Diary of a Cheesy Kid

Cheese Sandwich gets in trouble his first day of school.
In fact, before he even gets to school he’s in trouble. With his mother.

Like the other neighborhood mothers of first day, first grade foals, Mrs. Sandwich intends to walk her son to school. First day is a big day, and mothers know how scary it can be to a six year old.

Cheese stands at the front window, looking at all the the other colts and fillies walking to school. It reminds him of a parade.

His mother is upstairs getting ready. She calls down, “Cheese, you wait!” Her voice is firm, for she knows how much her son hates to wait.

By the time she comes downstairs, he’s gone.

She yanks open the door. People are streaming by. Mothers walking side by side with their younger ones while fourth and fifth graders yell and run and rule the roads.

Mrs. Sandwich looks up the road. In the distance she sees the long neck of a giraffe poking above the crowd, hurrying along with the others. It’s him. Must be him. He loves his giraffe hat. His dad bought it for him at the zoo. If she has told him once, she has told him fifty times: Do not wear it to school.

The school is only three blocks away. He will be there before she can catch him. With a sigh of surrender she goes back into the house.

The first grade teacher stands at the doorway as her new pupils arrive. “Good morning . . . Good morning . . . Welcome to school.” When she sees the face of a giraffe go by, she nearly swallows her greeting. She watches the giraffe and the colt under it march straight to a front row desk and take a seat.

When the bell rings, the teacher, Miss Meadow, shuts the door and stands before the desk of the unusually hatted student. The other students are openly giggling. She wonders if this colt is going to be a problem. This is Miss Meadow's year to retire, and the last thing she needs is a troublesome first grader.

“That’s quite a hat you have there,” she says. "It is in fact remarkably lifelike."

The colt pops to his feet. He beams. “It’s a giraffe.”

“So I see. But I’m afraid you’ll have to take it off now. We don’t wear hats in the classroom.”

“Okay,” he says cheerfully. He takes off the hat.

“You may be seated.”

“Okay"


He seems agreeable enough. Perhaps he will not be troublesome after all.

Now she has to tell him that he can't keep the hat with him the hat with him. She hopes he won’t break out bawling. First graders can be so unpredictable. You never know what might set them off.

She tells him. She keeps an eye on his lower lip, to see if it will quiver. It does not. Instead he pops to his feet again and brightly chirps, “Yes, ma’am,” and hands the hat to her.

Yes, ma’am? Where did that come from? She smiles and whispers, “Thank you"

"No problem, ma'am"

Twenty-six heads turn to follow her as she carries the three-foot hat to the cubbyholes at the back of the room. She labeled the cubbies the day before, and now she suddenly realizes she doesn’t know which one belongs to the boy. She turns. “What’s your name, young stallion?”

He jumps to attention and belts at full voice "Cheese Sandwich!"

She has to turn her face to keep from laughing out loud. In all her thirty years of teaching, she has never known a student to announce himself or herself in such a manner.

"Thank you, Cheese Sandwich. And you may sit down, and there is no need to rise your voice when you speak.”

"Yes ma'am"

The cubbies, as the classroom seating soon will be, are in alphabetical order. She goes straight to the third cubbyhole and inserts the giraffe. The space is not deep enough to hold it all. It looks as if a baby giraffe is napping in there. The thought comes to her that Cheese Sandwich, in more ways than cubbyholes, will always be easy to find.