My Life as a Furry Red Monster - Kevin Clash [54]
“It’s oral report time! This project will count for one-half of your grade on this unit.”
Ugh.
“I’m going to assign each of you a partner to work with and a country to report on,” she continued, pulling the globe from a bookshelf and carrying it to her desk. “And I’m going to do this completely at random, just to be fair.”
She gave the globe a spin before explaining that we’d be drawing numbers from a hat to pick our partners and playing a version of pin the tail on the donkey to choose our country. But instead of a donkey, we used the enormous world map that hung on one wall. She’d devised a system involving more numbered slips of paper, and somehow it was all supposed to work out evenly.
Within minutes, I learned that my partner was a guy named Armand. He wasn’t an extraordinary student, but a nice reliable friend who was good at reading aloud—an activity that made my blood run cold and my cheeks burn hot with embarrassment. Despite my growing comfort level in front of an audience, reading in front of my classmates was a far cry from performing with my puppets.
Armand and I ended up with Russia—as in the entire, enormous Soviet Union, since this was well before it broke into separate countries. I was terrified at the thought of having to get up in front of the class and report on the Soviet economy, agriculture, natural resources, transportation systems, weather, and customs. What did I know about Russia? That it got really cold there? That they always won a lot of gold medals at the Olympics? Where would we begin?
“One-half of your grade will be based on the factual content. One-half will be based on the creativity of your presentation. That means that I expect to see visual aids—charts, graphs, photos, and the like,” my teacher announced.
I started to relax. That was cool. I could draw. Armand could do the talking, and I could design and make the visual aids. And somehow, we’d find a way to divide up the research. A moment later that idea was squashed.
“I also expect that each partner will speak the same amount.”
I spent the rest of the day with my stomach in knots—even though the project wasn’t due for anther two weeks. Armand and I agreed to talk in study hall the next day. That night as I lay in bed staring at the glow-in-dark stars on our ceiling, I came up with a fabulous idea.
On presentation day, while the rest of the kids in the class lugged poster boards, plaster-of-Paris relief maps, and assorted other objects, Armand and I carried a suitcase holding a puppet and costumes that I’d made especially for the project and a compact portfolio of visual aids.
Inspired by how much I enjoyed watching Kermit the Frog as a reporter, I got Armand to dress like a TV journalist, complete with a trench coat, a microphone, and a fedora with a “PRESS” card stuck in the brim. Armand would assume the role of interviewer and ask my Russian expert puppets questions about their homeland. I had a single puppet but two sets of costumes—for a man and a woman—so I made them into a husband-and-wife duo. I sat nervously through a few presentations before we volunteered to go next.
Armand was a great interviewer, and with a puppet on my hand, it was easy for me to talk in front of the class. I thought it went pretty well, but I was concentrating so hard on just getting all the facts out, I couldn’t be sure. After we finished, we got much more than the usual polite applause that our teacher required of each audience. I settled back in my seat, pleased with their laughter and relieved it was all over.
When the bell rang, I gathered up my books and folders and tucked my puppet back into my suitcase, standing up to merge with the rest of the kids filing out of the classroom. I felt a tap on my shoulder, and my teacher asked me to wait for a moment. Armand was already standing at her desk, shuffling his feet and gently clapping one