Night of the Zombie Chickens

by Julie Mata

  Sometimes I even wish she would get out our goofy-looking ostrich. We named him Ollie. Ollie has a superlong neck covered with penciled lines from measuring Derek and me ever since we were toddlers. My mother always exclaimed at how much I’d grown, even if it was only a sliver. She hasn’t pulled out Ollie once since we moved to the farmhouse.

  Of course, the reason is that I’m way too old for that. I’m a seventh grader—why would I want to be measured like a little girl? I’ll be in high school in two years. I’m practically an adult. Sometimes I wish I could be a clueless fourth grader again. Those were the good old days.

  I stare at my reflection in the mirror. My dad is right, I look terrible. I look like a sixth grader. And if there’s a problem in my parents’ marriage, I probably just made it worse.

  “Good going,” I whisper to myself. “Now she really hates you. She’ll probably adopt a hen to be her new daughter.”

  My reflection nods in agreement.

  As soon as he sees me the next morning, Blake Nash bawls, “Crap alert! Crap alert!” and everybody starts laughing.

  “Hey, Braceface, what’s on the bottom of your shoe?” Paul Corbett calls.

  “You, if you don’t shut up,” I mutter.

  “Look at me!” Blake shouts. “I’m a famous movie director! I’m making a movie about chickens!”

  Paul runs around, squawking and flapping his arms. Blake chases after him, acting like he’s shooting with a camera. Then he stares down at his shoes and pretends to gag. “I’m full of crap!”

  “No, your movie is crap,” Paul jokes.

  I stalk past them toward my locker, but I can feel my face burning. I can’t believe they’re laughing at my movie. Three days ago I thought people would be begging to be in it. Now it’s joke material.

  None of this would have happened if I hadn’t invited Lydia to be a zombie. And that, of course, was Alyssa’s idea.

  Lydia sails by, surrounded by her wannabes. Alyssa’s in the thick of them. She gives me the cold shoulder, then leans in close to Lydia, whispering. Lydia glances my way and grins. I cringe inside. I wish I could ask Alyssa what’s happened to her. Instead, I pretend like I haven’t noticed either of them.

  “Crapkate! How’s it going?” Lydia calls over carelessly, like Crapkate has been my nickname forever and there’s nothing wrong with it—like it’s Spike or Mags or La-La, which are all fun nicknames of people I know. This bothers me most of all, this pretending like it’s totally okay to call me that—like I should just accept such a lame name.

  “That’s not my nickname,” I say in a loud voice, but they’ve already moved on. A few sixth graders stare at me. There’s nothing like having people watch you talk to thin air to make you feel stupid. I slam my locker shut and stalk to my first class.

  All day long, people joke about crap and I tell them to shut up. Then they act like I’m a sour head who can’t take a little fun. And maybe I am, but the more I hear it, the more it grates on my nerves. Crap might be funny, but not when your name is attached to it. Secretly I’m hoping Alyssa might still apologize, but she’s always busy in the center of a throng of girls. Okay, maybe making fun of her hair and calling her Duh-lyssa were out of line. Still, I’m not the one who should be apologizing. Not first, anyway.

  Apparently Alyssa has decided I don’t exist anymore. At lunch, the seats around her are full again, even though I hurry as fast as I can to the lunchroom.

  That’s when it really, finally hits me. I’ve been cast out. I do belong with Margaret and Doris now. I’ve become Crapkate Walden, purveyor of chicken poop, daughter of a deranged female farmer in the throes of a midlife crisis, sister of the village idiot, friend to no one.

  My shoulders sag in defeat as I sit next to Margaret and Doris. Margaret gives me a big smile, which makes me feel even worse. I’ve spent a lot of years avoiding Margaret. Surely she picked up on that. Yet now, when she could snub me as payback, Margaret has offered me a seat at the lunch table. I’m such a mess of mixed-up feelings that I half wish Margaret would ignore me. I’m pretty sure I deserve it.

  “Did you hear about the Annie auditions, Kate?” Margaret asks me. “They’re in a couple of weeks. Are you trying out?”

  I shake my head. “What about you?”

  “I don’t know. I might.” Margaret wipes the lid of her soda can before opening it. She takes a bite of her sandwich, then dabs her fingers with her napkin. Margaret, it turns out, is a neat freak.

  “How about you, Doris?” I ask. “Are you going to try out?”

  Doris has a milk mustache. I offer her a napkin, but she just looks blankly at it and crumples it up. With all her supercharged brain cells, you’d think Doris would get the concept of personal grooming. Maybe all geniuses are slobs. Out of the blue, she starts to croak: “Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love you, tomorrow....”

  All the tables around us turn and stare. I catch Alyssa and Lydia exchanging a look like, Can you believe she just did that?

  “Doris!” I hiss. “What are you doing?”

  She shrugs. “Just demonstrating why I’m not trying out. I’m completely tone-deaf.”

  “You could have just told me,” I mutter.

  “Anyway,” she says, “I don’t look like Annie.”

  Margaret shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. Mr. Cantrell ordered a wig from New York, and it just arrived this morning. You should see it, Kate. It’s so cute. He’s got it in the music classroom. Whoever plays Annie gets to wear the wig.”

  The entire female seventh- and eighth-grade population is already buzzing about the red wig. I must hear the word cute at least fifty times after lunch. In fact, it quickly gets dubbed the Cute Red Wig. I take a detour on my way to Business Ed and walk past the music classroom, hoping to catch a glimpse of it. There it is, a curly red mop sitting on a black plastic head. It is, I have to admit, very cute. Even I feel a moment of weakness at the thought of standing onstage in the Cute Red Wig, belting out “Tomorrow” to an adoring crowd. If I got the part, it would definitely improve my dismal social standing. The whole singing requirement seems like such an inconvenient detail.

  The sign-up sheet is already filling up. I notice Lydia’s name in her big, flowing script, and Alyssa’s name just below it, followed by her signature happy face. Staring at her little squiggle, so cheerful and sickening, reminds me that I’ve not only lost my best friend, I’ve lost the star of my movie. I couldn’t come up with an ending when Alyssa and I were buddies. How will I ever write the perfect ending now?

  What’s even worse, I’m not sure I care. A part of me feels like calling it quits and selling my camera. No other kid I know dreams about being a Hollywood director, which just goes to show the whole idea must be pretty lame. Lamekate could be my new nickname, right up there with Crapkate.

  I always thought heartache was just a mushy word, but my heart really does hurt as I stare at Alyssa’s name. I feel like I’ve fallen into a deep, dark pit. My chest burns and my throat feels tight as I grab the pen and cross out her happy face until it’s a black gob of ink. I’m tempted to gouge out her name, but it doesn’t feel like nearly enough. Alyssa turned her back on me and abandoned me to turn into a social zombie. I want her to know what it’s like to roam the hallways like one of the living dead. I want her to know what heartache feels like.

  I need a plan.

  The thought makes me feel a tiny bit better. The pit feels a little less deep, a little less dark. I suddenly have a goal. I will teach Alyssa a lesson.

  The rest of the day passes by in a blur. Suddenly I’m fair game for Blake Nash and Paul Corbett. They act like I smell like chicken poop and they make fun of my movie. Lizzy and Mimi shoot guilty looks at me, but no one says a word. It’s like I’ve become invisible. If I walk directly up to them, they say hi and act nice, but they quickly find a reason to leave, or they talk to each other like they’ve forgotten I’m t
here. No one stands up for me. I wonder if this is how Margaret feels all the time.

  I always thought that Margaret was a pushover, letting the boys make fun of her. Now I see it’s not so simple. I’ve been excluded. I’m alone, and that makes me an easy target, just like Margaret. I guess that’s why girls always go everywhere in a pack. There’s strength in numbers.

  It reminds me of Henrietta, one of my mother’s hens. She’s at the very bottom of the social pecking order, kind of like me. You can spot Henrietta right away. She always looks nervous and ready to bolt. When she sidles up to the feeders, the other hens chase her away until they’re finished eating. In the yard, she’s usually off by herself, pecking at bugs and looking forlorn. She has bald spots on her back where the other hens have gone after her.

  It seems like hens and humans have a lot in common, except on humans the scars don’t show. I always used to wonder if Henrietta felt sad. Was she lonely?

  “Can’t we do something for her?” I asked my mother once. “How can we get the other hens to leave her alone?”

  My mother shook her head. “I know it seems mean, but that’s the chicken world. It’s how they’re wired. Anything we do would probably just make things worse for her.”

  The truth is, there’s only one way Henrietta can improve her lot in life. She has to prove she’s tougher than at least one of the other hens. If she can out-scratch and out-peck someone in the flock, she won’t be at the bottom of the heap anymore. Poor Henrietta can’t do it, though; she’s just too timid and scatterbrained.

  Well, I’m not Henrietta. I have to fight back. It feels like I have a huge bald spot on my back where Alyssa dug in her claws. In my classes, I daydream about how I can rip her from Lydia’s side. It seems I’ve turned into a mental zombie, too, because I can’t think of a single good idea.

  In the meantime, I sit with Margaret and Doris again at lunch, and I finally learn what social outcasts talk about among themselves—other kids in class, homework, teachers, movies, music. Pretty much all the same stuff that popular kids talk about. And I learn a few things about them. Doris has two fish. Margaret has a cat named Tabitha. Also, Margaret is an avid reader of teen romances. This is more shocking than learning she listens to Eminem. ­Margaret dreams about romance? It’s like trying to imagine my parents being romantic—I have to quickly shove the thought out of my mind.

  The truth is, it’s hard to focus on what Margaret and Doris are saying. I smile and nod, but it’s like I hear them through water. Out of the corner of my eye I’m always watching Alyssa, listening for her voice, wondering what she’s thinking. Wondering why she’s acting this way. With every day that passes, our friendship fades a little further into the murky gloom called Ancient History.

  A thought nags at me as I pretend not to watch her. Maybe she has secretly wanted to be Lydia’s friend ever since Lydia showed up in fifth grade. Maybe Alyssa was only hanging out with me until she got Lydia’s attention. I stare at the back of her head in the lunchroom. She must feel my eyes burning into her because she suddenly glances around. Good. Let her be nervous. Very nervous. There’s a zombie out to get her, and it’s hungry for blood.

  Ithink about it during dinner as I play with my food. I think about it when I’m supposed to be doing my homework. It keeps me awake at night. I need a plan. Finally, I decide the only way to solve the problem is to hold an epic brainstorming session.

  In the past, Alyssa and I always brainstormed together, preferably at her house because she had better supplies. Her mother always kept plenty of Fritos, Doritos, and Cheetos on hand, and lots of soda. At my house, we had to eat Garden Veggie Straws and drink seltzer. My mother always says we are what we eat and she doesn’t want an artificially flavored daughter.

  At Alyssa’s, we’d stay up late and hole up in her room. After we fed our creative brain cells, we’d start calling out ideas. One of us would write them all down, no matter how stupid. Usually, we ended up laughing hysterically, hopped up on sugar and junk food. We always came up with a lot of dumb ideas, but usually there were good ones, too.

  Still, I’m sure I can brainstorm just fine on my own. I sneak downstairs and check the fridge. There’s organic milk, orange juice, and two cans of O’Leary’s Natural Pomegranate soda. I sigh and scoop up the cans. In the back of the refrigerator, I find a half-empty can of Easy Cheese that Alyssa smuggled in on her last sleepover. I grab that, along with a jar of whole pickles. I scrounge around until I find the other two must-haves—a big pad of blank white paper and colored markers that squeak when I write with them. I like the squeaking. Whatever I’m writing immediately sounds more creative.

  It’s getting late by this time, but that’s okay. Another rule is that brainstorming must take place late at night. My parents are already in bed and the house is spookily quiet. It’s perfect. I arrange all the supplies around me on my bed. Then I fish a pickle out of the jar, spray Easy Cheese on it, and take a big bite. I’m convinced that pickles unleash the imagination. There’s something about crunching down on that cold, green, vinegary, cheesy deliciousness that makes the mouth and the brain salivate. I polish off my first pickle and down a soda. So far, so good. It’s not quite the same without someone to laugh with, though. Laughter definitely helps crack open the creative sinus passages.

  I once read about how, in India, they have laugh clubs, where people get together just to laugh. They take it really seriously and even do laughing exercises. I try an experimental chuckle. It’s kind of fun, so I try a deep “ha-ha-ha.” It feels so bizarre to be giggling alone, at nothing, that it makes me laugh for real, and I have to stick my head under my pillow so I don’t wake up my parents.

  I uncap a purple marker and grab my pad. The smell of sugary grape Kool-Aid fills the room. My mother is still buying me fruit-scented colored markers. I guess she hasn’t noticed that I’m not ten years old anymore. Too busy with her chickens to pay attention. I stare at the ceiling, the marker quivering over the bare paper.

  “Boil her in corn oil.”

  Hmmm, that seems a little extreme. I write it down anyway.

  “Shave off her hair while she’s sleeping.” Squeak, squeak.

  “Slip something in her food that will make her smell like BO.” I kind of like this one so I put a star next to it.

  “Drench her in hamburger juice and unleash a pack of hounds.”

  Okay, I stole that last one from the movie Cheaper by the Dozen. Still, all the ideas seem kind of flat, maybe because there’s no one to laugh at them.

  I sigh and grab a red marker. While I’m brainstorming, I might as well work on the ending to my movie, too. There has to be a way to finish it without Alyssa. The marker smells like rotting strawberries, which doesn’t sit well with the pickle in my belly. I hold the marker away from my nose and try to think.

  “Buy a life-size doll with a long blond wig. Put it in bed under the covers. A zombie attacks it.”

  Even my voice sounds flat. I try to inject some enthusiasm. “LOTS of blood ALL OVER. The END.”

  Hmmm, maybe something with more action.

  “Derek in blond wig and dress runs into woods. Dad-zombie chases. Branches start SHAKING. Add GROWLING, CRUNCHING bone sounds. BLOOD spatters the lens. The END.”

  The marker squeaks as I write this down. Nothing else comes to mind. I fish out another pickle, squirt twice the amount of Easy Cheese on it, and gobble it down. A second later, I belch up cheesy vinegar. If Alyssa were here it would be funny, but right now it’s just nasty. I fan the air and read over what I wrote.

  They aren’t the happy ending I’d hoped for. To have a happy ending, I need Mallory smiling, and that’s impossible without Alyssa.

  The pickles are starting to percolate in my stomach. Another whiff of sickening strawberry doesn’t help. I lie back in bed. My two problems start running together in my mind. Too bad I can’t just turn Alyssa into a crazed zombie. That would m
ake her unpopular at school. I could slip zombie pills into her lunch. I could film her as she chases down our classmates and gnaws on them with her blackened teeth....

  When I wake up, my alarm feels like a jackhammer drilling a hole in my head. My stomach rumbles queasily. Did I really eat two jumbo pickles and half a can of Easy Cheese last night? I read hopefully through my list of ideas, but there’s not a decent one in the bunch. So much for brainstorming.

  At school, I feel like I’m sleepwalking through the hallways. Alyssa passes by in a whirl of girls, all trying to laugh the loudest. They stare sideways at me as they pass, and I wish I could be like Violet in The Incredibles and make myself disappear. It’s hopeless. Alyssa’s in with the in crowd and nothing’s going to dislodge her.

  At least it’s Friday. I slump into a seat in choir, feeling defeated. I’ve expended my best efforts and all I have to show for it is a sour stomach. I have no plan for Alyssa, and no ending for my movie.

  I glance up when Mr. Cantrell plays a riff from “Tomorrow,” the song from Annie. Lydia is telling him that he should make her Annie.

  “No, really,” she insists. “Can’t you just see me as Annie all dolled up in a red wig? It’ll be hilarious.” She pretends to stomp onstage and strikes a pose. “Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow,” she shrieks at the top of her voice, and everyone laughs. Even pale, serious Mr. Cantrell smiles. “And I can dance, too.” Lydia does a slapstick tap dance. Then, Alyssa and her other pals get up and do a crazy dance with her. It makes my stomach turn, but Mr. Cantrell laughs. I can see he thinks Lydia would make a great Annie because of her energy. With her luck, Lydia will get the part and the Cute Red Wig. Everyone wants to wear it. In my weaker moments, even I do.

  That’s when it hits me. Everyone wants to wear it. An idea explodes in my brain with the mega-voltage of a nuclear warhead. I know exactly how to teach Alyssa a lesson. A cold prickle slides down my spine, but I’m not sure if it’s fear or excitement. Maybe both.