by Scott Craven
“Tread,” Anna said.
“What?”
“Zombie dog has a name. Tread.”
“Dead Tread? Really?” Robbie looked at me. “That’s the best you can do? Do you have an undead mouse named Zed? And undead hamster named Fred? Is your favorite zombie rock group Dead Led Zeppelin? You are predictable, that’s for sure.”
Robbie inhaled deeply, the cigarette burning close to the filter. He tossed it on the ground and let it smolder.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said. “You are going to tell me how zombie dog—sorry, Tread—came to be. Then you are going to let me, um, borrow him, so I can see what makes him tick. I know for a fact you can’t turn people into zombies.”
“You do, don’t you?” Anna said. “How’d that work out for you?”
The thought of Robbie screaming as he was doused with fake zombie blood once again warmed my cold heart.
“You need to keep your little girlfriend quiet,” Robbie said, probably wondering why I was smiling. “Or it’s going to go worse for you. Now as I was saying, I know you can’t turn people into zombies.”
He shot a look at Anna, daring her to speak.
“But I never considered what you could do with dead things,” Robbie continued. “This is a topic worth further exploration. So the four of us—not your girlfriend—are going to take a little stroll to your house and—”
I’m not sure what I noticed first, the blood spurting from Robbie’s nose, or the fist that caused it. As Robbie’s hands went right to his face, Anna followed with a quick punch to Robbie’s unprotected gut, doubling him over.
Ben stepped forward, “OK, you just—”
Anna thrust her left boot into Ben’s chest, knocking him five steps backward and onto the turn. It was like something out of Karate Kid. I also noted one of the benefits of wearing a skirt, besides looking cute. It gave you freedom of movement.
Joe stood there, unsure of what to do. I cocked my fist and stepped toward him, causing him to flinch.
“Jed, we proved our point, time to go,” Anna said. She grabbed my hand and we raced around the corner of the cafetorium and into the crowd of students now going to the next class. I didn’t even hear the bell.
We blended in easily, but I glanced over my shoulder to make sure.
No Robbie. He was probably still trying to catch his breath—or whatever was left of it after smoking a couple of cigs.
“Where did you learn that stuff?” I asked Anna. “That was awesome.”
“My dad is big into the self-defense stuff, and he wants us to be able to take care of ourselves,” Anna said. “Because sooner or later, we’re all going to run into our own Robbie.”
I stopped, forcing kids to walk around us (and if you ever wonder how many cuss words middle school kids know, get in their way when they’re trying to get to class).
“I’m heading home, just in case Robbie gets any bright ideas,” I said. “You’ve got English, right?”
“Yes, but it’s the last thing on my mind,” Anna said. She let go of my hand, leaned in, and kissed my cheek. “It’ll be fine. Robbie’s a blowhard. And dognapping’s a crime. I don’t even think Robbie is that stupid.”
“Never underestimate Robbie when it comes to stupidity.”
“True. Well, I’ve got to get to class, and then I have to help my dad with stuff after school. But I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”
“Of course.”
“And Jed, don’t sweat the small stuff. Robbie is small stuff. We have to keep focused on those NZN guys. That Frankendog stuff is scary.”
It was scary. I was frightened as hell. But I wasn’t going to tell Anna that.
“As long as I have you in my corner, I’m going to be OK.”
“I’m definitely in your corner and not going anywhere. Except to English. Now. See ya.”
“Bye.”
I watched until she disappeared among middle schoolers who had no idea how lucky they were.
Then it hit me. The SD card. I wanted to ask Anna if she found anything. She’d had it for more than a week.
But I had others things to do first. Get home and check on Tread. Catch up on homework. Get to the bottom of the NZN Network propaganda. Figure out what I was going to tell Principal Buckley about my alleged Frankendog.
Too many worries, too little time.
Chapter Seventeen
“What are you in for?”
“Rats.”
“I know, it sucks to be caught. What did you do? “
“Rats.”
“Fine, don’t tell me. Just be mad.”
I thought I’d make a little small talk while waiting for Principal Buckley. He’d made me stew in my own Ooze for a week before summoning me to his office.
Part of that stewing was spent upside-down in four of the eight trash cans conveniently spaced around the Eighth Grade Lawn. The first time Robbie tossed me in, he told me I’d been arrested, tried, and convicted of attempting to assert my independence, a Class Four (trash can) Felony. After the first daily dunking, I stuffed a plastic container of baby wipes into my backpack for fast cleanup. They didn’t help on the fifth day when Robbie treated me to an atomic wedgie after Woodshop, hanging me from the peg board where the hammer usually went.
“Because you’re such a tool,” Robbie quipped as he turned out the lights. One of the sevvies in the next class asked a very unamused Mr. Anderson if she could use me to pound nails.
Robbie was smart enough to leave Anna alone. Bullies ran into two problems with girls. First, no one likes a guy who picks on a girl. Secondly, and just as importantly, don’t pick on a girl that could kick your butt. Anna proved she could do just that.
I was nervous returning to biology, but Mr. Landrum went on as if nothing happened. I thought he was being cool until the truth struck me. Confrontation was hard. Avoidance was easy. Worked for me.
I’d almost forgotten about my date with Principal Buckley until Woodshop, when I was doing my best not to look at the hammer that was hanging where I had been recently.
Mr. Anderson was taking roll as Joe walked in.
“AbeytaCollinsDirksDreyerGonzalesHowardWHAT!”
He stopped so suddenly that Jimenez and Jones and Lourdes said, “Here.”
Mr. Anderson thought roll call on any day but the first day was a waste of time. “We’re jawing when we should be sawing,” he said.
Joe held out a slip of paper. “Uh, note from the office.” Problem was, Joe stood about twenty feet from Mr. Anderson.
“You will need to close this gap if you intend on delivering that message,” Mr. Anderson said. “The key to good communication is contact. Contact requires proximity. Proximity requires you to move it!”
Joe ran toward Mr. Anderson, holding the note out like a shield. Mr. Anderson snagged the folded paper from Joe’s fingers, and flicked his wrist to snap it open.
“Jed Rivers,” Mr. Anderson said. “You are temporarily relieved of wood-related duties. Report to Principal Buckley right away. That sound you hear is the tools sighing with relief.”
Mr. Anderson paused, lifting his eyes from the note. Forced laughter rippled through the seats because he wore his “That was a humorous statement” look. Which was just like his “I am not amused” look, only with the left eyebrow slightly higher.
“And you,” Mr. Anderson said to Joe. “Circle of Shame. Five minutes for interrupting.”
“But—” Joe began.
“Ten minutes.”
I slung my backpack over my shoulder, passing Joe in the aisle and giving him my “Nice going, numb nuts” look as he shot me his “You’re today’s victim of the day” look.
It’s amazing how much we spoke without talking.
As I waited for Principal Buckley, I figured I’d chat with the kid sitting across from me, but he was in no mood to talk. I’d seen him around before, and he was known for keeping to himself. Chris something. Shor
t kid who never combed his crazy hair. And it was crazy. Imagine Justin Bieber getting hit by a bolt of lightning (and who hasn’t imagined that) and how his ’do would look after a million volts went through it. That’s what Chris’s hair looked like, only without smoke rising up.
Nice guy but pretty odd. I mean, who says “Rats” anymore?
I still had a few minutes to kill, so I tried again.
“Your name is Chris, right?” He nodded. Progress. “And Buckley wants to see you?” Another nod. We were having a genuine conversation.
“And why does Buckley want to see you?”
“I told you,” Chris said. “Rats.”
“Rats?”
“Rats.”
“The ones that live in that hairdo?”
“Funny. But I did bring rats.”
“Why?”
“Show and tell.”
“We don’t have show and tell.”
“Exactly.”
I was going to ask Chris why he brought rats to school, but I wasn’t sure the effort was worth it.
Still, rats at school?
“I bet you know what my next question is,” I said.
“Why I brought rats to school.”
“No. Why do you have rats in the first place?”
“My dad said if I was going to have pets, they had to be low maintenance. So, rats.”
“Rats, as in more than one.”
“Yeah. I know what the plural form of rat implies. I have six.”
“One rat seems low maintenance. But six seems like a lot of maintenance.”
Chris shook his head. “My dad’s a geneticist. These are lab rat rejects. They tend to sleep a lot.”
“Why does that make them rejects?”
“See, that’s the cool thing and why I brought them.”
Wow, Chris was perking up. All it took was rats.
“You stroke their bellies, they go right to sleep. They just lie there until you drip some water on their heads. Otherwise, they can stay like that. My dad didn’t say how it happened, only that they bred them to be tired so they could test some sort of new energy drink.”
“Sleeping rats probably aren’t good for energy drink testing,” I said.
“Right, unless you poured the energy drink on their head. The people who make the energy drink said they preferred customers drink it than pour it on their heads, so the rats came home.”
“And you brought them to school why?”
“Like I said, show and tell. I brought them to biology thinking Mr. Landrum would think they were cool. I found out Pine Hollow has a pretty strict no-vermin rule. That was after two of them got out. So here I am.”
“At least you have four rats left.” Sorry, it was the only think I could think of saying.
“You could look at it that way, I guess. What about you? You’re here for Frankendog, right? Frankendog is way cooler than sleeping lab rats. “
Great, everyone thought I was a mad scientist. “Look, there’s no such thing—”
“And one more thing, Brock.” It was Principal Buckley, his voice coming from right behind his door, which started to open. “If I see one more Hugh Jass or Amanda Kissme show up on Facebook as a Pine Hollow teacher, you will be suspended.”
Out walked a kid in a button-down white shirt, black tie, and gray slacks. Brock did not look like the prankster I’d imagined in the few seconds I had to imagine what he looked like before he entered the hallway.
“Sorry, sir. It won’t happen again, I promise,” Brock said. “It was childish, and I feel awful if I brought any shame upon this fine institution.”
“That’s more like it,” Principal Buckley said. “Back to class, then.”
Brock walked past wearing a big smirk. He suddenly stopped and turned around.
“Oh, Principal Buckley?” he asked. “For career day, is it OK if I ask my dad’s friend to come? Mr. Rotch? Mike’s a reporter.”
“Certainly, I’ll make sure Mike Rotch’s appearance is noted,” Principal Buckley said.
As Brock walked away, Principal Buckley turned to Chris.
“Ah, Chris Fenske, I don’t know what you’re grinning about, unless you’ve found those rats. Have you, Chris?”
Chris stifled a laugh. “No, sir.”
“Then I suggest you go see the janitor and formulate a plan. Let him know where they escaped.”
“They didn’t escape. They disappeared from my backpack.”
“Chris, rats do not simply get up and walk away.”
“But, Principal Buckley, that’s what rats always do,” Chris said. “I swear that’s not what happened. They were in my backpack. Sleeping. They weren’t going anywhere until I woke them up.”
“Obviously, Mr. Fenske, they were wide awake when they got out.”
“But sir, these rats were different and—”
“Enough, Chris,” Principal Buckley said. “You brought rats, they ran away. That is a violation of our strict anti-vermin policy. Now go and take care of it.”
Principal Buckley turned toward me.
“Speaking of policy violations, Jed, please come into my office. We have some very important matters to discuss.
Principal Buckley disappeared into his office. I took a deep breath, going over again how I was going to keep Tread’s origin a secret.
But I couldn’t get Chris’s story out of my mind. Rats get up and walk away, but not sleeping rats. I believed him when he said the rats disappeared.
Obviously they had help. But from who?
“Jed, now please,” Principal Buckley called from his office.
I got up from the uncomfortably small plastic chair to face the inevitable.
Chapter Eighteen
Anyone who wound up in Principal Buckley’s office noticed two things.
The first was his desk. It filled more than half the room. It was large enough to be its own country, if it decided to declare its independence. Visitors wondered if he was compensating for something.
The second was the map of Pine Hollow on the wall behind his desk/nation. Each wing, every hallway and classroom, right down to the bathrooms, was on that map. It was covered with Post-It notes of many colors. There were pinks, reds, oranges, blues, yellows, and greens, a Technicolor weave of office stationery. On each Post-It was a name. I assumed each was a teacher. A few others were in the cafetorium.
Principal Buckley was staring at the map, his back turned toward me when I walked in.
“Take a seat, Jed; I will be right with you,” he said without bothering to turn around.
I leaned over the desk to make out some of those names. Most were teachers, as I thought. Some were on yellow notes, others in blue. Only a handful in red and green. The cafetorium had a few pinks and oranges, but I didn’t recognize the names. But I did see a small circle in the kitchen that said “Wheel of Meat.” It’s so cool it earned its own place on the map.
“I thought I told you to take a seat.”
I was so focused on the map, I didn’t notice Principal Buckley had turned around, his face stern.
I leaned back into the small, uncomfortable plastic chair, suddenly feeling as big as a three-year-old as my head barely poked over the desk.
“I see you noticed my map,” he said.
Noticed it? It was like walking into a hangar and noticing the 747 parked inside.
“Yes, it’s pretty much right there,” I said.
“Yes, Jed, it’s pretty much right there, what a brilliant observation. And you know why it’s pretty much right there now, and how it wasn’t pretty much right there last semester?”
I made a note to pretty much never to say “pretty much” in front of Principal Buckley.
“Pret—, I mean, yes, I noticed that.”
“Last semester, it seemed things were getting a bit out of hand,” Principal Buckley said. “Nature was out of balance. I am sure you are aware of the part you played in that unbalan
cement.”
Unbalancement? I let it go.
“No, not really.” Honestly, I wasn’t getting any of this.
“Jed, you’re better at math than that. I’ve seen your grades. Put two and two together. Pine Hollow is doing just fine. The usual disturbances, no more, but no complaints. No worried parents. No calls from the district superintendent asking about industrial accidents in Woodshop.”
I sensed where this was going. Pretty much.
“Then one day our school enrollment includes a zombie,” he said. “Wait, I’m sorry, that’s an unfortunate label. What is it you prefer? ‘Cardiovascularly challenged.’ Because undeadness is merely a condition and does not define the person, correct?”
“I think it’s a little more than a con—”
“Jed, please, I am trying to make a point. And the point is, I need to get a better grip on my school. So I commissioned this map, scraping the necessary cash from the recreation budget.”
OK, that explained the growing number of flat basketballs and duct-taped footballs. Yet there still seemed to be plenty of dodgeballs for those rainy days we were stuck inside the gym for PE, resulting in permissible eight-grader-on-seventh-grader violence.
“I made sure not to touch the dodgeball fund, of course.”
Of course.
“So how do I get a better grip on things?” Principal Buckley continued, reaching into his middle drawer. “By keeping better track. For example.”
In his right hand, he held a narrow metal cylinder. He pulled the knobby end and there was a clicking as the cylinder telescoped to three feet. He swiveled in his large, comfortable leather chair and used the pointer to hit the map with a solid thwack.
“In the cafetorium you will see all three lunch ladies are represented by green Post-Its,” he said. “The color indicates the threat level. The lunch ladies are a threat only to proper nutrition and not me. Thus, green.”
He moved the pointer to Woodshop.
“There is Mr. Anderson’s Post-It, a perfect green. And not just because of his effective use of the Circle of Shame. He is a very predictable, by-the-book instructor. His lines are straight, and his wood is of average quality because he knows how to stay within budget.
