Part 4 (2/2)

Sam looked up. He closed his mouth. He was very quiet.

Then he whispered, ”And they don't give shots. I love my school.”

7.

Sam and his mom were at the supermarket. It was one of Sam's favorite places, because he got to ride in the cart with his legs dangling, and he got to point at things.

”I want that,” he would say, pointing at bananas. And usually his mom would say, ”Okay,” and she would put bananas into the shopping cart.

”I want that,” Sam would say, pointing to orange juice and to chocolate milk. And those things would go into the shopping cart.

”And I want that,” he said, pointing, but he always knew she would shake her head and say no in that aisle. It was the cookies-cakes-candies-sugary cereal aisle. She always whizzed through that one, pus.h.i.+ng the shopping cart very fast, grabbing a bag of flour or some oatmeal, but nothing else.

Sam didn't mind. He waited for the yogurt department and pointed again, because his mom always said yes to yogurt.

Finally, with a very full cart, they got to the check-out line. Sam looked up to see which line they were in. There was one that he hated.

It was the No Candy line.

For a long time, when he was smaller, he hadn't understood about the No Candy line. Then, after he turned two, and then two and a half, and was big and going to nursery school, he began to understand about letters and about reading.

At home, he had plastic alphabet letters that stuck to the refrigerator door. He could spell his name and Mom and Dad. He couldn't spell his sister's name, but that was because she had a name that was longer than the whole alphabet.

One day he realized he could spell no. His mother had found him playing with her jewelry box and trying on her earrings. She had knelt down on the floor, picking up all the necklaces and earrings that he had scattered about. She was very angry.

”No, Sam,” she had said in a loud voice. ”No, no, N-O, NO!”

Sam listened carefully. N, she had said. And 0. He had both of those letters on the refrigerator. While his mother was still looking for the last of her jewelry, he had scampered away to the kitchen and spelled NO on the refrigerator.

Later, his mother had shown him how to spell yes. But he liked no better.

Not long after that, he had seen the word No at the supermarket. It had another word after it, but he didn't know what the other word was. He asked his mom. He pointed to the sign.

”Candy, that says,” his mom explained. ”The sign says, 'No Candy.' If you go through this line, there won't be all those candy bars and things. Some people like this line better. I like this line better, as a matter of fact.”

Sam scowled. He didn't like the No Candy line at all.

And today she was at the No Candy line again. Rats.

”Can I get down and walk?” Sam asked his mom. She was putting the groceries onto the counter so that the woman in the pink smock could drive them over the beeping thing with the green and red light. Usually Sam liked to watch that. But today he wanted to get down.

His mother was counting the yogurts as she took them out of the cart. She nodded. Then, after she had the seven yogurts on the counter, she lifted Sam out of the carriage and down to the floor. ”Stay right here,” she said. ”Don't run off.”

”I won't,” Sam told her. He had no intention of running off. He was simply going to walk four steps sideways over to the next line, one that had candy bars and things. Just to look.

An old man was there, buying a lot of frozen dinners and toilet paper. He didn't even glance down at Sam. If he had, Sam would have said ”Excuse me.”

Sam wiggled past the old man and stood in front of the rows of candies. There were all kinds: Hershey bars, gumdrops, chewing gum, licorice. Milk Duds and Chuckles and Baby Ruths and M & M's.

Sam wanted one very badly. It didn't even matter which one.

He looked over at his mother. Her shopping cart was still half full. She was lifting a bag of oranges to the counter. She wasn't watching Sam at all.

He looked up at the old man. The old man had his wallet in his hands and was counting out dollar bills. He wasn't noticing Sam at all.

The lady in the pink smock was putting the old man's frozen dinners into a bag. She didn't even know Sam was there.

Very quietly Sam reached up and took a bright red giant-sized package of Dentyne gum.

Very quietly he put it into his pocket.

He looked around. No one had seen him do it. No one at all.

Quickly Sam scurried back to the No Candy line and stood beside his mother.

”I'm just standing here,” he said to her in a loud voice. ”I'm not being naughty or anything. I'm not doing anything at all.”

She looked down and smiled. ”Good,” she said. ”I'm almost through.”

When his mother had paid for the groceries, the lady in the pink smock looked down and said ”Have a good day” to Sam.

Sam didn't say anything. He reached for his mother's hand.

He had been having a good day. He had had a good morning in nursery school, playing with Adam. He had gone down the giraffe slide headfirst. n.o.body had shoved him in line. Nicky, who usually bit everybody, had been absent. He hadn't spilled his juice. He knew all the words to the ”Eensy-Weensy Spider” song. He had been the one chosen to put the gray cloudy face on the big calendar today. He had successfully zippered his lips at Quiet Time.

He had had a very good day coming home from nursery school in the carpool car. They had had a flat tire. Flat tires were among Sam's very favorite things. And this was an especially good flat tire, because there were seven kids in the car-pool station wagon, and four of them started to crya”not Sam, of course. The carpool driver, Skipper's mom, got very fl.u.s.tered and kept telling the kids to zipper their lips, but none of them did.

Sam tried to tell Skipper's mom how to change a flat tire, but she didn't seem to want to listen.

Finally a police car had stopped, and a policeman had changed the tire. He made all the kids get out of the station wagon first. He had let Sam squat down very close and watch.

So Sam had had a very good day on the way home from school.

And he had still been having a good day at lunch time, at home. Mom had taken his painting of a rainbow and hung it on the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a strawberry. He and Mom had had hot dogs. Peter and the Wolf was on the radio, and they had listened to it all the way through.

And he had had a good day at the supermarket, pointing at things and helping his mom choose vegetables. She hadn't put broccoli in the shopping cart, only carrots and string beans, Sam's favorites.

But now, suddenly, he wasn't having a good day anymore.

His good day had ended, Sam realized, when he took the bright red giant-sized pack of Dentyne gum and put it into his pocket.

”You're being very quiet, Sam,” his mom said on the way home from the store. ”Are you tired?”

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