Sam the Man & the Dragon Van Plan

by Frances O'Roark Dowell

  “I think it’s very practical,” Sam argued. “If you have a monster minivan painted like a dragon, it will scare bad guys away.”

  “But what if Mom needs to drive the van to an important meeting?” Sam’s dad asked. “I’m not sure a monster minivan is the most professional-looking car in the world.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Sometimes Sam couldn’t believe the things his dad said. “People respect dragons. Dragons are powerful. And they can fly.”

  “That’s true,” Sam’s dad agreed. “So what’s your vision for this dragon monster minivan, Sam? Help me see it.”

  “I’ll show you the picture I drew of it when we get home,” Sam said. “I think when you see it, you’ll agree that I have a very good plan.”

  “You always have good plans, Sam the Man,” his dad said. “I’m just not sure this one will work out.”

  Sam did his best to sound agreeable and mature. “Let’s wait until you see the picture before we make any decisions, okay, Dad?”

  His dad nodded. “Fair enough, Sam.”

  Sam patted his dad on the back. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Paint It Pink

  “This is an awesome picture, Sam the Man,” Sam’s dad said when Sam showed him his drawing of a dragon monster minivan. “And you’re right—our van would be the best minivan ever.”

  “And it would be very original,” Sam pointed out. “I think being original is important, don’t you?”

  “It can be,” Sam’s dad said, handing Sam’s picture back to him. “Sam, I don’t want to get your hopes up, but I do want to think about this. Maybe I can come up with my own plan. Will you give me until tomorrow?”

  “Okay,” Sam said. He could feel his hopes go up to the ceiling. His dad was practically saying yes!

  It was seven fifteen. That meant Sam didn’t have very much time to do his other plan, his bad news–good present plan for Annabelle. He went to his closet, pulled out his Hot Wheels suitcase, and put it on his bed. It had been a while since Sam had played with his cars. He guessed he’d gotten sort of tired of them, but now he wanted to take every car out and roll it around.

  But Sam didn’t have time for that. He plucked out his three monster trucks from the case. Okay, so which one would look best painted pink?

  That was a question Sam never thought he’d have to ask.

  He had the Prowler truck, the Pirate’s Curse truck, and the Team Hot Wheels truck. The Team Hot Wheels truck was the most boring, so he decided it was the best one to paint.

  Sam carefully spread out sheets of notebook paper across his desk. Then he took the tubes of red and white acrylic paint out of the bag. After he squeezed out a splotch of red paint onto the mixing plate and then squeezed a smaller white splotch next to it, he used a paintbrush to mix the two colors together. He could tell right away he was going to need to add more white paint.

  He wished Miss Fran had been there to help him. He remembered what she said about glue, to do a little dab at a time, which seemed like good advice about paint, too.

  Sam squeezed out a tiny blob of white and mixed it in. Better, but the paint was still too red. He squeezed out another tiny blob. Closer. Maybe two more tiny blobs would do it. He very carefully added a little more white paint and swirled it around. Perfect!

  Now he wished Miss Fran were there so she could see what a great paint mixer he was.

  Painting the truck would be trickier. He would have to be careful to not paint over the windows or get paint on the tires. (Although maybe it would look cool if the truck had pink tires? But if the tires had wet paint on them, how could he hold the truck to paint the other parts? Sam decided to leave the tires alone.)

  The problem with painting a very small monster truck, Sam soon discovered, was holding it still while he painted. The tires might have been very small, but they still worked, and if Sam wasn’t careful, the truck would flip around while he was trying to paint it.

  The best thing to do, Sam decided, was to put the truck on his desk and hold the back tires with his thumb and middle finger while he painted the front of the truck and then hold the front tires while he painted the back of the truck.

  He also decided putting small pieces of tape over the windows was a good idea.

  Once he had figured everything out, it didn’t take Sam that long to paint the truck. When he finished he still had fifteen minutes before it was time to give Annabelle her book back. The only question Sam had now was would the truck dry in time? Would blowing on it get it dry? Sam blew on it a couple of times and then carefully touched it with the tip of his pointer finger.

  His fingertip came back pink. Sam stood up and walked around his desk. He looked at the truck from the left, and he looked at the truck from the right. Pink wasn’t Sam’s favorite color, but he had to admit the truck was now amazing. If only it would hurry up and dry!

  Sam needed a plan. He could try smudging the truck dry with a piece of toilet paper, but he thought that might be a bad plan. He could race it up and down the hallway and hope it got dry that way, but then Annabelle might come out of her room to see what was going on. Sam guessed he could turn on the blow-dryer to cover up the noise of the truck going up and down the hall.

  The blow-dryer!

  Suddenly Sam had an awesome truck-drying plan.

  Sam got his rock collection shoebox from his closet and dumped all the rocks onto his bed. Very carefully, holding it by the front tires, Sam placed the very small pink monster truck into the box.

  “I think you’re going to enjoy this,” he told the truck as he carried it to the bathroom.

  If anyone asked Sam what he was doing with the blow-dryer, he’d just say he was fluffing up his hair for school in the morning.

  The truck zoomed happily around the box as Sam chased it with the blow-dryer. Some of the paint rubbed off when the truck hit the sides, but Sam didn’t think anyone would be able to tell.

  Five minutes later the truck was completely dry. Sam pulled the tape off the windows and scraped a very small patch of pink paint from the left rear tire.

  Now all he needed was a name.

  The Annabelle Smasher? No, that sounded like Annabelle was getting smashed by the truck. The Annabelle Dozer, which sort of sounded like the Anna Bulldozer? No, because what it really sounded like was Annabelle was taking a nap. If the truck had been yellow, Sam could call it the Anna Banana, although he was pretty sure Annabelle didn’t love that nickname.

  Annabelle the Cannibal?

  Cannonball Annabelle?

  Cannonball Annie?

  That was it! Cannonball Annie. When Sam was little, he used to call Annabelle “Annie,” and Sam thought if he named the truck Annie, Annabelle might remember how Sam used to be little and cute, and maybe she would only get sort of mad at him instead of all the way mad at him.

  It was worth a try.

  Sam carried the shoebox with Cannonball Annie back to his room. He pulled a flat box out of his backpack. It was the box Miss Fran had given him after they’d finished working on Annabelle’s book. Now all he had to do was return the book to Annabelle. Should he give her the truck first or the book first?

  Truck, he decided as he carefully took the book out of the box. That way Annabelle would be in a good mood when he told her about the book.

  But what if he didn’t tell her about the book?

  After all, if Cannonball Annie made Annabelle happy, wouldn’t telling her about the book just ruin her good mood?

  Sam could always tell her about the book later, he thought. Annabelle probably wouldn’t notice that there was anything different about the book, so why tell her right away? Sam had time, lots and lots of time, to break the bad news.

  The Tell Annabelle Later plan.

  Sam liked it.

  The great thing about this plan was no one could be mad at him for not telling Annabelle. Sam was still going to tell her; he just wasn’t going to tell her right that very second. In fact, if he waited a couple of weeks, Annabelle might
have forgotten all about the book. “Oh, that old thing?” she might say. “I can barely remember what I wrote about, it’s so unimportant to me now.”

  Yes, Sam thought, nodding to himself. That was an excellent plan.

  Your Own Personal Pink Monster Truck

  Sam knocked on Annabelle’s door. “It’s me, Sam,” he called.

  “Come on in,” Annabelle called back.

  She was sitting on her bed with a drawing pad on her knees. “I’m working on a comic book about goats,” she told Sam. “I figure if it gets published, Mom and Dad will have to let me get a goat for my lawn-mowing business.”

  Sam thought his sister was probably wrong about that, but he didn’t think it was a good time to say so. “I brought your book back, right on time,” he told her. He was still standing in the doorway. “I’ll go ahead and put it back in your trunk.”

  “What happened to it? Something’s different about the yarn I used for the binding.” When Sam didn’t answer, she added, “Didn’t it used to be purple?”

  That’s when Sam knew that the Tell Annabelle Later plan wasn’t going to work. But maybe the Give Annabelle a Pink Monster Truck So She Won’t Kill Me plan would.

  “I have something for you,” Sam said. He held out Cannonball Annie. “It’s your own personal pink monster truck.”

  Annabelle reached out her hand and took the very small pink monster truck from Sam. “I’ve always wanted one of these.”

  Sam watched as his sister examined the truck. “I named it Cannonball Annie,” he told her. “But you could change the name if you wanted. It’s up to you.”

  “I like that name,” Annabelle said. “And I like this truck. Thanks, Sam.”

  Sam’s cheeks felt hot. He knew what he should do now, but he didn’t want to do it. Maybe he could keep talking about the truck, explain how he mixed the paint until it turned the exact right shade of pink, or tell Annabelle about using the blow-dryer to get Cannonball Annie all the way dry. Maybe he could suggest that they have a monster truck race in the hall. He was pretty sure there was another blow-dryer in his mom’s bathroom, so they could each blow-dry their trucks down the hallway. That sounded like a lot of fun to Sam.

  Sam was still holding Annabelle’s book. You could hardly tell the cover had gotten crinkled. The inside pages looked almost exactly the same as they had before Sam had shoved the book into his backpack this morning. He never thought that Annabelle would notice the yarn was red instead of purple. Who noticed yarn?

  “Annabelle, I need to say something,” Sam said.

  “Okay,” Annabelle said, rolling Annie up and down her arm. “Speak.”

  Remember how I used to call you Annie when I was little? Sam almost asked.

  I’ve recently discovered that it takes less than five minutes to blow-dry a very small pink monster truck, he almost explained.

  I think Dad’s going to let me paint the minivan to look like a dragon, he almost told her.

  “I messed up your book this morning,” is what Sam actually said.

  “How did you do that?” Annabelle was still sitting on her bed. She started rolling Cannonball Annie across her bedspread.

  Sam looked at his feet. “I took it to school.”

  “You’re sort of whispering, Sam,” Annabelle said. “I couldn’t hear what you said.”

  Sam cleared his throat. He was still looking at his feet, but this time he spoke in a louder voice. “I took it to school, and I sort of smushed it putting it back into my backpack.”

  “Why did you take it to school?”

  “For inspiration,” Sam said. “I was working on a picture of a dragon monster minivan to show Mom and Dad so that they’d let me paint the new van.”

  “The used new van,” Annabelle corrected him.

  “I think it should be the new used van,” Sam said.

  “Maybe,” Annabelle said. She didn’t sound very mad. “So hand over the book and let me take a look.”

  Sam handed her the book.

  “It looks fine to me,” Annabelle said after a minute. “I guess the cover is a little crinkled.”

  “My art teacher, Miss Fran, helped me repair it,” Sam explained. “If you have any other books that need repairing, I could probably do the job.”

  “Good to know,” Annabelle said. “So did you paint this truck pink for me because you felt bad about the book?”

  Sam nodded.

  “Good plan, Sam,” Annabelle said. “I like a present when I get bad news.”

  “I’m really sorry,” Sam said, and he did feel sorry. But he also felt good that the bad news was out. “Thanks for not being supermad.”

  Annabelle started rolling Cannonball Annie across the top of her head. “Oh, I was really mad when I first heard about it, but I appreciate all the work you’ve done to repair the book and make me my own pink monster truck.”

  Sam took a step back. “What do you mean ‘when you first heard’?”

  “When Gavin called tonight when you and Dad were at the store. He asked me if I could see where the pages had gotten ripped in the book, and when I told him you hadn’t given me the book back, he hung up.”

  “He said he could keep a secret!” Sam cried out. “It’s like first grade all over again!”

  “Maybe he thought it wasn’t a secret anymore,” Annabelle said with a shrug. “I think he was just proud of you for fixing the book.”

  “I guess,” Sam said. He still felt mad, but he felt less mad when he remembered that it was Gavin’s idea to get Miss Fran’s help fixing the book. That had been a good plan. Come to think of it, a lot of people had been coming up with good plans lately, Sam realized. Mrs. Kerner’s idea to give Annabelle a present had been a good plan, and Mr. Stockfish and Miss Fran’s idea to be honest about messing up Annabelle’s book had been, he had to admit, a good plan too.

  The only bad plan had been Sam’s plan to keep Annabelle from noticing that her book had gotten messed up. Well, it wasn’t the worst plan—she really seemed to like Cannonball Annie. It just hadn’t worked.

  Sam wasn’t used to his plans not working. But maybe that’s because most of the time, he got help making his plans great. Speaking of which, he wondered what great idea his dad was going to come up with for the minivan.

  “So me and Dad are going to turn the minivan into a fire-breathing dragon monster van,” Sam told Annabelle, getting excited about it all over again. “It was my idea, but Dad’s going to figure out the details.”

  “Does Mom know about this plan?” Annabelle asked.

  “Not yet,” Sam said. “I guess she’ll hear about it tomorrow along with everybody else.”

  “It had better be a good plan,” Annabelle said.

  “A super-duper good plan,” Sam agreed.

  The Fire-Breathing Dragon Monster Minivan Plan

  At the breakfast table the next morning, Sam’s dad didn’t say anything about painting the minivan. Maybe he didn’t have a plan yet, Sam thought. He decided to keep his mouth shut and not ask. Maybe his dad’s plan was so massive that it would take all day to put together.

  Maybe his dad had a friend who was a minivan painter, and as soon as Sam left for school, his dad would text his friend to come right over and start painting!

  Sam got ready for school as fast as he could. He ate three spoonfuls of cereal, brushed his teeth a total of twelve seconds, and wore the same clothes he wore the day before so he wouldn’t have to waste time picking out something new.

  Gavin was already at the bus stop when Sam got there. Should Sam say something about Gavin spilling the big secret? Sam reminded himself that if Gavin hadn’t told, Annabelle might not have gotten all her madness out of her system before Sam brought the book back.

  So Sam decided to keep his mouth shut and not say a word, even when Gavin gave him twenty-five guilty looks on the way to school.

  Sam also kept his mouth shut when Mr. Tiberis, his PE teacher, announced that because everyone was enjoying square dancing so much, he was ext
ending the square-dancing unit for another week. He thought maybe if he kept a good attitude all day, his dad would have the minivan painted by the time Sam got home.

  Sam was quiet all morning. Being quiet was the best way Sam knew how to have a good attitude. He was quiet when he got his subtraction homework back and saw three red x’s on it, and he was quiet when he opened up his lunch and saw that his dad had mixed up the sandwiches, so instead of his usual peanut butter and jelly, Sam got Annabelle’s turkey and avocado.

  But when Mr. Pell sat everyone down for after-lunch reading and pulled out How to Train Your Dragon, Sam just had to say something.

  “My dad is painting our minivan right now, and it’s going to be a dragon!” he told the class.

  “A fire-breathing dragon?” asked Rashid.

  “I’m pretty sure,” Sam said. “Because otherwise it might get mistaken for a dinosaur.”

  “A velociraptor looks a lot like a dragon,” Will agreed.

  “Did you know someone discovered a new kind of dinosaur and called it Dracorex hogwartsia?” Emily asked. “It’s named for Harry Potter, and it looks a lot like a dragon.”

  “Does that mean dragons are real?” Caitlyn asked.

  “No,” Emily said. “Dragons aren’t real.”

  “Yes,” said Hutch, Rashid, and Will all at the same time. “They’re real!”

  “They’re real in your imagination,” Sam said, feeling diplomatic. “And soon there will be a real fire-breathing dragon monster minivan in my driveway!”

  “That’s great news, Sam!” Mr. Pell said. “Maybe you could take a picture and e-mail it to me. I’ll put it on our class website. But now it’s read-aloud time.”

  “Everybody, be quiet!” Sam told his classmates. “Mr. Pell is going to read!”

  Then he was quiet for the rest of the afternoon.

  “Can I come over to your house to see the dragon monster minivan?” Gavin asked on the bus ride home. “Because I think it’s probably the coolest thing I’ll ever see in my entire life.”