“Check out the zombie slime trail," Robbie noted as Ooze spread. "Clean-up on aisle you."
He stepped forward, placing his left foot uncomfortably close to my groin. This allowed him to spread my legs even farther, and there was a tug at my hips.
"I'm pretty sure this isn't an approved wrestling move,” I said, my vision blurring. “Or legal."
"You’re probably right," Robbie said. "Not that I care. I call it 'The Wishbone.' You want to know why?"
As if I needed to be a graduate of ZIT (Zombie Institute of Technology) to figure it out.
“Because you intend to split me like a wishbone.” I winced.
“Dead on, Zom-boy. You are about to defy physics and be in two places at once.”
The eighth graders that had gathered around the mat began to cheer. A few taunts made their way above the noise.
“He’s not so stiff after all!”
“Time to pin the fail on the zombie!”
“Rip his ass!”
Some taunts were cleverer than others.
There were no signs of any seventh graders, strange since up to about five minutes ago, we all were doing gymnastics on the other side of the cafetorium.
“Doing gymnastics” gave the wrong impression, since Pine Hollow had only two pieces of semi-gymnastic equipment.
The first was our balance beam, which was a couple of railroad ties placed end-to-end. Only the bravest walked the balance beam in bare feet due to high risk of splinters. And since we all lacked bravery, shoes were the rule. If we had a motto it would be, “Doing just enough to get by—stop looking at us!”
The balance beam was professional grade compared to our vault—Tommy. He was happy to double as gym equipment in exchange for not doing actual physical activity during Physical Education. At the proper time, Tommy took his place at the far end of the cafetorium and bent at the waist, allowing a line of seventh graders to somersault over him.
As a kid, Tommy was a nine on a ten scale. Friendly and easygoing. As a vault, he was a two. He flinched too much.
Earlier in the period, before Robbie had me on my back about to rest me in pieces, I was about to make my vault over Tommy. I ruled out anything that required athletic prowess, so I was not going to plant my hands on Tommy’s back, do a flip, stick the landing, and thrust my arms into the air like those Olympians who thought they suddenly belonged on cereal boxes.
I was going to stop, twist, and slowly roll over Tommy’s back. If my feet left the floor, it would only be a coincidence. Doing just enough to get by.
All that went away when Mr. Benetar appeared in his white T-shirt tucked into his too-small red shorts, looking as if there were no such things as mirrors.
“Sorry to interrupt sissy sports time,” he announced, “but I need a warm body for my eighth-grade wrestling class, even if it is just a sevvie.”
“You mean like the sevvies who kicked your butt in the annual seventh vs. eighth grade football game?”
“Who said that! Step forward now!”
Out from behind the line of kids waiting for the balance beam stepped Mr. Stanzer, PE coach to the seventh grade. Last semester he was Ballshack Bob, attendant to lunchtime sports equipment. Now all the sevvies were calling him Coach, a huge promotion, even if his paycheck didn’t agree.
“Ah, Mr. Stanzer, still gloating I see,” Mr. Benetar said. “Or should I call you Bad-Call Bob, as I hear some of the eighth graders now refer to you?”
“You can call me anything you want as long the winner of this year’s game is inscribed on the football trophy,” Mr. Stanzer said, reaching behind him. “Ah, and I see it is.”
The sevvies cheered when Mr. Stanzer hoisted the trophy over his head. We all knew what the last line on its pedestal said, where scores of past games were engraved—Seventh Grade thirty-three, Eighth Grade thirty-one. The annual end-of-the-semester contest made winter break much sweeter.
“Seriously, you carry that around all the time?” Mr. Benetar said.
“No, just when we want to remember who rules. Hmm, I guess it is all the time.”
We cheered again, Mr. Benetar’s face turned the color of his shorts.
“If your running back didn’t happen to have detachable arms, the game would have ended the way it should have, with eight graders on top,” Mr. Benetar said. “The refs blew it and you know it.”
Mr. Stanzer put the trophy on the ground and stepped up to Mr. Benetar. Did no-fighting rules apply to teachers? We were all hoping they didn’t.
“Jed didn’t rip his own arm off and toss it across the goal line, though that would have been a pretty cool play,” Mr. Stanzer said, glancing at me and slipping a sly smile. He looked back at Mr. Benetar. “Your guy did that. He made the mistake of not removing the ball first. The ball crossed the goal line in Jed’s possession. In football, we call that a touchdown.”
“Look, I didn’t come over here to rehash history—”
“Too bad, because it’s a lot of fun.”
More cheering.
“As I said, I need a sevvie to fill out wrestling. We’re odd today.”
“And that’s different from any other day how?”
Mr. Benetar simmered. I secretly begged Mr. Stanzer to push that button one more time, launching the overbearing, egotistical, fashion-clueless PE teacher into a nuclear meltdown.
“We … are … odd … numbered,” he said slowly, methodically, trying to put his temper genie back in the bottle. “We need a sevvie so everyone has a partner.”
Mr. Benetar jerked his head toward the other half of the cafetorium, where eighth graders kneeled around the school’s only mat, watching matches in progress.
“So as I said, if you would be so kind as to let me borrow a warm body.” Mr. Benetar looked at me. “Or a cold body would do just as well. Rivers, with me.”
I took a step back, shaking my head. “I still have to do balance beam.”
Mr. Benetar looked at the railroad ties and gave me this look of disgust, as if he just figured out what he was wearing. “You realize only girls compete in balance beam, right? So I guess it does make sense for seventh grade boys. You go ahead with balance beam, ladies, I have to get back to the land testosterone has not forgotten.”
“Fine, I’ll go,” I said. What little honor sevvies had earned with the football game now was at stake. Stepping boldly over the balance beam, I made my way toward the other side of the cafetorium.
Then I heard the kicker.
“Glad to hear, since Robbie was sort of hoping you’d be his opponent.”
Instead of fighting for honor, I was about to fight for my life.
Robbie didn’t let me down.
Once among eighth graders, I knelt off to the side, waiting for my name to be called. It wasn’t long.
“Robbie, you’re up,” Mr. Benetar said. “Bring your victim, er, opponent, with you.”
I felt a pinch at the back of my neck. Robbie. He squeezed harder and pushed me forward.
“Now,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for this all winter break. First time I was looking forward to school.”
“Because it’s the first time you’re back without an ankle monitor and a permission slip from your parole officer?”
Maybe it was not the best time to mouth off to Robbie, since we were about to enter … wait for it …
“Welcome to the Thunderdome,” Robbie announced, shoving me to the mat. “You’re Humpty Dumpty, I’m the wall. In about three minutes, no one is going to be able to put you back together again.”
I rolled onto my back, hiked my knees, and tucked into a fetal position, a natural sevvie-defense response to threatening stimuli.
A voice. Deep. Mr. Benetar. “Robbie, would you like to start in the up or down position?”
Hands gripped my ankles and pulled. My legs were jerked straight, and I felt like a turtle being pulled out of its shell, exposed to the world.
“Think I’ll just start here, if that’s OK with everyone.”
According to the chorus of “Woot”s and “Stomp him”s, it was.
As Robbie promised, I was about go Humpty and there was nothing I could do about it. I felt my hips losing hold of my legs. Amid snaps and creaks, it was as if my hips were apologizing. “Jed, we really tried to keep you together, but even you can’t seriously think—”
WHAP!
I didn’t have to look down to see what had happened. But I did anyway.
“Did you make a wish?” Robbie said as he held my left leg over his head. “Because I did.”
He gripped my leg like a spear, my foot to the back, leaned forward, and let it fly. I lost sight of my limb (“Going to miss you buddy, thanks for giving it your all!”) but a loud metal clang told me all I needed to know.
“Three-pointer,” Robbie shouted, giving high-fives to the rest of the eighth-grade class. “That’s how we play.”
As Robbie celebrated, I surveyed the damage. Lifting the waistband of my gym shorts, I peered through the gap and saw what looked like was a clean separation at the hip joint. Ooze dripped from the wound, and I was thankful it looked a lot worse than it felt.
Still, I was pretty sure I didn’t have nearly enough duct tape in my backpack to make this right again.
“Wait, how stupid could I be?” Robbie said, turning toward me.
I kept my mouth shut, for once.
“This match isn’t over. A winner has yet to be determined. Let’s finish this.”
I had no idea how much force was generated when one-hundred-eighty pounds falls twenty miles per hour, but it’s a lot. And it hit my chest, forcing out what little air I had in my lungs.
A hand slapped the mat inches from my head. One-two-three.
“We have a winner now,” Mr. Benetar said, helping my worthy opponent to his feet and raising Robbie’s hand in victory. “OK, everyone, hit the showers, bell rang three minutes ago.”
Huh, I never heard it cause bells were still ringing in my head.
Mr. Benetar kneeled next to me. I was sure he was going to ask how I was, since caring for every student’s well-being was part of the teacher oath.
“That’s how it’s supposed to be between seventh and eighth graders,” he said. “Now all is right with the world.”
Mr. Benetar was apparently sick on oath-taking day.
Once he left, I sat up. The seventh graders were long gone, not wanting anything to do with the zombie who didn’t know his place. But there was Mr. Stanzer at the trash can, one hand poking around the top.
I struggled to my feet. No, sorry, I struggled to my foot, and hopped over to the waste can.
Mr. Stanzer heard my footstep. “Jed, sorry,” he said.
“No worries,” I said. “It’s only a flesh wound.”
“No, not your leg.” He stared into the trashcan. “It’s Taco Day.”
Of all the trash cans on all the days in this crazy school, Robbie had to toss my leg into cafetorium trash on Taco Day.
My left foot protruded from shredded lettuce, ground beef, and the most dreaded lunch substance of all—refried beans.
“Mr. Stanzer, I got this,” I said. His face was turning a shade of green I’d never seen.
“You sure?”
“Abso—”
He was gone.
“—lutely.”
I removed the leg from the can as if pulling the sword from the stone. It came out smoothly, if coated in Taco Day. Victory! I held it above my head and hopped in a circle.
“Jed, what the heck?” a familiar voice said behind me.
I swiveled as fast as a one-legged zombie could, which wasn’t very fast.
“Anna, hey.”
“I don’t even want to ask. I do, but I know the answer. Robbie.”
“Pretty much.”
Anna was my girlfriend. Not that I ever said that out loud. Or admitted it to anyone. Or ever thought about letting Anna know how I felt. Especially that last one. Total deal breaker.
We hung out almost every day. We walked home together. We’d been to the movies a few times, just the two of us. While that may not seem to cross the friend-girlfriend barrier, consider this: we always bought one bucket of popcorn. Medium. It sat between us, and we’d often go for it at the same time, fingertips touching. But the real proof was in the soda. We shared it, including the straw.
If that’s not having a girlfriend, what is?
“Looks like you could use a little help,” Anna said, slinging her backpack off her shoulder.
“Mr. Stanzer told you, right?”
“What do you think, that I have some sort of zombie sense that tingles every time you’re in trouble? If I did, I’d never get any rest. Yes, Mr. Stanzer said some reassembly was required.”
She unzipped her backpack and took out a staple gun and duct tape.
“I hope I have enough, this one looks pretty serious,” she said, kneeling to get a better look. “Look, you’re going to have to lift your shorts a little bit so I can see exactly what happened.”
My face got hot as if sticking my head in an oven and setting it for “Humiliated.”
“Would you mind if, you know, maybe I did it myself, or … ”
“I think that’s best,” Anna said. The awkwardness of the situation probably hit her as soon as she’d said, “Lift your shorts.”
I knew what I had to do, but it required the help of a friend who hadn’t been so friendly lately. Something weird, even a little scary, happened over Christmas break. I wasn’t so sure Luke could accept it, or at least let it go.
But I really needed his help.
“Anna, could you go get Luke before the next PE classes start coming in?” I said. We had another five minutes or so as students changed into gym gear.
“You bet, but you have to do something.”
“I know. I’m already tired of hopping around. I feel like the Easter Zombie Bunny.”
“Not your leg. You have to tell someone about Robbie. He can’t rip off a limb and get away with it.”
“Who am I going to tell?” I said, wiping my leg on my T-shirt to scrape off taco remains. “Mr. Benetar saw it all and cheered Robbie on. Principal Buckley? He threatened to expel me for smoking when he found my dismembered arm holding a cigarette.”
Anna glared at me.
She is so my girlfriend.
“Fine, I’ll get Luke.”
“You’ll get Luke what?” Luke appeared out of nowhere, as if he hit a “Decloaking” button. Am I the only kid at Pine Hollow who has no stealth mode?
“Jed, nice look,” he said. “That refried bean pattern on your T-shirt sort of looks like Robbie.”
Anna nodded. “In fact if you squint you can—”