Author's Note: This chapter takes place one day before the beginning of Pushing Through and focuses on Carl Wheezer. This means that this chapter occurs two days before Carl's appearance in Pushing Through and one day before Nick and Jimmy's trip to the moon. I really enjoyed showing how Carl came up with the idea to read his self-help book, as well as having a little self-referential humor. I hope you enjoy.

Carl Wheezer nervously twiddled his thumbs as he sat outside the school counselor's office. He had spoken to Ms. Mentis a handful of times the previous school year and had found her thoroughly kind and helpful, but he still couldn't keep from being unnerved about today's appointment. For the first time, he doubted whether the woman inside could help him.

Carl's eyes widened as the door slowly opened. To his moderate surprise, Ms. Mentis failed to emerge. Instead, a short, blonde-haired girl with glasses slowly stepped out and sighed. She stared at the ground for a few seconds, but then looked up at Carl. In spite of the pain evident in her eyes, she still managed a small smile.

"Hey Carl," she managed to say with an iota of happiness.

Carl smiled back. "Hi Angie." Once more, he noticed the despair evident across her features and slowly rose to his feet. "Everything okay?"

Angie managed a small shrug. "You know me. I have good days and bad since my hamster died," she sorrowfully said.

"Sorry," Carl earnestly offered.

Angie managed another tiny smile. "I'll survive. So, you heading in next?"

Carl nodded. "Yeah, I haven't even spoken to Ms. Mentis since we got back."

Angie slowly blinked and then nervously bit her lower lip. "Um, Carl? Ms. Mentis quit."

Carl slowly blinked back. "What?" he monotonously asked.

Angie sadly shook her head from side to side. "She quit as soon as school started."

"Then who's the new counselor?"

As if on cue, a tall man with long brown hair stuck his head out of his office. Carl stared curiously at the counselor. The man couldn't have been more than twenty-five. He stared at the two children for a few seconds before allowing a weary smile to take hold of his face. "You must be Mr. Wheezer," he slowly began while looking at Carl, who offered a nod in response. "I'm Mr. Helper. Come on in."

"Well, see you in history," Angie said with a wave before heading off. Carl waved back before following Mr. Helper into his office.

"Take a seat," Mr. Helper said while motioning at the lone chair sitting in front of his desk. Carl struggled to get comfortable as the counselor leaned back in his own chair across the desk.

Once they were both settled, Mr. Helper rubbed his forehead before offering another tired smile. "Alright, I suppose introductions are in order."

Carl's gaze shifted around nervously. "Didn't you already tell me your name?"

Mr. Helper ignored this. "My name is Mr. Helper, and I'm the school's new counselor. I want you to know that I'm committed to helping you with any problems you may have, and I'll do anything I can to aid you."

Carl slowly blinked in response. "So…your name is Mr. Helper and…"

Carl didn't get to finish his sentence. Mr. Helper's eyes narrowed and he let out a hearty sigh. "I am aware of the irony of my name, Mr. Wheezer. What was I supposed to do when fate gave me such an opportunity? Become a banker?"

"I didn't mean…"

"Of course you didn't," Mr. Helper muttered with a wave of his hand. "No one ever means anything by it. But you all just love to keep asking, don't you?" Mr. Helper saw Carl shrink back in his seat and sighed.

"Mr. Wheezer," Mr. Helper paused to stare down at the clipboard resting on his desk, "Um, Carl, I'm sorry. It's just been a stressful day."

Mr. Helper rose from his chair and began to pace back and forth across his small office. Carl could tell by the way he was simultaneously rubbing his head and stroking his chin that the counselor was very tired and very confused. "This school is weird, Carl," the man bluntly admitted after several seconds.

Before Carl could respond, Mr. Helper collapsed back into his seat and rested his head in his hands. "The first student I saw today was sent here for freaking out when his history teacher suggested that some cartoon character named Ultralord wasn't the founding father of America."

"Sheen?" Carl offered.

Mr. Helper desperately nodded. "Yeah, Sheen Estevez. What kind of a name is Sheen, anyway? Guess I can't blame him for being screwed up with a name like that."

Mr. Helper sighed once more and leaned back in his seat. "Then I get sent some chain-smoking thirteen year-old for being," Mr. Helper searched for the right words before shrugging, "well, a chain-smoking thirteen year-old. He spins me some elaborate sob story about Kool-Aid or Sunny Delight or something."

"It was Hawaiian Punch," Carl quietly offered.

Mr. Helper shivered in place. "The kid's freaky, man. Scared the hell out of me." He paused for a few more seconds before motioning at the door behind Carl. "Then that girl comes in here and cries for twenty minutes about her hamster dying. The thing's been dead for three months!" Mr. Helper spread his arms wide in a desperate attempt for vindication. "I mean, hello! Get over it!"

Carl glanced over his shoulder at the door and gulped nervously. "Angie's nice," he quietly countered. "She went to my baby shower."

Mr. Helper slowly blinked and pulled back in his chair. "Um, what?" He hesitated for a second longer before shaking his head and sighing. "Not to mention I showed up early this morning and saw some woman stealing food from the cafeteria before diving into the ventilation system. I think someone is actually living in this school."

Carl sighed. "We thought Ms. Wolf had gotten her act together."

"What, do you know everyone in this school?" Mr. Helper angrily asked.

Carl shrunk back in his set and looked around the small room anxiously. "What happened to Ms. Mentis?"

Mr. Helper rolled his eyes. "Apparently she had some mental breakdown as soon as school started. She freaked out and started complaining that she'd been kidnapped by aliens, only it turned out to not be aliens but some sadistic pre-teen billionaire." Mr. Helper exhaled in disgust. "Weirdo," he slowly muttered while spinning his index finger around in a circle beside the side of his head.

"Well, actually…" Carl began, but Mr. Helper raised his hand to ward off Carl's words.

"Alright, I'm tight on time here, kid. So, why are you here today? What's bothering you?"

Carl stared at the counselor for a long moment. The man seemed to be calming down, and he clasped in hands in such a way as to show that his mind was set to work. Carl felt a bolt of fear race through his body and glanced downwards, but he swallowed hard and forced himself to speak.

"Well, I guess…lately I feel like I'm not as brave as my friends. Like," Carl paused and desperately searched for the proper way to explain his feelings, "like they're all more mature than me."

Five seconds passed, then ten. Carl eventually looked up from the bottom of his chair and into Mr. Helper's blank face. Then, all of a sudden, the counselor let out a happy chuckle and placed both hands behind his head while leaning back in his chair.

"Yes!" he joyously exclaimed while jabbing an index finger towards Carl. "That is a normal problem for a preteen boy to have!" Mr. Helper smiled widely and crossed his legs in contentment. "This is easy, kid. Give me twenty minutes and you'll be in love with yourself so hard. Just so hard."

"Okay," Carl nervously muttered while pushing his chair a few inches away from the counselor's desk.

Mr. Helper gave a satisfied nod. "Alright, Carl. Just lean back, relax, and start at the beginning. Really let me in here. When did you start feeling this way?"

Carl awkwardly leaned back in his chair, took in a deep breath, and then slowly released it. He looked into Mr. Helper's eyes and was pleasantly surprised to find genuine concern in them. The counselor was no doubt strange, but he seemed to honestly wish to help.

"I honestly wish to help," Mr. Helper calmly uttered.

Carl pulled his head back a couple of inches in confusion, but decided to speak. "Well, I guess it all started about a month and a half ago."

Mr. Helper slowly nodded while rubbing his chin. "During summer vacation."

"Yeah, right at the end," Carl agreed.

Mr. Helper could see that Carl was having trouble speaking and leaned forward. "Carl, don't worry. Just take your time and let me know what made you feel this way. Are your friends dating when you're not?" he gently asked.

Carl's already worried expression managed to fall even more. "Well, yeah. I'd kind of forgotten about that, though."

Mr. Helper wasn't fazed. "Maybe you have an unrequited love?"

The image of a brown-haired temptress claimed by another flashed through Carl's mind, and the young boy closed his eyes as he pictured the tiny beautiful mole under her lip. "Yeah, that too. But I was really talking about…"

"Perhaps you're a little too rotund? Hefty for your age?"

"What?"

"Maybe you should just do the talking."

Carl stared at the counselor for a few long seconds before sighing once more. "Well, it all began when those robotic droids shot my friend Libby in the leg when we had that picnic on the moon."

Several seconds passed before Mr. Helper raised his head to the ceiling. "Oh God, here we go."

"And then Dr. Brigham managed to fix Cindy and we got back to Earth. So a couple of weeks went by, and then we went to school. Sheen and I tried to give Jimmy a new cat to replace Chowder, but it turned out the he'd actually made the cat up. So then Libby took it. Sheen wasn't happy, but he had a long talk with Chowder and they're okay now. And that's pretty much it."

Carl leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes in exhaustion. Thirty minutes had passed as he'd recounted the basics of his latest adventure as quickly as he could. His voice had grown hoarse from speaking so long, and he felt utterly exhausted. He patiently waited for Mr. Helper to respond, but thirty seconds passed in silence. Carl slowly opened his eyes and looked across the desk to find the counselor staring at him in disbelief, his jaw dropped so severely that Carl worried it had become dislocated. Another half minute passed.

"Stay right here," Mr. Helper suddenly spoke while jumping out of his chair. He lifted his right arm and pointed his index finger at Carl. "Don't…just don't move. Stay there," he nervously spoke while cautiously sidling around Carl's chair. "Stay. Good Carl." With that said he flung open the door to his office and ran outside and down the hallway.

"I'm sit-ting and wait-ing!" Carl happily sang as he watched the minute hand twitch forward yet again. Half an hour had passed since Mr. Helper had sprinted out of his own office. Normally, Carl would have been at least mildly perturbed after such a long wait. Yet he was supposed to be in math, and Mr. Helper had instructed him to wait. He therefore had a perfectly legitimate excuse to miss his least favorite class.

Carl spun around as he heard a nearly silent creaking. He watched as Mr. Helper slowly pushed open his office door and inched his way into the small room. His face exuded confusion and utter disbelief. Carl watched in silence as the counselor slowly made his way to his seat. He stared at the leather chair for a few seconds before gulping and settling down. He slowly gripped the knot of his tie and moved it from side to side as he ran his other trembling hand through his wavy hair. Once he was satisfied that his appearance was appropriate, he let out a heavy sigh before slamming his palms onto his desk.

"Ho-ly crap," he muttered in disbelief. Carl recoiled in shock, but Mr. Helper found that the least of his concerns. He clasped his hands together, rested his elbows on his desk, and placed his chin on his hands. "Just…what else can you say to this?"

Carl nervously glanced around the room. "What?"

Mr. Helper let out an amazed laugh and shook his head. "You were actually telling the truth!"

Carl slowly nodded. "I never said I wasn't."

Mr. Helper smiled wider in shock. "I lived in Houston until two weeks ago," he quickly explained. "I moved here because I wanted to get away from big city life. I thought it was a miracle I landed this job so quickly. I heard the teacher quit from being abducted from aliens…"

"Eustace," Carl corrected with a shudder.

Mr. Helper raised a hand in indifference. "Whatever. I assumed she'd gone nuts. But I just talked to the principal and tried to convince him to send you to the looney bin. He told me everything you said was true." Mr. Helper hesitated before laughing once more, which greatly unnerved Carl. "This is freaking crazy!"

"It's not that crazy," Carl weakly countered.

A million questions suddenly raced through Mr. Helper's mind. "So you actually went up in space?"

Carl slowly nodded. "We do it all the time."

"Principal Kowalski said you didn't even need spacesuits!" Mr. Helper shouted in amazement. "How the heck did you do that?"

Carl managed a tiny shrug. "Sheen never did explain that to me."

Mr. Helper was silent for a moment as he flashed another amazed smile and shook his head wildly. "This is unbelievable. How old are you?"

"Twelve," Carl quickly answered.

"You know what I did when I was twelve? I played stickball. You go up into space and fight aliens!"

Carl shrunk further back in his seat. "Well, that's actually why I wanted to talk to you."

Mr. Helper showed no signs of halting his interrogation. "So this Jimmy Neutron is the genius, right? And you're like his sidekick or something?"

Carl looked down at his seat. "I guess so," he glumly muttered.

Mr. Helper smiled wider. "Kid, this is crazy. Kowalski told me the other stuff you've been through. Turning the town into an ice age? Kids turning into hamsters? Evil clones?" Mr. Helper shook his head in amused disbelief. "That is awesome. We should turn this into a show! The Escapades of Jimmy Neutron and Friends!" Mr. Helper nodded at his words. "That's six seasons and a movie right there!"

Once more, Carl glanced around the room nervously. "I…I don't think that's true."

"So your parents are cool with all this? They just let you zoom off into light years or whatever and duel with aliens?"

"Can we talk about my problems?" Carl desperately asked.

Mr. Helper excitedly murmured, "Oh man, this school is awesome. I take back everything I said before. I love it here!"

"I'm very depressed," Carl weakly moaned.

Mr. Helper stared at the student before him and slowly sighed. Once more, a look of concern washed over his eyes. He sighed and leaned back in his seat. "Okay, sorry," he earnestly apologized. "So, you're feeling cowardly, immature, and plump, right?"

"I never said plump!" Carl cried out before breaking down into tears.

Mr. Helper nervously bit his lower lip. "Okay, I'm sorry," he said in his most soothing voice. "Hey, Mr. Helper's here. Calm down."

Carl sniffled and finally wiped his eyes. "It's just that everyone either went up in space and fought the Yolkians or helped out here on Earth."

The sheer despair in Carl's tone caused Mr. Helper to abandon the last of his excited disbelief. He slowly picked up the box of tissues on his desk and offered them to Carl. "Well, didn't you say you stayed here to help with that team?"

"The control team?" Carl asked.

"Yeah," Mr. Helper agreed. "I thought you helped out with that. It sounds like you led your friends to that ship."

Carl shook his head. "It was mostly Libby, Goddard, and Mike who did that. I barely did anything." Carl took in a deep breath and blew his nose one more time. "Jimmy and Cindy led everything and fought all those Yolkians. Libby was hurt and still led the kids here in town. And Sheen hijacked that ship and saved everyone! I didn't do anything," he sadly whispered.

Mr. Helper raised an eyebrow. "Wait, that kid with the sugar seizures did what?"

"I already told you!" Carl wailed out. "Half an hour ago!"

Mr. Helper let out a nervous chuckle. "Yeah, I kind of zoned out after that whole spiel about the training on Little Boy. Seemed like that section of your story went on a little too long."

"It had tons of character development!" Carl shot back.

Mr. Helper sighed. "Okay, so what exactly did this Sheen guy do again?"

Carl lifted up his glasses and wiped his wrist over his moist eyes. "He crashed on an asteroid when Little Boy was destroyed."

"And how was Little Boy destroyed again?"

Carl somehow found the strength to stare daggers at the man across from him. Mr. Helper raised his hands defensively and said, "Hey, that was a really long story, man. Compared to the other stuff I usually hear, you can't blame me for spacing out a little."

Carl sighed and quickly answered the counselor's question. "Little Boy went through an asteroid field, and its gravity pulled all the smaller asteroids towards it. The whole thing cracked apart."

"Now hang on," Mr. Helper began while crossing his arms. "Shouldn't the control team have been keeping an eye out for stuff like asteroid belts on the rockets' path?"

"We made a mistake," Carl weakly countered.

Mr. Helper's already elevated eyebrow rose still higher. "It just seems like you guys had maybe two jobs tops. Plan a course for the rockets and keep an eye out for obstacles. And you screwed one of those up. And did you really need a whole team for those two jobs?"

"Jimmy said we did," Carl quietly answered.

Mr. Helper huffed. "It's almost like he put this team together absent-mindedly and then couldn't think of enough stuff for them to do later on." Mr. Helper thought for a few seconds and leaned towards Carl. "And I'm no…I don't know, xenogeologist or whatever, but how does an asteroid only twenty miles across pull in hundreds of smaller asteroids with its gravity? That's…that's not how physics works."

Carl threw his hands in the air as more tears welled in his eyes. "I…I…I don't know!" he screamed out in fright.

Once more, Carl's pain caused Mr. Helper to hold up his hands defensively. "Alright, sorry, man. So your friend Sheen crashed on an asteroid. And then what happened?"

Carl felt more tears welling in his eyes, but these weren't from anger or frustration. They were from guilt and despair. He remembered hearing his friends debate leaving Sheen behind, how Libby had disappeared for half a day. Carl looked down at the ground and let out a shaky breath. "We…we decided to keep going towards Yolkus. The ships were damaged, and Nick and Cindy said they'd be destroyed if they went back to rescue Sheen."

"Damn, that's cold," Mr. Helper quickly answered. "But you went back later, right? I mean, I just saw the kid this morning."

Carl slowly shook his head. "Some Yolkians landed on the asteroid and Sheen hijacked the ship."

Mr. Helper's eyebrow had descended back to its original position, but it quickly shot back up once more. "Wait, I thought you said the Yolkians didn't do anything. Why were they after Sheen?"

Carl groaned in frustration. "They weren't after him! It was a mining ship looking for space rubies!"

"Space rubies?"

"You know," Carl weakly explained. "They're normal rubies but…in space."

"You kids sure are creative," Mr. Helper mumbled, clearly unimpressed. He pondered Carl's words for a few more seconds before pushing his chair back and rubbing his chin. "So wait. Sheen crashes onto an asteroid and survives. That's unlikely enough. But then an alien ship lands on the exact same asteroid, even though there's like a million other asteroids all around, just before he dies of thirst? I'm not buying it, man."

"It's what happened!" Carl exclaimed, utterly exhausted from the conversation.

"And this one kid who never fired a gun until two days ago takes out an entire ship full of alien soldiers?" Mr. Helper held one arm forward and shook the hand from side to side. "And hold up. I remember you telling me about this now. You said that the ship had stairs. These Yolkian things hover around, don't they? Why do they even have staircases on their ships?"

Carl buried his head in his hands and refused to say a word.

"And if this kid Eustace just wanted to kill you all, why didn't he have his super team of mercenaries kill you all in your sleep? Why go through all this trouble?"

"I'm very depressed!" Carl screamed out. "Can we please just deal with my issues?"

"I'd suggest a low-carb diet and an extra period spent in gym class."

Carl began to cry once more.

"Okay, let's finish this up." Mr. Helper sighed while glancing at his watch. "Man, these sessions are only supposed to be fifteen minutes."

Carl finished up his lunch and looked up at the counselor, who was sitting atop his desk. His legs were dangling just over the ground. "How long has it been?"

"Five and a half hours," Mr. Helper quickly responded while taking the last bite of his pizza. "Not counting the time we took to grab food from the cafeteria."

Mr. Helper and Carl sat in silence for several seconds. The counselor eventually threw his paper plate into a nearby trash can and ran his hands over his face. "Alright, I think I finally understand everything that went on in this trip, including every little side adventure and those stories that you forget to mention the first time."

"The Lost Stories?" Carl asked.

"Again, very creative," Mr. Helper mumbled. "So let's finally get down to business here. Now, this is what I've been able to gather from our conversation."

Mr. Helper stared down at his notes, which had accumulated to a fifty-page stack of papers over the course of Carl's session. He flipped through them for several seconds. "Okay. So you're worried that you're not as mature or brave as your friends, right?"

"I told you that when I first came in!" Carl desperately shouted.

Mr. Helper let out a long sigh and stared directly into Carl's eyes. "Okay. Carl, I'm going to lay some knowledge on you, so I really want you to listen. Alright?"

Carl watched as Mr. Helper's expression morphed into a deadly serious frown. Carl slowly nodded in response.

"Good. What you need to do is believe in yourself."

Thirty seconds passed, and throughout that time Mr. Helper never shifted his gaze, nor did the intensity of his piercing stare waver. Eventually, Carl found the strength to ask, "And what else?"

"That's it," Mr. Helper calmly answered. He watched as Carl seemed to dance on the verge of either crying or screaming. The counselor quickly hopped off of his desk and began to pace back and forth across the small office.

"Carl, there's nothing else I can say to you. You already knew what you had to do the second you walked into this office." Though the counselor's words were cold, his tone and demeanor suggested that Mr. Helper was indeed serious and caring. Carl reluctantly squirmed in his seat to get comfortable and listened to his speech.

"You're unhappy because you feel like a loser. But no one's a loser, Carl. At least, they don't have to be." Mr. Helper briefly paused in front of his bookcase and scanned the middle shelf. "All you have to do is…well, do what you feel you need to. Right away, you said you felt like you weren't brave or immature. So you just have to be brave and mature."

Carl slowly blinked as a look of desperate confusion overtook his face. "But how do I do that?"

"How do your friends do it?" Mr. Helper gently shot back while pulling a hefty book off of the shelf and examining it.

Carl pondered the question. "I…I really don't know," he sadly admitted. "They just know how."

Mr. Helper sat behind his desk and rested the book in front of him. "Carl, you said that your friends Jimmy and Cindy formed a suicide team. When they were on top of that alien ship, I guarantee you that they were afraid, just like you would have been. So how did they act brave?"

Carl thought this over for a few seconds. "They…they went inside anyway?"

Mr. Helper gave a proud smile along with a nod. "Exactly. The answers are always simple, Carl. Just think of your options whenever you have a problem and do what you know you should."

"But I can't," Carl whined. "I know what to do, but I'm too scared to do it!"

"Do it anyway," the counselor countered a little more firmly. "That's all you can do, Carl. Push through your fear and do what you know is right. It will be hard at first, but it gets easier. When you have something to say but are too afraid, talk anyway. When you want to tell a girl how you feel but your heart is racing, just do it anyway. When aliens are trying to sacrifice your parents to a giant chicken…" Mr. Helper paused and pondered the absurdity of this statement before shaking his head, "fight to get them back even though you're scared." Mr. Helper smiled for a moment before widening his eyes in fright. "But if at all possible, don't actually do that. Call the army or something."

Carl pondered the counselor's words for a few long seconds. "So, just do what I feel like doing? It's that simple?"

"Like I said, it will be hard at first, but just push through it and it gets easier."

"So," Carl paused for a long moment before asking, "I should tell Jimmy's mom that I'm in love with her?"

A loud ringing encompassed the office, and both Carl and Mr. Helper could hear the clattering of feet and a sea of excited voices in the hallway outside. Mr. Helper looked at Carl with equal parts pride and concern. "Okay, we definitely need to have another session to answer that last question. But for now, just take this."

Mr. Helper slid a book across his desk, and Carl slowly picked it up and examined the cover. "You Can Be the Best You You Can Be." Carl blinked several times before monotonously asking, "What?"

Mr. Helper smiled. "It actually makes sense once you start reading." The counselor looked down at his watch to confirm that school was indeed over. "Alright, Carl. Go get home and start reading. And if you need to, come see me in the morning."

Carl slowly hopped out of his chair and slung his backpack over his shoulder. Mr. Helper strolled past him and opened his door, and Carl halted before heading into the hallway. He looked up at the counselor and offered a small smile.

"Thanks, Mr. Helper," he sincerely said. "You really did help."

Mr. Helper smiled back. "No problem, kid. Now get home, get a good night's sleep, and let your friends know that if those aliens come back, you'll be there to save the day!"

"Okay!" Carl happily shouted while jogging out of the office and down the hall.

Mr. Helper smiled after Carl before a terrified expression took hold of his face. He jumped out of his office and shouted, "But don't really do that! Call the army if they come back!"