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gave him their team hats. He always said thank you politely, and sometimes he posed for
a quick photograph, wearing the hat, but then he brought it home, to his house just down the street from the Krupniks' house, and he threw the hat into a closet.

    Anastasia said that the closet was
filled
with hats. It was like a hat store, except it was messy and didn't have a cash register.
    Her friend who was not her boyfriend, Steve, had set aside the hats that said things like PISTONS and REDSKINS and SUNS . He picked out just the hats with animal names on them, and given them, every single one, a whole trash bag full, to Zooman Sam.
    Sam felt so lucky.

    Finally he found the hat that he wanted, the one that said tigers. It had a picture of a small orange-and-black-striped tiger head, growling, so it was easy to identify. He removed his Cubs hat, placed it in the bag, fitted the Tigers hat on his head, and went again to the front of the circle. He noticed that Mrs. Bennett was starting to arrange scissors and paper on the worktables.
    "Mrs. Bennett," he said politely, "I don't think we'll have time for Handwork this morning."
    She smiled, and set some blue plastic scissors beside a sheet of orange construction paper. "We're going to be cutting out pumpkins today," she said. "Because a special holiday is coming. Who knows what holiday?"

    "
Halloween!
" all of the children called.
    "
Mrs. Bennett,
" Sam said in a louder, but still polite, voice. "I still have a
lot
of Future Job show-and-tell to do."
    She put a pair of red plastic scissors and a sheet of orange paper at the next place on the table. She looked at Sam. "I see you've changed your hat," she said.
    "Yes. Now I have—" Sam stopped. He remembered that he was supposed to be teaching the children about a zookeeper's job. He turned to the circle and used his teacher's voice again. "Class," Sam said, "you can see that now I have changed to my Tigers hat. A zookeeper has to take care of tigers, too."
    Several of the firemen made their hands into claws and began to growl and roar. Becky, still in Big Ben's lap, began to whimper, when Tucker threatened her with a claw-hand.
    "Correct," Sam said loudly, over the noise. "Tigers can be very dangerous. Zookeepers have special training. They get to carry guns."
    "Where?" Peter called. "Where's your gun?"

    "Lemme see your gun, Sam!" yelled Adam.

    Mrs. Bennett glanced over. She was putting yellow scissors on a piece of orange paper. "No guns," she said sternly. "Remember the rule? No guns in school, not even toy ones."
    "I didn't bring my gun," Sam explained. "But usually I carry it in a holster on my coverall."
    "
Cool,
" Adam said.
    "Yeah.
Way cool
" Peter agreed.
    Sam was aware that now all of the children were listening with interest. He liked the feeling of being the most important one in the room. It was almost the feeling that he dreamed of: the Chief of Wonderfulness feeling. But he noticed that Mrs. Bennett had finished distributing the scissors and papers and was waiting. In a minute, Sam knew, pumpkins would be more interesting than zoomen.
    "I have to train the tigers not to attack," Sam announced. "I use a whip."
    All of the children stared. "A
whip,
" he heard them murmur.
    Mrs. Bennett came to the circle and stood beside Sam. She put her arm around him. Usually Sam liked it when Mrs. Bennett put her arm around him because it made him feel very special. But this morning he wished she wouldn't,
because he knew it meant that she was going to start talking about pumpkins.

    Sure enough. "Class," Mrs. Bennett said, "we're already running a little late, and some people haven't had a turn. So we'll go to our tables now and work with scissors to make our Halloween decorations—all these big orange pumpkins—and then at snacktime, we'll talk about the other Future Jobs. I know Doctor Leah wants to give out her pills at snacktime, don't you, Leah?"
    Leah nodded happily, and shook the box that contained M&M's so that it