Cormier - I Am the Cheese

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Beyond the Chocolate War

8 Plus 1

After the First Death

Frenchtown Summer

Heroes

The Bumblebee Flies Anyway

We All Fall Down

Tunes for Bears to Dance To

In the Middle of the Night

Tenderness

Fade

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright 1977 by Robert Cormier
Text copyright renewed 2005 by Constance S. Cormier
Cover photograph copyright 2014 by Getty Images

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ember, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House LLC, in 1977 and subsequently published in paperback by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, New York, in 2007.

Ember and the E colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this work as follows:
Cormier, Robert.
I am the cheese / Robert Cormier.
p. cm.
Summary: A young boy desperately tries to unlock his past yet knows he must hide those memories if he is to remain alive.
ISBN 978-0-394-83462-7 (trade) ISBN 978-0-440-94060-9 (pbk.) ISBN 978-0-375-84039-5 (tr. pbk.) ISBN 978-0-307-83428-7 (ebook) [1. Intelligence serviceFiction. 2. Organized crimeFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C81634Iac 2006 [Fic] 76-55948

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v3.1_r1

I A M THE C HEESE is a
work of fiction. All names, characters,
and events are fictional, and any resemblance
to real persons or actual events
is unintentional.

For Chris, my daughter.

With love.

I am riding the bicycle and I am on Route 31 in Monument, Massachusetts, on my way to Rutterburg, Vermont, and Im pedaling furiously because this is an old-fashioned bike, no speeds, no fenders, only the warped tires and the brakes that dont always work and the handlebars with cracked rubber grips to steer with. A plain bikethe kind my father rode as a kid years ago. Its cold as I pedal along, the wind like a snake slithering up my sleeves and into my jacket and my pants legs, too. But I keep pedaling, I keep pedaling.

This is Mechanic Street in Monument, and to my right, high above on a hill, theres a hospital and I glance up at the place and I think of my father in Rutterburg, Vermont, and my pedaling accelerates. Its ten oclock in the morning and it is October, not a Thomas Wolfe October of burning leaves and ghost winds but a rotten October, dreary, cold, and damp with little sun and no warmth at all. Nobody reads Thomas Wolfe anymore, I guess, except my father and me. I did a book report on The Web and the Rock and Mr. Parker in English II regarded me with suspicion and gave me a B- instead of the usual A. But Mr. Parker and the school and all of that are behind me now and I pedal. Your legs do all the work on an old bike like this, but my legs feel good, strong, with staying power. I pass by a house with a white picket fence and I spot a little kid whos standing on the sidewalk and he watches me go by and I wave to him because he looks lonesome and he waves back.

I look over my shoulder but theres no one following.

At home, I didnt wave goodbye to anybody. I just left. Without fanfare. I didnt go to school. I didnt call anyone. I thought of Amy but I didnt call her. I woke up this morning and saw an edge of frost framing the window and I thought of my father and I thought of the cabinet downstairs in the den and I lay there, barely breathing, and then I got up and knew where I was going. But I stalled, I delayed. I didnt leave for two hours because I am a coward, really. I am afraid of a thousand things, a million. Like, is it possible to be claustrophobic and yet fear open spaces, too? I mean, elevators panic me. I stand in the upright coffin and my body oozes sweat and my heart pounds and this terrible feeling of suffocation threatens me and I wonder if the doors will ever open. But the next day, I was playing center fieldI hate baseball but the school insists on one participating sportanyway, I stood there with all that immensity of space around me in center field and I felt as though Id be swept off the face of the planet, into space. I had to fight a desire to fling myself on the ground and cling to the earth. And then there are dogs. I sat there in the house, thinking of all the dogs that would attack me on the way to Rutterburg, Vermont, and I told myself, This is crazy, Im not going. But at the same time, I knew I would go. I knew I would go the way you know a stone will drop to the ground if you release it from your hand.

I went to the cabinet in the den and took out the gift for my father. I wrapped it in aluminum foil and then wrapped it again with newspaper, Scotch-taping it all securely. Then I went down to the cellar and got the pants and shoes and jacket, but it took me at least a half hour to find the cap. But I found it: the cap I needed, my fathers old cap. It would be cold on the road to Vermont and this cap is perfect, woolen, the kind that I could pull over my ears if the cold became a problem.

Then I raided my savings. I have plenty of money. I have thirty-five dollars and ninety-three cents. I have enough money to travel first class to Vermont, in the Greyhound bus that goes all the way to Montreal, but I know that I am going by bike to Rutterburg, Vermont. I dont want to be confined to a bus. I want the open road before me, I want to sail on the wind. The bike was waiting in the garage and thats how I wanted to go. By bike, by my own strength and power. For my father.

I looked at myself in the mirror before I left, the full-length mirror on the side of the closet door in my parents bedroom upstairs. I inspected myself in the mirror, the crazy hat and the old jacket, and I knew that I looked ridiculous. But what the hell, as Amy says, philosophically.

I thought longingly of Amy. But she was at school and almost impossible to call. I could have faked it. I could have called the school and pretended that I was her father and asked to speak to her, saying that there was an emergency at home. Her father is editor of the Monument Times and always speaks with emergency in his voice, his sentences like headlines.

But I have to be in the mood to pull off a stunt like thatin fact, those kinds of stunts are Amys specialty. And besides, my mind was on the road to Vermont. I love Amy Hertz. Its ridiculous that her name is Hertzshes probably heard a thousand car-rental jokes and I have vowed never to make one. Anyway, I decided not to call her. Not until Im away. I will call her on the way to Rutterburg, Vermont. And I will soothe myself by thinking of her and her Numbers and all the times she let me kiss her and hold her. But I didnt want to think about all that as I prepared for my journey.