Never Slow Dance with a Zombie

by E. Van Lowe

  "Open it," a voice called from behind.

  "Whaaa!" I nearly jumped out of my skin. I wheeled around to find a smiling Baron Chomsky standing behind me.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "I'm trying to figure out who left that mysterious note on your locker," he answered with a sly grin.

  "We both know who left the note, Baron. You did."

  I'm not saying it wasn't me, but I'm not saying it was me, either."

  His cryptic statement was accompanied by an equally cryptic smile. My mind began to reel. Maybe Amanda was lying about Dirk being her boyfriend. Maybe Dirk does want to go out with me. And maybe this is his way of inviting me to the carnival

  I yanked the note from my locker and read it.

  Join, me at the carnival tonight.

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  There was nothing else. I turned it over and over looking for a signature or some clue as to who it might be from. Could it be true? Did Dirk actually want me to join him at the carnival? My spirits soared.

  "Well," Baron said after a few moments. "There's going to be a full moon tonight. Perfect for smooching."

  My spirits crashed and burned.

  "So it was you," I said, releasing the last shred of hope that the note had come from Dirk.

  "Of course it was me. Who loves ya, baby?"

  "Go away!" The words crept from my lips. I was too upset to scream. I honestly didn't know what I was feeling: anger, pain, embarrassment. My emotions were knotted up inside me.

  "But..." Baron started to protest, but when he looked in my eyes he stopped cold. "Okay. Maybe we'll do something another time," he said softly. Then he walked away. I was surprised to see him go. It wasn't Baron's style to give up so easily.

  It took several moments to realize what he'd seen in my eyes--what had sent him away were tears. I was crying. I didn't know how long I was seated in the stairwell with my head in my hands when I heard him behind me. I knew he'd come back.

  "Look, Baron, I'm..." I turned to discover not Baron but Sybil standing behind me. Sybil, sweet Sybil, my best friend, Sybil. She was a sight for sore eyes ... and trust me, my eyes were pretty sore from all the crying.

  "Hi," she said softly.

  "Hi yourself."

  She was listening to her iPod, her head bopping to the beat as she pretended not to notice the tears on my cheeks.

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  "What are you still doing here?" My voice was a scant whisper.

  "I knew you needed something to get you out of your funk. So..." She removed her earbuds and placed them in my ears. "I remembered what always cheers us up no matter what. Tom Jones music."

  The opening strains of "It's Not Unusual" filled my ears.

  Sybil was right. Whenever we were in the dumps we'd put on one of her grandmother's corny Tom Jones tunes. They always seemed to do the trick. This was our favorite, but today even Tom Jones couldn't ease me out of my funk. I snatched the earbuds from my ears.

  "Sorry, Syb. I can't do this right now." I handed her back the buds and told her what had happened. She sat down and gave me a long, comforting hug. "I can't believe we're so out of the loop we had no idea Amanda and Dirk were dating," I said. "We're pathetic. And why would Dirk say maybe if he was already dating Amanda, anyway?"

  "You know how boys are. He probably didn't want to say no to my face."

  "Why not? He wasn't saying it to my face. That was the whole point of you asking him."

  She changed the subject. "I can't believe Amanda is still holding on to the summer camp thing."

  I swallowed hard.

  The summer camp thing happened between seventh and eighth grade. This was before Sybil's family had moved to town. Back then, Amanda, Jen and Brandi Paxton (twins), and I were all friends. We did everything together: studied, had sleepovers, went to each other's parties.

  During the summer after the seventh grade, while we were all away at summer camp, I came down with the chicken pox.

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  When I was diagnosed, the counselors immediately sent me home so that I wouldn't give it to any of the other girls. At home, I spent an entire, miserable summer in the house, away from my three friends.

  I healed over the summer, and by the time school started in the fall, I was no longer under quarantine. That's when the real misery began. Something had changed between me and my friends over the summer, something I knew nothing about. I couldn't wait to see them, but on the first day of school Amanda and the girls gave me the silent treatment. At first I thought it was a joke.

  "Come on, guys. Enough!" I said during lunch. Not one of them looked at me or responded. They just moved away.

  For days after, I racked my brain tiying to figure out what I could have done to deserve this. I tried calling each of them to find out, but they wouldn't take my calls. I told myself not to panic: This kind of snubbing happens in middle school all the time. 1 figured I'd wait it out. I knew that eventually the snubbed friends usually made up with each other and things got back to normal. But by Halloween I realized that wasn't going to happen with us.

  I lay in bed at night in tears over the loss of my best friends.

  What could I have done that was so wrong?

  By the end of eighth grade, Jen and Brandi had moved away. It was the perfect time to ask Amanda what I had done to deserve the snub. But by then she had the Twigettes, and I had joined the ranks of those who were derided or laughed at.

  It had happened a long time ago, but the thought of it in that moment stung as if it was happening right then. I buried the pain back deep inside, where it had lived for so long.

  "Forget about Amanda, and Baron ... and Dirk," said Sybil. "We always have a good time together. We don't need them.

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  All we need is you, me, and Tom Jones. Hey, maybe we'll even meet boyfriends at the carnival. That'll show them."

  I stiffened. "What are you talking about?"

  "Us going to the carnival, of course."

  "Let me see if I'm getting this right. Since I can't go to the carnival with the most gorgeous boy at school, it sounds like you're suggesting that you and I should be dateless freaks and go to the carnival alone"

  "Well..."

  "How does that solve anything?"

  ''It's better than going with Baron Chomsky," she charged.

  "No, it isn't. It's the same thing!"

  She winced when I compared her to Baron.

  "Well, you were going to the carnival with me and Dirk. It's just one less person."

  "No. I was going to the carnival with Dirk alone. Me and Dirk. No you."

  "Oh."

  There was something not right with that oh. It had an odd, distant quality to it. "What, Sybil?"

  "Nothing."

  I tried looking her in the eye, but she wouldn't let me. "You did ask Dirk to go to the carnival with me, right?"

  "Well..."

  "Sybil!"

  Words tumbled out of her. "I was going to, but the truth is I want to go out with Dirk as badly as you do, and since I was the one doing the asking, I didn't think it would hurt to ask him to go with both of us."

  My temperature began to rise. "Your Dirk Conrad was supposed to be a benchmark!"

  "I know. But I really like the benchmark."

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  'Then why was I the one who was supposed to talk to him on the phone last night if we're both going to the carnival with him?"

  "You know how shy I am around boys." She was babbling away, not making any sense. Then all of a sudden the pieces began falling into place.

  "Wait a minute! No wonder you had Dirk's daily schedule. You've been scouting Dirk for yourself all along, haven't you?"

  Her eyes dipped to the floor. "Well... I figured it would be easier for him to accept our offer if it wasn't an official date. And everyone would see him with you and me, and nobody would be able to tell whose boyfriend he was. Of course he wouldn't be anyone's boyfriend, but nobody would know

  that It would be a win-win. We could
both claim him. And who knows, maybe by the end of the night he'd choose one of us " More words spouted from her like a leaky faucet. I

  stared at her in disbelief. Sybil really was from another planet. No Earth person in their right mind would think her plan made any sense.

  "Going to the carnival with you and Dirk wouldn't be fun, Syb. It would be embarrassing."

  Sybil's head snapped back as if she'd been punched in the jaw. I could see the pain on her face and should have stopped there, but part of me was glad she was feeling pain, especially after what she'd done. I went in for the kill. "What kind of idiot can't see that Dirk showing up at the carnival with both of us is the ultimate embarrassment? That's a pity date!"

  "Did you just call me an idiot?" she said. "At least I'm not spazzing out over somebody else's boyfriend. That's idiotic!"

  "Oh, really? No wonder he went running into Amanda Culpepper's arms. He was probably trying to get away from the stalker--you!"

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  We sat in the stairwell tossing words at each other like hand grenades.

  Then finally she said, "Forget you, Margot If you don't want to cheer yourself up and have some fun, I'll just go to the carnival without you."

  "Go ahead. I'm sure you and Tom Jones will have a ball on your pity date"

  "We will!" she said.

  "Good!" I said.

  "Later, hater." She snapped her earbuds back into place and stormed off.

  I watched her go. I'm sure if I had called out she would have come back, but I didn't. I couldn't. I again looked at the invitation Baron had left on my locker. I read aloud: "Join me at the carnival tonight." I ripped it to shreds.

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  Chapter Seven

  My walk to school alone the next morning was rather peaceful A freak thunderstorm had hit the city the previous night, complete with sheets of pelting rain that left the morning air crisp and fragrant.

  I arrived at school and went right to my locker. There was no Sybil standing there smiling at me like a maniac. How one person could be so cheerful in the morning had always annoyed me. Mornings were miserable--didn't she know that? I smiled. Life without Sybil was turning out to be quite excellent.

  "Margot!" Sybil's voice rang out. It hit me like nails on a chalkboard.

  I turned. Sybil was standing near the stairwell surrounded by a group of grungy-looking girls. Wait a minute. Aren't those Amanda's Twigettes? Why are their clothes all gunked up? And what could they possibly be doing with Sybil?

  "Margot!" she called again.

  Then it dawned on me. She'd hooked up with the it-girls at the carnival last night. She's blond and skinny. She'd been accepted into the Twigette sorority and was rubbing it in.

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  "I don't have time for you, Sybil Mulcahy," I called back. "And I can't imagine why anyone would." I added this last part for the benefit of the Twigettes. They needed to know their new friend wasn't even popular with me.

  Hearing my voice, the girls surrounding Sybil stopped what they were doing and slowly turned toward me.

  Oh, my goodness. Who did their makeup this morning?

  The girls' skin was all green and crumbly, as if they'd gotten makeup tips from the Ministers. Wait a minute. Is that some hip, new fashion thing I don't know about? Amanda and her crew were always on top of the latest makeup and fashion tips. I was suddenly envious of their hideous green complexions.

  The moment the girls turned away from Sybil she shoved past them and raced over to me. "Zombies!" she squawked. "Come." Before I could respond she grabbed my hand, yanking me down the hall and into the first-floor girls' bathroom.

  "What is the matter with you?" I demanded as she slammed the bathroom door and leaned against it.

  "Z-zombies," she stammered again. A low, rhythmic moaning began on the other side of the door.

  "Zazombie? Is that what you call that green makeup your new friends are wearing? I think it looks ridiculous. Um... where did they get it?"

  Outside the moaning grew louder, as bodies began slamming into the door.

  "No!" Sybil grabbed my shoulders. "Listen to me ..."

  Sybil launched into an incredible tale: "I went to the carnival last night. Most of the kids from our school were there." Her voice dropped an octave. "I was alone and not having any fun, watching everyone enjoying themselves. So, I decided to leave and got home just before the storm hit. I'm sorry we fought, Margot. I miss you," she said.

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  I still wasn't ready to forgive her. "Get back to your story."

  She took a deep breath. "This morning I came to school early because I didn't want to run into you walking, and when I got here everyone was a zombie."

  "That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. There's no such thing as zombies. You've been watching too many horror flicks."

  Just then, the doorknob to the bathroom turned.

  "Ahhh!" Sybil screamed as she skittered away from the door, retreating to the far wall across the room. As she cowered in the corner, the door began to open.

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  Chapter Eight

  Slowly they entered. There were three of them, their movements stiff and plodding. I looked into each of their eyes and saw emptiness. Still, I couldn't believe the Twigettes had become zombies. There had to be a logical explanation for why they were acting so strange. They started toward me.

  "Hello, ladies. I see we're into the grunge look today." I was going for the cheery approach.

  They must have still been in the clothes they'd worn to the carnival the previous night. Their outfits were casual-chic, but ripped in spots and smeared with dirt.

  "Mmmmmrrimm," the girls were moaning. It was a low-pitched, eerie sound filled with despair, which started deep in their chests and rumbled up their throats.

  I took a step back.

  "I guess you guys will want to fix your makeup now. I'll just get out of your way. And I must say you really could use a touch-up this morning--no offense."

  "Mmmmmmmm," they moaned. I stepped farther into the

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  room, away from the sinks and mirrors. They ignored the sinks and mirrors and continued toward me.

  "Okay, no touch-up. That's cool. Actually, I kinda like the green and crumbly thing. Retro." I was nearing the wall, practically on top of Sybil. The zombies closed in on us.

  "Stay back," Sybil called. "If they bite you, you'll join them among the living dead."

  "Nobody wants to bite anybody. Besides, either you're dead or alive, you can't be living and dead." I looked over at the girls again. Their mouths had parted, and hungry spittle drizzled from their teeth. "Urn... okay, scratch what I just said about biting."

  Just then the bathroom door opened again, and Amanda Culpepper entered. At least it looked like Amanda Culpepper. But this Amanda was wearing a rumpled yellow sundress, and she was green like the others.

  "Oh my," I whispered, panic rising inside me. "Amanda Culpepper is ... a zombie."

  "Now you believe me?" Sybil stammered.

  "Yes," I said, as the magnitude of the situation became clear. "There's really no other explanation. The Amanda Culpepper I know would never use the first-floor girls' bathroom."

  For a girl, using the bathrooms at Salesian could be a tricky proposition if she didn't know the rules. The third-floor girls' bathroom by the science labs was for the coolest of cool girls. If you weren't cool, you'd better have a deadly stomach virus to enter. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the first-floor girls' bathroom by the entrance was for freshmen, freaks, and geeks. Any upperclassman entering the freaks' domain--even if she were near death--would be committing social suicide. Amanda would never, ever come in here.

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  While the other girls moaned, the Amanda thing snarled loudly as she started toward us.

  My back was now against the wall, as was Sybil's. "They're going to bite us; they're going to bite us!" Sybil was losing it.

  "Growwwl!" the Amanda thing said loudly. She pushed her way to the f
ront of the pack.

  "Oh, my goodness! She's the leader. She wants us for herself," Sybil called, screwing her back into the wall, covering her face with her arms.

  The Amanda thing began snarling orders to the others. Slowly they turned and shuffled from the room. Then she stepped toward us.

  "Don't you come any closer, Amanda." I struck a fake karate pose.

  I don't know anything about karate. I'd seen the stance in a movie somewhere.

  "Hi-yaaaa!" I screamed as I whipped my hands through the air, hoping Amanda might have second thoughts about attacking a ninja.

  I looked into the Amanda thing's eyes, and through her snarling, I could swear she was laughing at me. She slogged to a halt, flipped her nose into the air, then turned and began shuffling after the others. Stopping at the door, she threw one last haughty snarl into the air and exited. Sybil and I were alone.

  "That was close," she said with a sigh. "You saved us."

  "No, I didn't. She wasn't afraid of me."

  "Of course she was."

  I shook my head. "I'm not good enough," I said softly. Sybil stared at me. "Don't you see? She didn't want us for herself. She barely acknowledged us. She only came in here to make

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  sure her friends didn't bite me. And you want to know why? Because I'm. not good enough!" I was suddenly livid.

  "B-but they're zombies."

  "I know. It's the ultimate insult. Not good enough to become a zombie."

  Sybil's eyes widened. "Are you saying you want to become a zombie?"

  "Of course not. But I am sick and tired of being snubbed."

  She shook her head briefly before saying, "Whatever you say, Margot But now we have to get out of here."