All About Sam (2 page)

At first he slept a lot. He couldn't think of anything else to do. The pan tree was pleasant enough, but it was kind of boring. Sometimes they took him out of his bed there and carried him around. That was always fun, because he got to look at different stuff, and his eyes were starting to work pretty well now.

He especially liked the rocking chair in the living room. His mom took him there to feed him, and sometimes he got so interested in listening to the squeak of the chair and looking at the pictures on the walls that he forgot to eat. Later, in his crib in the pan tree, he would think: I forgot to eat. Now I'm hungry.

So he would yell, I FORGOT TO EAT, AND NOW I'M HUNGRY. It sounded like "Waaaahhhhh," and he had improved his voice so that it was quite loud now.

When he yelled that, his mom would come. She would stand there looking down at him, and she would say, "Are you hungry
again?
" in an amazed voice.

Sam would say, IT'S BECAUSE I WAS LOOKING AT THE PICTURES ON THE WALLS, AND I FORGOT TO EAT! which sounded like a very long, very loud "Waaaaahhhhh." And his mom would sigh and take him back to the rocking chair and feed him again. She was a pretty good sport about it, except in the middle of the night, when occasionally she grumbled a little. And once, in the middle of the night, she fell sound asleep in the rocking chair. Her arms became limp and Sam had to say "WAAAAAAAHHHH" very loudly—more loudly than usual—because he was afraid she would drop him on the floor.

He wasn't often worried about that though, not the way he had been at first. No one ever dropped him. Not even when they gave him a bath and he was wet and slippery with soap. They held him good and tight. Even Anastasia had learned to hold him tight.

Sometimes Anastasia took him outside for a walk. He liked being out in his carriage because he got to look at trees and their moving leaves. The pan tree had no leaves, which was puzzling (he thought the pan tree was very weird compared to the outside trees), but finally they hung something over his crib. It had colorful things dangling from it, and if he bounced in the crib, the colorful things moved. He liked to look at that now and then—for about two minutes, no more. After that it was boring. When it got boring, he yelled, I AM BORED WITH LOOKING AT THIS THING OVER MY CRIB, which was a slightly different sort of "Waaaahhhhh."

The only bad thing about going outside was that dumb hat. They always put the hat on him when they took him outside, and they wouldn't take it off, not even when he yelled I HATE THIS HAT for a long time. So he concentrated on getting his hands to work better. Any day now he would be able to take that hat off; and when he mastered that, he would never
ever
wear that hat again.

There was a whole lot of stuff to learn, and it took a while. First he had learned to bounce himself in his crib, so that the hanging thing would move and be interesting for two minutes.

Next, there was the whole diaper-changing thing. After the soft-feeling powder got sprinkled on his bottom, which he liked so much that he always smiled—and they
loved
it when he smiled—then his mom would put the dry diaper on. Then—this was the best part—before she pulled his nightgown down, she would lean forward, put her face on his tummy, and go "Blur-ble blurble" with her mouth, which tickled so much that he would laugh out loud.

But when his dad or his sister changed his diaper, they didn't know that they were supposed to do the blurble blurble thing. So he had to teach them.

He taught them by yelling DO THE BLURBLE BLURBLE THING, which sounded like "Waaahhhh," after they changed him.

Then they would say, "Why does he always cry when we change him?" as if their feelings were hurt.

"I don't know," his mom would say in a puzzled voice.

IT'S BECAUSE THEY DON'T DO BLURBLE BLURBLE, he yelled, but they didn't understand him.

Finally
—it seemed to take forever—one day, his mom said, "I bet I know!" And she explained to them about the blurble blurbling.

Sometimes they still forgot, but he reminded them each time, and they were learning.

Now and then they left him all alone, lying on a blanket on the living room floor. He wished they would hang around and make faces at him, but he understood that they had other stuff to do sometimes. And he liked the time on the blanket. He kicked his legs a lot and looked at the living room stuff. The curtains were nice, and the pictures on the walls were interesting, and sometimes they even left the TV on and he liked the voices of the TV people, though not as well as he liked his family's voices.

One day, when he was alone on the blanket on the living room floor, he leaned hard on his side and pushed with his arm. Arms were great pushers, he had discovered recently. He could use one arm to push away the spoon when his mom tried to make him eat oatmeal, which tasted disgusting.

"Sam, stop that!" his mom would say when he pushed the spoon away. So he would answer, OATMEAL IS DISGUSTING, which was a wonderful thing to say with his mouth full, because it sounded like "Phhllllt" and made oatmeal fly out of his mouth and onto his clothes. Then he could grab it with his hand and put it into his hair, which felt good. Even though he hated oatmeal, it was always fun to be
fed
oatmeal because he could smear it around and push the spoon and stuff, and sometimes it meant he even got a second bath, which he liked.

But on this particular day, lying on the floor, he wasn't thinking about oatmeal. He was thinking about his arm and about how it pushed.

He pushed harder and harder, leaning on his arm, and suddenly his whole body tipped over. He had started out on his tummy, and now he was on his back. He had also gotten a clunk on the head, but he didn't even care about that because it was so interesting, what pushing would do.

He began to wiggle and push again. It was harder, starting from his back, but he worked on it for quite a long time, until suddenly: clunk. He had done it again, and now he was on his tummy, but he was off the blanket.

Now he was on the living room rug, a place he had never been before.

He tasted the rug. Yuck. The rug tasted terrible, much worse than oatmeal; but that didn't matter because he wasn't hungry anyway. Sam was on a roll.

Lean. Push. Push. Up, up, up, and: clunk. He was over again. He was heading for the big green chair in the corner.

Now he was getting better at it. It didn't take so long each time. Clunk: tummy. Clunk: back. He wished that he didn't clunk his head each time. Tomorrow, maybe, he would concentrate on the head part.

There: he was at the chair. One more roll would do it. He pushed with his arm, raised his behind, leaned, and clunk. He was
under
the green chair, exactly where he wanted to be.

He lay there very quietly, looking up at the underside of the chair, where a metal thing poked out, and there were some dangling threads that were much more interesting than the thing that hung over his crib in the pan tree.

He could hear footsteps. He knew they were Anastasia's footsteps. Hers were noisy, and they had dangling shoelaces flapping, unlike his mom's softer steps or his dad's firm, big ones.

Sam waited. He smiled, waiting, under the green chair.

Then the footsteps stopped—they were quite close to him—and he heard Anastasia scream. "Mom! Sam's gone!"

He heard his mom's soft footsteps coming very fast. He waited quietly, smiling to himself.

"He was here ten minutes ago!" he heard Anastasia say. "He's been kidnapped! Someone climbed in the window and stole him!"

"That's impossible," he heard his mom say in a worried voice.

Anastasia wailed, "He's been kidnapped! Someone climbed in the window and stole him! Look for a ransom note!"

"Don't be foolish," his mom's voice said, but it sounded very nervous.

"Here! Here's a ransom note, right here on the desk! You read it, Mom. I can't bear to. It says steak, right at the top. They'll return Sam if we give them steak. Read it, and then call the FBI immediately."

"That's my grocery list," Mom said. "Don't be ridiculous. Is your dad home? Did he come in the back door, and I didn't notice? Myron? Are you home? Do you have Sam?"

"Mom!" Anastasia begged. "
Do
something!"

Under the chair, Sam grinned. He had never caused such a commotion before, not even the night last week when his ear ached and he cried for a whole hour.

He watched their feet, and he listened to their voices with interest. Finally, he laughed out loud, pushed hard with his arm, leaned, and rolled out from under the chair.

Anastasia and Mom burst out laughing. Mom knelt, picked him up, said "Silly old Sam," and blurble blurbled into his neck, mixing the blur-bles with kisses.

Gotcha, Sam thought with delight.

Sam was frustrated.

He couldn't make them understand what he was saying. His mouth didn't work right. He would try very hard to call politely to them, "I want my diaper changed," or "I woke up from my nap and I am very lonely here in the pan tree," but it always came out sounding like "Waahhh."

Or he would try to say, "Another spoonful of those mushed-up peaches-and-tapioca, please," but it would sound like "Phhhhfft," and the peaches-and-tapioca in his mouth would fly out and wind up on his stomach and his feet.

He could understand what
they
said. Every word. At least, he could understand what his family said: his mom, his dad, and Anastasia, his sister.

Strangers were something different. They spoke another language, apparently. Strangers sometimes leaned over his crib or his carriage and said things like "Ba-ba, boo-boo" or "kootchy kootchy," and none of that made any sense at all, so he just smiled politely or stared at them with a puzzled look.

Once—only once—did it come out right. His mom had been feeding him, and it was strained apricots, one of his favorites. He wanted more. Lots more, right away. While he was trying to say that, but saying "Phhhfft" instead, she gave him another spoonful. So Sam smiled and said thank you. And it worked. It sounded like "Tattoo," but his mom understood, and she clapped her hands and called, "Myron! Anastasia! Come quickly!"

They came running, both of them, and Mom said, "Sam said 'thank you' when I gave him a bite of apricots!"

Dad and Anastasia both frowned and stared at Sam.

"Impossible," Dad said.

Sam wiggled around so that his little tilted chair bounced up and down. He waved his arms. He grinned. "I did! I really did!" he said. But it sounded like, "Blah, blah, blurb," and darn it all, he lost the whole bite of apricots, right down his bib.

"He really did," mom said.

Dad and Anastasia both laughed. "Give us a break, Mom," Anastasia said, and she poked a finger in Sam's armpit for a tickle.

"Another few months, Katherine," Dad said. "
Then
he'll start talking."

Now another few months had passed. He had some teeth now. Sometimes he bit his own finger by mistake and it hurt. He tried not to do that. He tried to bite
other
people's fingers.

And he bit toys. His teddy bear wasn't good biting, because it was too soft; but there was a hard plastic pretzel that he chewed on quite a bit. And the bars on the side of his crib were made of wood; he gnawed on them while they thought he was sleeping.

Also when they thought he was asleep, he practiced talking. He liked to do it when no one was listening so they wouldn't laugh. "Ba, ba, ba," he practiced late at night, saying it quietly to himself in the dark.

"Ta, ta, ta" was a good one. And "Ma, ma, ma."

He could say "me, me, me" and "ho, ho, ho."

He could do body parts. In the middle of the night, if he woke up and was bored, he kicked his blanket off, lifted his legs in the air, pointed with his finger, and said softly, "Knee, knee, knee." He had two of those.

"Eye, eye, eye," he said and pointed. Ouch. He had two of those, too, but he had to be careful, pointing, because if he pointed too hard at his eyes, it hurt.

When he worked hard at it, he could put two sounds together and make "Nose." He had only one nose, but it was fun to point at it, because sometimes he could poke his finger
into
it.

Nobody knew that he was practicing talking. It was his secret. He was going to let them know when the right moment came.

And in the meantime, he was working hard on some other stuff, too, at the other end of his body. Legs and feet, those things were called (he could say "feet" already, practicing at night). Feet also had toes—which he could say: "Tose, tose, tose"—but toes didn't seem very useful. They certainly weren't as handy as fingers, which could grab stuff, and pinch, and pull Anastasia's hair.

But legs and feet were very useful because they could get you from here to there. Rolling did too, of course, but Sam had been rolling for quite a while now, and he was beginning to get bored with rolling. You couldn't aim yourself very well and sometimes you rolled into the coffee table by mistake and whacked your nose. And when you rolled, you often got a mouthful of rug by mistake.

So he was practicing legs and feet. Using legs and feet, you could get yourself upright so that you looked like a real grown-up person. Once you were upright, like a grown-up, you never had to eat rug.

Now, finally, on a Saturday morning, he was ready to give the thing a try in front of the whole family. They were in the living room, all of them. Dad was lying on the couch, reading a newspaper. He had his shoes and socks off, and his big bare feet were propped on the arm of the couch. Mom was sitting in the green chair, knitting. She knit a lot. Knitting looked like an interesting thing to do with fingers. Sometimes, when she wasn't looking, Sam rolled over to her basket of knitting stuff and tried to knit. But she always grabbed it away from him and said, "No, no, no."
No
was an easy word to say. Sam said it a lot to himself at night, practicing. Soon he would say it to his family. He planned to say it often.

Anastasia was there, too. She was sitting on the floor barefoot, and she was painting her toenails bright red, using a tiny brush that went into a little bottle. A minute ago she had reached over very quietly and painted her father's biggest toenail bright red. He hadn't noticed yet.