Zooman Sam (5 page)

And all of the firemen were mad now. Each of the eleven had wanted to talk about firefighting by themselves, one after another, but Mrs. Bennett said they didn't have time. She had suggested that they all stand together as a group.

"Suppose you all lived in the fire station together," Mrs. Bennett had explained. "You'd be a
team.
"

"I'm not going to stay at a firehouse with dumb Tucker," Adam had said.

"Your boots are stupid anyway," Tucker replied. "Mine are real fireman boots, but yours are just stupid baby rain boots."

"Yeah," my
sister
has boots like that," Zachary said, pointing at Adam's red rubber boots.

"I bet your sister can't
kick
like this," Adam said, and he kicked Zachary hard.

Even Becky, still sulking on Big Ben's lap, looked over with interest. In a moment, all eleven firemen were yelling and punching one another.

Finally Mrs. Bennett went to the piano and played a chord very loudly. "Only firefighters
sing," she announced, and she began to play the familiar melody of a fireman song that all the children knew.

Still looking mad, all eleven firemen—Adam, Zachary, Eli, Peter, Josh, Stephen with a PH, Steven with a V, Tucker, Will, Max, and Noah—began to sing. Their voices were grouchy, but they knew the words and the song seemed to cheer them a little.

Clang! Clang! Down the street!
Firefighters can't be beat!
Lights are flashing, sirens scream;
All the firemen in a team!

There was more to the song, other verses about hoses and ladders. But Mrs. Bennett stopped after the first verse and allowed the eleven boys to clang like bells and scream like sirens for a minute. They liked that. Sam felt a little jealous.

But he felt glad when they sat down at last.
Now
would be his turn.

"Who's next?" Mrs. Bennett asked, looking around the circle.

"Me! Me!" Sam was calling out. So were Leah and several other girls.

Learning not to be first every time was the very hardest part of nursery school, Sam thought. He waved his arm in the air.

"Sam?" Mrs. Bennett said, and pointed at him.

Proudly he stood up and walked to the front of the room.

"Sam's wearing pajamas!" Adam shouted. All of the firefighters laughed. Sam thought they were very rude. But he didn't get mad. He just waited, standing silently, until the children were so curious that they became quiet.

"This isn't pajamas," Sam explained. "This is a coverall. And see the special writing?" He pointed to the red letters on the left side of his chest.

Mrs. Bennett leaned over to look closely. She smiled. "Would you like me to read it aloud to the children, Sam?" she asked.

Sam shook his head. "I want to," he said. "But first I have to show them something." He went to the bag behind the piano and took out his book. He turned to the page with the picture of the zookeeper and the lion. He held it up, facing the children. He turned slowly, the way Mrs. Bennett or Miss Ruth or Big Ben did, when they were reading stories, so that each child would have a chance to look at the picture.

All the children peered intently. Leah took off her huge sunglasses so that she could see better.

"This man is wearing a coverall, like me," Sam explained. "His name is Zookeeper Jake."

"My dad read me that book," Emily said.

"
My
dad read me
Officer Buckle and Gloria,
" Noah said. "A hundred times."

"
My
dad read me
Miss Nelson Is Missing,
" Steven with a V said. "A
thousand
times."

Sam could see why sometimes Mrs. Bennett became a tiny bit impatient. It was hard, being a teacher. "Shhhhh," he said loudly. "We're not talking about that now. We're talking about zookeepers.

"I'm going to be a zookeeper when I grow up," he announced.

He could tell, looking at them, that all eleven firemen were mad because they hadn't thought of zookeeper.

"The guy in the book has a hat," Adam said. "But Sam doesn't. All of us firemen have hats. Don't we?" Adam looked around at the other firemen, and they all nodded. Eleven fireman hats nodded up and down.

"Well," Sam explained, "I'm about to show you my hat."

He went to the big plastic bag. Carefully he reached in and took out the baseball cap that was on top. He looked at it carefully to be certain he had the one he wanted. Then he put it on his head. It was a little large, and made his ears fold over, but Sam didn't care about that.

Wearing the hat, he went and stood in front of the circle of children again.

"That doesn't say 'Zoo!'" Leah called. "Zoo has a Z!"

Sam tried to sound like a teacher. "Correct," he said. "Good for you, Leah. My coverall has a Z. See?" He pointed. "This says 'Zooman Sam.'"

"Zooman Sam! Zooman Sam!" All of the children shouted it, and Sam waited patiently. He liked the sound of so many voices shouting his special name.

"But zoomen, like me, have to take care of lots of different kinds of animals. So we have lots of different hats.

"Who can guess what this hat says? It begins with C."

All of the children were silent, staring at Sam's hat and the letters on it. "Vitamin C?" Max asked, at last.

"Nope," Sam said. "I'll tell you." He took the hat off and looked carefully at its letters. "C," he
said. "U. B. S. That spells 'Cubs.' My mom told me."

"Cubs," all of the children repeated.

"I wear this when I take care of cubs. Lion cubs, or bear cubs," Sam explained.

"
Cool,
" Adam said.

"What if you're taking care of something else, though?" Emily asked in a serious voice. "You can't wear a Cubs hat if you're taking care of a hippo, can you?"

Sam was actually glad that she had asked because it gave him a chance to use his teacher voice again. "Good question, Emily," he said. "You're really thinking.

"Let me show you," he said, and he reached into the big green plastic bag.

Sam rummaged in the bag. There were so many hats, and most of them had long words that he didn't recognize. His mother had assured him that every one was a different animal, but tonight he would have to ask for her help.

Sam felt so lucky.

He was lucky to have thought of being a zookeeper instead of a fireman.

He was lucky to have a mom who could make him a zooman coverall.

And he was certainly lucky to have a sister who was good at thinking of solutions to problems.

Anastasia's boyfriend, Steve—well, he wasn't
really
her boyfriend, and if she heard Sam say "boyfriend," she would yell at him to stop because Steve was just her friend (but if Steve Harvey was her friend, and he was a boy, Sam thought it was okay to call him a boyfriend)—

Anyway, Steve's father, Harry Harvey, was a sportscaster. He was famous, actually, his picture was in the November 1992
Sports Illustrated,
and Anastasia had it on the bulletin board in her bedroom, even though Steve was
not
her boyfriend.

Steve's father appeared on TV and sometimes in commercials and once or twice he was on talk shows, which Anastasia always taped even though Steve was
not
her boyfriend.

Talk show hosts called him "Harv." Harv had sort of big hair. Some people said it was a wig, but Anastasia didn't think so; she said it was just TV hair, and she didn't like it when other people made wig jokes about Steve's father.

But he
did
have pretty big hair. And for that reason, Anastasia had explained to Sam, he didn't like to wear hats. They caused him to have hat hair and made him feel ugly. But people always gave him hats. Managers and coaches and players gave him their team hats. He always said thank you politely, and sometimes he posed for
a quick photograph, wearing the hat, but then he brought it home, to his house just down the street from the Krupniks' house, and he threw the hat into a closet.

Anastasia said that the closet was
filled
with hats. It was like a hat store, except it was messy and didn't have a cash register.

Her friend who was not her boyfriend, Steve, had set aside the hats that said things like
PISTONS
and
REDSKINS
and
SUNS
. He picked out just the hats with animal names on them, and given them, every single one, a whole trash bag full, to Zooman Sam.

Sam felt so lucky.

Finally he found the hat that he wanted, the one that said tigers. It had a picture of a small orange-and-black-striped tiger head, growling, so it was easy to identify. He removed his Cubs hat, placed it in the bag, fitted the Tigers hat on his head, and went again to the front of the circle. He noticed that Mrs. Bennett was starting to arrange scissors and paper on the worktables.

"Mrs. Bennett," he said politely, "I don't think we'll have time for Handwork this morning."

She smiled, and set some blue plastic scissors beside a sheet of orange construction paper. "We're going to be cutting out pumpkins today," she said. "Because a special holiday is coming. Who knows what holiday?"

"
Halloween!
" all of the children called.

"
Mrs. Bennett,
" Sam said in a louder, but still polite, voice. "I still have a
lot
of Future Job show-and-tell to do."

She put a pair of red plastic scissors and a sheet of orange paper at the next place on the table. She looked at Sam. "I see you've changed your hat," she said.

"Yes. Now I have—" Sam stopped. He remembered that he was supposed to be teaching the children about a zookeeper's job. He turned to the circle and used his teacher's voice again. "Class," Sam said, "you can see that now I have changed to my Tigers hat. A zookeeper has to take care of tigers, too."

Several of the firemen made their hands into claws and began to growl and roar. Becky, still in Big Ben's lap, began to whimper, when Tucker threatened her with a claw-hand.

"Correct," Sam said loudly, over the noise. "Tigers can be very dangerous. Zookeepers have special training. They get to carry guns."

"Where?" Peter called. "Where's your gun?"

"Lemme see your gun, Sam!" yelled Adam.

Mrs. Bennett glanced over. She was putting yellow scissors on a piece of orange paper. "No guns," she said sternly. "Remember the rule? No guns in school, not even toy ones."

"I didn't bring my gun," Sam explained. "But usually I carry it in a holster on my coverall."

"
Cool,
" Adam said.

"Yeah.
Way cool
" Peter agreed.

Sam was aware that now all of the children were listening with interest. He liked the feeling of being the most important one in the room. It was almost the feeling that he dreamed of: the Chief of Wonderfulness feeling. But he noticed that Mrs. Bennett had finished distributing the scissors and papers and was waiting. In a minute, Sam knew, pumpkins would be more interesting than zoomen.

"I have to train the tigers not to attack," Sam announced. "I use a whip."

All of the children stared. "A
whip,
" he heard them murmur.

Mrs. Bennett came to the circle and stood beside Sam. She put her arm around him. Usually Sam liked it when Mrs. Bennett put her arm around him because it made him feel very special. But this morning he wished she wouldn't,
because he knew it meant that she was going to start talking about pumpkins.

Sure enough. "Class," Mrs. Bennett said, "we're already running a little late, and some people haven't had a turn. So we'll go to our tables now and work with scissors to make our Halloween decorations—all these big orange pumpkins—and then at snacktime, we'll talk about the other Future Jobs. I know Doctor Leah wants to give out her pills at snacktime, don't you, Leah?"

Leah nodded happily, and shook the box that contained M&M's so that it made a rattling sound.

"If zoo animals get sick," Sam said loudly, "I have to give them pills. Special animal pills."

But the children weren't listening anymore. They were all on their feet, heading to the worktables.

"Mrs. Bennett," Sam said unhappily, "I have other animals to tell about." He tilted his head, looking up to see his teacher's face. The Tigers cap was much too large, and made it hard for him to see.