Diary of a Cheesy Kid

In the summer between first and second grades Cheese Sandwich acquires two new friends. One is a baby filly, the other is a neighbor. The baby sister is Patty Melt. The neighbor is a colt named Cobalt.

When Cheese first meets the filly, his mother says, “Look,” and pulls down the blanket. Cheese's eyes boggle.There are two silver stars on the baby’s diaper. This filly is less than one day old. What can she have done already to deserve two stars? He’s never been awarded more than one at a time. “Mom,” he says, “two stars? What did she do?”

“She did the best thing of all,” says his mother, pulling up the blanket. “She was born.”

Has Cheese been misinformed? “I was born too, wasn’t I?”

She pats his hoof. “Absolutely. You were every bit as born as Patty was.”

“So,” he says, “how come I didn’t get two stars?”

“Who says you didn’t?”

He brightens. “I did?”

She shakes her head. “Sorry. I was kidding you. That was before I started giving out stars.” She pats his hoof again. “Tell you what, how would you like your being born stars now? Better late than never.”

He brightens again. “Yeah!”

But she’s not finished thinking. “Or how about this? We could make a deal. We could wait until you’re having a really bad day, some day when you could really, really use two stars to pick you up. That’s when you get them.”

He thinks it over. He hates to wait, but he loves to make deals. “Okay,” he says and shakes his mother’s hoof. Then he reaches into the blanket and shakes the baby’s hoof.

A month later the new neighbors move in next door. That same day Mrs. Sandwich bakes a strawberry angel food cake and carries it out the front door. Her firstborn tags along. “This is how we say welcome,” she says.

He stands at his mother’s side as she rings the doorbell and says, “Welcome to the neighborhood” and hands the cake to the new mare neighbor, whose proper name is Mrs. Aurora, but whose first name is better: Nightlight. Then he is introduced. “This is my son, Cheese Sandwich.”

Nightlight smiles down at him and shakes his hoof and says, “Hello, Cheese. I have a son too. His name is Cobalt. How old are you?”

“Six,” he replies.

“So is Cobalt.”

Cheese stares at the two mares in wonder. “Wow! Same as me!” He looks past Nightlight. “Is he in there?”

“He is,” says Nightlight, “but he’s hiding. He says he’s never coming out. He’s mad because we moved away from our other house.”

Cheese thinks about this for a moment. He lifts a hoof to Nightlight. “I have an idea. Tell Cobalt my father is a taxi pony. That will make him come out.” In Cheese's view, taking ponies to their destinations in a carriage is the most interesting job there is.

Nightlight nods solemnly. “I’ll give it a try.”

Before Cheese and his mother get back to their own house, he has another idea. “I’m going to make a special welcome just for Cobalt.”

“Good for you,” says his mother. “A cake?”

“No, a cookie.”

His mother does not say no. His parents try not to say no to him unless it’s really necessary. So when he announces that he intends to bake a cookie, his mother simply says, “What kind?”

He doesn’t hesitate. “A snickerdoodle!” The snickerdoodle is his favorite cookie. Every cookie tastes good to him, but snickerdoodles taste twice as good because of their name. Sometimes his dad says “snookerdiddle” and makes him laugh for an hour.

Cheese's idea is to bake a snickerdoodle so big that Cobalt the new neighbor will have to come out and see it.

Since he is working on the kitchen table, it seems to him that the largest cookie he can make would be one as large as the table itself. But his mother points out that a cookie that big could not fit in the oven. So he settles for a rectangular cookie that covers the entire cookie pan.

Every time his mother tries to help, the young chef snaps at her, “I can do that.” So his mother simply gives directions and says “Celestia help me” a lot while her intrepid son makes a mess of the kitchen. Flour and eggs fly everywhere. For weeks to come the family will feel the crunch of sugar grains under their hooves.

Finally, miraculously, the cookie gets baked. He snatches the quilted mitten and potholder from his mother “I can do it myself ” pulls the hot pan from the oven and sets it on the kitchen table. Impatient as always, he cannot wait for it to cool. He blows over the steaming cookie until he’s out of breath. He flaps his hooves over it. At last the pan is cool enough to carry it on his back without a towel.

He trots to next door with it. He rings the bell. Nightlight opens the door.

“Hi, Cheese.”

“Hi, Nightlight. I made a welcome cookie for Cobalt. It’s a snickerdoodle. I think if you put it on the floor and wait a little while, he’ll smell it and come out.”

Cheese is utterly serious, but for some reason Nightlight laughs. “Come on in,” she says. “Wait here.”

Nightlight leaves him standing in the living room. He hears whispery voices upstairs. Once he hears a sharp “No!” Then there are hoofsteps on the stairs, and here at last is Cobalt walking toward him in his grumpy face, messy mane and pajamas in the middle of the day.

“Hi,” Cheese says. “My name is Cheese Sandwich. I’m your neighbor. I made you a welcome cookie. It’s a snickerdoodle.”

Cobalt's face perks up. He leans in to smell the cookie. He is hooked.

Cheese reaches for the spatula his mother told him to bring along. A cookie is not really a cookie until it’s out of the pan and into the hoof. He lays the pan on the floor. He pries the giant snickerdoodle from the sides and bottom of the pan. He lifts out the warm, soft, heavenly smelling welcome. He lifts it with his hoof and holds it out to Cobalt. As Cobalt reaches for it, the panless, unsupported cookie collapses of its own weight and falls to the floor. Cheese is left with a bite-size scrap in his hoof. Cobalt stares in horror at the floor. He screams, “My cookie!” He screams at Cheese. “You dropped it!” He runs screaming up the stairs. “I hate this place!”

Cheese stuffs one scrap into his mouth, then the other. He gathers up the collapsed pieces from the floor and carries them home in the pan. He sits on the on the road. Everypony who passes by that afternoon is offered a piece of cookie. In between, Cheese helps himself.

By the time Clunker Four rattles up to the house, the cookie is gone. As his father gets out of the carriage, Cheese runs to him, plunges his head into his father’s workbag and throws up.

Cheese was born with an upside down valve in his stomach. This causes him to throw up a couple times a week. To Cheese, throwing up is almost as normal as breathing.

But not to his father, who has brought his work bag home with him in order to repair the strap. When Cheese was an infant, Mr. Sandwich was very good about changing diapers, but he has no stomach for vomit. He turns away, holds out the bag and growls, “Take it to your mother.” Early on, Cheese's mother is impressed about upon her son the etiquette of throwing up: That is, do not throw up at random, but throw up into something, preferably a toilet or bucket. Since toilets or buckets are not always handy, Cheese has learned to reach for the nearest container. Thus, at one time or other he has thrown up into soup bowls, flowerpots, wastebaskets, trash bins, shopping bags, winter boots, kitchen sinks and, once, a clown’s hat. But never his father’s mailbag.

He thinks his mother will say “Celestia help me” but she does not. She’s cool. She puts down filly Patty Melt and unloads the bag into the toilet. She scours it with a stiff bristle brush and hand soap. She rubs it with  leather cream. She sweetens it with a splash of  aftershave and sets it into the playpen for  Patty to crawl into.

Hungry again, Cheese Sandwich eats a full dinner that night. And throws up into his glass of water. “Celestia help me.”