Zombie Elementary (8 page)

I was over at Jermaine’s house, like I told you.
Jermaine said we should find out if there was any more information about the zombie outbreak and that maybe it was on the Internet. There’s lots of useful stuff on the Internet that most people don’t know, like how you can lose thirty pounds with diet or exercise and how the president is an alien communist from Hawaii.

Jermaine typed in the name of our town, Acorn Falls, plus
zombie little league ambulance
. That’s how you write in Google. You just put words in and see what comes up.

What came up was this: nothing.

“That’s weird,” said Jermaine. “There should be something. Even if it doesn’t make sense.” To prove this, he typed in the words
pancake monkey tractor
and got 27,400,000 hits starting with a “fun-themed pancake pan in a monkey shape” for $13.95.

I guess we got distracted typing in weird stuff just to see what would come up next—I put in
pink bunny lawnmower
, which got over nine million hits, though none of the ones I looked at had a pink bunny using a lawnmower. That was kind of a shame.

Jermaine’s bedroom is at the back of the house, facing the yard. Upstairs. Suddenly there was a tapping sound at the window. Like I said, we were tied up looking at bunnies and lawnmowers, so I jumped. Jermaine jumped too.

I ran over and pulled up the blind, figuring it was just some kid we knew, messing around. But, no, it was a grown-up, clutching onto the windowsill. He was holding up a badge. A ladder was sagging underneath him. I didn’t think he was a burglar, so I opened the window.

He looked like a boy, grown real big. He had glasses and floppy yellow hair. Jermaine just sorta stared at him. Guy pulled himself into the bedroom. Okay, I helped him a bit. It’s a tight squeeze. He grinned like a big kid. He waved the badge at me. It was gold and had the letters BURP on it.

“I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you!”

I stared at him. Jermaine stared at him. The man flashed another smile. “My name’s O’Hara. Could you spare a few minutes of your time?”

Jermaine nodded, like he was in shock. He pointed at the window.

“Oh, yeah, that,” said Mr. O’Hara. “I didn’t want to disturb your parents. It’s standard procedure in these cases.”

“Cases?” blurted out Jermaine. “What cases?”

I didn’t see any cases. Maybe Mr. O’Hara had left them at the bottom of the ladder.

“You know, when kids spot a
paranormal event
, it’s pretty common that adults aren’t immediately aware of it,” said Mr. O’Hara. “So when I got the alert—when you typed in that search for zombies in Acorn Falls we automatically got a call—I just swung by to, um, chat.”

Chat
, I thought.
You want to chat about the zombies all over our town
.

“See, I’m from the Bureau of Unusual Recurring Phenomena. That’s a long name for the people in charge when we get your basic cryptozoological problems—vampires, werewolves, little green men—that sort of stuff.”

“I never heard of that before,” said Jermaine.

“Well, you wouldn’t have. We keep it pretty low-key,” said Mr. O’Hara. “It’s best not to have it on the TV news channels. Those people could really exaggerate
a minor alien invasion like you wouldn’t believe. It’s as if they want to scare the citizens of these United States.” He shook his head, like it was all amazing to him. “We operate out of a store in the back of a strip mall off North Main Street. We also sell dictionaries. Nobody wants to buy dictionaries anymore, so it’s a perfect cover.”

I guessed that was true. I’d never bought one.

“Anyway, here’s the thing. It’s me that needs the help. We’ve had budget cuts at BURP. We are what they call a ‘shoestring operation.’ So, right now, it’s just me.”

“Just you?” I said, kinda stupidly.

“Yup. I’m it for this whole area. So I could use some assistance. Let me tell you what we—I—know. Can I sit down?”

Jermaine nodded. Mr. O’Hara sat on the edge of his bed. It creaked.

“You want the good news or the bad news?”

I hate those sorts of questions. There’s no right answer.

“The good news is that the people in charge tell me this strain of zombie-ism isn’t a permanent state.
It’s curable. There’s a serum under development that will return people back to their normal selves, and they won’t remember anything about what occurred.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” said Jermaine. “How long before you have some?”

“Ah,” said Mr. O’Hara. “That’s the bad news. I don’t know. They gave me about a thimbleful of the stuff. It’s green and goopy. And even if I had a lot, like I told you, it’s just me. I can’t go around with a needle jabbing zombies on my own. They’d get me in a minute. I’m not as fast as I used to be.”

I nodded, like this all made sense.

“So, here’s what I need from you kids. First off, don’t get bitten. I can’t say that strongly enough. Fight them if you have to, but don’t get bitten. Second, just bop them on the head. Don’t, like, blow them up or push ’em into mulching machines or—”

He stopped a minute to think of other things we might do that maybe we shouldn’t. It’s not like Jermaine owns a machine gun. “Don’t do it, anyway.”

“Is there a way of, um, keeping them away?” I asked.

“The only thing we’ve found that works at all is
a chainsaw,” said Mr. O’Hara. That was no help. I’m ten. Nobody lets a ten-year-old have a chainsaw.

“You said not to, you know …” pointed out Jermaine.

“Oh!” said Mr. O’Hara. “I just meant they don’t like the noise a chainsaw makes. Real high and screechy, right? They don’t like loud noises that keep repeating. Hurts their ears, I guess.”

“Okay,” said Jermaine. “We’ll be smart. And we’ll keep you posted?”

“Yes!” said Mr. O’Hara, jumping up. “Here’s my card. Call anytime. And remember, don’t get bitten.”

I looked at the little white card. It said
Walt O’Hara, Proprietor, Dictionary Emporium
.

I looked up again. He’d gone. I’d have said it was like magic if I didn’t hear the ladder creaking and some cursing. Quite a bit of cursing.

“I think he broke my dad’s ladder,” said Jermaine.

Next day was Sunday.

My family went to the Presbyterian Church on Sunday mornings. I used to think it was the Frisbeeterian Church. I was always waiting for the Frisbees. Not a one.

Normally I don’t take a lot of notice about what’s going on in the service, but that Sunday, I really had other things on my mind.

First thing, even before breakfast, I turned on the TV to see if there was any news about the ambulance. I switched around between channels, but mostly it was all about politics, sports and buying stuff only available for the next twenty minutes. I got to the channel the news had been on last night, but it was just a wrinkled old guy telling me how much God
wanted me to send money. Not to God. To the wrinkled old guy. I was still switching channels when Mom came in and told me to stop looking at cartoons and get ready for church.

Have I mentioned how much adults really don’t pay attention?

So, I had my church clothes on and my hair pretty much flat, and we were all in the car. I was looking out of the window in case I saw any zombies. I mean, I figured that by now we’d be seeing zombies everywhere, like in
Dawn of the Dead
. Jermaine had shown me that one after Mr. O’Hara had left. Lots of zombies everywhere. Especially the mall. In movies, zombies like shopping malls. Jermaine said that in the British zombie movies, they all want to go to the pub.

No zombies on the way to church.

“Hey, Larry,” said my dad. “You seem pretty quiet this morning.”

“Yeah,” I said. I mean, what else was I gonna tell him?
Just watching out for zombies outside the Midas Muffler?
I didn’t think so.

Sunday School came before actual church. My Sunday School teacher is Miss Foogler. She’s about a thousand years old. My dad says she went to school with Moses, but I don’t know how he could know that. We only moved here three years ago.

Anyhow, we sang some songs, and I got in trouble for playing the tambourine too loud and not in
the places I was supposed to. We did crafts, and Jennalee Williams yelled at me when I got glue all down her leg. Miss Foogler said some stuff about Jesus and the parasites. They were smart-mouths and bullies from the sound of it, and Jesus told ’em so.

Pretty much normal stuff.

“Does anyone have any issues upon which the bright shining light of Jesus should shine?” asked Miss Foogler. She talks like that, I swear.

So, I figured I should ask.

“Hey, Miss Foogler!” I called out. “What if someone—a kid, say—notices that there’s something bad going on that all the grown-ups don’t take any notice of?”

“Well, Larry Mullet,” she said. “You should politely bring the matter up to an adult and tell them what you know. Sometimes grown-ups aren’t fully aware of everything that concerns
young citizens
like yourselves.”

“Right! Right!” I said. “But what if the adults just don’t take any notice?” I was thinking about the teachers and the coaches and the umpire. I gave Mr. Stine the bus driver a pass on this one. He’s generally not aware of anything much.