Cheesie Mack Is Cool in a Duel

by Steve Cotler

  Suddenly I knew what had caused my M&M-itis. Her story was untrue. And I knew what I needed to do to prove it.

  I held up my hand. Marci stopped talking. Everyone stared at me.

  To them I’m sure I still looked like Ronald “Cheesie” Mack, but in my mind I had become R. Cheshire MacAronie, Esq., the world-famous lawyer who always got the truth out of those he questioned.

  “Excuse me, Marci,” I began. “Before camp started, did you receive a letter from Camp Leeward telling what items to bring with you?”

  Marci was surprised by my question. She looked at Lana, then nodded.

  “And did your brother receive a similar letter from Camp Windward?”

  She nodded again.

  I was setting a trap. “So, is it correct that your brother had been told he was accepted into Camp Windward?”

  “Yes,” Marci said softly.

  “When did you say Marcus canceled coming to camp?”

  When Marci didn’t answer, I (Attorney MacAronie) turned away from the witness and faced the jury (Mookie, Lana, and Georgie). I waited.…

  Finally Marci spoke. “Um … about … I don’t know … maybe about a week before camp started.”

  “That is so not true,” I said, turning back toward Marci.

  She was speechless.

  I continued. “You’re as old as me and Georgie. So Marcus, your twin brother, has to be the same age. You say he canceled just before camp started? Impossible. If he did …”

  I paused and spoke very slowly and calmly.

  “… there would’ve been one empty spot in the Little Guys cabin. That spot would’ve been available for Georgie … and we wouldn’t have been shoved in with the Big Guys.”

  “Yes!” Georgie said in a loud whisper.

  “You don’t even have a twin brother, do you?” My cross-examination was complete.

  For an instant nobody said anything. Every member of the kitchen staff was staring at us. Then Marci ran out of the kitchen.

  In a tiny voice I could barely hear, Lana said, “I’m sorry, Cheesie,” and ran after her.

  (Once I started writing this story, I realized I should’ve known a lot sooner that Marci didn’t have a brother. Earlier in the summer she had said something that proved she was an only child, but I didn’t catch it. Did you? The answer is on my website.)

  “Okay,” Mookie said, walking away. “I’m guessing the computer problems have disappeared. Time for me to make some pizza.”

  When I sat down at our table in the dining hall, Kevin was in a great mood, laughing and joking with everyone about the garter snakes. He even had one tucked in his T-shirt pocket. He seemed really confident. The final vote would come in a few hours. If I lost, I’d have to make a Kevin-is-the-coolest announcement and bow down to him. I would be completely humiliated. Guys would talk about it for years.

  But I had one chance left.

  Everything depended on the One-Armed Man.

  The One-Armed Man

  That night’s campfire was fun, and when it ended everyone was in a good mood … just perfect for my scary story. So as we got into our pajamas, I gave Lindermann the signal to begin.

  “Listen, you guys,” he said. “I know some of you have complained because I don’t tell scary stories. Well, today Cheesie was in Uncle Bud’s house, and he told me he read a really scary article in the newspaper.”

  Kevin flopped back on his bed in disgust. “Aw, c’mon! We don’t want to hear some stupid newspaper junk from the Runt.”

  “Just give it a chance,” Lindermann said. “It’s Cheesie or nothing. He says it’s really scary.”

  Georgie gave me a look that said, How come I don’t know anything about this?

  When the grumbling stopped, I began. “Today’s paper had an interesting article about a crazy man who escaped from the mental hospital in Farmington. Did any of you see it?” Of course I knew they hadn’t, because none of them read the newspaper, and anyway, I was making the whole thing up.

  Most of the boys just stared, but a few shook their heads. “Well, from what I can tell from the article, this guy went crazy about fifteen years ago at some summer camp around here. Not this camp, though.”

  “Boring,” Kevin muttered.

  I ignored him. “He was about twelve then, because now he’s in his midtwenties, the article said. Anyway, he only has one arm, and that’s one of the reasons he went crazy.”

  “Boring,” Kevin repeated more loudly.

  “It seems that one night this kid—he was a well-known mischief maker—”

  “Like me,” Ty interrupted. Lots of kids laughed.

  “He snuck out of his cabin after lights-out and went down to the lake. He didn’t take a flashlight because the moon was so bright. He got into the camp’s motorboat, planning to take it out for a run. But he must’ve forgotten to untie one of the mooring ropes—”

  “What a dope,” Jimmy said.

  “Because when he started the motor, the boat shot forward, jerked to a sudden stop, and threw him into the water. He came up for air just as the boat spun back at him and ripped off his arm with its whirling propeller. The last thing he saw before he blacked out was the red running lights on the motorboat.”

  “Motorboats don’t have running lights!” Ty shouted.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “But that’s what the newspaper said. I didn’t make this up.”

  Ty turned to Kevin. “He is definitely making this up.”

  “Hey, look,” Lindermann said. “If this doesn’t interest you guys, Cheesie’ll just quit. We can turn the lights out and go to sleep.” He looked around the room, but no one said anything else … so he nodded to me, and I continued.

  “Okay, then. He would have drowned for sure, but one of the counselors had heard the motorboat start up and ran down to the lake just in time to see the kid get hit. He dove in and saved him. Then it was a race to see if they could get him to a hospital in time to keep him alive. I guess he was really bleeding.”

  “Really bleeding!” Sam was getting excited. “If you ripped an arm off, you’d bleed to death in two minutes.”

  “Not necessarily,” Lindermann said calmly.

  “Sure you would!” Jimmy shouted.

  “Shut up, you guys. I want to hear this,” Zip said.

  I took a deep breath. “The kid went crazy because he lost his arm. At least that’s what the paper said.”

  There was a long pause. Finally Kevin said, “So, what else?”

  “That’s it,” I said.

  “What? That stinks! That’s the dumbest story I ever heard,” Kevin said, plopping back onto his bed.

  Lindermann stood up. “Sorry, guys, I was hoping you’d like it. Let’s get ready for bed.” He walked around the cabin, picking up baseball gloves and other junk and tossing them onto bunks. I went into the bathroom and got my toothbrushing stuff.

  Then I hurried back out like I had just remembered something. I had my toothbrush in one hand, my toothpaste in the other, waving both. “Oh, yeah, I forgot one thing. The article said that this guy, after his stump healed, became violent, attacking anyone with two arms.”

  Kevin sat up. “This is totally not true!” He turned to Lindermann. “I know Cheesie’s making this up.”

  Just like I had asked him to, Lindermann pretended to be mad. “Listen! You guys have asked me over and over to make up a scary ghost story. But I already told you I don’t believe in that kind of juvenile stuff, didn’t I?”

  Lindermann leaned over Kevin’s bunk and stared straight at him. “You can believe Cheesie or not … I don’t really care.” He walked slowly back to his bunk, then turned around and looked at all the kids, who were surprised that he had raised his voice.

  Lindermann’s outburst quieted the place down, and soon everyone except me was in bed. I just stood in the doorway to my cove.

  “Is that all the newspaper said?” Georgie asked.

  I paused to think, then said, “No, actually, the paper said t
hat the police were going to look for him in the lakes around here, because he’s escaped before … and that’s where they caught him last time.”

  “It’s dumb to put that in the paper,” Ethan said. “If you wanted to catch somebody, you wouldn’t go telling everyone where you planned to look. What if he reads the paper? He’ll just take off to somewhere else.”

  Ethan looked around the room. Several boys nodded in agreement.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I said. “Look, I’m sure this is a stupid thing to bring up, but I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”

  They all looked at me. Up until that moment, no one had been worrying about anything. I squeezed toothpaste onto my brush.

  “What do you mean?” Georgie asked.

  “There’s nothing to worry about. If this crazy man really came up here to the lakes, and Ethan’s probably right about him reading the newspaper and running the other way, he’d have eight or nine lakes to choose from. Why would he pick this lake?”

  I began brushing my teeth.

  “And if he did pick Bufflehead, which is really a long shot, there are six camps on this lake. There’s Grand Vista, Highfield, Webster Pines, those two way over on the south side … so, counting us, there are six camps. Why would he pick this camp?”

  Toothpaste foam was beginning to drool out the corners of my mouth.

  “And if he happened to pick this camp—I mean, now you’re really talking about the impossible—there are twenty cabins on our side, and he might go to the girls’ side. And our cabin isn’t closest to the lake or to the road. Why would he pick our cabin?”

  By this time the white drool was halfway down my chin, giving me, I hoped, an eerie appearance.

  “Unless”—I paused—“he came through the woods.” There was complete silence as I wiped my chin with the back of my hand. “The paper said he carries a red flashlight with him wherever he goes. It has something to do with the accident.”

  Sam spoke, his voice barely audible. “The lights on the motorboat!”

  I waved my toothbrush at him. “I bet you’re right!”

  That got all the kids deep-thinking, so I disappeared into my cove.

  Lindermann walked to the front door, hit the switch, and said, “Lights-out!” As he walked back to his bunk, he said softly, just like I had asked him to, “Remember how Cheesie said he attacks people with two arms?”

  “Yeah, I remember.” I could tell it was Zip.

  “Well,” Lindermann continued, “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to sleep with both my arms under the covers tonight. I know it’s silly, but let’s just say I’m trying to stay on the safe side of things.”

  Kevin was still not convinced. “I don’t believe any of this. Cheesie made it up, didn’t he?”

  “Good night, Kevin,” Lindermann said. He waited a moment or two, then said quietly, “Arms under the covers.”

  Except for the usual rustling of blankets, beds, and sheets that accompanied bedtime, there was no noise. I remember thinking that the woods were strangely quiet … just right for my plan.

  I waited fifteen minutes. I wanted my victims to be asleep.

  I sat up, put on my sweatshirt, and pulled the hood down tightly. Then I put on my shoes and grabbed my flashlight—I had taped some red plastic from the crafts room over the light. I stood up on my bed and pushed at my window screen. It was hinged at the top and swung out into the night air.

  I shined the red flashlight out the window. The stepladder that I had asked Lindermann to put against the wall was right where it was supposed to be. I waited, listening for any sound from inside the cabin that would indicate that someone was still awake.

  Silence.

  I climbed out.

  Once outside on the ladder, I waited with my head still in the window, listening again to make sure no one had heard me.

  Silence.

  I climbed down and hid one arm inside my sweatshirt and tiptoed around the cabin, avoiding the sticks and leaves, walking soundlessly on the dirt beside the cabin. I got to the front door and opened it.

  I know this sounds like a scary story itself, but that night—maybe because I opened it so slowly—our cabin’s screen door squeaked like all those doors in horror movies. It made a soft, high-pitched, stuttering scree-eech that went straight up and down my spine.

  I stepped inside. As I flashed the spooky red glow over each kid’s sleeping face, I could see that every one of them had both arms tucked under the covers. Sam had his covers pulled all the way over his head.

  With the empty sleeve of my sweatshirt dangling, I walked to the back of the cabin, shining my flashlight up at Lindermann’s bunk. He was on one elbow, grinning at me.

  It was time. I kicked one of the legs of Georgie’s bed.

  He opened his eyes to a world of red light.

  There was a moment of nothing while Georgie’s sleepy brain cranked itself up to speed. Then …

  “HE’S HERE!” Georgie screamed in complete and total terror.

  “Keep your arms under the covers!” Lindermann yelled. “KEEP YOUR ARMS UNDER THE COVERS!”

  For the next minute, the cabin was a horfusing (horrible plus confusing), conforrible (confusing plus horrible) jumble of cries, yells, and the sounds of running and crashing. Someone slammed into me and screamed. At last Lindermann climbed down and flipped on the lights. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  Kevin and Henry were huddled together in a back corner of the cabin, whimpering.

  Sam was standing on his bed, completely wrapped in his blanket and moaning. His nose was bleeding.

  Clark and Danny were running back and forth inside the cabin, not knowing where they were going.

  Several boys were missing. I guessed they had run outside.

  Lloyd was the only kid still in bed, both his arms under the covers. He was wailing over and over, “I peed in my bed. I peed in my bed. I peed in my bed.…”

  I looked for Georgie, but he was gone. After looking under his bed, I tried the bathroom. Georgie was standing in the toilet. That’s right. In the toilet! He had dashed into the bathroom when the crazy man showed up, ducked into the stall to hide, and jumped up on the toilet seat so that his feet wouldn’t show. In the darkness he had missed and landed in the bowl. I looked at him and laughed. I was still laughing when I heard Uncle Bud storm into the cabin.

  “What the blue blazes is going on in here?” he shouted.

  I ran out of the bathroom. Georgie, his pajama bottoms dripping, followed.

  “Omigosh, Granpa. It was great! I totally terrified everyone with a scary story.” I was so excited, I forgot to call him Uncle Bud.

  He turned around slowly, taking in the chaos. When he saw Sam’s bloody face, he pulled off a pillowcase and pressed it to Sam’s nose. Then he noticed Lloyd, who had finally gotten out of his wet bed. It was obvious that he had peed his pajama bottoms. Uncle Bud looked up at the ceiling, took a very deep breath, and let it out slowly.

  “Lindermann,” he said wearily, “change this boy’s sheets. Get your campers calmed down. And get this cabin to sleep.”

  Dutcher came in with Alfie, Jason, and Noah. The boys were trembling. “What’s going on? I found these guys hiding behind some trees.”

  Uncle Bud didn’t answer. Dutcher followed him as he left the cabin.

  Lindermann changed Lloyd’s sheets and cleaned up Sam’s nosebleed.

  No one looked happy. None of the boys, including Georgie, now in dry pajamas, would look at me. Some were still shaking, and all were embarrassed.

  I went into the cove, climbed into bed, and tried to figure out what had gone wrong. They had begged for a scary story, and I had given them what they asked for. But I had scared them too much. What if they had nightmares for the rest of their lives? I could still hear someone whimpering as we all tried to get back to sleep.

  I had definitely overdone it.

  But it really was an excellent scary story.

  Just before I fell asleep I re
alized we had forgotten the final Cool Duel vote.

  The Final Vote

  The next morning I awoke before the other boys and peeked out of my cove. Flag raising was at least thirty minutes away, but Lindermann was already heading out the door. I got dressed in a flash, and even though it was against the rules to leave your cabin before the flag-raising call, I ran out after him. He was sitting on a rock by the side of the cabin.

  “That was some story you told,” he said.

  I nodded. The wake-up trumpet call sounded. “I think the kids all hate me.”

  Neither of us spoke for a while. Finally the flag-raising trumpet tooted and everyone came pouring out of the cabins.

  Tons of kids from other cabins rushed over and surrounded my bunk mates, trying to find out what had happened. I peeked around the corner of our cabin, concerned that the guys I had frightened would still be embarrassed.

  Everyone was talking at once.

  “Shut up! Shut up!” Georgie shouted. “I’ll tell you what happened. Cheesie told this super-terrific story, and—I’m not kidding—I got so scared, I jumped in the toilet!”

  Everyone laughed.

  “And I got so scared, I peed in my bed!” Lloyd yelled proudly.

  Everyone laughed even louder.

  Sam, standing on our cabin steps, jumped up and down and screamed for the whole camp to hear, “Cheesie told us the scariest story in the whole world! We’ve got the greatest cabin that ever, ever existed!”

  Then Georgie saw me, ran over, wrapped me in a bear hug, and swung me around. “Oh my gosh, Cheesie, that was the best story you ever made up.” He put me down, grabbed my shoulders, and shook me hard. “You have to put it in your next book!”

  (Which, of course, is exactly what I’m doing.)

  Dutcher came up to me on the way to breakfast. “From what I’ve heard, I’m thinking your One-Armed Man might be better than my Zombie Attacks. How about you tell it to me sometime, so I can pull it on my campers next year?”

  I was grinning ear to ear all through the meal. The dining hall was way noisier than usual. Everyone was chattering about our cabin and my story. Lots of girls stood at the Border Line, begging every nearby boy for information. I saw a grinning Goon point at me and make a thumbs-down motion. I guess she was hoping I was in trouble.