Sam the Man & the Cell Phone Plan

by Frances O’Roark Dowell

  Nobody was there.

  “He didn’t chase us!” Sam called to Gavin, who was still running. “We’re safe!”

  Gavin thudded to a stop. “You mean he didn’t even follow us?”

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Sam said, panting. He handed Gavin his green notebook. “I hope he’s not there tomorrow when I bring a dollar to buy two more notebooks.”

  “Two more notebooks?” Gavin looked confused. “I thought you were just going to have three notebooks.”

  “I decided I wanted a fourth notebook to write stories in,” Sam explained.

  “Frozen-waffle stories?”

  Sam nodded. “I thought I might write a story about how a frozen waffle got caught trying to sneak out of the freezer—”

  “There they are!” The school-store boy stood at the other end of the hallway, pointing at Sam and Gavin. “They’re the ones who stole the notebooks!”

  Now Sam’s entire body felt wobbly. Mr. Cameron, the school’s vice principal, was standing next to the boy. “Are you sure, Jackson?”

  “Positive! That’s definitely them.”

  “Boys!” Mr. Cameron called down the hall. “Come here, please!”

  Sam and Gavin looked at each other. Maybe they should just keep running, Sam thought, but where would they run to? Their houses were a ten-minute bus ride away.

  “Right now, boys!” Mr. Cameron said. “We need to talk.”

  Sam’s stomach started to hurt. He thought he might cry, and he hated to cry at school. So far this year he’d only cried once, when Will had kicked a soccer ball all the way down the field, and the ball had hit Sam in the back by accident. Hard. No one could have blamed Sam for crying, especially when Will started to cry too.

  “Come on, Sam,” Gavin whispered, grabbing Sam’s arm. “We didn’t do anything wrong. Let’s go tell Mr. Cameron what happened—how that boy wouldn’t sell us the notebooks we wanted.”

  Sam followed Gavin down the hallway, his feet moving a lot slower than usual. But even though he was going as slow as he could, they finally reached Mr. Cameron and the school-store boy.

  “So Jackson says you boys stole two notebooks from the store,” Mr. Cameron said. He sounded more interested than mad. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  “That one pushed open the door,” Jackson said, pointing at Sam. “He grabbed two notebooks and ran out. That’s the whole story.”

  “No, it’s not!” Gavin said. “He paid for the notebooks, for one thing.”

  Jackson shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “I didn’t see any money.”

  “And for another thing,” Sam said, finally finding his voice, “you ignored me when I asked for the kind of notebooks we wanted.” He pulled the blue notebook from his pocket and showed it to Mr. Cameron. “We wanted this kind, but he tried to make us buy the other kind.”

  “See! Stolen merchandise, right there!” Jackson yelled. “Caught red-handed.”

  “I didn’t steal anything,” Sam said. “I bet you have the four quarters I put on the shelf right there in your pocket.”

  Mr. Cameron turned to Jackson. “Do you have the quarters in your pocket, Jackson?”

  “I have four of my quarters in my pocket,” Jackson said. “That’s not against the law, is it?”

  Mr. Cameron looked at Sam and Gavin. “I’m going to ask the children who were in the line behind you what happened. You boys are in Mr. Pell’s class, correct?”

  Sam and Gavin nodded their heads. “Very well then,” Mr. Cameron continued. “If the other children support your story, I will consider this matter closed—though in the future, I’d ask you to come to me when you have a problem. If the children tell me that Jackson’s story is correct, then I’ll send a note to Mr. Pell’s classroom asking you to come see me in my office.”

  “Could you send a note either way?” Sam asked. “Otherwise I’ll spend the rest of my life feeling nervous about it.”

  “Fair enough,” Mr. Cameron said. “Jackson, I’ll close up the store. You go back to your classroom. Lunchtime is almost over.”

  Jackson waited until Mr. Cameron was all the way down the hall, and then he turned to Sam and Gavin. “You better hope those other kids say my side of the story is right. Because if I get in trouble over this, you’re going to get in even more trouble.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Gavin said. “If you get in trouble, then that means we’re not in trouble at all.”

  “You’ll be in trouble with me,” Jackson said. “Believe me, that’s worse than being in trouble with Mr. Cameron.”

  With that, Jackson turned and walked toward the fifth-grade hall. Sam and Gavin looked at each other. Gavin was pale. Sam could feel his stomach really hurting now.

  “I’m starting to wish I’d stayed home today,” Gavin told Sam.

  Sam nodded. “I kind of wish we’d waited until tomorrow to buy our notebooks.”

  “At least we didn’t have to give the notebooks back,” Gavin said as he and Sam started walking toward Mr. Pell’s room. “And if everybody tells Mr. Cameron the truth about what happened, then Jackson will probably get fired and we can buy more notebooks tomorrow. I’d really like to read the frozen-waffle story you’re planning to write.”

  Sam would really like to write the frozen-waffle story. But mostly what he wanted was for Jackson not to beat him up.

  Sam had the feeling it was going to be a very long afternoon.

  * * *

  Chapter Six

  * * *

  Nothing But Trouble

  That night Sam sat his desk and tried to draw a picture of Jackson, the school-store boy. In art class, Miss Fran had told Sam that he could learn how to draw pictures that looked like photographs, but he could also draw pictures that didn’t look like photographs and they still would be good pictures. Right now Sam really wanted the picture to look real. That way if Jackson punched him in the mouth and Sam couldn’t talk, he could show it to people so that they would know who to put in jail.

  “Do you think we should tell someone that Jackson says he’s going to beat us up?” Gavin had asked on the bus that afternoon. “That’s what grown-ups always say you should do if someone’s being a bully.”

  Sam had thought about it. “He didn’t actually say he would beat us up. He just said we’d be in trouble if he got in trouble.”

  “I think he got in trouble,” Gavin pointed out. “Since the note Mr. Cameron sent Mr. Pell said we weren’t in trouble. Which means now we’re in trouble.”

  “But not that we’re going to get beat up,” Sam argued. “He’ll probably just say mean things about us. So what?”

  Gavin shook his head. “I think it means he’s going to punch us in the mouth. In both our mouths.”

  “Why would he punch us in the mouth?” Sam asked. “Why not the nose?”

  “Because if he punches us in the mouth, our teeth will fall out and we won’t be able to tell anyone who punched us.”

  Sam didn’t really think Jackson was going to punch him in the mouth and make his teeth fall out. But he was drawing Jackson’s picture just in case. What color eyes did he have? Sam couldn’t remember. Maybe if he just drew really mean eyes, people would know who Sam meant.

  Leaning back in his desk chair, Sam wondered if Gavin was right. Maybe they should tell a grown-up what Jackson had said. Sam had thought about telling Mr. Stockfish that afternoon, but Mrs. Kerner had been in the backyard when they got to her house, and she and Mr. Stockfish started talking about the movie they were going to see on Friday night, and then they argued about what was better—steak and baked potatoes or roast beef and mashed potatoes. It wasn’t the sort of conversation where you could say, “I like mashed potatoes, and I think this boy at school might beat me up.”

  Sam thought about telling his parents, but what if they got mad because he took the notebooks from the store the wrong way? They might say Sam couldn’t buy any more notebooks, and that would ruin his plans.

  No, Sam d
ecided he wouldn’t say anything to any grown-ups. Probably everything would be okay. Besides, he still had a bunch of baby teeth, so it wouldn’t matter if a few of them fell out when Jackson punched him.

  Sam decided he’d rather think about buying two more notebooks than losing his teeth, so he pulled open his desk drawer and stuck his hand inside. He knew he had some tooth fairy quarters in there somewhere. His mom said he should keep his money in a piggy bank or at least in a plastic bag, but Sam liked to be surprised by his money. It was fun to look for a pencil and find a dollar bill rolled up beside it in his pencil box, and it was fun to feel around in the drawer for coins. Every kind of coin felt different. Nickels and pennies had smooth edges, and quarters and dimes had rough edges. Quarters were a lot thicker than dimes, but they were almost the same size as nickels. It would be easy to mix up quarters and nickels if their edges were the same.

  It didn’t take Sam very long to find seven quarters, a poker chip, and a button. Seven quarters was a lot of quarters. If he wanted, Sam could buy three notebooks and still have one quarter left over. But if Sam bought three notebooks, he would have five notebooks in all, and he thought that might be too many notebooks. Probably one notebook for each pocket was enough. So tomorrow he would buy two more notebooks for a total of four.

  Sam went downstairs to see if his dad would let him look through some more computer magazines for phone pictures. He didn’t think people would really believe he had four phones, but it would be fun to pretend.

  Sam’s dad was sitting at the table in the storage room, working on his computer. “Hey, Sam the Man,” he said when Sam walked in the room. “How was your day today?”

  “You already asked me that at dinner,” Sam said. “Everything’s still the same, except I just found seven quarters.”

  “That’s a lot of quarters,” Sam’s dad said. “What are you going to do with them?”

  “I’m going to use four of them to buy notebooks,” Sam said.

  “For your phone plan?”

  Sam nodded. “Then I’ll have an information notebook, a message notebook, a camera notebook, and a story notebook. It will almost be as good as having a real phone.”

  “I think it will be even better,” Sam’s dad said. “So you’re sure your day was okay?”

  Sam looked at his dad. Why was he so worried about what kind of day Sam had? “It was fun, except that I got sort of thirsty at lunch because I used my milk money to buy notebook number two—the one for messages.”

  “So you bought the notebook at the school store?” Sam’s dad turned his chair all the way around so he was facing Sam directly. “And that went okay?”

  Sam wondered if Mr. Cameron had called or e-mailed his dad about what happened. Maybe he should go ahead and say something about Jackson. But what could his dad do? Come with Sam to school and be his bodyguard?

  Come to think of it, that wasn’t a bad idea. Having a bodyguard would solve all of Sam’s problems. But where could he find one?

  “Everything went fine,” Sam told his dad, feeling okay for the first time since lunch. A plan started to come together in his brain, and that always made Sam feel better. He wasn’t sure if his plan would work, but it might work, and even if it didn’t work, maybe it would lead him to an even better plan.

  Instead of cutting out phone pictures for his notebooks, Sam went upstairs to talk to Annabelle.

  “Janie Kramer,” Annabelle told him the second Sam asked her for bodyguard recommendation. “She’s small for her age, but super strong—and really tough. Last year, when she was a fourth grader, we let her play on the fifth-grade soccer team because she was fearless.”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said. “Would anyone really be afraid of a girl bodyguard?”

  “Believe me, Sam the Man, people respect Janie,” Annabelle said. “If she’s your bodyguard, this Jackson kid will leave you alone.”

  That’s all Sam wanted. Plus, he’d like to keep all of his teeth.

  Annabelle opened her drawing pad to a blank sheet of paper and wrote something down. “Here,” she said, ripping out the sheet and handing it to Sam. “Just give this to Janie in the morning, and I bet she’ll help you out.”

  Sam took the paper to his room. Annabelle had written, Please help my little brother and I’ll help you out when you get to middle school. He needs you to look out for him for a few days and make sure a fifth grader named Jackson doesn’t hit him or his friend Gavin. Signed, Annabelle Graham.

  Sam wished Annabelle still went to his school. She’d be a great bodyguard. But for now he’d have to keep his fingers crossed that Janie Kramer was up for the job.

  * * *

  Chapter Seven

  * * *

  The Bodyguard Plan

  As soon as Sam walked through the school’s front door the next morning, a girl wearing overalls and a baseball cap came up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. “Are you Sam Graham?” she asked.

  “How did you know?” Sam asked.

  “I’m Janie Kramer and it’s my job to know,” the girl said. “Plus, your sister texted my sister your picture.”

  “Why didn’t she text you the picture?” Gavin, who was standing next to Sam, asked.

  Janie Kramer held up her hands so Sam and Gavin could see they were empty. “No phone, dude. My parents are strict about screens. Suzzie—my sister?—she’s in seventh grade, so she’s got one. She and Annabelle know each other from swim team. So I hear you have a note for me?”

  Sam dug into his backpack for Annabelle’s note and handed it to Janie. Janie read it, nodded, and slipped it into her back pocket. “Okay, Sam Graham, here’s the deal,” she said. “I’m a busy person, but your sister’s a friend, so I’m going to help you and your buddy out. I’ll meet you guys here first thing every morning for the next week and walk you to your classroom, and I’ll wait with you in the bus line in the afternoon. I play soccer on the big field during morning and lunchtime recess, and you can come hang out with my team if you want. Nobody will bother you when you’re with the Barracudas.”

  “Is that the name of your team?” Sam asked, imagining a pool full of sharp-toothed fish pushing a soccer ball around.

  “You got it,” Janie said. “And we don’t put up with bullies like Jackson Grubb.”

  “How do you know that Jackson Grubb is the Jackson who’s going to beat us up?” Gavin asked Janie as the three of them started down the hallway. “There are a lot of Jacksons in this school.”

  “Was it the school-store Jackson?” Janie asked, and when Sam and Gavin nodded, she said, “That’s Jackson Grubb. So what room are you in?”

  As they walked down the hall, Sam looked around for Jackson. Was he following them? Hiding around the next corner? Sam felt safer with Janie walking next to him, but he still couldn’t help feeling nervous, like he was watching a scary movie where a monster could jump out in front of him at any second.

  “I almost forgot!” Gavin said as they turned down the second-grade hallway. He pulled his notebook from his back pocket and held it out for Sam to see. “Look what I did, Sam!”

  Gavin’s notebook had a phone picture on it, just like Sam’s. “This is my texting notebook,” he said. “I wrote a message for you in it—in secret code!”

  “What in the bananas are you talking about?” Janie asked. “Let me see that!”

  Gavin handed her the notebook. “It looks like a real phone, doesn’t it? It was Sam’s idea.”

  “That’s pretty cool,” Janie said. “I really thought it was a phone at first. So you’re sending each other messages in code?”

  Gavin nodded. “It was Sam’s idea. Once our other friends get notebooks, we’re all going to learn the same code. It’ll be as good as texting.”

  “Especially if you don’t have a real phone to text with,” Janie agreed. “You little dudes have come up with a really neat idea.”

  Sam didn’t know how he felt about being called a little dude. It was better than being called a pipsqueak or
a peewee, he guessed, but not as good as being called “dude” or just plain Sam.

  After Sam and Gavin sat down in their seats and read the daily schedule on the whiteboard, Sam opened up Gavin’s notebook. On top of the first page, Gavin had written, “18-14-2-10 12-14-13-10-4-24-18 0-17-4 19-7-4 1-4-18-19 12-14-13-10-4-24-18.”

  “Guess what it says?” Gavin said.

  “I’m not going to guess,” Sam told him. “I’m going to figure out the code. That’s the whole point.”

  First, Sam noticed that the two longest words in Gavin’s message were the same—12-14-13-10-4-24-18—so he decided to work on that word first. If Gavin was using the same code Sam had used in his message, then 0 = A. Sam counted on his fingers until he got to twelve—otherwise known as the letter M. Two letters after M was O, so 14 = O, which meant 13 = N M-O-N-

  Sam didn’t even have to figure out the code to know what this word was. Gavin loved sock monkeys, so the word had to be “monkeys”. And—yep—18 = S. Sock Monkeys. Count on Gavin to write a message about sock monkeys, Sam thought.

  He didn’t have time to finish decoding Gavin’s message before reading period started. That was okay, though. Sam had the feeling that a sock monkey message could wait.

  As they were breaking into their reading groups, Emily Early came over to Sam and said, “I bought two notebooks at the school store this morning,” she told him. “One for messages and one for bird names. Marja, Rashid, and Will bought notebooks too. Let’s meet at recess to discuss our plans.”

  Sam nodded. “Tell everyone to come to the big field as soon as the bell rings.”

  “Why the big field?” Emily asked. “We usually meet next to the little field.”