Cheesie Mack Is Not a Genius or Anything (9 page)

*   *   *

What’s wrong with the paragraph above?

First, how could I see the vampire if I was pedaling super fast after Georgie the Cheater? And how would I know that Geejape Rott (cool name for a vampire, IMO) is the
most
awful vampire in Massachusetts unless I knew about all the other vampires in Massachusetts?

And besides, there are no vampires in Massachusetts.

I just wanted to write something really scary. Maybe my next book will be all about vampires.

Or zombies.

*   *   *

With only three houses to go until we got to my driveway, I had caught up to Georgie the Cheater. But he must have been saving his strength or something, because when he saw me out of the corner of his eye, he put out a blast of pedaling power, and I lost by a front wheel.

“Cheater (gasp)!” I gasped as I leaned my bike up against my garage.

Georgie grinned and did a goofy victory dance holding up the front wheel of his bike. I hate cheating. Here’s why:

1. Let’s say you’re the second-shortest kid in your class and you’re always playing games with kids who are way bigger than you. Sure, you might lose a lot, but you’ll never know how good you really are at these games if you cheat.
   
2. Let’s say you’re the biggest kid in your class and there’s only one sports thing—bike riding—that your best friend is better at than you. Do you have to cheat at that one thing so you’ll be best at everything?
   
3. Cheating makes you weak. (Granpa told me this.) Cheaters don’t have to work as hard to win, so they do not get as strong or as good.
   

Like I said when I was describing the Point Battle in
Chapter 6
, I don’t cheat.

Georgie was grinning. I was not. He stopped his cheater dance, stared at me, and finally gave in.

“Okay, calm down. The race doesn’t count.”

“Ronnie!” my mother shouted from somewhere inside our house.

“What?” I yelled back.

“Come in for lunch!” she barked.

“What’d you make?” I screamed.

“Tuna salad sandwiches!” she hollered.

“In a while!” I growled.

“Come in now!” she howled.

“I’m eating at Georgie’s!” I roared. (Georgie and I
eat together about four or five times a week, so a long time ago we agreed that we don’t have to ask permission to eat at the other guy’s house. It’s kind of a best friend bonus.)

“Change your clothes first!” Mom shrieked.

(There must be about a hundred different words that tell how someone talks. This conversation could have gone on lots longer and I still wouldn’t have run out! I especially like the word
guffaw
, which I think means to laugh loudly with your mouth wide open. I have not yet had a chance to use it in this book, but I will!)

Georgie leaned his bike against mine. “See you at my house,” he said, and trotted into my backyard toward the won’t-close-gate.

I ran up to my room and grabbed my swimsuit and a towel. Then I stashed the graduation five-dollar bill from Gumpy in my backpack—my mom says that you should always have some money with you in case of emergencies—and ran downstairs. But I got waylaid (great word—my dad says it’s what ambushers do) by the huge collection of grandparents in my living room.

The first to stop me was Gumpy, who teaches computers and stuff at Yale College. He asked about my Little League team. He loves baseball but never plays ball with me because he is a terrible thrower because he was shot in the shoulder in the Vietnam War. I’ve seen the scar. But he refuses to tell me any gory details about it even though I have asked him a million times.

I told him that my Little League team came in last, but I batted .383, mostly singles, and stole 22 bases. He nodded, then tapped the tips of his fingers and thumbs together, which is like what Mrs. Crespo does, except that it means he is going to give me a math problem, which he does every time he sees me because he is very good at math and knows I am, too.

“Let’s say (tap, tap) there’s eighty-three cents in my pocket,” he said. “What’s the fewest number of coins I could have?”

“United States coins?” I asked.

He nodded (tap, tap).

I thought for a few seconds and answered, “Four.”

His forehead wrinkled up like he was surprised at
me. “Nope. Six. A half-dollar, a quarter, a nickel, and three pennies.”

But I proved I was right … and he was amazed.

This is not a trick question. If you don’t know why four is the correct answer, look around in this book. I stuck a clue in. And if you give up, I put the answer on my website:
CheesieMack.com
.

My next obstacle was Meemo, who is the champion kisser and hugger of my whole family. I usually don’t mind be cause I love her, and she is a very excellent baker of chocolate-chip cookies. She gave me one of her famous Meemo Monster Hugs and shoved me over to the laundry-room door, where parents and grandparents have been marking off how tall Goon and I are since we were babies. Then Meemo had to find a book to level my head with. Then she had to find a pencil. Then she marked a new line on the door. Then she had to call my mother over to show her that I had only grown a half-inch since Christmas, and was I getting enough protein in my diet? All this time she was holding my hand so I could not get away.

But finally Granpa rescued me. He sort of dragged
me into the hallway and began telling me all the reasons why I should go to camp:

He said, “Camp will be fun.”

I said, “Not without Georgie.”

He said, “I’ll need your help with the Little Guys.”

I said, “I wish I could, but I promised.”

He said, “Camp starts in three weeks, and you’ll want to see your friends.”

I said, “I’m staying here. Georgie’s my best friend.”

Granpa didn’t nod or smile or anything, but he gave me a squinty-evil-eye. I think it meant that he understood what it means to have a best friend.

I ran out the back door with Deeb racing after me, but she stopped at the gully. I have trained her not to leave our backyard unless I give her a specific command.

When I walked into Georgie’s kitchen, Mr. Sinkoff was putting tuna salad sandwiches onto three plates. Of course I instantly knew that Georgie, after listening to my mother, had gotten hungry for tuna salad sandwiches and asked his father to make some.

One of the things about having best friends is that lots of times you know exactly what they’re going to
do. It’s kind of like mind reading. For example, Georgie can always tell when I’m lying. About a year ago he figured out that when I lie, I blink my eyes a lot. When he told me, I tried to stop blinking. Not that I lie a lot. I’m not a perfect kid or anything, but my lying was mostly happening when I was trying to play a joke on someone, not when I was trying to hide being bad or anything. But when you find out for sure that your eyes give you away like blinking signs that say “I’m a liar! I’m a liar!” you better not lie too much. So I don’t.

I called, and Georgie trotted downstairs, picked up our plates, and ran up the stairs. I picked up our two glasses of milk and followed. I did not run. It is stupid to run up stairs with milk.

Georgie closed the door to his room behind me. He chomped a gigantic bite out of his sandwich and tuna-mouthed, “Gross-out contest!”

Chewing loudly with his mouth wide open, he lifted his sandwich up for another huge bite, so I smooshed it into his face with the palm of my hand and guffawed, “You win!”

(My advice: Use
guffaw
in your school writing. Your teacher will love it!)

Georgie is a good sport. He grinned and wiped his face on a T-shirt that was lying on his bed. He had forgotten to bring napkins upstairs.

I wiped my hands on my socks.

I got the sock idea exactly when I invented the BLART sandwich—that’s Bacon-Lettuce-Avocado-Ranch dressing-Tomato. Excellent and tasty, but very messy! The first time I took a bite out of side 1, gunk squished out of side 2, side 3, and side 4. My hands were dripping, and I didn’t have a napkin or anything. But I had socks, so I used them. No one has ever noticed me wiping my fingers on my ankle, and no one can tell if I have white ranch dressing smeared on white socks. I think ketchup and mustard would be really obvious, however, so make sure you have a napkin or red and yellow socks if you’re eating hot dogs or hamburgers.

(The reason I’m telling all this about BLART sandwiches is because I am eating a BLART sandwich
right now, exactly while I’m writing this chapter! And it is actually a terrible idea because my computer now has a BLART-smeared mouse.)

“We need to write a note to G. J. Prott,” I said.

Georgie picked up the heart necklace and the 1909 Lincoln Head penny (I mean “cent”). They had been sitting on his desk since the last time we’d been in his room. “If this Prott guy really wants this stuff back, maybe we’ll get a reward. Maybe ten dollars.”

“Maybe twenty,” I said, smiling. I was still thinking the coin was worth three dollars.

What a dope!

I
set my milk down on Georgie’s desk and picked up some lined paper and a pencil. I wrote:

Georgie pointed at the paper. “What if it’s a woman?”

I erased and wrote: