Free Sink or Swim by Bob Balaban

mystery. No wonder everybody keeps thinking I did it. If I wasn’t me, I’d think I did it, too. Who else could it be? I can do the crossword puzzle in the Sunday
New York Times
in pen without even thinking. You’d think I could solve a little thing like a mystery.
    It’s getting dark. A full moon is just beginning its ascent, and I can feel the temperature dropping as the wind picks up. I’ve got to get home before nightfall or I’ll be in real trouble.
    I can just make out my house in the distance when that terrifying wailing sound starts again. I pick up speed.
    No need to panic
, I tell myself. It’s just those pesky raccoons again.
Keep moving, Charlie. You’re almost home
.
    I break into a trot. I try not to think about the fact that there is a horrible monster following me and concentrate instead on the sudden increase in the raccoon population due to last winter’s favorable weather conditions.
Faster, Charlie. Faster
.
    All of a sudden the noise stops and everything grows frighteningly quiet. All I can hear is the sound of my own labored breathing as I break into a gallop. I barely manage to avoid tripping over the roots of the giant oak that welcomes me back to my block. Never have I been so happy to see a tree.
    Okay. You’re almost there, Charlie
. Home. I can practically smell the roast beef browning in the oven. In another minute I’ll be sneaking Balthazar roast potatoes under the table and trying to explain to my mother why I got home so late.
    And then I notice the massive, hulking being lurking behind the pine trees directly ahead of me. I come to a dead halt. Too terrified to utter a sound. Too frightened to move.
    It’s so dark that I can’t get a good look at the thing. I can just make out a pair of evil-looking, almond-shaped eyes peering out from behind the tree, glinting at me in the dim light of the rising moon. The thing’s massive jaws hang open, revealing row after row of razor-sharp fangs. Its raspy breath comes in fits and starts. I feel like somebody has just picked me up and dropped me into the middle of my own worst nightmare.

    â€œNoooooo!!!”
The involuntary scream escapes from my lips, and I run for my life.
    The thing follows after me, crashing noisily through piles of leaves and fallen branches. I take a quick look back as it trips over its enormous tail and goes tumbling headfirst into a streetlight. It crashes to the ground like a giant tree, landing in a crumpled, motionless heap. It doesn’t appear to be breathing. Blood oozes from a nasty gash on the side of its scaly green head.
    Is the thing dead or just stunned? I stand frozen in my tracks, gasping for air, not knowing what to do. Finally my curiosity gets the better of me and I make my way cautiously through the misty darkness to get a better look at the fallen creature.
    The light from the lamppost above casts its eerie glow onto the thing’s head. I can tell in one shiver-inducing instant that the motionless being on the ground is a mirror image of myself. Same massive jaws. Same earflaps. Same flippers. The mystery is a mystery no more.
    I am not the only one of my kind
.

8
    ONE GOOD CREATURE DESERVES ANOTHER
    â€œTHAT’S INCREDIBLE!” Sam’s eyes bug out and his purple hair looks like it is standing on end. “Are you sure?”
    â€œOf course I’m sure,” I say indignantly. “Scales, claws, a tail—the whole nine yards. The thing is
exactly
like me, except a million times more ferocious.”
    â€œCharlie, a million times zero is still zero,” Lucille says.
    â€œLet me put it this way, guys: the thing makes Godzilla look like a gerbil. Okay?”
    It’s now almost six p.m. and Sam, Lucille, and I are sitting in my den, pretending to watch
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
for the three millionth time while we hold our emergency meeting of the Junior Scientists of America. Kevin McCarthy is running for his