Zooman Sam by Lois Lowry Read Free Book Online Page B

don't have alligators in Africa."
    "We're talking about moms now, Sam," Mrs. Bennett reminded him.
    "I know. But I want to say that they have crocodiles in Africa, not alligators."
    Becky began to howl. "Crocodiles!" she wailed. "I'm scared of crocodiles!"
    "And," Sam went on, before Mrs. Bennett could interrupt him, "I think it's a very important job for that mom to protect her baby from crocodiles."
    "That's true, Sam," Mrs. Bennett said. "Thank you."
    "But it's not a
real
job," Adam said loudly.
    Lindsay continued to stand in front of the circle, rocking her doll. Mrs. Bennett turned a page and showed a picture of an Eskimo mother smearing grease on her baby as he lay on a pile of what looked like bearskins. Sam thought it looked a little yucky and was very glad he wasn't an Eskimo.
    Page after page, they looked at mothers caring for their babies. Sam decided that Mrs. Bennett was right. Being a mom
was
a hard job. Not all that much different from being a zookeeper, actually.

    "Okay, Lindsay, thank you," Mrs. Bennett said. "Now, let's see. We have just a few people left. Jessica and Kate, would you like to tell us about being lawyers, like your mothers?"
    Jessica and Kate carried their briefcases to the front of the circle. They stood side by side.
    "You stink!" Jessica said to Kate.
    "You stink double!" Kate replied.
    "I'm going to put you in jail!" Jessica said.
    "I'm going to put you in the electric chair!" Kate said.
    Then they went back to their seats in the circle. "That's what lawyers do," Kate explained.
    "
Cool,
" Adam said loudly. "I want to be a lawyer."
    "Anybody else? Emily? You haven't had a turn, have you?"
    "I changed my mind," Emily said. "I was going to be a nun, but now I'm going to be a mom, like Lindsay."
    "Well," Mrs. Bennett said, "that's quite a change. But I'm glad you saw what an important job being a mom is, Emily. Okay, class! That's it for Future Jobs. Now we have to get to work pasting some faces on those wonderful big pumpkins we made yesterday."

    "Mrs. Bennett! Mrs. Bennett!" Sam waved his arm in the air. "You forgot!"
    "What did I forget, Sam?" Mrs. Bennett had moved to the supply closet and was taking out a big jar of paste. Sam saw Miss Ruth move into position near Emily. If someone didn't keep an eye on her, Emily liked to eat the paste.
    "I'm going to do a different animal each day, remember? For twenty-eight days?"
    Mrs. Bennett sighed. "How could I have forgotten that, Sam?" she said. "Especially when you're wearing that hat?"
    Sam adjusted his hat. "Gators," he said.
    "Children," Mrs. Bennett announced, "while we do our pumpkin faces, Sam is going to tell us about alligators."
    "Alligators!" Becky wailed. "Oh, no! I'm scared of alligators!"

11

    At home, that afternoon, Sam replaced Gators in the bag and looked through all the hats that he had not yet worn. He had to choose one for tomorrow.
    There were seven caps with words that began with B. Sam knew the sound of B, and he said it to himself, sitting on the living room floor with the trash bag opened and the caps strewn all around him.
    "Buh, Buh, Buh," Sam said, and looked at the seven caps with B. Some were long words, just too hard.
    But one had two L's, and Sam knew the sound of two L's because there were two L's in
Jell-O.
The hat also had a little picture, which helped, of a snorting bull.
Bull
, Sam said to himself. If the word
Bull
had an O on the end, he figured out, it would be
Bull-O
. He laughed, thinking about that.

    "What are you giggling about, Sam?" his mom called. She was at work in her studio. Mrs. Krupnik was an artist who made the pictures for children's books. He could see her through the open door as she sat on the stool by the special table where she worked on book illustrations.
    "Nothing," he called back. It was too complicated to explain. He put on the Bulls cap and arranged his ears inside.
    He went into the studio and stood beside his mom. "Tomorrow, at school, I'm doing bulls," he explained. "I did