Cheesie Mack Is Not Exactly Famous

by Steve Cotler

  I read Operation Three to a bunch of my classmates at lunch. If you can picture a string of Christmas tree lights with one bulb that doesn’t light up … that bulb is Alex Welch. He was the only guy who didn’t know who Big Eleven was.

  I bet you did.

  By the time I showered all the mud off me and got into my street clothes, everyone except Georgie and Coach T had left the boys’ locker room.

  “Great game, Georgie,” Coach T said as we waved goodbye. “Starting tomorrow, we’re going to practice that left-hand shooting. You’re going to be a double threat.”

  Usually we bike to and from school, but because of the morning thunderstorm … you remember … Georgie and I had to walk home.

  “That’s where we played King of the Hill.” I pointed at a large mound.

  Georgie took a quick glance around the deserted construction site, then hopped over the low tape barrier.

  “What’re you doing?” I called after him.

  “I’ve always wanted to sit in one of these,” Georgie said as he climbed onto a huge yellow Caterpillar excavator.

  (When I was little, I had a whole set of toy Caterpillar earth-moving machines. They’re called Cats, and I learned the names and functions of every one of them. If you want to see some, I put photos on my website.)

  “I don’t think you ought to do that,” I warned, following him into the construction site.

  “I’m not going to turn it on or anything,” Georgie countered, climbing into the cab and plunking down in the driver’s seat. He grabbed the control levers and began making growling engine noises. “It would be so cool to actually operate one of these,” he said, pausing his motor sounds to speak to me. “You know, dig holes and pile dirt into gigantic dump trucks.”

  That got my imagination going, and I stood next to the big machine, listening to Georgie’s noises and picturing the two of us in hard hats. If he was going to pretend to operate the excavator, I’d be the foreman in charge of the job.

  “Come on, Sinkoff! Pick up the pace!” I yelled. “You’ve got a line of empty trucks backed up all the way around the block.” I waved my arms like I was angry. “If you can’t get that Cat movin’ dirt any faster, I’ll get a pro in here who can.”

  Georgie and I have been playing these kind of pretend games forever. He knew instantly what I was doing.

  “No problem, boss,” he replied. “I had a break-down with my hopper gripper dingle-dangle. But I got everything working now.”

  (There’s no such thing as a hopper gripper dingle-dangle. Georgie was just making stuff up.)

  The excavator noises coming out of Georgie’s mouth got louder. He moved his hands back and forth across the controls. I looked up at the bucket at the end of the giant digging arm, then down into the nearby trench, imagining it scooping up great mouthfuls of dirt.

  And that’s when I saw something sort of shiny sticking out of the mud about two feet down the side of the trench wall.

  It wasn’t like I got instantly excited. I didn’t shout “Eureka!” or “Leaping Kooga-Mooga!” or anything.

  Nope.

  I didn’t know what it was yet. I just walked to the edge of the trench, leaned over, and stared.

  “What’re you looking at?” Georgie shouted from his seat up in the excavator.

  “There’s some kind of thingie down there,” I replied.

  “What kind of thingie?”

  I didn’t answer. I was thinking, Okay, here goes. I guess I’m going to get all muddy again. I didn’t care. I jumped into the trench.

  Bad idea.

  I landed with a huge SQUISH! The bottom was like quicksand. I immediately sank halfway up to my knees. I tried to lift one foot.

  Nope. I couldn’t move.

  (Hey! You know what? I hadn’t thought of it until now, but I bet I was unconsciously thinking of this two chapters ago when I wrote about my soldier truck getting mud-slided during Operation Three. It’s weird how my mind works.)

  The trench was over four feet deep. I am not much taller. And since I had sunk in about ten inches, my eyes were below the top of the trench.

  “Georgie! Help! I’m stuck.”

  I couldn’t see him get down from the excavator, but pretty soon he appeared next to the trench. He gave a long look down at me, then smiled in a devilish way.

  “I gotta get home,” he said. “Goo luck!”

  Then he disappeared.

  “Georgieeee!” I yelled.

  A few seconds later he reappeared, laughing like crazy. “Goo luck. Get it?”

  “Very funny,” I replied. “C’mon, pull me out.” I lifted my arms.

  Georgie grabbed me around my wrists, and I grabbed his. Just as he started to pull, I yelled, “Wait!”

  I had forgotten the whole reason I had jumped into the trench. The thingie I was curious about was still there, sticking out of the dirt, right in front of me … just about even with my belly button. I dug it out of the sidewall of the trench, knocked most of the dirt off it, and held it up for Georgie to see.

  “What is it?” Georgie asked.

  “Dunno,” I replied. It was a flat, mostly tarnished, brass-colored metal ring with a bunch of strange markings around the edge. It was about the size of my cell phone. I stuck the thingie into my jacket pocket and grabbed Georgie’s wrists. He gave a huge pull, but my shoes were so deep into the mud he couldn’t budge me.

  “Try again,” I said. “But pull me to the side, and I’ll try to lift just my right foot.”

  I leaned. He pulled. It worked.

  Sort of.

  My foot popped out … but without my shoe! I stood on one leg. I bet I looked like a really awkward flamingo.

  Georgie looked at me flapping my foot-in-a-sock all around and laughed, but then he said, “Hold it. I’ll find you something to stand on.”

  He disappeared from view. I balanced on one leg, reached down with my hand, and dug around for my shoe. I could feel it, but no way could I pull it out.

  Georgie reappeared holding his backpack and three short wooden stakes with a bunch of twine tied to them. He pulled his stinky gym clothes out of his backpack.

  “What’re you doing?” I asked.

  “I have to wash these anyway,” he said. He pulled the twine off the stakes, then stuffed the stakes and all his other gym clothes inside his RLS T-shirt and tied it all up.

  The leg I was standing on was getting wiggly-wobbly tired.

  “Hurry up,” I said.

  He held on to one end of the twine and handed me the bundle.

  “The wood junk will make this kind of solid,” Georgie said, “and the string is so I can pull my stuff back up after I get you out.”

  “Good thinking,” I said, lowering the shirt bundle to the bottom of the trench. I carefully placed my foot on it and slowly transferred my weight onto it. It squished into the mud, but not very deep.

  “I’m ready,” I said.

  Georgie dug his feet in, bent over, and stuck his arms down to me. I grabbed his wrists again.

  He rocked back and forth as he said, “One … two …,” and when he said, “THREE!” he yanked.

  Georgie is really strong. He pulled so hard that:

  1. I flew up over the edge, sliding on my chest in the dirt, ending up halfway out of the trench.

  2. He flew backward, sliding on his butt, ending up halfway to the King of the Hill dirt pile!

  3. I lost my other shoe.

  That’s when I smelled cigarette smoke. (Nobody in my house smokes. I think it is a disgusting habit.) I crawled forward and peeked around the dirt pile. Two men were on the other side of the construction site, standing near a car that hadn’t been there when we arrived. One was a big guy with red hair and a huge belly. He was smoking a cigarette and holding a clipboard. The other man was facing away and pointing at our school. He said something about the trench and pipes, then started to turn toward us, so I ducked back down.

  “I bet we’re not supposed to be here,” I whispered.
>
  “Duh,” Georgie replied softly, tugging his muddy bundle of stinky gym clothes out of the trench.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  “What about your shoes?”

  “Forget ’em. My mom said they were getting too small for me. She’s buying me new ones anyway.”

  Hunched over in a low crouch, the two of us snooked (sneaked and looked at the same time) out the far side of the construction site without being seen. But to get home, we had to walk on the sidewalk right next to the two men, and the redheaded guy must have noticed how muddy we both were, and I know he looked at my shoeless feet suspiciously, but we weren’t doing anything wrong (right then), so I smiled and waved.

  It took a while to walk home, but when we got …

  to where my street

  and Georgie’s meet,

  I was really beat

  and my poor feet

  felt cold as sleet.

  I needed heat,

  and I wanted to eat.

  I think it’s neat for “eet” to repeat.

  (Don’t worry. That will be the only terrible poem in this whole book. I promise.)

  When we got to the corner where our streets diverge (cool word … it means split apart in separate directions), we headed toward my house. Georgie almost always hung with me after school waiting for his dad to get home from work, but recently, because Ms. D and his father were getting married, sometimes she came to his house after school. We hadn’t taken two steps when her car pulled up near us.

  “Cheesie, where are your shoes? Omigosh! You two are filthy. Come with me.”

  In less than six minutes (I am not exaggerating!), Ms. D had:

  1. called Granpa and told him where we were,

  2. shoved us into Georgie’s bathroom and told us to strip down and shower up,

  3. thrown our muddy clothes into the washer,

  4. ordered sushi for dinner,

  5. chased a pair of raccoons out of the kitchen, and

  6. put a tray of chocolate chip cookies into the oven, which by the time we got out of the shower were smelling up the house something terrific!

  (I lied about the raccoons … but I did not lie about the cookies!)

  Since my clothes were in the dryer, when I got out of the shower I had to wear Georgie’s slippers and a pair of his much-too-big pajamas.

  Ms. D is so funny. When she saw me holding up the pants to keep them from falling, she grabbed a roll of packing tape and zipped it around my waist like a belt. Then she rolled up my sleeves and pant legs and taped those, too. I made crinkly sounds when I moved, but it worked!

  A few minutes later, Georgie’s father walked in with the sushi, gave Ms. D a big hug and a kiss, then grabbed both me and Georgie up out of our chairs and swung us around. Normally he is a not-so-excitable guy. But I guess because he was getting married in less than a week, he was super happy or something.

  The conversation at dinner was completely boring. The adults talked about wedding this and wedding that. Georgie and I concentrated on chewing. (Lots of kids think raw fish is too weird to eat. I am doing a survey. Please go to my website and tell me if you like sushi.) We had just begun seriously working on the cookies when the front door opened.

  Everyone jumped up from the table, and there was nothing but noise and chatter and chaos for the next fifteen minutes.

  It was Georgie’s three brothers: Joe, Fred, and Marlon. Each was accompanied by a female:

  1. Joseph Keith (Jokie), who is twenty-seven, came with his wife, Charlotte.

  2. Fred (Fed), twenty-four, came with his girlfriend, Ava.

  3. Marlon (Marlon), twenty-two, brought his cat, Squirrel … named that because she likes to climb trees. But not right then because she was hugely pregnant.

  I wish I had a brother. All I have is June, my very treacherous, devious, unpleasant older sister, whom, as you probably know, I call Goon.

  After Georgie got a huge number of hugs and noogie airlifts (knuckle-clunks on the head), his brothers asked him a trillion questions about school and sports and girlfriends (I couldn’t believe it … he actually mentioned Oddny’s name!). I was a little embarrassed to be wearing guy-jantic, taped-up pajamas, so I mostly just hid out and petted Squirrel.

  “She’s going to have her puppies any day now,” Marlon told me.

  I gave him a squinty-evil-eye. He grinned and gently pulled Squirrel’s tail. She looked at him and purred. Most cats hate to have their tails pulled. I guess he trained her to like it. Or maybe she’s weird.

  I could tell Georgie wanted to hang out with his brothers, but after a while everyone sort of ignored him, once again talking about only wedding glurg. (This is another word I made up. I use it to mean anything that clogs things up.)

  “Boring,” Georgie muttered to me. He gently pulled Squirrel’s tail. “You are a very fat kitty,” he told her. She didn’t seem to mind.

  Then his brothers lugged tons of luggage in from the car, and Mr. Sinkoff told Georgie, “If you have any homework or stuff you need for school, get it now. You’ll be sleeping at Cheesie’s for the next few days.”

  Georgie trotted upstairs to get what he needed. Ms. D took my clothes out of the dryer, folded them, and handed them to me in a plastic bag.

  “I found this in the pocket of your jacket,” she said to me, holding out the thingie. “What is it?”

  I had completely forgotten about it! “I don’t exactly know,” I said. “Georgie and I found it.”

  “It looks very interesting,” she said as Georgie came downstairs. “Let me know when you figure it out.”

  Then she gave Georgie a hug.

  “You really like her, don’t you?” I asked as we hopped over the creek and went through the won’t-close gate into my backyard.

  Georgie nodded.

  I put my arm around his shoulder. “You’re lucky,” I said. “She’s going to be a very cool stepmother.”

  The first person to see me when I walked in my back door was Goon. She took one look at me in Georgie’s taped-up pajamas and floppy slippers and began laughing hysterically.

  “What a jerk! You look stupider than stupid. What are you? A package the mailman rejected? A Christmas present nobody wanted? You look like something a homeless hobo would throw up on. Omigosh, I am so glad my friend Donna already left. It’s bad enough that you go to the same school as I do. Omigosh, if she’d seen you dressed like that, I’d be too embarrassed to be seen in public.”

  “Are you finished?” I said when she finally took a breath. “What you don’t know is, the reason I’m dressed like I am is because I got all muddy when I found this.” I shoved the thingie in her face and then pulled it away.

  She was instantly curious. “What is that? Where’d you find it?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” I said just loud enough for her to hear … and then Georgie and I dashed out. We sped past Granpa, who was watching the baseball playoffs on television, and zipped up the stairs and into my room. I shut my door.

  “So yeah … your sister’s right. What is it? I mean really,” Georgie asked.

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “But I think it’s really old and maybe valuable.”

  I held it up for both of us to examine.

  “I think it’s brass,” I said. “You know, like they make keys out of.”

  “Could be part of some kind of award or medal,” Georgie suggested. “Like a general would wear and there used to be a star or a ruby or something that hung in the middle?”

  I counted the triangular markings around the edge. Thirty-two. Every fourth one had some scratchings next to it.

  “Do you think this is writing?” I wondered aloud, my finger pointing to one of the scratchings.

  “Could be an E,” Georgie replied.

  Just then Goon knocked on my open door and asked, “May I come in?”

  One of the rules in our house that neither of us breaks (well, almost never) is we can’t go in the other kid’s bedroom without permission.


  “No way,” I said.

  “I’d like to see what you have,” she continued, acting all polite and nice.

  I was not fooled. “Get lost,” I said.

  I heard her stomp off to her room and slam the door.

  “Let’s go ask my dad about this thingie,” I said.

  “Okay,” Georgie said, “but you can’t tell him where we found it.”

  I must have had Why not? all over my face, because Georgie continued, “I am totally sure my dad will kill me if he finds out I was fooling around on a backhoe.”

  “It was an excavator,” I said.

  “Whatever,” Georgie muttered. Then he brightened and said, “Your father might actually know about this. He reads a lot about history, doesn’t he?”

  Actually that’s exactly what my father was doing at that exact moment. He was lying on his bed reading a book about the Civil War.

  “I prefer reading in a supine position because then I can remove my foot,” he once told me.

  There are two things in that last sentence that might confuse you:

  1. Supine (soo-PINE) means lying flat on your back. If you’re flat on your stomach, that’s lying prone. (Those are two excellent words to use in school reports. Your teacher will love them … I promise.)

  2. My father had to have his right foot amputated when he was twenty. He was in the U.S. Navy on an aircraft carrier, and somebody goofed and dropped a huge bomb when they were loading it onto a jet. It didn’t explode, but it squashed his foot. Can you imagine how much that must have hurt? He doesn’t get the least bit upset when he talks about it now, but he says when it happened, he passed out. Now he wears a prosthetic (artificial) foot, and he likes to take it off whenever he can.

  “Hey, Pop,” I said from the doorway. “Can I bother you with a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Actually,” I continued, “it’s more like advice than a question.”

  “Okay.” He plopped his book facedown and sat up. “Shoot.”

  “So … Georgie and I found something.” I was holding it behind my back. “We don’t know what it is, but it looks like it might be really old and probably important or valuable or something.”