Risky Business: Donuthead by Sue Stauffacher

Franklin Delano Donuthead is the most risk-averse sixth-grader in history. With a name like his, one would think that Franklin would be worry free, having suffered the tragedy of being born with a surname that could reduce any elementary class to guffaws on sight. What else could happen, right?

Not the way Franklin sees it.

So far, I've just focused on staying alive. If I didn't know there was an astonishingly high probability that I would live through each day--given my age, general health, and relatively high standard of living--I would not get out of bed in the morning.

A devotee of statistical probability, Franklin calls his mentor Gloria Nelots, chief statistician with the National Safety Department, when his class is scheduled on a field trip to a farm to check out the likelihood that he will be trapped in a hay silo and suffocated by grain. "They don't make percentages that small," Gloria grumps.

But Franklin faces a far worse hazard when a new student, Sarah Kervick, is assigned to sit beside him on the way to Happy Valley Cattle Farm.

"I'd never seen a finer host for parasites than the girl staring back at me. In less than thirty seconds, she would be sitting close enough for her fleas to change their address.

But the most surprising thing about Sarah Kervick was her hair. It was all matted and messed up like she never combed it. Big, long pieces of dirty blond hair so tangled together it looke like there was a throw pillow crocheted onto the back of her head."

As a class partner Sarah has one saving grace: she is tough, and when class bully Marvin Howerton puts a move on Franklin, Sarah promptly punches him out. But Sarah demands payback after school the next day when she orders Franklin to comb out her hair. Luckily, Franklin's mom appears to pick him up and nonchalantly offers Sarah a session with detangler at their house.

While Franklin's mother takes on Sarah's hygienic needs as a project, she invites Sarah to sign up for baseball with Franklin, whom she inexplicably plans to groom to play third base for the New York Yankees. Although Franklin's baseball skills never rise above dodging out of the batter's box at every pitch, Sarah is a solid hitter, and Franklin's mom takes on the job as coach of the Pigeon Valley Elementary team.

As Sarah's makeover from parasite bait to normal girl proceeds, Franklin discovers that she gets herself sent to detention in the library daily to look through figure skating books. Franklin and his mother determine to teach Sarah to read, and she agrees in hopes of being able to learn more about skating technique.

As he plays out the Pygmalion scenario, Franklin's fears recede. Although his baseball skills are still nonexistent, his attention to statistical detail leads to an uncanny ability to forecast where a batter is likely to hit the ball, and he becomes an valuable third-base coach for his team.

Amazingly, Franklin's mentor Gloria is moved to send Sarah a pair of figure skates, and she begins to realize her dream. Impressed by the protective gear worn by the hockey goalies he watches while Sarah practices, Franklin screws up the courage to suit up and lumber onto the ice with her, and things seem to be looking up for this pair of class pariahs.

One one level Donuthead is a artfully comic novel. Yet, rather than becoming caricatures of the class weirdos, Stauffacher's characters come across as real people, enabling the reader to get inside the heads of Franklin and Sarah as they struggle to survive the middle school mess and outgrow their outcast status.