Enter the Zombie

by David Lubar

“Sure she will,” Mookie said. “She’s got team spirit. Put your shirt on, and we’ll go over there.”

  I switched shirts. It was easier than arguing. The Team Mookie one hung on me like a small tent.

  We headed over to Abigail’s house.

  She stared at us when Mookie held up the shirt. “No way.”

  “But we’re a team,” Mookie said. “Nathan’s wearing his.”

  Abigail glared at me. Then she grabbed the shirt out of Mookie’s hands. “I’m wearing a sweater over it.” She ran off to change. When she came back, I could just see a little bit of the collar of a yellow T-shirt under her sweater. But it wasn’t the same shade of yellow. I couldn’t blame her.

  “Do you feel ready for this?” she asked as we walked toward the school.

  “I hope so. We have to win. It’s not just about the contest. I don’t care about that. It’s about bringing down RABID.”

  “And Rodney,” Mookie said. “I love seeing him lose.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about,” I said. “No matter how bad he might be at figuring stuff out, he has to have noticed that I’m right there every time he has a disaster in his life. I’ve been around for Mr. Lomux’s disasters, too.”

  Mookie laughed. “That was so awesome when Mr. Lomux and the middle school gym teacher got sick all over each other.”

  “I’d bet they don’t feel that way,” I said.

  “Almost as cool as when you spewed a stomachful of rotting food all over Rodney,” Mookie said.

  “Almost.” I guess nothing would top that for amazing moments. But I was afraid Rodney and Mr. Lomux had figured out I was bad luck for them, and had cooked up some sort of plan to get even. For people like them, getting even meant getting violent. I guessed I’d find out soon enough.

  Right after we left Abigail’s house, her phone beeped. She sighed, pulled it out, and checked the message.

  “Oh, yuck!” she said. “That’s just disgusting.”

  “Let me see.” Mookie snatched the phone from her.

  I looked over his shoulder at the message.

  ENIMA FLOW!!!

  “Definitely gross,” I said.

  “In a cool sort of way,” Mookie said.

  “That does it. I’m getting a new phone.” Abigail grabbed the phone back from Mookie, turned it off, and shoved it in her purse.

  When we reached the gym, I stopped by the doorway and stared at the bleachers. “This can’t be the right place. Maybe there’s supposed to be a basketball game or something.” I looked at the scoreboard, but it was dark.

  The gym was mobbed. There were tons of kids in the bleachers. Lots of parents, too. Including my own.

  What are they doing here?

  Dad waved at me. Mom held up a sign with my name on it.

  “How’d they know about this?” I asked Abigail.

  “No idea,” she said.

  “They probably saw it in the paper this morning,” Mookie said.

  “It was in the paper?”

  “Sure,” Mookie said. “I called them up and told them about it. I’ve never had my name in the paper. This seemed like it would be my only chance.”

  Abigail spun toward him, opened her mouth, then shrugged, sighed, and closed it.

  Mookie turned to the bleachers and shouted, “Team Mookie has arrived!”

  Principal Ambrose was standing by a pair of folding tables that were set up near center court. Mr. Lomux, dressed in his usual sweat clothes, was next to him, along with Ms. Delambre and Ms. Otranto. Each table had three buzzers on it, all hooked together by wires. There was a microphone stand in front of the tables.

  Rodney, Eddy, and Mort were already sitting at one of the tables. They had a big posterboard sign in front of the table, with THE BELGOSI BASHERS on it.

  “I forgot to make a sign,” Mookie said.

  “What a shame,” Abigail said.

  Mookie pointed to the bleachers. “We could borrow your mom’s sign and add the rest of our names.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “Everyone already knows who we are.”

  “Everyone…” Abigail turned away from the bleachers, but then looked over her shoulder. “That’s a big crowd.”

  We sat down at the other table. “You can’t hold back,” I told her. “We need all the points we can get.”

  “I know. Don’t worry—if I’m going to do it at all, I’m going to give it my best.”

  Principal Ambrose let out a sigh even bigger than Abigail’s, then walked to the microphone. He held up a note card and started to read from it. “Welcome to the local-level Brainy Brawny competition, featuring two teams from Belgosi Upper Elementary.”

  Buzzzz!!!

  The sound bounced off the walls. It was like a gigantic bee had invaded the gym.

  “Cool!” Mookie lifted his finger from the buzzer. “It works.”

  “Are you finished?” Principal Ambrose asked.

  “Yup,” Mookie said.

  “Good,” Principal Ambrose said. “Now, let’s—”

  Buzzz!!!

  The principal glared at Mookie, who’d reached out and pressed my buzzer.

  “Oops. Sorry. Now I’m finished,” Mookie said. “I just wanted to make sure it worked every time. Wait—hang on.” He leaned over farther and pressed Abigail’s buzzer. “Okay—we’re good. Go ahead.”

  Principal Ambrose read out our names. Then he turned the card over and read a statement about the purpose and value of the competition. I guess it was part of the thick packet of rules he’d complained about. There was nothing on the card about the contest helping identify potential members of an evil organization. But then again, I wasn’t expecting anything like that.

  After he’d finished with the card, Principal Ambrose said, “There will be three sections to the competition—athletic, academic, and creative.”

  I noticed that Abigail was staring at the bleachers. All the kids we knew were there. Not just our friends like Adam and Denali, but lots of other kids, like Shawna and the rest of the popular crowd. Some of those kids were the mean ones who already liked to make fun of Abigail. In a minute or two, they were going to find out how smart she was.

  “I think your life is about to change,” I said.

  “I think it will be good for me.” She held out her hand, palm down. “So let’s do it.”

  I put my hand on top of hers. Mookie put his hand on top of mine. “Team Mookie!” he shouted as we raised our hands high.

  “All right,” Principal Ambrose said. “Let’s get this over with. Good luck to all of you. May the best team win. Quickly, if possible.”

  Rodney smirked at me. Mort settled back in his seat. Eddy grinned like he was about to get into a stomping match with a cricket. He had no idea what he was up against. If Abigail was a cricket, Eddy was a flea. I hid my own grin.

  Ms. Delambre grabbed some file cards from her purse, and got another set from Ms. Otranto. She shuffled them, then said, “We’re going to start with a series of questions. Hit your buzzer when you know the answer. A correct response earns ten points. Be careful—there will be a ten-point penalty for each incorrect answer. In that case, the other team will be given a chance to provide the correct answer without any risk of a penalty.”

  We put our hands over the buzzers. “Our first subject is famous people. Ready?” Ms. Delambre asked.

  We all nodded.

  “This author, who was born in Mumbai back when it was called Bombay—”

  Buzzzzz!!!!

  Abigail hit her buzzer.

  Principal Ambrose glared at her, but she ignored him and said, “Rudyard Kipling.”

  Ms. Delambre looked like she’d been whacked on the head. She stared at the card for a moment, then said, “Yes. You’re right. Rudyard Kipling, author of The Jungle Book and other beloved stories. Very good. Ten points for your team.”

  “Had to be,” Abigail whispered to me. “They aren’t going to ask us stuff we don’t know, so the answer couldn’t possibly be an author k
ids aren’t familiar with, like Salman Rushdie or Frederic William Farrar. Right?”

  “Yeahhhhh … right…” I was just happy she knew the answer.

  “Our next subject is famous mathematical formulas.” Ms. Delambre said. “Here’s the question: What—?”

  Buzzzzz!!!!

  “The Pythagorean theorem,” Abigail said.

  The card fell from Ms. Delambre’s hand.

  Abigail shrugged. “Well, it’s the only famous math formula you’d expect kids our age to have possibly heard of, so there was no point waiting for the rest of the question.”

  “Uh, that’s the correct answer. Another ten points for your team. The next subject is astronomy. This densest—”

  Buzzzzz!!!!!

  “Black hole,” Abigail said. “Also known as a neutron star.”

  And so it went. Mort didn’t seem too upset, but Rodney and Eddy glared at us the whole time. As our score grew, so did the temperature of the death rays shooting from their eyes. The audience, which had been a bit twitchy at first, grew silent. Twice, Eddy buzzed in before Abigail, but he made wild guesses and lost points.

  We finished the academic round leading Rodney’s team by a score of 200 to minus-20.

  Next, it was time for the athletic part.

  “I think your secret is definitely out,” I said to Abigail. I glanced at the audience. There were still enough open mouths spread around the bleachers to make the room very dangerous for flies. While I felt bad that she’d revealed a secret she wanted to keep, it was nice to have someone else get stared at. “You could have held back a little,” I said.

  “What’s the point?” she said. “If I’m going to reveal the truth, I might as well make it the entire truth. It’s better to be a superfreak than an ordinary one. And you’re right—we need the points.”

  “I held back,” Mookie said. “Just think of me as our secret weapon. If Abigail needed help, I would have jumped right in.”

  “Good strategy,” I said.

  Mr. Lomux walked over to the microphone. I think he was the only person in the gym who didn’t seem to understand how amazing Abigail’s performance was. “We’re going to test you for speed, strength, and endurance,” he said.

  Well, I was good at one of those. I had plenty of endurance. My muscles never got tired. Abigail had explained it to me a while ago. It had something to do with the way chemicals build up in muscles when we exercise.

  So we were in good shape for endurance. But we were in a little trouble for speed and a lot for strength. Mort was fast, and Rodney was strong. I hoped it wouldn’t matter.

  The speed part was first. It was a shuttle run. We had to pick one member to compete. “I’ll do it,” Mookie said.

  He put up a good effort, but Mort blew him away. I wasn’t surprised. Mort’s a good athlete.

  “Hey, second place isn’t bad,” Mookie said when he came back to our table. “That would be silver in the Olympics.”

  “Yeah, you did great,” I said.

  Endurance was easy. We had to see who could climb up and down the ropes the most times without stopping. I totally beat Mort at that. After it was clear I’d won, I went up and down three more times, to add points to our total score, and then pretended I was too tired to keep going. I didn’t want anyone to get suspicious. But it wasn’t totally unbelievable that a skinny kid like me would be good at rope climbing.

  “Now for strength.” Mr. Lomux reached into a bag and pulled out some boxing gloves. Rodney raced over and grabbed a pair. He didn’t seem surprised at the plan.

  “That’s not strength,” I said.

  “It is if I say it is,” Mr. Lomux said. “So, who wants to take a beating for your side?”

  “Nobody,” I said. “We’re way ahead on points. We’ve already locked in a win.” Our huge lead in the first part, plus my win on the ropes, put us too far ahead for them to catch us, even if they won the boxing and the creative part.

  Mr. Lomux shook his head and gave me the sort of smile I hadn’t seen since I’d visited the shark tank at the aquarium. “According to the rules, a team has to compete in every event. If you drop out, you lose. So, who’s boxing for your team?”

  “I’ll do it,” I said. It looked like I was going to get a chance to test out my rock-hard bones.

  7

  Head Bangers

  Mr. Lomux had put down tape on the floor at one end of the gym to mark out a boxing ring.

  “This is going to be awesome,” Mookie said as he laced on my gloves.

  “It’s definitely going to be quick,” I said. Either I’d deck Rodney right away, or he’d clobber me. This wasn’t going to be some sort of ten-round dance like you see on TV. It would be more like a video game where each player had nothing but finishing moves. I just hoped Rodney didn’t rip my spine out of my body and beat me on the head with it.

  Over at his table, Rodney pounded his gloves together and grinned at me. He still hadn’t learned. But I guess I’d never actually beaten him face-to-face. The last time we’d battled, I’d taken him out in the dark, and he never really knew what had happened. This time, if I beat him, there’d be no doubt I was responsible. And no doubt he’d be hungry for revenge.

  Mr. Lomux called both of us into the taped area, then stepped between us. He held up his stopwatch. “There’ll be three two-minute rounds.”

  “No, there won’t.” Rodney smacked his gloves together again. “There’ll be five seconds of pain.”

  “Keep it clean.” Mr. Lomux winked at Rodney. Great. He was probably hoping Rodney would pull some sort of dirty trick.

  “Box!” Mr. Lomux said. He clicked his stopwatch and backed up a step. He didn’t move too far. I guess he wanted to see my destruction from up close.

  Rodney rushed at me. He raised his right fist like he was going to smack me in the head. I put my gloves up to block. But Rodney wasn’t aiming for my head. He swung his fist back and around in a big loop, like a softball pitcher windmilling the ball. He came in low. Real low. He hit me below the belt, hard enough to nearly lift me off my feet.

  “Oops,” he said, like it was an accident. But he couldn’t help grinning. I knew he’d done it on purpose. He stood there, waiting. I guess he expected me to go down. That’s what should have happened. If a guy gets hit below the belt, he drops, curls up, and waits for the sickening waves of pain to go away. I caught a soccer ball down there once, and it hadn’t been fun.

  But I don’t feel pain. And Rodney had given me an opening. I dropped my arms down like I was about to crumple. I bent so low, my gloves touched the gym floor. Then I exploded, leaping up and swinging a hard right from halfway across the planet, catching Rodney on the side of his jaw. I guess the padding in the gloves wasn’t enough to cushion my hardened bones. Rodney went flying so fast, I threw a second punch at where he’d been before it sank in on me that he wasn’t there anymore.

  As I was missing Rodney’s jaw with my left, I heard a sickening crack, like someone had slammed a gigantic walnut with an enormous sledgehammer. I’d knocked Rodney right into Mr. Lomux. Their heads smacked together. The both went down.

  Rodney moaned. That was good. I’m glad he wasn’t knocked totally out. But it was obvious he wasn’t ready for more. I guess he could add boxing to the list of sports he was going to have nightmares about.

  Mr. Lomux shook his head hard and staggered to his feet. He looked like he wasn’t quite sure where he was. After a moment, he grabbed my wrist and raised my arm in the air. The side of his face had started to swell up and turn purple. “Winner,” he said. Then he wandered off toward his office. He walked into the wall next to the door twice before he made it through the opening.

  I heard another moan. Rodney got up, wobbled over to his team, and took a seat. Then he put his head down on the table and started snoring.

  “Well,” Principal Ambrose said as he grabbed his coat, “it looks like we’re done.” He pointed at our table. “They win. Thank you all for coming. Have a great weekend.”<
br />
  He headed for the door.

  “Hey—there’s still one part left!” Eddy yelled after him. He pushed Rodney’s shoulder. “Wake up. We need you.”

  Rodney lifted his head a couple of inches. A thin strand of drool stretched from his mouth to the table. “Five more minutes, Mom. Please.” He dropped his head back down with a gentle thud and started snoring again.

  And that was it. We’d won. I glanced toward the bleachers. Everyone was staring at us. I didn’t like that, but there was nothing I could do about it.

  “I hate to say it, but I’m starting to feel sorry for Rodney,” Mookie said when I got back to our table. “It’s like his whole life is some sort of Whac-A-Mole game, except there’s only one hole, and he keeps sticking his head out.”

  I held up my gloves so he could unlace them. “Yeah, I guess I kind of feel a little sorry for him, too. But I’m sure he’ll do something to change that.”

  “Ewww,” Mookie said. “That doesn’t look very pretty.”

  I stared at my hand. “Yeah, you’re right.” It was sort of squished. The bone might have been really hard, but I guess my skin and muscles weren’t in very good shape. I pushed my hand around with my other fingers and got it looking sort of normal. Maybe superstrong bones weren’t all that great when they were covered with rotting flesh.

  “That’s not the only thing that looks nasty,” Abigail said. She pointed toward the other table. Eddy glared at us like we’d just stolen his bicycle right out from under him. Rodney might have been knocked off his feet, but Eddy was knocked off his throne as the smartest kid in the school. He definitely wasn’t happy about that.

  Mort got up from the other table, walked over, and held out his hand. “Good job,” he said. “Your team deserved to win.”

  “Hey, you kicked our butt in the shuttle run,” I said as I shook hands with him. I noticed my hand was a little squished again. I’d have to try to avoid getting congratulated about anything.

  “Yeah. I did okay. But I wouldn’t want to match brains with little Einstein, here.” Mort grinned at Abigail, then walked away.

  “That wasn’t so bad,” I said to Abigail. “This isn’t kindergarten. Nobody is going to tease you for being smart.”