Never heard of Cheesy?

Cheesy

What did you say? You never heard of Cheesy the clown? Well,
I’m not surprised. That was a long time ago. About 200 years
ago. There weren’t any clowns back then, but it doesn’t matter
if they were called funny people, or court jesters, or whatever.
They were the same thing as a clown. There weren’t any rodeos
back then either. Just games grown people played. They did the
same things then that they do now at rodeos. Then years later,
they added all kinds of things to the show and called it a rodeo.

My name is Jeremy. I am a 23 year old grown up now, but I met
Cheesy when I was 8 years old, and he turned my family’s lives
upside down, inside out, and crossways. Now I know you are not
interested in how my rich uncle left my dad 200 acres of land,
a big 2 story house, and a lot of money. Or how they were going
to start a dairy farm together and we were going to live with him,
or how he had a heart attack and died 2 weeks before we were going
to move. But I am pretty sure you are interested in what came with
all that. Cheesy, of course.

When we started from our home in Indiana, we were really excited.
We were moving to Colorado. We sang, played games with the road
signs, and played any game we could think of. When we got tired
of that, we took a nap. My sister, Linda, was 7 years old. We
just naturally grew cross before we got there. Like all brothers
and sisters, we could never get along anyway. Even the excitement
of sleeping in a motel room didn’t help any.

We got to our new town not long after daylight on a Friday morning.
We were hungry, so we ate breakfast at a nice café. Mom talked to
the waitress about being new in town. The waitress asked how long
we would be there, and when she found out we were going to live
there and where our new house was, she said she lived close by and
would bring her kids by for a visit sometime. When we got about 2
miles out of town, dad turned in a long driveway. Everyone was
quiet when we stopped.

When we stepped out of the car, we just stood and stared at the
big 2 story house. I looked at mom and asked, “is it really
ours?”

She laughed and said it was.

Well, we took off and started going through that house like it
was the state fair. There were a lot of rooms downstairs that
were probably used for company back when people traveled by
stagecoach. They all had beds in them. Some small and some
larger. This house must have been a stagecoach station or
maybe a hotel of some kind.Anyway, the rooms were small. We
looked in each one of them but there was one that looked
like it was still used. That room stayed in the back of our
minds.

The next morning, the moving company delivered our things
and we spent the day putting them away. Our third day there,
we went back to that room. We had already found out it wasn’t
Uncle Charlie’s room. We had asked mom and dad at breakfast
if Uncle Charlie lived alone. They said he did. Linda and me
looked at each other, and we both knew something wasn’t quite
right. We didn’t talk any more until we finished eating.

When we got out of the kitchen, I told Linda we had to go
back to that room. She agreed, and we went on. We got a
weird feeling when we walked through the door. The cover
on the bed was still rumpled, but it looked different. We
checked the room out really good and it was clean and the
covers were still messed up, but looked a little different.
We sat in the chairs. “Someone slept here last night. How
can they get in with the door locked?” I wondered out loud.

Linda looked scared. “Maybe it is a ghost.”

Well, I had to think about that one. I didn’t believe in
ghosts, 6but it was the only thing that made sense. “We
have to find out and we can’t tell mom and dad. They will
take us back to Indiana,” I whispered.

“How can we find out?” Linda asked.

“We will have to come down after they are asleep,” I
answered.

“No need for that,” a voice said.

We jumped up so fast our chairs fell to the floor. We got
to the door and it wouldn’t open. We turned around and
leaned against it, our hearts beating like crazy. “No need
to be scared. I won’t hurt you. Set those chairs up and
come outside.”

Well, we set the chairs up right and walked outside. We wanted
to run, but we were afraid to. When Linda and me calmed down,
Cheesy suggested we go out back to a big swing Uncle Charlie
had under a big oak tree. We had calmed down, but getting out
of that room was about like getting out of school. We were
more than ready. It sure did feel strange walking with someone
we couldn’t see. I’ll just bet you would feel the same way.

Cheesy was smart though. He made us feel better when he said
the last one to the swing was a rotten egg. He knew how to
make kids comfortable with him. We just automatically took
off running. The thought crossed my mind that kids don’t
even look to see if they should or shouldn’t. They just
take off and run without looking around. “I win,” Linda
yelled.

“How do you know,” I argued. “The ghost might have beat you.”

“No,” the voice said. “I am always fair and she beat me by 5
steps.”

“Are you always invisible,” Linda asked.

“Not always,” the voice answered. “Would you like to see what I
look like?”

Linda and me just stared at the voice, suddenly afraid to
see his face. The voice laughed. “Don’t be afraid. I am
only a clown.” And all of a sudden, there was a clown
sitting between us.

And that was the beginning of our lives with Cheesy the clown.

Now, we all know that you can’t get a ghost to show up in a
picture. That’s what I hear anyway. Now, I might not have it
just right, but I got my picture taken with clothes on like
Cheesy wore. I didn’t put stuff on my face like Cheesy had,
but you will never guess what it was that Cheesy painted his
face with. All right. Since you didn’t guess right, I’ll tell
you. He got slate rock out of the creek and kept it wet in a
little bucket so it would be easy to mark with. There is
plenty of slate rock in the creek but I didn’t have a camera
handy while I was playing with it. Yes. I do play with slate
because it is still fun. And look at that hat. Anyway, you
can look at this picture and see what Cheesy the clown looked
like.

Now, I know how hard it is for a kid to get money for books,
and when they get a dollar, they can’t wait to spend it. But
you can get a Cheesy the Clown story each week and put them
in a binder for a Cheesy collection. Every Saturday, I will
put a new Cheesy story in my store for you to print out and
put in your binder. These will be a kids story at a kids
price. All you have to pay for each story is twenty five
cents [$.25]. One of your parents can help you download them.
You can start now with “Now You See Him…..Now You Don’t”
_______________________________________________________________________________