Anastasia wrinkled her forehead. "A container for what?"
"Secret," Sam told her. "I can't tell. I'm making Mom a birthday present."
"A box?" Anastasia asked. "There's an empty shoebox on my closet shelf. My new sneakers came in it."
Sam thought for a moment. A box wouldn't work for perfume, he decided. He shook his head.
"I need a bottle," he explained. "Or maybe a can."
"Look in the recycling barrel in the pantry," Anastasia suggested. "That's where all the empty bottles and cans go."
Sometimes Anastasia was a terrific sister, Sam thought. He gave her a high-five and turned to leave.
"Know what?" she said. "I'm making Mom a birthday present, too."
"Is yours secret, like mine?" Sam asked.
She shook her head. "No, not really," she said. "It's stupid, though. I'm writing her a poem."
"Why is it stupid?" Sam asked. "I like poems. My favorite is 'I'm Popeye the sailor man, I live in a garbage can'—"
Anastasia interrupted him. "It's stupid because I'm not a good writer," she said with a sigh. "Listen to this, Sam, and tell me what you think." She took a piece of paper from under her journal and read:
I'm glad that you've become 38
And that your name is Katherine, not Kate
And that Myron Krupnik is your date
She looked up, embarrassed. "I know it's stupid," she said sheepishly. "It's really stupid to say Dad is her date. But husband doesn't rhyme."
Sam thought about it. He did think the poem was a little stupid, but he loved his sister and didn't want to tell her so. "You could say Myron Krupnik is her mate," he suggested finally.
Anastasia brightened. She crossed out date and wrote mate in its place. "Thanks, Sam," she said enthusiastically. "You've given me a fresh view of it."
Sam headed down the stairs and made his way to the pantry on the first floor.
Anastasia had been correct. The plastic trash barrel in the corner of the pantry was filled with empty cans and bottles. Sam peered down the hall to make certain that his parents weren't nearby and wouldn't appear suddenly to ask him what he was doing. But he could hear the announcer's voice from the football game on the living room TV, so he knew his dad would be lying on the couch, calling out, "All right! Go for it!"
He could hear his mother's footsteps in her studio. Today was Saturday, and usually she didn't work on Saturdays. But he knew that she was hurrying to finish a book about snails in a garden and that she only had the most boring part—the cabbages—left to do. He figured she was in there doing cabbages.
Sam looked carefully through the cans and bottles. It was important, he knew, to start with a container that smelled good. There were a couple of empty beer bottles—Miller Lite—but he decided against them. If he were making perfume for his dad, a Miller Lite bottle would be a good container. But his mom, he knew, didn't much like the smell of beer.
He thought long and hard about a peanut butter jar that still had a thick rim of peanut butter inside it. His mom did like peanut butter, Sam knew. But he decided against the Jif jar. He was afraid it wouldn't be large enough.
Finally he settled on a huge empty bottle that had held grape juice and still had some pretty good purple at the bottom.
Quietly, so that no one would hear him go by in the hall, Sam carried the grape juice bottle to his room and hid it inside his toybox.
In his mind, Sam renamed his toybox. He would call it the Lab. A lab, Sam knew, was a place where scientists invented important stuff.
Next, he crept downstairs again and into his father's study. He stood very still, near his father's desk, and listened. From the living room, he heard the TV roar of cheering crowds and the announcer's voice saying something about a field goal. From the studio, he could hear music start; he knew that his mom had turned on her little radio. She was definitely, Sam decided, working on cabbages.
Sam climbed into his father's chair—the same chair where he had knelt to do his typing just that morning—and leaned across the desk to inspect his father's collection of pipes. He sniffed. The smell of pipe—the same smell that his mother said she loved—was very strong.
He knew that he couldn't take one of his father's spectacular pipes: not the one carved into the shape of a hand, with its knobby fingers like a fist; and not the one with a face chiseled into the rounded end. His dad would notice if those special pipes disappeared.
Thoughtfully Sam selected a very ordinary-looking pipe: a brown one with a straight black stem. He sniffed it to be certain that it had a good pipey smell, and he peered inside it to be certain that there were flecks of tobacco in the bowl.
He put it into the pocket of his jeans. Then he strolled out into the hall, wearing his "Who, me? I'm not doing anything naughty" face. No one appeared. There was no one around to look at him suspiciously. From the living room door he could see that his dad was half asleep in front of the TV.
Sam scampered up the stairs to his bedroom. He closed his door, went to the corner where the Lab was, opened the lid of the grape juice bottle, and dropped in the pipe. He looked at it for a moment, thinking. Then he got a glass of water from the bathroom, and with great care he poured the water over the pipe, tobacco, and grape juice. Then he screwed on the lid of the bottle, closed the wooden lid of the Lab, and grinned.
It was a great start: the perfect smell of pipe.
Now he had to figure out what to add next.
3
"Anastasia," Mrs. Krupnik said at dinner that evening as she heaped chicken stir-fry onto plates and passed them around, "Mrs. Parish called earlier, while you were at Daphne's house. She wanted to know if you could babysit with Alexander for a while tomorrow afternoon."
Anastasia groaned and made a face. "What did you tell her?" she asked.
"I told her you'd call her back, of course. I told her I thought you didn't have any plans for tomorrow, but I didn't want to promise without asking you."
"I hate babysitting," Anastasia said. "But I need the money. I wish there were other ways for people my age to earn money. I wish I could be a part-time librarian, or something. Is it only for a little while, are you sure?"
Mrs. Krupnik shrugged. "That's what she said. Maybe an hour and a half. He'll probably sleep the whole time."
Anastasia poked at her dinner. "Okay. I'll call her after I'm finished eating."
Sam wasn't paying much attention to their conversation. He thought babies were very boring. At his nursery school, the girls all played complicated games with dolls, dressing them and undressing them, putting them to bed, feeding them fake food, taking them for walks in doll carriages. Sam thought it was really weird, playing that.
Sometimes Mrs. Bennett said, "Boys, it's okay for you guys to play with the dolls, too, you know. Because when you grow up, maybe you will be daddies. And daddies feed babies, and give them baths, and take them for walks."
Sam knew that. In the Krupniks' photograph album, there was even a picture of his dad giving him a bath when he was a baby. There was water all over the floor, and Sam was holding a toy duck.
So sometimes, at school, Sam tried playing with the dolls. But the girls got mad at him. They yelled and cried and said that they didn't want the babies to be named Rambo and Donatello. They didn't want the babies to drown in the bathtub or to be exploded out of the doll carriages.
And if you couldn't do those things, Sam thought, then it didn't seem like much fun, taking care of babies or playing with dolls. Not when there were trucks and airplanes to play with. Not when there were blocks that could be built into high towers and then knocked down with wonderful crashing sounds.
So he just continued eating his chicken, smooshing one finger in some sauce that had spilled over the side of his plate, and he didn't bother listening to his mom and sister talking about babysitting.
Until his mom said this very weird thing: "I just love the smell of little babies."
Sam looked up.
Anastasia made a fa
ce. "The smell of little babies?" she said.
Mrs. Krupnik nodded. "I went over to the Parishes' the other morning, when you guys were at school, because I'd bought them a baby present when Alexander was born. But I somehow never got around to taking it over, and now, my goodness, it's been more than two months. So I went over to deliver the gift, and the baby was awake—Nancy Parish had just bathed him—and I suddenly remembered how much I've always loved the smell of new babies."
"I love the smell of stir-fry," Mr. Krupnik said, reaching for a second helping.
"Here, have some more rice, too," his wife said, and heaped some on his plate. "Anyway, I sat there with sweet little Alexander up against my shoulder, smelling of powder and baby shampoo, and I rocked him, and it brought back some really nice memories."
Anastasia began playing an imaginary violin. Her mother looked at her and laughed.
"Would you say that it's your best smell?" Sam asked his mother.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, your favorite smell?"
She nodded. "Well, I'd call it one of my favorites," she replied.
That was all Sam needed to hear. "Anastasia," he asked politely, "can I go with you when you babysit with sweet little Alexander?"
"May," Anastasia corrected patiently.
"May I?" Sam asked.
Anastasia sighed. "I suppose so," she said. "If Mrs. Parish doesn't mind. I'll ask her when I call."
The Parishes lived very near the Krupniks, in the middle of the next block. Sam trotted along the sidewalk beside his sister. He kept one hand in the pocket of his corduroy jacket, where he was carrying a neatly folded Ziploc bag.
He couldn't quite picture exactly how he was going to collect the smell of Alexander. The pipe had been easy, because it was a thing. But of course he couldn't bring a piece of Alexander home. He would have to collect the baby's smell, somehow. A Ziploc bag seemed necessary.
"Look," Anastasia said, pointing, as they passed the Sheehans' driveway. Sam looked and saw a large cardboard box with a sign on its side.
"Can you read it?" Anastasia asked. "Want me to read it to you?"
"No, wait," Sam told her. He began to make the sounds of the letters.
"Fffffff," was the beginning sound.
"Rrrrrrr," was the next.
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeee," Sam said third.
"FREE!" he announced. He didn't bother with the second word on the sign. If the first word was free, then the second word didn't matter much. He ran up the driveway to the box.
It was just what Anastasia had told him. Kittens! He and his sister peered into the box and watched the five kittens scampering inside, chasing each other's tails and batting each other with their paws.
They watched in delight until Anastasia noticed the time and told Sam they would have to hurry on to the babysitting job.
" 'Bye, kittens," Sam said turning away from the box. "I wish Dad wasn't lergic," he said sadly as he trudged along beside his sister.
"I won't be gone very long," Mrs. Parish told them when they got to her house. "My husband's giving a talk at the Museum of Fine Arts, about Etruscan pottery. I told him I'd come and applaud at the end, just in case no one else does.
"Alexander's sound asleep," she said, and led them to the baby's room. "If he wakes up, Anastasia, his bottle's in the fridge, same as it was last time you were here. And you know where his diapers are.
Anastasia smiled and nodded politely. Sam could tell from the way she smiled—it was a fake smile—that his sister sincerely hoped that Alexander would not wake up.
Sam edged close to the crib, his face against the bars, and peered in. The baby was on his back, with both arms outstretched. His mouth was open a little, and there was a bubble of spit at one side of it. The spit bubble moved up and down slightly as Alexander breathed.
Sam sniffed. He couldn't smell anything at all.
He moved along the length of the crib so that he was closer to Alexander's head. He sniffed again.
"Your brother doesn't have a cold, does he?" Mrs. Parish asked a little apprehensively.
"No," Anastasia replied. "I don't know why he's doing that. Why are you making that noise, Sam?"
Sam thought quickly. He knew he couldn't say to Mrs. Parish, "I'm smelling Alexander." She wouldn't understand that at all.
"Sorry," he said. "I was making rhino snorts." He pointed to the corner of Alexander's crib, where a stuffed rhino was propped on its fat hind legs. It had a thick white plush horn coming out of its nose and a sewn-on smile below.
Mrs. Parish laughed. She turned to leave the room, talking to Anastasia, handing her a paper with the museum's phone number. Sam sniffed one more time, deeply, but smelled nothing. He followed them from the room, disappointed, touching the Ziploc bag in his pocket with concern.
"I knew it," Anastasia muttered. "I knew it!" She put down the magazine she was reading.
Sam looked up from the television; he'd been watching a nature show about frogs. When he pressed the Mute button on the remote control, he could hear Alexander quite clearly. Alexander was howling.
The sound made Sam nervous. One of the good things about the dolls at nursery school was that they couldn't cry. If you wanted them to cry, you had to make the wailing sounds yourself, and that was fun because it gave you a reason to howl and scream. But it wasn't scary at all. It was a little scary, listening to Alexander howl.
"What should we do?" he asked his sister.
She patted his head reassuringly. "You don't have to do anything, Sam. You can watch 'Frogs of the Amazon.' Me, I have to heat up his bottle, change his diaper, feed him—if he wants to eat, which he doesn't, always—rock him, pat his back, talk stupid baby talk for a while, and then, if he doesn't stop crying—though he might, if we're lucky—I'll have to implement my Never-Fail Baby-Soothing plan, which is a big pain in the neck, but it always works."
"Can I watch? I mean, may I?" Sam asked.
"Sure," his sister said. "But 'Frogs of the Amazon' is more interesting."
Sam thought that was probably true. But if he was going to capture Alexander's smell, he needed to be right there, on the scene.
He watched Anastasia start the bottle warming in the kitchen. Then he followed her to the baby's room and watched as his sister uncovered Alexander, who was kicking his legs and flailing his arms and screeching.
Sam wrinkled his nose. "Now he smells," he commented.
Anastasia picked the baby up.
"You have to be careful picking him up because he's so little," Anastasia explained. "See how I have to hold his back and head?"
Sam nodded. It was better than the dolls at nursery school. You didn't have to be careful with them. You could pick them up by one leg, or their hair, or even their clothes, if they were wearing clothes. You could drag them across the floor if you wanted. You could throw them if Mrs. Bennett wasn't looking.
He could tell that you wouldn't do that stuff with Alexander.
"Hand me one of those diapers," Anastasia said, gesturing toward the stack of diapers nearby. She laid Alexander on a padded table. Sam handed her a diaper and watched while she lifted the little nightgown and undid the diaper the baby was already wearing.
"YUCK!" Anastasia said loudly. Alexander stopped crying and looked at her.
Sam stood on tiptoe and peered at Alexander's bottom. He sniffed.
"Yuck," Sam said. "He pooped."
"I can't believe Mom loves the smell of babies," Anastasia commented as she cleaned Alexander carefully. She rubbed some lotion on his behind, attached a new diaper, and pulled his nightgown down.
"Did I wear a dress when I was little?" Sam asked suspiciously.
"Yeah, I think so. Sometimes, anyway."
"Gross," said Sam. "Did I poop in my diapers?"
"Yes."
"Gross," he said again.
Anastasia collected the warm bottle, settled herself in the rocking chair with Alexander, and fed him a little of the warm milk. He sucked for a moment, then s
pit the nipple out, burped loudly, spit up, and began to cry again.
"Did I—"
"Yes," Anastasia said.
"Gross," Sam muttered.
Anastasia propped Alexander against her shoulder and patted his back. He drooled on her sweater, grabbed her hair and tugged with one fist, and howled.
Anastasia rocked, patted, tried again to feed him some milk, and said a few baby-talk things, but Alexander paid no attention. He howled on. Sam watched. He listened. He sniffed now and then.
Finally Anastasia stood up. "Okay," she said. "Time for the Never-Fail Baby-Soothing procedure."
Sam followed her, noticing with surprise that she was going to the kitchen with Alexander in her arms. Through the kitchen. Into the laundry room.
Sam watched as his sister turned the dial on the dryer. He was very, very nervous. Sam had heard a terrible story once about someone whose cat got into the dryer.
"Anastasia," Sam asked loudly, "you're not going to dry him, are you?"
Anastasia chuckled. "Nope," she said. "Watch. Mrs. Parish taught me this." She turned the dryer on. Then she folded a baby blanket and laid it on top of the dryer. Finally she removed the howling Alexander from her shoulder and placed him, tummy down, on the blanket. He began to vibrate a little.
Within seconds his mouth closed. He put his bobbing head down. His eyes closed. His fists relaxed. The dryer hummed.
Alexander slept.
While Anastasia sat on a kitchen step-stool beside the dryer, watching Alexander vibrate and sleep, Sam trotted around the house collecting smells. He took a scrunched-up poop-smelling tissue from the wastebasket by the changing table in the baby's room. He picked up a scrunched-up spitup-smelling tissue from the floor beside the rocking chair.
He put both tissues into his Ziploc bag and closed it tightly.
When he got back home, he opened the Lab and looked the other way while he deposited the two tissues into the grape juice bottle.