Cheesie Mack Is Not a Genius or Anything (11 page)

When the policeman finally spoke, his voice was scratchy and odd. “I know you. I know both of you.”

I
, Ronal Dwellerson, cannot remember our capture. I now think it was a witfog spell that overcame us. We had been completely unprepared, standing beside our wheelers, unarmed and unarmored, surprised by one of Peezoff Fizzur’s black four-rollers … and then there was nothing … until the dark became more than just blackness, and Geo and I, tethered by metal chains, were stumbling over the uneven stone floor, pulled by a massive horned creature.

In the smoky light of rimtorches, we could see only the rock tunnel walls and the hide of the monster’s back, matted and marred with what must have been dried blood and the knotted scars of old wounds. He stopped at a heavy wooden door and pushed it open, revealing a very small, very damp room. Then he turned to face us. A thick brass spiral sharpened at both ends hung from his belt, and a long thread of snot from his nose.

“I know you,” he said in a reedy voice so wrong. “I know both of you.”

*   *   *

Remember I wrote
Chapter 4α
in science-fiction style? Well, just when I started to write about the policeman and me and Georgie, my sister, in her room with one of her friends, began to blah-blah-blah
way too loudly
about why Harry Potter was better than Narnia and Frodo. So I decided to write what happened to me and Georgie as if we were living in Middle Earth or Narnwarts. My dad helped me with some of the sentences.

I think Ronal Dwellerson is a very cool name. And maybe Georgie would like to be called Geo. I’m going to ask him.

Anyway, you get the idea. And that’s why this is Chapter 8§.

(I don’t know what that squiggle is. I just found it on my computer and decided it looked old and magical.)

Maybe someday I’ll write a fantasy book.

I
am sure you have heard this: If you fall off a cliff and are plunging toward the jagged rocks below, your whole life will flash through your mind in the split second before you die.

Well, that’s sort of what happened to me in the split second after the policeman spoke. Here’s what went through my mind:

1. I want to pet my dog. (Makes sense. I love Deeb. But why did I think of this first?)
   
2. Even after I was forced to hold Mrs. Crespo’s hand at graduation, now I’m going to miss my graduation party. (Makes sense. I really wanted to go.)
   
3. In first grade I wet my pants at recess once,
   and my teacher never told my mother. (I don’t know why I thought of this, and it’s a little embarrassing, but it really flashed through my mind, so I won’t leave it out.)
   
4. E-I-E-I-O. (What was this all about? It even had the music to it. Sometimes I don’t understand how my mind works.)
   
5. Point Battle. Go to jail. GAME OVER. Goon wins. (After all the other thoughts evaporated, this was all that was left … and it was really loud.)
   

The policeman got out of his car and walked toward us. He was tall and very big, like a football player. He had a gun in a holster on his belt. The belt had lots of gadgets and bullets and stuff on it. He had a badge on his chest and a name tag that said “Crompton.” He looked at Georgie for a long time.

“Either of you boys …” He paused and looked at me with hard, staring eyes. “Know anything about what happened …” He turned his head toward Georgie, but his eyes stayed on me. “Back there?” He pointed very slowly toward The Haunted Toad.

I looked back up the road toward the house. The woman was still there, staring back. I looked at Georgie. His eyebrows were waggling up and down. I knew that if I didn’t speak, Georgie would start talking, and when he did, he’d blab everything. So I started talking first.

“We didn’t really do anything wrong. I mean, okay, maybe we did. I don’t know all the laws. You probably do, being a police officer and stuff. But we had this note to deliver, and we didn’t want to bother the person who lived there, so we, I mean I—Georgie didn’t because he was holding my bike—went across The Haunted Toad’s lawn. That’s what we call that old green house, not because we think it’s actually haunted or it’s a toad or anything like that. We just think that’s what it looks like. And I know I didn’t ruin or break anything. Okay, maybe a branch of a bush—I got my shirt caught, and it was a little branch. Really little. But we had this note to deliv—”

It was at this point I realized that I was doing exactly what I wanted to keep Georgie from doing. So I shut up.

The policeman was an excellent starer.

Finally he said, “You’re Cal Mack’s son, aren’t you?”

How did he know? I gulped, then nodded.

“And you.” He turned to Georgie. “You’re Ben Sinkoff’s boy, right?”

Georgie’s nod was so small, the policeman just kept staring until Georgie nodded a second time, much bigger.

“Why don’t you two just ride your bikes back up the block and park in front of that green house? I’ll be right behind you.”

We rode very slowly. The police car followed very slowly.

“We’re going to jail,” Georgie whispered loudly.

I swallowed really hard. My knees were shaking all by themselves. “How does he know who we are?”

As we approached The Haunted Toad, the woman on the sidewalk never took her eyes off us.

I whispered, “She must be G. J. Prott.”

We parked our bikes and stood next to them. The
woman looked really mad, but she didn’t say anything until Officer Crompton got out of the police car and walked over. Then she began waving her arms every which way and bawling us out. “Thispolicemanjusthappenedtobedrivingbyandsuch­amesswhatgivesyoutwotroublemakersmygoodness?”

She was so upset that her words all ran together, and I had no idea what she was talking about. She was waving one arm and pointing with the other at the tipped-over recycling barrel. Then she spun around and pointed at the white house next to The Haunted Toad and said, “TenyearsI’velived­herepeacefulneighborhoodthisismytrashcansodisgracefulandif­youthinkI’mgoingtowellyou’rewrong.”

I looked at the house she was pointing toward. I was completely confused. Then suddenly it hit me.

I started grinning. Georgie looked at me like I was crazy. Then I burst out laughing.

The lady stopped waving her arms.

Officer Crompton’s stern look got even sterner.

“We are sooooo,” I managed to croak through my laughter, “sorry.” I started bouncing on the balls of
my feet. This lady wasn’t G. J. Prott! She was G. J. Prott’s next-door neighbor, and Georgie and I were guilty of littering!

Guffawing (there’s that word again!) and choking, I grabbed Georgie and pulled him over to the tipped trash barrel and its scattered pile of bottles and cans. I was hooting and ha-hooing as I picked up the barrel. I was hey-harring and ho-heeing as I grabbed an empty wine bottle and a couple of crushed soda cans and tossed them in. Then Georgie got the idea and bounded into action. He snatched up wine bottles in both hands, stood, spun, and did a jumping double-stuff into the barrel. We became bathing-suited zoom chucklers.

(I just made that up, but I’m sure you know what I mean.)

It took us no time at all to pick up everything except the bottles that had broken into lots of glass pieces.

The policeman hadn’t moved or said a word while we were cleaning up. “Don’ttouch,” the woman warned. “I’llgetabroom.”

“We are so sorry,” I repeated, this time without
giggling. I turned to Officer Crompton. “May we leave? We have to get to our graduation party.”

He nodded.

I said, “May I ask you a question?”

The policeman stared.

“How do you know who we are?”

“I know every kid in Gloucester,” he said with a thin smile. “So watch yourself.”

Officer Crompton then pointed to the lady’s house and The Haunted Toad and said, “No more trash can problems. No more notes. I want you two boys to stay away from these houses, you hear?”

Georgie and I nodded seriously, and the policeman walked back toward his car. As we got on our bikes, I looked back at The Haunted Toad. The note I had stuck in the door was gone!