Free Window Boy by Andrea White

“Maybe he’s a Communist, too.”
    “Sam’s really seven years old. That’s why he talks so bad,” Bobby Sur announces.
    Such crazy stuff makes Sam want to both laugh and cry.
    When Mrs. Martin hurries over to Miss Perkins, the sight of his teacher’s raised eyebrows drives his classmates’ nonsense out of his mind. Miss Martin’s narrowed eyes target him before they shift to Miss Perkins.
    “I thought you said Sam couldn’t talk,” his teacher says to Miss Perkins.
    “He doesn’t like to talk very much,” Miss Perkins explains. She has a patient smile on her face.
    “I’ve told you that I have my hands full with thirty kids,” Mrs. Martin interrupts. She sounds as if she is close to tears. “Why is Sam disrupting my class?”
    “Beg your pardon, ma’am. Sam wasn’t trying to be noisy.” Miss Perkins stares thoughtfully into space. Sam can almost feel her thoughts probing his mind. “You see, we both are very fond of Winston Churchill,” she continues. “Me being from England and all. I think he was telling you something about Churchill, weren’t you, Sam?”
    Sam looks up.
    A.J. Douglas who is sitting next to Bobby reaches over and cuffs him.
    “Cut it out!” Bobby cries as A.J. laughs loudly.
    Mrs. Martin scolds the class. “Behave yourselves!” She turns back towards Sam. “As you can see, I can’t drop my guard for a minute,” she says.
    “They’re just kids excited about a basketball game,” Miss Perkins says softly.
    Mrs. Martin jerks away and returns to the front of the classroom. Her serious face quiets the uproar. She wipes her chalky hands on her dark plaid skirt, but then to Sam’s surprise, she stares blankly at the blackboard as if she’s forgotten all she knows. Finally, she says, “You have all been so unruly that I should cancel recess.”
    The class groans just as the bell rings.
    “But if you can prove to me for once that you can keep completely quiet,” Mrs. Martin says, “I’ll let you go.”
    Abruptly, the shuffling, rustling, tapping, creaking, sneezing and whispering stop. All Sam can hear is the sound of his own breathing. The silence continues for so long that he feels like it’s a wet glass that any minute is going to slip out of the kids’ hands and crash on the floor.
    Sitting alone in a wheelchair, Sam has learned to play games with time. By daydreaming, he can transform hours into minutes and minutes into seconds. But every once in a while, his magical formula for shortening time fails, and he becomes like a kid with a normal body.
    Sam notices Charlie squirming in his seat, and he feels sorry for him. Sam has sat for hours in his chair with an itch on the back of his neck that he can’t possibly scratch or a fly buzzing around his ear that he could never catch. Or a thirst that a single glass of water completely failed to quench. And he knows what it’s like to have a second last for a whole year.
    Mrs. Martin looks up at the clock. It’s three minutes past ten. “Good job.” She smiles. “Dismissed.”
    Charlie hoots. “Tomcats, let’s meet on the court.”
    Take me with you, Charlie , Sam thinks.
    The boys and girls hurry out of the classroom. As Mrs. Martin picks up the eraser and begins wiping the blackboard, Miss Perkins calls out to his teacher, “Mrs. Martin, please don’t be angry with Sam.”
    Mrs. Martin turns and takes a few steps toward them. She moves almost as slowly as Miss Perkins at the end of a hard day, and Sam guesses that she’s tired.
    “Sam just wanted you to know that we think Sir Winston is a great man,” Miss Perkins says.
    Sam looks up.
    Miss Perkins searches Sam’s eyes for more. “Sam also wanted to tell you that World War II began before the United States started fighting.”
    You knew she was wrong too , Sam thinks. Why didn’t you say something, Miss Perkins?
    Mrs. Martin sighs. “The United States declared war on December 7, 1941. Is that better?”
    “Yes, ma’am. We like that better, don’t we,