Cartoon Kid--Zombies!

by Jeremy Strong

  What’s more, she isn’t alone. She has brought with her –

  I don’t know how those teeth got there. They look like Great-Grannie’s falsies to me, so why has my sister got Gee-Gee’s teeth? It’s a MYSTERY waiting to be solved by the world’s greatest detective, Casper Jenkinson. (That’s me!) What is more, I know the answer, and I will tell you what it is. Those teeth are there because my sister is MISS GIGANTIC NINCOMPOOPLE-PERSON! (As you can see from my drawing of her.)

  Anyhow, big sis has turned my bedroom into a jumble sale. There’s hardly any space to breathe – and, if you do manage to breathe, you immediately DROWN in the DEADLY POISONOUS AROMA of Abbie’s smelly clothes and perfumes. I have to wear my swimming goggles and snorkel.

  When Pete came round to see me he was aghast.

  ‘You’re sharing your room with a GIRL!’ he said, as if I didn’t know.

  ‘Yes, I am, O Tall and Enormously Footed Person. I am in the Deepest Depths of Despair.’

  Pete pulled a face. ‘Can’t you get rid of her?

  ‘Dad says it will only be for three nights.’

  Pete was horrified. ‘Three nights! But that’s like a whole YEAR!’ And he threw himself on to Abbie’s folding bed.

  I just about managed to lever open the bed so that Pete could crawl out. He fell to the floor, gasping for breath.

  ‘Perhaps I should have warned you not to sit on the folding bed too hard,’ I told him.

  ‘Casper,’ he began, because that’s my name, ‘you have got a man-eating bed in your room. It should be in a zoo, with a big warning notice.’

  ‘Pete,’ I answered, because that’s his name, ‘that bed is going to stay right here. Do you know why? Because with a bit of luck it might eat Abbie.’

  We both thought that was so funny Pete went into hysterics and fell back down on the bed.

  Some people never learn.

  So there we are. I have to tell you it is very strange sleeping with a weird alien in your room. Abbie made bizarre noises all night long. I hardly got a wink of sleep. She kept mumbling to herself. I couldn’t hear most of what she said, but every so often she would shout out something like ‘HIPPOS!’ or ‘UMBRELLA!’. And once she suddenly sat up and yelled, ‘STOP THE TALKING CAKE!’

  By the time morning came I was so tired I could barely stand. I told Mum and Dad. I pleaded with them.

  ‘Abbie kept me awake all night. Can she PLEASE sleep somewhere else?’

  ‘There isn’t anywhere else for her to sleep, Casper,’ Dad explained. ‘I’m sorry. You’ll just have to put up with it. It’s only for two more nights.’

  ‘Can’t you paint the bedroom faster?’ I suggested.

  Dad grunted. ‘Casper, I am not a superhero. I have to go to work as well as get the decorating done. I’m painting as fast as I can.’

  Poor Dad. He did look a bit worn out, doing two jobs. It was all too depressing. I decided to go round to Pete’s house. (That made a change – he usually comes round to mine.)

  The moment his front door opened, Pete tried to whisk me upstairs to his room so we could talk in private. ‘Uncle Boring is here,’ he muttered.

  Uncle Boring isn’t just boring – he’s SO BORING he’s probably a zombie.

  Uncle Boring likes buses and ties and he says things like: ‘Oh, look, there’s a Vauxhall Cavalier, the 1981 model. I haven’t seen one of those since, hmmmm, 1981.’

  Which, as you can tell, is about as exciting as listening to a jellyfish playing the trumpet.

  So that is why we always try to AVOID him.

  We failed. Uncle Boring caught us just as we were tippety-toeing halfway up the stairs.

  ‘Hello, boys!’ he boomed. ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘We’re going to my room to do our homework,’ Pete answered.

  ‘Anything I can help with?’ asked Uncle Boring, stroking his tie. ‘I was top of my class when I was at school.’

  ‘It’s … um …’ stumbled Pete. He nudged me desperately. ‘Tell me what it is we have to do again, Casper?’

  ‘Oh, er, yes. We have to … erm … paint a … and then we need to … erm … yes, and it’s … er … paint … and hmmm – difficult, really.’

  ‘Yes, difficult,’ Pete repeated. ‘Definitely. Very.’

  Uncle Boring beamed at us. ‘I shall leave you to it, then. You can show me later.’ He disappeared back into the front room and we breathed a sigh of relief.

  Once we were safely shut inside Pete’s bedroom, he looked at me steadily. ‘Spill the beans.’

  I told him about the previous night.

  ‘Hippos and talking cake?’ he repeated. ‘Your sister needs a psychia-thingummy-bob.’

  ‘Psychiatrist?’ I suggested.

  ‘Definitely one of those,’ Pete nodded. ‘Maybe even three or four.’

  ‘I’ve got to get Abbie out of my room.’

  ‘Exactly. But she can’t leave until your dad finishes painting HER room.’

  ‘Big problemo,’ I murmured.

  ‘Big problemo,’ Pete echoed. ‘Unless – UNLESS – the painting gets done a lot more quickly!’

  ‘How? Mum’s baking cakes by the million, as usual, and Dad’s at work.’

  ‘We paint it,’ Pete said. ‘We paint the room ourselves. You and me.’

  We looked at each other. We could almost SEE each other’s brains whizzing round. That friend of mine is a genius – even if he does look like a twit.

  The more we thought about it, the more it made sense. The paint was there in the bedroom, waiting for us. All we had to do was get on with it. Not only that, it would help my dad and he would be utterly-chuckley PLEASED! So, if it took one person three days to paint the room, then surely it would take two people, er … um … er …

  ‘One day!’ Pete shouted. ‘I bet we can do it in one day! That’s all we need. If we go and start now, it’ll be done by this afternoon sometime.’

  ‘MUCHO FABULOSO!’ I cried, slapping Pete on the back. ‘Come on, let’s get on with it!’

  We dashed back to my house and whizzed upstairs. Abbie had gone off to spend the day with her best friend, Shashi. Mum was in the kitchen, up to her ears making cupcakes and flapjacks for a big party. (It’s her job – nice one! Yum yum!) Dad was working. Perfect.

  We nipped into Abbie’s room. Dad had cleared most of the furniture out. The paint tins and brushes were piled in one corner. Pete and I seized the two big brushes and got to work.

  It’s funny how sloppy paint can be. And another thing – after you’ve been painting for five minutes, your fingers and wrist start to ache because of all that brush-gripping you’ve been doing.

  ‘There’s got to be a faster method than this,’ said Pete.

  ‘I think Dad uses a roller, but I don’t know where he’s put it. Wait a moment. I’m getting an idea. Come with me.’

  I hurtled into my room and dived into the wardrobe. Somewhere I had – AHA! FOUND THEM!

  ‘Will it work?’ Pete asked.

  ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Er … because I’m just not sure about it.’

  ‘Don’t be such a wuss.’

  ‘I’m not a wuss.’

  ‘In that case let’s go and load up!’ I cried.

  I can tell you, I reckoned I was pretty stunningly clever to come up with that idea. In fact, it just about made me a GENIUS! So now we were both geniuses. Marvelloso!

  We went back to Abbie’s room and carefully filled up. ‘You take that wall and I’ll do this one. Ready?’

  ‘Ready!’

  ‘In that case, LET’S PAINT THIS ROOM! YAY!’

  We kept going until we’d covered every little bit of the room. Guess how long it took us? Ten minutes. TEN MINUTES to paint an entire bedroom! Was that a world record, or what? I will tell you. It was the most superest-duperest world record in the history of world records.

  Pete and I stepped back into the middle of the room and looked at our handiwork. Paint was slurping down every wall and slowly
trickling on to the floor, piling up round the edges of the room.

  We heard loud footsteps on the stairs and looked at each other desperately. Where can you hide in a completely empty room? Nowhere. So we hid there.

  The door swung open and Mum walked in.

  Do you know what someone looks like when they have gone into deep DEEP SHOCK? They look like this.

  Mum stared at Pete, her eyes like frozen peas. (I don’t mean they were green – just that she was giving him an ICY look.)

  ‘OK, I’m going,’ Pete said quickly, and he slid out of the room, raced downstairs (leaving wet paint prints all the way down) and left.

  Mum turned to me. ‘Go to your room. Stay there. Don’t say a word and don’t come out.’

  Uh-oh. Trouble.

  When Dad came home, Mum sent him upstairs to inspect the damage. Well, actually all he had to do was follow the trail of paint prints Pete had left behind. Some of them were still wet. I waited for the KER-BOOM of anger. I waited and waited, getting more and more nervous. Finally, the bedroom door opened and Dad poked his head round the corner.

  His voice was deadly quiet, but his eyes were burning like nuclear explosions. ‘I would just like to say that when you grow up, I hope you have LOTS and LOTS of children who are just like YOU!’ He pulled the door shut and left.

  Silence.

  Huh! What was that supposed to mean? I was in the dark, and I don’t mean the light had gone out. I mean I didn’t understand my dad. I guess that’s because he’s an adult.

  Anyhow, what Pete and I did to Abbie’s room made the painting take even longer – and I ended up having to share my bedroom with big sis for almost a whole week and things became mega strange and peculiar.

  ‘You can take that as your punishment for interfering,’ said Dad. Which was pretty unfair, if you ask me. I was only trying to help. So I had all those extra nights with Abbie muttering in her sleep and saying stuff like ‘PUT A SOCK IN IT!’ and ‘THE LEMON MERINGUE LIED!’ And then, on the third night, she actually got up and started wandering about, but she was STILL ASLEEP! Big sis was sleepwalking!

  I went and woke Mum and Dad. They weren’t very pleased, I can tell you, but they got up and we followed Abbie all the way downstairs. She went into the kitchen, opened the fridge, took out a bottle of milk, poured half of it on the floor, put the milk back, shut the fridge, went back to bed, lay down and began to snore.

  Is my sister strange, or what? She is more than strange. She is a ZOMBIE! In fact, she is The Zombie That Snores!

  The next day Mum and Dad took Abbie to the health centre and Doctor Chandra said there was nothing wrong with her. What! Nothing wrong with Abbie? Huh! I could have told Doctor Chandra at least a hundred things that were wrong with her, like, for example, her nose. That’s all wrong for starters. Then there’re her piggy eyes, and her elbows that keep sticking everywhere, and her brain – what there is of it – they’re all TOTALLY wrong. Plus, she’s got toes that look like cocktail sausages and a stupid, stupid voice that goes ‘weeny weeny weeny’ until you want to strangle her.

  ‘She’s just a normal girl,’ said Doctor Chandra. ‘Teenagers, especially girls, sometimes sleepwalk. She’ll grow out of it. In the meantime, keep an eye on her. It’s important not to wake her up. Gently lead her to bed and she’ll go back to sleep.’

  ‘But what causes it?’ asked Dad.

  ‘Oh, just being a teenager,’ smiled the doctor. ‘And, of course, stress doesn’t help.’

  When she got home, Abbie looked at me and a smile crept across her face like a snake – a poisonous one.

  I was never so stressed in my life as when I heard that! Abbie kept laughing to herself for the rest of the day. I bet she’s planning something.

  So the next night comes and what does Abbie do? She goes sleepwalking again and Mum and Dad and I follow her. First she goes across to Mum and Dad’s bedroom and sits in front of the mirror. Then she gets up and comes across to me and takes me by the hand. I try to pull away, but Dad says not to.

  ‘We mustn’t wake her,’ he whispered. ‘Go with her!’

  Abbie pulls me across to the mirror and sits me down in front of it. Her eyes are staring into space and I’m thinking, I am in the hands of a zombie! Hellppp!

  Then Abbie starts picking things up. She gets Mum’s makeup. She’s got the mascara and she’s trying to put it on my lips. She must think it’s lipstick. Now she’s painting my lips with mascara. She takes the lipstick and draws round my eyes. She colours my eyebrows with blue eyeliner. I want to get away, but Mum and Dad keep whispering at me.

  ‘Keep still. You mustn’t wake her. Stop wriggling. It’s OK, you look fine.’

  I LOOK FINE?! I’VE GOT BLACK LIPS, BLUE EYEBROWS AND RED LIPSTICK EYELINER!!! YOU CALL THAT FINE?!

  It’s definitely time to be a superhero and go

  Sadly, it wasn’t quite like that. As soon as Abbie finished painting my face, she sleepwalked to her camera and took a photograph of me! Huh! Finally, she stomped back to my bedroom, settled in bed and went off to sleep, snoring louder than ever. She had a big grin on her face too, which was VERY FISHY, if you ask me. Hmmmm. Detective Inspector Casper was highly suspicious.

  First thing next morning, Abbie took her camera to her computer and called me over.

  ‘Hey, Casper, you should see this. Look.’

  I went across and there it was – a great big photo of me wearing all that stupid make-up and pulling a disgusted face. Abbie was in hysterics.

  ‘It’s you!’ she kept shouting. ‘The mad baboon! It’s you! I’m going to put you on Facebook!’

  Oh yeah, ha very ha ha, I don’t think.

  But Abbie thought it was SO funny, she completely forgot herself and, guess what, she threw herself down on the folding bed!

  Did I laugh then? Yes I did, but not until I had grabbed her camera and snapped Completely Useless Girl being snapped up by the bed. FABULOSO! Then I HOWLED like a hyena! Hurr hurr hurr! I love a happy ending!

  Ask Jeremy

  Of all the books you have written, which one is your favourite?

  I loved writing both KRAZY KOW SAVES THE WORLD – WELL, ALMOST and STUFF, my first book for teenagers. Both these made me laugh out loud while I was writing and I was pleased with the overall result in each case. I also love writing the stories about Nicholas and his daft family – MY DAD, MY MUM, MY BROTHER and so on.

  If you couldn’t be a writer what would you be?

  Well, I’d be pretty fed up for a start, because writing was the one thing I knew I wanted to do from the age of nine onward. But if I DID have to do something else, I would love to be either an accomplished pianist or an artist of some sort. Music and art have played a big part in my whole life and I would love to be involved in them in some way.

  What’s the best thing about writing stories?

  Oh dear – so many things to say here! Getting paid for making things up is pretty high on the list! It’s also something you do on your own, inside your own head – nobody can interfere with that. The only boss you have is yourself. And you are creating something that nobody else has made before you. I also love making my readers laugh and want to read more and more.

  Did you ever have a nightmare teacher? (And who was your best ever?)

  My nightmare at primary school was Mrs Chappell, long since dead. I knew her secret – she was not actually human. She was a Tyrannosaurus rex in disguise. She taught me for two years when I was in Y5 and Y6, and we didn't like each other at all. My best ever was when I was in Y3 and Y4. Her name was Miss Cox, and she was the one who first encouraged me to write stories. She was brilliant. Sadly, she is long dead too.

  When you were a kid you used to play kiss-chase. Did you always do the chasing or did anyone ever chase you?!

  I usually did the chasing, but when I got chased, I didn’t bother to run very fast! Maybe I shouldn’t admit to that! We didn’t play kiss-chase at school – it was usually played during holidays. If we had tried playing it at s
chool we would have been in serious trouble. Mind you, I seemed to spend most of my time in trouble of one sort or another, so maybe it wouldn’t have mattered that much.

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  First published 2013

  Text copyright © Jeremy Strong, 2013

  Illustrations copyright © Steve May, 2013

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

  ISBN: 978-0-14-134418-8

  Why should your eyes have all the fun?