Diary of a Cheesy Kid

Here is the surprise: Every day is like the first day for Cheese Sandwich. Things keep happening that rekindle the excitement of the first day. Learning to read his first two syllable word. Making a box scene about Princess Luna and the moon. Counting to five in Spanish. Learning about water and ants and tooth decay. His first fire drill. Making new friends.

At the dinner table, Cheese tells his parents about his days. But he always waits for his father’s question. “So, what’s new, Chickamoo?” Or “What’s new, Boogaloo?” Or “Kinkachoo.” Or “Pookypoo.” Many things tickle Cheese, but nothing more than the sound of a funny word. Words tickle him like hooves to the ribs. Every time his father comes up with a new one, Cheese has to put down his fork and laugh. Usually he leans to one side, as if the funny word has the force of a great wind. Sometimes he even falls over.

It’s his teacher, Miss Meadow, who comes up with the best one. She stands at the greenboard one day, trying to explain what a billion basketballs would look like. “If you put the first one here,” she says, pointing to the floor, “and line them up out the door and down the hallway and across the playground and down the road, they would stretch from here to Jabip!”

The classroom is a sea of boggling eyes.

Someone calls out, “Where’s Jabip?”

Miss Meadow explains that there is no actual place called Jabip. It’s just her way of saying someplace really far away.

At that point Cheese, in the last seat in the last row, tilts alarmingly to the left and falls from his desk. The teacher rushes to him. His face is red. Tears stream down his cheeks. He’s gasping for air.

“Cheese Sandwich! Cheese Sandwich” she calls, though he is inches away.

He looks up at her through watery eyes. He gasps, “Jabip!” He pounds the floor.

That’s when Miss Meadow realizes her pupil isn’t dying, he’s merely laughing.

It’s a good five minutes before Cheese calms down enough for the class to continue. Miss Meeks forbids the class and herself to utter the word “Jabip” for the rest of the day. Nevertheless, from time to time there are sudden giggly eruptions from the back row as the word pops back into Cheese's head.

When he hears Clunker Four coming that day, he runs alongside the carriage as it coasts to the curb. “Daddy! Daddy! Did you ever hear of Jabip?”

“Sure,” says his father out the open carriage. “I also heard of Jaboop.”

Cheese rolls on the ground. Jabip. Jaboop. He keeps erupting through dinner. Eating becomes hazardous. His parents smile patiently for the first minute or so, then begin telling him enough is enough. But Cheese can’t stop. When a bolt of mashed potatoes shoots from his nose, he is sent to his room. That night he giggles through his prayer and into sleep.

In school for the rest of the week Cheese continues to produce outbursts of laughter in the back row. Every outburst triggers laughter from the other pupils. Sometimes, to get him started, a pupil waits until the teacher’s head is turned, then whispers the forbidden word. Sometimes Miss Meadow bites her tongue to keep from joining in, sometimes she gets mad.

It’s during one of the mad times that she says, “Cheese Sandwich, come up here, please.” When he stands before her she takes something from her desk drawer. It’s a round yellow necklace with a fake medallion. It’s the largest medal the students have ever seen, as large as a giant pinwheel taffy. It has black letters on it. “Can you tell me what it says?”

Cheese studies the necklace . Finally he shakes his head.

“It says, ‘I know I can behave.’” She hangs the necklace onto his neck. “And I know you can.”

Cheese has to wear the necklace for an hour. During that time he does not laugh once. Miss Meadow judges her maneuver a success and returns the button to the drawer. Soon Cheese is laughing again. He gets the necklace back.

So it goes for several days. Second graders who wore the button the previous year and who have heard of Cheese's endless giggling ask him in the playground, “Did you get the necklace today?”

One day Miss Meadow has to leave the classroom for a while. When she returns she finds Cheese's hoof waving in the air.

"Yes, Cheese?"

“Miss Meadow,” he says, “I laughed when you were gone.”

And she realizes at last that for Cheese, the button is not a punishment at all, but a badge of honor. From then on she punishes him by keeping the necklace in the drawer.

Necklace or no necklace, Cheese loves school. One day he awakes before anyone else in the house. He gets himself ready. He makes his own breakfast. He brushes his teeth and walks off to school. 'I must be early', he thinks, for he sees no parents or other children along the way.

He is sitting on the front of the school waiting for the door to open when he hears Clunker Four. It stops in front of the school and out pop both his mother and father. Both come running. “Cheese, we’ve been looking all over! You weren't in your bed!"


“I came to school all by myself,” he declares proudly

His parents look at each other, his mother bites her lip. His father picks him up and says, “You’re very big to do that all by yourself. The only problem is, there’s no school today. It’s Saturday.”

When Miss Meadow passes Cheese  onto second grade, she writes on the back of his final report card: “Cheese Sandwich sometimes has a problem with self-control, and I wish he were neater, but he is so good natured. That son of yours is one happy colt! And he certainly does love school!”