Cheesie Mack Is Not Exactly Famous

by Steve Cotler

  “What is up with your dog?” Georgie asked.

  “No idea,” I said, trotting after her. “Let’s get something to open that manhole. Even if we might get caught, we’ve got to try.”

  I was planning to go in my back door and then down to the basement to look through Granpa’s tools, but when I got to the backyard, Deeb was standing by the won’t-close gate, barking her head off.

  “Something’s up,” I muttered to myself.

  You probably won’t believe what I’m going to tell you next, and actually, I don’t know what to believe myself, but when I opened the gate, Deeb, who NEVER leaves my yard without an order from me, just zoomed out, splashing through the creek. About ten yards downstream, she stopped, turned around, and barked. It sounded like (I’m not kidding!) “Rurri Yupf! Rurri Yupf!”

  Which I think is Dog Language for “hurry up.”

  Georgie pushed by me, carrying Glenn’s metal detector. “I know what she wants!” he shouted. “She’s telling us we can get into the sewer from our clubhouse! Let’s go!” He ran after Deeb. I followed.

  We don’t actually have a clubhouse. In fact, we don’t even have a club. A little ways downstream, the creek goes under a road, and there’s a four-foot-wide metal pipe that comes out of the concrete wall that holds up the road. When Georgie and I want a secret hideout, we climb inside that pipe. That’s our so-called clubhouse.

  Sure enough, Deeb was waiting below the pipe.

  “Good dog!” I said, rubbing her head. I lifted her into the pipe, and she sniffed her way to the back. About six feet in, there’s a steel screen that blocks you from going any farther.

  “I take back everything I ever said about your smelly dog,” Georgie said. “She’s a genius. You wait with Deeb. I’m going to get tools to open that screen.”

  Georgie ran back downstream. I climbed into the pipe and picked up the notebook Georgie and I always leave in there. (In it Georgie draws cartoons, and I write good ideas, jokes, and all about things Georgie and I do.) I flipped on my flashlight, pulled the pencil out of the spiral binding, turned to a blank page, and began drawing a diagram of where the road above my head went. Then I drew my street where I thought it was. If our clubhouse pipe was part of the sewer system, it had to connect (if I’d drawn the streets, the creek, and the pipe in the right places …) right there! I drew an X. We had just finished reading Treasure Island in Core. “X marks the spot,” I said to Deeb. Then I turned off my flashlight and waited.

  It didn’t take Georgie long. He had wrenches, pliers, a hammer, and a couple of tools I didn’t know the names of. He tossed them clankingly into the pipe and climbed in after them.

  I turned on the flashlight and showed him my map. “Pirate treasure. Gold doubloons. Finding a gold ring. Pretty much the same thing,” I said.

  “Yep,” Georgie said. He picked up a wrench and hooked it onto one of the bolts that held the screen in place.

  Georgie is very strong. I could not have loosened a single bolt. But he undid four. One of them was so stuck, he had to hit the wrench with the hammer! Then we bent back the screen.

  “I’m leaving Glenn’s gadget here,” Georgie said. “All these pipes are going to be metal. We’ll have to find the ring the old-fashioned way … with our eyeballs.”

  He pulled back the screen, and I squeezed through. Then I braced my back against the wall of the pipe and used my legs to push the opening wide enough for Georgie to squeeze through after me. I looked back at Deeb. She was lying down in the pipe. I guess she figured she had done her job and now could rest. We shined our flashlights into the darkness. Only ten feet ahead, the pipe met another similar pipe in a T. We could see no farther.

  “If my map is right,” I said softly (when you are inside a pipe, there is no need to speak any louder), “my house is that way.” I pointed to the left.

  In all the times we sat in our clubhouse, there was never any water coming through the screen, so when we turned left into the second pipe, we were surprised to get our knees wet. I pointed my flashlight down. There was a shallow stream that didn’t seem to be moving. It didn’t smell, but the bottom of the pipe did feel a little slimy.

  “This is kind of gross,” I muttered.

  Georgie aimed his flashlight down the pipe. It lit up the sides, but straight ahead was total darkness. We could not see the end.

  “Do you think there are really alligators in sewers?” I asked.

  Georgie gave me a don’t-be-a-dope look. “Of course not. What would they eat?”

  “Kids who crawl through pipes,” I replied with a laugh.

  Neither of us had moved. Our feet were still at the T.

  “Did you hear something?” Georgie whispered.

  I shook my head. If I were a goblin, this would be my dream house, I said to myself. I leaned backward and looked out. Deeb hadn’t moved. The light was dimming. It would soon be dinnertime.

  “I just thought of something,” Georgie said. “If we go in, how will we find our way out?”

  “My map?” I suggested.

  “It’d be better if we had a long ball of string,” Georgie said.

  “Like Tom Sawyer,” I said.

  Ms. Higgins had read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain to us last year in fifth grade. It’s a really famous book, and in it, Tom and his friend Becky Thatcher follow a ball of string they’d unrolled to find their way back out of a cave. “I have a roll of kite string in my roo—” I stopped because Georgie suddenly grabbed my arm.

  “Look!” he blurted in a scared whisper.

  His flashlight was pointed into the long, dark tunnel. The last time I’d stared into the pipe, I had seen nothing but bare walls and unending blackness. Now, at the edge of that darkness, three sets of reddish eyes stared back at us.

  LIVES REMAINING: 2

  All but one of Makko’s clan were now gone. Only minutes earlier, Makko had watched Old Gramps get overrun and eaten by three of the largest slime mice he had ever seen. Only Zinkov remained alive. Sure, Zinkov was the biggest, cleverest sorcerer Makko had ever quested with, but with just two of them left, could they get through this dark maze alive?

  “You tell me, Zinkov … why do they call ’em mice?” Makko whispered. “Big as tigers, those are.”

  Zinkov didn’t answer. He moved his light blaster slowly from side to side, peering into the darkness.

  Makko knew slime mice. They attack … and then attack again. He was ready.

  “Did you hear something?” Zinkov whispered.

  Makko spun around.

  Too late …

  (Screen turns dark red, then goes black.)

  *

  LIVES REMAINING: 1

  Zinkov and Makko were the only ones left.

  “I’ve cast the string spell,” Zinkov whispered. “We go in … it’ll get us back out.”

  He started to crawl forward, but Makko held up his hand. Zinkov halted.

  “Did you hear something?” Zinkov whispered.

  Makko spun around.

  Too late …

  (Screen turns dark red, then goes black.)

  *

  LIVES REMAINING: 0

  Makko knew slime mice. They attack … and then attack again. He was ready.

  “Did you hear something?” Zinkov whispered.

  Makko spun around, expecting slime mice, but this was worse. Much worse. A stench globbin reached out for him. Makko flicked his small osmium wand, and its last fireball shot out, striking the stench globbin in the neck. The repulsive globbin collapsed. In his dead and stinking hand was the gold ring they’d been seeking.

  “Dumb luck,” Makko said to Zinkov. “Now let’s get out of here.”

  (You got the ring! Congratulations. Game over.)

  *

  After I finished writing the last chapter, I took a break and went over to Georgie’s to play a video game with him. When I ran out of lives, I came back home and started thinking about what a video game would be like if it took place in disgusting
sewers and other underground places. So I wrote what you just read. You can probably figure out where I got my ideas. If you can’t, there’s a page on my website that explains everything.

  Kids have asked me, so yes … I like writing and I like playing video games, but there’s a difference between those two activities. When you finish writing, you have something. When you finish a video game, the screen goes dark.

  Think about it.

  “It wouldn’t have worked anyway,” Georgie grumbled.

  We had returned his father’s tools and were climbing the stairs at my house.

  “Too dark. Too wet,” I agreed. “And too many creatures.”

  I stopped suddenly at the top of the stairs. Georgie bumped into me.

  “What?” he asked.

  From inside the closed bathroom, we could hear Goon singing loudly.

  “She’s taking a bath … and look.” I pointed at her bedroom door. Goon had shut it, but one of her slippers had stopped it from closing all the way. “Wait here,” I said, tiptoeing across the hall.

  “What are you doing?” Georgie whispered a bit too loudly.

  Wait, I mouthed silently.

  I pushed Goon’s door open and moved quickly toward her bookshelf. I’d been thinking about this a long time, and now was my chance. I heard footsteps and turned around. Georgie was at the door, his head poking in.

  “What are you doing?” he repeated, tiptoeing in.

  I didn’t answer. I scanned the books, found the one I was looking for (you guessed it … Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone), and pulled it off the shelf. Georgie came up behind me as I opened to the first page.

  “Just as I thought,” I whispered, jabbing my finger at the writing. “Goon switched books. This one’s signed by J. K. Rowling. It’s Mrs. DeWitt’s.”

  I quickly rearranged some of her other books so the gap where the Harry Potter had been wouldn’t be noticeable and zipped out of her room, pushing Georgie ahead of me. Goon was still singing.

  Once the two of us were back in my room with the door closed, I dropped the book onto my bed and paced around the room. “What a sneaky plan! Once the time capsule gets buried, Goon gets to keep the really valuable book.”

  Georgie rolled Deeb out of his way and sat on my bed. “And none of us—not even Mr. Hernandes—opened the other book to see there’s no signature in it. Wow! No one would’ve noticed for a hundred years.” He picked up the book and looked at the signature. “But remember when she was in your room? Why did she take a picture?”

  “Dunno. Doesn’t matter,” I said.

  Boy, was I wrong! It mattered big-time, but I didn’t find that out until much later.

  Georgie closed the book. “She’s pretty clever.”

  I stopped my pacing. “Uh-huh. Pretty clever … but not clever enough. Tomorrow you and I’ll go to the museum and switch the books back.”

  “Why not just rat on her to your folks?” Georgie asked. “It’d serve her right.”

  “Yeah … but nah. Mrs. DeWitt made me promise never to let her book out of my sight. I’ve got to do this secretly. If I tell on Goon …”

  “I get it,” Georgie said.

  “And c’mon! Think of how totally hacked off Goon will be after the time capsule is buried and she discovers she has her own book back.” I am sure I had a most devilish grin on my face.

  Just then we heard Goon come out of the bathroom. Georgie and I looked at each other for a moment and then burst into hysterical laughter.

  In the morning, Georgie’s head was still on the pillow when he announced, “I’ve got a Great Idea. We’ll buy another ring to replace the one I lost. After breakfast get your bike and meet me in front of your house with as much money as you can scrape up.” Then he left to go have breakfast with his brothers.

  Buy another ring? I wasn’t sure if that really was one of Georgie’s Great Ideas, but it was worth a try. So here’s what I did:

  1. I emptied my piggy bank. (Even if you think piggy banks are for little kids, don’t laugh. Lots of nights I talk my dad into giving me his pocket change, so there was over eleven dollars in it.)

  2. I stashed the book I had taken from Goon’s room in my small backpack (not my school one … it’s too big) and took it down to breakfast.

  3. I gobbled some cold cereal and borrowed five dollars from Granpa (“I need to buy a wedding present” … not really a lie).

  4. I ran outside to where Dad was just getting into his limo (he had to drive some tourists around Cape Ann) and borrowed another five dollars (“I need to buy a wedding present” … not really a lie, again).

  Then I went out front, straddled my bike, and listened to a mockingbird while I waited for Georgie.

  Mockingbirds are called that because they mock (copy) the calls of other birds. (I am going to write a report on them for science, and if Mr. Noa, my music teacher, lets me use it in his class, it’ll be kind of like using one bird to “kill two birds with one stone.” Either way, my report will be on my website if you want to read it.)

  “How much did you get?” Georgie asked me when he arrived.

  “A little over twenty-one dollars,” I said as we pedaled toward town.

  “I had eight bucks, and I got ten more from Jokie. Everyone else was still asleep,” Georgie said. “Almost forty bucks. That’s got to be way more than enough to buy one stupid little gold ring.”

  “Your troubles are almost over!” I replied.

  Boy, was I wrong!

  When we told the lady in the jewelry store what we wanted, she just shook her head. There must have been two dozen wedding rings in the tray she showed us, but the cheapest one cost almost three hundred dollars! Georgie was stunned. His mouth hung open.

  “How much is the most expensive one?” I asked.

  The lady was very nice. Even though she had another customer waiting, she showed us one that cost over two thousand dollars! And it was just gold … no diamonds or rubies or anything.

  (Did you know diamonds are made of 100 percent carbon? Mr. Amato told me if you put a diamond in oxygen and burned it, it would turn completely to carbon dioxide gas with absolutely nothing left over. Wouldn’t that be a waste?)

  “What do we do now?” I asked when we were back outside on our bikes.

  “I’m cooked.” Georgie sighed. “I guess I just go home and tell my dad what a jerk I am.”

  “We need to stop by the museum,” I said.

  Georgie didn’t respond.

  Normally I would’ve tapped my knuckles against his skull and said, “Hello? Anyone in there?” but he was too miserable. So I just said, “The time capsule? The book Goon stole … remember?”

  Georgie nodded, and we started pedaling uphill past lots of downtown stores.

  “Hi, Georgie. Hi, Cheesie.” It was Joy Dinnington, Ms. D’s daughter. She was just coming out of a shoe store with another girl, one of her high school friends, I guessed. After the wedding tomorrow, Joy would be Georgie’s stepsister. I’d seen her a few times with Ms. D and watched her play basketball, but I didn’t know her very well. Starting tomorrow, however, she’d be my neighbor.

  “Hi,” Georgie said to Joy with absolutely no joy in his voice.

  “Wow. What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Joy is sixteen, blond, kind of pretty, I guess, and taller than her mom. Normally I wouldn’t have noticed, but because of the mission we’d been on, I definitely spotted the three gold rings on her fingers and her dangly gold earrings. After what the lady in the jewelry store had taught us about how expensive gold was, I knew none of those things could be real.

  Georgie started to reply, but I cut in. “Those are really cool earrings. And really neat rings. We—I mean Georgie—wants to buy something like that for somebody. You probably know where to get them.”

  Joy gave Georgie a big smile. “Do you have a girlfriend, Georgie?”

  The girl with Joy giggled.

  I looked at Georgie, hoping he would realize I had a plan hatching in my he
ad.

  “Um, kinda,” Georgie mumbled.

  I shouldn’t have worried. That’s the thing about best friends. Sometimes you don’t have to communicate at all. Sometimes you just know what the other person is thinking.

  Joy told us where to go. A little while later we were in a store that sold all kinds of girl stuff like bracelets, necklaces, and … rings. Lots of rings. And not one of them cost more than forty dollars! In less than five minutes we found a gold ring (but not real gold) that looked exactly like the one Georgie had lost. Even with tax, we had money left over. We stopped in a donut shop to celebrate!

  Then we rode to the museum.

  Mr. Hernandes was on the phone, but he put his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, “What do you need, boys?”

  “We’ve got one more item for the time capsule,” I said. I took the book out of my backpack and showed it to him.

  He nodded and whispered, “You’ll find the box in there.” He pointed into the room where I had first seen his professor daughter looking at all the Native American arrowheads.

  Georgie and I went into the other room. The box, made of some kind of shiny metal, was on the table. (Mr. Hernandes told me later it was stainless steel, the same material they make refrigerators and dishwashers out of. That meant it wouldn’t rust or rot during the hundred years it would be in the ground.) It wasn’t locked, so I lifted the lid, spotted the other Harry Potter book, and swapped them, quickly stashing the one I took out in my backpack. Then I closed the box.

  Moments later Mr. Hernandes came in, holding a clipboard. “That’s strange. I already had that book on my list as being checked in.”

  He walked past us and opened the box. Georgie and I looked at each other but didn’t say anything. He picked up the book I had just put in, opened it to the page where the signature was, then nodded once and put everything back the way it was.

  “Strange,” he muttered, looking at the list on his clipboard carefully. “I don’t usually make mistakes like that.” Then he turned around and said, with a big smile stretching his beard sideways, “Well, no matter. I will see you boys Monday morning.”