All About Sam by Lois Lowry & Diane de Groat

Author:Lois Lowry & Diane de Groat [Lowry, Lois & Groat, Diane de]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General Fiction, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780395486627
Publisher: Yearling
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

8

"I want a pet," Sam said one evening at dinner.

His mom reached over and patted his cheek. "Oh, Sam," she said, "you know how much we would love to have a dog. But Daddy's allergic to dogs."

"My eyes get all itchy, and I sneeze and feel terrible if I'm anywhere near a dog," his dad said. "And I turn grouchy. I snarl at everyone."

"What about—" Sam began.

"Same with cats," his dad said.

"I had a cat once, Sam," Anastasia told him, "when I was younger, before you were born. And Dad was sick for two whole months before we realized it was the cat causing it."

"Was he sneezy?" Sam asked.

"Yes."

"And grumpy?"

"Just like the Seven Dwarfs," Anastasia said.

"Did you have to kill the cat?" Sam asked. He sort of hoped they had. He didn't want anybody's cat to be dead, especially, but for some reason he was very interested in shooting guns and dropping bombs. At nursery school, Sam and his friend Adam always dropped a lot of bombs on stuff until the teacher said, "Time Out, guys," and made them stop. Now Sam was kind of wondering about how you would get rid of a cat that was turning you into a Sneezy and a Grumpy. Maybe you would have to drop a bomb on it.

"Of course not," Anastasia said. "We gave the cat to my friend Jenny. Later it got run over by a car."

"Squooshed flat?" asked Sam.

"Yuck," Anastasia said. "I suppose so. But I don't want to think about it while I'm eating."

"Eat your dinner, Sam," his mom said. "Chicken's your favorite."

"Could I maybe have an alive chicken?" Sam asked. "I really want a pet."

"No, sweetie. People raise chickens on farms. I think your school is going to have a field trip to a real farm some time soon. So you'll get to see lots of live chickens. But you won't be able to keep one, I'm afraid. A chicken wouldn't be a good pet, anyway."

Sam scowled and drove his spoon around his plate, pushing a trail through some peas into a mound of squash. Oh, yuck. Now there were some peas touching his squash. He hated when his foods touched each other. The worst was when spinach juice got onto mashed potatoes and turned them green.

No. The real worst was when beets touched something.

Sam poked at his peas. "Anastasia got to have gerbils," he grumbled.

The whole family groaned. Sam giggled. The gerbils had been terrible. They had had babies, and then they had all gotten out of the cage, and there had been gerbils all over the house for a while.

The Krupniks had all been very glad when they finally gave the gerbils away.

Carefully Sam removed three peas from his squash mound and tried to de-squash them with his finger. It didn't work. No one was looking at him, so he put the squashy peas into his pocket. He could throw them away later.

He gnawed on his chicken leg and wished that he could have a pet. If he had a pet, it would be sitting under his chair right now, right this minute.

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