In Case You Want to Know by Paul Levine

Author:Paul Levine [Levine, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781491795033
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2016-04-28T04:00:00+00:00

Sammy

Almost everyone has left the workshop, but Sammy still tugs at his yellow lock, this time pulling it harder than before.

He peers through the crack into his locker as if there would be a secret to getting it opened. He then bangs the lock against the green metal, and shouts, "I want to go home."

"Take it easy, Sammy," the old maintenance man, Mario, says, holding his metal cutting sheers. "Pulling isn't going to help. One cut and then you'll be free."

"Sammy, you're the only one left," Julie, the social worker standing next to Sammy, says. "Come on. Let Mario get your keys. You want to start your weekend, don't you? Your mother is home by now, anyway. So you really don't even need your locker key or your house keys."

Sammy doesn't look at Julie. Instead, he slumps to the floor, lowering his head while covering his eyes with his hands. "I always come home with my lunchbox and my keys. My mother will be mad if I don't have them."

"I'm always cutting off locks for people," Mario says. "Look at these," he says, holding up the metal sheers. One second you'll have your locker open. Tomorrow is Saturday. You'll be able to get your new lock. My wife locked her keys in the car at the supermarket last week. It happens to everyone."

"I don't want you to cut my lock," Sammy says looking up at Mario. My mother tells me not to forget my things."

Slowly getting up, Sammy puts his hands to his ears. His green pullover is wrinkled and one of his shoes is untied. "I don't want the voices and they're coming. They're in my ears now."

"Don't let them come," Sammy, Julie says. "You know how to keep them away if you want."

Sammy pulls at the yellow lock again. The noise echoes throughout the large empty room. Sammy looks over to the workshop table where an hour ago he had been removing buttons from cards and sorting them by color.

"Sammy, if you let me open your lock, you can take your money this weekend and go to a store and buy a new one for a few dollars," Mario says. Just ask your mother to take you."

"I don't want the lock broken," he says. "It's the one I've always had."

"Sammy, I'll tell you what," Mario says. "You let me cut it off, and I'll buy you a new one. Any color you want. It'll be there Monday morning when you come in."

"It's the one my mother gave me. And I can't break it because she gave it to me because I wanted yellow, and she said it was hard to find. I can't hurt it. And I don't want my mother to scream at me. I always have to put my hands on my ears when she screams."

Mario looks down at his shears, and then places them on the table. "Only thing to do is to snap it. Would take but one second and we could all go home.

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