Bullies and Buddies

by Zack Zombie

So instead of waking up lopsided, now my head looked like an arrow.

  I didn’t have time to fix it because I was late.

  As I ran out the door, I think I heard my parents laughing in the house.

  I couldn’t wait to face Mike and Mutant at school today.

  I was going to give them a piece of my mind.

  Just so happened, that Mike and Mutant ran into me on the way to school.

  As soon as Mike saw me, he burst out laughing.

  “Did you get your head caught in a pencil sharpener?” he sneered.

  Mutant just stood there staring.

  “I got an idea,” Mike said. “Looks like you forgot to put gel on your hair this morning. I think we can help you with that. Right, Mutant?”

  All of a sudden, I heard Mutant make the loudest hacking noise I have ever heard.

  Oh man, I knew what was coming next…

  Then he spit into his hand. But you couldn’t see it because his hands were so big.

  Next thing, he balled up the spit wad in his hand and flicked it at my head.

  Next thing I know, half of my body is covered in Mutant’s snot.

  “That should help you manage that craaazzzzyyy morning hair!” Mike said.

  Then he walked away laughing.

  Mutant wiped his hand on the other side of my body and then walked away with Mike.

  So there I was, covered from head to toe with Mutant’s snot.

  Old Man Jenkins was strolling by with his Zombie horse when he saw me.

  “What in tarnation are you up to this time?” he said.

  “I got slimed…” I said. Then I burst out crying.

  “There, there, young man… It happens to the best of us,” he said. “But I’ve got the perfect remedy for that.”

  Next thing I know, his Zombie horse started licking all of the snot off of my body, face and head.

  “There you go. Good as new,” he said. “Though I don’t think there’s anything we can do about your hair…”

  I told Old Man Jenkins the whole story about the bullies.

  He nodded his head like he understood everything I was going through.

  “You know,” he said. “One of the best ways to stop a bully is by helping them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, what I’ve found is that most kids become bullies because somebody bigger was bullying them. Help them with their bullying problem, and you’ll probably make a friend for life.”

  Make friends with Mike and Mutant? No way!

  And if somebody bigger than Mutant was bullying him, what was a little guy like me supposed to do about it, anyway?

  I didn’t want to disagree with Old Man Jenkins, especially since his horse just licked snot off of my face.

  “Thanks, Mr. Jenkins,” was all I could say.

  As he strolled away he said, “You’re welcome, son. Just remember, bullies are just scared little kids, who are being bullied themselves!”

  Somebody is bullying Mutant? That’s really hard to believe.

  Tuesday

  At school today they decided to show a movie about bullying to all the kids.

  I think Ms. Bones spoke to the Principal about the conversation I had with her.

  The movie was in black and white and it was really old.

  It was about a little skeleton that was being bullied by a creeper.

  The creeper would threaten to beat up the little skeleton unless he gave the creeper his lunch money.

  The little skeleton told his teacher, and he told his parents.

  The teacher called the creeper’s parents and they had a talk with the creeper.

  The creeper apologized to the little skeleton, and the little skeleton was never bullied again…

  …Then, after school the creeper got his revenge, by beating up the little skeleton.

  But the little skeleton had enough of being bullied, and brought his bow and arrow to school the next day.

  The next time the creeper tried to bully him, the little skeleton shot him with his bow and arrow.

  The creeper blew up and dropped a music disc.

  Now the little skeleton listens to the music disc every day to remind him of his great victory! Yeah!

  I know. That’s not how the movie ended. I made up that last part.

  But telling my parents, really? Or telling the teacher, really?

  I know it takes guts, but Mutant is going to rip out my guts and use them as floss for his three teeth.

  What’s really interesting is that after the Bullying movie, all the kids were given wrist bands that said, “Stop Bullying!”

  And all the kids that wore them got bullied even more.

  Wednesday

  Today we had a field to trip to the Zombie farm where they had Zombie horses.

  All the kids got a chance to ride one.

  I never rode a Zombie horse before.

  A Zombie Horse

  But, I got a really nice green one.

  Skelee got a Zombie skeleton horse that looked really cool.

  Slimey had a hard time staying on top of his horse. I don’t know why; it wasn’t that hard.

  Creepy started getting really nervous around the horses, so the teacher called his Mom to come take him home.

  The Zombie horse trainer gave us instructions on how to ride the Zombie horse.

  He said, “Zombie horses are special. They do the opposite of a regular horse.”

  “When you want your horse to start moving, just say ‘Stop!’”

  “When you want your horse to stop, just say ‘Giddyup!’”

  “When you want your horse to move really fast, just say ‘Whoa!’”

  “And if you want your horse to jump, just say ‘Yeah!”

  He made us all repeat everything three times so that we wouldn’t forget.

  Skelee wasn’t paying attention because he was busy playing with his Zombie horse.

  Skelee’s Dad takes him to regular horseback riding all the time, so I think he thought he knew what he was doing.

  So when we all started moving, he fell behind because he didn’t know how to get his Zombie horse moving.

  I went back and told Skelee to say ‘Stop!’ to get his horse moving.

  “’Stop!’ That doesn’t make any sense!” Skelee said.

  So Skelee said ‘Stop!’ and his horse started moving.

  When we caught up with everyone, Skelee said “Whoa!” to get his horse to stop.

  All of a sudden, Skelee’s Zombie horse took off running really fast.

  He kept saying, ‘Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!’ And his Zombie horse kept running faster and faster.

  Skelee’s horse was about to reach a cliff, when the Instructor caught up to him and yelled, “Say Giddyup! To get him to stop!”

  So right when Skelee was about to reach the cliff, he yelled, “Giddyup!”

  The Zombie horse stopped dead in its tracks, right before it went over the cliff.

  We were all happy Skelee was OK.

  I could see Skelee from far away, and I gave him a thumbs up.

  He gave me a thumbs up back and yelled, “Yeah!!!”

  Thursday

  Skelee stayed home from school today to recover from going over that cliff.

  It’s a good thing Skeletons heal fast too.

  After school today, I decided to go visit my Mom and Dad at their job at the Nuclear Waste plant.

  I wanted to see all of the rabbits that Mom said lived around there.

  At the plant, Dad showed me all of the machines they use to collect Nuclear Waste.

  It was kind of boring, but it made my Dad happy.

  “Dad, what do they do with all of the Nuclear Waste?”


  “Oh, we pump it into the water supply that we drink everyday… That’s what gives us the nice shade of green in our skin,” he said.

  “Cool.”

  Later, Dad had to do some work, so I decided to go see if I could find some rabbits.

  I saw a cute brown one, but it ran away.

  I chased it into the bushes.

  While I was going through the bushes, I saw a house on the other side.

  It looked more like a shack than a house, but I could tell someone lived there.

  The little brown rabbit ran out of the bushes into the field next to the shack.

  I was going to go after it, but next thing I know, Mutant came out of the house!

  Oh, man that poor rabbit is dead, I thought. Mutant’s probably going to eat him in one bite.

  Next thing I know, Mutant sat next to the bunny rabbit and the rabbit jumped into his lap.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  Mutant was stroking the little rabbit with his finger.

  Then a bunch more rabbits came out and jumped on Mutant’s lap and on his head and his shoulders.

  I could not believe my eye sockets.

  Suddenly, a midget Zombie came out and started yelling at Mutant.

  “What are you doing, you big Ogre!” he yelled.

  “Are you playing with those rabbits again? How many times do I have to tell you that rabbits are for eating, not playing with?!!!”

  “You are the dumbest little brother anybody could ever have… I wish you were never even born!”

  I don’t know what came over me, but that last thing he said just made me so mad.

  I jumped out of the bushes and yelled, “Leave him alone!!!”

  “Stop saying those mean things to him. Can’t you see that you’re hurting his feelings?!!”

  The midget Zombie said, “You want to stand up for this big, dumb, loser? Why don’t you take him home with you! We don’t want him.”

  That was it. I picked up the little midget with my hands and I said to him, “My Mom and Dad work at the Nuclear Waste plant next door. If I come by here again, and I ever hear you say something mean to Mutant ever again, you’re going to be sorry!”

  Well, I think I scared that little midget Zombie real good because he turned as white as snow.

  As soon as I put him down, he went running into the house.

  Then Mutant stood up…

  Well, I thought he was going to step on me for sure.

  But then, a cute, white, fluffy rabbit came out of the bushes and jumped on Mutant’s shoulder.

  Oh man, it was the Killer Rabbit from before!

  But this time, the little rabbit was gently rubbing against Mutant’s face.

  Then he hopped over to me, and jumped on my head.

  Mutant looked at me…and smiled.

  We got home later, and I was still weirded-out from what happened today.

  All I know is that Old Man Jenkins was right when he said that bullies are just scared little kids that are being bullied themselves.

  Now, I don’t know if Mutant will stop bullying me.

  But, at least I know his midget older brother is going to think twice before he bullies Mutant again.

  It really does feel good to stand up to a bully, especially when they’re bullying the bully that bullies you.

  Friday

  Today I didn’t see Mutant in school.

  I was afraid that Mutant’s older brother did something to him.

  I saw Mike Magma, though. But he wasn’t acting as tough as he usually does when Mutant is around.

  Good thing too. We had an all school Mob Gym class today again.

  And for some reason the gym teacher thought that we should play another game of Dodge Ball.

  Like my Dad, the gym teacher thought it would toughen us up.

  I actually think the gym teacher found out that Mutant was not in school today, and that’s why he wanted to try Dodge ball again.

  We had to play dodgeball . . . again!

  Me, Skelee, Slimey and Creepy were picked last…again.

  So we made our own team again. We called ourselves “The Running Dead.”

  Kinda funny, since Zombies can’t run. We just hobble really fast.

  Mike Magma found the toughest, meanest, and ugliest kids he could find to be on his team.

  Somehow he found all of the bullies in school to join him.

  Again, the Dodge Ball game was really short, because Mike Magma’s team crushed every other team.

  And, because every kid had to play, we were the last team to play against Mike’s team.

  We didn’t stand a chance because we had to bench Creepy again.

  So it was just three of us against Mike and his goons.

  We won the coin toss, so we got a chance to throw the ball first.

  Skelee wanted the first throw to get Mike back for getting his head stuck in the ceiling.

  Skelee threw the ball as hard as he could at Mike.

  Since Mike was a Magma Cube he just bounced up into the air and the ball missed him.

  One of Mike’s goons picked up the ball really fast and threw it at Slimey.

  Unfortunately Slimey couldn’t jump as high as Mike, so Slimey burst into a bunch of Slimey bits when the ball hit him.

  I think Mike was mad because he wanted to be the one to smash Slimey into little bits.

  Now there were only two of us.

  But, Skelee was amazing!

  He did a leap into the air while throwing the ball at one of Mike’s goons.

  The goon didn’t even see it coming.

  It knocked his Zombie head right off.

  His body was just running around waving his hands in the air, not knowing which direction to go.

  They had to stop the game and get him and his head off the court.

  I could hear the crowd cheering.

  But then Mike hurled the ball with all of his might at me while they were getting Headless off the court.

  All of a sudden, Skelee jumped in front of the ball to protect me from getting smashed.

  The ball hit Skelee right in his ribs and cracked a few.

  Skelee had to sit out for the rest of the game because he was hurt and in too much pain.

  Now there was only little me against big Mike Magma and his two goons.

  I just imagined myself dreaming in the hospital again.

  Until…

  All of a sudden the gym doors burst open.

  In came Mutant, shaking the ground with his feet as he walked across the gym.

  Everyone in the gym went quiet. The gym teacher turned white, again.

  Mike got really happy and went over to Mutant to give him a high five.

  I knew I was going to die.

  But then, Mutant walked right by him, like he didn’t even see him.

  He walked over to my side of the court, and I thought he was going to step on me or something.

  Instead he turned to me and gave me his finger for a high five.

  Everybody in the gym was speechless.

  Then Mutant turned and faced Mike and his goons.

  The gym teacher blew the whistle, and we had the ball.

  Mike’s goons on the other side were frozen solid with fear, and turned as white as a sheet.

  So, I made my move and threw the ball at one of them.

  “You’re out!” The gym teacher yelled.

  Man, I got one! We could actually win this.

  Mike was really mad by now. He got the ball and he tried to throw it as hard as he could at me.

  But he couldn’t get a clean shot because I hid behind Mutant.

  He threw, and missed!

  Then we got the
ball.

  Mutant picked up the ball and looked at the other one of Mike’s goons.

  That guy got so freaked out by Mutant that he hobbled really fast out of the gym. In fact, he hobbled so fast that he dropped a few body parts along the way. I think I saw him drop his spine somewhere next to the bleachers.

  Classic!

  Then Mutant looked at Mike.

  Mike looked a little scared, but then he started yelling at Mutant.

  “What’s the matter you dumb, Ogre?!!!” he screamed.

  “Don’t you know how to throw a ball?!!!”

  “You’re just a BIG….DUMB…LOSER! And I wish you were never born!!!” Mike said.

  Then, all of a sudden something happened to Mutant.

  I could see him get really sad. And then I saw a tear come out of one of his eye sockets.

  He just stood there, frozen.

  I now figured out that Mutant had more than one bully in his life.

  Mike kept taunting Mutant with meaner words.

  Then, I just snapped…

  I took the ball from Mutant’s hands, closed my eyes and threw the ball with all my might at Mike Magma.

  Next thing I know, I hear the loudest roar come out of the gym.

  I opened my eyes and all I saw were tiny Mike Magma bits all over the gym floor.

  We won!

  All of the kids picked me up and start cheering my name.

  I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming in a hospital bed somewhere.

  I looked back, and Mutant was still standing there.