Page 9 of Why Cheese?
It’s all in my head. I made it up. I scared myself. This is so silly. Go back in there and…
A hand slams out of the gap and grips to the floor. I don’t see who pops out as I’m already running across the street away from the murderous cheese ghosts.
CHAPTER THREE
Cautious Colby
THE NEXT MORNING, I convinced myself it was all a bad dream right up until I walked to the door of the shop and found half of the shelves tipped onto the floor. In a panic, I called the cops and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
“I’m sorry, Miss…um?” The cop who didn’t bother to show up until two in the afternoon stares me down with a familiar look. He’s about to ask where my parents are.
When it comes to being considered an adult I have three strikes against me. One, I barely reach five feet on a good day. Two, my round face, owl-like eyes, and tiny mouth give people the impression I’m some kind of haunted doll come to life. And three, my voice barely registers above the volume of flipping a book’s pages.
“Reely. I’m Violette Reely, the owner of this store,” I insist in my strongest voice. It sounds like a meek mouse scurrying under a door.
He eyes me up and down, then sighs. “Right. Well. Aside from the minor damage, we couldn’t see any signs of a break-in. The locks were still in place, no broken windows. Did you see anyone last night before you left your establishment?”
Yes. There were four strangely attractive men who also forgot to put clothes on. I’m not crazy.
There were naked men in my secret basement.
Bowing my head, I whisper, “No.”
“Well, keep an eye out, just in case.” The officer looks like he’s already mentally scrolling the Starbucks menu as he jots down a few things. Without anything else to add, he walks back to his car partially parked on the sidewalk.
“Oh.” He pauses with a hand on the roof of the car. “We did find a few pieces of loose clothing on the floor next to some cheese.”
Clothing?
“Good day,” the officer says. He doesn’t pull out but sits in his car. As the minutes stretch on, I grow uncomfortable and—having nowhere to go—head for the shop’s front door. My fingers wrap around the handle and I grit my teeth.
So they found old clothing, that could be anything. Aprons or polo shirts for employees. Maybe my uncle kept his charity donations in the basement. Last night didn’t happen. I’m so certain exhaustion and fear spooked me into imagining it that I wrench open the door and stride into the shop with my head high.
As I do, the cop pulls away, leaving me completely alone. All of the lights blaze from his search, even the ones under the counter. Whoever or whatever upturned the shelves didn’t touch my uncle’s counter. Though they did knock over the sign.
There were no naked men. I was tired from the flight and imagined things my mother put in my head. That’s it.
Smiling so hard my cheeks hurt, I unlock my phone. They asked me to take pictures to document the damage. It doesn’t take me long, the store small and the shelves not really destroyed, just tipped over. With each picture, my finger hovers, threatening to go back to the beginning. To that single image I have of a dark brick basement and four shock-white men reaching for me.
“You’re not real either,” I tell my phone and move to hit the delete key. Wait. In all the commotion, my uncle’s sign got tipped over. He used to write on that every day. Sometimes he’d let me draw on it too.
Needing that piece of him to remain in this world, I tip the old whiteboard up.
The jolly handwriting advertising his last sale is gone. In its place are words etched like someone held the marker in his fist. “Twenty years Mateo!”
They didn’t find anything. No one else is here.
I’m just crazy. It’s not real.
My brain’s broken. Everyone knows that.
They’re not real.
Fumbling, I open Spotify and play anything to cover the silence in the shop and the pounding in my head.
