Sam Saves the Night

by Shari Simpson

  “I’m okay now, thanks.” She took a deep breath. “I really am okay, Byron.” She meant more than just being done with her laughing/crying jag and Byron knew it. He nodded, rather melancholy, but what else could they do? This was real life. The nighttime was the dream.

  “So…” Jaida suddenly got shy. “I think I have a name for your tribe.”

  Sam turned to her, intrigued. “Really? What is it?”

  “The Grace.” She couldn’t look at Sam directly. “Because ‘grace’ means ‘kindness that’s undeserved.’ ”

  Sam got an immediate lump in her throat. “It’s perfect.” She would have tackled Jaida in an awkward hug and probably killed the moment, if it hadn’t been for Fletch suddenly spying them and waving them over. Sam, Byron, and Jaida walked as somberly and mournfully as possible to his row of chairs and slid in, stepping over Mr. Bain, who was staring at Madalynn’s casket with despair. Sam couldn’t help thinking of his favorite saying, “Are you in the land of the living?”

  Poor dude. He’d probably have to retire that expression now.

  They sat next to Fletch, who immediately pulled them into a conspiratorial clump. “There’s been a development,” he whispered with a clenched jaw.

  “What do you mean?” Sam murmured, trying to appear as if they were whispering about the video that was now playing of Madalynn giving a speech at a Junior Daughters of the American Revolution dinner.

  Fletch and Joanne exchanged a grim glance.

  “There’s no body.”

  Sam heard what he said, heard the individual words, but her stunned brain just couldn’t fuse them together into a coherent sentence. She looked over at Byron for help, but he appeared to also be gobsmacked into muteness.

  Jaida found her voice first. “What are you talking about, Fletch?!”

  He pulled them in farther, creating a little enclave among the wailers, and spoke rapidly. “I went to see the funeral director under the auspices of being Madalynn’s physician. He starting sweating profusely, stuttering painfully, and attempted to chase me off with a bottle of formaldehyde. Naturally, this all made me somewhat suspicious. So, I waited until he went off to embalm something or other and I snuck in for a peek.” He paused for maximum effect. “That is a very pink, very empty casket.”

  Is that why her parents weren’t crying? Because there’s nothing to cry about? Sam wondered. But how could that be? The memory of Madalynn’s silver cord, severed, rolled through her reeling mind.

  She could hear Byron’s tentative question, “Maybe they, uh, cremated her on the sly?” but it sounded far off and faint. Because Sam was now completely focused on the movie screen, where the recently-deceased-or-maybe-not Madalynn was finishing her speech: “… and so, in conclusion, let us never forget that life delivers unto us infinite surprises.” She smiled then, a huge, gleaming, somehow terrifying smile.

  “It always keeps us guessing.”

  To my wonderful editor, Kieran Viola, who not only helped shape Sam’s journey, but also put up with my endless weepy e-mails, and for everyone at Disney Hyperion, especially Emily Meehan and Mary Mudd. To Nancy Inteli, who was the first to recognize Sam’s SleepWaker potential. To Naketha Mattocks, one of my first true supporters. So grateful to Charlie Shahnaian, my “work husband” and best pal, for these 10+ years of laughter. Many thanks to my lawyer, Jon Cantor, and the rock star Mary Pender at UTA. Hugs to Charlotte and Kathleen Keilman for helping me understand what life is like with scary allergies; to Andrea and Madalynn Mathews for letting me steal the spelling of your name for a not-so-savory character; and to Karen Hopkins Harrod, who let me steal her name for a hero. Most of all, thanks to my real husband, Carlito Cabelin, for always believing in me and working a real job so I could write, and my kids, Rosie and Mig, for being so.much.fun. and letting me observe your lives so I could write decent teenaged characters. I love you, crazy fam. And most most of all, to my Father and Friend, who continues to teach me the true meaning of Grace.

  is a playwright and screenwriter who cowrote the off-Broadway hit Maybe Baby, It’s You and the Disney Channel Original Movie The Swap, both with her longtime writing partner, Charlie Shahnaian. She also won the 2012 BlogHer Voice of the Year for Humor Writing. Shari lives in Hoboken, New Jersey, with a patient husband, two hilarious teenagers, a demonic cat, and her pug, Mila Kunis. This is her first novel.