Dorothy’s Derby Chronicles: Rise of the Undead Redhead

by Meghan Dougherty

  “Hold up,” the other girl said, grabbing her friend’s arm as she caught sight of Dorothy. There was something in how she smacked her shiny lips together that made Dorothy think of hungry lions during feeding time at the zoo. “Alexandra is going to flip out when she sees this!”

  The other Pompom bared her dazzling, white teeth. “Hey, Alex!” she shouted to a group of girls with the same treetop hairdos. They were all blond and beautiful and impossible to tell apart.

  “Lovely,” Jade groaned. “Whatever happens, just stay behind me, okay, Dorothy?”

  Dorothy’s hands began to tremble and her tongue felt like it had turned into cotton. From over Jade’s head, she watched a gorgeous girl emerge from the group of Pompoms, toss a silky blond ponytail over her shoulder, and walk in their direction. The tree-haired girls followed like a pack of obedient puppy dogs.

  “You called?” the gorgeous girl said while casually zipping up a pink velour jacket.

  Jade pushed up her sleeves to reveal slender arms covered with several menacing temporary tattoos. “Just back off, Alex.”

  The lip gloss Pompom pointed at Dorothy. “Check out Jade’s new freak!”

  Dorothy cowered behind her petite friend, but Alex had already targeted her with ice blue, laser beam eyes.

  “Her name is Dorothy, and she is not a freak,” Jade snarled.

  They’re going to eat us alive, Dorothy thought, surveying the group of girls that surrounded them.

  Dorothy forced herself to smile and stepped out from behind Jade. She wiped her sweaty hand on her outfit and presented it to Alex. “Um, hi! Nice to meet you.”

  Alex gasped as she got the full effect of Dorothy’s gym outfit. “What are you wearing? Are those…sequins?”

  Dorothy’s courage shrank like a wool sweater in the dryer. She withdrew her hand and opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She was wearing sequins. The tiger-striped outfit was covered in them.

  Alex took several steps backward, staring at Dorothy as if she might catch a terrible sequin disease if she stood too close.

  One of the tree-haired Pompoms tittered and said, “Did your crazy granny dress you?”

  Dorothy bit her bottom lip and shrugged. Grandma Sally strikes again.

  “Are you wearing her underpants, too?” another girl teased. The Pompoms roared with laughter, except for Alex, who raised a manicured hand to cover her face. Dorothy tugged self-consciously at the back of her sparkly jumpsuit.

  “You can’t make fun of her!” Jade hissed. “Not while you’re wearing those stupid ponytails. What are they supposed to be, anyway? Nuclear mushroom clouds for some awareness project?”

  “Nuh-uh, Jade,” one of the girls said. “Bombs Are a Bummer Day isn’t until next week!”

  “Right,” agreed another Pompom, fluffing the top of her ponytail. “These are whale spouts. They remind everyone of how adorable whales are.”

  “Adorable?” Jade exclaimed. “What ever happened to saving the whales?”

  A whistle blew, and all the girls turned to see a muscular woman with a buzz cut and camouflage shorts marching their way. “Having a problem, are we?” the gym teacher said, her single black eyebrow making a V in the middle of her forehead.

  “Great,” Jade mumbled. “Ms. Nailer.”

  Phew! We’re saved! Dorothy thought.

  “Why don’t we resolve this problem the sportsmanlike way, shall we?” the gym teacher said, a gleam in her dark, beady eyes.

  “Dodgeball!” the Pompoms cheered.

  Not dodgeball, Dorothy thought. Why can’t it be something I’m good at, like beanbag toss or the parachute game?

  “How about you give us an automatic A if we send the new girl to the nurse’s office,” the lip gloss Pompom said cheerily.

  “You will get yourself into a heap of trouble with that kind of talk, missy,” Ms. Nailer said to lip gloss, smiling at Dorothy with yellow, sharp-looking teeth. “But, in about five seconds this new recruit will see that I demand my soldiers give me an aggressive, 110 stinging percent.”

  Ms. Nailer gave one of the Pompoms the first pick, and teams ended up with Pompoms on one side and everybody else on the other. Ms. Nailer arranged red rubber balls down the center of the basketball court as Dorothy surveyed the collection of misfits on her side of the line. Besides Dorothy and Jade, there was a big girl with rosy cheeks who giggled like a nervous hyena; a short, hyperactive girl who jumped around like there were fire ants colonizing in her gym socks; a girl with chestnut skin and long jet-black hair that fell into her eyes, staring at the floor; and the tall Star Fleet geek, who still clutched her manual like a security blanket.

  “We’re dead,” Dorothy whispered to Jade.

  “Speak for yourself,” Jade said, crouching into a ready stance.

  Ms. Nailer blew her whistle, launching the Pompoms into attack mode.

  “Nobody touch the new girl!” the lip gloss Pompom yelled as she and her teammates rushed to the line of balls. Dorothy couldn’t believe her ears. Did the Pompoms feel bad for her after all? The girl scampered back to Alex and handed her a ball saying, “Dorothy is all yours.” Dorothy gulped and skittered to the back of the court.

  “Pssst…You’re going down, Thunder Thighs,” a Pompom growled lowly as she pitched her ball at the big girl’s feet. The girl sprang into the air, but instead of jumping over the ball, she landed on top of it. Her arms flailed, and she shuffled her feet backward as the ball whisked her right into the Pompoms’ court. Dorothy was astounded by the girl’s raw power as she unwittingly steamrolled the Pompom who had thrown the ball. Like a bulldozer, she uprooted three other tree-haired Pompoms before she finally crashed into a support beam at the far end of the gym.

  “Oh, gosh! My bad! My bad!” the girl apologized, and went into a fit of nervous giggles.

  “Off the floor, Ruth,” Ms. Nailer ordered.

  The Pompoms regrouped, and one of them yelled, “The geek is next!” A ball rocketed toward the Star Fleet nerd.

  “That’s enough,” Ms. Nailer said, with her lips curled into a hint of a smirk.

  Dorothy held her breath, but to her surprise the tall girl didn’t flinch. Calmly, she took a calculated step to the right and extended her manual to the left. The ball smashed into the book and returned to the Pompom who had just thrown it like a heat-seeking missile.

  The ball smacked the top of the Pompom’s head, smashing her whale spout hairdo. “No fair, Lizzy!” she shrieked.

  “Brains over brawn,” Lizzy said, pushing her eyeglasses up her nose in satisfaction.

  “Heads up!” Ms. Nailer shouted near Alexandra just as Jade let her ball fly. Alex twirled out of the way with the grace of a dancer and then tossed her ball in a pretty arc toward Jade. Jade somersaulted forward, landed in a crouching stance, and then vanished like smoke between Lizzy and the hyperactive girl.

  The energetic girl clapped her hands like a windup monkey. “Wow, that was supercool!” she said. “First Alex was like…” she spun in a circle, “and then Jade was like…” the girl launched herself into a flying somersault, and landed with an “oof!” on her back.

  “Dinah’s down!” Ms. Nailer yelled. Dinah struggled to pull air into her lungs as the Pompoms pummeled her with every ball they had.

  “Stop it! Stop it now!” Jade yelled. “Are you okay, Dinah?” she said, helping the twitching girl to her feet.

  “Oh, yeah. Yeah, totally,” Dinah wheezed, shaking herself off. “Hey, did you see me flip? First I was like…”

  Ms. Nailer blew her whistle. “You’re out, Dinah.”

  Dinah skipped happily off the floor, reminding Dorothy of her seven-year-old sister.

  I hope Sam’s having a better day than I am, Dorothy thought as she looked around for somewhere safe to hide.

  The shy, dark-haired girl was standing alone in the back corner
of the gym floor. She was so quiet and still that she almost disappeared into her surroundings.

  The Pompoms will never find me there, Dorothy thought as she made her way over to the girl.

  The shy girl peeked out through the curtains of black hair that framed her face. “What is you doing?” she whispered in a heavy Spanish accent.

  “Oh, nothing,” Dorothy said innocently as she tip-toed behind the girl.

  “Dorothy’s behind Juana!” a Pompom shouted, zinging a ball toward the dark-haired girl.

  With the reflexes of a panther, Juana snatched the ball out of the air. She swiveled and pressed the ball firmly into Dorothy’s sequined chest. “Leesten, Dorty. You needs to be brave.”

  Dorothy gulped. “Brave?”

  “Trust me. Dey will picks on you until you show your…strongness, no?”

  Dorothy sighed and accepted the ball reluctantly. Juana was right. Alex and the Pompoms weren’t going to stop hunting her—unless she found a way to make them stop.

  Dorothy scanned the playing floor. Jade’s pace had slowed to a jog as she launched balls at Alex like a tennis ball machine. Alex leapt and spun gracefully out of the way of Jade’s attacks.

  If Jade is so tired, why doesn’t she pass some balls to her teammates? Dorothy wondered.

  When Jade finally ran out of ammo, Alex bent over to pick up a ball of her own.

  Juana gave Dorothy a thumbs-up. Now or never, Dorothy thought, her heart thundering in her chest. She took aim at Alex, closed her eyes, and threw the ball with all her strength.

  Dorothy heard cheering, shouting, and laughter. She opened her eyes…just in time to take a face full of hard rubber ball. Her face stung, her ears buzzed, and she tasted something like pennies in her mouth. She reached up to touch her throbbing nose and felt something wet. Her head swam. She felt her knees buckle and the world suddenly went black.

  Chapter 4

  Dorothy opened her eyes to a brilliant white light. “I…died?” she wondered aloud.

  “And went to heaven!” Gigi teased, flipping off an overhead lamp.

  “Where am I?” Dorothy wondered. She wasn’t in the gymnasium. She was lying on a hard bed in a small room decorated with framed photos of kids wearing casts and leaning on crutches.

  “The nurse’s office, silly,” Jade said, appearing beside the bed.

  “How’s my patient feeling?” Gigi asked.

  “Dizzy,” Dorothy said. “Wait. You’re the nurse?” Gigi was nice enough, but she seemed better suited for crocodile wrestling than nursing.

  “Nurse Boils is in the gym helping some Pompoms,” Jade said. “She told me I could get Gigi for you.”

  “I’m first aid certified!” Gigi said proudly.

  The nurse is helping Pompoms? “Oh crap. Did I hit Alex as hard as she hit me? She’s okay, right?”

  Both Gigi and Jade laughed.

  “No, Alex is just fine,” Jade said. “You didn’t hit her. You hit the basketball hoop. The ball bounced back into your face.”

  “You mean I sent myself to the nurse’s office?” Dorothy moaned and covered her eyes with her hand.

  Gigi peeled Dorothy’s hand away and popped a stethoscope on her patient’s forehead. “Your nose isn’t broken, and you don’t have a concussion, but I can’t figure out why you passed out.”

  “Blood,” Dorothy said, her stomach twisting. “It makes me faint. Hey, I earned that A, though, right? You know, for sending myself to the nurse’s office?”

  “Uh, sure,” Jade said, not sounding sure at all.

  “Guess what else you earned?” Gigi said. “A trip home! Nurse Boils called your grandma. She’s coming to pick you up.”

  Dorothy gulped. “Grandma? Picking me up?” Her hands started to shake again. After all she had gone through that morning, another ride in Dead Betty would probably kill her. Just thinking about it made Dorothy’s heart thump against her rib cage and her breath come out in short, panicky bursts.

  “She’s going into cardiac arrest!” Gigi shouted. In a flash, Gigi was on top of the bed, straddling Dorothy’s belly and pressing her hands hard into her patient’s chest. Now Dorothy really couldn’t breathe.

  “She’s turning blue, Gigi! Do something,” Jade yelped.

  “I’m trying!” Gigi said, now beating on Dorothy’s ribs with her fists.

  Desperate to free herself, Dorothy rolled hard onto her left side. Gigi flailed and toppled to the ground, dragging Dorothy down with her.

  “Get off me,” Gigi groaned. But Dorothy felt paralyzed. All the wind had been knocked out of her lungs.

  Like a weightlifter, Gigi heaved Dorothy onto the cold linoleum floor.

  “It worked,” Jade cheered. “Look. She’s breathing again.” Jade knelt next to Dorothy. “You okay?”

  Dorothy sputtered out a weak, “Uh-huh.” But her nose started to tingle. It was probably going to bleed again. And why was the ceiling spinning? She felt her body float gently upward, and she realized vaguely that she was being lifted back onto the bed.

  Gigi shook her head. “We can’t let her go home alone like this. She’s a mess!”

  A mischievous grin tugged at the corners of Jade’s lips. “That’s a shame,” she said. “I guess we’ll just have to go home with her.”

  What is it with Jade and Grandma’s hearse? Dorothy thought lazily. But she returned Jade’s grin with a goofy smile anyway. Friends! At my house!

  Nurse Boils showed up a short while later to check on Dorothy. The nurse was a plump, pink-faced woman with auburn hair, sparkly green eyes, and a gap between her two front teeth.

  “That was quite the dodgeball game,” the nurse said cheerily. “Several bruises, four broken fingernails, and we even had a fainter.”

  Dorothy blushed.

  “You ready to go home, deary?” Nurse Boils asked, smoothing Dorothy’s hair. “Your ride is here.”

  “I guess so,” Dorothy said, trying to sit up. She still felt dizzy, though, and slumped back onto the bed.

  Nurse Boils clicked her tongue and pulled a white bedsheet up under Dorothy’s chin. “Well then. I suppose Jade and Gigi will just have to wheel you out.”

  “In a wheelchair?” Dorothy asked, already feeling embarrassed.

  Jade shook her head. “Gurney. That bed you’re lying on rolls.”

  Dorothy groaned.

  “Oh, come on!” Gigi said. “It’ll be fun. Plus, I always wanted to give someone a ride on this thing.”

  Nurse Boils unlocked the bed wheels, and Jade and Gigi pushed the gurney into the hall.

  They were nearly to the exit when a bell rang and a sea of noisy students flooded the hallway. Frappit, Dorothy thought, yanking the white sheet over her head. The yelling and chattering stopped suddenly.

  “Who’s under the sheet?” a boy asked, his voice cracking mid-sentence.

  “The new girl. Death by dodgeball, you know,” Gigi said in an official tone that would have won her a role as a TV doctor. “Very tragic.”

  Dorothy heard gasps and muffled shrieks. She suppressed the urge to giggle and tried to lie as still as possible. Actually, this being dead thing was kind of fun.

  Once the gurney was outside, Dorothy heard Grandma yell, “Hey! Did someone call for a hearse?”

  Grandma’s face appeared under the sheet. “So you’re dead, eh?”

  “Just a little,” Dorothy said, pushing herself up on her elbows.

  “You just sit tight, hon. The nurse told me you have the spins. We’re going to put you in the back.”

  “The back? Uncle Dirt Nap’s not in there, is he?”

  “Now don’t you worry, Dot,” Grandma said with a wink. “There’s plenty of room for more than one dead body in back.”

  Dorothy bolted straight up. Her nose started to flow again, soaking the sheet with blood. The last thing she he
ard before she passed out was the sound of students screaming in the distance.

  In the blackness, Dorothy dreamt she was on a moonlit racetrack. Her feet had transformed into wheels and adrenaline revved through her veins like gasoline. A gunshot shattered the still of the stadium, and Dorothy flew into action, racing around the oval track like a precision sports car. After what seemed like a hundred laps, other machine girls appeared on the track ahead of her. As Dorothy flew toward them, she noticed that they were wearing tattered cheerleader uniforms. Bones peeked out through their gray-green skin, and their moans vibrated inside Dorothy’s head. Terrified, Dorothy tried to slow down, but she didn’t have any brakes. She barreled headlong through the pack of dead girls as pieces of their shredded, slimy uniforms flapped against her face.

  Dorothy’s eyes flew open. Morti, who had been licking her cheeks, yipped happily as she sat up. She was back in her bedroom at the funeral home.

  “Hello, sunshine,” Jade said, putting down a sketchbook and pencil.

  “About time!” Gigi added. “You were out forever. I was beginning to think you were in a coma or something.”

  “I was just…really tired,” Dorothy said, realizing that she hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in days. She stretched her arms and yawned. Despite the freaky dream, she actually felt a lot better.

  “What time is it?” Dorothy asked.

  Jade plucked the cell phone off Dorothy’s nightstand and showed it to her. “Almost two o’clock,” Dorothy said. And no new messages from Mom, she thought to herself.

  “Your grandma’s off doing mortuary stuff,” Gigi said. “But she says she’s sorry about the Uncle Dirt Nap joke.”

  “You mean there wasn’t a dead person in the back of the hearse?”

  “Just you,” Jade said with an impish grin.

  “She said she’d take us to Galactic Skate later. If you’re feeling up to it,” Gigi said.

  “What’s Galactic Skate?” Dorothy asked, scratching Morti behind his pointy ears.

  “An old roller rink,” Jade explained.

  Dorothy stopped scratching. “Like, for roller-skating?” Her heart skipped a beat. Her mom had forbidden her from ever roller-skating.