Sam Saves the Night Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by Shari Simpson

  Designed by Whitney Manger-Fine

  Cover illustration © by Geraldine Rodriguez

  Cover design by Tyler Nevins

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.

  ISBN 978-1-368-04400-4

  Visit www.DisneyBooks.com

  For Mama Rose, who’s waited a long time for a proper dedication.

  You are my heart and my soul and my love.

  It is the brain where lies the cause of insomnia

  and sleepwalking, of thoughts that will not come,

  forgotten duties, eccentricities.

  Hippocrates, On the Sacred Disease, 400 BCE

  Being a sleepwalker sucks.

  Sam, 2019

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  “HEY, FREAK! WAKE UP!”

  It’s not unusual for an older brother to be a bit nasty to a little sister. But in this particular case, the rude wake-up call was due to the fact that the little sister was holding a chain saw. Which was running. And she was standing on the deck of a half-built tree house. In a forty-foot-tall northern red oak. In the middle of the night. In a strange neighborhood. All of which was unusual.

  Through sleep-fogged eyes, Sam could see her mother shouting something, too, but Margie wasn’t as loud or as ticked off as Jax. It probably would help if the saw was turned off, but Sam wasn’t completely coherent yet, and besides, she had one bare foot on the deck and one slippered foot precariously poised on a tree limb and the only thing that seemed to be keeping her balanced and upright was the blade whizzing through a two-by-four. In the remaining 3.6 seconds she had before the board split and she plunged twenty feet to the ground—decapitating herself and probably her mother, brother, and the family pug, Weezy, to boot—Sam assessed her situation and came up with:

  Jump.

  Which she did. Backward. Dragging the chain saw cord. Hoping she had sleep-built enough tree house to catch her.

  As Sam landed flat on her back on a remarkably well-constructed deck if she did say so herself, she heard Jax scream like a little girl, Weezy belch thunderously, which he always did when he was held too tightly, and the sound of the chain saw bouncing against, and taking angry bites out of, what she only could assume was the trunk of the red oak. Which is the state tree of New Jersey, her brain informed her needlessly.

  And then… silence.

  Gasping for breath, Sam looked down to see a pajama-ed and bewildered-looking man holding a detached extension cord. Jax, her mother, and Weezy lay sprawled on the ground, panting, heads still attached. Then a little boy, hair so blond he lit up the yard like a miniature walking moon, slammed through the screen door, looked up at the tree house, and yelped:

  “Awesome!”

  Sam slumped in the backseat of her mother’s decrepit Toyota as Margie talked to the police and the pajama-ed man (Moon Boy had been sent back to bed). She could only hear snippets over Weezy’s car-shaking snores, but she knew exactly what her mother was saying. After ten years of Sam’s sleepwalking, Margie could recite it like a memorized monologue.

  “I’m so sorry, so sorry, Samantha’s been a sleepwalker all her life, it’s hereditary, you know, her father was a sleepwalker, too, he’s passed now, so it’s just me and I’ve tried everything, everything, but nothing seems to help, we find her in the craziest places, doing the craziest things, you just wouldn’t believe it, you won’t press charges, will you, I’m a single mother and she’s not a criminal, just a sick little girl, sick, I tell you—”

  Margie was now tugging maniacally at the hair over her right ear, and Sam burrowed closer to Weezy, both to ward off the chilly autumn night air and to drown out her mother’s voice by way of a flat-faced dog’s breathing problems. She could see Jax pacing outside the car, slowing occasionally to give her a foul look. Sam knew Jax didn’t care that she was a sick little girl whom Margie had tried everything to help; all Jax cared about was that Margie had a bald spot on the right side of her head due to anxiety and that the medical term for that anxiety was “trichotillomania” and that every time Sam ended up somewhere dangerous on her nighttime wanderings, Margie became more of a “trichotillomaniac” (not a real word; a Jax accusation word).

  All Jax cared about was that their dad, Don Fife, had sleep-wandered off a bridge ten years ago and every time Margie thought she was going to lose her daughter in some similarly über-violent way, her bald spot widened.

  All Jax cared about was that he was closely related to a loser. He never used that actual word because it was forbidden in their home (or “homes,” really, since they had moved six times in the last ten years), but Sam saw it in every one of Jax’s side-eye stink eyes.

  Sam gently tucked Weezy’s lolling tongue back in his mouth; he looked mildly perturbed, as if he had purposely left it out to dry in some sort of pug master plan. Margie was now highlighting some of the crazy things Sam had done while sleepwalking:

  Sleep-baked brownies

  Sleep-crocheted

  Sleep-mowed the lawn

  Sleep-sorted recyclables in a bin outside the Short Hills mall

  Sleep-stole a wheelchair from a rich octogenarian in an upscale retirement village

  Sleep-vinyl-sided a neighbor’s house

  Sleep-directed traffic on Dodie Drive in Parsippany

  And now add to the list sleep-built a tree house. Well, sleep-half-built, anyway. Sam absently pulled a splinter from her finger, sending up a silent prayer that Moon Boy’s dad had some construction skills. Otherwise, Margie and Jax and Weezy would be out here again tomorrow night, trying to wake Sam up as she sleep-roofed.

  Jax opened the car door and flopped his lanky body down on the passenger seat. “Got you out of another one. She shoulda been a lawyer.”

  For the millionth time, she said it. “Sorry.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He didn’t forgive her, and Sam couldn’t blame him. Jax was sixteen, athletic, super smart, and a hottie-biscotti (not her phrase, obviously, because ew, her brother, but one she’d overheard whispered about him in a bakery). He should have been the most popular kid in his school. Instead Jax Fife was a dreamboat sinking fast, helplessly anchored to a freak sister, semi-bald mother, and drowned dad.

  It was way past mattering that it wasn’t her fault. Once upon a time, Jax had been her champion, defending her to anyone who would listen, “It’s not her fault. Somnambulism is due to an immaturity in a person’s central nervous system.” Adorable coming out of the mouth of an eight-year-old boy defending the five-year-old sister who had somehow broken into her preschool in the dead of night and was found sleep-sterilizing baby bottles.


  Less adorable when the preteen brother is trying to explain why his nine-year-old sister snuck into her elementary school gym at midnight to sleep-inflate droopy basketballs.

  Totally unadorable when the high school sophomore’s girlfriend dumps him because his preteen sister crept into her house through the doggy door and was discovered sleep-sequining the words “Is Evil” after the name “Tiffany” on said girlfriend’s cheerleader uniform.

  After the bedazzling debacle, it no longer mattered to Jax that Sam’s central nervous system was immature. All that mattered was, When the heck are you going to grow out of this? Most sleepwalkers did, usually by the age when bedwetting stopped, and nearly always by puberty. But here she was, thirteen years old, and still sleep-wrecking their lives.

  “ ’Scuse me? Samantha?”

  It was one of the policemen, and he had an expression on his face that Sam recognized. It was the “I can fix this” look that she’d seen on the faces of various pediatricians, psychiatrists, psychologists, principals, parents, police, palm readers, and even one phrenologist who swore that fingering the bumps on her skull would unlock the mysteries of her sleeping mind. All that experiment did was unlock the mystery of who started the lice epidemic at her last school, adding to Sam’s reputation of highly contagious freakdom.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I’m Officer Stanhope and I was just over there bending your mom’s ear about how my nephew used to walk in his sleep, too. Now, it wasn’t as, uh, extreme as your situation—he was three years old and all he did was urinate every night in the laundry room—but my sister and her husband tried a bunch of things that maybe you and your family haven’t thought of yet.”

  Jax snort-laugh-eyerolled. Officer Stanhope chuckled warmly and continued, “I know, I know, most of what I suggested to your mom you’ve tried already, but she didn’t have much to say about this one, so I thought I’d run it past you. Have you tried putting a bell on your door to wake you up if you sleepwalk?”

  Jax snort-laugh-eyeroll-blew a raspberry. Sam felt a little badly for Officer Stanhope. Poor misguided dude. She answered as gently as possible. “Yes, sir. Tried that.”

  “And?”

  “I, uh… melted it.”

  “You melted it?”

  Jax didn’t even turn around. “She sleep-escaped out the window, sleep-biked into town, broke into a welding shop, stole a blowtorch, and melted the clapper to the inside of the bell.”

  Officer Stanhope opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

  “And then she welded the bell into a menorah and we found her in a synagogue two towns over, sleep-decorating for Hanukkah.”

  A mosquito flew into Officer Stanhope’s gaping maw. He swallowed it meekly and scooted away, cutting a wide berth around Margie and disappearing into the squad car. Jax muttered under his breath, “Officer Stanhopeless.”

  “He was just trying to help.”

  “No one can help us.”

  For the million-and-oneth time, she said it: “Sorry.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Margie slid into the driver’s seat. The lights of the retreating police cars reflected off her bald patch for a moment before she turned to Sam with a tremulous smile. “Um, sweetie? I don’t suppose you know if I owe anyone for lumber, do you?”

  Sam buried her face in Weezy’s neck, overwhelmed with the financial burden of her nighttime persona; she was already overdrawn on her allowance until the year 2024. And for what? The most random collection of bills, fines, bail, stolen merchandise reimbursements, and ER visits not covered by insurance that one girl had ever tallied in the history of sleepwalking. To Sam, that was the most frustrating part; there seemed to be no rhyme or reason or design to her midnight adventures. Jeez, even Lady Macbeth wanted to out her damn’d spot for a reason. But what was the pattern in Sam’s sleep-wanderings? Seemingly, there was none—just a long list of crazy.

  Margie gritted her teeth, yanked a fistful of hair out of her head, and made a declaration. “Okay, that’s it. That’s it. We’re going to do it.”

  “What? Put her into foster care?” Jax offered hopefully.

  “We’re going to take you for a sleep study, Samantha.”

  Sam’s heart and Jax’s body sagged. “Back to the quacks with the electrodes? What was the diagnosis last time, sis?”

  She mumbled into Weezy’s fur. “That I’m a noctambulist.”

  “Right. That she’s a noctambulist. A sleepwalker. What a shocker, huh? Mind. Blown.”

  Margie tucked the handful of hair into her purse. “Well, this guy is supposed to be, um, different. It’s why… why we moved here.”

  Now this was news. All their other moves were defensive, moving away from places where they owed money or Sam’s picture had been in the newspaper. But an offensive relocation? That was bold. Sam felt a little flutter in her chest; maybe this time would be—

  “Different? How exactly?” There was not a trace of expectation in Jax’s voice.

  Margie gulped. “Um, well, you could say that Dr. Fletcher is considered to be a bit of a rebel. He was, um, asked to leave the AASM for—”

  Sam gasped. “He got kicked out of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine?!” Yes, she did know every parasomnia acronym.

  “Not kicked out! They just had a difference of opinion over his, um, methods.”

  Jax looked glum. “Great. We’re goin’ rogue.”

  “But supposedly he’s had a lot of success with, um, extremely challenging cases.” Margie attempted a little laugh, which sounded more like she was trying to dislodge a particularly stubborn hairball. “And that’s certainly us, isn’t it?”

  Sam closed her eyes, imagining for a moment what it would feel like to no longer be an extremely challenging case. Then she stuck a mental pin in her hope balloon. No matter how tiring it was being a sleepwalker, hope was way more exhausting.

  THE ALARM CLOCK MODE WAS set to “Gentle Bird Chirps,” but the sound still nearly sliced her skull in two. How the heck could it be morning already? Sam groaned, tried to move, but felt like someone had filled her body with kitty litter. Her back ached from the jump/fall on the tree house deck and her inner thighs were in knots, making her wonder just how long she had been poised in Russian splits over the chain saw last night. Weezy’s snores only served to mock her pain further. It was one of the great ironies of Sam’s life, having a pet that slept like a rock approximately twenty-three hours out of every twenty-four-hour day.

  There was no way she could summon the energy to pick out clothes for school. Knowing full well that it was social suicide, she grabbed the jeans and T-shirt that lay discarded on the floor from… two days ago? Yesterday? Didn’t matter. Jaida would remember.

  Sam’s evil-super-archnemesis-enemy, Jaida Coakley, and her band of middle school minions had been tormenting Sam since her first day at Wallace Junior High—and for much more minor sins than wearing the same clothes two days in a row. But today’s fashesty (fashion travesty) would still give Jaida all the ammunition a bully could dream of.

  You’re welcome in advance, O Evil One, Sam thought wearily as she pulled the T-shirt over her throbbing head. The great irony was that Jaida was not all that fashile (fashion facile) herself; her outfits fairly screamed color-blind!, her pants were frequently too short, and she wore an ancient sequined fanny pack with everything. But in some sort of “Emperor’s New Clothes”–ish conspiracy, Jaida’s entourage never seemed to notice, instead reserving all their mockery for Sam’s missteps.

  At the breakfast table, Margie was wearing a baseball cap sideways over her bald patch, looking like a sad suburban hip-hop wannabe. But her smile was bright and, for once, unforced. “Guess what, hon? I called Dr. Fletcher’s office to leave a message and would you believe, he answered?! At seven o’clock in the morning!”

  A disembodied voice came from the hallway. “Big deal. He’s a sleep doctor, isn’t he?” Jax slouched in, rubbing his eyes. “He better be at the office all night, or he’ll lose his
license. Oh, wait. He already did.”

  Margie ignored this. “And he’s going to see you today after school, and do your in-lab sleep study tonight! Isn’t that incredible?”

  “Tonight?” Sam said uneasily. “Why so fast?”

  “Probably because you’re his only patient.” Jax reached into the fruit bowl on the counter and came up with a banana so gruesomely overripe it was fit for neither man nor beast nor bread. He tossed it back. “The rest are wandering the highways at night, moaning, electrodes dangling from their flesh.”

  Margie tried to flash him a stern look, which was deflected by the bill of her sideways cap. “No. Because it’s good timing, being a Friday and all. And of course, because I told him how serious our situation is. He seems very nice, Samantha, and very interested in your case.”

  Yeah, the Case of the Head Case, was what Sam thought. What she said, however, was, “Okay. Fine. Whatever. You’re on lunch shift today? So you’ll pick me up after school?” And when Margie’s face fell at Sam’s lack of enthusiasm, she added, “Sorry, Mom. I’m sure he’ll be great!”—because every head case knew two things: how to apologize, and how to fake a gung ho response for the benefit of the non–head cases who suffered alongside them.

  “Miss Fife! Are you in the land of the living?”

  Sam started awake, because no, she hadn’t been, and that just was not going to fly with Mr. Bain, who was old-school pre-algebra and pretty darn sensitive about students falling asleep on him. She shook her head to clear the midday-nap cobwebs and that’s when she felt it.

  There was something stuck to her face.

  To be honest, it wasn’t all that unusual for Sam to wake up in class with homework, tests, or even pencils glued to her cheek by means of crusted drool, but this felt different. And judging from the look of angry surprise Bain was wearing and the giggles permeating the room, loudest from Jaida’s corner, it was not going to be a pleasant discovery.

  Sam put her hand to her face and felt something small and stiff bridging her nose. The volume of the giggles increased in direct proportion to the decrease of her spirit.