I Am the Cheese Read online

  NOVELS BY ROBERT CORMIER

  After the First Death

  Beyond the Chocolate War

  The Bumblebee Flies Anyway

  The Chocolate War

  8 Plus 1

  Fade

  Frenchtown Summer

  Heroes

  I Am the Cheese

  In the Middle of the Night

  The Rag and Bone Shop

  Tenderness

  Tunes for Bears to Dance To

  We All Fall Down

  Published by

  Dell Laurel-Leaf

  an imprint of

  Random House Children’s Books

  a division of

  Random House, Inc.

  1540 Broadway

  New York, New York 10036

  Text copyright © 1977 by Robert Cormier

  Cover illustration copyright © by Victor Stabin

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

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  The trademark Dell® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

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  eISBN: 978-0-307-83428-7

  RL: 5.6

  v3.1_r1

  I AM THE CHEESE 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.

  Contents

  Cover

  Novels by Robert Cormier

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  About the Author

  I am riding the bicycle and I am on Route 31 in Monument, Massachusetts, on my way to Rutterburg, Vermont, and I’m pedaling furiously because this is an old-fashioned bike, no speeds, no fenders, only the warped tires and the brakes that don’t always work and the handlebars with cracked rubber grips to steer with. A plain bike—the kind my father rode as a kid years ago. It’s 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, there’s a hospital and I glance up at the place and I think of my father in Rutterburg, Vermont, and my pedaling accelerates. It’s ten o’clock 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 who’s 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 there’s no one following.

  At home, I didn’t wave goodbye to anybody. I just left. Without fanfare. I didn’t go to school. I didn’t call anyone. I thought of Amy but I didn’t 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 didn’t 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 field—I hate baseball but the school insists on one participating sport—anyway, I stood there with all that immensity of space around me in center field and I felt as though I’d 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, I’m 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 father’s 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 don’t 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 that’s 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 that—in fact, those kinds of stunts are Amy’s specialty. And besides, my mind was on the road to Vermont. I love Amy Hertz. It’s ridiculous that her name is Hertz—she’s probably heard a thousand car-rental jokes and I have vowed never to make one. Anyway, I decided not to call her. Not until I’m 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 didn’t
want to think about all that as I prepared for my journey.

  I went to the kitchen and took out the bottle of pills from the cabinet and decided not to take one. I wanted to do this raw, without crutches, without aid, alone. I opened the bottle of pills and turned it over and let the pills fall out—they are capsules, actually, green and black—and I watched them disappear into the mouth of the garbage disposal. I felt strong and resolute.

  I got the bike out of the garage and walked down the driveway, guiding the bike before I swung into the seat. I had my father’s package in the basket above the front wheel. I was traveling light, with no provisions or extra clothing.

  Finally, I leaped onto the bike, feeling reckless and courageous. At that moment, the sun came out, dazzling and brilliant: an omen of good fortune. I swung out into the street and a car howled its horn at me for straying too far into the roadway—and I wavered on the bicycle, the front wheel wobbling. I thought, This is ridiculous, this trip to Rutterburg. I almost turned back. But I didn’t. I thought of my father and I started pedaling away, and I gained momentum and knew I would go, nothing would stop me, nothing.

  And now I am leaving Monument and crossing the town line into Aswell. A sign by the side of the road says that the Aswell Rotary Club meets every Monday at noon. I have only gone four or five miles and my legs don’t feel strong anymore. My legs are weary and my back sings with pain because I am out of condition. Frankly, I have never been in condition, which is a source of delight to Amy Hertz, who dislikes all kinds of physical exercise.

  I keep pedaling despite the weariness and the pain. I am determined to go to Rutterburg. I suck in the cold air and it caresses my lungs. My forehead is damp with sweat and I pull the cap down over my ears. I have all those miles to go.

  “Take it easy,” I tell myself. “Take it easy. One mile at a time.”

  And suddenly there’s a long hill slanting down before me and the bike picks up speed and my legs are whirling madly, without effort, the bike carried by the momentum, and I let myself join the wind, soaring over the road as I coast beautifully down into Aswell.

  TAPE OZK001 0930 date deleted T-A

  T: Good morning. My name is Brint. We shall be spending some time together. (5-second interval.)

  A: Good morning.

  T: Shall we begin immediately? I have been advised that you are ready. The sooner we begin, the better it will be for you.

  A: I’m not sure where to begin.

  T: First, you must relax. And then let your thoughts flow. Take your time—there is no cause for hurry. Go back if you wish—back to your earliest remembrance.

  (8-second interval.)

  A: It’s hazy—just a series of impressions.

  T: Let the impressions come.

  (5-second interval.)

  A: That night—

  T: Tell me about that night.

  A: It’s as if I was born that night. I mean, became a person, a human being in my own right. Before that, nothing. Or those impressions again—lights—smell—perfume, the perfume my mother always wore, lilac. Nothing else. And then that night—

  (12-second interval.)

  T: Tell me about it.

  He was in bed and the sheets were twisted around him and his body was hot, his eyes like raw onions, head aching. He cried out once or twice, softly, tentatively. He lifted his head toward the door. The door was partially open, allowing a slant of feeble light into the room. He curled up in bed, listening. He always liked to listen at night. Often he heard his mother and father murmuring in their bedroom, the bed making a lot of noise, and there were the nice sounds of his father and mother together, making soft sounds as if they were furry animals like the stuffed animals he always slept with, Bittie the Bear and Pokey the Pig, his friends. His father would say: “Hey, boy, you’re getting too old for all those toys, three and a half, going on four.” The boy knew that his father was joking, that he would never take his friends away. Anyway, his mother would say: “Now, now, he’s a long time from four, a long long time.” The tenderness in her voice and her perfume like lilac in the spring.

  Now the boy cuddled in the bed with Pokey the Pig, his favorite, clutched to his chest. But something kept him awake, prevented him from sleeping. Out of the half-dark of the house, he realized that his mother’s and father’s voices were different, not soft and murmuring the way they usually were at night, but louder. Not really louder but harsher. They were speaking in whispers but their voices scratched at the night and the dark. And he heard his mother say, “Shh. You might wake him.”

  The boy lay still, as unmoving as Pokey the Pig.

  The bed creaked in the next room, and he heard his father’s bare feet padding toward his room. His figure blocked out the slant of light. Then his father’s footsteps receded, the light spilled into the room again, and the boy felt brave and clever, knowing he had fooled his father. He wanted to tell Pokey how clever he was but he remained still and silent, not daring to move, listening not only with his ears but his entire being.

  T: What did you hear?

  A: I’m not sure. What I mean is, I don’t know whether I actually heard the words or if I’m filling them in now, like blank spaces on a piece of paper you have to complete. I was barely three and a half, I guess. Anyway, I knew they were discussing me. More than that. As if they were discussing what to do about me. And I got all panicky and began to cry. But quiet crying so they wouldn’t hear me.

  (5-second interval.)

  T: Why this panic?

  A: Well, it’s as if they were deciding my fate. I thought they were going to send me away. I heard my mother say, “But what do we tell him?” And my father saying, “It doesn’t matter, he’s too young to realize what’s happening.” Did I really hear him saying that or did the sense of what he was saying come to me? Then they began talking about a trip, the three of us, and I felt better. It was winter outside, snow and cold, and I didn’t want to leave the house where it was nice and warm, but as long as we were together, I really didn’t care.

  T: Do you remember the trip?

  A: Vaguely again. I remember a journey. Endless. On a bus, the terrible smell of the exhaust. The doors hissed like a snake when they opened. Impressions. Crowded, with luggage. Faces, my father’s cigarettes, not the smell of smoke, really, but the smell of his matches, the sulphur of the matches. Strange …

  (6-second interval.)

  T: What’s strange?

  A: I was always aware of two smells, my mother’s perfume and the way my father always smelled of tobacco or smoke or the matches. But after that night, after the bus trip, I don’t associate my father with cigarettes anymore. Because my father doesn’t smoke. I’ve never seen him smoke a cigarette. But my mother’s perfume was the same.

  T: Do you remember anything else about the trip?

  A: Not specifically. Mostly, the mood, the feeling of the trip, as if—

  T: As if what?

  A: It was spooky, scary, but not in a haunted house sort of way. But as if we were being chased, as if we were running away. I remember my mother’s face as she looked out the window. She looked so sad, purple half-moons under her eyes. So sad. And the bus speeding through the night …

  (15-second interval.)

  T: Anything else?

  A: We never went back. Not back to what I thought was home. We were in a different home. A different house. A different aura to the house. It was still winter and cold and we were together, my mother and father and me, but everything was different.

  T: What it appears to be is this: Your family moved. From one part of the country to another. But not too far. It was still winter where you went and winter where you came from. A lot of families move. Men are transferred in their jobs. Your father could have been transferred as well.

  A: Maybe.

  T: Why are you hesitating? You appear—uncertain.

  A: I am.

  T: About what?

  A: I don’t know.

  But he did know. He didn’t w
ant to confide the knowledge to the doctor, however. The doctor was a complete stranger and although he seemed sympathetic and friendly, he wasn’t entirely comfortable with him. It should have been easy to tell him everything, all his doubts, to get it all off his chest, but he wasn’t sure how to proceed. He wondered if he should tell him about the clues.

  T: What clues?

  A: What do you mean, “clues”?

  T: What you just said—you used the word “clues.”

  He retreated into silence, stunned. Could the doctor read his mind? Impossible. Or maybe the medicine was doing funny things again. The medicine was always playing tricks on him. And now it was making him believe he was only thinking when he was actually speaking aloud. He would have to be careful. He would have to watch himself, to listen for his voice. The panic shivered in his bones and a terrible tingling took possession of his body.

  A: I’d like to go back now.

  T: Of course.

  A: I’m tired.

  T: I understand. Don’t press. There’s plenty of time.

  A: Thank you.

  T: Everything’s going to be all right.

  END TAPE OZK001

  “Aswell. Fairfield. Carver!”

  The man calls out the names like the train announcer at North Station in Boston.

  “Fleming—Hookset—Belton Falls!”

  His voice is gravelly, as if his throat is full of stones, and his words leap over them: “Belton Falls is smack on the New Hampshire–Vermont line. Then the next stop—your last stop—right across the river is Rutterburg, Vermont.”

  He consults the map again.

  “You’re lucky, Skipper,” he says. “You’re going to touch three states—Massachusetts where you’re standing right this minute and then New Hampshire and Vermont. But you’re traveling at an angle and you only have to cover about seventy miles to do it.”

  Seventy miles doesn’t seem far. Standing here in the gasoline station, anxious to be on my way, my legs itching to pedal that bike, seventy miles seems insignificant.

  The old man looks up from the map. “How fast you figure you can go, Skipper?”