by Kara LaReau
“Um . . . a living thing?” Danny said.
“Yes!” said Mr. James. He got excited when he taught. This was one of the things I liked about him. I also liked his sense of humor. He wrote a different joke on the board every day. That day’s said: What does a skeleton say before he eats? BONE appétit!
“But more specifically,” Mr. James continued, “an organism is an animal, plant, or single-celled life-form.”
As he wrote this on the board, I wrote it all down in my notebook. I loved taking notes. Danny did, too, but his handwriting wasn’t as neat as mine, and he tended to doodle a little too much in the margins. Today, he was doodling what looked like a bunch of bacteria with googly eyes and fangs.
“Over the weekend, I asked all of you to think about what organism you’d like to study and present to the class. I can’t wait to hear what you’ve chosen! So, let’s pass the hat.”
Mr. James passed around a Lambert Yumms baseball hat (our town’s minor-league baseball team, sponsored by YummCo); it was filled with little folded-up pieces of paper, and each paper had a number written on it. I ended up with the number 3. Carl Weems got the number 1, which seemed to make him especially proud.
As soon as the hat started going around, I reached into my pocket to get my list of ideas. Only the list wasn’t there. I’d been too busy thinking about Bert that morning to remember I’d left it in the pocket of my coveralls, which were still on my bedroom floor from the night before. Why did I decide to wear my corduroys today? Why, why, why?
“Mr. Carlton Weems . . . what’s your organism going to be?” Mr. James asked.
Carl looked around, like he was waiting for all of us to die from the suspense.
“Rats,” he said, finally.
I tried to remember what was on my list. Think, Mellie, think! But I couldn’t remember a single idea. Was there something about a dragon? Or maybe a duck?
“Okaaay,” Mr. James said, writing down Carl’s choice. “Who’s number two?”
“I am,” said Owen Brown.
“It figures Brown would be number two,” Carl said. Everyone in the class started giggling . . . except for me and Danny. Danny rolled his eyes. I was too busy freaking out. If I couldn’t remember anything on my list, maybe I could just think of an idea right now. But there were millions of organisms to choose from. How could I just pick one?
Mr. James cleared his throat, and everyone calmed down. “What’s it going to be, Owen?” he asked.
“Um . . . can I do a stegosaurus?” he asked. “Even if it’s not ‘living’ right now?”
“You sure can,” said Mr. James. “Okay, how about number three?”
If I wasn’t freaking out before, I was really freaking out now. We could pick extinct organisms, too? The possibilities were nearly endless. If only I hadn’t been so preoccupied with Bert yesterday —
“Three, are you out there?” Mr. James looked around.
“Right here,” I said.
And then my brain froze. I couldn’t think of a single living thing. Except for one.
“I’m going to go with . . . cats.”
As soon as I said it, I regretted it. Cats . . . really? Could I be more boring? But then I already had The Cat Book, and I already had tons of cat facts rolling around in my brain, plus I might have an actual cat, if Bert was still there when I got home. It may not have been the most exciting topic, but it would probably be easy.
“An unexpected choice for Ms. Emmeline Gore,” Mr. James said, writing it in his book. I couldn’t tell if he was impressed or disappointed.
When we got to twenty, the last number in the class, it was Danny’s turn. He ended up picking salmonella.
“What the heck is a salmonella?” asked Carl Weems.
Danny turned around. “It’s a bacterium, which is a single-celled life-form,” he informed everyone. “Salmonella gives you food poisoning. They just had to recall some YummCo Foods chicken because of it last month. My mom told me.”
Mr. James smiled as he wrote down Danny’s choice. I was jealous. Danny was the only one who picked a single-celled life-form, rather than an animal or a plant. Maybe I should have picked a bacterium. Or a cool plant, like a Venus flytrap. Anything seemed more interesting than a cat. Even one who considered me “family” and liked to eat frog heads, and who may or may not have been there when I got home.
The girl had buried the frog he’d left her without even tasting it! What a waste. He tried not to feel too offended. He did not understand her kind, and he guessed he never would.
After she left, he’d fallen asleep under the rhododendron bush, where he could enjoy some solitude. He didn’t feel as weak as before, but he still felt tired. So tired. And so he’d slept. He dreamed of the others watching him from behind caged doors. Their eyes were yellow, like his, and desperate, and sad.
When he woke up it was the afternoon and the sun was shining. Almost immediately, he knew something was wrong. Well, not exactly wrong. Different. It felt as if something were crawling around in his belly, and then he remembered the ants the frog had eaten. Were they inside of him, alive, somehow? He stood up and shook his head. His head was pounding, and then he realized that what he was hearing was his own heartbeat, and the crawling sensation was hunger. How could he be hungry again so soon? And yet, he was, hungrier than he’d ever felt. The crawling in his belly and the pounding in his head were almost too much to bear. All he could do was run.
As his body moved, the landscape behind the girl’s house flew by, and eventually he was back at the pond where he had dragged himself the night before, so weak he could barely move. Now he had never felt so alive. And so, so, so hungry.
There were juicy-looking ducks in the pond, but they squawked and flapped their wings and took off as soon as they saw him. The squirrel was not so lucky. Its cheeks had been filled with nuts, and he soon outran it. The nuts added an interesting flavor to its head, he decided.
The crawling in his belly and the pounding in his head were gone — at least for now. Now he would take another nap, store up some energy until nightfall. Then it would be time to hunt again.
When I got home, Bert was right where I left him, under the rhododendron bush. Part of me wondered if he’d even moved since that morning. But then we found the headless squirrel. Danny filmed it from just about every angle while I watched Bert.
“Is he . . . dead?” Danny asked, peering over my shoulder with his phone.
“Do you have to film everything?” I asked.
“Pretty much,” he said.
We both leaned in. Bert was lying very, very still. But I could see his chest move up and down, faintly.
“Nah,” I said. “Just napping.”
“He must be tired, from all the hunting and killing,” Danny said. “And, you know, from eating heads.”
“It’s natural for cats to nap during the day,” I informed him. I looked down at Bert again. Even though his fur was still missing in places, the fur he did have looked shinier, and he didn’t seem quite so skinny. “Is it just me, or does he already look a little bit better?”
Danny squinted. “I guess eating heads agrees with him.”
“What are you two weirdos looking at?”
Danny and I turned around. It was Carl Weems. I could see where he’d thrown down his dirt bike in my yard. He lives the next street over from me, and he’s always prowling around the neighborhood, sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just a cat.”
Carl stopped in his tracks when he saw Bert. He made a face.
“That’s a cat?” he said.
“He’s sleeping. Don’t wake him up,” I whispered.
“It looks like a pile of hamburger meat with fur on it,” Carl said. And then he laughed, revealing his gray front tooth. Carl had flipped over his handlebars while trying to pop a wheelie last summer and had fallen face-first onto the sidewalk. His front tooth has never been the same.
“That’s because he�
��s a zombie cat,” Danny said.
“Right,” said Carl.
I gave Danny a look, but he kept going.
“He was dead when we found him, but Mellie brought him back to life. Now he only eats brains,” he said, showing Carl the remains of the squirrel. “His name is . . . ZomBert.”
Carl laughed again. “Nice try, Hurley,” he said. “You can’t fool me with your special effects. I bet the cat is fake, too. No cat could be that ugly.”
Bert opened one pale-yellow eye. He looked right at Carl. Suddenly, Carl wasn’t laughing anymore.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “You’ve woken him up.”
“Maybe ZomBert is hungry for dinner,” Danny said. “Do you think he’d want Carl’s brain?”
“That would be more of a snack,” I said.
“You two and your freak cat can have one another,” Carl said, backing away. Then he got on his bike and rode off.
“That was awesome,” Danny said. He scratched Bert behind his good ear.
“ZomBert? Really?” I said.
“Hey, it worked on Carl,” Danny reminded me. “And nothing I said was a lie. You did bring Bert back to life. Maybe not literally, but still. And he does like to eat animal heads. And he does look like a zombie. They’re always skinny and nasty, with yellowy eyes and missing hair and body parts and stuff.”
“Bert is not nasty,” I said. “And he’s not a zombie.”
“Meeeeeow,” said Bert. Maybe he wasn’t nasty, but his breath definitely was.
“He’d be the perfect subject for my next film,” Danny said. “If he’d, you know, actually do something.”
Danny and I spent the next half hour trying to get Bert to play with us. But he just wanted to lie there in the shade.
“What’s the matter?” I asked him. “Are you sick?”
“Some zombies only assume their full power at night,” Danny said. “Maybe we should dig a hole for him to sleep in, so he can really be out of the sun.”
“I’m not digging a hole for my cat to sleep in,” I said.
“Fine,” Danny said. “Then let’s go to my place. I can show you more stuff about zombies and we can eat leftover pizza.”
I shrugged. I was always happy to get away from the Family, Food, and Fun zone. And I do love pizza.
“I’m going to Danny’s!” I called into the kitchen from the back door.
My mom waved. She and the twins were helping my dad unpack groceries.
“Okay!” she called back. “See you later!”
“What’s this?” Emmett asked, pulling something out of a bag.
“That’s a zucchini,” my dad informed him.
“We’re going to blog all about cooking with squash this week,” my mom explained.
“Ookini! Ookini!” Ezra shouted, clapping his hands.
“Are you making zucchini cake?” I asked. Zucchini cake is my favorite, especially the way my dad makes it, with chocolate chips.
“Among other things,” said my dad. “Would you like to join us?”
“We made these amazing squash hats for our video,” my mom said, pulling out four papier mâché monstrosities in different shades of green and orange and yellow. “We could make you one, too!”
“Uh . . . no thanks,” I said. “Just save me a piece of cake.”
I knelt next to Bert before Danny and I left.
“I, uh, just wanted to say thanks for sharing your frog this morning, and your squirrel this afternoon,” I said. “That was really nice. I don’t get very many warm meals these days, so I’m sure they would have been delicious, if I were, you know, into eating woodland creatures. Okay, I gotta go to Danny’s. See you later. I hope.”
Bert didn’t open his eyes, but I had a feeling he heard me.
Unfortunately, when we got to the apartment where Danny and his mom live, he made me sit there while he went through his entire horror movie and book and comic book collection and showed me all the stuff about zombies. There was . . . a lot.
“Okay. First, zombies have grayish skin and yellowy eyes,” Danny said. He opened a book called Horror Show and showed me several bookmarked pages of zombie movie photos. “Bert has grayish skin and yellowy eyes.”
“But Bert has gray fur, so of course his skin is gray. And a lot of cats have yellow eyes,” I informed him.
Danny grabbed a comic book called Something Rotten in ZombieTown and flipped through it. “Well, how about this: zombies suffer from decomposition. They’re always losing body parts. Bert’s missing part of his ear and some of his fur. And he does smell pretty rotten.”
“He could have lost part of his ear in a catfight, and his fur already looks like it’s starting to grow back. As for the smell, he was living in the garbage when we found him, remember?” I said. “Right now, only his breath smells bad. Maybe he just needs to have his teeth cleaned.”
“Okay, well . . . zombies tend to shamble. Though in some video games, like Undead Planet and Virus Z, they move pretty fast,” Danny said.
We both shrugged. We hadn’t seen Bert move very much at all.
“What about the fact that he eats brains?” I asked.
“I just said that to scare Carl,” Danny admitted, looking for the TV remote. “The brain-eating thing is a common misconception. Zombies don’t eat, since they’re, you know, dead. They just like to bite their victims to infect them, so they can increase their horde.”
When Danny finally found the remote control, we watched his favorite zombie movie, Unstoppable Undead. It’s not a bad movie, actually; it’s cool how it turns out that the zombie horde is being controlled by an evil mastermind. But the parts where they bite their victims are pretty gross. I plugged my ears so I didn’t have to hear the crunch-crunching sounds.
And I had to admit, Danny was right. Something about all the zombies he showed me did remind me of Bert. But Bert was a real cat, and zombies were made up. Weren’t they?
Danny’s mom came home just as the movie was ending. She looked frazzled, as usual. When she put her work bag on the dining room table, just about everything inside spilled out.
“Hey, you,” she said, giving Danny a kiss on the head. They’d grown extra close since Mr. Hurley left last year. It turned out he’d met some gross lady online and ran off to live with her in Florida. Danny doesn’t like to talk about it, and I don’t blame him.
Danny switched off Unstoppable Undead and put on regular TV. His mom tolerates his horror movies, but only if she doesn’t have to watch them.
“Hi, Ms. Hurley,” I said, waving.
“Hi, Mellie. How was school, kids?” she asked.
“No visible scarring,” Danny said.
His mom tousled his hair as the YummCo jingle blared from the TV.
YummCo brings the fun-co!
The fun has just begun-co!
Be smart, not dumb-dumb-dumb-co!
And fill your day with YummCo!
At the end of the jingle, Stuart Yumm appeared. He was wearing a suit with his trademark green-and-brown striped tie, and he was smiling. Mr. Yumm is bald, with the exception of one patch of hair, which he has obviously dyed and grown long and winds around the top of his head, as if he thinks it will fool anyone. Danny and I think it looks like orange soft-serve ice cream.
“The fun has just begun-co!” Mr. Yumm exclaimed, giving the thumbs-up, before an announcer went on to list YummCo Foods’ weekly specials.
“I hear that jingle all day at work. It’s like I can’t get away from it,” Ms. Hurley said, rolling her eyes. She rummaged through everything that had fallen out of her bag. “By the way, everyone in the office was given these today to bring home. Can you put them up in the neighborhood?”
She handed us a roll of tape and a few of the green-and-brown flyers, which promised coupons at YummCo Foods if you brought your cat in to YummCo Animal Pals (our local animal clinic/shelter) to be examined. Mr. Yumm was pictured on the flyers, giving his trademark thumbs-up.
“Sure, Mom,” Danny said. He shoved th
em into his backpack. Then he looked at me. “Maybe you can bring Bert,” he suggested.
“Who’s Bert?” Ms. Hurley asked.
“Just . . . a cat,” I said.
“We found him in the trash,” Danny explained. I gave him a look. I didn’t want his mom to know about Bert; what if she told my parents?
“Well, just don’t bring him in here. You know our landlord doesn’t allow pets,” his mother said, opening the refrigerator. “Now, who wants leftover pizza?”
When I got home, Bert was still sleeping under the rhododendron bush. I picked him up and brought him inside in my hoodie. My parents were helping the twins build a fort, so they didn’t see us.
“Did you have fun at Danny’s?” my mother called after me.
“Yep,” I said, rushing up the stairs.
When we got to my room, I unzipped my hoodie and put Bert on the floor. I expected him to dash under the bed. Instead, he just looked at me.
“Meow.”
I sat on the floor near him. Slowly, he made his way over to me. I put out my hand, and he rubbed the side of his head against my fingers.
“You’re scent-marking. That’s what The Cat Book calls it,” I informed him. “You have sebaceous glands all over your mouth and chin and eyes, which you use to deposit scent. Does that mean you like me?”
I looked Bert in the eyes. In The Cat Book, it says that if a cat really likes you, they’ll blink at you slowly. It’s their version of kissing.
But Bert didn’t blink at me. He just stared back, his eyes wide and zombie-yellow. Was he considering whether or not to bite me, so I could join his horde?
“Meow,” he said.
I hoped that meant no.
Even when he slept, he dreamed about hunting. And when he woke up, he was starving. If he went without food for too long, the crawling in his belly and the pounding in his head overcame him, and it felt as if the hunger itself might eat him alive.
He particularly enjoyed leaping into the air and catching low-flying birds. They were so surprised, they never knew what hit them until it was too late. One died just from fright, before he even got a chance to sink his claws and teeth into it. Its head still tasted delicious, though. He would save the rest for the girl. Someday, she might decide to try it, and then she would truly appreciate his generosity.