This is copyrighted material. Ask permission before republishing elsewhere. Sam’s Sea Stars Saga is the third book in a series following Seashell Saga told from the point of view of Kaley, a sixteen-year-old, then Cher’s Seaside Saga, told by her mother. All are stories set in Melbourne Beach, FL and tell the story of the Wentworth family’s fostering and adopting sibling groups adventures. Each chapter begins with a picture of a seven-footed starfish, formally known as a sea star, which represents the seven children in the Wentworth family, an a scripture verse.
Chapter 1
Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name. You are Mine.
When you go through deep waters, I will be with you.
When you go through rivers of difficulty, You will not drown.
Isaiah 43:1 NLT
In the back woods of south Palm Bay, Florida, a boy can learn life from nature, and this barefoot, Huck Finn fellow was well-schooled.
First lesson: every day was both different and yet the same.
Second: God’s creation was perfect, but people, not so much.
Third: my curious mind wanted to know everything all at once.
As a four-year-old, roaming Pop Pop’s five acres, helping Miss Hilda tend her garden, and growing up in paradise, life was almost, but not quite, idyllic.
Mornings were special: waking up to the Sedacka’s crowing rooster, watching God finger-paint sunrises, and smelling Mr. Marcus’s sizzling bacon— who could ask for more? Breakfast with him and Pop Pop on the porch made me happy and ready to face another day.
Between bites of egg and that salty, crispy goodness, they perhaps tired of my questions, but my curiosity was fed on “Why’s.”
Sometimes I got answers. Sometimes I didn’t. Usually, Mr. Marcus was rushed, so I helped him.
I could make his his peanut butter sandwich. I’m an expert. I packed some of Miss Hilda’s cookies while he filled his thermos with steamy black coffee. Everything went into his metal lunch box. Then he grabbed his black bag with all his school stuff.
Each morning, before he left for the day, he gave me a piece of paper with a math problem to solve. “Samuel,” he said, “this one uses every other number: 2,4,6,8,10. These are called even numbers. See if you can learn to a hundred by even numbers. He was a teacher at Melbourne High School and lived for the time I would be his best student. He’d pat me on the back, tell me, “Be good!”
And he left.
Miss Hilda was always busy with babies.
But, Pop Pop had time for me. He told me stories and taught me to love being outdoors.
He told me that long ago he sawed through enough pine trees to clear this land. Then he chose seeds to plant an orchard of fruit trees. He taught me that God made trees to help people, and he used the pine logs to build the barn and the big house where we lived. And now he could sell fruit from the trees he planted: oranges, lemons, kumquats, grapefruit, and peaches. That made sense.
I asked him how he could build a house so tall. Or the barn. “Well, Samuel. I had help. Miss Lottie and I had four sons. Just like you help me, they helped clear the land and build buildings. And the Sedackas down the road helped me too.” I never knew Miss Lottie, but I’ve seen her picture in Pop Pop’s room.
He loved her. He told me she’s in heaven, and we will all see her again, someday.
What I heard was, she left.
I never knew Fredrick. He died in the Korean War. So, he left.
I heard that Edgar liked to be outdoors, like me, and he died too. Pop Pop said a bear killed him out West somewhere. So, he left.
And Mr. Jacobus lives by the ocean with Miss Linda. I think he’s the Mr. Jack who visits here sometimes. So, he left.
And Mr. Marcus lives here with Miss Hilda. But, he leaves every day.
The logs from the forest are still here. That’s how we got the big barn, and the huge “quirky” house. (That word took some curiosity on my part. I found it in my Rhyming Words book. It said “quirky, murky, turkey, and flirty,” all in bright colors with funny pictures and slanty writing.) I had to ask Pop Pop these words. I was four and just learning to read.
In German, they didn’t sound alike at all! Skurril Finster, turkei, exzente. Pop Pop and I talked German sometimes.
So, the house was built from logs from the forest around us. It was a magical place for a little kid: two long stairways—when I was seven, I rode the hand rails from the attic, past the bedroom floor, and all the way down to the living room. Miss Hilda scolded me. She did that a lot, but Mr. Marcus put a pile of cushions on the floor in case I came down too fast to stop. Sometimes, I did, but only when Miss Hilda was busy with the babies. The breeze blew my blond curls back.
The attic’s my favorite hiding place. If I stand on boxes by the windows, I’m almost as tall as the trees! I like measuring me as I grow. On tiptoes, I can see just about all the way to my friend, Jack Sedacka’s farm.
I watch the flickers build their woodpecker nests and hatch babies. The palm tree fronds sway like dancers. And I’m way above my favorite weeping willow. That’s where I read my books. It’s my umbrella in sudden showers, and I love it there. Weeping willow is way taller than the palmettos. Sometimes the wind rustles their big leaves, and the cardinals sing their songs, and that lulls me to sleep on long summer afternoons. I smell the soft earth and Miss Hilda’s honeysuckle on the fence. It must be heaven, I’m thinking.
And the cloud pictures are my favorite things to watch—so much better than real pictures. I can use my imagination. I’m good at that. Outdoors can be anything my mind wants to to be, and I make up stories. Mind are as good as any of Miss Hilda’s picture books.
The second floor in Pop Pop’s house is full of bedrooms, One is Pop Pop’s. His has a fireplace. He said Miss Lottie was always cold, and she loved a crackling fireplace. He and Mr. Marcus built it for her.
The next room is the sewing room. Usually, no one lives there, but sometimes Mr. Marcus puts a cot and dresser there for a kid to use.
Another room has a bed for company. It’s always empty.
My room’s the smallest because I’m the smallest, but I’m getting bigger. Mr. Marcus puts a pencil mark on my closet wall and the date. Since last summer, when he started doing that, I am an inch bigger. I still have to look up though.
From my window I watch the sun rise. But I can’t see sunsets from there. I wish I could when I go to bed. It would make my room pretty colors. It’s white.
Downstairs is where Mr. Marcus and Miss Hilda sleep and the babies and little kids.
Of course, there’s a kitchen, and a room full of books. I love books. Mr. Marcus has a desk with a globe on it. I explore the world. I knew where Africa is. And Mt. Everest. A blue couch faces the windows. I’m not allowed to sit on it, no kids can. But Pop Pop’s cat can. He likes looking at squirrels and dancing flowers. I do too. Sometimes I stand by the window and dream that I can move like squirrels can. Maybe if I had a tail for balance… Guess that would make me look funny.
My little rocking chair that always seems too small, is by the fireplace. Why would I want to sit there? Guess Miss Hilda thinks it looks right, but it doesn’t make sense to me. I never use that chair. I sit on the floor by the bookcase, but I’m much happier outside. That’s the world I love.
A box of toys is in a closet. I have to grow taller to get to those. Maybe that’s the idea. Miss Hilda hates clutter. The toys are mostly for babies anyway. They don’t belong to me.
I hated hearing babies cry. It hurt me deep down inside. Miss Hilda calls me “Big Boy,” when I’m really not.
I usually escape to where I can’t hear Miss Hilda telling me what to do or sshhushing me to be quiet…”Babies are sleeping.” ..”Tiptoe”…”Don’t you dare wake them up!”… or else she was asking me what I was doing every minute.
So, I spend most of my time in the attic, or with Pop Pop in the orchard, or in my treehouse, or in the barn.
I love learning from Pop Pop. He shows me that love makes everything better—every single time, and that nature holds many secrets.
Little boys have big imaginations. That’s what Pop Pop tells me every day. Whatever that iss, Pop Pop says I have it. My days are filled with helping Pop Pop mend fences or prune trees, or by myself. That’s practically always, I chase swans, or climb trees. I almost never wear shoes, pretty much live outside all year long, and love every minute of it.
Except for one thing.
My mathematical, logical brain, (Mr. Marcus says I had that, too) gets confused some times. I’m little, maybe four or five, and I can’t figure out how I belong here.
I watch what happens at our house. Everyone, it seems to me, leaves.
A strange lady comes pretty often. She’s a social worker. I don’t know how I’m supposed to know that. But lots of what Miss Hilda says makes no sense to me. This Miss Casey is dressed all in black, like the witches in my Disney books. Her hair is pulled back in a tight little ball. She wears black gloves, and black shoes that click on the wood floors, and she carries black plastic bags. She never smiles. And she drives a black car with writing on the side: DCF. Services. Creepy.
Sometimes in the middle of the night, she brings babies to Miss Hilda. I hear talking downstairs, and babies crying. Some babies stay for just the rest of the night. Then, Miss Casey takes them away the next day. Some are here for weeks or months, but they all leave with black plastic bags. Into the black van they go. She drives away.
If kids are old enough to talk, they call the big people Miss Hilda and Mr. Marcus. And Pop Pop. So, I do too, if I call them anything at all.
Miss Casey tells me, if I’m in the room (sometimes I hide or run outside), “These are your foster brothers or sisters.” Whichever.
On day, I remember it… I make up my mind. ..If I don’t follow all the rules or maybe if the big people get tired of me, they’ll pack up my stuff in a black plastic bag, and Miss Casey will take me away too. In that big black DCF Services car, too. I am afraid. I think about it a lot. Where do those babies go? For that matter, where do they come from? I have so many questions in my imagination that Pop Pop says I have and in my logical, mathematical mind (those are some big words for a four-year-old) Mr. Marcus says I have. My biggest question is, when will I have to leave my little room, and my weeping willow place, and the birds, and my climbing tree, and my time with Pop Pop?
Just in case, I keep my treasures in the bottom drawer of my dresser so I can find them fast. I have bird feathers—from the peacock, from a blue jay, from the woodpecker, and two special other ones no one knows about but me. I have two pinecones, and some lichen and Spanish moss, and an air fern. I saved a tooth and two claws when Mr. Marcus shot an alligator by the lake he and Pop Pop built.
Starting from nothing gives a boy a lot of room to grow.
About the Author
