Cheesie Mack Is Not a Genius or Anything (6 page)

I ignored him. When Deeb tried to come close, I growled at her and showed her my teeth until she backed away. Then I “ate” some more, making lots of chewing, slurping, grunting sounds. When I was finished, I stood up and looked at Deeb. She looked
at me, then the dish of food, then back at me. I waited a couple of seconds, then nodded and made a small grunt. Deeb ran to the dish and chowed down.

This is not exactly a book on dog training, but I know something that is really important if you’re a kid with a dog.

In the wild, dogs live in packs, so they naturally expect to run around with lots of other dogs. It’s in their genes, I guess. Most pet dogs, however, live with only humans for company. So, even though humans sometimes think their dogs act almost human, IMO it’s actually the dogs that think their humans are some kind of giant dog. There has to be a leader of every dog pack. It’s called the Alpha Dog. I read about it on the Internet. So you should want the leader of the
pack in your house to be a human … unless you want your dog to be the boss of your whole family.

In the woods or the jungle, the Alpha Dog always eats first. So I make certain Deeb knows that I am the Alpha Dog in the best way that her dog brain can understand. I pretend to eat the food until I’m “full.” Then it’s her turn.

You should try it. It really works. I’ve got a great dog.

Kevin’s father drove up. Alex leaned out the window, stuck his thumbs in his ears, and waggled his fingers. We ignored him. Goon and Kevin walked by us on their way to the car.

“What’s in the bag?” Goon asked again. She didn’t even wait for me not to reply.

I brushed kibble dust off my good pants. Georgie wrapped the top of his bag of mice around a handlebar grip. And we took off toward school. The Mouse Plot was under way!

C
apt. Chee Seemak licked his lips, brushed the worm powder off his uniform, then stood and pushed the dish away. He stared at the Taug, then nodded. The beast, a thick smell oozing from its oily fur, unrolled its long black-and-orange tongue and licked up the scraps.

Sinko Jorsh came lumbering into the chamber, took one look, and muttered in disgust, “Grarq.”

“A man has to eat something,” Chee said. “It’s crazy to pass up nutrition, no matter what it is.”

The worldwide famine had made real food almost nonexistent.

Jorsh moved his metallic mouth into something that was almost a smile and held up a transparent spacebag. In it was a scurrying mass of small creatures. The Taug, by nature an intensely curious beast, flicked its tri-forked tongue toward the spacebag, but Jorsh lifted it out of reach.

Chee’s eyes widened. “Great work, Jorsh! You may have found the answer to the food crisis. Let’s get those mini-clones to the university.”

Moments later they were astride their sprocket-rockets heading for the Enlargement Lab.

*   *   *

Okay, this book is not science fiction. But just now I got to thinking how I would write this whole narrative—my dad says that’s what you call a story if someone like me is telling it—if it really was science fiction. So I wrote the paragraphs above to show you. Of course, it would still be about me, but I wouldn’t be called Cheesie. It’s a great name for a kid, but not for a space hero. (Actually, I might decide to call myself Chee when I get to high school.)

And in the science fiction version of my story, Georgie Sinkoff (Sinko Jorsh) would be a half-human and half-robotic giant or something else strong. And
I’d have Jorsh’s dad building death-ray lasers instead of microwave stuff.

The Taug (Deeb) would have six legs. Maybe more.

Granpa would run a training camp for space warriors. My dad would own and pilot a small fleet of passenger spaceships. And my mom would still be an air-traffic controller, except now she’d work at the Glah Star Spaceport instead of Logan Airport.

Goon would be a hideously deformed mutant.

Because it’s science fiction, I call this Chapter 4α. That’s not an
A
, by the way. It’s an alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet. I guess that’s why we have an ALPHA-bet. Duh. Mom said that Greek letters are used all the time in science, so I figured they’d be good for science fiction, too.

Maybe my next book will be sci-fi.

G
eorgie and I have been riding our bikes to school for about two years. Before that, our parents said we were too young, even though we are both very excellent bike riders.

Although Gloucester is right on the ocean, it is very hilly—something to do with immense glaciers that pushed huge rocks thousands and thousands of years ago and left them right here. About halfway to school we bike by The Haunted Toad. Then we twist and turn downhill for several blocks past a bunch of stores and stuff until we get to the street our school is on.

The Haunted Toad is a big, old, dark green-gray house with a nose-high fence—my nose, not Georgie’s—
that goes all around the front yard. We didn’t always call it The Haunted Toad. At first we just called it The Toad because its outside looked dry and warty, and Georgie and I thought it looked like a huge, squatting amphibian, which is what toads and frogs are.

Toad, frog … what’s the difference?