by Stacey Longo
The blackened, bony girl clawed at the smooth surface of my headgear and howled in frustration. I held on tight to the helmet and struggled to catch sight of Blossom. Andy looked at his sister and me, than back at Blossom, glowering.
“You two. Come prancing into town like you’re better than everyone else. Well, you’re not. Some of us have real problems.” I didn’t care for the sneer he wore as he spoke; not one bit. “Your sister isn’t the only zombie around here,” he said, pointing at me. “When Andrea came back from her field trip to Three Mile Island with an appetite for brains, we didn’t have a plastic surgeon in the family to pretty her up and keep her skin fresh. She wasted away and turned into a monster—sorry, sis,” he threw in when Andrea made a Ruh? sound, “and my parents locked her away.”
“False. There is no evidence to show Washington ever cut down a cherry tree and uttered the prophetic ‘I cannot tell a lie,’” the computerized voice droned.
“Why didn’t you say something? My mother could’ve helped. You must have known that from the article in the paper,” I shouted over the bedlam.
“You’ve never been nice to me!” a boy bellowed, swatting at an Anti-Zombie Leaguer with his big blue therapy wedge.
“I saw your perfect family and your perfect mother in the paper,” Andy continued. “And when it mentioned your mom specialized in cosmetic zombie repair, I knew you had one in the family. But when I spotted you guys at the mall that day . . . it wasn’t fair! Blossom was hardly desiccated at all!”
“So it was you in the store wearing that Adidas jacket,” I said, moving my hands around the helmet in an effort to keep it on while avoiding losing a finger to Andrea’s nipping jaws.
“Yeah, I was there. I thought we’d get along, understand each other,” he said sadly. “Maybe we could hunt for brains for our siblings together. But you were so stuck up in algebra class, making fun of my Twilight references, I knew immediately you had a superiority complex. You and your perfect sister and your perfect family. That’s when I decided to frame Blossom for the murders. It worked, too,” he added. “The police are on their way to arrest your sister now!”
He paused, watching me struggle with his sister. “I knew the jig was up when you asked yesterday if I’d been bitten in the crotch by a goose. Which, by the way, Sherlock, is exactly what happened. I couldn’t kill you myself, Jasmine,” he said, the corners of his mouth tugging downward. “The police always suspect the boyfriend. Look at that chump Yothers.” He laughed. “So I decided to introduce you to Andrea. I figured she could enjoy a snack, and everyone would blame your sister.”
“Who do you think you are, you dirty hippie?” the girl with the hearing aids howled, punching the pudgy blonde in the stomach.
While Andy was talking, I’d managed to pivot my body, and at that moment, I swiveled, jerking my arms around Andrea in a full bear hug from behind. Her snapping jaws now faced away from me, her arms pinned. “Hey!” Andy said, and pulled a saw from under his jacket. “Leggo of her!”
Andy stepped toward me, saw high in the air. Blossom looked at him, then at me, then in her box. She scooped out her next prop, shoving it in her mouth, then jumped out from behind the desk, weaving through the pandemonium, eyes still locked on Andy. She grinned, and a pointy new set of wooden dentures filled her maw. She let out a battle cry that stopped the rest of the class in their tracks.
What everyone else in that classroom heard was: “Braaaaaaiiinnnnns!”
What I heard Blossom say was: Don’t you mess with my sister!
NINETEEN
Blossom flew on top of Andy, pinning him down. The saw clattered to the floor. Mickey, who’d been pressing his back against the wall ever since the first fight broke out, now fumbled his way over to the saw, kicking it away. Blossom was drooling, eyes wild, opening her mouth wide to crack Andy’s skull open, baring his brains for all to witness.
“Blossom, don’t!” I cried. Should I let Andrea go and restrain my sister, or let Blossom dig into Andy’s medulla oblongata and have herself a treat? And did this mean Andy and I were no longer boyfriend and girlfriend?
“Contrary to popular belief, Washington’s teeth were not made entirely of wood. He did, however, have a partial denture made of ivory and pine.”
I couldn’t stop my sister without getting eaten by a zombie myself. Mickey had scooped up the saw and held it gingerly, uncertain what to do. Blossom’s teacher, Miss Erickson, was now wide awake, clapping her hands and ineffectively barking, “Class! Class—calm down!” I turned my head away, not wanting to watch my sister murder my boyfriend. Then I remembered Dad’s pepper spray. Could I keep Andrea restrained while fishing it out of my back pocket?
“Andrew Strand, are you in here?” Mr. Larson poked his head in the classroom. “You’re parked in senior parking. That’s two Saturday detentions, mister!”
Blossom, Andy, Andrea, Mickey and I all froze at the vice principal’s booming voice. The Animal clenched his jaw, surveying the scene. He held up a menacing fist, revealing he’d been hiding his famous Joe Clark baseball bat behind him. “What is going on in here?”
Here was my chance. I dropped my hand to my back pocket, pulling out the small spritzer in one deft motion, like a gunslinger drawing her weapon. I whirled Andrea around, shooting a fine arc of pepper spray right in her eyes, then strode over to Andy and Blossom, spraying them both squarely in the face as I held my breath. They all collapsed to the floor, howling and rubbing their eyes.
The other kids in the class started coughing. That pepper spray was potent stuff. I felt it burning my own lungs.
Larson watched me cough, slowly letting his arm holding the bat drop, then nodded at me. “That’s two Saturday detentions, Strand, don’t forget,” he bellowed. “Mrs. Erickson, what in the blue blazes happened here?”
The history teacher, now stuttering, surveyed the scene, looking stunned. I didn’t think she’d be much help answering Larson’s questions.
I dropped the now-empty canister of spray and went to Blossom. She was gagging, and coughed so hard her wooden teeth shot out of her mouth and across the floor. “Are you okay?” I wheezed, sitting down on Andy’s curled, screeching figure, his fists at his eyes. I ignored him and smoothed my sister’s hair. “You were awesome. Thanks for protecting me.”
Blossom continued to gasp, but put her hand on mine. I got the message. We were sisters, sure, but we were also best friends. And no guy was going to come between us.
Behind Mr. Larson, a crowd formed. Two uniformed cops stepped through the doorway, and right behind them, my parents. “Okay, nobody move,” Officer Pendleton announced, all business. Blossom sat up straighter and put a protective arm around my shoulders. “What’s going on here?”
“She attacked me!” Andy shrieked, rudely pushing me off of him, dumping me onto the floor, and pointing at Blossom. “If Jasmine hadn’t pepper-sprayed her own sister, I’d be dead. Arrest her! Get the zombie!”
I stared at him, openmouthed. We were definitely breaking up after this.
“Mr. Larson, tell them that’s not true,” I said, but the Animal just shrugged and held up his hands in defeat. I guess from his viewpoint, he didn’t know what he’d seen, really. I looked around at the rest of Blossom’s classmates. “Anyone?”
“Nice try,” Andy murmured in my ear, making me jump. “But this is remedial history. There isn’t a moron in the class who will vouch for your sister.”
“Um, I will,” said a brunette girl in dark glasses standing near us. “I’m blind, not stupid, you tool.”
“Me, too,” said the computerized PowerPoint voice, and I looked up to see Jordan by the laptop Blossom had been using. “I saw the whole thing. Andy tried to kill Blossom and Jasmine.” He was using his pointer to peck at the letters, and was he—grinning?
“He really is a genius,” I said, impressed.
A chorus of other voices in the classroom started chiming in, until Officer Pendleton was overwhelmed with eyewitness accounts. Andy was p
ut in cuffs, but Mom interjected when an officer went to put the cold metal bracelets on Andrea.
“Please don’t. There must be another way to restrain her that won’t cause her delicate skin to slough off. A lasso, maybe?” The policewoman looked at her like she was nuts, but eventually, a large plastic tie was used that went around Andrea’s torso and bound her arms to her sides. Mom seemed satisfied. She and Dad turned their attention to me and Blossom, still sitting with our arms around each other.
“What the hell are these?” Dad said, picking up the wooden teeth that had slid under a chair. He frowned and held them up to show Mom.
Blossom was moaning animatedly, and I quickly translated. “Blossom made them in wood shop for her presentation on George Washington. You wanted her to get a good grade, right?” I looked at Blossom. “Really? That’s the best you can come up with?” She rubbed her eyes, still raw from the pepper spray, shrugging.
“Gahh naurrrrahh,” she said. Feel bad for me. I was pepper-sprayed.
“She’s temporarily blinded and in pain,” I said to our parents. “Maybe back off for now?”
Dad shook his head and Mom announced she was going to give the shop teacher a talking-to. “What kind of lunatic lets a zombie carve false teeth, for goodness sake? What do you use teeth for, except biting and eating?” She stormed down the hall, fuming and muttering, and I didn’t envy Mr. Burgess.
Dad pocketed the wooden dentures as Mickey crouched next to Blossom. “You okay?” he asked in a soft voice.
“Blaaah,” Blossom groaned, and he rubbed her arm.
“Come on. Let’s get you to a water fountain so we can wash out your eyes,” he said, and gently guided her out to the hallway.
The Animal was still standing in the middle of the room, fists on his hips. I approached him nervously and stared at my feet, clearing my throat.
“Um, thanks for coming in when you did, Mr. Larson. It really looked like we were done for until you distracted everyone. And thanks for not using that bat. On my sister, especially. I can’t imagine, you know . . . with what happened to your wife—er, what I mean is, thanks for not killing my sister.”
Most awkward expression of gratitude ever.
“You’re welcome, Miss Hamilton,” he said, patting my shoulder. “Of course I wouldn’t kill your sister. You can’t blame a bear for attacking a cow, you see. It’s in their nature. You just prepare yourself in case the bear comes back for seconds.”
Huh? I thought, but I smiled up at the Animal just the same. Weirdo.
But if his granola philosophy meant he didn’t harbor ill will toward my sister, I could live with that.
TWENTY
Blossom and I both had to be questioned about the Frankenstein case, but it was now irrefutably clear that my bae, in fact, was a serial killer. (“We only had, like, one date,” I pointed out indignantly to Pendleton.) Andy had confessed everything. He’d killed Blue Pixie that day at the mall by luring her out with his charm. I got it. He’d used the same handsome allure to get me to fall for him hook, line, and sinker.
“He got her to meet him after she got off her shift, then hit her with a bat,” Officer Pendleton informed me. “You’re lucky he didn’t do the same to you.”
“Yes, I know, I get it,” I said testily. “I have terrible taste in guys. But what about the kid in Mystic?”
It turned out Andy had admitted to the cops he’d known we were going to Mystic that day. “Did you mention to Mr. Strand that you were planning a day trip there?”
“Er . . . I guess so.” I bit my lip. “Okay, okay, I’ll stop talking about my weekend plans in class, in case a psychopath hears me.”
Andy had admitted he’d never really liked Jillian Mott, and when he’d arrived at the bonfire early and found her smoking pot in the trees behind the tennis courts, he couldn’t resist going for her gray matter.
It was just too convenient—the head of the Anti-Zombie League, ripe for the picking. But the saw he’d had with him had been worn dull from the other two skulls he’d carved open, and the work was slow. He’d had to stop before extracting Jillian’s brain to go meet me and Blossom on time.
“And then Jasmine and Blossom were late,” Andy had said. “Make sure you note that in my statement.”
“Were you and your sister late?” Pendleton asked.
“Um, yeah, because we saw a cop on the road,” I said, irritated. “Dad was trying to obey the speed limit.” I wanted to make clear who, exactly, the law-abiding citizens were in this scenario. “I can’t believe he complained to you about me being late.”
Andy had hoped to return to Jillian later, but Blossom had spoiled all that by picking up the scent and leading us to the body. And the fact that Blossom had an alibi for that murder also made him realize he needed to make his attacks more zombie-like: until that point, the killings could’ve been done by a maniac with a bone saw—“As they, in fact, were,” Pendleton pointed out. And what better way to do that, Andy had figured, than to bring one of the undead along to zombie things up? He’d snuck his sister out of Bleak House where she’d been locked away and went after his next target.
The attack on Youngquist, Andy had confessed, was purely out of spite. Andy was tired of listening to me rave about how great she was, when his beloved sister had only gotten a C from the same teacher three years prior.
“Did you mention Professor Youngquist a lot?” Pendleton asked.
“Um, yeah, I guess that’s possible. She’s my favorite teacher,” I said. “How was I supposed to know his stupid sister got a C?”
“Well, when he went after your teacher, Strand was clearly surprised by the”—Pendleton paused to check his notes—“swans?”
“They’re geese. No wonder his sister only got a C in English. Her brother’s just as dumb as she is. Swans.” I sneered. “Totally different neck types.”
“Well, he panicked after the Youngquist attack,” Officer Pendleton explained to Dad and me. “He thought Youngquist might be able to identify him, and he said you’d noticed his groin injury.”
“What?” Dad and I both said in unison. “You’re grounded for life, young lady!” Dad added.
“I didn’t! Dad—Officer Pendleton—” I started to wail. “Andy was wearing sweatpants!”
“You’re not helping your cause, young lady,” Dad said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Daaad!”
“Let me explain,” Pendleton said hastily. “He said you noticed his sweats in class and asked him if he’d been bitten in the crotch by a goose. Is that true?”
“Yes. Thank you,” I said. I turned to Dad. “See? It was just weird, because he always wore nice clothes. He even had ironing creases in his jeans.”
“That’s another thing,” Pendleton said. “Did you happen to notice your boyfriend had acute obsessive behaviors? Cleaning things, maybe, or washing his hands repeatedly?”
“Um, he was always brushing lint, or stray hairs, or imaginary dust off of me,” I admitted. “And he wiped down everything—everything—before he touched it. I thought it was kind of sweet, like he was concerned about things being nice for me.” Officer Pendleton looked at me like I was the nutjob. “And yes, I can clearly see now that this was not normal teenage boy behavior, and all red flags. Why?”
“That’s why the crime scenes were so clean!” Dad exclaimed. “He was literally scrubbing down everything, even the brain cavity! What a fruit loop,” he added. “Sorry, Jas. But your boyfriend was nuts.”
“Okay, I get it,” I said. “I’m never dating again. Can we get Blossom and Mom and go home now?” I was tired of hearing about what a horrible person my very first boyfriend had turned out to be. I wanted to find my sister and my mother, go home, and reassure myself that we were all, finally, safe.
TWENTY-ONE
Mom gently suggested I take a break from dating for a while, and I told her I’d already decided that very thing. I was still unnerved that my judgment had been so horribly out of whack.
&n
bsp; Blossom’s social life, on the other hand, was picking up. Mickey had sent flowers after Andy and Andrea’s attack, plus asked my parents for permission to date her.
“Absolutely not,” Dad said. “You’re too young.”
“Gnahh krah!” I’m older than Jasmine, and she got to go out with Andy!
“That might not be the strongest argument in your favor,” I murmured.
“Raghaa floooooo!” Blossom switched tactics.
“That’s true, Dad. At eighteen, she’s technically an adult,” I chimed in.
“She’s undead! What happens if this guy nibbles at her neck and a hunk of flesh pops off?”
Blossom giggled. Mom looked green around the gills.
“What if Jasmine went with them?” Mom suggested.
“Maybe,” Dad said begrudgingly. “I’ll think about it.”
“Hey!” I said. “Maybe I don’t want to chaperone! I have a life too, you know.” I scowled at Blossom.
“Blaaahhhaaarrr gaaah,” Blossom retorted. Maybe I don’t want to babysit you while I’m on my date, either.
“Will you girls knock it off?” Mom said, exasperated. “I’m tired of the bickering! Blossom, the same rules apply to you as Jasmine. You can go out, but only if you take your sister with you. At least this guy probably isn’t a homicidal maniac,” she added under her breath. I stuck out my tongue at Blossom. She scooped up a pile of raw, pinkish-gray goat brains from her plate and mashed them in her mouth, then opened wide to show me her partially pulped food.
“Seeeefoooo!”
My sister, the comedian.
~~**~~
Mickey had suggested we all go to the Apple Fest, a small fair that Glastonbury held every October on the town green to celebrate the year’s fruit harvest. It sounded safe and wholesome to my parents, who dropped us off at the entrance. Mickey was waiting with a shiny Macintosh apple for me and a bag of brainy treats for Blossom.