“I’ll explain at recess,” Sam told her.
“Okay,” Emily said. “I’ll bring the binoculars so we can look at birds after we’re done talking.”
Sam liked that idea. If they had binoculars, they could also look out for Jackson Grubb. Sam wondered what a Jackson Grubb bird would look like. Maybe a vulture. Sam had seen a vulture once when he and his dad were driving to the store. It had been so ugly that Sam had to close his eyes.
Sam hoped there would be time at lunch to buy a notebook so he could use it as a camera and draw a picture of Jackson the Vulture Bird in it.
He hoped that Jackson the Vulture Bird wouldn’t swoop down and get him.
Sam thought maybe it was time to stop thinking about about Jackson Grubb, the person and the bird. It wasn’t good to have so many nervous-making thoughts first thing in the morning.
• • •
At recess, the members of the World’s Greatest Detective and Bird-watching Club met at the big field where the fourth and fifth graders played soccer. Janie Kramer waved at Sam when she saw him. “Everything okay, little dude?” she called.
Sam waved back. “Everything’s fine,” he called.
“Why did she ask you that?” Marja wanted to know. “What does she think might be wrong?”
“Jackson Grubb is going to beat us up,” Gavin told her. “Janie’s our bodyguard.”
“I think I’d be a pretty good bodyguard,” Marja said. “I’m not afraid to bite people.”
“Me either,” Gavin said. “Except some people taste funny. My sister tastes like salt.”
“I’m pretty sure everybody tastes like salt,” Rashid told him. “Because of sweat.”
“She also tastes like peanut butter,” Gavin said. “The smooth kind.”
“Could we maybe talk about something else?” Emily asked. “Like what kind of messages we should send one another? I think we should only send messages that are important.”
“Like, ‘Here comes Jackson and he looks really mad so you better hide!’ ” Gavin said. “That would be really important.”
“Or ‘I saw a kid with Mr. Pell’s stolen wallet,’ ” Will said. “Something that has to do with our detective club work.”
“Mr. Pell’s wallet got stolen?” Marja asked.
“No, that’s just an example,” Will told her. “Who would steal Mr. Pell’s wallet?”
“Somebody might,” Marja said. “Maybe we should be bodyguards for Mr. Pell.”
“Maybe we should look at birds now,” Sam said. “When we go back inside, I’ll give everybody the secret code sheet I printed out. The code is pretty easy, once you understand it.”
Morning recess didn’t last very long, and soon the recess duty teachers were blowing their whistles for everybody to go in. On the way to his classroom, Sam stopped at his cubby so he could get the code sheets to pass out to everyone. He unzipped his backpack and pulled out a folder. Putting the sheets in a folder had made Sam feel very professional and grown-up. But now he saw someone had drawn a picture on the folder, a picture that hadn’t been there this morning. It was a giant eye, and underneath it were the words WHEN NOBODY’S [[p93]]LOOKING, I’LL BE WAITING.
Sam turned around fast, expecting to see Jackson Grubb standing behind him. It had to be Jackson who wrote on his folder, right? Feeling a little shaky, he leaned back against the cubby wall. What was Jackson going to do to him exactly? Sam wasn’t sure what the message meant, to be honest. Waiting for what? Why wait? Why not do something? When Sam was at home and nobody was looking, sometimes he liked to grab a couple cookies from the cookie jar, even though he was only supposed to eat cookies after dinner. Sometimes when nobody was looking, Sam picked his nose. But he never just stood around and waited because no one was looking.
Sam decided to take the code sheets out of the folder and put the folder back into his backpack. If he showed everybody the folder right now, they’d make a big deal out of it, and then Mr. Pell would say, “What’s going on here?” and then Jackson Grubb would get in even more trouble and Sam would get punched even harder.
Because Sam might not know what the message meant, but he was pretty sure Jackson Grubb was the one who wrote it.
* * *
Chapter Eight
* * *
Balloon Problems
Mr. Stockfish was examining a red leaf with a little black bump on it. “When I was a kid I was taught that these bumps were bug eggs,” he told Sam. “But recently I found out that they could also just be spots where bugs have taken a bite out of the leaves.”
“How can you tell the difference?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know,” Mr. Stockfish said. “I’ve looked it up, but I can’t find information that says for sure.”
“Not even on your phone?”
“Not even on my phone,” Mr. Stockfish said, rolling his eyes. “Imagine that.”
The afternoon was windy and leaves were blowing off the trees all around them. Sam wondered if any of his neighbors would pay him to rake the leaves from their yards. He wondered if he should start a leaf collection. Maybe he would only collect leaves with bug bumps on them. He could set up a museum in the garage, so everyone could come see his buggy leaves.
Sam liked that plan. For one thing, it didn’t make his stomach hurt. He was tired of thinking about things that made his stomach hurt. Riding home from school on the bus, Sam couldn’t stop thinking about Jackson Grubb’s face staring at him from the hallway outside of Mr. Pell’s classroom that afternoon before the last bell rang. Sam had been copying down spelling words from the board when Gavin had turned around and poked him in the shoulder with his pencil.
“He’s out there, Sam!” Gavin had whispered, and sure enough, Jackson was looking in through the classroom door’s long, skinny window. Sam could only see half of his face, but even half of Jackson Grubb’s face was enough to make him wish he were home and hiding in his bedroom closet.
“What would you do if someone was after you?” he asked Mr. Stockfish now, leaning down to pluck a leaf off the sidewalk. Sam tried to sound like he didn’t really care, that he was just trying to make conversation.
“What kind of someone?” Mr. Stockfish stopped walking and turned to look at Sam. “Like someone who was mad at me?”
Sam nodded, examining his leaf so he wouldn’t have to look Mr. Stockfish in the eye.
“Well, why is this person mad at me?” Mr. Stockfish asked. “Is it a misunderstanding? Did I take something from him? Did I say something mean about him behind his back?”
Sam and Mr. Stockfish began walking again. They were close enough to Mrs. Kerner’s house that Sam thought he could hear the chickens clucking in the backyard. “Maybe this person is mad because you got him in trouble,” Sam said. “Except you didn’t, not really. He got himself in trouble.”
“But he blames you,” Mr. Stockfish concluded. “What’s going on, Sam?”
“Nothing,” Sam said. “I was just thinking.”
“Hmmm,” Mr. Stockfish said in a grumbly sort of voice. “You were just thinking about someone being mad at you for something you didn’t do.”
“Well, I sort of did do something,” Sam said.
“You did?”
Sam realized he’d said something he hadn’t meant to say. “Not me. I wasn’t talking about me. Could we stop talking now?”
They’d reached the gate to Mrs. Kerner’s backyard. Sam opened it and let Mr. Stockfish through, and then followed him to the chicken coop. When the chickens saw Sam and Mr. Stockfish, they clucked and clacked, which Sam thought was their way of saying hello.
Sam went to the metal trash can that Mrs. Kerner kept the chicken feed in and lifted up the lid. He dipped in the big plastic scoop and filled it up, and then he took it over to the coop to fill the chicken’s feeder. All eight chickens gathered around his ankles, making their different chicken noises—not just clucks and clacks, but also squawks and peeps. The noises were friendly, like the chickens were happy to see
Sam and not just because he was feeding them.
Sam checked the waterer, which was full, and then looked at the chicken litter, which was the straw and hay that covered the floor of the coop. It was Sam’s job to change the litter every month or whenever it started to get icky. The straw and hay still looked pretty clean to Sam, so he could probably wait another week to change it out.
By the time Sam sat down in the lawn chair next to Mr. Stockfish, he felt a lot better. He decided to take out his camera notebook and draw a picture of the chicken coop.
“How many notebooks do you have now?” Mr. Stockfish wanted to know. “It seems like a lot.”
“I bought two new notebooks today, so I have four,” Sam told him. “Except I’m trying to remember to call them ‘phones’ and not ‘notebooks.’ ”
“I’ll try to remember too,” Mr. Stockfish promised, and then he leaned back and closed his eyes. “Let me know when Leroy is done eating.”
Sam started to draw. He thought about walking to the school store with Gavin that afternoon. Nothing had happened, but Sam had been worried that something would happen, which was almost as bad as something happening. Once he and Gavin had bought their notebooks and walked outside to the big field, Sam had relaxed. But then later on Jackson’s face had appeared in the classroom door window, and Sam had gotten all nervous again.
He didn’t feel nervous now, Sam realized. Drawing made him feel relaxed. So did taking care of the chickens. So did sitting next to Mr. Stockfish, now that Sam thought about it. Mr. Stockfish was cranky, but Sam knew if he asked, Mr. Stockfish would help him. But he would also probably say something to Sam’s parents, who were already worried—at least his dad seemed a little worried. Then Sam’s parents would call Mr. Cameron, who would probably call Jackson Grubb’s parents, and Jackson Grubb would get in more trouble.
And the more trouble Jackson got in, the more trouble Sam would be in with Jackson Grubb. Any way that Sam tried to think about it, he always came back to Jackson Grubb’s face in the window for the rest of Sam’s life.
Sam liked drawing the chicken wire that made the chicken coop’s walls. Mr. Stockfish said the shapes the wire made were called hexagons. They had six sides, and there were hundreds of them, it seemed like to Sam. He decided to draw exactly a hundred, and worked hard at making each hexagon even, like his picture really was a photograph.
After a couple tries, Sam finally figured out how small he needed to draw the wire hexagons in order to fit a hundred on a notebook page. He was up to number thirty-two when he glanced up and saw that the chickens were done eating and were now wandering around the coop.
“Leroy’s finished with his lunch,” Sam told Mr. Stockfish, who let out a big snore and then shuddered before opening his eyes.
“What was that, Sam?” he asked. “It’s time to get up?”
“It’s not morning, it’s afternoon,” Sam said. “And Leroy is done eating.”
Mr. Stockfish pushed himself up in his chair. “Go grab her for me, would you?”
Sam put his notebook back in his pocket and went to get Leroy. When he came back, he carefully placed the chicken in Mr. Stockfish’s lap. Mr. Stockfish patted the top of Leroy’s head and closed his eyes again.
“Thank you, Sam,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” Sam replied, sitting back down. “Do you want me to wake you up if you fall back asleep?”
“I’m not sleeping,” Mr. Stockfish said. “I’m meditating. It relaxes me.”
After a few more minutes of meditating, Mr. Stockfish opened his eyes. “The problem with not doing anything about your problems is that they get bigger, not smaller. And you know where they get biggest of all?”
Sam shook his head. He wasn’t sure he understood Mr. Stockfish’s question.
“They get biggest of all in your head, Sam the Man,” Mr. Stockfish said. “They’re like balloons that just keep filling up with air until they take up all the space in your brain.”
“So what do you do to keep them from filling all the way up?” Sam asked.
Mr. Stockfish scratched Leroy behind her ears. “You’ve got to pop them before they get too big.”
“I don’t like popping balloons,” Sam said.
“Neither do I,” Mr. Stockfish said. “But I’d rather pop a balloon than wait around for someone else to pop it.”
Sam couldn’t disagree with that. Even if a person with a balloon was standing right in front of him saying, “I’m going to pop this balloon on the count of three—one-two-three!”, Sam still jumped.
Just as Sam was going to ask Mr. Stockfish more about the balloon that Sam needed to pop, Mrs. Kerner walked out onto her deck and called, “Yoo-hoo! Who needs a snack?”
“I could use some pretzels and some lemonade,” Mr. Stockfish said, gently putting Leroy on the ground and pushing himself out of his chair. “How about you, Sam?”
“Okay,” Sam said. Maybe a snack would help him think better. Because Sam wasn’t sure what the balloon in his head was. Was Jackson Grubb the balloon that was getting bigger and bigger? Was getting punched in the mouth the balloon in Sam’s head?
Or maybe being afraid of Jackson for the rest of his life was Sam’s balloon.
Yes, Sam was pretty sure that being afraid was his balloon.
He just wished he knew how to pop it.
* * *
Chapter Nine
* * *
The Balloon-Pop Plan
Now that Sam had a story notebook, he was ready to write his waffle story, but he couldn’t remember if frozen waffles used to be called “froffles” or “fraffles.” He knew he’d written it down, so at dinner that night he took out his information notebook to look up the facts that he needed.
“No phones at the table, Sam,” his mom said when Sam put his notebook next to his plate.
“Eyes on each other, not on screens, Sam the Man,” his dad added.
Sam stared at his parents. “Do you mean that?” he asked. “You know this isn’t a real phone, right?”
“What is a phone?” his dad asked as he poked at a meatball with his fork, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Is it not a device for communication?”
Sam shrugged. He guessed so.
“And in this day and age, is a phone not also a computer?” Sam’s dad continued, and Sam nodded.
“And is a computer not a device for storing and processing data?” Sam’s dad asked, and when Sam nodded again, he said, “So why can’t we call your notebook a phone?”
Sam’s dad leaned back in his chair, looking pleased with himself.
“Is this just another way of telling Sam to put his notebook back in his pocket?” Annabelle asked as she reached for the bread basket.
“Sort of,” Sam’s dad said. “But I also think I’m right.”
“I think you’re sort of right,” Sam’s mom said. “Phones and computers also send out information using wires or electromagnetic systems. Sam’s notebook can’t do that.”
“I don’t need wires,” Sam told his mom. “I can just pass my phone to somebody else using my hand.”
“There you have it!” Sam’s dad said. “That means that your notebook really is a phone and it’s time to put your phone away.”
Sam slipped his notebook back into his pocket. He guessed he would have to think about his story after dinner. He already knew some things about it. The hero of his story was named Frozen Fred. Frozen Fred wanted to go to the monster truck show downtown, but he knew if he left the freezer, pretty soon he wouldn’t be frozen anymore. So how could he go to the monster truck show without thawing out?
“What’s the best way to stay cold for a long time?” Sam asked his family as he twirled some strands of spaghetti onto his fork. “Maybe cover yourself up with snow?”
“Sure, if there’s snow on the ground outside,” Sam’s dad said. “But if it was summer, you could put ice packs under your clothes.”
“Waffles don’t wear clothes,” Sam said. “So I guess I mean
what’s the best way for a waffle to stay frozen if it gets out of the freezer?”
“If it hopped from a freezer into a cooler, it would stay frozen for a little while,” Annabelle said. “Especially if the cooler was filled with ice.”
“Exactly what are you planning, Sam the Man?” Sam’s mom asked, sounding suspicious.
Sam wriggled his eyebrows, trying to look mysterious. “It’s a secret,” he told her. “May I please be excused?”
“As long as you promise to stay out of the freezer,” Sam’s mom said.
Sam went upstairs to his room and sat at his desk. He took a pencil out of his top drawer and pulled his story notebook out of his pocket. The Great Frozen Waffle Escape, he wrote at the top of the first page. And then he wrote,
One day Fred the Frozen Waffle wanted to go to the monster truck show. There was only one problem. What if he got too warm? Would he get unfroze?
Sam stopped writing. Was “unfroze” a word? He remembered one of Mr. Pell’s rules about writing: Worry about spelling later. Sam would worry about words later too.
Frozen Fred had a problem. If he got unfroze, he wouldn’t be Frozen Fred anymore. If he was Unfroze Fred, he wouldn’t be able to roll around like a wheel.
So what could Frozen Fred do? He asked his friend Frozen Peas, “How do I stay froze when I leave the freezer?”
“If I could fly, you could ride on my back and stay cold,” Frozen Peas said. “But I can’t move at all. I wish I was more like you.”
Poor Frozen Peas, Sam thought. He was stuck inside the freezer forever, or at least until someone wanted peas for dinner. Sam guessed that Frozen Fred was stuck, too, unless he knew how to open the freezer door. That was another problem that needed to be solved.
Sam wondered if all of Frozen Fred’s problems would blow up like balloons and suddenly pop? Not if someone opened the freezer door! Sam started writing again. Just then the door opened. Fred rolled out onto the kitchen floor and to the door. “Somebody catch that waffle!” a man’s voice yelled. Fred kept rolling.
Sam the Man & the Cell Phone Plan Page 4