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SAM JAM
7
Chapter One
It was a warm, breezy morning in late summer. Soft,
salty winds blew in from the sea.
In the grounds of a small but noisy school, May Moon
picked up a brass handbell and shook it. Its metallic
ding-ding-ding
sound carried across the playground.
“The office is open,” she called out. “Clients should
queue up in an orderly line to receive free advice.”
Several children turned to look in her direction.
But to her surprise, they instantly returned to their
conversations. No one smiled. No one spoke to her. No
one approached.
She swung the bell more energetically and called
out again. “The pocket money advice bureau is open.
First come, first served.”
This time, nobody even turned to look. It was as if
she had become invisible.
Grrr! The space between May Moon’s eyebrows
wrinkled up into a little grid. But then she realized
that it would be smarter to be puzzled than cross. The
free financial advice service she ran was normally very
popular. That was because she gave advice that really
worked. She knew from experience that talking through
a problem took you halfway to fixing it, and learning not
to worry about it took you a lot of the rest of the way.
But she wouldn’t be solving problems today. For the
first time since she started two weeks ago, there were
no clients.
Maybe all the kids at school have solved their pocket money
problems,
she thought. Bother!
If this was true, it was good news for the children,