“What’s that mean?”
“See it in your head. That’s what actors do. They become their characters and then they act. Now be quiet.”
I waited for almost a full minute.
Stella didn’t move a muscle. It was like she died standing up.
Creepy.
When her eyes popped open I let out a gasp. Stella wasn’t Stella anymore.
Her eyes went blank. Her arms fell limp. Her mouth sagged like at the dentist. She looked like a toad squashed on the road, and when she staggered toward me with her hands out like claws, I banged down the hall and ran out the screen door into the front yard.
Man, she could act!
That was what zombies were supposed to look like?
Inside the house Stella was laughing her head off.
It was dark by then. Lights were on in the houses on our street. But nobody was out. I was alone.
I cringed.
“Okay,” I said to myself. “You can do this.”
I stood still and closed my eyes, like Stella had. “Come on up,” I said to the zombie inside me.
I waited.
Nothing.
Not even a zombie burp.
I peeked one eye open to see if my inner zombie was standing next to me or something.
The street was still empty, except for Maya’s cat, Zippy, who’d shown up to hunt mice.
I closed my eyes again. “Inner zombie,” I said. “Come on up!”
I swayed to the side and lost my balance. I opened my eyes just before I knocked over our mailbox.
My inner zombie was waking up.
“Ahh!” I shrieked, and Zippy took off like a bullet.
Maybe I just got dizzy.
The next day, Sunday, I woke up in a sweat.
I’d been dreaming of zombies. One long nightmare, because they all looked like Stella!
I stumbled out of my room, which was made out of half the garage. I nearly banged into the lawn mower.
Streak, who’d slept on the bunk below me, headed out to the yard.
I went into the kitchen.
Darci was eating a bowl of cereal at the counter.
“Who’s up?” I asked.
“Just me.”
I nodded and got myself a glass of guava juice and a bowl of Grape Nuts with honey.
Stella’s script was over by the phone. I grabbed it and took it to the counter and sat next to Darci.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“This,” I said, tapping it with my finger, “is a movie script.”
Darci shrugged.
I started reading.
And reading.
By the time I’d finished the whole thing, Darci was long gone and Mom had come into the kitchen.
“Mom, this movie is really good!”
“Is that Stella’s script?”
“Yeah, and in it the zombies come marching up onto the beach from underwater. They went down with a ship coming to Hawaii from the Philippines, and they just started walking on the bottom of the ocean, and then they come walking up on Kailua beach. It’s so cool!”
“Well, then you better have a good breakfast.”
“We’re not filming until next week. But anyway, in the movie there’s this young scientist who saves everyone from the zombies because he’s a genius and invents a way to trap them and destroy them.”
Mom smiled. “Sounds lovely, Cal.”
“I gotta practice. Last night Stella showed me how to call up my inner zombie to get ready for the part.”
Mom laughed. “Inner zombie?”
“Yeah!” I ran outside, Streak trotting along with me down to Julio’s house.
I went around back and peeked through the screen on his bedroom window. I could see him sleeping. “Julio! Wake up! We need to practice.”
He rolled over and popped up on one elbow. He squinted my way. “What time is it?”
“Zombie time. Get up.”
He flopped back down. “Zombies need their sleep.”
“No! They don’t sleep. I read it in the script. They’re always awake.”
He popped back up. “You read the script?”
“Yeah. Stella left it out.”
“Be right there.”
A half hour later Julio and I were out on the street with Willy and Maya.
Maya yawned and rubbed her face. “This better be good, Calvin. Do you know what time it is?”
“Yeah, time to practice.”
“It’s eleven-twenty, way too early for this.”
“Real actors don’t worry what time it is, so listen. Stella showed me how actors get ready for their parts. First you have to become your character by calling it up.”
Julio shoved Willy toward his house. “Go get your mom’s phone.”
“Shhh,” I said. “Let me finish. You got to close your eyes and call up your inner zombie, and not on a phone, you goofball. Here. Do it like this.”
I showed them what Stella did … only my inner zombie was still asleep, so I faked it.
“You got us up for this?” Maya said.
“It works. Stella said.”
So we all stood there with our eyes closed at the edge of the road in front of Maya’s house.
“Yah!” Maya yelped.
I opened my eyes. “What?”
“I saw it! I saw the zombie inside me.”
Julio took a step away from Maya.
Willy gaped at her. “You saw it?”
Maya put a finger to her lips and closed her eyes again.
We waited, glancing at each other.
“Weird,” Julio mouthed, and spun his finger around his ear.
“Yaaahh!” Maya yelped again.
Her eyes popped open. Her face went flat. She started staggering toward us.
We backed away.
“Come on, fools,” she said, cracking up. “Get with it.”
“Jeese, Maya,” Julio said. “You didn’t have to scare us.”
She lurched toward him. “I’m hungry for your brains.”
“Zombies don’t talk,” he said.
“This one does.”
All right! We were practicing. We were actors on our way to becoming Hollywood millionaires like Benny’s uncle.
We spent the next hour staggering around in the middle of the road. It was fun.
Until a car turned down our street.
Blue lights spinning.
The police car pulled up to us and stopped.
A cop got out. A big cop. Ten feet tall … maybe eleven.
Four zombies gaped up at him.
“What’s going on, boys?” He nodded to Maya. “And girl.”
I gulped. “Uh, we were just … um, practicing.”
He glanced down the street and I turned to see what he was looking at. Mrs. Costello, who lived next to Julio, was peeking out her front window.
The officer turned back. “Practicing what?”
“Being zombies,” Maya said. “We’re going to be in a movie.”
The cop grinned, nodding. “Yeah-yeah. I heard about that. They’re filming it at the beach.”
The spinning blue lights were like magnets to Julio’s four brothers, who were now out in their front yard staring at us.
Julio squinted at them. Still looking at his brothers, he said to the cop, “We got parts, and we’re getting paid a hundred dollars … each!”
“Good pay.”
“Did we do something wrong, Officer?” I asked.
“Not that I can see,” he said. “We got a call. I came to check it out.”
“A call?” Willy asked. “Why?”
“Well, a lady said there were a bunch of kids stumbling around in the middle of the street, and she was worried that maybe something was wrong with them … like maybe they were drunk or something.”
I gaped at him. “Drunk?”
“Well, I can see that you’re not, of course. But why don’t you show me what you were doing.”
We limped and shuffled and s
taggered for him, giving it all we had. I thought we looked pretty good. We were getting it down.
The officer rubbed his chin. “You folks ever seen a zombie movie?”
“Only Willy,” I said.
The cop nodded. “Watch. This is how they walk.”
He did a walk that was like a corpse dragging his foot.
I liked it and grinned at Julio.
“See?” the cop said. “I’m hungry, just looking for food. That’s all I want. Food in the form of your brains. That’s what zombies like best.”
“Walking dead,” Willy said.
“You got it. The walking dead.”
All of us started dragging our feet in the middle of the street, doing what the cop was doing. So crazy!
Now Mrs. Costello was out in her yard, scowling, hands on her hips.
A minute later, another police car came cruising down the street. It pulled up behind the first one. Two cars with blue lights flashing.
The officer got out, a short Japanese guy with muscles so big they were about to rip his shirt.
The first cop said, “Hey, Jacob. These kids are in that movie they’re shooting at the beach next weekend. Supposed to be zombies, but they don’t know the walk. I’m showing them.”
The second cop’s face turned from serious to mischievous. “Well, I saw Shaun of the Dead. Was good. They walked like this.”
Now there were six of us lurching around in the street.
And Mrs. Costello was about to explode. Her face was as pinched and puckered as chewed-up bubble gum.
“Uh, Jacob,” the first cop said. “We have a concerned citizen watching us.”
Both officers stood up straighter and got that serious police look back.
Then the second cop waved his hand around like he was mad at us. But he said the opposite. “Stop laughing. I’m chewing you out. Play along before she calls the chief. It’s really going to be fun for you to be in that movie, and you’re getting the look down pretty good. But go find someplace else to practice, because you’re freaking out that poor lady.”
He almost grinned, then scowled.
“Go!” he said, loud enough for Mrs. Costello to hear.
The other cop whispered, “We’ll go talk to her. I bet she doesn’t know what a zombie is.”
“Tell her we ate too much kimchee and got sick,” I said.
The tall cop laughed. “I actually did that once.”
The cops walked down to see Mrs. Costello.
“Zombie cops,” Maya said. “Crazy.”
Julio’s brothers were mimicking us in their yard. Julio’s face turned red. “I’m going to put sand between their sheets.”
I pulled him away. “Come.”
We went out onto the golf course that ran behind Maya’s and Willy’s houses and practiced until some golfers came and yelled at us.
What was wrong with people? Didn’t they like to have fun anymore?
“You think Benny’s uncle is really a millionaire?” Julio asked.
“Sure,” I said. “Benny said so.”
Maya laughed. “Come on, Calvin. Half of what he tells us is made up.”
“True.”
“I believe it,” Willy said.
“What’s not true is that he wrote that movie with his uncle,” Julio spat. “I don’t believe that for a second.”
I frowned. I’d thought that, too.
Willy shrugged. “Who cares? Benny’s fun. I like him.”
I nodded. “Me too.”
“He just makes things up to make himself look good,” Julio said. “He’s such a liar.”
“He’s not a liar,” I said.
Julio scoffed.
“How come you’re in such a bad mood?”
“I’m not. I’m just being real.”
I shook my head. The truth was, I didn’t know what to think about Benny. Or Julio, being so mean.
“Hey,” I said to change the subject. “How about we zombie over to my house and scare up something to eat?”
Maya grinned. “Brains.”
“Oops,” Julio said. “There’s a problem. No brains at Calvin’s house.”
“You punk.” I shoved him, and everyone cracked up.
Bad mood or not, I had the best friend ever.
At school that week we spent every recess zombie walking. We had the whole school doing it, too … until Mrs. Leonard, the principal, told us to stop fooling around.
“This is an educational institution,” she said. “Not an insane asylum.”
For real, nobody liked to have fun anymore.
Except in class.
“My little zombies,” our teacher, Mr. Purdy, said on Friday before school got out. “Who’s going to be in the movie this weekend?”
Six hands shot up.
“I am, Mr. Purdy,” Rubin said, waving for attention.
Ace, behind me, shouted, “Me too. I got hired for pay.”
Mr. Purdy nodded. “Pay is good.”
I turned to Ace. “I didn’t see you at the try-outs. Where were you?”
“I came late. But got in anyway. They liked that I’m handsome.” He grinned.
“But zombies are ugly.”
“Contrast. Make you look uglier than you are.”
“Look!” Rubin said, making a lifeless face. “I like eat brains.”
Maya snorted. “Too bad you already ate yours.”
The class burst out laughing.
“Mr. Purdy,” I said. “You remember Benny Obi? The director is his uncle.”
“Well, I’ll be danged.”
“I know kung fu,” Julio called, and everyone laughed harder.
Mr. Purdy shuffled. He raised his claws and drooped his face. “Feed me,” he slurred in a deep voice. “Brains or guts, gimme soy sauce and I don’t care.”
He was all right, Mr. Purdy.
After dinner that night we all went down to the beach, including Ledward, who wanted to bring Blackie along. But he figured a pet pig might not be welcome on a movie set.
I met up with Julio, Maya, Willy, Rubin, Shayla, and Benny.
“Too bad pigs can’t be zombies,” I said to Benny. “That would be unique.”
“Unique is zombies coming out of the ocean,” he said. “Nobody did that before.”
I nodded.
“My uncle’s a genius. That’s why he’s a millionaire. I’m going to be a millionaire, too.”
I laughed. “Prob’ly.”
The extras gathered around Mr. Obi.
Mom, Ledward, and Darci stood around the edges with Julio’s, Willy’s, and Maya’s parents and a couple hundred other people trying to see.
Julio’s brothers crept close with monkey eyes. Julio shook his fist at them and they stuck out their tongues.
Mr. Obi stood on a wooden box and raised his hands for everyone to be quiet.
“Thank you all for coming. We’ve filmed a lot of this story already at a studio in California. But the beach scenes we will be filming this weekend are absolutely critical.”
Everyone clapped and cheered.
Mr. Obi went on. “I need all of you here at three-thirty tomorrow morning.”
A low gasp rattled through the crowd.
“In the morning?” Maya said.
Benny grinned. “Yup.”
Mr. Obi held up his hands. “That’s early, but it’s important. The sun rises around six-thirty, and we have to get everyone made up and ready to shoot by five-forty-five. We’ll start just before the sun comes up, when the sky is still black, but way out to sea a faint glow will start to spread across the horizon.”
Benny leaned close. “The most peaceful time of day,” he said, low. “Or the spookiest.”
Yai!
Mr. Obi spoke a while longer, then waved. “See you all tomorrow, bright and early.”
Benny made a small frame with his thumb and fingers and pointed it at the ocean. “Picture it—the dead coming out of the sea.”
I imagined walking corpses rising out of the
ocean while everyone was still sleeping. No one would even suspect it.
Man, that would be major-major chicken skin.
But right now it was major-major fun. Not only were hundreds of people at the beach, there were also big trucks and tables and lanterns and families sitting around on blankets, and someone was playing Hawaiian slack key guitar.
Julio’s parents came up to us. “Julio,” his mom said, “would you please watch your brothers while your dad and I take a walk on the beach?”
That was it for Julio. “Why do I have to do everything? What’s wrong with them looking after themselves? What am I, a slave?”
Whoa!
Julio’s mom looked at him with her mouth open.
“I mean it!” Julio stormed away.
Julio’s dad watched Julio walk off. “You go on with the boys. I’ll catch up later.”
He headed down the beach after Julio.
The brothers leaped like fleas around Julio’s mom. “Let’s go, let’s go!”
Julio’s mom took them down to the sand.
Me and my friends stood in silence.
Finally, Willy said, “Wow. Julio cracked.”
We all went down to the edge of the ocean to stand with our feet in the water.
“So tell us about tomorrow, Benny,” I said, trying to lighten things up. “We come out of the ocean and then what?”
“Try to see it in your head. First we go all the way under the water, and then when Uncle gives the signal, we come up, slow, slow, slow and creep toward shore.”
Willy scrunched up his face. “But won’t the makeup and stuff wash off?”
“Waterproof. Plus, we have rubber masks, and eyeballs that pop out. Everything will be fine. You’ll see. We know what we’re doing.”
“That’s right, Willy,” I said. “Benny knows what he’s doing.”
“How do you know?”
“Look what’s around his neck.”
Willy and Rubin bent close to look at the silver skull with red eyes hanging on a chain.
Willy frowned. “What am I supposed to see?”
“That skull used to be his cousin’s head.” I grinned, making it up. “He got infected and became a zombie, and when he died, they shrunk it and dipped it in silver. Whenever he has a problem, Benny talks to it. And that’s why he knows stuff.”
Extra Famous Page 3
