Part 2 (1/2)

Carefully he dropped it into the toilet. When he pulled the handle, he knew, it would go into the pipes, into the ground, into the ocean, into the air, and then it would rain down. Lipsticks would rain down. And that would be interesting.

He almost pulled the flus.h.i.+ng handle. But first, he decided, he would add more stuff.

He dropped in his plastic pretzel. Now it would rain lipsticks and pretzels. But that wasn't enough.

Sam looked around. He could see something interesting on the side of the bathroom sinka”Mom's earrings. He stood on tiptoes, reached the earrings, and added them.

One of his sneakers had come untied again and he pulled it off. Would it be interesting if sneakers rained down, with lipsticks and pretzels and earrings? Yes, Sam decided. So he dropped the sneaker into the toilet.

Now he was ready to flush.

Maybe, Sam thought suddenly, Mom would like to watch.

He went back to the kitchen. Mom was just putting something into the oven. ”Hi, Sam,” she said. ”Are you getting into mischief?”

”Nope,” Sam said.

”What happened to your shoe?” Mom asked.

Sam grinned. ”Come see,” he said. He tugged at her hand.

Mom followed him to the bathroom, and Sam pointed, showing her the wonderful flush he was about to make.

”Oh, nol” Mom said in a loud voice. She reached in and pulled out the dripping sneaker. She pulled out the pretzel. Then the lipstick. Then the earrings. She dropped all of the wet things into the sink.

She knelt on the floor beside Sam. She gave him a kiss. ”Sam,” she said. ”None of those things likes to be in water. Not shoes. Not toys. Not lipsticks. Not Mom's earrings. They don't want to be wet. Do you understand?”

Sam nodded.

”Promise you won't do it again?”

Sam promised, and Mom went back to the kitchen. He did understand. What he needed was something that did like to be wet.

He thought about Dad's big black umbrella. But he knew it wouldn't fit.

Then he thought of the perfect thing. He went to Anastasia's room and turned the wastebasket upside down so that he could stand on it and reach her goldfish bowl. Anastasia's goldfish was named Frank.

And Frank loved water. Sam knew that for sure, because once he had dumped Frank out, and Anastasia had screamed and grabbed Frank and filled the bowl with water again even before she mopped up the floor. ”Frank needs water,” she had explained to Sam. ”Frank is very frightened and unhappy if he doesn't have water.”

Carefully Sam dipped his plastic clown cup into the goldfish bowl. ”Frank,” he said, ”you will be very happy.”

He wished that Anastasia were home, instead of outside riding her bike, so that she could see how happy he was making Frank.

Frank floated very happily in the clown cup all the way to the bathroom.

He loved it in the toilet, because the toilet was bigger than the goldfish bowl. Sam watched him swim in the toilet for a long time.

Now, thought Sam, you get to go in the pipes. Under the ground. Into the ocean. Up to the sky.

And then you will rain back down.

He pulled the handle. ”Yaaayyyy!” Sam shouted happily as he watched Frank spin and swirl.

He ran to the kitchen.

”I flushed Frank!” Sam announced.

He couldn't figure out why Mom wasn't happy about it. Dad, when he came home from atwork, wasn't happy, either. Worst of all, when Anastasia came in, Mom and Dad told her about it in very sad, quiet voices. And Anastasia began to cry.

That night, from his crib, looking through his window, Sam watched the sky. He waited and waited for it to rain goldfish so that he could give Frank back to his sister. But it never, ever did.

4.

”Sam, I do wish you would be trained,” his mother said one day as she was changing his diaper.

”No,” said Sam. He said it very sweetly and smiled.

He didn't know what she meant. But he said no anyway. Sam liked saying no. It was an easier word to say than yes. And it always had a more interesting effect. When he said no, people sighed and frowned and scrunched their faces up. Sometimes his sister, Anastasia, got so mad that she shrieked when Sam said no.

Once, when Anastasia was getting Sam dressed for bed, she asked him, ”Do you want to wear these pajamas, Sam? The ones with teddy bears on them?” She held them up.

”No,” said Sam.

”Well,” said Anastasia, ”how about these? The ones with elephants?”

”No,” said Sam.

Anastasia sighed and frowned and scrunched her face up. Soon, Sam knew, she would shriek. He waited, happily, for that.

His sister got another pair of pajamas. ”These, then,” she said. ”The blue ones with a hole in the foot.”

”No,” Sam said loudly.

Then she shrieked. ”MOM! Sam says no to everything!”

His mother was scrubbing the bathtub and picking up all the boats that Sam had been sailing during his bath. ”Of course he does,” she told Anastasia. ”He's in the middle of the Terrible Twos.”

Sam looked around himself with interest. He didn't see Terrible Twos anyplace. He was in the middle of the room, standing there wearing his Pampers.

He didn't know what his mother was talking about half the time. He was in the middle of the apartment. He was in the middle of the rug. Soon he would be in the middle of his crib. How could he be in the middle of the Terrible Twos? If there were Terrible Twos around, he couldn't see them.

Later that night, wearing his pajamas with teddy bears, after his light was out, he peeked out from under the covers to see if the Terrible Twos were out there. They sounded scary.