Adventures of a Middle School Zombie (22 page)
“Good thing we kicked their asses or I’d be a little bit pissed off right now,” Robbie said. “But since we won—”
Robbie looked at me. “—AGAIN—” and turned back to Ben and Joe. “—I’ll let it go. Because it feels that good to win. Not just because we put the sevvies back where they belong, but we were also able to show them what a mistake it was to have a zombie play on their team. Because once a loser—” He looked back one more time. “—ALWAYS a loser.”
Luke put his arm around me.
“Ignore that jerk,” he said. “We were close, man. So close.”
“Yeah, but we still lost,” I said. “We’re still sevvies.”
The words burned in my mouth. The rest of the school year, we’d still be sevvies. Robbie was right. Once a loser, always a loser.
“What are they talking about?” Luke said, looking over his shoulder. For the first time I noticed the three refs huddling. Both coaches were waiting nearby.
Odd. The game was over, so what could they be talking about?
“Let’s check it out,” Luke said, and so we joined Mr. Stanzer. Other players joined too, including some eighth graders, Robbie among them.
That’s when I noticed my arm on the ground. Knew it had to be around here somewhere. Robbie saw it at the same time I did.
“You really need to keep better track of your, you know,
things
,” Robbie sneered, making sure I understood why he emphasized the last word. “You wouldn’t want to lose anything you may need later.”
I forced myself not to react. This was humiliating enough. I reached for my arm.
“Jed, hang on a second,” Mr. Stanzer said. “Just leave it there a little bit longer, until a decision is made.”
“Decision?”
That’s when Mr. Stanzer brought us up to date.
As I lay semiconscious on the ground, and the eighth graders high-fived one another after winning, Mr. Stanzer had noticed something a little unusual. He’d walked to the end zone and motioned to the refs. The three men in zebra stripes approached.
“Gentlemen, can I get a ruling on this?” he asked.
He pointed to my arm, bent at the elbow and resting where it had been thrown.
The ball was still tucked in it, firmly between the fingers curled around its tip and the crux of the elbow.
And the ball straddled the line of the end zone.
“If you notice, gentlemen,” he said to the refs, “the ball is in the end zone. Everyone agree?”
The refs nodded. Hard to argue with the evidence.
“And you’d agree that the ball crossed the plane of the end zone before it or the arm hit, right?” Mr. Stanzer went on. “After all, you all saw it land right here.”
True that. When someone’s arm is ripped from his body and tossed into the air, eyes have a tendency to follow it. Something about the rarity of flying limbs, like a meteor streaking across the sky. It’s just too amazing to take your eyes off for a second.
“So, that’s clearly a touchdown,” Mr. Stanzer said.
The head umpire scratched his head. “I’m not so sure. Uh, the, you know, argument could be made … is that boy OK? I mean, are we really arguing a touchdown when a youngster has lost a limb?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll put it back on in a minute, plenty of duct tape and staples for that,” Mr. Stanzer said. “But first I’d like a ruling.”
The head ref, now very pale (as Mr. Stanzer told me this story later, the ref looked even more zombie than I did), shook his head. “I’m going to need to huddle with the other refs, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
And that was where we were now.
“So this,” I said, motioning to my arm, “could be a touchdown.”
“That’s what I’m arguing,” Mr. Stanzer said.
“But if it is … ” I trailed off.
“We win, thirty-three to thirty-one.”
Holy crap.
“Indeed,” Mr. Stanzer said.
“Oh, sorry, didn’t know I said that out loud.”
“Well, it’s OK—this really is a holy-crap moment.”
Apparently Robbie just figured out what was going on because he started to scream, “No way!” over and over.
“I had him down!” Robbie said. “I buried that zombie. Tore his frickin’ arm off. This game is over. You hear me, sevvies? Over! You guys are done!”
The refs had broken up, and the head umpire came over to Mr. Stanzer. He took off his cap and shook his head.
“Obviously this has never come up before,” he said. “I can safely say no one in football has ever lost a limb in the game, let alone have that limb come into play.
“But the rules do say that if the ball crosses while in the possession of the player before the player is ruled down, it’s a touchdown,” he said, “although in this case, possession is a little tricky.”
“What is going on?” Principal Buckley, a little late to the party as usual, joined the group surrounding the arm. “What the heck? Can someone please pick this up before everyone sees it?”
“But we have a bit of a quandary,” Mr. Stanzer said. “As you can see, the ball has crossed the goal line. And it is still in possession of the running back. That is a touchdown. The winning touchdown.”
“What?” Principal Buckley said. “This is ridiculous. Pick up the dang arm so we can award—again—the trophy to the eighth graders. Now.”
The umpire interjected. “All well and good, but I’m inclined to agree with the coach here,” he said. “Possession does seem to belong—”
“No, absolute and utter nonsense,” Principal Buckley said. “
That
is an arm, not a person. There is clearly no possession here.” After that it was Mr. Stanzer’s turn to interject.
“Well, Principal Buckley, I remember a day in the boys’ room when Jed was found guilty of smoking. And if I recall correctly, you said, ‘Your arm, your hand—your cigarette.’ And that possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
The umpire: “Is that right, Mr. Buckley?”
“Yes, well, something like that.”
“Then the decision seems clear,” the umpire said, raising his arms over his head. “Touchdown, seventh graders.”
He looked at me.
“Son, you may pick up the winning score. And good game.”
“Did you hear that, dude, we won. We WON!” Luke screamed, high-fiving Javon. The whole team came rushing at us, screaming, index fingers raised in celebration.
All of a sudden I was flying above the crowd, lifted on the shoulders of Luke and Javon. There were all my friends, Dustin and Ray and Arden and Josh and Chris, and there were Mr. Stanzer and even Nurse Rankin applauding.
We marched to the fifty-yard line, still yelling as the eighth graders headed toward the locker room.
“Hey, put me down, quick,” I said, and I hit the ground running. I raced among the eighth graders until …
“Robbie.”
He turned, saw me, and kept walking. I joined him.
“So, look, just wanted to say no hard feelings for the arm thing, seeing as how that was the difference in the game.”
He froze, turned, stared at me.
“Here’s the thing,” he said. “You won a game. On a fluke. That’s all. It means nothing.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I do know this—next semester in the trophy case, the football award is going to show Seventh Graders 33, Eighth Graders 31. And the next sevvie shoved into that trophy case is going to know the score. And I’m going to feel good about that for a long time.”
“Especially when I shove you in it,” Robbie said, shaking his head and walking away.
“Have a nice winter break,” I called after him. “I know I will.”
On the way back to the field, I had to rub my eyes because I thought I saw an illusion.
But it was Anna.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” she said. “Nice touchdown.”
“Thanks. I owe it all to an abundance of dead tissue.”
“Yeah, death has its advantages.”
“Anna, I know about the video. What you did. Thanks. It’s the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in a long time.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. So how are you feeling?”
“A little disarmed. But OK otherwise.”
Sometimes you can go on and on about a person. How what they do affects you in good and bad ways, and all the reasons you like to be with them and almost as many reasons you shouldn’t.
As I looked at Anna, I only thought one thing. I wanted to hold her hand. For a long time. Maybe even forever.
“So, you want to go to a movie?”
“You bet.
Zombie Apocalypse
?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of a romantic action comedy. Something zombie-free.”
“Sure, if something has to be zombie-free.”
THE END
Ryan and Hannah, thanks for being my child-friendly sounding board, the first indication that Jed may have an afterlife in the book world. Cara, Monty, Emily and Connie, I appreciate that you were in my corner to encourage me every step of the way. Thanks to Gina, my agent, who took the first chance. Thanks, Courtney, for your brilliant editing, making this a much better story. Grateful appreciation to Barbara (B-Van) for her sharp eyes and for tracking her laugh-out-loud moments – 35. Finally, a thank-you to my teenage son Bryson, who promised me he’d read the book if and when it was published. It kept me going, just for that moment I could give him the finished product and say, “Here you go. That'll be $8.99. Now read it. Alou
d.”
Proud graduate of Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, father of 18-year-old son Bryson, and features writer for The Arizona Republic. Scott was once a contestant on “Wheel of Fortune.” He lost. That’s probably irrelevant, but he likes to share it. DEAD JED: ADVENTURES OF A MIDDLE SCHOOL ZOMBIE is his first novel.
There’s no fart like a Zombie Death Fart (ZDF)! And if you’d ever smelled one, you would know it’s true. Zombie Death Farts are reason number 6 on Scott Craven’s list of Top Ten Reasons Why Zombie’s Rule. Think you know all about Zombies? Scott Craven begs to differ. No, literally, he begs to differ. Scott has put together some awesome Zombie games, quizzes, facts, and questions to keep your brain (pun intended) active and alive. Want to read more from Scott? Visit www.deadjed.com.
Think you know Zombies? Take the below quiz and find out. Stuck? Find the answers at www.deadjed.com! Each question is either True or False. Good luck. Use your brains!
- Favorite food? Pizza with mushrooms, olives and brains.
- Zombies have two speeds: Shuffling, and “Oh crap, I better hurry if I don't want to miss the bus.”
- Threatening to tear a zombie limb from limb scares the living heck out of him.
- While doctors have yet to determine what keeps them alive, zombies have an amazingly high midochlorian count.
- A Zombie's annual medical exam can last nearly two hours.
- A Zombie's nose often travels more than 10 feet when he’s caught unexpected by an explosive sneeze.
- A Zombie sleepover would include a game of “pin the toe on the foot.”
- If everyone were a Zombie, that would pretty much solve the health-care crisis.
- Zombies need at least 9 hours of sleep every night.
- Zombies make great game show guests.
Visit www. Month9books.com
Preview
DEAD JED: DAWN OF THE JED
by Scott Craven, Book 2 in this exciting series coming December 2014 from Month9Books. The below is an uncorrected sample chapter.
Chapter One
"Make a wish," Robbie said as he stood over me, holding one of my ankles in each hand.
"I wish you wouldn't do that," I said.
"De-NIED,” he ruled, spreading my ankles farther apart than any reasonable person would think possible. Good thing I was made up of undead tissue, or I would have heard ligaments snapping by now. But my very pliable zombie body was keeping it together.
For now.
"Robbie, please." The cold slime of Ooze ran down my back, greasing the wrestling mat. This was one of those times I wished I sweated like a typical breather, but no, physical exertion (and the threat of being split in two) made me ooze.