Zooman Sam by Lois Lowry Read Free Book Online Page A

humiliated," she muttered.
    "Why? What did I do wrong?"
    "You wouldn't understand," his sister said angrily.
    And that was true. Sam didn't understand at all.

10

    "That dog is getting worse and worse," Mrs. Krupnik said at dinner.
    "It's because he's smart," Anastasia pointed out. "Most dogs don't even get it when you're talking about food."
    "Speaking of food, there are plenty of seconds here. Does anybody want any more meatlo———" Sam's dad began to say.
    "
Don't!
" Mrs. Krupnik, Anastasia, and Sam all interrupted him in loud voices. Myron Krupnik was so startled that he almost dropped his fork.
    They all waited, but it was okay. Sleuth was in the basement now, locked away, exiled, because he had already disrupted dinner three times, leaping eagerly into the room at the sound of a food word. They could hear him making sad noises, little whimpers and moans, on the basement stairs.

    "It's not fair, to keep a dog locked up, separate from his family," Mrs. Krupnik said, "but I don't know what else to do."
    "I think we should consider giving him away," Sam's dad said. He poured some gravy over a slice of meatloaf on his plate. "I'm fond of him. But he's driving us all crazy."
    "I drive you crazy, too," Sam pointed out, "but you never think about giving
me
away."
    "Me too," Anastasia said. "I drive you crazy, too. But you never—"
    "Actually," Mrs. Krupnik said, "I think about it quite often. At least three times a week. That time when you borrowed my leather jacket, Anastasia, without asking me, and then—"
    "Do we have to discuss this? Isn't this water over the dam? Or under the bridge?" Anastasia passed her plate to her dad, for more meatloaf.
    "It's more like one very expensive leather jacket over the dam, or under the bridge, or maybe in the dressing room at T. J. Maxx, or
could it possibly be at McDonald's, or wherever you might have left it?"

    "I don't see what this has to do with the dog," Anastasia said. "And I don't think we should give the dog away. I love the dog."
    "Me too," said Sam. "I love Sleuthie."
    His mother sighed. "We all love him. But we haven't done a good enough job of training him. What we need is an animal trainer."
    Suddenly everyone was looking at Sam. They were looking at his coverall. They were looking at the red letters on his chest, the letters that said ZOOMAN SAM .
    "Me?" Sam said.
    His father, mother, and sister all nodded. "You," they said.

    At show-and-tell time the next morning at Sam's school, all of the firefighters were wearing their normal clothes. So they didn't have as much to fight about.
    Leah had told them about being a doctor during snacktime the day before, and had distributed her M&M pills.
    Now Lindsay had a turn. Wearing jeans and a sweater, Lindsay simply held a doll, rocking it
gently, and announced that her Future Job was to be a mom. Adam called out that being a mom wasn't a real job, so Mrs. Bennett told them all what an important job it was, and then she read them a book about moms while Lindsay rocked the doll and patted its back.

    All of the children listened carefully to the story and looked at the pictures when Mrs. Bennett held up the book. On each page, they saw a different kind of mother doing something. They saw a Japanese mother carrying her baby on her back.
    "Yeah," Adam called out, "but that's not a
job!
Nobody
pays
her to do that!"
    Mrs. Bennett looked at Adam with a very warning kind of look. Then she read the next page and showed a picture of an African mother bathing her baby at the edge of a river. She and the baby were both smiling.
    "What kind of job is that?" Adam called out. "That baby's going to get eaten by an alligator!"
    Becky began to cry. Miss Ruth picked up Becky and comforted her.
    Big Ben picked up Adam and held him very firmly on his big lap. It was a warning kind of hold.
    "Mrs. Bennett?" Sam held up his hand politely.

    "Yes, Sam? Do you want to say something about moms?"
    Sam nodded. "I want to say that they