“How many jelly beans can one person eat?” he asked.
I pointed at his snack. “What’s that, some sort of nuclear accident?”
Evan looked wounded. “This is my mom’s special muffin recipe,” he said.
“Oh, sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know she made it.”
“She’s a great cook!” He peered down at his snack sadly. “But these muffins have no flour and no gluten, whatever gluten is. My mom says I need to eat healthy.”
“Eating healthy is overrated,” Ross said, eavesdropping. “And so is listening to you yap about your food.”
“Mind your own business,” Evan mumbled, “or Arnold will zing you again.”
Ross was stunned. “You stink” was all he could come up with, before Mrs. Huggle said, “That’s enough, boys.”
I glanced over at Evan. He grinned back at me.
Boy, things had sure changed.
Later, at lunch, I decided to try and figure out who had started the rumors about me. As far as I could tell, the only possible suspects were Nurse Raposo, who I’d pretty much ruled out, and I guess Coach Hank, who may have been tipped off by my pathetic dodgeball skills. But there are a lot of lousy athletes out there, right? And he didn’t seem like the type—as far as I could tell, all he cared about was winning, losing, and yelling.
I was standing in the cafeteria, holding another tray of food that I wasn’t going to eat and container of milk that I wasn’t going to drink, when I saw Kiki at her usual table. I walked over, and a bunch of kids immediately scattered to make room for me.
“Thanks,” I said, sitting down. I turned to Kiki. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Hold on a second.” She was in the middle of telling a story to two girls and a boy, whose names I didn’t know. Kiki had a lot of friends.
She got to the punch line—“And that’s when he said to me, ‘When’s the last time you saw someone put strawberries inside a clarinet?’ ”—and the three others cracked up. After basking in the laughter for a few seconds, Kiki looked at me. “What’s up?”
“What are you eating?”
“Oh, this?” She waved the food around. “It’s a fish stick. You want a bite?”
“I’m allergic.”
“What aren’t you allergic to?”
“Yeah, I know.” I leaned in. “So anyway, what I wanted to ask you is kind of private.”
“Oh, okay,” she said. “Let’s go over here.” We got up and walked over to the water fountain, which nobody ever used, because for some reason everyone seemed to prefer buying water in a bottle. “What’s up?”
“Well, I was wondering,” I said. “Uh …”
Kiki drummed her fingers impatiently. “Uh, what? I don’t want my fish sticks to get cold.”
“Has anyone said anything to you about me?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, like, have you heard anything like, I might not be who I say I am?”
“You mean like the other day, with the spy stuff? I think half the people believed you, and half thought you were being ridiculous. Although that thing you did to Ross seemed, like, straight out of the Avengers or something. But I haven’t heard anything besides that.”
“Okay, thanks.”
We walked back to the table. If a kid had been spreading rumors about me, Kiki definitely would have known.
That meant it was an adult.
After lunch, I went to the nurse’s office, where Nurse Raposo was drinking tea and reading a magazine.
“Somebody knows,” I told her.
She looked up. “Somebody knows what?”
“Who I really am.” I sat down on one of the nap-and-feel-better tables. “They might not know for sure, but they have a hunch. Someone went to the police about a strange boy in town, and the police went to the Kinders’ house.”
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “Well, don’t pay attention to them. No one can do anything without proof, and no one can get proof with a search warrant, and no one can get a search warrant without probable cause.”
I stared at her, totally confused.
“I watch a lot of police shows on TV,” she explained. “So. Did you bring me your list of dos and don’ts?”
“I didn’t,” I said. “I got really busy. I will.”
“Are you planning on going to Field Day on Sunday?” asked the nurse. “You have to be very careful, you know. Don’t try to do too much.”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about me, I promise.”
I didn’t tell her the real reason she didn’t have to worry.
Which was that I’d be gone by then.
The next day was Friday. It was going to be my last day in school, although I was the only one who knew that, of course. So I decided to have a little fun. Well, my version of fun, anyway.
The first thing I did was start raising my hand again, every time Mrs. Huggle asked a question. It was incredibly obnoxious, I admit it, but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted them to remember me as the smartest human they’d ever known.
“Perhaps you’d like to give someone else a chance, Arnold?” asked Mrs. Huggle, staring at my outstretched hand after she’d asked the class a fairly easy math question.
“Sure thing,” I said. “Ross, why don’t you give this one a try?”
Ross, who’d been using his book as a pillow, lifted his head upright with a snap. “What? Huh? Did somebody say something?”
“What’s the square root of eighty-one, Ross?” I asked him. “Mrs. Huggle would like to know. Or, Brett, maybe you know the answer?”
Ross rubbed his eyes and then closed them, as if he were trying to wake himself from a nightmare, but when he opened them again, we were all still there. Brett tried to disappear into his chair.
“The square root of what?” asked Ross.
“Eighty-one,” I repeated. “I’ll give you a hint. It’s less than ten and more than eight.”
“Uh, nine?” guessed Brett.
I clapped heartily. “Nailed it!”
Brett looked like he wanted to grind me up into zombie stew. The rest of the class was giggling in shocked glee, but Mrs. Huggle was not amused. “Okay, Arnold, that’s enough.”
“Sorry, Mrs. Huggle.”
I glanced over at Sarah Anne. She was staring straight ahead, but I think there was a small smile at the corners of her mouth.
Later, at lunch, I went all the way on the spy story.
“So I heard from my parents,” I told everyone at my table, and the three nearest tables, too. “There’s a possibility I may have to join them on their mission. It’s top secret, so I can’t say a lot about it, but if I do go and never come back, please don’t try to contact me—it could be dangerous.”
“This is a joke, right?” Evan said. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
“Nope, not a joke, “I said. “Why do you think I pulled that move on Ross? I was practicing. But don’t worry. If I have to go, I’m definitely not leaving before your party.”
Kiki narrowed her eyes at me. “Why do I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling us?”
“There’s A LOT I’m not telling you.” I took a handful of jelly beans and stuffed them in my mouth. “But it’s for your own safety. If you knew certain things, than you might be in harm’s way.”
That part was true, anyway.
“Fine, be that way.” Kiki grabbed her tray and stood up. “I’m not hungry anymore.” She didn’t even look at me as she walked away.
I wanted to shout after her, “I’ll tell you everything just as soon as I can!”—but I didn’t, of course. I just sat there at the table, answering silly questions about my parents’ lives as secret agents. But it was okay, I could handle it.
After all, it was going to be my last lunch table ever.
Finally it was Saturday night—the night of the party! As we pulled into Evan’s driveway, Jenny put her hand on my arm.
“Now, Arnold,” she
said, “I want to be sure you realize you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. Jumping into a sleepover is a big step, especially since you’re just getting used to being around human children. Are you sure you can handle it?”
“I’ll be okay,” I said. “Evan only invited two of us, and Kiki can’t stay for the sleepover part because she’s a girl. If I don’t stay, Evan won’t have any friends with him on his birthday.”
Jenny smiled. “You’re a good boy, Arnold,” she said.
“I’m not a boy,” I reminded her.
“Details, details,” she said. “Go on now.” But before I got out of the car, I looked at her.
“I just want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. You’ve been so nice, and I really appreciate it.”
She frowned. “You’re welcome, but where’d that come from?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I guess I just wanted to say it.”
“Go have fun.” She waved me out of the car. “See you tomorrow.”
I got out of the car and walked up to Evan’s front door without looking back.
There was a giant sign hanging over the front door:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EVAN!
I rang the doorbell. Evan’s mom answered the door and gave me a much friendlier smile than the last time I saw her.
“Hello again, Arnold!”
“Hello again, Evan’s mom.”
She howled in laughter. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You can call me Mrs. Brantley.”
“Okay. Hi, Mrs. Brantley.”
“Come in, please! Evan is just getting dressed.”
“Getting dressed?” I asked. “Hasn’t he been dressed all day?”
Mrs. Brantley guffawed again. “You are hilarious, Arnold! Well, Evan wanted to look especially nice for the big party tonight.”
I wasn’t sure that two guests qualified as a big party, but I decided not to say that out loud.
“Is Kiki here?” I asked Mrs. Brantley.
“Not yet, but she should be arriving any minute.”
“Where are your dogs?”
“Oh!” She laughed. “I know they made you uncomfortable, so they’re at my sister’s house for the night.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I told her, but she wasn’t really listening. She led me into their TV room, which had a ton of games set up all around, plus a big machine that said MAKE YOUR OWN COTTON CANDY on the side. Mrs. Brantley pointed at the machine. “Would you like some? It’s just as good as at the circus!”
“Oh, no thank you,” I said, already wondering how I was going to avoid all the food that was going to be offered. “I actually ate before I came over.”
“Who eats before they go to a birthday party?” Mrs. Brantley sat down on the couch and motioned for me to sit, too. “Evan said you were an interesting fellow, and he was right. Where did you say you moved from again?”
“Actually, I didn’t say,” I told her.
“Oh, right!” Mrs. Brantley said, extremely cheerfully. “Well then, where are you from?”
“I grew up all over the place. My family moved a lot.”
“And where are your parents now?”
“Overseas.”
“I see.” The doorbell rang, much to my relief. Mrs. Brantley jumped up. “Well, that must be our other guest!”
She ran to the front door and greeted Kiki with the same over-enthusiasm she had given me. Kiki skipped into the TV room and immediately raided the cotton candy machine.
“So I have one taker!” said Mrs. Brantley. She glanced up the staircase. “I’ll go see what’s keeping Evan.”
“Hmmmph,” Kiki mumbled to me, through a mouth full of cotton candy. “When did you get here?”
“A few minutes ago,” I said. “Evan’s mom is sure acting a little strange today. She’s being super friendly.”
Kiki laughed. “Have you met Evan? That weirdness had to come from somewhere.”
“I haven’t asked you yet,” I said, “but how did you two become friends? You seem so … different.”
Kiki chomped thoughtfully on her cotton candy. “Evan and I met in nursery school,” she said. “All the other kids were playing with dolls and dinosaurs, and the two of us just wanted to eat glue.” She paused. “Then he got sick and disappeared for a while, and according to my parents, I asked them every night where he was. When he came back, his leg was gone, and everyone else in school was scared of him. But I knew he was the same old Evan, who just wanted to eat glue. And even though we don’t have that much in common anymore, we’ve been friends ever since.”
“We sure have!” said a voice behind us. Kiki and I turned around and there was Evan. He was wearing a shirt that said BIRTHDAY BOY! but the boy was crossed out and replaced by man.
Kiki and I ran up to him. “Birthday man!” we hollered. “Happy birthday!”
Evan seemed so happy to see us, and I was immediately glad I had made the decision not to leave until tomorrow.
“I have a ton of fun things planned for us!” Evan announced. “First we’re going to play some games, then we’re going to go jump on the trampoline, and then we’re going to have cheeseburgers and chocolate pie, and then we’re going to go upstairs and watch a scary movie before we go to sleep.”
“Sounds amazing!” Kiki said. “I love all those things!”
“Me, too,” I chimed in, even though I don’t play games, I can’t jump, I definitely shouldn’t eat cheeseburgers or chocolate pie, and I’ve never been asleep.
And watching a scary movie doesn’t really sound all that great either, to tell you the truth.
But guess what?
It ended up being SO MUCH FUN.
First of all, jumping is easy when you’re on a trampoline. It does all the work for you!
“I’m going so high!” I said to Evan and Kiki, as we bounced up and down. “This is amazing!” I was so excited that I yelled, “Watch this!” and lifted my two legs over my head in midair (zombies can’t run very well, but our arms and legs are super elastic).
Evan and Kiki stared at me in shock. “Where’d you learn to do that?” Evan asked.
Whoops. I immediately put my legs down. “Uh … I’ve taken a lot of gymnastics classes.”
“That’s not gymnastics,” Kiki said. “That’s freaky-deaky-astics.” Then she held her arms over her head. “But I’ll have you know, you’re looking at the world champion trampoliner. Check this out!”
She started doing flips, handstands, and cartwheels. Evan looked at her like she was crazy—and also like she was the luckiest person in the world to have two legs so she could do all that crazy stuff.
“Whoa!” she cried, as she landed on her butt after a particularly wild flip.
“Be careful!” I said. “You could hurt yourself!”
She laughed. “It’s worth the risk!”
We all kept jumping, almost touching the sky. Looking at the happiness on Evan’s face, I understood the importance of friendship and having people you could count on, and trust, and have fun with.
And that was when I felt it. All of a sudden, I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Evan and Kiki. My first friends ever.
I know it sounds crazy, but I started to wonder if maybe I didn’t have to run away after all. Maybe there was a way I could find my old home but still keep my new friends.
Maybe they were worth the risk.
After the trampoline, and the games (I tried to pin the tail on the donkey and ended up pinning it on the couch), and the chocolate pie (I ate the jelly beans on the icing), we settled in to watch the scary movie.
“It’s called ZOMBIE ATTACK!” Evan said.
Oh, great.
The movie was about—you guessed it—a zombie attack. It took place in a small town, and the main part of the story was about a family who had just moved there, and the mom was the town doctor, and the daughter was infected with a virus that turned her into a bloodthirsty, human-hunting zombie, and she led an attack on the town, and so the mom had t
o decide whether or not to destroy her own daughter.
During a slow part of the movie, Kiki punched me in the shoulder. “Hey, Arnold, I don’t know why I never thought about this before,” she said. “But if you put your middle initial together with your last name, it spells zombie.”
“But it’s spelled differently,” Evan pointed out. “Z-O-M-B-E-E.”
Kiki rolled her eyes. “Yeah, duh, I got that.”
“People have been making fun of me about that for years,” I said, trying to sound as natural as possible. “Maybe I should change my last name to Frankenstein.”
Evan cracked up. “Good thing you’re about as opposite to a zombie as anyone could ever be!”
“What do you mean?” I asked him.
“Well, zombies are horrible monsters who eat people’s brains. You’re, like, the nicest, quietest, most polite kid I’ve ever met.”
“Zombies don’t actually exist,” Kiki said, as if she were talking to a couple of three-year-olds. “Everybody knows that.”
“My dad says you can never be too sure,” Evan said.
“Your dad?” I said. Then I realized his dad hadn’t come home yet. “Where is your dad, anyway? Is he still at work?”
But before he could answer, the doorbell rang.
“Noooooooo!” said Kiki. Then she ducked under a blanket. “If that’s my mom, tell her I’m not here. Tell her a zombie ate my brain!”
“That’s not funny,” I said.
Kiki looked hurt for a second, then recovered and punched my shoulder. “Gosh, it’s just a movie. Lighten up.”
It did turn out to be Kiki’s mother, coming to get her.
“But, Mom!” Kiki wailed. “I need to watch the rest of the movie!”
Kiki’s mom laughed. “Not tonight you don’t, honey. It’s getting late, these boys need to be heading to bed.”
Kiki whined and moaned for a few more minutes, but finally she pulled herself up off the couch and put her shoes and socks back on.
“That was so fun, Evan,” she said, giving him a big hug. “Thank you for having me, and happy birthday.”
“You’re welcome, and thanks,” Evan said, beaming.
A Zombie Ate My Homework Page 9