by David Lubar
“Are you sure it’s not dead?” I asked.
Abigail leaned closer to the glass. “It’s alive. Its gills are moving.”
“So Nathan is less alive than a mullet,” Mookie said.
“Thanks for reminding me.”
The tank went all the way to the ceiling. There was no opening on this side.
I guess Abigail knew what I was thinking. “There has to be an opening so they can feed the fish.” She pointed to a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. “Try there.”
“What if someone comes in?” I asked.
“I can fix that.” Mookie scrunched his face and started to hunch over.
“No, stop!” I put a hand on his shoulder. I didn’t think Abigail could survive one of his toxic gas clouds. “That’s okay. I’ll risk it.”
I glanced around, made sure nobody was about to come in from the main hall, then slipped through the door. I found myself in a narrow passage along the side of the tank. I followed it around to the back. A long ladder rose all the way to the top of the tank, about fifteen feet over my head. I started to climb the ladder, then realized I didn’t want to get my clothes wet. I took off my pants and shirt, but I kept my underwear on. There was no way I was going anywhere without that.
I paused at the top of the ladder. I knew I didn’t need to breathe. I could stay underwater as long as I wanted. But by actually doing something no living person could do, I was sort of really admitting that I was dead. But if I didn’t do something about it, I’d end up being dead forever.
“I won’t get cured if I just stand here,” I muttered.
I took a deep breath, even though I didn’t need it, and slipped over the edge. The water felt warm against my feet and shins, but the rest of my body didn’t notice anything.
My brain noticed everything. As soon as my head went under the water, it was like a timer went off in my mind, telling me I could hold my breath for only thirty or forty seconds. After a moment, I wanted to get out of the water. I remembered what it felt like to inhale a lungful of water. Or to choke on a drink. My brain was sure I’d need to draw a breath, but my body didn’t play along.
Relax. You don’t need to breathe.
I’m underwater.
You can stay here all day.
But I’ll drown.
You can’t drown. You’re already dead.
“Enough!” I shouted. Bubbles shot past my face. Water rushed into my mouth. I didn’t drown. I didn’t choke. I didn’t need to cough.
I swam down toward the Lazarus mullet. This is actually kind of cool. I saw Mookie and Abigail on the other side. I opened my mouth and grinned at them. I stuck out my tongue. I closed my mouth and bulged out my cheeks. Then I tapped my wrist, like I was wearing a watch, and shrugged.
Mookie started laughing. Then he bulged out his cheeks. Abigail glanced over her shoulder and waved her hands frantically. I waved back and shouted, “Hi!”
She shook her head and said something. I watched her lips move. I still didn’t get it.
Abigail breathed on the glass, fogging it up. Then she wrote
I frowned. Abigail wiped the word out with the side of her fist, then fogged the glass again and wrote
As a group of Brownies swarmed up to the tank, I swam behind a large chunk of coral. The instant the Brownies left, I swam over to the Lazarus mullet. When I got close, it rolled its eyes toward me. I waited, afraid it would try to escape. But it looked away, like I wasn’t worth watching. I reached out with the tweezers and plucked a couple scales. It didn’t even react. I was pretty sure that fish don’t feel stuff the way that people do.
Then again, neither did I.
I put the scales in a plastic bag, then swam back to the ladder. I figured it would be a good idea to empty my lungs. I hung over the tank for a moment, pressing my body against the edge. Water ran out of my nose and mouth. After I climbed down, I stood behind the tank and dripped for a while.
I was just about to put on my pants when I heard the door open. A guy dressed in green overalls came in, carrying a bucket. I could see him through the glass. He hadn’t noticed me, yet. But there was no way he wouldn’t spot me when he came around to the back of the tank. I was about to get caught standing in an employees-only area in my underwear, clutching a plastic bag with a stolen fish scale.
I looked for another way out, but there weren’t any other doors. I was trapped. I grabbed the ladder and wondered whether I had time to get back in the tank and hide.
That’s when I heard a scream tear through the open door.
11
Keep Your Chin Up
Shark!”
I looked through the tank. It was like watching a television that had way too much blue in the picture. But the show was definitely an action comedy. Mookie was running around in front of the tank, waving his arms in terror and screaming. “Help! Shark!”
The guy dropped the bucket and ran toward him. Mookie kept screaming as he raced into the next room. The guy chased after him.
“Knock it off, kid!”
I jumped into my clothes and went back through the door.
“Got it?” Abigail asked.
“Yup.”
“Maybe we’d better leave. We can meet Mookie in the parking lot.”
“Good idea.” We went outside, and I handed her the bag.
“Great. That’s plenty. Now we just have to mix it with the other ingredients and let it sit.”
“Sit? How long?” I’d figured she’d whip up some kind of formula right away.
“I’m not sure. At least overnight. I have to extract the collagen fibrils from the calcium salts.”
“We need to hurry. Can’t you do it faster?” I could almost feel death creeping down my legs.
“You’ll be fine,” Abigail said.
“And don’t come back until you learn how to behave!”
I looked over at the door, where Mookie was being ejected from the aquarium.
“Thanks,” I said when he joined us. “You really saved me. I owe you one.”
“Just keep that in mind when you become mindless and get an urge to eat brains.”
“I’m not going to eat brains!” I shouted.
“I’ve got two kidneys,” Mookie said. “I guess you could have one of those. But not my liver. I’m pretty sure I only have one. You probably wouldn’t want it, anyhow. I’ll bet even zombies don’t eat liver.”
I stopped listening.
When Mrs. Goldberg picked us up, she had even more stuff crammed in the van. I guess she went to the recycling center for the opposite reason than most people do. We wedged ourselves in and rode back to town.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said when Mrs. Goldberg pulled up at my house.
“I’ll get right to work on our science project.” Abigail gave me a wink to let me know she meant the cure.
“We have a science project?” Mookie screamed. “Nobody told me. When’s it due?”
I pushed him out of the van. “He’s such a kidder,” I said to Mrs. Goldberg.
I got out and waved as they drove off.
“It’s great that Abigail is helping you,” Mookie said after I’d explained to him that he wasn’t about to flunk science.
“Yeah. I just wish I didn’t have to wait for the cure. My parents are going to get suspicious if I don’t eat dinner.” I could see my mom dragging me to all sorts of doctors.
“That’s no problem,” Mookie said. “Just do what I do when my mom makes macaroni with clams and cheese. I push my food around and pretend I’m chewing something. The real trick is that I squish everything to one side so half my plate is empty. She never notices that I don’t put anything in my mouth.”
“That’s not a bad idea. I’ll give it a try.”
Sure enough, I was able to get through dinner without actually eating. Since Mom had made fish cakes, I was especially happy I didn’t have to put anything in my mouth.
Once again, I couldn’t fall asleep. It looked like being awake was part of being dead, which was
weird since people are always comparing death to sleep.
I went down to the computer and played the zombie game. This time, I put it on the hardest setting. No problem. I guess I had a couple things going for me. I never got nervous. No matter how exciting or tense the action got, my hand was steady. And I never blinked. I was a perfect game-playing machine. But I had only one sample level of the game, and I was getting tired of beating it.
I searched around for other game samples. There were plenty. If nothing else, it looked like I wouldn’t be bored at night.
I used Mookie’s trick at breakfast. It worked just as well as it had at dinner. Waffles are really easy to smush together so they take up less space on the plate.
“I’m glad you have your appetite back,” Mom said as I put my knife and fork through the motions.
I was glad I wouldn’t have to choke down a waffle and then return to the parallel bars. After I dumped the food from my plate into the garbage, I grabbed my backpack and headed out.
I raced up to Abigail as soon as I spotted her coming down the sidewalk toward the school yard. “Got it?” I asked.
She gave me a funny look.
“What’s wrong?”
“The process is slower than I’d expected. How much farther has the deadness moved?” she asked.
I pulled up my pants leg and showed her the latest mark, halfway down my shin.
“That’s not too bad. We have time. I did some more research. We need another ingredient. But it won’t be hard to find.”
“Oh, that’s just great,” I moaned. “What do we need? A rare bird that lives in the Arctic?”
“A mushroom. But nothing rare. I’m pretty sure the one we need grows in Ackerman’s Woods. We can go there after school.”
“You didn’t say anything about a mushroom yesterday.”
“This process is extremely complicated. It’s so near the far edge of science that it’s almost like some kind of magic. Not that I believe in magic.”
I didn’t want to hear about science or magic. “Abigail, I’m trusting you with my life. Or my death. Or something like that.”
“Don’t worry, Nathan,” she said. “I won’t let you down.”
As if there wasn’t enough stress in my life, today was field day. We were about to spend the entire day competing against the kids from Perrin Hall Academy.
When we got out to the field, I saw Mort Ivanson on crutches. “What happened?” I asked.
“I heard he tripped on the steps yesterday,” Mookie said.
“That’s bad. He was our best hope.”
“At least we still have Tammi.” Mookie pointed at the track. “She’s as fast as Mort.”
Tammi Andrews was jogging warm-up laps. Rodney jogged up next to her. Then Rodney stumbled. He and Tammi went down in a tangle. Rodney sprang right up. But Tammi stayed on the ground, clutching her knee.
I watched Rodney closely while people ran over to help. He looked happy. I guess he’d decided to improve his chances of winning. I wondered whether he’d given Mort a push, too.
“We’ll never beat Perrin Hall now,” Mookie said.
“At least I won’t get blamed for the loss.” I checked the list and saw that Mookie and I were both scheduled for the broad jump first. Dead or alive, I was pretty bad at jumping. We went over and got in line. There were only three kids ahead of us, so it wasn’t a long wait.
As I ran toward the pit for my first attempt, I realized I didn’t have any nervous twinges. I was always afraid I’d hurt myself if I jumped too far. Right now, my gut couldn’t care less what the rest of my body did.
I can’t get hurt.
That thought helped launch me into the air. It was a magnificent leap, just like those track stars do in the Olympics. I flew farther than I’d ever jumped before. I was half kid, half cat. But my first thought was followed, mid-jump, by a darker one.
I can still break something.
All my gracefulness vanished. I clutched at the air and tried to slow myself down. That didn’t work. I lost my balance and toppled.
“Safe!” Mookie shouted, waving his arms like a third-base umpire as I landed flat on my stomach.
“Very funny,” I said as I spat out sawdust.
I took it easy in the high jump. Then, when my turn came, I lined up for the mile. Rodney was next to me. At least I didn’t have to worry about him tripping me. I wasn’t any threat to him.
By the end of the first lap, I was in last place. But then I started to gain on everyone. At the end of the next lap, I was in the middle of the pack. By the third lap, I was right behind the leaders. I wasn’t any faster than before, but I wasn’t out of breath. I didn’t need to slow down. My speed wasn’t great for the first lap, but it was really good for the last one, when everyone else was running out of air.
The track seemed to glide beneath my feet. I found my rhythm and sailed through the final stretch. I almost didn’t want to stop when I crossed the finish line. I never knew that running could be fun.
A girl from Perrin Hall came in first. But I took second, right ahead of a boy and another girl from Perrin Hall. Rodney actually managed fifth place. He picked up a lot more points in the weight-lifting events, and moved into the top four. It didn’t help—Perrin Hall was killing us on team points. Mr. Lomux wasn’t even watching anymore. He was slumped on the bleachers with his head in his hands. We were so far behind, it was pretty much hopeless by the time I got to my last event.
I jumped up, grabbed the bar, and did my first chin-up.
Mookie grabbed the bar next to me.
What’s the point? I thought. So what if you could run faster than anyone else or jump higher? It didn’t make you a better person. It sure didn’t mean that everyone should treat you special or different. But everyone would go all wild over the winners.
I glanced at Mookie. He was slowing down. I wasn’t surprised that I was lasting longer—I was a lot lighter.
Mookie hung from the bar, his face grew red, and then it became a scary darker shade that was somewhere between purple and blue. He groaned like someone was removing his appendix with a fork. Finally, he dropped, and landed with a loud “Ooff!”
One of the teachers, Mr. Bierce, who was counting for him, looked at the counter in his hand, and then said, “Three.”
“Three?” Mookie asked. “I was sure I did at least ten.”
“Three,” Mr. Bierce said again. “And the last one was a gift. You barely got your forehead past the bar.”
“Oh well. It’s still a new record for me.” Mookie flexed his muscles, then wandered over next to my counter, Ms. Nurmi.
I kept going. I’d expected the whole day to be a nightmare. But my living nightmare actually made field day a lot more fun. Not that I’d trade my normal life for my new abilities. I was dying to find that mushroom so Abigail could finish the cure.
“Psssst.”
I looked down at Mookie. He was trying to get my attention, but I wasn’t sure why. He pointed at the counter in Ms. Nurmi’s hand, then mouthed some words.
I had no idea what he was trying to tell me. I shrugged, which isn’t easy when you’re hanging from a bar.
“Two hundred and thirty-nine,” Mookie said.
Oh, gosh. I froze in the middle of what was about to become my 240th chin-up. I hadn’t realized I’d done so many. My arms weren’t tired at all.
I dangled from the bar and looked around. Everyone was watching me. Including Rodney. He didn’t look happy. I had to stop.
I started to pull myself up again, groaned, thrashed my legs, twisted violently, and then let go. I heard a snap as I fell from the bar. I dropped to my knees and gasped like I was exhausted.
As I got back to my feet, Mookie whispered, “Nice acting.” He gave me a thumbs-up.
“Thanks.” I held up my thumb. It wobbled, then flopped over. I stared at it in horror for a moment, then straightened it out. I flexed it, and it seemed to work okay.
“Two hundred thirty-nine,” Ms. Nu
rmi said. “My word, that’s an impressive performance, young man. You’ve obviously been training very hard.” She went over to the big score sheet taped to the back wall of the school and gave my count to the kids keeping track of the results.
I moved closer, so I could read my total. The next highest chin-up number I saw was forty-seven. And the highest-placed kid had 534 total points. Oh boy. I’d earned 478 points just for the chin-ups. Added to my other totals, that put me at 822. And it put Belgosi ahead of Perrin Hall.
As I was staring at the score, Mr. Lomux came over. I expected him to accuse me of cheating—or maybe of leaving undigested food on the gym floor. Instead, he smiled, patted my shoulder, and said, “Nice job, Abercrombie. I knew you’d come through if I gave you a push.”
“Thanks.” I was so startled, I said it about a minute after he’d walked away.
“Wow, his veins pop when he’s really happy, too,” Mookie said. “Looks like you’ll be a captain.”
“That’s the last thing I care about.”
“How’d you do it?” Mookie asked.
“I have no idea.”
“Muscle fatigue occurs from depletion of anaerobic energy sources,” Abigail said as she walked up to us. “Living muscles get tired after a certain amount of exertion. It looks like dead muscles don’t. There are probably all sorts of things you can do that a normal person can’t. It’s a shame we won’t be able to explore all those possibilities. It would be fascinating to run some experiments.”
“Yeah, I’m really sorry I can’t stay dead for longer,” I told her. “Maybe you can find another victim after you’re done with me.”
They called me over for the award ceremony. It was unreal. They even had a platform in front of the bleachers, like in the Olympics. I stood at the top. Our whole school cheered. Except for one person. Rodney glared at me and punched his palm. But the Second Besters and the Doomed went wild. Everyone started chanting, “Nathan! Nathan!” Shawna, Lexi, Talissa, Bekkah, and Cydnie were clapping and bouncing.
As much as I was eager to go to the woods and get the rest of the cure, I wasn’t in a hurry to leave the awards ceremony. Maybe being half dead wasn’t all bad.
