Oggie Cooder, once the most famous kid in Wisconsin, maybe the world, was starting his first day of 5th grade at Truman Elementary, and was about 5 minutes into the day when an alarming message came over the speaker system. "Oggie Cooder, Please report to room 209. Room 209, which was the school's office, was famous for being the place where bad students went to be delivered bad news, so, naturally the whole class erupted with whispering. Oggie's new teacher, Mr. MacNovern started to try to quiet down the classroom normally filled with 24 students, but today just 23 because one of the students, Oggie didn't know their name, was absent. Oggie stood up and started to walk out the door, thinking to himself, "I can't wait!" As he exited the room through the doorway, he turned left down the hallway, the way he thought was to room 209, his feet making a faint "tap, tap"sound as they hit the white marble floor of the empty hallway. As he turned a corner, he started to wonder if he should have gone right instead of left. As he was starting to get desperate for some help, a classroom door burst open. It was Mr. Solonowski, his old 4th grade teacher! "Hey Oggie!" He said, his mustache slightly bouncing. "Hey!" Responded Oggie, delighted that he had found someone. "What are you doing over here?" Mr. Solonowski asked. "Well, I was on my way to room 209." "209?" Said Mr. Solonowskis confused voice. "But that's on the other side of the building!" "Oh, thanks!" Responded Oggie as he turned around and started to walk the other way, which was, according to Mr Solonowski, the right way to room 209.
Oggie turned around the corner and finally saw the sign that said "209" in large letters. He had never felt happier in his life! "Phew!", He said to himself, excited to finally be at room 209 and slightly tired from the fairly lengthy walk to the other side of the building. He walked a few more paces, reached out his hand, and opened the heavy wooden door. Mrs. Osmurten, the Principal, who used to be a Hollywood film director, but her movies never made any money for the studio, so they had fired her, was sitting at her desk, along with the vice principal, Mr. Dartan. Both were sitting behind a large, wooden desk. Oggie was so excited, he started to Purrip. "Puuuuuuurrrip!" "Puuuuuuurrip!" He said, as the odd sound echoed around the room. Mr. Dartan and Mrs. Osmurten glanced at each other, seemingly disturbed by this odd sound coming from a student at their school. Mrs. Osmerten waved her hand. "Could you please stop that?" She asked Oggie with a stern and strict voice. Oggie felt another Purrip coming along, so he bit his lip, knowing he wouldn't be able to hold it in if he didn't hold his mouth closed. "As you know, Mr. Cooder, you are here because of something that happened last year. Back when you were almost on Hidden talents." Said the much less strict voice of Mr. Dartan, who stood up straight, and his skin red as crab. "Hm. Probabaly eats a ton of crab." Thought Oggie to himself. "Now," Said Mrs. Osmurten. " You say you knew a man named Bradley Mathis?" "Yeppers!" Responded Oggie. "Well, do you still know him?" "Not really…" Said Oggie. "Well, ok. But, do you think that if you offered to go back on the show Hidden Talents he would let you?" Asked Mrs. Osmurten. "I think so! Actually, he seemed to like me a little too much…" Said Oggie, in a bit of a hesitant voice. "Ok, good, Mr. Cooder. Now, if you'll ask him to let you be back on the show -" Mr. Dartan seemed he was about to butt in and stop Mrs. Osmurten from saying what she was going to say, but he didn't. She finished her sentence with "then I can guarantee you will win that 10 thousand dollar grand prize! Oggie started to say something, but Mrs. Osmursen interrupted him. "Actually, I think this year they raised it to 100 thousand dollars! Now, I'll only help you if you recommend me to this Mathis guy. He's some bigshot producer, right? Just tell him that I'm a "great" director and that I have a new script that I'd like to make into a movie!" "Well…" Started Oggie, but he was interrupted once again by the principal. "WELL WHAT!?!?" She had raised her voice a bit, and seemed a bit angry at Oggie. 'There's only one answer! And that answers YES!" Suddenly the door cracked open and Oggie saw half a face poking through the doors crack, probably curious on what all the shouting was about. Mrs. Osmursen spun around, jumped up, and slammed the door. "The nerve of some people!" She said, aggravated that someone had butted in on her tantrum. Oggie started to wonder whose face that was, but then suddenly it came to him! It was Donnica Perfecto's!
Oggie couldn't stop thinking about his visit to room 209. It wasn't exactly how he had expected the meeting to go. In fact, he was a bit disappointed. Now he could see why all the other kids didn't like the room. The reason he had been so excited was because he thought he had won the "Student Of The Month" award, which was, obviously, handed out to a student every month. Oggie really didn't want his name to be known all over the school like the other kids did, he was just hoping to be able to see his name in the trophy case full of the student of the awards. He also thought that the trophy case was a little dusty and that it needed cleaning, so everybody could see everyone elses student of the month awards, but when he had asked the janitor, whose name was Mr. Jerabe, the janitor had just shook his head glumly and walked away. Hm. Oggie had thought to himself.
He was at lunch, sitting at his lunch table, talking with Amy Schneider and his new friend, Dyllan, whose life was recently filled with fans of Cheddar Jam asking him to ask Justin, who was Dylan's older brother, to give them autographs, or play at their birthday. According to Dyllan, they always had some excuse for wanting an autograph from his older brother. "Oh, it's my birthday" they'd say. Or "I'm his biggest fan". Dyllan found it very annoying, "So, what's bothering you?" Asked an interested Dyllan. "And why were you sent to the Office? Did you finally get your chance to clean the trophy case?" Added Amy Schneider, one of Oggies first real friends. Oggie filled them in on what the principal had said, and told them that someone had peaked in the door to see what was going on, and that he thought the Person was Donnica. When he got to the last part of his story he pointed at Donnica, who was sitting with her two friends, Dawn and Hannah.
Donnica Perfecto, who was sitting at a table with her friends, Dawn and Hannah, had just seen the so-called disgusting Oggie Cooder point at them. "Ugh. Why was that dis- Donnica said, and her two Cronies, Dawn and Hannah, finished her sentence. "Gusting!" "Oggie pointing at me." Continued Donnica. Suddenly the lunch monitor, who was actually a 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Hudson. Mrs. Hudson just happened to be Bethy Hudsons mom, and was on lunch monitor duty that day. Over summer break, Donnica had said some mean things about Mrs. Hudsons daughter, and, naturally, Mrs. Hudson jumped on the chance to get some revenge. She walked over to Donnica and her friends, and said... "Bench.", her voice full of happiness as she said this one word. The bench was the worst punishment you could get from a lunch monitor. It ment you had to sit on a bench and eat your lunch with no table, just the bench, where the whole school could see you as you were eating lunch. And then you had to sit there for the rest of lunch and sometimes even some recess! This was Donnicas first time on the bench, and it was also Dawn and Hannah's. "This is all Oggie Cooders fault." She said to herself. "If he hadn't pointed at me, this wouldn't have happened!"
Oggie and his friends, Dylan and Amy, had watched the drama unfold over at the drama queen herselfs table, Donnicas. Oggie hadn't really been paying attention, though. His thoughts were elsewhere. Now his thoughts had shifted from whose face it was, because he was almost 100% sure it was Donnicas, to the principal's offer. "Would Bradley take me back?" He asked himself. "Could I still win?" "No, I'm done with that. No more of that silly, brain cell ruining TV show. "But I could give all the prize money to mom's shop!" He thought to himself, as the silent argument inside his head continued to rage on. Suddenly, he reached into his back pocket so he could charve. Charving meant to carve cheese by biting it. It was a combination of the words carve, and cheese! He always did it when he was stressed, and, right now he was very stressed. But as his hand went into his back pocket, he felt nothing. No sliced American cheese. "Hm." He thought to himself. "Guess I'll have to pick it up on my way home tonight."
Oggie Cooder was on his way home from school, to his house. It was just then that he remembered to pick up some cheese from Cheezaru, which was actually named Cheezy-Do, but when Oggie was a baby, he couldn't pronounce it and instead would say Cheezaru. He turned a corner and there was Cheezy-Do, which had great big and holey yellow letters shining like a beacon. He started to walk up the steps. There were 6, No, 7 of them. As he climbed up them, he felt great joy. That was, until he opened the yellow door to Cheezy-Do. That's when he saw the Red "Going out of business banner." Oggie's joy suddenly plunged down into a horrible sadness. This place was like a home to him. Then, suddenly, he remembered something. It was April 1st! Or as his friend, Dylan called it, April fools day! Oggie suddenly burst out into a strage mix of purriping and laughter, which sounded like a kazoo that was stuck in a bird's mouth! "Harrip!" "Haaaaaarrip!" Then he saw a worker walking past. "The worker spun around and rushed over to Oggie. "Are you okay!" SHe asked in distress, reaching for her phone to call 911. Oggie stopped "Harriping". "I'm fine, Mrs…" His eyes landed on her nametag, which said Mariana Roselade. "...Roselade!" "Oh, good, good. Well, why were you making that… odd sound?" She responded, a bit confused. "Well, I was just laughing at your April fools day joke!" Oggie said, starting to get a bit worried. "It's not an April fools day joke." Said Mariana.
Oggie was walking home from Cheezy-Do, and couldn't believe it! How could his favorite store, a place that was like a second home to him, be closing. It must be a dream, he told himself, So he decided to pinch himself. He reached out and squeezed his thumb and pointer fingers together on his skin, and immediately yelped. "Yeppers, definitely not a dream." He told himself.
Oggie had just climbed up the stairs to his house when his dog, turkey on rye, which was nicknamed Turk, came flying out of the doggy and collided with Oggie. "Frappachino!" Oggie shouted as he went tumbling down the stairs. He landed in the grass with Turk standing on him, licking his face. He had a small cut on his arm which was bleeding a suprisingly good amount forsuch a small cut. He pushed Turk off, and bolted through the door, through the living room, and into the bathroom. There, he reached up to the cabinets, flinging one open, and grabbed a band-aid. He quickly tore off the plastic wrapping and snapped it on his small wound. "Phew!" He said out loud.
He walked out of the bathroom and over to the couch, where he sat down. The couch was facing a bookshelf where a TV would normally be, because his parents thought that TVs ruined your braincells, so the Cooder Family didn't have one. They also thought marshmallows did, and a few oher things. As he was sitting on the shaggy, gray, soft couch, he thought of something. "I'm going to raise money to keep Cheezar- I mean Cheezy-Do open!" He thought to himself. Then he remembered something his mom told him. "If you want to think better, then stand on your head!". So he did.
He had come up with a plan! He was going to Charve at birthday partys, and maybe even frame and sell some of his charved cheese! He had done the math. If he charged 30 dollars per party and had 10 customers, he would already have 300 dollars! He had guessed that Cheezy-Do would need at least 1,000 dollars to stay open. "Tomorrow, I'm going to put this plan into action!" He shouted, before realizing no one was in the room except for him.
The next morning Oggie jumped out of bed, gulped down his cereal, and sped out the door. He ran all around town, putting tiny paper cards which had his phone number on them, on every car's windshield. Then he jogged back home, and took a seat next to the red telephone in his kitchen. He waited for about 15 minutes when he got his first call. He was going to be the entertainment at some kids birthday on Tuesday! And then he got another call, and another, and another, until he was up to around 20. He was completely booked for the next 2 weeks or so, and even had to go to 2 partys some days! That was 600 dollars in the next 2 weeks or so!! Still not enough to save the Cheese store, but he was getting there. As the weeks went by, he earned more and more money. Pretty soon, he had around a thousand dollars. "I guess when you used to be the most famous kid in WIsconsin it really pays off!" He had said to himself, once he hit one thousand dollars. He walked out the door, and hopped onto his bike. He peddaled all the way to Cheezy-Do, which only took a few minutes. It was a short distance away from his house.
As he pulled into the parking lot of Cheezy-Do, he saw Donnica biking past. "Hey Donnica!" He shouted to Donnica. Donnica just turned her head away from him and sped away. "Hm. I wonder where she's going." He said to himself, as he climbed the stairs. He opened the doors to Cheezy-Do, and immediate sadness fell over him once again. It was like that bright red banner draining everything happy from him. He saw the worker who he had met last time, Mariana, walking by. "Hi!" He shouted to her. SHe turned, said hi, and then walked away. He turned and saw that there was a worker with the nametag of Lorenzo, who was pulling in a few shopping carts from the little station in the parking lot, where you put your carts after you load your groceries into your car. He walked over towards Lorenzo, and asked if he knew where the manager was. "Yep! Go down the cereal aisle, and his office should be to the left of the end of the aisle." Said Lorenzo. Oggie walked past all of the different cereals. "Cheezios!" He shouted out loud. Those were his favorite, and he had seen them next to the Cheddarflakes. But then he remembered why he was here: To save Cheezy-Do. So he continued onwards, down the aisle until he finally reached the end, and, sure enough right to his left was a small office, with a small sign that said Charles L Price, manager. Oggie knocked on Mr. Price's door, and Mr. Price's voice, with an eerie echo because of the small, enclosed walls of his office, came through the door. "Come in. Come in." Oggie opened the door, and started to tell Mr Price the whole story, but Mr. Price interrupted him about a second in and told him to sit down. "First off, call me Charles." Said Mr. Price. "Yeppers, Mr- I mean, Charles." Responded an eager Oggie. "Well, Why are you here?" "To save the store." A bit of a silence followed tht statement, but the finally, Mr. Price spoke up. "Well, you're gonna need a lotta money, kid." He said. "I've raised almost a thousand dollars!" Said Oggie, excitedly. Then he went "Purrip!" "Ha!" Said Mr. Price. "You're going to need a lot more than that!" "How much?" Asked Oggie. "Well, right now were looking at about 6 thousand dollars."
Oggie was sitting in Mr. Prices office, disappointed. He hadn't been able to save Cheezy-Do! But then thought came to him… "What if I accepted Mrs. Osmurtens offer?" No, It wouldn't be worth it." He told himself. Suddenly, The worker, Mariana, busted through the door, and dropped 2 10 dollar bills. She was followed by Lorenzo, who also dropped 2 10 dollar bills. Soon, the all the other woker, which were about 30, had all came through the door and dropped 10 to 50 dollars! Soon, customers started joining in. Oggie through his 1,000 dollars into the growin pile of money sitting at the door.
Later, once all the workers, and the customers, had stopped dropping money in, Oggie decided to count it. 1000, 2000, 2300, 4000, 5050, 6000, 6020, 6023. There was 6,023 dollars, in cash, laying in that pile. Just enough money to save the store! "Puuuuurip!" "Puuuuuurip!" Said Oggie.
Oggie hadn't gotten much sleep that following night, because of how excited he was! "Cheezaru wasn't going to close!" He thought to himself, again, and again, and again. Finally, he fell asleep.
Once he had woken up, he scarfed down his breakfast, which was a bowl of Cheezio's from one of the 6 boxes Charles had given him for helping save the store. Then he hopped on his yellow bike, and started to pedal as hard as he could, down a route that was suddenly very familiar, seeing as he had gone down it many times in the past few days. Eventually, he arrived at Chezzy-Do. He rushed in, and after many minutes of searching, finally found Mariana and Lorenzo stocking the shelves together, in the "Other" isle, which actually, finally had real "Cheddar Jam", which, according to Lorenzo, was cheeze flavored jam. Oggie had been dying to ask Lorenzo, or, as Lorenzo had told him to call him, Enzo, and Mariana, something, and he couldn't hold it in much longer. "Why?" He asked them. "Pardon me?" Responded a confused Mariana. "Well, I mean, why did you help me? Why did you give me your hard earned money just to save the place that you work at?" "Because this place is like a home to us too." Said Mariana. "And some common good goes a long way!" Added Lorenzo.
Oggie was at school, a day later. He was happy to have accomplished something in his weekend, and did something that mattered. Mr. Macnovern's class was learning about fractions. "Who would like to tell me what the simplified form of 6 4ths is?" "Oggie Cooder?" "2 Wholes and 6 nineths!" Said Oggie, who seemed a bit too confident in his answer. "So close!" Said Mr. Macnovern, and Oggie laughed.