by Joe McGee
Madeline stood in the lunch line, waiting her turn. When she got to the menu, she froze. Today was supposed to be cheeseburgers with french fries. Someone had crossed out “french fries” and written, in green ink, lima beans. Madeline peeked around Parker and Lucas, who were in front of her. Sure enough, two great big tins of lima beans sat just behind the glass. The lunch lady was heaping piles of them onto kids’ trays. She just stood there, mouth open, eyes staring out into space… green eyes. Just like Grandma’s! The same green, glowing eyes.
Parker stepped up and held his tray before him. Like a robot, the lunch lady scooped, dumped, and scooped again.
“Psst, Lucas!” Madeline said, trying to get his attention. He was next.
Lucas turned toward her.
“Lucas, don’t eat the—”
Madeline didn’t finish her sentence. She couldn’t finish her sentence. Lucas was grinning and staring at her… with eyes aglow, the color of lima beans!
“You have to eat your lima beans, Madeline,” he said.
Madeline stumbled backward, away from Lucas. Away from the line. Away from the lima beans.
Lucas turned back to the lunch lady and held his tray before him, taking not one, not two, but three giant scoops of lima beans.
“Lucinda!” Madeline said, rushing back to the lunch table. “Lucinda, something really weird is going on!”
Madeline’s stomach dropped. Lucinda always ate a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich for lunch. Always. But Lucinda was not eating a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich. Lucinda’s sandwich was mashed full of gross lima beans.
“Lucinda?” Madeline said, taking a step back.
Lucinda turned to look at her friend. Lima-bean paste was smeared across her mouth, and glowing eyes stared right through Madeline from behind the thick lenses of her glasses.
“Eat. Your. Lima beans, Madeline Harper.”
Lucinda thrust her sandwich at Madeline. Madeline shrieked and smacked the sandwich out of Lucinda’s hand. It hit the cafeteria floor with a wet splat.
“Lucinda!” Madeline shouted, grabbing her friend by the shoulders. “Lucinda, snap out of it!”
Lucinda licked a big smear of lima-bean mash off her top lip.
“You can’t run from us forever, Madeline.”
Madeline let go of Lucinda and turned to run, but Parker and Lucas and even Samantha von Oppelstein (who normally avoided everybody) stood in Madeline’s path. They held handfuls of lima beans out in front of them, shuffling toward Madeline.
“Get away from me!” Madeline shouted. “All of you, get away from me!”
“They’re coming to get you, Madeline,” said Lucinda, standing up. “We’re all coming to get you. You must eat your lima beans.”
Madeline was cornered. She had nowhere to go, and so she did the only thing she could. She jumped up onto the lunch table. She ran across the table’s surface, heading for the cafeteria exit.
“Don’t eat the lima beans!” she hollered to all the kids in the lunchroom. “Whatever you do, do not eat the lima beans!”
Gilbert Blardle, the fastest boy in the fifth grade, and Sally McKinley, the girl who remembered everything, dropped their spoons and stared at Madeline. Robby Dugan and Trace Roosevelt shrugged and shoved a spoonful of lima beans into their mouths. Madeline was already past them, but if she had turned around and looked, she would have seen their jaws drop and their eyes turn the same eerie glow-in-the-dark color as Parker’s, Lucas’s, Samantha von Oppelstein’s, Lucinda’s, the lunch lady’s, and Grandma’s.
But Madeline was focused on one thing: the exit. She had to get out of there. She had to warn everyone. She leapt from the end of the long lunch table and landed two steps from the open cafeteria door.
Two steps from Mr. Noffler, her fifth-grade teacher, who was just entering the lunchroom.
“Madeline Harper,” he said, crossing his arms and frowning.
“Yes?” she said, with a sigh of relief. Luckily, his eyes were not glowing or green.
“My classroom, now,” said Mr. Noffler. “You, young lady, have just earned yourself a recess detention.”
5
Recess detention would normally be a bad thing. It meant that you had to stay inside while everyone else went outside and played kickball, or tag, or swung on the swings, or talked about who had a crush on who, or what weird thing was going on in town lately. In recess detention you had to sit inside and watch everyone through Mr. Noffler’s classroom windows. Sometimes he made you write on the chalkboard. Other times he made you do extra math assignments or straighten the desks.
Madeline was eager to do any of those things. Even the math problems. She did not want to be out there playing kickball, or tag, or swinging on the swings with any of her classmates. And she did not need to talk about what weird thing was going on in town, because it was happening right here, right now, and she was the only normal one.
Well, Sally and Gilbert seemed normal. For the time being. She’d have to keep an eye on them, she thought.
“Care to explain what that was all about?” asked Mr. Noffler. He sat down at his desk and spread his lunch out before him.
“You wouldn’t believe me anyway,” said Madeline. She stared outside, trying to determine if Sally and Gilbert had been turned into lima-bean creatures. She couldn’t see their eyes from here, but Gilbert was running around like a squirrel with a sugar rush, and Sally seemed to be talking and talking and talking to a group of bored fourth graders. She was probably reciting the entire Gettysburg Address again. She really could remember everything.
“Try me,” said Mr. Noffler. He took a bite of his sandwich.
“Something very strange is going on, Mr. Noffler,” said Madeline.
“Strange how?” he asked.
“It’s the lima beans.”
“The lima beans?”
“They’re controlling everyone. I don’t know how, but they’re controlling everyone.”
“The lima beans?” said Mr. Noffler. “They’re controlling everyone?”
“See? I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Oh, I believe you, Madeline Harper,” said Mr. Noffler. He stood up from his desk, sandwich in hand. Something green was smeared between the pieces of bread. “I believe you one hundred percent.”
Madeline scooted her chair back.
“Madeline Harper,” he said. “You will write on the chalkboard ‘I will eat my lima beans,’ one thousand times!”
Mr. Noffler’s eyes were green and glowing, and a line of drool hung from his lower lip.
“May I be excused?” asked Madeline.
“One thousand times!”
“I really don’t feel that well.”
Mr. Noffler shuffled around the desk, holding a piece of chalk out toward Madeline. Madeline, however, made a run for the open classroom door.
She dashed into the hallway.
“Madeline Harper, eat your lima beans!” called Mr. Noffler from behind her. He scrambled out of the classroom, but Madeline was quicker.
The hallway was pretty deserted since the fifth graders were at recess, the fourth graders were at lunch, and everyone else was in class. No one could be trusted. Anyone could be under the control of the lima beans. She wasn’t sure how they were doing it, only that they were doing it. It was like when she was in the third grade, when Tommy Cartaya got chicken pox, and then everyone got chicken pox, and Nurse Farmer had to keep giving everyone calamine lotion to stop the constant scratching.
Maybe, Madeline thought, Nurse Farmer will know what to do.
Madeline turned the corner and dashed into Nurse Farmer’s office.
“Nurse Farmer, Nurse Farmer!” said Madeline. “I need your help!”
Nurse Farmer was organizing the containers of cotton balls and the tongue depressors by size.
“Are you ill?” she asked over her shoulder. “Are you not feeling well?”
“It’s not me,” said Madeline. “It’s everyone else.”
�
�That sounds dreadful,” said Nurse Farmer.
“It is. It started with the lima beans at dinner last night.…”
“Did you eat your lima beans?”
“No,” said Madeline. “They’re disgusting.”
“Madeline Harper,” said Nurse Farmer, “surely you know that a good diet is the only way to stay healthy.”
“I do, of course.”
“Then why,” said Nurse Farmer, turning away from the medicine cabinet, “won’t you… EAT… YOUR… LIMA BEANS?”
She stood there, staring at Madeline. Her eyes were green and glowing.
Madeline screamed and ran from the nurse’s office.
She had to find a place to regroup. The school wasn’t safe. First it was her classmates, then Mr. Noffler, and now Nurse Farmer?
Madeline threw open the exit on the side of the school and hurried down the steps.
“Think, Madeline,” she said to herself. “What’s your next play? They’ve got you in check and on the run. Time to limit their moves. Aha!”
She grinned.
She knew just where she had to go.
6
Madeline ran all the way to the Wolver Hollow Fresh Mart (making sure to spit over the side of the bridge into Wolf Creek as she did—everyone knew that a troll lived under the bridge, and if you didn’t spit, he would eat your toes in the night). She wasn’t sure how the lima beans were doing it, but somehow they were everywhere. Somehow they were making people eat them. There was no way that many people actually liked lima beans.
She grabbed a small shopping cart and waited for the doors to slide open. If there weren’t any more lima beans to buy in Wolver Hollow, then people couldn’t eat them. And if people couldn’t eat them, they wouldn’t become lima bean–controlled zombie pod people! At least she hoped so.
“Hello, Madeline,” said Mr. George. He was in the middle of shelving cans of dog food. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
Madeline took a very close look at his eyes. Mr. George had very thick, very crazy eyebrows, but underneath them his eyes looked normal.
“Not green,” Madeline said.
“Pardon me?”
“Your eyes—they’re not green.”
“Well, no,” said Mr. George. “They’ve never been green.”
“Mr. George, do you like lima beans?” Madeline asked.
“Not in the least,” he said. “And it’s a good thing too.”
Madeline was puzzled. “I completely agree with you, but why do you say it’s a good thing?”
Mr. George placed the last can of dog food on the shelf and wiped his hands on his store apron.
“Because if I did like lima beans, I’d be out of luck,” he said. “Sold the last couple of cans just five minutes ago.”
“What about frozen lima beans?” Madeline asked. Her heart was beating very fast.
Mr. George shook his head. “Sold the last of them this morning.”
Her heart was beating even faster.
“In fact, now that I think of it, there’s been a steady string of folks coming in since yesterday, all buying up the lima beans. Even the bags of dried beans.”
Madeline didn’t bother to respond to Mr. George. She had to see for herself. She hurried along the aisles, pushing her cart before her. Bread and cereal, household supplies and cleaning products, tea, coffee, and other beverages… Aisle five: canned vegetables.
Madeline passed the beets, carrots, peas, and canned corn, and when she got to the big empty spot on the shelf, her stomach lurched. The label read: LIMA BEANS.
But there was not a single can to be found. They were gone. All gone. Every single can of lima beans was gone.
She ran to the frozen section and scanned the frosted glass. There were frozen peas and broccoli and carrots and corn and not a single bag of frozen lima beans. It was exactly like Mr. George had said. The lima beans were on the loose. They were in people’s homes, and now everyone was in danger.
She had to warn the townsfolk. She had to warn them all!
Madeline abandoned her cart and ran for the front of the store. She was halfway down the frozen foods aisle when she heard slow, shuffling footsteps approaching. Mr. George stood there, blocking her way. But this time he wasn’t smiling. His mouth hung open, and one long line of lime-colored drool dripped from his lower lip. It fell to the polished floor tiles with a wet splat.
But that wasn’t the only thing that was green. Under those thick, crazy eyebrows, Mr. George’s eyes were a bright, shining green.
Madeline skidded to a stop. “Mr. George?”
Mr. George didn’t respond. He just stared at her with those crazy eyes. Shadowy shapes shuffled forward from behind Mr. George, crowding the end of the aisle: Mr. Noffler, Nurse Farmer, Lucinda, Parker, Lucas, and Samantha von Oppelstein. The lunch lady was there, and Mayor Stine, and even Father Mackenzie in his priestly robes. Two more familiar people lurched forward with eyes aglow and mouths drooling goo.
Madeline took two steps backward. “Mom? Grandma? What—what are you doing here?”
When Mom and Grandma answered, everyone answered. With the same strange moan:
“Eat. Your. Lima beans!”
The crowd of lima bean–controlled people grabbed at her, but Madeline was quick. Madeline swept an armful of cans from the shelf and turned and ran in the opposite direction. Mr. George was the first to stumble over the cans, and the rest of the green-eyed group fell in a heap atop him. Madeline didn’t bother to wait around. She knew the cans weren’t going to stop them. They would only slow them down.
If she was going to warn the rest of town, she needed a way to reach them. But right now? Right now she needed to put as much distance between herself and the zombies as possible.
Madeline cut through the back storeroom and pushed open the rear door. She cast a quick look around to make sure the coast was clear, and then she darted out the back, hopping off the loading dock and running as fast as she could.
“If I survive this,” Madeline said, sucking in a deep breath and wishing she’d worn her sneakers, “I’m joining the track team.”
7
Madeline turned the corner and nearly ran into two of her classmates: Sally McKinley and Gilbert Blardle. She’d watched them out at recess, and they’d seemed fine, but she wasn’t taking any chances. They might have been infected between then and now.
“Back off, weirdos!” she screamed. “I’m not eating any lima beans!”
“Why would we want you to eat lima beans?” asked Sally.
“Yeah,” said Gilbert. “And why’d you call us weirdos? That’s mean.”
Madeline leaned forward and peered into their eyes. Not glowing. Not green. Not yet, anyway. She’d have to exercise caution.
“Sally, can you tell me what color shirt I wore three Thursdays ago?” Madeline asked.
“Sure,” said Sally. “You had an orange sweater with a green dog on it. Am I right?”
Madeline shrugged. “I have no idea what I wore three weeks ago! But you sound pretty confident. Okay, you seem safe. Not infected.”
“Infected?” asked Gilbert.
“By the lima beans,” said Madeline. “They’re everywhere. They’re turning people into mindless zombies.”
“Like them?” Sally asked, pointing back over Madeline’s shoulder.
Mr. George and the rest of the crazy-eyed crowd shambled around the corner, moaning and drooling.
“Come on!” said Madeline. She grabbed Sally and Gilbert by their sleeves and pulled them along with her.
“Where are we going?” asked Gilbert.
“I don’t know,” said Madeline. “Away from here? Somehow we have to warn the town.”
“What about the radio station?” asked Sally.
“That’s a great idea!” said Madeline.
W-OLF 88.4 FM, Wolver Hollow’s premier (and only) radio station, occupied a very narrow building squeezed in between the bank and the bookstore. Its radio antennae jutted up high a
bove those other buildings, broadcasting Wolver Hollow’s news, music, talk shows, and local interests.
Madeline pulled the front door open, and the three of them hurried inside. She turned the lock and took a deep breath.
“Maybe we lost them,” she said. “I hope we lost them. I cannot keep running all over this town.”
“What’s that noise?” asked Gilbert. He clapped his hands over his ears and glared at the speakers on the wall.
“That’s called ‘oldies,’ ” Madeline said, putting the last word in air quotes. “My grandma plays this stuff all the time. Says that was real music.”
“Sounds dreadful,” said Sally.
The front door rattled. The doorknob shook, and hands and fists slapped and pounded on the other side. The lima-bean zombies had reached the radio station, and their moans were so loud, they drowned out the oldies playing inside.
Gilbert pressed his back to the door. “I don’t know how long I can hold them!”
“Now what?” Madeline asked. She looked around her in a panic.
“Beats me,” said Sally. “Do I look like a DJ?”
“A DJ,” said Madeline. “That’s good! We’ll… We’ll get the DJ to broadcast our warning. Someone’s got to be in here running this place, right?”
“As long as they haven’t already become one of them,” said Sally.
“A little help, please!” Gilbert said, pushing back against the door with all of his might.
Madeline and Sally dragged a chair over and wedged it under the doorknob.
“That should buy us some time,” said Madeline.
The front door heaved inward, but the lock and the chair held. For now.
“The studio must be upstairs,” said Sally.
“If we can let the rest of the town know what’s going on,” said Madeline, “we might be able to make sure nobody else becomes infected. We have to stop them from eating any lima beans.”
They climbed the steep, narrow stairs to the second floor. A messy office sat on one side of the hallway, and on the other side, the studio. Gilbert, Sally, and Madeline squeezed into the cramped studio control room. It was filled with all kinds of confusing electronic equipment. Cables snaked everywhere, and an instrument panel with a gazillion buttons and flashing lights took up one entire wall. The broadcast studio was on the other side of a glass wall, and sure enough, the DJ was in there, headphones on, surrounded by microphones, radio equipment, and monitors. A light above the studio door read: ON AIR.