Billy Sure Kid Entrepreneur and the Attack of the Mysterious Lunch Meat

by Luke Sharpe

  Finally, lunchtime rolls around.

  I meet my friends at the long table in the cafeteria and pull out my two slices of leftover pizza. A piece of donut with chocolate frosting crumbles to the floor.

  “Interesting toppings,” Manny says, opening up his peanut butter and banana sandwich. A piece of the trout on the left side of my pizza wiggles off.

  “Mhm,” I say through the first mouthful.

  One by one, the rest of our friends return from the lunch line. They each carry a tray full of today’s lunch special—green shepherd’s pie. Once again the new cafeteria director has tried to match the Fillmore Middle School colors. And in truth, she’s done a pretty good job at getting the green just right—not that it makes the round creepy-looking thing on everyone’s tray look any more appealing!

  I decide to ignore it.

  “Have you heard the latest?” Clayton asks, in between bites of his shepherd’s pie. “Principal Gilamon dyed his hair PURPLE!”

  “Really?” I ask. “Why would he do that?”

  But before anyone can answer, the bell rings. As I get up from the table I realize that Peter MacHale, who might rival Petula in talkativeness, hasn’t said a single word. Typically, Peter can’t wait to gossip about the latest news, and Principal Gilamon dyeing his hair purple? Definitely news.

  But today . . . nothing.

  “Hey, Peter, what do you think about Principal Gilamon’s new hair? It’s interesting, right?” I ask, egging him on.

  “Hurrrr,” Peter groans.

  He stands up slowly and walks away from the table with that same stiff-legged walk that Petula now has.

  Normally, Peter would just go on and on about something like Principal Gilamon’s purple hair. If you want to know what’s going on with anyone at school, Peter is the go-to guy. But today he’s quiet, just like Petula.

  As the rest of my friends get up from the cafeteria table, I notice that all of them—with the exception of Manny—are also quiet. No one says “see ya,” or “text ya,” or “talk to ya later,” or any of the other usual things we say to each other when lunch is over.

  What’s going on with them? Did EVERYONE I know get braces all at the same time?

  It’s one thing to have an older sister who always seems to be into some bizarre new thing, but to have all your friends suddenly get into the same “thing” at the same time—well, that is just plain weird.

  Manny’s Plan

  EVEN THOUGH I HAVE A ton of homework again, I decide to visit the office after school. There’s simply no way around it. I need to talk to Manny about what’s going on with all our friends.

  I stop at home and drop off all of my books. Then I hop on my bike and pedal away, with Philo keeping pace beside me.

  Manny greets me at the office.

  “Manny, I have something to ask you,” I say. “Have you noticed that our friends are . . . acting odd lately?”

  I don’t know how else to put it.

  “Hmm,” Manny says. He scratches his chin. “I ran into Samantha Jenkins on my way home from school. I guess it was a little strange. She didn’t say a word.”

  I nod.

  “And was she moving really slow—like, stiff legged?”

  Manny ponders this again.

  “You know what, partner, I think you’re on to something,” he says, as casually and calmly as only Manny can. “Yesterday morning Petula was her usual chatty self. Then after lunch she—”

  Manny pauses. I can almost see the lightbulb go on above his head!

  “Lunch!” he repeats.

  “Lunch?” I ask.

  Then I feel the lightbulb go on above my head.

  “Lunch!! What if all this is because of the new school lunches? What if it’s making everyone sick?”

  “You may be right,” Manny says. “Since Petula’s aunt took over as director of Cafeteria Services, everything they’re serving looks super gross.”

  “I haven’t taken a single bite of it,” I point out. “And neither have you. We’ve both been bringing lunch from home. And we’re the only ones who are fine.”

  Manny thinks for a moment. I know better than to interrupt the silence.

  “There’s only one way we can find out what’s going on,” he finally says. He almost sounds . . . brave? “One of us is going to have to eat the school lunch and see what happens.”

  I gulp. Manny’s right, of course—that is the scientific method, after all. But eat that gross food, and turn into a grunting mess like our friends? I guess one of us has to. I take a deep breath.

  “I’ll do it,” I say.

  Manny shakes his head.

  “No—I will,” he says firmly. “Listen, partner, I appreciate you volunteering, but if this cafeteria food is what’s making everyone act weird, I know that you can invent a cure. But if you eat it and something bad happens . . . let’s just say that all the marketing plans in the world aren’t going to help me cure everyone. I’ve got to be the volunteer.”

  As usual, Manny’s argument is airtight. Reason #333 that I’m glad Manny is my best friend and business partner.

  “Okay,” I say. I do my best not to sound nervous, but I’m PRETTY NERVOUS. “I guess.”

  “It’s settled, then,” Manny says. “Tomorrow I’ll eat the school lunch. Then we’ll see what happens.”

  I hang around the office for a little while longer, but it’s clear that it makes no sense for me to dive in to a new invention—I need to keep my mind (and my workbench) clear, in case our theory is correct and I need to invent an antidote of sorts. I head home.

  On the way to my room after dinner, Emily catches me on the stairs. She has a pencil behind her ear. She kind of looks like Dad when he has a paintbrush behind his ear. Oh yeah, Dad’s an artist. His art is very, um, creative. But why does my sister have a pencil behind her ear?

  Is this her new thing? I wonder. (My sister has new “things” all the time. Sometimes she picks up totally new “things”—like only speaking with an English accent or wearing some pretty funky hats—for a brief amount of time. She then drops them as quickly as they come.) If it is, it’s pretty tame.

  Before I can ask her about it, she snatches the pencil from behind her ear and pulls a small notebook from her pocket.

  Yikes, not so tame.

  “So, Billy Sure, is anything interesting going on at Fillmore Middle School?” she asks, flashing a GREAT BIG SMILE. “I’m journalist Emily Sure and I need to know the scoop.”

  I know my sister well enough to know when her smile is fake. And this is one of the fakest smiles I’ve ever seen. Maybe I would have told her about the weird stuff going on at Fillmore once upon a time, but now that Kathy Jenkins is her teacher, Emily is the last person I’m going to talk about it with.

  “Good night, Em,” I say, trying to slip past her.

  No luck. She stands in the middle of the stairs, blocking my way.

  “Okay, okay, not Fillmore Middle School,” she says, tapping her pencil on the notebook. “Can you tell me anything about what’s going on at Sure Things, Inc.? How is your latest invention, the CANDY TOOTHBRUSH selling? How is Manny feeling? Anything?!”

  No scientific method here needed. Emily is definitely being taught by Kathy Jenkins.

  “See ya, Em,” I say, faking left, then spinning right and slipping past her up the stairs. “I really have a lot of homework to finish. Why don’t you interview Dad, see how his newest art project is going?”

  Without waiting for an answer, I head to my room. Jada and I text a bit. Apparently while I was at school and my friends acted weird, she hung out with her neighbor, Kevin. She sends me a picture of them at the park. As I doze off to sleep, I feel a little jealous of Kevin.

  • • •

  The next day in the cafeteria, I wait for Manny, nervous about what’s going to happen.

  “Hey, Billy!” I hear Manny say. When I turn around, we’re no longer in the cafeteria. Instead, we are inside an AMUSEMENT PARK FUNHOUSE!

&nbs
p; I see that Manny is decked out in heavy armor—though by “armor” I mean a spaghetti pot for a helmet and a lunch tray as a shield. I glance down and see that I’m also dressed the same way.

  None of our friends are in sight. Kevin is there, though. He laughs at me.

  “What’s going on, Manny?” I ask.

  But before I can answer, a giant slab of green meat with arms and legs and eyes appears! It starts chasing us. We run around and tumble through a TRAP DOOR.

  Down we go, skidding along a twisting, turning playground slide in the dark.

  I see something up ahead.

  “Look out, Manny!” I cry, spotting a flurry of knives, forks, napkins, and small packets of ketchup and mustard zooming toward us!

  We both press our backs into the slide and watch the silverware and condiments whiz past our heads. Phew, I think. That was close. We rush toward something at the end of the slide.

  “What is THAT?!” I shout.

  SPLOOOCH!

  We both land in a pile soft pile of . . . of . . . something. . . .

  “What is this stuff?” I ask Manny, pulling globs of greenish-brown gunk out of my hair.

  “Looks like moldy hot dogs and buns to me,” Manny says.

  “That is correct,” says a voice. It’s one of the hot dogs! “You have eaten us for your whole life. Now it’s time for us to eat you!”

  We get up and start running down a dark hallway. I look back over my shoulder and see about a HUNDRED moldy hot dogs chasing us.

  At the end of the hallway we come to a door with a flickering sign. It reads: THIS WAY OUT—IF YOU DARE!

  “No other choice!” Manny shouts, as if he can read my mind. “Let’s go!”

  I yank open the door and run through—then find myself FACE TO FACE with the entire Fillmore Middle School cafeteria staff, led by Petula’s aunt.

  Only they don’t look like the Fillmore Middle School cafeteria staff. They look like monsters! Droopy, terrifying monsters. Each one clutches a cooking utensil and holds it up in a menacing fashion.

  “Aaaaurghhhh,” the lunch staff says in unison, waving spatulas, egg beaters, and can openers at us. Kevin has joined them and has the scariest spatula of all. I’ve never seen a spatula look so . . . well, dangerous, before.

  And that’s when I wake up, breathing hard.

  I look at the clock. It’s time to get up and go to school.

  Phew. At least that was only a dream, I think.

  But what’s going to happen to Manny in the cafeteria today?!

  Figuring It Out

  THE NEXT DAY MY PROBLEMS start the minute I step into the Fillmore Middle School building. First of all, Jada doesn’t respond to my text about Sandbox XXL, and I’m nervous she would rather play the game with Kevin now. Second, as I walk down the hall, I see something EVEN MORE HAUNTING than the crazy dream I had last night.

  It’s no longer just the members of my little group of friends that are acting strange. It seems that EVERY KID in the school has changed! They’re all walking in that stiff-legged fashion, with their arms extended out in front of them. And—this might just be my imagination, but they all look a little . . . green.

  The other thing that’s so eerie is that the halls are quiet. Normally, they are buzzing with a million conversations as kids hurry from class to class. But today the only sounds are soft groans. “Arrrrrrrghhhhh.”

  None of the kids even notice I’m there.

  Lunchtime finally arrives. I feel myself getting more and more anxious the closer I get to the cafeteria. I walk in and see that Manny is already there, sitting at a long table with our friends. Only Manny looks like his normal self . . . for now, anyway. The other kids stare intensely at their trays.

  I sit down and pull out my sandwich that Dad made—watermelon, halibut, and goat cheese between two waffles—when I see that Manny has a big plate of gross-looking green lunch meat piled up in front of him. I know it’s part of the plan, but it makes me feel sick anyway.

  “Well, partner, it’s time for our LITTLE EXPERIMENT,” Manny says, poking at the mysterious meat on his plate with a fork. “At least we’ll know what’s going on. If this is what’s making everyone sick, I KNOW you’ll be able to invent the cure. I have complete confidence in you.”

  I gulp. Manny kind of sounds like he’s giving a farewell speech at the end of a monster movie.

  “Here we go. Three . . . two . . . one.”

  I hold my breath. Manny lifts up his fork piled with the mysterious lunch meat on it. It almost looks like a green radioactive sponge. He takes a whiff of it.

  “Smells like chicken,” Manny says, smiling. Then he takes a big bite.

  I brace myself. Any moment now, Manny is going to start groaning . . .

  “How was it?” I ask, fearing the worst.

  “Well, it definitely doesn’t taste good,” Manny says.

  What?! Manny! He’s still here! How—?

  “But I don’t think it did anything weird to me,” he finishes.

  Manny takes another bite. Nothing. Then another. Nope. Still no change.

  I exhale and relax a bit. Okay, I think. The good news is that Manny is okay. The bad news—we still don’t know what’s causing everyone to turn green and act strange.

  I finish my sandwich and get up to get some more juice. When I get back to the table, a new idea strikes me.

  “You know, Manny, Petula is the president of the FILLMORE DRAMA CLUB,” I say, feeling weird that I’m speaking about Petula in front of her. Something tells me she hasn’t noticed, though. A big glob of drool splatters down from Petula’s chin. “Maybe she’s got everyone rehearsing for a drama club performance? Some sort of flash mob? It would be a pretty cool stunt idea, don’t you think?”

  Manny says nothing. He continues to shove lunch meat into his mouth.

  “Manny?” I ask again. “Do you think that’s possible?” It’s weird. Manny doesn’t usually ignore me.

  Again, Manny doesn’t respond.

  “Manny?” I ask. “Manny, did you hear me?”

  No response.

  “Manny!” I say loudly.

  Manny stops eating. He looks at me and grunts. There’s drool dripping down from his chin.

  “URRRGHHH,” he says. Then he goes back to eating.

  And that’s when I see it.

  Manny has turned green!

  We were right. It is the lunch meat that’s changing everyone into . . . into . . .

  Oh no. I look over at Manny again. He’s green, he’s groaning, and he’s shoveling food into his mouth.

  Wait a minute! Manny looks like he did that time the two of us were on the set of the movie Alien Zombie Attack! We were covered in makeup. We were playing zombies!

  I feel my heart start to pound. That’s it! ZOMBIES. The kids at Fillmore Middle School are turning into zombies. But not movie zombies. Real zombies. Everyone is a REAL ZOMBIE!

  But how? And why? Does Petula’s aunt know?

  Trying to stay focused, I stab a piece of the lunch meat with a fork and slip it into the resealable plastic bag my sandwich came in. Now that we know this food is the problem, I’ll need to do some studies. I hurry from the cafeteria, my mind racing.

  What’s going to happen to Sure Things, Inc. if I can’t invent a cure? What’s going to happen to the school? My friends? Manny?

  Should I tell Dr. and Mr. Reyes about what happened to Manny? I mean, they’re certainly going to notice that something is up when they ask their son, “How was school today?” and all he says is, “Urrrhhh. . . .”

  And what about everyone else at Fillmore Middle School? What will the teachers say? The school nurse? The janitors? Principal Gilamon?

  Principal Gilamon? PRINCIPAL GILAMON! That’s it. I have to tell Principal Gilamon. He’s got to know that there is a major emergency going on in his school. He’s got to know that the school lunch is turning all the students into zombies!

  I’ve got to hurry. I’ve got to see him before anyone else turns i
nto a zombie.

  I race through the halls, ducking past the shuffling zombie students of Fillmore Middle School. Thankfully, it’s not that hard. They’re not exactly fast.

  I walk into the front office and see Mr. Hairston, Principal Gilamon’s always-grumpy administrative assistant. His head is tilted down toward his desk. He looks like he’s filling out some forms.

  “Mr. Hairston, I need to see Principal Gilamon right this second,” I say, still trying to catch my breath. “This is a TRUE, GENUINE, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT EMERGENCY. I wouldn’t burst in here like this unless it was really, really serious!”

  Mr. Hairston shrugs in disapproval. I’ve seen him like this before. He gets stuck on tiny details. For example, I don’t have an appointment, and he doesn’t like that. Although he’s been impatient and fussy before, he’s never ignored me.

  “Mr. Hairston, this is very important. The whole school has turned into—”

  Mr. Hairston finally looks up. I gasp. I can see why he’s been ignoring me now.

  HIS FACE IS GREEN!

  “Hrrruggh!” he groans.

  Oh no! Mr. Hairston is a zombie!

  Billy Sure . . . Not a Zombie!

  I FEEL MY HANDS GET clammy as I stare at the door to Principal Gilamon’s office. I walk in and find him at his desk, intensely concentrating, writing.

  Phew! At least that’s pretty normal, I think. A middle school principal writing. Yup, pretty normal.

  The only thing ABNORMAL about this picture is that Principal Gilamon’s hair is now purple. Not only is it purple, it’s spiked up into a Mohawk. Not that there’s anything wrong with Mohawks, of course—it’s just kind of funny to see your school principal sporting one. If today were a normal day, I’d be recommending that Emily get the scoop on this for her journalism class, but today is not a normal day. Today I need Principal Gilamon’s help, and I need it STAT.

  “Principal Gilamon, I think something is horribly wrong in the school cafeteria,” I say quickly. I know I should slow down and enunciate, but I can’t help it. “The lunch meat our new director of Cafeteria Services is serving—well, it’s making everyone sick!”