The doctor stopped himself, embarrassed or unwilling to finish the word; so it hung in the air, unspoken, like a bubble on the verge of bursting. Zombie. I felt a twitch in my stomach. If I had anything to hurl, I would have upchucked right there on the floor.
The thought of starting seventh grade made my head spin.
My mother sat staring at me, the downward turn of a frown on her lips. She made a dabbing gesture on her face, as if applying phantom makeup. “Is there anything we can do to…?”
“Ah yes! I almost forgot,” Dr. Halpert said, jumping out of his seat cheerfully. He pulled open a cabinet door, then another, reached for bottles, pushed others aside, scanned labels. By the time he was finished, the counter was cluttered with all sorts of medicines and potions. “The good news is, there are some very simple things we can do to stave off the symptoms.”
The doctor read the question in my eyes.
“I don’t think we can cure you, Adrian—this is uncharted territory for all of us—but there’s a lot we can do to keep the, urm, illness from progressing. You know, just by using standard over-the-counter products such as creams, lotions, eye drops, salves, and whatnot. ChapStick, for example, works wonders,” Dr. Halpert said. “And drinking plenty of fluids will help, too.”
My mother listened intently, obviously interested. She finally had something to latch on to after days of helpless hoping. They weren’t going to try to cure my condition. Nope, they just wanted to conceal it.
“Essentially, Adrian, you’ve lost your vital secretions. Your body is drying up, no juices, and we can’t have that.”
“I see,” my mother murmured, grasping the concept. She said, “It’s like putting on hand moisturizer. I do that every night before bed, Adrian.” She raised her smooth, well-moisturized hands as if they were exhibits in a legal proceeding.
I smiled weakly.
“Exactly,” Dr. Halpert chirped. “We’ve got to keep him … squishy.”
Both of them chuckled over the word. Squishy. Ho-ho. Meanwhile, I scratched at the skin on my dry, flaking knees. “Doctor,” I spoke up. “I don’t have a heartbeat. My face is falling apart—my face! Are you seriously telling me to drink lots of water?”
He shook his head. “No, no, no. I mean, yes … and no. The truth is, Adrian, water will help. Lots of it. A gallon a day, maybe two in your case. But I have something else in mind, too.” He plucked a pink pad from his front coat pocket, scribbled on it, tore off the top sheet, and handed it to my mother.
She scanned it and read, “‘Formaldehyde smoothies’?”
“Formaldehyde is a common embalming agent,” Dr. Halpert explained. “It’s frequently used in, urm,”—he gestured with his hand, pulled again on his thick mustache, and went on in a muffled voice—“funeral homes and whatnot.” Cough cough.
“On dead bodies?” I asked.
My mother gaped at me, neck stretched forward, as if to say, Don’t be rude. I felt pressure behind my eyes, a welling up, but no tears came. Not squishy enough, I guess. No juices. Real zombies don’t cry.
The doctor continued. “Formaldehyde helps preserve dead tissue—though it’s most often used as a fixative for microscopy and histology, but never mind that. The point is, Adrian, if you drink one of these smoothies every morning, I believe it will help keep you looking better, feeling better, and, urm, smelling fresher.”
He stood to open a window.
For a moment I thought about jumping out of it. But what would be the point?
Dead was bad. Middle school would be worse.
OUR SUPER-NORMAL DINNER
Things got pretty weird around my house in the daze between the appointment at Dr. Halpert’s office and the first day of school. And by “pretty weird,” I mean totally awkward and miserable. I watched as my mother came to grips with the reality of my predicament. Her adjustment involved a lot of Kleenex and bad television. If I overheard another television commercial for Pretty Pillz, I was going to lose it. At the beginning, my mother kept asking why, why, why, as if there was some reasonable explanation why this thing had happened to her child. I didn’t have time for questions like that. Boy becomes zombie because … because … just because, that’s why. Not everything in the world has to make sense. Watch the news on TV and you’ll know it’s true.
I found myself thinking about wood-witted, heavy-footed Pinocchio in his feathered cap and dumb red shorts. All he wanted was to become a real boy. A living, breathing one of the dudes. We shared that deepest dream, Pinocchio and I, to hear our caged hearts quicken beneath our ribs, pitter-pat, pitter-pat, like little cat paws scampering across wooden floors.
I wanted to live, to be a real boy.
My mother tried her best. I felt sorry for her. Everything she did only made it worse. She tried to make everything so … bizarrely … normal. For example, on the night before the first day of school, she came home from work extra peppy, like she was a walking, talking glass of ginger ale. Mom rolled up her sleeves and plunged into the kitchen, frantically cutting vegetables, stir-frying a big mound of chopped beef, heating taco shells in the oven until their consistency was the perfect crispness. Mom knew it used to be my favorite dinner, and tonight was going to be magical in every way. Just me, my mother, and Dane sitting around the table. One small happy family—as long as we ignored the facts that, well, gee, Adrian is a zombie and, oh yeah, Dad is in some far-flung war over the earth’s last valuable resource: safe, clean water. Other than that, hey, these tacos are delicious.
I wasn’t hungry. I seemed to have lost my taste for food. But I forced down a taco for Mom’s sake. She chattered nervously—about work, about the crazy weather, about the state of the housing market; celebrity marriages, makeover shows, sporting events, oil spills, and windmills. Like a dork, I spilled a big glass of soda. My clumsy undead digits were about as handy as bowling pins. Zing! My mother leaped out of her chair with a wild look in her eyes, like it really, really freaked her out, this spilled-soda thing. She cried in a too loud, too tense voice, “EVERYBODY BACK! NOBODY MOVE! I’VE GOT IT! THIS IS NOT A PROBLEM!”
Dane and I exchanged glances. Mom hurried to the sink and ran water through the filtration system. I watched her shoulders heave up and down, up and down, trembling, and I knew she was losing it. I really felt bad for her right then, and ashamed, because it was my fault. Why couldn’t I be a normal kid? Dane, ever wise, whispered to me, “Don’t watch,” and crunched into his taco. We waited with our heads down while our mother, twelve feet away, tried to pull herself together. Finally she turned to us with a big, desperate smile plastered across her splotchy face. “Let’s make tonight Family Game Night!” she announced. “We never play games anymore. We used to, don’t you remember? Adrian? Dane? Remember how we used to play games, and Daddy was here, and it was so much fun—just so much fun?”
I looked at Dane, unsure if she’d asked a question-question or one of those fake questions that you aren’t supposed to answer. I thought, Maybe school won’t be so bad after all. Comparatively.
Turns out I was wrong about that.
MIDDLE SCHOOL BLUES
The doors to Nixon Middle School opened on a hot September day. I felt like a deer out for a stroll on opening day of hunting season. Students poured into the building, a liquid stream of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Most wore shorts, except for me and a few assorted misfits. I’d covered up as much of my body as I could, so instead I baked in the heat of stiff new jeans and a long-sleeve, waffle-knit shirt. There was nothing I could do to hide my face, though I was tempted to throw a sack over my head. But I figured if girls weren’t allowed to wear spaghetti-strap shirts, then I wasn’t going to be able to walk around with a bag over my head. I opted for a hoodie instead.
My face had become the accident on the side of the road. I caused traffic jams and pileups just by walking down the hallway. Everybody slowed down to gawk at my unsightly mug. They stared with fascination and disgust, unwilling to pass without a good gander. Classmates cr
aned their necks to see. The sixth graders, new to middle school, gazed with worried glances, careful to make it appear they weren’t staring at all. Whereas eighth graders were bolder. They looked at me in bug-eyed disbelief, frowning as if my presence somehow ruined their perfect day.
That’s when the comments began, whispered from behind my back: shuffler, drooler, cadaver, freak. I had to get away, so I gimped into the boys’ room.
The bathroom was empty and echoing; the uneven clomp of my heavy heels bounced off tiled walls. I assessed myself in the cloudy mirror. And for that one second, I wasn’t any different from every other student in seventh grade. We all looked at ourselves a lot, frowning, rearranging unruly hair, tugging on our shirts, distraught over a new zit. I stood and stared. No wonder nobody wanted to look at me. I didn’t even want to see it—and it was my own face! But I guess I should paint you a picture, right? Isn’t that what all the supposedly terrific writers do? They go on and on about what characters wear, endless descriptions of furniture and clothing accessories that most readers (like me) skip past, searching for the good parts.
I’ll be quick about it, promise.
I wore my hair exactly the same way as before, long with a loose, natural flow. I sometimes twisted the ends of random sections to give it extra wow. Not bad, and definitely not my main problem. Besides my fingernails, my hair was the only part of my body that was still growing, so I wasn’t about to cut it. My eyes were smallish and sunken, with dark shadows underneath. I looked dead tired. Lips: Yep, still had ’em, but there was a large cold sore in one corner, cracked and chapped, that no amount of lip balm could solve. My skin had turned from brown to a shade of gray, tinged with green. The terrain of my cheeks was rough, pocked with red explosions, black marks, and flaking patches. Maybe I just needed a good dermatologist, like every other kid in school, or a year’s supply of Pretty Pillz.
I looked in the mirror and thought, That’s not me. That’s not who I really am.
ZANDER DONNELLY
Fifth-period lunch, not even hungry. The smell from last school year lingered on, amazingly, strong enough to reach even my faulty senses. Odors clung to the walls, emanated from waxed floors, and filtered lazily through the school ventilation system. Middle school’s pungent bouquet, as if summer, with its soft breezes and green grass, had never been. My nostrils filled with a witch’s brew of sweat, raspberry-scented lip gloss, mysterious meatballs, soggy pizza, and cleaning fluids. I found a small table in a corner and waited for some of last year’s regulars to join me. Nobody did.
Except for Zander.
I noticed that his shirt was on backward, and inside out, too. Zander wasn’t real sharp with personal maintenance. I hadn’t seen him in weeks, not since the accident, but nothing much had changed. Same pasty skin, rumpled clothing, and doughy body. Zander glanced in my direction, not quite meeting my eyes. He nodded once and stared gloomily at his cardboard lunch tray. Besides the apple he wouldn’t eat and the milk carton he wouldn’t open, Zander had opted for the bean-and-cheese burrito special.
He muttered something about the “stupid healthy-meals initiative.”
“What?”
“I’d like to see the government get out of my Cheetos,” he griped.
I watched in silence as Zander unfolded his burrito for inspection. He moved cautiously, beads of sweat forming on his forehead, like a hero in an action movie about to dismantle a bomb. Should he cut the red wire or the green? Zander stabbed at the inner brown muck with a plastic spork, sniffed, and pushed the tray aside. A sigh escaped from his lips.
I slid my unnecessary tuna fish sandwich across the table as an offering of friendship. He took it, murmured “thanks,” pulled the crust off with his fingers, and nibbled at the sandwich. As we tentatively talked about our classes and teachers, the distance melted away and our natural friendship took hold. We were scheduled for only one class together, with a new science teacher named Ms. Fjord, who had already displayed an alarming, bright-eyed eagerness. I wondered if maybe she was a little too into it. Zander sat with his shoulders hunched by his ears, eyes scanning the crowded lunchroom. He leaned in. “I want you to know, Adrian, I heard about what happened,” he said in a low whisper, careful not to be overheard. “That’s so messed up.”
“You heard?”
“There’s been a lot of talk, texts and stuff,” he said.
“What have you heard?” I asked.
Zander looked away. He couldn’t bring himself to say it. I knew then that he’d heard the truth—and probably worse.
“You got my text, right?” he asked. “I wanted to come over, but my parents—”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“They were like—”
“It’s okay,” I repeated, a little louder this time, shutting him off like a bad song on the radio. He looked hurt. I shrugged. “People are afraid, I guess.” I looked around the lunchroom. It was true. Old classmates sat across the room, backs turned. Worse, some stole sly glances in my direction, distrust on their faces. They were frightened, all of them, and they hated me for it. The air was thick with it.
I was an outcast.
“You going to eat those chips?” Zander asked. I blinked, stirred out of my reverie by his question. Poof, like that, the atmosphere changed. Zander didn’t care. I gladly handed him my potato chips. Took a sip from my thermos, frowned. It tasted like medicine.
“What’s that?” Zander asked.
I told him about my formaldehyde smoothie. “Now that I’m dead, my mom’s gone health nut on me.”
Zander laughed, a surprised chortle. “You seem pretty cool about this whole … change.”
I shrugged. “Sucks to be me. But what am I gonna do?”
“Could you sue the guy who hit you?”
“Hit and run,” I said. “Never saw the driver’s face, barely saw the car. It happened fast. One minute I was on my bike; next minute I was flying through the air like a circus acrobat. No net, no witnesses.” I paused, hoping to change the subject. “What you been up to?”
“I got some new fish. A leopard shark and a firefish,” he said, brightening. Zander loved his aquarium. He was a dedicated hobbyist, obsessed with his saltwater tank, a forty-gallon behemoth that dominated his bedroom. The setup was pretty impressive, actually, with cool lights and bubbles, a tank he kept immaculate and filled with interesting-looking fish, rocks, and coral. And by “interesting-looking,” I mean pretty cool for about two minutes. Zander could watch his fish for hours at a time, and I’m sure that’s what he did each day, beanbag chair pulled up close. He cleaned the glass daily with Windex and paper towels.
“I’d love to see ’em,” I lied.
Zander chewed his lower lip, and I could tell that an invite to his house wasn’t in the cards. He said, “I guess the big thing from this summer is, um, I’m worried about the honeybees.”
“Did you just say, ‘I’m worried about the honeybees’?”
Zander confirmed that was exactly what he’d said. “Rising carbon levels, that’s a problem. The ice caps melting. Dying coral reefs. Robot drones dropping bombs. And then there’s the genetic engineering of food—the other day I saw a strawberry the size of my head!—but who doesn’t stress out over that?”
“Actually, most people don’t,” I said. “Why are you worried about honeybees?”
Zander smirked. “Just bee-cause. Get it? Bee-cause? Because. Bee-cause!”
“Really?” I said, shaking my head. “That’s your joke? I can’t bee-lieve you just said that.”
Zander giggled and crunched down on a stack of chips. “Don’t you read?” he said. “The honeybees are disappearing.”
It rang a distant gong in my cranium. “Maybe I remember seeing something about it on TV.”
“Scientists call it a die-off, or if you want to get technical, colony collapse disorder,” Zander informed me. “All the worker bees just suddenly vanish. They don’t even find dead bodies. It’s like aliens abducted them or something.”
“Get out,” I said.
“No, it’s happening all over the world. In Europe—places like Belgium, France, Spain. In Taiwan. And now it’s here in North America.”
“So is this, like, a problem?” I asked.
“It’s a huge problem. Honeybees are pollinators. They do good things for the environment, for farmers and stuff. They pollinate crops, keep things in balance. Farms need bees, people need farms. But now entire populations are getting wiped out all over the world. It’s like nature’s not natural anymore.”
“That’s bizarre,” I said, actually interested. “Does anybody know why?”
Zander explained that scientists had a bunch of theories, though no one knew for sure. “Pesticides, probably. I was talking to Ms. Fjord after class today—”
“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “You talked to a teacher … after the first day of class?”
“Yeah, briefly.” Zander nodded. “She’s all right. I might help her out with the hive this year. She’s a beekeeper, you know, and she’s installing a hive by the organic garden out back. We might even start a bee club.”
“Glee club?”
“Bee club,” he said.
“Hmmm,” I deadpanned. “So that’s what the buzz was about.”
Zander paid no mind to the pun. He told me, “Ms. Fjord says these big, billion-dollar chemical corporations get farmers to use freaky chemicals—called neonics—to treat seeds. But they act like a poison to the bees that come to collect pollen.”
Zander grew stressed just talking about it. I could hear the eagerness in his voice. Sure, Zander was always an excitable guy. It wasn’t new to hear him talk about endangered species like lowland gorillas or black rhinos or humpback whales. But bees? He sounded really, really into it this time.
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