam opened the lid of his box, which was on the table next to his place mat. He tore off a sheet of toilet paper and wiped up his waffle crumbs.
“So that’s where it all went to,” his mom said. “You made a toilet paper nest.”
Sam nodded. “I have to keep Helga’s egg safe. It’s a pretty bumpy ride to school.”
“And you really needed to use the whole roll?”
Sam nodded again. Did his mom really need to ask?
• • •
“What’s in the box?” Miss Louise asked when Sam got on the bus.
“Helga laid an egg,” Sam announced.
“A blue egg?” Miss Louise asked. When Sam nodded, Miss Louise said, “May I see?”
Sam carefully unlatched the box and opened the lid. As soon as he did, every kid on the bus yelled, “Let me see!”
Miss Louise held up her hand. “Everybody, back in your seats! When we get to school, Sam will let each and every one of you take a look as you step off the bus.”
Then she oohed and aahed at Helga’s egg. “What a beauty!”
Sam thought so too.
When they got to school, Sam showed all the kids on his bus Helga’s blue egg. Miss Louise stood beside him and said, “Don’t touch!” every time somebody started to reach out their hand.
Sam thought it was nice that Helga’s egg had a bodyguard.
Sam the Man & the Chicken Plan Page 3