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said.
    What, then? Mom acted funny. Like she was trying hard not to act funny. She examined her fingernails for a minute.
    “I’ve been talking with Mr. Fairweather and Mrs. Belcher. I think I’ve convinced them that you’re not trying to be disruptive. So we made a deal. They’re going to let you sit back in with the class tomorrow, even with the puppet on.”
    “Good.” I waited for the “but.” If there was a deal, there had to be a “but.”
    “But there’s one condition. You’re going to go see a doctor—Dr. Mann. He’s a child psychologist, a good one.”
    My stomach turned, even with nothing left in it. Great. Now everyone thought I was sick. In the head.
    “A psychologist? Does he know anything about puppets?”
    “I don’t know, but he knows a lot about children.”
    Uh-oh. “Do I have to go?”
    “No, but I’d like you to.”
    Same thing.
    The minute she left the room, Drog said, “Order those dancing girls for me. If I’m to be confined to a life of boredom, it’s the least you can do.”
    “Forget it, Drog,” I muttered. “I only get five dollars allowance.”
    Actually I had lots more money saved in my drawer. But why should I spend it on a puppet-monster who loved to hate me?
    Child psychologist. I prayed for appendicitis.

chapter seven
    Mom picked me up Friday after school. She still drives the old Taurus that used to be Dad’s car, our family car.
    Some of the best fun I had with Dad when I was little was when he drove me places. Just us. I didn’t care where. I thought being an engineer meant he could drive a train, so as soon as we got in the car he’d twist his hat backwards and pretend to toot the whistle. He told me stories while he drove, and I told him some back. We sang camp songs he learned when he was a kid—
Black socks, they never get dirty. The longer you wear ’em, the blacker they get!
—and made up silly new verses. Dad would slap the steering wheel, laughing, and forget all about trying to teach me the right way to do things.
    All that was back when I still called him Daddy. For a long time after he left, I didn’t call him anything.
    Dad drives a silver Lexus now. Quiet. No crumbs.
    My appointment wasn’t until four, but Mom drove straight there. Because you never know, she said, we might get held up at the crossing by one of those endless freight trains and be late. She didn’t usually worry so much about being on time.
    We were way early. A man sat on one of the two couches in Dr. Mann’s waiting room, reading
Outdoor Life
and crossing and uncrossing his legs. We sat down on the other couch near a wall of rippley glass bricks. If you looked just right at it, you could see yourself about a thousand times. I flipped through a beat-up copy of
Highlights
with all the puzzle answers filled in.
    The door opened, and the doctor came out with a girl about my age who’d been crying. A lot. What went on in there? Dr. Mann smiled and shook hands with the man. Then he turned to me.
    “Please come in.”
    Mom waved me her you-can-do-it wave, and I went.
    The inside of Dr. Mann’s office looked pretty much like the waiting room. It even had one glass-brick wall. Two round wooden tables—one low, with little-kid-sized chairs, and one regular with regular chairs—were the only furniture besides his desk.
    Dr. Mann invited me to sit across the regular-sized table from him and told me I could call him Dr. M.
    “This is a special place, Parker,” he said. “Usually, whenever we are not alone, we have to be careful what we say. It’s part of getting along together. But in this room, with me, you can say whatever you feel like saying. You won’t shock or hurt anyone. And no one else will know.”
    We sat there for a while. I counted my reflections in the glass bricks.
    “I understand you have a friend,” Dr. Mann said, finally.
    A friend?
    “Did you bring him with you?”
    Oh, he meant Drog. I showed him my Drog hand.
    “He’s not my friend.”
    “I