by David Lubar
“I think I can play that role,” I said.
Mr. Murphy patted my leg. “I have no doubt. Well, I won’t be seeing you again until after you’ve been contacted.”
“Why?”
“We can’t take any chances. The first contact could take place anywhere, at any time. The results of the competition will be in the paper tomorrow, and it’ll also be posted on the Brainy Brawny website. Baron von Lyssa will know who you are, thanks to your impressive victory score. His people will be watching you, so they can figure out when and where to test you.”
“So how will I get in touch with you?” I asked.
“Use the computer game,” he said. “I’ll be waiting for your message.”
* * *
Things at school had settled down, just the way Abigail said they would. I guess everyone was getting used to her being smart. And she was getting used to not hiding her brilliance. I think it’s like if I suddenly grew six inches taller, everyone would stare at me for a week or two. But then they’d be used to it.
But not everything went smoothly on Monday. I was in the hall on my way to science when Rodney walked up behind me. Just as I caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye, he reached out and flicked my ear with his finger. I was ready. I shouted “Owwww!” and grabbed my ear like I’d been hurt.
But something shot past me and hit the floor. As I pressed my hand against the side of my head, I realized my suspicion was horribly correct.
Rodney had flicked my ear off!
He was staring at me like he wasn’t totally sure what he’d just seen. I scanned the floor. My ear was down there, ahead of me, near the wall. I could hear footsteps through it as kids walked by.
I bent over like I was in pain, howled again, and rolled toward the floor, diving between kids who were rushing to class.
Keeping one hand pressed against the side of my head, I scooped up the ear in my other hand. Then, as I rolled farther and turned the side of my head away from Rodney, I switched hands and pressed my ear back in place. It wouldn’t stay without glue, but I could at least let him see a glimpse of it through my fingers. I spread them enough so there was no mistake.
He took a step toward me, staring. Then he pointed a finger at my head. “You’re some kind of mutant freak.”
“You could get expelled for hitting me,” I said.
“It might be worth it.” Rodney’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll catch you later.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. I really didn’t want to be caught. It was bad enough being a zombie. It would be unbearable if everyone in school knew. I ducked into the bathroom and glued my ear back on. My scream of pain echoed against the tiles.
As I turned toward the mirror, I remembered that this was the place where it first hit me that I was dead. Right here in this bathroom, when I’d had the fork in my nose. I hated to think about it, but another truth was hitting me: I was falling apart. Rodney hadn’t flicked my ear all that hard. But it flew off. I touched my nose. How long before it fell off? How long before I started to look like something out of a nightmare?
* * *
On Tuesday, when I got to school, Abigail told me, “I heard from Uncle Zardo. He’s reached the Philippines.”
“Great. Did he find the flower?”
“Not yet,” Abigail said. “He can only travel around there at night.”
“What is he—a vampire?” Mookie asked.
“No. He’s had a bit of trouble there in the past,” she said.
“He’s never going to find the flower,” I said.
“Yeah. We need to go there ourselves,” Mookie said.
“That wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Abigail said. “That way, you can drink the cure as soon as it’s ready. We should try to get you over there somehow.”
“To the Philippines?” I asked. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“You could ask BUM,” she said. “They seem to have all sorts of military connections. They could get you anywhere in the world. They jetted you someplace the other day, didn’t they?”
I was about to explain to her why that wouldn’t work, but I could tell from the way her expression changed that she’d already figured it out.
“They don’t want you cured,” she said.
“Yeah. If I’m not dead, I can’t do useful stuff. I’m just a kid.”
“Maybe we can think of some other reason to get them to send you there,” Abigail said.
I looked past her. I could almost picture that flower, waiting for me. I wasn’t even sure where the Philippines were. If they were far enough away, I guess it wouldn’t matter which way I looked.
“Don’t worry,” Abigail said. “The flower will be there. We can figure it out after the contest. Maybe if you help destroy RABID, that will be enough for BUM.”
“I don’t think it will ever be enough,” I said. “There’ll always be more to do. I’ll be carrying out missions for them until I rot apart.” I couldn’t imagine Mr. Murphy ever agreeing to help cure me. Stronger bones were one thing. That just made me a better spy. But if I had a heartbeat and a temperature, if I needed to breathe and eat and sleep, I wouldn’t be special anymore—not in the way BUM needed me to be special. I wouldn’t be able to travel underwater, sneak past infrared detectors, or hide in vats of spaghetti sauce.
Way back, when Mr. Murphy had first shown me the bone machine, he told me he’d only help me if I agreed to work for BUM. I could still hear his words: We might strive for the good of the free world, but we’re not a charity.
That reminded me of something I’d wanted to ask Abigail. “Remember when Dr. Cushing called you to tell you the bone machine was working?”
“Of course. What about it?”
“Do you think it might have been ready earlier than that?”
“I never thought about it,” Abigail said. “We had a lot of problems to work out. Though, now that you mention it, I thought we’d solved the major issues a month or so before that. But I just figured she wanted to take extra time to make sure everything was perfect.”
“I think it was ready sooner than when she called you,” I said.
“But Dr. Cushing knew how worried you were about your bones. She wouldn’t make you wait,” Abigail said.
“Mr. Murphy would,” I said. “None of my spy missions needed strong bones. Nothing I did for BUM needed that, not until this Brainy Brawny thing came up.”
“So you think he didn’t let you have the treatment until BUM needed you to have it?”
“Yeah. I think so. But that’s how they work.” I wasn’t angry with them. Not really angry. Maybe just a little disappointed. But it helped me realize that Mr. Murphy wouldn’t do anything for me unless it also helped BUM. If I needed BUM’s help getting the flower, I’d have to find some sort of way to trick them. That wouldn’t be easy.
15
It’s in the Bag
After school, we headed for Abigail’s house.
“You know, pretzels are the perfect food,” Mookie said. He snapped off half a pretzel rod that he’d pulled from his backpack, shoved it in his mouth, then talked as he chewed. “They’re crunchy and salty. And you can dip them in anything. I’m glad I brought extra.”
“Most people consider the egg to be the perfect food,” Abigail said.
“Ick,” Mookie said. “Only when you bake them into cookies.”
I didn’t join the discussion. It only reminded me that I couldn’t eat anything—or at least, I shouldn’t. Not cookies. Not eggs. I’d eaten a huge amount of oysters a while ago, but that’s one memory I’d rather not hang on to.
As we reached the corner, an old guy staggered toward us, carrying a bag of groceries. He was wearing the sort of hat that old men wear, and a raggedy coat. Right before he reached us, he stumbled. He caught his balance, but the bag tumbled from his hands.
Cans and boxes scattered across the sidewalk. An orange rolled toward the curb.
“Oh, dear!” Abigail stooped down and started gatheri
ng the spilled groceries. “Let me help.”
“I got it.” Mookie chased after the orange. “It’s a hard grounder between first and second. The Mookster makes an amazing catch!” He snatched up the orange. Then he grabbed the bag and started filling it back up with the groceries.
I kept walking. Behind me, I heard Abigail ask, “Can we carry it home for you?”
“I’m really good at carrying things,” Mookie said. “Except when I drop them. I guess I drop stuff a lot. So don’t feel bad. You’re in good company. So, can we help you?”
“I’m fine,” the man said. “You’ve done enough.”
“Come on, we’ll be late,” I called over my shoulder. I slowed down and waited for them to catch up.
“Well, that was rude of you,” Abigail said when she reached me.
“Yeah, I’d expect that from me, not you,” Mookie said. “Wait—if you turn into me, does that mean I’ll turn into you, or will I turn into Abigail and she’ll turn into me?”
“Why didn’t you stop?” Abigail asked.
I shrugged. “He didn’t need our help.”
“Need has nothing to do with it,” Abigail said. “This is about helping others. It’s about—ohmygosh!” She glanced over her shoulder, then snapped her head back.
“Shhh,” I said.
“What?” Mookie asked. “This is another one of those things, right? Something is going on, and I’m the only one who doesn’t get it.”
I risked a quick glance. The guy was too far away now to hear us. It was safe to talk. “That was one of them,” I said.
“Who?” Mookie asked.
“One of Baron von Lyssa’s henchmen. He was testing us. RABID wants to recruit people who don’t care about others.”
“How’d you know it was a test?” Abigail asked.
I opened my mouth to explain, and realized I wasn’t really sure. Then I laughed at the answer that came to mind. “I guess you could call it a gut feeling.” That was the only kind of feeling I could have these days—even though my gut doesn’t feel anything at all.
“That makes sense,” Abigail said. “You’ve been doing all this spy work. You’ve gotten lots of training, and gone on different kinds of spy missions. Something about him gave you a clue. Maybe even something you didn’t realize you noticed. Whatever it was that tipped you off, the good thing is that you passed the test. They’ll get in touch with you now.”
“For sure,” I said. “As far as they could see, I’m perfect RABID material.” That had been close. If I’d done so much as bend down to pick up a can of soup, I would have ruined any chance of destroying RABID. “I guess I should make it as easy as possible for them.”
“You mean split up?” Abigail asked.
“Yeah. Now that they know I’m the sort of person they can recruit, and that the two of you aren’t, they’re going to wait until I’m alone to make contact.” I’d learned to think like a spy, and I was pretty sure that’s what they’d do.
“Well, I need to go to the library anyhow,” Abigail said. “I have a lot of files to scan through.”
“I’ll help,” Mookie said.
Abigail stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “That would be great. I could use the help.”
They headed off, and I headed home. When I took off my sneakers, I noticed my toes looked sort of weird. They’d stayed squished together. I pushed them apart, but I realized this was another sign that my whole body was not dealing well with being dead. I needed that cure.
I called Abigail an hour later. That was as long as I could stand waiting. “Any luck?”
“Not yet. I’m hoping they had an exhibit of the anima flower somewhere around East Craven or Hurston Lakes,” she said.
“It won’t be that easy,” I said. “Nothing will ever be easy again.”
“Hey, we found the Lazarus mullet near here,” she said.
That was an ingredient from the first cure. She was right. We’d found it at the local aquarium. That didn’t cheer me up. “We were lucky,” I said.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky again. I’m going to scan through every newspaper in the library until I find something about the anima flower,” she said. “They have papers from all over the state. They’re all stored on microfilm.”
“Microfilm?” I’d never heard of that.
“It’s like pictures of each page. Except they’re not on a computer. They’re on film in spools. You just have to look at the paper one page at a time.”
“That could take months.” I wasn’t even sure if I had weeks.
“I’ll do my best,” she said.
I heard Mookie shout, “I’ll help!”
It made me feel good. But not hopeful. Maybe I needed to start thinking about what I should do if I couldn’t get cured.
But I really didn’t want to think about that.
* * *
When I got to school the next day, Abigail and Mookie both looked like they’d rubbed hot sand in their eyes.
“We were at the library until it closed,” Mookie said. “I must have skimmed through a couple hundred old newspapers.”
“Any luck?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Abigail said. “But I know the information is there. We’ll keep looking until we find it.”
“What about Zardo?” I asked.
“He’s having a bit of trouble. I got a long message from him yesterday.” Abigail reached for her phone. “This is just the start of it.”
FLOUNDER SMOG
LACED ROPE
“It’s not good, is it?” I asked.
Abigail brought up the translated message:
FLOWER FOUND, SEEMS WRONG
LACKS EXPECTED PROPERTIES
“There’s more,” she said. “Basically, it looks like the anima flower might not be a cure, after all.”
“He’s the only person in the universe who makes more mistakes than I do,” Mookie said.
“Ohmygosh!” Abigail spun toward Mookie. “Say that again.”
Mookie shrugged. “You trying to make me feel bad? Okay. I’ll say it again: He’s the only person I’ve met who makes more mistakes than I do.”
Abigail reached out, grabbed Mookie’s head between her hands, pulled him forward, and kissed him on the forehead. “Genius!” she said.
“Huh?” Mookie staggered back.
“That’s it!” Abigail said. “Don’t you see?”
Mookie and I both shook our heads. We didn’t see.
Abigail pointed at me. “Why are you a zombie?”
“I was splashed with Hurt-Be-Gone,” I said.
“Right. But it was supposed to remove bad feelings. It wasn’t supposed to stop your heart and lungs and keep you from feeling physical pain.”
“Yeah, I know that,” I said. “But your uncle used the wrong flower.” I froze for an instant as I heard my own words. Then I shouted out Abigail’s favorite exclamation. “Ohmygosh!”
“What?” Mookie asked.
“The wrong flower!” Abigail and I both shouted at him.
I put my hands on his shoulders. “You are definitely a genius.”
He backed away. “Don’t kiss me!’
“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’re safe.” I let Abigail finish explaining.
“Think about it—we haven’t found any information about the anima flower. The flower he finally found doesn’t seem to have the right properties. There’s only one explanation that makes sense. Uncle Zardo got the name wrong again. There’s a cure out there. I know it. We just have to find the right flower.”
“How?” I asked.
“Research. The instant school gets out, I’m off to the library.” She turned back to me. “Any contact from RABID?”
“Nope. But I know it will come.”
“So you keep waiting and we’ll keep looking,” Abigail said.
“That sounds like our best plan.”
It turned out I didn’t have to wait very long.
16
Choose It or Lose It
<
br /> After all the high-tech ways Mr. Murphy had contacted me, I wasn’t ready for RABID’s method of sending messages. I was heading home from school early—we had a half day—when a guy walked up to me and held his hand out. He shoved a slip of paper at me. “Here, kid. Take it.”
The instant I grabbed the slip of paper, he turned and walked off.
I wanted to shout something at his back, like, Hey—you call yourself a spy? Come on, use some imagination! That was pathetic. Why don’t you just scream at me from across the street and wave a big sign. It would have been fun to start ranting, but I knew I couldn’t do anything that would let them know I wasn’t a normal kid.
I looked down at the paper. There was just one sentence: If you’d like to meet people who think the way you do, and who appreciate your abilities, go to the corner of Adams and Firth at three p.m.
So that was it. They’d made contact. They’d probably lead me around for a while, like Mr. Murphy did the first time I’d gone to BUM headquarters. Or maybe someone would just show up with a car to take me to meet Baron von Lyssa. Either way, all I had to do was go to that corner, and I’d be on my way to helping destroy RABID. BUM would follow me and capture Baron von Lyssa.
When I got home, I went to the computer and sent a message to Mr. Murphy through the Vampyre Stalker game, like I’d done when we’d first met. I kept it short. Adams and Firth. Three p.m. Today.
Ten minutes later, Abigail was banging on my door. Mookie was with her. “I have good news, bad news, and good news,” she said.
“How come it’s never just good news?” I asked.
“I guess that’s the way the world works.” She held up a photocopy of an old newspaper article. “Anyhow, the good news is that they had a special exhibition of the animus flower at the Nalbazuna Botanical Garden fifty years ago. That’s the plant we need. I did the research. It has all the right properties.”
“Fifty years ago?” I asked.
“That’s part of the bad news,” Abigail said. “That was the last time the flower was on display, which explains why it took so long to find an article about it. And the botanical garden closed about thirty years ago.”