Benjamin is seven years old. He lives with two sisters and has a nice family. He loves Lego sets, and he wants to have all the Lego sets in the world!
“Sam got another fail on his English work. He started to get furious. He really, really, really now wanted to get A+’s on his English and art classes, but then the teacher said, ‘Next test is going to get really, really hard.'”
Chapter 1
Sam got another fail on his English work. He started to get furious. He really, really, really now wanted to get A+’s on his English and art classes, but then the teacher said, “Next test is going to get really, really hard.”
Sam went home and showed his family his grade. His older sister, Angelica, offered to help Sam with art. She helped him draw some pictures and helped him mix colors and hold the paintbrush correctly. Then, his little brother, Matthew, helped Sam with his reading and writing; together, they put together sentences until Sam felt ready to take the next test. He got an A. It wasn’t an A+, but it was better than an F-! Sam was a little upset and also kind of nervous about passing class and getting into a good college.
Then, Sam was doing sports, but when he was in gym class, he threw the football and got tackled by a big senior football player. His wrist and ankle were hurt really badly. The next day for his art project, Sam had to paint a perfect landscape. But the problem was he couldn’t hold the brush the way Angelica showed him too. His wrist hurt so much that his hand slipped and he accidentally drew a funny line in the wrong spot. When the teacher asked him what it was, he told her that it was an airplane. Sam turned in his painting and he was surprised when he got it back. He got an A+!
Chapter 2
When he told his family, they were so excited for him, but also confused. Angelica asked him why he had painted a big green line on his landscape.
“Well I was drawing and my wrist was twisted so I accidentally messed up the paints. So I told the teacher it was a plane,” said Sam. Angelica was confused, since there weren’t any green planes, but she was happy for Sam anyway.
So then Sam said, “What do you think the next test is going to be?”
When he found out, he wasn’t happy. It was the highest level of writing. He had to write the hardest words into 18 sentences in 30 seconds. “What?! I can’t do that, my wrist is twisted!”
Sam took the test and was super nervous, but he thought about all of the hard work he’d put in and remembered how scary it was when his family was sick, and so he said to himself, No, I’m not giving up! I can do it!
Sam tried really hard and, surprisingly, he got an A+! He was so happy he told his family and they were all super excited for him.
“How did you do it?” his younger sister asked.
“A lot of practice and help from your family pays off,” Sam said.
Chapter 3
The next day, it was Sam’s worst day. His first thing was sports and he had to play tennis. He tried to swing his racket with his hurt wrist, but he did it wrong and it broke! Then, when Sam had his test, he had to write for two hours without stopping.
“Oh no!” Sam said, but the teacher said, “No help!”
Sam got an F. He felt really sad and worried. What if he didn’t pass the class?! He really wanted to get into a good college.
Then Sam had math and he said, “Phew! Finally something I’m good at!”
But he was wrong. The math was super hard:
(85,000 – 12 + 6) / 12 = 7,082.833
“You have to show your thinking!” the teacher said. Then Sam told the teacher his wrist was broken. The teacher said, “Alexandra! Come! We need your expertise.” Alexandra came over and helped Sam write. Sam told her what he wanted to write with his fingers and she wrote it all down on the paper.
Sam didn’t know it, but Alexandra messed up one of his answers. Sam got a B+ and he blamed Alexandra. Sam was so upset at Alexandra.
He went to the teacher and said, “Alexandra messed up my answers on purpose!” The teacher asked Alexandra if this was true.
Alexandra said, “No!”
“You’re lying,” the teacher said. “Apologize to Sam.” The teacher knew that Sam would never mess up answers on a math test. “Sam gets an A,” the teacher said. “And Alexandra gets… an F!”
“Woohoo!” Sam said.
When Sam went home he told his parents and they were so excited for him. They asked him a math problem:
(999,999,999 + 12 – 82)/ (600 + 80 – 2)/ 3 = 491, 642.05
“Wow! You’re really good at math!” his parents said. The parents couldn’t even put into words how good he was. “You’re even smarter than a computer! We had to look the answer to that question up.”
Sam felt satisfied. He for sure knew that he’d pass and get into a good college — at least he hoped he would.
Chapter 4
The next day, when Sam had his third to last test, Sam was nervous but also a little excited.
He asked his mom, “Do you think I’ll do well on my test?”
“I think you’ll do great.”
Sam wanted to make friends with everyone in his class. He went up to a girl he didn’t know and asked, “Do you want to be friends with me?” Sam asked. Surprisingly, the girl, Annabell, said yes! Within two minutes, they were friends. Sam felt really happy, but not happy enough. He still had 29 more people to make friends with. He didn’t want to get excited too soon.
He walked over to someone else when suddenly someone else asked if he wanted to be friends.
Sam said, “Of course!” His new friend’s name was Max. Wow that was easy. It only took one minute!
The same thing happened with everyone else in the class. The last one took six minutes, but now Sam was friends with everyone in the class. He knew everyone’s names and could call out, “Corey, come here!” or “Max, I need help!” or “Annabell, I need help!”
The next day, when he needed help, some of Sam’s new friends didn’t want to help him, but he was happy that twenty of the other ones did. They took their last test, and the teacher said Sam passed! And all of his friends passed! They were so excited they could all burst into flames!
Chapter 5
On Sam’s summer break, he was excited. He wanted to relax, and he was happy there were no more tests for now. He swam at the pool, talked to all of the friends that he’d made, watched movies, and had a lot of fun. However, he was so busy relaxing that he forgot everything his brother and sister had taught him about art and english. Sam asked his brother and sister if they would help teach him again. They said they would, as long as he promised not to forget again. After studying, Sam was ready to go to college.
When Sam got to college, he met his roommate for the first time. His roommate was named Jamie.
“Hey, what do you like?” Sam asked.
“I like sports,” Jamie said. “Football is my favorite.”
“Really? Me too!” said Sam. “What are you good at?”
“Art and English,” Jamie said.
“What are you bad at?” Sam asked.
“Math and science,” Jamie said.
Sam said, “Oh, it’s the opposite for me. Maybe we can help each other?”
“Sure!” Jamie said. “I’ve got a pretty hard math problem here.”
The problem was impossible, but eventually Sam figured it out. Three years in college have passed.
Chapter 6
The next day, Sam had a good feeling about it because he was already just four weeks away from being one with college. He was so excited he told his roommate Jamie, but Jamie was still asleep. Sam went back to sleep and woke up later to go eat breakfast. When they got back to their room, they were relaxing and working on their tests. Then they turned their “Everything You Know” tests in and got A+’s. Sam and Jamie both got really excited to tell their parents, but then they remembered their mom and dad weren’t there and got sad. They never thought they would get so many A’s and A+’s.
Next was sports, and Sam broke his arm. He had to wear it in a cast. When he took his next test Jamie had to write it for him. But the teacher realized that it was Jamie’s handwriting and not Sam’s and gave him an F. Sam told her that his arm was broken, but she said that there was still no help allowed. Sam was sad. He really wanted to graduate and go to a good work.
Sam was so sad he didn’t even realize that two weeks passed and now it was the Fourth of July. He wanted to go see fireworks with Jamie. They went to see fireworks and he had never seen such cool fireworks before. When he got back Sam got a little letter from a teacher that said, “Hope you feel better soon.”
Sam had a test the next day, but he was super tired from staying up too late on the Fourth of July. Usually he slept late, but Sam had so much work to do. Sam really wanted to take a nap, so he asked his roommate if he would do his homework but he said no. At dinner, Sam left dinner.
“Really? You’re falling asleep before dinner? It’s only four o’clock.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. Sam left.
“Okay, I’ll be in the cafeteria.”
The next day was the second to last day of school. He felt so happy. He had to take a test but he didn’t care. He just had to draw his picture of Costa Rica in less than one hour.
When Jamie came back, Sam asked, “How is your day?”
“Fine, but I need your help with this math test,” Jamie said. Sam looked at the problem. It was 10 x 85. Sam looked at the paper and saw that the answer was 850.
“850,” Sam said.
“Thank you!” Jamie said. “How did you solve that?”
“I just know that when you multiply by ten you just add a zero to the end of the bigger number.”
“Oh! I’ll use that next time.”
The next day was the last day of college. Sam was more excited than excited. Sam and Jamie went to the graduation party. When they saw it, Jamie said, “Wow! How could they put together such an amazing party!?”
“I guess college has its little secrets,” Sam said. Then they started partying and lost track of time. Then it was dinner time. They’d skipped lunch so they ate a big dinner. The next day he went to his first day of work at Einstein Lab. Sam was so happy he had his first job! He moved back to the town where his family lived and they never had to worry about medicine or getting sick ever again.
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