Cheesus Was Here Read online

  I have Claire to thank for the dramatic changes in our family.

  After she died, when the silence in the house felt like it might smother me in my sleep, we all went a little crazy. Emmet and I recovered. Our parents didn’t. My mom took a night shift at the Everything Store, a Walmart wannabe on the edge of Clemency, and we’ve hardly seen her since. My dad, a mechanic at Lucky’s Lube & Tune, took off one day after yet another fight with Mom. He’s in Montana, as far from our screwed-up little family as he can get. It’s like we buried our parents with Claire. The result is basically the same.

  My eyes are drawn to the family portrait hanging over the entry table. It’s three years old, taken at Christmas—the last time we were a normal family. Three months before Claire got sick. Mom’s hair had been permed and she looks like a blonde poodle wearing a Santa hat. Dad’s glasses are crooked, and both of them have fixed take-the-damn-picture smiles, but Emmet and I are laughing, and Claire’s looking sideways because Emmet had just yanked her ponytail. My brother’s hair is slicked back with gel, his square face spotted with acne on his chin and cheeks. I look like my dad and brother, same dark hair and eyes, my skin tawny brown. There’s no trace of Dad’s Mexican heritage in how I was raised, but it’s stamped on my face. Claire looks like Mom, with the same blonde hair and sharp cheekbones. Her skin is corpse white compared to the faces around her, though. Maybe that should have been our first clue something was wrong.

  We look happy in that picture, normal. But those people are ghosts of a family that no longer exists.

  I curse under my breath and move into the kitchen.

  Emmet holds an open can over a pink plastic cereal bowl and smacks the bottom. I snatch the can out of his hand and use a fork to knock the last dregs into the bowl. I have mad dinner skills.

  “Go on, big guy, take a seat. Wouldn’t want you to strain those oh-so-important fullback muscles.”

  Emmet whaps the back of my head before sitting and propping his legs on the table. I knock his feet down as I pass, smirking when he scowls.

  “No shoes on the table. I don’t want Astroturf getting in my SpaghettiOs.”

  “You’re not Mom. Stop acting like her.” Emmet slaps his heels back onto the table and tips his chair up on two legs.

  If I was trying to act like Mom, I’d leave him to starve. Ungrateful bastard.

  I kick the closest chair leg and Emmet goes flying backward, hitting the floor hard. He scrambles up and makes a grab for me, but I dance out of reach.

  “Uh-uh, wouldn’t want to spill dinner, would you?” I hold the bowls over my head and back around the table, sticking my tongue out.

  “The moment you put those down, you’re toast.”

  I make sure to keep the table between us and pop the bowls into the microwave. “I thought you wanted to hear about Jesus’s miraculous appearance at the Gas & Gut? It’s gonna be hard to talk if you’re strangling me.”

  “I’ll risk it.” Emmet rights his chair and sits, feet on the ground this time, glaring at me. “Why are you in such a good mood?”

  I can’t tell Emmet it’s because he’s home and this place doesn’t feel like such a tomb when I’ve got him to bug, so I shrug and lean back against the counter. “The thing with Andy and the cheese wheel is funny.”

  I drop our bowls onto the table and as soon as I sit down, Emmet kicks my leg under the table. “What cheese wheel and what’s up with Jesus?”

  I scowl but explain about the Babybel, expecting him to laugh. Instead, he looks thoughtful.

  “That’s weird. But cool.”

  Before I can answer, a door opens then closes upstairs. Emmet and I both go still, looking up at the ceiling. Seconds later there’s the soft thunk of footsteps on the stairs, the rattle of keys being grabbed from the front table, and the cold, impersonal thud of the front door banging closed.

  “Have a nice night! Love you too!” I yell, layering enough sarcasm into the words to strip paint.

  “Don’t,” Emmet mutters.

  “Why not?” I snap. “I could stand a foot away from her, yelling, and she’d still be in zombie-Mom mode.”

  Emmet drags a hand across his face. “Just don’t.”

  The defeat in his voice stops my tirade before I can really get started. We don’t talk about Mom just like we don’t talk about Claire. I could fill the hall closet with all the things we don’t talk about anymore.

  He gets up, dumps our empty bowls in the sink, and messes up my hair on his way out of the kitchen. “Thanks for dinner.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I grip the edge of the counter and stare after him, resisting the urge to apologize for what I said about Mom. We both know I wouldn’t mean it.

  Sighing, I grab my backpack from the front hall, jog upstairs, and slip into my room.

  Home sweet sanctuary.

  Walking into my room is like standing in the middle of a kaleidoscope. The walls are covered by hundreds of Polaroid pictures from waist high up to the ceiling, each held in place with a pushpin. If I took them down there’d be so many little holes in the wall you could shine a light through and make a giant star field.

  When I first started taking pictures, I wasn’t picky about what I shot. I burned through the film packs Pops gave me like they were tissues. As soon as I had to start buying my own Polaroid packs though, I figured out just how much classic film costs. A huge chunk of my paycheck goes to support my photo habit these days.

  All those pictures on my wall might look like chaos, but there’s a message and a theme in each sweep of images. Beside my bed are the photos that speak of family and friends, of how things should be. That’s where I’ll add today’s snapshot of the sunburned father and his sons.

  Beside the closet is my WTF wall, filled with the odd and offbeat. There’s a picture of a two-headed snake Mrs. Jasper found in her shed, another of a broken swing with a sparkly pony sticker tacked to the bottom. Andy’s cheese wheel will be in perfect company.

  When Pops gave me his camera, a year before Claire’s death and just months before his own, he told me, “A Polaroid camera’s a kind of truth you can’t find anywhere else. You press a button and a minute later you’re holding a small piece of the world. The image quality might be crap, but so’s the world lots of times.”

  I frown at the grainy image of the cheese wheel, trying to find Pop’s truth in it. Andy probably faked the whole thing. Or maybe a factory defect caused the surface of the cheese to warp? Because if God is sending some big message via dairy express, I can’t figure out what it is.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Christening Cheesus

  My alarm blares, dragging me out of a dream where my best friend Gabe and I are kissing. We’ve never crossed the friendship barrier in real life. I’m pretty sure Gabe’s never even thought about it. I can’t say the same. But here’s the thing: He really is my best friend. Okay, like my only friend. There’s no way I’m going to risk wrecking that by making a move. Unfortunately, my subconscious hasn’t gotten the memo. I shake off the dream and roll out of bed.

  Emmet takes half an hour to get ready in the mornings. He’s a guy; he should be in and out of the bathroom in two minutes. But his routine hasn’t varied for over a year. Maybe it really does take him that long to apply hair gel, slap on some cologne, and admire his pecs.

  I wait in the car, drumming my fingers on the cracked dashboard and making little holes in the layer of dust. Emmet will be driving, of course. I have my license, but the only spare vehicle is this old Buick my brother bought six months ago. It was cheap because it’s the ugliest car ever made—squat and wide with each door a different color and Rust Bucket painted on the hood in foot-high black letters.

  I lean over and smack the horn. Rust Bucket belches out a noise like a jet engine being stomped by an elephant.

  “Come on, Emmet,” I yell out the window. “No one cares if you have a hair out of place. You’ve got practice after school anyway.”

  Emmet appears in the front doorway and sho
ves a last bite of Pop-Tart into his mouth. His right cheek bulges like a hamster’s.

  “Zip it,” Emmet growls, spraying crumbs. The car drops lower as he climbs in.

  Rust Bucket shudders to life with a squeal, and black smoke billows from the tailpipe. The ride to school only takes five minutes, seven if all three of the stoplights are against us.

  Shrenk High squats on a patch of land at the edge of town. To the right of the school, a low chain-link fence surrounds the sports field and a row of bleachers only five benches high. The field is used for everything from our ten-person track team to the football and soccer teams. Football gets first dibs on practice time, though. Even among extracurriculars there’s a pecking order.

  On the other side of the school is the tiny parking lot. It has as many potholes as parking spaces and one sad little tree in the middle. The actual school is a cluster of three buildings: the elementary, middle, and high schools. They share a single gymnasium, which usually means we’re tripping over the kindergartners’ T-ball bats and jump ropes when it’s time for our daily PE torture session. There aren’t enough kids to merit completely separate schools so the county decided to save money and build this monstrosity. Last year’s graduating class, the biggest in the school’s history, had sixty-seven students. I’ve been going to school with the same kids since I was five.

  Gabe is waiting for me by the entry doors, back propped against the metal railing that separates the middle school from the high school.

  “Morning, Beaudean,” I say, pausing to bump my shoulder against his.

  “What’s up, Delgado?” Gabe smiles.

  I try not to focus on Gabe’s lips, worried he’ll guess about last night’s dream. His jeans hang loosely on him and he’s grown another few inches over the past months. He’s all knees and elbows, his skin tanned the color of burnt summer grass.

  Truth is, Gabe and I are odd friends. Under normal circumstances we’d barely talk to each other. But our friendship is anything but normal.

  When I was ten, Reverend Beaudean and his family moved to town from Louisiana. Rev B and Gabe were fine, but Gabe’s mom, Lila, stirred up all sorts of gossip, especially when she wore her micro miniskirt for a stroll down Main Street. A few months later, Lila shocked the town biddies when she ran off with some trucker passing through. Worse, she stole all the proceeds from the Ladies Auxiliary bake sale before she left.

  For weeks, Lila and the missing bake sale money were all anyone could talk about. No one wanted anything to do with Gabe. They couldn’t shun Reverend Beaudean—he was a preacher after all—but Gabe was fair game.

  I threw my very first punch the day Wayne Hissep called Gabe a gator-hugging swamp baby and accused him of helping Lila steal. Gabe and I weren’t friends, but Wayne was way out of line. I skinned my knuckles, bruised Wayne’s cheek, and ended up grounded for two weeks.

  I also ended up with Gabe as my best friend. You’re either born friends in Clemency, or trouble ties you so tight together you don’t have any other choice. I’m glad I punched Wayne way back then. Some friends are worth fighting for.

  “Earth to Del, hello?” Gabe says, dragging me back into the present. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  I glance away and shrug. Was I staring at his lips again? “Maybe I just think you’re weird.”

  “Please, you’re the one who totes around a camera older than the school. How was your first Sunday shift?” Gabe falls into step beside me as we enter the main doors. “Sorry I didn’t come by yesterday, I got caught up with helping Dad after the service.”

  “No worries. You’d have been bored. It was so slow I almost gave Santa a makeover.”

  The front window of the Gas & Gut features a life-size painting of Santa Claus holding a turkey leg. Ken paid some drifter two cases of beer to paint the figure last November. Now, almost a year later, Santa’s paint is cracking and there are scratches in inappropriate places thanks to the middle schoolers. Ken’s so proud of that Santa he refuses to clean the front window, but he never said anything about modifying Saint Nick.

  Gabe laughs. “What kind of makeover are you planning?”

  “Santa needs to get with the locale. I’m thinking a cowboy hat.” I change out my books.

  Gabe shoves every book he has into his navy backpack, making it bulge. If I press a finger against his shoulder I bet he’ll tip over. “Ken’d skin you if you touched Santa,” Gabe says.

  He has a point. Is alleviating boredom worth my life? Guess I’ll have to decide next Sunday.

  We head for homeroom. All around us students rush, shoving open lockers, searching for lost assignments, and gossiping about their weekends. The hallway is filled with the dull roar of two hundred kids on the move.

  “You’re a good artist,” Gabe says. “Ken should’ve paid you to paint the front windows.”

  I grimace. “I’m not interested in the sort of currency he was offering. Beer isn’t my thing.” Vodka gets the job done faster, mixes well with lots of stuff, and doesn’t taste like you’re licking the bottom of a toilet bowl. Too bad I cleaned all the vodka out of Dad’s liquor cabinet six months ago.

  “True. But if he’d offered you some camera film, I bet you’d have painted the walls, windows, and roof.” Gabe slides a sideways grin at me.

  “Are you calling me cheap?”

  “Nah, just obsessed. Get any new pics?”

  “A couple. I snapped one of Andy’s holy cheese.”

  Gabe’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “Holy cheese?”

  “I can’t believe you haven’t heard.” I edge past him into the room. Homeroom is basically a homework catch-up session and announcement time, so we don’t have assigned seats. It’s the only time we get to sit together all day, other than lunch. “Emmet knew about the cheese wheel by the time I got off shift. Power of the Internet and all that. Also, did you know Andy has a blog and people actually read it?”

  “Can we focus? Why is the cheese holy exactly? Is it a Swiss kinda thing?”

  Before I can explain about the cheese wheel, the last warning bell rings and Mrs. Winnacker gets to her feet. Her frizzy brown hair adds three inches to her five-foot height and thick glasses teeter on the end of her nose, threatening to hit the floor at any moment. She glares and the room falls silent. Mrs. W might be tiny and unimposing, but no one hands out more detentions.

  I shrug at Gabe and mouth, “Later.”

  He nods once, rolls his eyes, and switches his attention to Mrs. Winnacker.

  I pull out my worksheets and hideously thick math book. When homeroom ends half an hour later, I feel as though my brain has been squeezed through a pasta strainer. “Who cares what freaking x means anyway? I’ve never had to make change for a customer and been forced to multiply by x, divide by z, and then quantriple the remainder by a factor of 7.” I slam the cover closed on my math book, shove it in my backpack, and get up.

  “That’s your problem.” Gabe puts away his copy of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. “Making change is way more fun if you quantriple it by a remainder of 7.”

  “We can’t all be math geniuses,” I mutter. I take perverse satisfaction in watching Gabe struggle with his backpack. He’s always been an A student, and while I love him, I also occasionally want to smack him over the head with a protractor and some graph paper.

  “I’m glad you recognize my better qualities,” Gabe says.

  “Sure I can’t bribe you into doing my math homework?” I bat my eyelashes and give him a soppy smile.

  “Not a chance.” Gabe shoves me ahead of him and out of the room. “Come on, you owe me an explanation about holy cheese. Can it make the meatloaf in the cafeteria edible?”

  “The pope couldn’t do that.”

  “Still waiting for an explanation.”

  “It’s stupid. Andy unwrapped one of those Babybel cheese wheels, the kind dipped in red wax. The cheese inside had an image sort of stamped or carved into it. Andy says it’s baby Jesus, maybe even a message from God, but
I’m not feeling it.”

  Gabe shakes his head. “Probably just something random.”

  “Probably. I doubt God has anything to say to anyone in Clemency.”

  “My dad would disagree.” Gabe touches the small silver cross he always wears. He’s had it as long as I can remember.

  “Your dad thinks God communicates through snack food?”

  “He quotes that ‘God works in mysterious ways’ line all the time. I bet he’d buy into the holy cheese story.”

  “That’s all Andy needs, someone credible reinforcing his delusions.”

  Gabe shifts his backpack and glances at the hall clock. “One minute warning. Better get to math or you’ll miss that algebra test. Wish me luck with Shakespeare.”

  I wave Gabe away. “Fine, go enjoy English while Mr. Sutherland tortures me to death. You’re such a sadist.”

  “You know me so well.” He laughs before turning to jog down the hall.

  I make it through the classroom door as the bell rings. Everyone else is already seated and Mr. Sutherland is writing a problem set on the whiteboard. The bald spot on the top of his head is shiny under the fluorescent lights and his blue dress shirt is untucked in the back. As he adds the last inscrutable letter to his demonic math example, Mary leans over to Anna and whispers, “Have you seen the picture on Andy’s blog?”

  By lunchtime, it’s clear that Gabe’s ignorance about the cheese wheel is an isolated phenomenon. Andy’s blog and the picture he posted dominate school gossip. Half the school thinks the thing is a fake and the other half are willing to admit God might have a dairy fetish.

  Gabe is a brown bagger, bringing his lunch each day in a black insulated sack. I, however, rely on the questionable cooking skills of our cafeteria lunch ladies. Which means Gabe is on table stakeout duty while I get to stand in line. I balance my tray one-handed and take my seat beside Gabe.

  “Thank goodness Andy left my name off his blog,” I say. “Bad enough having everyone ask me if I’ve heard about Baby Cheesus without them knowing I actually saw the thing in person.”