Sam's Big Mistake

Sam was not a good boy. He tried to be. He really did. The problem was that, when left to his own devices, Sam only found bad behavior to be entertaining. There was nothing fun about being good. 

         Sam knew that he was not a good boy. Everyone told him so. As soon as he could walk, he knocked over everything he could find that would break. He had broken ceramic lamps, plaster statues, dishes, and toys. When he was bigger, he even broke the leg out from under the kitchen table. He broke the couch jumping in it. 

         Outside, Sam faired no better. He broke the mirror on the car, he broke his bike, he broke Dad’s lawnmower. Nothing was safe from the destruction of Sam. The older Sam got, the more things he broke, damaged or destroyed.  His parents were beside themselves. They didn’t know what to do to make Sam behave.

         One day, Dad was leaving to go to work. Sam was eating breakfast, and twirling his dishes around. Mom was just waiting for them to fall and break. She had already warned Sam several times to stop what he was doing, but he wouldn’t listen.

         When Dad walked out the door, he stopped dead in his tracks. His car was totally destroyed. The paint was scratched all the way up one side and down the other. All four tires were flat. The windshield was busted. This was the last straw. Dad was completely furious. He stormed into the house, removing his belt. He went into the kitchen and called Sam over. Mom and Dad had never spanked Sam – they didn’t believe in physical discipline – so when Sam saw Dad with the belt, he was totally shocked.

         Mom was likewise taken aback. She asked Dad what was going on. When Dad explained, she just looked at her son and shook her head. They were at their wits’ end and didn’t know what else to do with Sam. 

         Sam, however, was completely shocked! He hadn’t done this! For once, Sam was innocent, but his parents didn’t believe him. Neither did his grandmother or his aunt. His uncles and cousins didn’t believe him, either. Sam was totally freaked out. He had no idea what was going to happen.

         Dad thoroughly spanked him, and yet he still swore that he was innocent. Mom grounded him, and he still maintained his innocence. Sam became very sad. He had always enjoyed breaking things, and had not felt the least bit guilty about it until now. Now he could see what his actions had caused. But now it was too late. Everyone just assumed that he was guilty of completely destroying Dad’s car.

         A couple of days later, Sam walked into the kitchen and found his parents sitting at the kitchen table with some pamphlets. They were considering military school! Sam was terrified. He was twelve years old, and had seen enough television to know that he definitely did not want to go to military school.

         Sam began doing everything he could to be good. He took out the garbage. He cleaned his room. He walked the dog. He even mowed the yard and cleaned the garage – and through it all he refrained from breaking anything.

         This did not convince anyone of his innocence. As a matter of fact, his family felt that this only proved his guilt. They believed that he finally felt guilty about something that he had done wrong and was trying to make amends. 

         One evening a couple of weeks later, his parents called him into the kitchen. First, they wanted to know why he had done all of those things to the car. He swore that he didn’t do it. They didn’t believe him. They informed Sam that they had settled on a military school to send him to and that he would be starting in two weeks.

         Sam raced to his room and threw himself on his bed. He was in tears. He couldn’t believe that his parents would send him away. Finally, it dawned on Sam what he had to do. He had two weeks to figure out who had done the damage to Dad’s car and prove his innocence. He had no idea how he was going to do it, but that was his only hope.

         The next day, Sam called his best friend Jimmy and asked him to come over. Even Jimmy didn’t believe that Sam hadn’t destroyed the car. Sam wasn’t even allowed at Jimmy’s house because of all the things that he had broken. Sam convinced Jimmy to help him investigate.

         Sam and Jimmy decided that the first thing they should do was make a list of suspects. That was a hard task, because just about everyone liked Sam’s dad. Naturally, Sam was at the top of the list of suspects. He was okay with that, as long as Jimmy was going to help him investigate.

         They only had two other names on the list. One was a co-worker of Dad’s that had been passed over for a promotion that Dad had gotten. The other was their neighbor. Sam’s parents and the neighbor had had a dispute about a fence. Something about the property line. Sam didn’t really understand it, but he knew that the neighbor didn’t like his parents very much.

         Jimmy said that they could probably rule out the co-worker, because he would probably just try to get Sam’s dad in trouble at work, if anything. That left Mr. Murray, the neighbor, and Sam.

         Jimmy began asking Sam what he would have used to cause the destruction, if he had done it. Sam said he didn’t really know. Jimmy told him to think creatively. Sam said that when he had broken the car mirror, he had used his baseball bat. However, his bat was made of wood, plus he had broken it the week before the car got destroyed. 

         Jimmy was beginning to think that his friend might actually be innocent. Sam was so adamant about his innocence, and so insistent that it had to be someone else. Jimmy had never seen Sam so upset. Usually, Sam was pretty proud of his destructive tendencies. Never before had he so adamantly denied having done something.

         Jimmy and Sam decided that they should sneak into the neighbor’s garage and take a look around. What they found in there convinced Jimmy that Sam was completely innocent. Jimmy pulled out his cell phone and began taking pictures. He took a picture of the crowbar that had paint on it the same color as Sam’s dad’s car. He also took pictures of the sharpened metal stake that could easily have punctured the tires.

         The boys headed back to Sam’s house and found his dad in the back yard. Sam asked Dad if they could all go and find Mom and talk about what had happened to the car. Sam’s dad thought that maybe Sam was ready to confess. They all went into the house, found Mom, and sat at the kitchen table.  

         Sam began the conversation by once again pleading his innocence. He said that this time they had proof. Jimmy showed Sam’s parents the pictures that he had taken. They were shocked! They couldn’t believe that their neighbor would have gone that far or been that angry. Sam’s dad called the police, and upon investigating they determined that it had indeed been the neighbor.

         From that day forward, Sam became a good boy. He stopped destroying everything in his path and found more constructive things to do for fun. Eventually, Jimmy’s mom even let him go back to their house for a visit, and finally a sleepover. She declared to Sam’s parents that he was a brand new person. Sam was happy that people weren’t saying he was bad anymore, and he was determined to stay that way.