Chapter Four

For the next thirty minutes, Mrs. Martin reviews old tests and collects homework. When the business of the class is concluded, she says, “Get out your math notebooks.” Pencils drop on the floor. Books thud.

Miss Perkins removes her notebook from her large, black purse. Sam’s wheelchair has a foldaway tray, and she pulls it out. She tears a piece of paper from the notebook, writes Sam Davis on it in her big rolling hand and lays it on the tray.

“Could I borrow your eraser?” someone hisses.

“You were supposed to bring your own,” a girl’s voice answers.

Mrs. Martin begins writing a list of problems on the board:

1,258÷93    20,957÷11    19,899÷15…

“You have fifteen minutes to work these problems to the nearest decimal,” Mrs. Martin says briskly. “Turn them in when you’re through.”

1,258/93. Sam easily computes a partial answer in his head: 13. But he’s surprised that the numbers left over are too small to be divided by 93. He has no idea what to do with these extras. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Miss Perkins tapping her pencil on the page.

Miss Perkins has taught him addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Usually, she writes the problem on a piece of paper, and he shows her the answers by touching the numbers on a special pad. But he has never attempted a problem that has leftovers before. Miss Perkins is always saying that she has taught him all she knows. For the first time, Sam realizes maybe this is true.

“Sam,” Miss Perkins whispers. “Let’s see if we can figure out the math at home.”

Speaking their private language, Sam looks up at the ceiling. He wishes that he were a whiz at math. And he begins fantasizing that Mrs. Martin has asked the question: Who knows what to do with these leftover numbers? He would say, “I do.” Yet, since he doesn’t know the answers to the real questions, not a single one of them, he begins to feel dumb.

I never liked math, Winnie says. The figures were tied into all sorts of tangles and did things to one another which were extremely difficult.^2†

Hearing Winnie’s voice makes Sam long for his safe spot by the apartment window. Even though Sam’s spent thousands of hours at his window dreaming about school, all of a sudden, he’s homesick.

After all, his wheelchair separates him from the other kids. Not only do the rest of the kids have desks, they’re all grouped together in the middle of the room. He’s parked next to the potted plants. He can’t complete the first assignment of the day. No one looks at him, not even the teacher. Miss Perkins is occupied copying down the problems. He feels like he’s not attending school so much as watching it—from a closer place to be sure, but still like television.

At least, I don’t see a birch here, Winnie adds.

Sam knows that the teachers at Winnie’s school used to punish students with a stick.

I was thrashed often, Winnie remembers.

Be quiet, Winnie, thinks Sam. You’re making me nervous. Besides, I can talk to you anytime. While the kids are busy, I want to study them.

At first, the class had seemed to be one multicolored animal with many heads, arms, and legs, but now that Sam’s been here awhile, each kid is starting to look different.

His gaze drifts over again to the second row, third desk, and to the blonde girl sitting there. Although the girl doesn’t smile, she doesn’t look away. Her blue eyes are filled with…not friendliness, but interest. Could this girl be a possible friend?

Next to him, Miss Perkins sighs over the math problems.

Sam feels sure that he and Miss Perkins will be better at English. Although it’s hard for Sam’s eyes to focus on small lettering, he can see large print. To teach him to read and write, Miss Perkins created a big alphabet on poster board. Then, she set out an easy book on his tray and held a magnifying glass over the pages. After six months, they had worked up to My Early Life. Whenever he had finished a page, he nodded. At the same time that he was learning how to read, Miss Perkins taught him how to write. To select his first letter from the alphabet, he used his right pointer finger: P. Then Miss Perkins wrote the letter down on a piece of paper. His first word was Perkins. Next, with his caretaker’s help, he dictated short sentences, like, I am Sam. Then paragraphs. For the last several years, he finished whole essays, mostly about Winnie.

Mrs. Martin’s voice interrupts Sam’s thoughts. “Time to turn in your papers, please.”

A few kids sigh. Several file past Sam and Miss Perkins. One by one, each member of the class drops his paper in a box on the teacher’s desk.

Miss Perkins fidgets next to him.

“Is that everybody?” Mrs. Martin looks at Sam.

Sam’s chair is suddenly so uncomfortable that he can barely stand it. Miss Perkins smiles. “Sam and I are going to work on our problems tonight.”

A couple of kids snicker.

“I would have liked to see a sample of Sam’s work,” Mrs. Martin says.

It’s the first day of class, and Sam has already disappointed his teacher. He almost doesn’t hear the next part of Mrs. Martin’s comment.

“But, of course, tomorrow will be fine,” Mrs. Martin adds before turning away. She instructs the class, “Now take out your vocabulary notebook and write down the words on the blackboard.”

Sam looks at the blackboard. Miss Perkins starts whispering the vocabulary words to him, but Mrs. Martin’s handwriting is so big that even he can read the list:

Definition

Forbidden

Extraordinary

Despair

Perverse

Sam can’t concentrate. He’s too upset.

You are such a good boy, Sam, Winnie says, that you don’t even know what it means to be bad. A teacher of mine once said that she thought that I was the naughtiest small boy in the world.³

Sam doesn’t answer. One of the many things that Sam finds annoying about Winnie is that Winnie talks about Sam and himself in the same breath. Winnie’s a world leader. He’s just a boy in a wheelchair.

But don’t you see, Sam? I was just a boy once, too. A boy nobody believed in.

Remind me, Sam pleads.

Remember that list that you wrote for Miss Perkins about all the things that I did wrong in school? Winnie asks.

I remember. Winnie’s headmaster wrote to his mother that he was “very bad” and a “constant trouble to everybody.” He was flogged often. Once Winnie had even tried to blow up a school building.

I promise, Winnie boasts. None of my teachers or fellow students would ever believe that someday I’d be the greatest man in the world.

Mickey appears in the doorway, with his shirt untucked. Although he sits down at his desk, the boy doesn’t bother to take out his notebook or pencil. Instead, he squirms around on the hard seat as if struggling to get comfortable.

Mickey notices Sam’s gaze, and his small features scrunch up into a frown.

Sam feels confused and wants to explain: It’s me, the boy who is always watching you from the window. You’re a great basketball player. Come talk to me. But since he can’t say any of these things, to be friendly, he winks at Mickey.

Unexpectedly, Mickey’s dark eyes flash with anger.

“All right, class,” Mrs. Martin says. “Put up your vocabulary notebooks. You may go to recess.”

Recess. What is Sam going to do during recess? Who will talk to him? He nervously shifts in his chair.

Mrs. Martin turns and begins cleaning the blackboard.

Each kid who races out of the classroom takes a bit of the excitement with him. Finally, only Mickey remains seated. Sam is startled to find that the boy is still looking at him. He licks his lips nervously. Could Mickey be a tough kid? One of those hoods in a leather jacket that his mother always worries about. He knows that if a bad kid wanted to, he could toss Sam out of his wheelchair and jump on his stomach. And what would Sam be able to do to stop him? Nothing.

“I’m going to the restroom, Sam,” Miss Perkins says. “You don’t need to go, do you?”

“Nooo,” Sam says. The restroom arrangements that have been made for Sam are complicated. He’s not looking forward to his first trip.

“I’ll be right back,” she calls over her shoulder as she leaves the room.

Mickey stands up, and Sam is shocked when, instead of heading out the door, Mickey veers toward him.

Mickey squats down next to Sam. He’s so close that Sam can smell the bacon on his breath. He can see a faded purple bruise on the side of his head. Scarier still, he can see the hate in Mickey’s eyes.

“Stop steering at me. Ve’re not friends,” Mickey whispers urgently. Before Sam has a chance to answer, Mickey runs off.

One day, when Sam was five years old, he and his mother were watching the Boston Celtics play the Philadelphia 76ers on television. Since Stirling is only two hundred miles from Boston, like most people in town, Sam and his mother are diehard Celtics fans. At the time, Sam was trying to puzzle out how people, just ordinary people, could walk, run, dance. How did the right leg know to come down when the left leg lifted? It seemed remarkable to Sam that the teenagers he watched on Dick Clark’s Bandstand, a dance show, could move their two arms, two legs and ten fingers at the same time. But the Celtics were in a different league, almost superhuman.

Not only did the individual players know how to walk, run and shoot—acts that required control over at least 14 separate digits—they seemed to move as a single organism. With the Philadelphia 76ers committed to stopping them, the entire Celtics team—five pairs of legs, arms, feet, fingers, toes, hands—were united together in a single goal, the basket.

Sam will never forget seeing Bill Russell jump off the ground holding the basketball in one hand. Wilt Chamberlain, even taller than Russell, bounced up as though he had springs in his shoes and tried to block him. But Bill Russell looped the ball over Chamberlain’s head.

Beating long odds, Bill Russell’s basket dropped in.

That’s when Sam became a basketball fan.

Now that Sam is older, he is no longer in awe of basic skills like running, shooting and jumping, but he is still amazed by the greatest players. How can Bill Russell pivot after a rebound and, in one motion, make a perfect overhead pass to start the fast break? How could that great point guard, Bob Cousey, accurately make a pass behind his back without looking at the target, running in a parallel lane?

After Mickey has left, Sam sits in the empty classroom, looking at the thirty desks lined up in uneven rows. He has always wanted to find someone—besides his mother—to talk to about basketball. It won’t be Mickey, he thinks regretfully.

___
† Reprinted with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from MY EARLY LIFE: A ROVING COMMISSION by Winston Churchill. Copyright © 1930 by Charles Scribner’s Sons; copyright renewed© 1958 by Winston Churchill. All rights reserved.