Creature from the 7th Grade : Boy or Beast (9781101591833) Read online

  “What . . . who . . . how . . .” she stammers, shaking her head in disbelief.

  While I try to think of something reassuring to say, the tickling in my nostrils becomes unbearable and I can control myself no longer.

  Achooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!! The force of my sneeze blows Rachel Klempner backward across the hall. She nearly crashes into a wide-eyed Alice Pincus, who is returning from her trip to the bathroom.

  “It’s me. Charlie Drinkwater,” I explain meekly. “I transformed.”

  “You are the scariest thing I ever saw in my whole life,” Alice squeals. “I love it. I’m telling everybody.” And then she races back to Mrs. Adams’s English class.

  Before I have a chance to catch my breath, a bunch of excited seventh-graders are texting and pointing their camera phones at me. “What’s it like to have flippers?” Norm Swerling asks. Amy Armstrong wonders if it’s okay to touch my tail. Rachel Klempner asks me if I bite. I am so mortified I shut my eyes and pretend that I’m invisible.

  You know that dream where all of a sudden you’re walking around school in your underwear and everybody in your entire grade is staring at you? Well, this is exactly like that dream, only about THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION TIMES WORSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Plus it’s really happening.

  Sam and Lucille hear all the commotion and come racing back just in time to see Principal Muchnick emerge from his office, clapping his hands together loudly. He’s dressed in his usual three-button suit. His oily black hair is slicked back neatly. His pine-scented aftershave enters the hallway before he does. He’s fat enough to make a believable Santa Claus every year at the middle-school holiday assembly. But not a very jolly one. Everyone hurries back into the classroom when they see the principal. Except me.

  “Come with me this instant, young . . . um . . . whatever you are,” he says, and a minute later I’m standing in his office, trying to explain that the enormous webbed and scaly green creature with the long, floppy tail pacing nervously in front of his desk really is Charlie Drinkwater.

  “It’s me, Principal Muchnick,” I plead. “My brother, Dave, got early acceptance to Michigan State. My parents’ names are Fred and Doris. I’m a founding member of the local chapter of Junior Scientists of America. I was born on August sixteenth. I live at four forty-two Lonesome Lane. Look. It’s all here in black and white,” I say as I hand him my student ID.

  “Ever hear of a little thing called identity theft?” Principal Muchnick says, eyeing me suspiciously. “How do I know you’re not a dangerous monster pretending to be Charlie Drinkwater?”

  “If I were a dangerous monster, wouldn’t I be out on a rampage, killing innocent people and knocking over buildings or something?” I protest.

  “Maybe . . .” Principal Muchnick refolds his pocket handkerchief into a perfect triangle.

  “If I were a dangerous monster, why would I be standing in front of your desk, carrying a book bag, holding a number-two pencil in my claw, and trying to convince you that I am an unpopular seventh-grader in Stevenson Middle School, grades five through eight?” I continue. “What would be the point of that?”

  “Heaven help me, I believe you.” Principal Muchnick sighs. He hands back my ID. “Leave it to you to pull a stunt like this.” Principal Muchnick has had it in for me since the time I complained to him about being on the football team. To this day he thinks I fainted on purpose. Believe me, I didn’t.

  “Okay. So what do I do with you now, Charlie Drinkwater? School guidelines specifically forbid bringing animals onto school property without a properly executed pet authorization form. You don’t happen to have one of those conveniently tucked away in that backpack of yours, do you?”

  “No, sir,” I reply. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  He pulls a large volume marked Rules and Regulations from his bookshelf and searches through its contents. He reads intently, shaking his head and tsk-ing under his breath. The furrows in his brow deepen.

  “Is there a problem?” I ask.

  “It seems there is some doubt as to whether a student needs an official pet authorization form if the pet in question also happens to be the student.” Principal Muchnick sighs again, puts the book away, and picks up the telephone. “In situations such as these, there is only one thing to do.”

  “What is that, sir?” I ask nervously.

  “Phone your parents and tell them to pick you up immediately.” He begins to dial. “And then I will call an emergency session of the local school board to discuss your, shall we say, precarious situation.” He drums his fingers absentmindedly on his desk and waits for someone to pick up.

  “Why, hello there, Mrs. Drinkwater,” he says at last. “This is Principal Muchnick. I have some rather unusual news for you. Are you sitting down?”

  HOME SWEET HOME

  IT'S THE MIDDLE of fourth period. Sam and Lucille get special permission to leave math class early so they can wait with me in front of school for my mom to come and pick me up. A couple of kids hang out windows and stare down at me, transfixed, until their teachers pull them back in again. An awkward silence hangs in the air. Sometimes it’s hard to know just what to say when your best friend turns into a giant lizard.

  “I almost forgot,” Sam says. “Mr. Arkady told me to give you this.” He hands me a small envelope. I rip it open with the tip of my claw and read the neatly written note:

  Dear Mr. Drinkwater,

  Please make an appointment to see me at your earliest convenience. I would like to discuss your upcoming report and share a few of my insights with you regarding amphibians, the class to which you apparently now belong.

  It’s much easier to understand what Mr. Arkady is saying when he writes stuff down.

  “What’s he want?” Lucille asks.

  “He wants to talk lizard with me.” I place the letter carefully into my backpack. “My mother is totally going to lose it when she sees this tail.” I wave it around for emphasis.

  “Probably.” Lucille ducks and narrowly avoids getting hit in the face.

  “Not to mention what she’s going to do when she spots your claws and your flippers and your gill slits,” Sam says, fiddling with his fake nose ring. Sometimes it slips off when he gets excited and you have to pretend not to notice while he reattaches it.

  “We left no stone unturned,” Lucille says. “We want you to know that.”

  “We looked all over, but we couldn’t find a single thing about spontaneous mutation in the human adolescent,” Sam says. “We were online during most of English class.”

  “I thought Mrs. Adams was going to send us to detention,” Lucille adds. “And then Sam pretended he was going to the bathroom and went and called his uncle Leon.”

  “But he couldn’t help us out because he lost his friend at NASA’s phone number,” Sam says.

  “You did your best,” I say. “What more could you do?”

  “I figured maybe you walked into a cloud of radiation and insecticide by mistake,” Sam says. “Like Scott Carey in The Incredible Shrinking Man.”

  “I thought of that, too,” I reply. “Only I didn’t. I would have remembered.”

  “Yeah. That’s what Lucille said.”

  “We did an extensive search on SpaceWeather.com for signs of recent meteor showers, extreme sunspot activity, or unusual lunar occurrences,” Lucille says. “Renegade electromagnetic forces have been known to cause some pretty unusual effects on people. Look at the Wolfman.”

  “But we didn’t even come up with even one measly little asteroid,” Sam says.

  “We checked out more than a dozen UFO Web sites,” Lucille continues. “We thought maybe you had a Close Encounter of the Third Kind and got turned into an alien. We found some pretty credible recent sightings in Ohio. And a couple in Wisconsin,” she says. “But not a single sign of recent extraterrestria
l activity in all of central Illinois, I’m sorry to report.”

  “So what do you think happened to me?” I hear the putt-putt of my mom’s old red pickup truck rounding the bend as it slowly approaches school. “Slowly” is its main speed. Its only other one is “even slower.”

  “We have absolutely no idea,” Lucille admits. “But there’s lots of places we haven’t even heard from yet. We’re still waiting for Ripley’s Believe It or Not! to call us back, for example.”

  “We’re not giving up,” Sam adds.

  “Of course we’re not,” I say. “We’re Junior Scientists of America. We can figure out anything.”

  “Whatever happens, I have two words of advice for you, Charlie,” Lucille says as my mom drives up. “Wear deodorant.”

  Mom’s truck lurches to a halt in front of the building and backfires loudly. Several times. You wouldn’t want to enter any races with our truck, but it’s good for hauling around stuff and for quick trips to the grocery store. And picking up your son from school when he turns into the Creature from the Seventh Grade.

  “Hey, Charlie!” my mom calls out cheerfully. “Hop in the back. You’re waaay too big to ride up front with me.”

  “Your mom seems to be handling the situation awfully well,” Sam whispers as I pull down the tailgate and haul my massive body onto the truck bed. My tail is so long that it hangs over the side, nearly touching the ground.

  “I don’t get it,” Lucille says.

  “She probably knows how to fix me,” I say hopefully. “She’s really good at repairing stuff.”

  “All aboard!” Mom shouts.

  “Call you later,” Lucille says as she slams shut the tailgate and hurries back to class.

  “Ditto,” Sam yells.

  “Double ditto,” I cry back.

  “So long, kids,” Mom hollers, and I hunker down as she tries to pull away.

  “Tries” is the operative word here. The engine whines and strains. And then dies. She turns the key to start it again, and I can feel the gears grinding as she shifts into neutral and back into first. And we’re still not budging. I am much too heavy for this old truck to handle. You can smell the oil burning in the carburetor. A thin trail of black smoke rises up from under the hood. I pray no one takes a picture of this and posts it on the Internet.

  Just as I am about to give up hope of ever moving, the engine finally turns over, and the truck starts up. I look back at my school getting smaller and smaller as we chug down the road. I hold on to the sides of the truck with my claws to keep from falling out. It’s really bumpy back here.

  When we stop at the light on the corner of Fifth and Lonesome, passersby gawk at me. I greet them with a cheery wave of my tail and a friendly “It’s me, Charlie, only big and green,” hoping to avoid a panic in the streets. It’s not working. Our neighbor Mrs. Pagliuso stares at me so hard that she walks right into a tree. A terrified babysitter pushing a buggy grabs the baby in her arms when she sees me and runs off in the opposite direction.

  Before you can say, “My son looks like something that just escaped from Jurassic Park,” we’re in our driveway, pulling up to the garage. Balthazar makes a mad dash out of his doggy door, barking an enthusiastic hello, before he takes one look at me, screeches to a halt, and heads for the nearest tree. In five seconds flat, my ninety-five pound Labradoodle is halfway to the top, clinging to a branch for dear life and howling like a wounded banshee.

  My mom gets out, marches over, lowers the tailgate, and waits while I maneuver my enormous hulk of a body onto the lawn and head for the house. As I walk I leave giant webbed footprints in the grass.

  “You run inside and scrub those claws and I’ll go put on a big pot of hot cocoa,” Mom says. “Your father will be home soon. We’d like to have a little chat with you, honey.”

  Mom holds the kitchen door open and motions for me to come in. I am so tall I have to stoop over so the top of my head doesn’t crash into the door frame. I am so wide I have to squeeze myself through the opening.

  Just as I get inside, my dad’s bright-yellow Toyota careens around the corner and races up the driveway. Dad jams on the brakes, jumps out of the car, and runs toward the house.

  “I thought I’d never get here.” He hugs Mom and hangs his hat on the doorknob.

  “Look who’s here, Fred,” Mom says, pointing at me.

  “Good to see you, son. You’re looking very green.” And with that my dad gives me a big smile and a pat on my big green slimy shoulders, like he’s used to seeing giant green scaly creatures in the hallway on a regular basis. When he thinks I’m not looking, he wipes the creature goo from his hand onto his pants leg and we all head for the kitchen.

  I accidentally whack my dad on the side of his head with the tip of my tail as I turn to wash my claws in the sink. He moans quietly and clutches his ear. “Sorry, Pop,” I say, wiping my claws on one of mom’s favorite dish towels and trying not to rip it to shreds. “I’m having a little trouble getting used to my tail.”

  “Who isn’t?” my dad says jovially, as he drags out the sturdy wooden milk crate my mom uses to store her cookbooks, pulls it up to the kitchen table, and gestures for me to sit down.

  Mom carries over mugs of steaming sugar-free cocoa with miniature nonfat marshmallows floating on top. “Careful, Charlie,” she warns as she sets them on the table. “It’s awfully hot.”

  I stick out the first few feet of my enormous tongue and carefully lap up a little of my favorite hot beverage. “Can I get you some cookies?” Mom asks.

  “Yes, please.” I try not to sound too eager, but I am ravenous.

  When my mom comes over with a freshly baked batch of her famous low-calorie butterscotch melt-aways, I quickly spear the bite-sized treats with the tip of my pointy tongue and shovel them into my cavernous jaws.

  Mom’s a great cook. She runs a catering business for people on restricted diets called Slim Pickings. She works out of the house. That’s how come she was home when Principal Muchnick called. Dad manages a sporting goods store downtown called Balls in Malls. He usually works late on Mondays. But apparently not this Monday.

  “Manners, Charlie,” Dad says under his breath as he sits down next to me and hands me his handkerchief. I take it in my claws and politely dab at the crumbs clinging to what passes for my mouth.

  “I think it’s time we had our little chat, sweetie,” Mom says, smoothing the front of her dress and taking her seat at the table. She gives Dad a gentle poke in his side with her elbow. “Don’t you think so, Fred?”

  Good. This is the part where my parents explain what’s happening and tell me everything’s going to be all right.

  Dad takes a big gulp of hot chocolate, sets his mug aside, and looks me squarely in the eye. “Charlie, your body is going through some pretty big changes,” he begins.

  “Yeah. I noticed,” I say, holding up both my claws and waving my tail at him.

  He continues, unfazed. “Changes that may have cause you to feel embarrassed, self-conscious, awkward, and out of control. Do you catch my drift, son?”

  “I caught it.”

  “Your mother and I want to assure you that these changes are a perfectly normal part of growing up and becoming an adult,” Dad says matter-of-factly.

  “They are?” I ask, stunned.

  “Absolutely, honey.” My mom gently takes one of my claws in her hands, careful not to cut herself on its knifelike edges. “Welcome to adolescence, Charlie.”

  “That’s what this is?”

  “There comes a time in every young man’s life when he undergoes . . . uh . . . a certain, shall we say, life-altering process,” my dad explains. “Only in some cases, the process happens to be a little more . . . uh . . . life-altering than others. Like . . . um . . . yours, for example.” My dad always gets nervous when he has to talk about pers
onal stuff. He would much rather talk about baseball. Or the weather. Or anything.

  “I would really like to know what’s happening to me, Mom. I don’t understand what Dad’s trying to tell me.”

  “The facts of life,” Charlie,” Mom replies. “Plain and simple.”

  I thought I was already pretty well informed about this whole “facts of life” business. Boy, was I wrong. The “facts of life” are neither plain nor simple. At least not in the Drinkwater household.

  THE BIRDS AND THE BEES AND THE MUTANT DINOSAURS

  ACCORDING TO MY father, the Drinkwater “facts of life” began nearly sixty million years ago, when a cataclysmic meteor shower struck the earth with such force that it wiped out most of the dinosaurs on the planet. “But a few hardy specimens from a little town that just now happens to be called Decatur, Illinois, survived and underwent a dramatic mutation,” Dad explains.

  “Can you imagine, Charlie?” Mom says. “The only remaining dinosaurs in the whole world lived in our own backyard? Isn’t that amazing?”

  “I guess so,” I reply weakly. I am getting more confused by the minute.

  “Before they died, these brave creatures laid eggs containing genetically altered baby dinosaurs, son,” Dad continues. “And when they hatched, the babies turned out to be amphibians.”

  “Do you know what an amphibian is, Charlie?” my mother asks.

  “Of course I know, Mom,” I say impatiently. “We’re studying them in science class. They can live in water and on land. Salamanders are amphibians. What does any of this have to do with me?”

  “I’m getting there,” Dad says, “hold your horses. Those mutant dinosaur babies survived their hostile environment by heading straight for the bottom of the lake that had been formed when one particularly large meteor landed near their swamp. That’s Crater Lake, Charlie.”

  “Crater Lake! Can you believe it, honey?” Mom exclaims. “We took you there to learn how to swim when you were just four. You loved that place.”