Sam the Man & the Chicken Plan Read online

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  “We will spend five minutes talking about Helga’s blue egg,” Mr. Pell told Sam’s class after the bell rang. “Then we will get back to our regular schedule.”

  The class gathered around Sam’s box. He told them the story of watching Helga lay her egg. Caitlin Mills asked if Sam had actually seen the blue egg come out of Helga’s bottom.

  The class seemed very disappointed when Sam said he hadn’t.

  “Is she going to lay another egg today?” Hutch Mooney asked.

  Sam hadn’t thought about that. “I guess so. I think most chickens lay an egg every day, as long as they get enough light.”

  “Are you going to bring an egg to school every day?” Hutch asked. “Or are you going to eat them all for breakfast?”

  “I guess we’ll eat them,” Sam said.

  “Can I have the shell?” Margaret Lopez asked. “I’ll give you fifty cents.”

  “Even if it’s broken and crunched up?” Sam asked.

  “Oh. Maybe not,” Margaret said.

  “Did you know you don’t have to break the shell to get the egg out?” Mr. Pell said. “There’s another way to do it.”

  “Could we do it now?” Hutch asked. “I want to see if the yolk is blue.”

  “I don’t think it is,” Sam said. “I think the yolk is regular.”

  He turned to Mr. Pell. “Can you show me how to get the egg out without cracking the shell?”

  Mr. Pell nodded. He went to his desk and got out a small plastic box. “This is my sewing kit,” he told the class. “In case a button pops off my shirt during school.”

  That made sense to Sam. Mr. Pell was very neat and tidy.

  Taking a needle from his sewing kit, Mr. Pell said, “I’m going to poke two holes in Helga’s egg, one on the top and one on the bottom. Then I’m going to blow into the hole on the top. The egg white and yolk will come out of the bottom.”

  Sam almost couldn’t watch. But he needed to, to see how it was done.

  Because Sam the Man had a new plan.

  He would give the insides of Helga’s blue eggs to his mom, who liked to eat eggs for breakfast.

  But he would sell the blue shells for fifty cents apiece.

  He’d make a fortune.

  Mr. Pell’s cheeks puffed out and then went back to normal. Puffed out. Normal. Puffed out. Normal.

  And then whoosh! The egg white and yolk popped out of the hole at the bottom end of the shell and plopped into the coffee cup Mr. Pell had set out to catch them.

  Everyone in the class cheered. Mr. Pell handed Sam the eggshell.

  “Be careful with it,” Mr. Pell said. “It will break even more easily now.”

  “Can I buy it?” Margaret asked.

  “You can buy the next one,” Sam told her. “I’m keeping this one.”

  “In your box?”

  Sam nodded. “In my box.”

  Sam carefully laid the empty eggshell on its nest of toilet paper and closed the lid. Then he latched the latch.

  “Can you put this somewhere protected?” he asked Mr. Pell.

  Mr. Pell took his lunch bag out of the big bottom drawer of his desk and put the box in. He locked the lock.

  “It will be fine in there,” he told Sam.

  Sam breathed in a deep breath. He let it out.

  Finally, he could relax.

  The blue egg was safe.

  Sam the Man and the Mr. Stockfish Plan

  Sam Graham didn’t need a job anymore.

  He had a list of forty-two kids who wanted one of Helga’s blue eggshells. Annabelle said she had at least twenty friends who would want one.

  Sam Graham was going to be rich.

  Very rich.

  He spent all of Friday afternoon and Saturday practicing poking holes into eggs and blowing out the whites and yolks.

  It took a while to get good at it. He would have gotten better faster, but every five minutes his mom came into the kitchen to complain about the eggs he was using.

  “I’ll pay you back,” Sam promised. “You’ll get the insides of all of Helga’s eggs.”

  “I’m keeping track,” his mom said. “So far you owe me seven.”

  It was on egg number nine that Sam finally got the hang of it.

  It was on egg number eleven when he remembered he needed to go clean the chicken coop and see if Helga had laid another egg.

  When he got to Mrs. Kerner’s backyard, Mr. Stockfish was sitting in a lawn chair next to Helga’s crate.

  Sam had forgotten about taking Mr. Stockfish on his walk.

  He’d forgotten the day before, too.

  “I think our girl is ready to go in the big coop,” Mr. Stockfish said when he saw Sam. “I’ve been watching her all afternoon. She spends a lot of time looking at the other chickens and clucking. That’s a sign.”

  “Did you walk here by yourself?”

  Mr. Stockfish shrugged. “I know the way. I almost tripped, but I grabbed a bush. It was fine.”

  Sam felt bad. He hadn’t meant to quit his job taking Mr. Stockfish out on walks.

  “I’ll walk you home,” he said. “It’s not good to trip.”

  “I didn’t trip, though,” Mr. Stockfish said. “My knees are getting stronger.”

  “That’s good,” Sam said. “Maybe we could take a longer walk tomorrow. We could walk to the park.”

  “I like walking here,” Mr. Stockfish said. “Here, I am among friends.”

  “With the chickens?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Stockfish said. “And you, too, when you don’t talk too much.”

  Sam almost said something, but he didn’t.

  Instead, he opened the door to Helga’s crate. “Would you like to go into the coop today?” he asked her.

  “Look at that!” Mr. Stockfish said. “She’s nodding!”

  Helga walked over to Sam and hopped into his arms. She clucked and squawked and shook out her feathers.

  “I guess that means she’s ready,” Sam said.

  “I told you she was ready!” Mr. Stockfish said.

  Sam walked over to the coop, holding Helga under his left arm. He opened the coop’s door with his right hand. All the chickens came rushing over.

  “Don’t let them out!” Mr. Stockfish said.

  “I won’t,” Sam told him. He’d been watching the chickens for a while now, and he knew how their minds worked. In fact, he was sort of a chicken expert at this point. He was probably the biggest chicken expert he knew.

  He used to only know three things about chickens, but now he knew lots. He knew chickens ate bugs and worms and that they shed their feathers once a year. He knew chickens had a pecking order, and it was important to get along with the head chicken. He knew that their eggs could be different colors. Why, Sam must know a million chicken facts now.

  Sam’s chest puffed out a little from pride, just like a chicken’s.

  Standing in front of the coop door, he blocked the chickens with his foot. Then he leaned down and pushed Helga inside.

  “Good luck,” he told her. “I’ll be right here if you need me.”

  Helga took a step into the coop, and Sam closed the door behind her. Queen Bee walked over and clucked. Helga took a step back.

  “Don’t let her boss you around, Helga!” Mr. Stockfish said.

  Helga took a step forward. Then she took a step sideways. Pretty Girl came over and said hello. At least it seemed to Sam like she was saying hello. He didn’t speak chicken, so he didn’t know for sure.

  Sam stood right outside the coop for five minutes. He wanted to make sure no one was going to peck Helga. No one did. She’d been their neighbor for more than a week now. Sam guessed they were used to her.

  Sam sat down in the lawn chair next to Mr. Stockfish. “A bunch of kids are going to buy Helga’s eggshells for fifty cents,” he said. “I’m going to make a lot of money.”

  “I see,” Mr. Stockfish said. “Then I guess you won’t need a job taking me on walks anymore.”

/>   Sam guessed he wouldn’t. Still, he felt bad. He didn’t mind walking with Mr. Stockfish. Sure, they went really slow, but going slow was okay. You noticed more things if you were going slow and not talking.

  And just because he didn’t need a job, it didn’t mean he couldn’t have a job.

  But what would he do with the extra money?

  Sam looked at Mr. Stockfish looking at the chickens. Mr. Stockfish was nodding and smiling. He enjoyed the chickens very much. Sam enjoyed Mr. Stockfish very much. He was cranky, but he talked to Sam like he was another grown-up, only shorter. And who else besides Mr. Stockfish cared about Helga and Pretty Girl and Queen Bee as much as Sam did?

  Just like that, Sam the Man had a plan.

  “I would still like to keep my job taking you on walks,” he told Mr. Stockfish. “If that’s okay with you.”

  Mr. Stockfish didn’t say anything. Then he nodded. “That would be okay with me.”

  At two dollars a walk he would make plenty of money in no time. After he paid back his dad, he could call Trish Hardy and see if she had any chickens left.

  Sam was going to get a chicken for Mr. Stockfish to put in with Helga and Mrs. Kerner’s flock.

  Why not? A chicken didn’t cost all that much. Twenty bucks a pop.

  Worth every penny, Sam thought.

  All kinds of people have helped Sam make his plans: the very wonderful Caitlyn M. Dlouhy, the equally grand Jessica Sit, and the wise and remarkable Justin Chanda. Thanks go to Sonia Chaghatzbanian, who has made so many of my books look their best, and to Amy June Bates for bringing Sam & Company to life with her illustrations. Thank you, copyeditor Clare McGlade, for doing one of the hardest jobs in publishing. I hope you know you’re appreciated.

  Thanks, as always, to my friends and family. Thanks especially to Jeff Burch for his support and encouragement. Finally, thanks to Clifton, Jack, and Will Dowell, and to Travis, a very good dog indeed.

  FRANCES O’ROARK DOWELL has a penchant for chickens, though she has yet to own one. She’s the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of many novels, including Dovey Coe, Trouble the Water, Chicken Boy, Falling In, The Secret Language of Girls series, and the Phineas L. MacGuire series. She lives with her husband and two sons in Durham, North Carolina. Connect with Frances online at FrancesDowell.com.

  When AMY JUNE BATES was a kid, she loved to draw and read. She’s drawn art for many books for kids, including Patricia MacLachlan’s Waiting for the Magic. She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her three children, her husband, and Rosebud the dog. She still reads and draws quite a bit.

  A Caitlyn Dlouhy Book

  Atheneum Books for Young Readers

  Simon & Schuster • New York

  Visit us at simonandschuster.com/kids

  authors.simonandschuster.com/Frances-ORoark-Dowell

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  Also by Frances O’Roark Dowell

  Anybody Shining

  Chicken Boy

  Dovey Coe

  Falling In

  The Second Life of Abigail Walker

  Shooting the Moon

  Ten Miles Past Normal

  Trouble the Water Where I’d Like to Be

  The Secret Language of Girls series

  The Secret Language of Girls

  The Kind of Friends We Used to Be

  The Sound of Your Voice, Only Really Far Away

  Phineas L. MacGuire series

  Phineas L. MacGuire...Blasts Off!

  Phineas L. MacGuire...Erupts!

  Phineas L. MacGuire...Gets Cooking!

  Phineas L. MacGuire...Gets Slimed!

  ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2016 by Frances O’Roark Dowell

  Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Amy June Bates

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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  Book design by Sonia Chaghatzbanian

  The text for this book is set in New Century Schoolbook.

  The illustrations for this book are rendered in pencil.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Dowell, Frances O’Roark, author.

  Sam the man and the chicken plan / Frances O’Roark Dowell. — First edition.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-4814-4066-0 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-4068-4 (eBook)

  1. Chickens—Juvenile fiction. 2. Money-making projects for children—Juvenile fiction. 3. Families—Juvenile fiction. [1. Chickens—Fiction. 2. Moneymaking projects—Fiction. 3. Family life—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.D75455Sam 2016

  813.6—dc23

  [Fic]

  2015007119