A Zombie Ate My Homework Read online

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraphs

  Top Secret

  Prologue

  Part I: Found

  Rescue

  Meeting Lester

  The Dinner Table

  Who I Am Is Not Who I Need to Be

  The Real World

  Girls

  Meeting Arnold

  Part II: Lost

  The First Day

  Kiki, Ghostie, and the Flicker

  Welcome to the Neighborhood

  Crutch

  Lunch

  Sarah Anne

  Becoming Friends

  Home Alone

  Dodgeball

  Sudoris Zombutam

  Pudding

  Keeping a Secret

  A Ride in the Right Direction

  A Hard Conversation

  Recess

  Payback

  A Knock on the Door

  A Plan

  An Invitation

  Detective Work

  Let’s Party!

  Zombie Attack!

  A Late Night Surprise

  The Shadow

  Part III: Found

  The Walk

  The Poem

  The Return

  The Captains

  Family Dinner

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Sneak Peek

  Copyright

  Have you ever seen a zombie run?

  It’s not pretty.

  First of all, we’re not the most coordinated species in the world, if you know what I mean. Our legs don’t work very well. They’re rubbery and elastic, and it kind of feels like trying to run in glue.

  Also, we’re not in very good shape. We have a lousy diet and almost never exercise.

  But the main problem is, running is not a zombie activity. Running is a human activity. And we stink at human activities. Humans are bigger than us, and stronger than us, and believe it or not? Meaner than us.

  So the bottom line is, we’re not very good at running. Which is why, on that day when I found myself running for my life, I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to end well.

  My memories from that day are a blur. I remember being out in the yard for Morning Routine, and then there was a lot of noise and commotion, and I was pulled through a hole in the fence. I remember crawling, with dirt, and mud, and grass getting in my eyes. I remember jumping into a river and the water being very cold. I remember hearing the voices of the others and then human voices behind us. I remember trying to yell. I remember the humans catching up to us. I remember confusion and fear. I remember a man with a reddish-gray beard, chasing me with a big bag of salt in his hand.

  And the last thing I remember is that all of a sudden, from one second to the next, I was falling, falling, falling, into a deep, dark hole. And then my head hit something hard, and I closed my eyes, and all the noise around me got softer and softer until it disappeared altogether.

  And then everything went dark.

  I opened my eyes, which is something I almost never do, because I almost never close them in the first place.

  I looked around, but it was too dark to really see anything.

  I had no idea where I was or what had happened to me.

  So I closed my eyes again, just to see what it felt like.

  It felt strange.

  After a few more minutes, I opened my eyes again. The sun had started coming up in the sky, and it was light enough for me to see that I was laying in a deep ditch in the middle of nowhere. My head felt like a popped balloon, and my ears were full of dirt.

  It didn’t look like any place I’d ever been before.

  But that’s probably because I’d never been anywhere.

  I tried to figure out what to do next, and all I could come up with was: Get up. I remembered I had been running from something, so as soon as I climbed out of the ditch, I started running again—badly, of course.

  And as I waited for someone to inevitably catch me and bring me back to my pod, I started thinking.

  I thought about the fact that I was alone. I thought about the fact that I didn’t know where I was or what I should do. And I guess I was thinking so much, I didn’t notice that I’d run out into the middle of the road and was about to get run over by a yellow pickup truck heading straight for me.

  HOOOOOONNNNKKK!!!!

  I dove out of the way just in time. The truck screeched to a halt, spraying gravel from the road into my face. I think a few pieces even got in my mouth.

  They didn’t taste very good.

  A human man and a human woman got out of the truck. I could tell they were real humans by their coloring. The man had a brown mustache, and the woman was wearing a blue dress. The man held the woman’s hand. That must have meant they were attached to each other in some way. Or perhaps they were scared. Or both.

  They leaned over me.

  “There you are,” said the man.

  “We’ve been looking for you,” said the woman.

  Words started ringing in my ears:

  I didn’t know where these words came from. But I heard them again:

  I remembered these words from somewhere. They were orders. They were orders I was supposed to follow.

  But I didn’t.

  I couldn’t.

  “Are there others?” the man asked the woman. “There were supposed to be others.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t be sure.”

  So they knew who I was.

  I was too afraid to move. They’re taking me back, I thought. And then I thought, I don’t want to go back.

  “Are you hurt?” said the man. “You have a big bruise on your head, like you’ve taken a real fall. But you’re okay?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re so pale,” said the man, looking me up and down. “And so skinny.”

  “I think you may be making him nervous, Bill,” the woman said, looking at the man.

  “Oh dear,” said the man named Bill. “I’m so sorry. We’re here to help you. You need to know that.”

  I stood up, took a deep non-breath, and tried to be brave. It wasn’t easy. People scare me. Way more than I scare them, I bet.

  The man squatted down and looked into my eyes, then looked up at the woman. “Yup, there it is, honey. The red streak across the pupils. Just like you said.” He smiled and shook his head. “Well, we sure are glad to have found you, young man.”

  The woman touched my orange ID tag lightly with her fingers. “Norbus Clacknozzle, is it? I think I remember you. Well, Norbus, my name’s Jenny, and this is my husband, Bill.”

  The man called Bill stuck out his hand. I looked at it.

  “You’re supposed to shake,” he said to me. He turned and shook Jenny’s hand. “Like this, you see?”

  I slowly brought my hand up, and Bill grabbed it with his. It was the first human hand I’d ever felt. It was softer than I’d imagined. And warm. Really warm.

  “Nice to meet you,” said Bill.

  The woman called Jenny held out her hand, and I shook it. “My goodness, we need to get you a blanket,” she said.

  Bill chuckled. “I’m not so sure a blanket is going to warm him up, dear. Don’t forget, he’s a zombie.”

  So that’s what I was.

  “Do you remember where you come from?” Bill asked me. “Do you remember home?”

  “The poor thing has no memory,” Jenny said. “And no home.”

  I wasn’t sure what they were talking about, but at least I knew why I felt so alone. Because I was alone.

  I got into their truck, and Bill placed a long strap across my chest and buckled it.

  “How old are you, young fella?” he asked. “Do yo
u folks even have an age?”

  I stared at him, partly because I was still too scared to speak and partly because I had no idea.

  Jenny shook her head. “They don’t officially have ages, Bill. He’s a juvenile, that’s what we call them.”

  Bill looked back at me while he started the truck. “You’ve got nothing to be afraid of, son,” he said. “Not anymore.”

  As we drove away, a wave of confusion and exhaustion washed over me, but also a new feeling I’d never felt before. At first I didn’t recognize what it was. Then I slowly figured it out.

  It was hope.

  Jenny and Bill lived in a small house, but it was the biggest house I’d ever been in, because I’d never been in a house before.

  “Hop on out,” Bill said, after we pulled into their long dirt driveway. He opened the door of the truck. “It’s okay. We don’t bite.”

  “Interesting choice of words,” Jenny said, and they both laughed softly.

  I stayed in the car. Jenny leaned in through the open window. “Oh, don’t be shy, Norbus. Is that how you pronounce it? NOR-bus?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, Norbus, I’ve got some cookies in the cupboard with your name on them,” Bill said, clapping his hands together. “Chop, chop.”

  I didn’t know what chop, chop meant, but it sounded scary. Bill saw the expression on my face and laughed. “It means hustle up,” he said. They had a small yard that was fenced in. I could hear a dog barking, but fortunately it sounded very far away. Other than that, it was really quiet. There didn’t seem to be another house around for miles.

  “We like our peace and quiet,” Bill said, as if he were reading my mind. “Nobody bothers us, and we don’t bother anyone else.”

  “The idea of you bothering anyone seems both preposterous and implausible,” I said.

  They stared at me.

  Those were the first words I’d spoken to them.

  “Well, well,” said Bill. “It’s nice to hear your voice. But what’s with the five-dollar words?”

  I shrugged.

  “Are you tired?” he asked.

  “They don’t sleep, Bill, you know that,” said Jenny.

  “But I bet they still get tired,” Bill said, and he was right about that.

  Jenny went upstairs, and I sat with Bill in the kitchen. Neither one of us said anything for a while. “How about a shower?” he asked finally.

  I’d never taken a shower, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. But I did have to tell him one thing. “I am incapable of eating anything except jelly beans. Do you have any jelly beans?”

  Bill frowned. “Jelly beans?”

  “Any colors and flavors are fine.”

  He looked amazed. “Really? Jenny never said anything about that. So the whole … eating brains thing?”

  “That is nothing more than rumor and innuendo,” I said.

  “ ‘Rumor and innuendo,’ ” Bill repeated. “Where’d you go to elementary school, Harvard?” He started opening and closing kitchen cabinets. “I don’t believe we have any jelly beans on hand, but I’d be happy to go grab some.”

  He smiled at me, and I was finally starting to relax just a tiny bit when I heard a blood-curdling scream. (Well, it definitely would have curdled my blood, if I’d had any.)

  “YAOOOOOWHAA!!”

  Three seconds later, a human boy about twice my size came sprinting into the kitchen, holding a black helmet in his hands. He was wearing a big backpack, which was wide open and had papers spilling out the sides. Jenny was right behind him, and I saw her shake her head at Bill, which I think meant, No, I haven’t told him about our guest.

  “What do we got snack-wise?!” the boy said, way too loudly. “I’m STARVING!” He turned toward the big white refrigerator that was in the middle of the room, and that was when he first noticed me. “What the heck?”

  He walked over, his nose twitching. “Who’s this kid?” He bent down and peered at me like I was some sort of science experiment gone wrong—which, I suppose, I was. “Yikes, kid, have you ever even seen the sun?” Then he noticed my orange tag and looked up at Jenny and Bill.

  “What’s going on here?”

  “Sit down, Lester,” Bill said to the large boy. The large boy sat down. “This is Norbus,” Bill continued, motioning toward me. “He’s a zombie.”

  Lester shot out of his chair. “A WHAT?!”

  “A zombie,” Bill repeated. “He was reanimated as part of a secret government experiment. Several of them escaped. We think all the others were recaptured.”

  The boy’s eyes went as wide as flying saucers. “There’s no such thing as zombies!”

  “Yes, there are,” Bill said.

  “How do you know that?” the boy sputtered.

  Bill and Jenny looked at each other.

  “We just do,” Jenny said.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” Lester muttered. “An actual, real-live, brains-eating zombie?”

  “Not quite live and not quite brains-eating,” Jenny said. “But otherwise, yup.”

  “They’re not what you think,” Bill said. “He’s actually very nice.”

  “Are you serious?” wailed Lester. “He could probably kill us just by looking at us if he wanted!”

  “I have no predisposition to kill you,” I said, because I thought it might help.

  “You have no predispo-what?” Lester stared at me, then back at Bill and Jenny. “So what is that thing doing in our house? Sitting at our kitchen table?”

  Bill sat down next to me and looked up at his son. “We would tell you more if we could. But we can’t.”

  “You can’t, or you won’t?” Lester stomped over to the refrigerator, opened it, and stared inside without moving. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I mean, it’s not that I’m scared of him or anything, but just look at him. Like … GROSS!”

  “I will thank you not to talk to, or about, our guest that way,” Jenny told Lester sharply. “He is alone and scared. Please be courteous. Perhaps we should begin with some proper introductions.” She waited until the large boy finally turned back around and looked at me. “Lester, I’d like you to meet our friend Norbus Clacknozzle,” she said.

  “He’s not my friend,” Lester mumbled, so softly I could barely hear it.

  I looked at Jenny, hoping that she wouldn’t say what she was about to say next. But she did.

  “Norbus,” she said, “I’d like you to meet Lester. He’s fourteen years old. And he’s our son.”

  Humans eat dinner around a nice wooden table.

  Zombies eat dinner in muddy pens surrounded by soldiers and scientists.

  Your way is better.

  Jenny, Bill, and Lester were all eating some kind of non-human meat, and it seemed like they were enjoying it very much. Lester was also drinking glass after glass of milk. I was staring down at a bowl full of jelly beans that Bill had been nice enough to buy for me. There must have been about a thousand jelly beans in the bowl.

  So far I’d eaten three.

  “So your last name is Kinder?” I asked.

  They nodded. “Yep,” said Bill. “And we try to live up to the name as best we can, don’t we, Lester?”

  Lester snorted, and a little bit of milk squirted out the side of his mouth. “What’s the matter, the adorable little zombie isn’t hungry? Poor baby. Maybe you want to gnaw on my arm for an appetizer?”

  Bill’s eyes flashed as he stared at his son. “That’s enough, Lester. You know that’s nonsense, made up by silly Hollywood movies.”

  “How would I know that?” protested Lester. “It’s not like I’ve met a bunch of zombies before. I mean, are you serious? I didn’t even know they actually existed!”

  “They exist,” said Jenny, quietly but firmly.

  Everyone ate in silence for a few moments.

  “I would have a terribly adverse reaction if I ate anything other than jelly beans,” I told Lester.

  “That’s random,” Lester mumbled, picking at his food
. “So how long is this … thing going to be staying with us, anyway?”

  Jenny looked at her husband, then took a deep breath. “All we know for sure is that he’ll be staying with us for the time being.”

  “I don’t get it,” moaned Lester. “Where did he come from? Why is he here? What are you trying to prove?”

  “All good questions, son,” Bill said. “The only one I can address right now is why. And the answer is, because it’s the right thing to do.”

  Lester thumped his glass down with an angry clatter. “You gotta be KIDDING me!”

  “Would you prefer we send him away?” said Bill. “Do you know how hard it would be for him to survive on his own?”

  I could answer that one. Very hard. As in, impossibly hard.

  Lester threw up his hands. “Why not just turn him in?”

  Bill looked at his son with a gentle but stern expression. “Because he’s done nothing wrong.”

  “Your father and I have discussed it,” said Jenny. “Norbus needs our help. We’re going to make sure he feels at home here.”

  “ZOMBIES DON’T EVEN LIVE IN HOMES!” bellowed Lester.

  Bill placed his fork down on his plate and looked across the table at his son. Everything suddenly got very quiet. I think even the crickets stopped chirping.

  “They do now,” Bill said.

  “Don’t be shy,” Jenny said to me. “Eat your supper.”

  I looked at this woman and this man. Why was a voice inside my head telling me that humans were the enemy? These humans did not seem like the enemy.

  I picked up a fire-engine-red jelly bean and popped it in my mouth.

  It tasted good.

  The next morning I was sitting at the kitchen table, eating green jelly beans, when Bill came in. “Good morning, Norbus,” he said. “Did you sleep well?”

  “No,” I said.

  Bill shook his head. “Oh right,” he said, laughing softly.

  After breakfast, Jenny led me to a couch in the living room. “Now, Norbus, we have some work to do.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “Well, Bill and I are trying to figure out exactly where to go from here, with this whole situation. But that’s going to take some time, and in the meantime, powerful people are looking for you. We don’t want to arouse suspicion, but we also don’t want to hide you away like a prisoner in our own home.” She looked right at me with her kind eyes. “So, we’re going to treat you as a member of our family. Which means you need to learn how to do things that any kid would do in any family.” She saw my clueless expression and smiled gently. “Nothing scary or weird, I promise. Just normal, everyday activities, like staying clean, getting dressed, and going to school.”