Free Creature from the 7th Grade : Boy or Beast (9781101591833) by Andy (ILT) Bob; Rash Balaban

I’m afraid I’ve lost my place.” He tugs at his mustache with his free hand and begins again. “I’d just like to say a heartfelt thank-you to everyone who donated so generously to last week’s winter coat drive.”
    Dr. Craverly hates speaking in public even more than I do. When he addresses large groups of people he gets so nervous he loses his place and starts pulling out his mustache hairs one at a time. He uses tweezers when it gets really bad. He puts the little hairs in a matchbox that he keeps in his desk drawer along with his car keys and a small bottle of something called Xanax, which Lucille says is for “anxiety disorder.” Guess what? It’s not working.
    Lucille and I discovered his “hair in a box” collection last week in his office when we were rummaging around in his desk drawer for rubber bands for our perpetual motion machine. We almost barfed when we opened it. What’s he planning to do with all that mustache hair, anyway? Make it into facial wigs for people who don’t have enough time to grow their own mustaches? My father says that having Dr. Craverly be the school psychologist is like letting the inmates run the asylum.
    â€œA number of you kids have expressed your apprehensions about Charlie Drinkwater to me,” he says, peering down at his notes. “I applaud your candor. I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t share some of those very same concerns with you myself. Believe me, standing on a stage next to a mutant dinosaur is not my idea of a day at the beach.” Dr. Craverly glances over at me. I wave my tail at him. He loses his place again. “But . . . but . . . but . . .”
    At last he finds it. “But I can assure you the probability of Charlie Drinkwater going berserk and knocking us unconscious with one blow of his mighty tail and dragging us off to his lair in his powerful talons is slight. Although not entirely out of the question.” He mops his glistening forehead with the handkerchief he keeps in his coat pocket. He looks at me again. If you listen closely you can hear his knees knocking together.
    He continues reading. “As our thirty-second president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, said so beautifully over seventy years ago, ‘we have nothing to fear but . . .’” Dr. Craverly turns his notes upside down. He squints. He rubs his forehead. “I can’t seem to read my handwriting . . . ‘We have nothing to fear but . . . but . . . but . . .’”
    As I listen to Dr. Craverly speak, here’s what I think:
I couldn’t do any worse than he’s doing.
And I feel strangely reassured.
    Just as Dr. Craverly reaches into his pocket for his tweezers and starts to pluck out his few remaining mustache hairs, Principal Muchnick strides over to center stage, pushes him to one side, and takes the microphone into his own hands.
    â€œâ€˜We have nothing to fear but fear itself,’” Principal Muchnick says. “My sentiments precisely, Dr. Craverly. Now listen up, everybody. There have been a lot of rumors and innuendo flying around this place in the last twenty-four hours. Don’t believe everything you hear. He may be big and green and scary looking, but Charlie Drinkwater is not dangerous. You can take it from me. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
    A buzz of excited whispering runs through the crowd like an electric current. Principal Muchnick waits for the noise to die down. “He didn’t try to bite Alice Pincus yesterday morning in the hallway during second-period English, either. And any stories you may have heard about his vicious attack on Mrs. Adams are just that. Stories.” More whispering.
    I am so happy to hear Principal Muchnick tell everyone the truth about me that I would be smiling a great big smile if I had lips.
    â€œI’ll tell you what, kids. Charlie’s