My So-Called Death

  "Well, she wasn't really killed," I said. "She'll be fine if they find her brain and put it back in within the next few

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  days." Though what were the chances of that happening? Really? If some freak took her brain, I doubted they were in a big hurry to bring it back.

  "Karen, I'm not going to pretend to understand everything about your new school, but I don't think it's--Kyle! Keith! Don't you dare climb over that gate. You'll fall on your--hold on a second, hon." Mom let the phone clatter down onto a hard surface, making me wince and pull my cell a few inches away from my ear.

  But even with the speaker at a distance, I could hear her yelling at my little brothers and sister. As if seventeen-month-old babies were going to listen to anything she had to say, no matter how scary her big bad mommy voice. That's the thing about babies, they're so... babyish, and determined to do exactly what they darn well please.

  Not unlike myself.

  I was determined to stay at school, no matter how scary it was to think about a human cranium harvester being loose in our midst. I wasn't going to be scared off by some psycho. That's giving in to terrorist tactics, or... something like that. Besides, I had a strange feeling I'd be able to help find Kendra's brain before it was too late. I'd always been good at solving puzzles, and my gut told me that I already had part of this one put together.

  Gah! I wished my mom would hurry up and get back on the phone. I was dying to talk to Trish about the blood I'd seen on Gavin's shoes. I hated to suspect McDoMe, but blood-splattered Converse? Highly suspicious.

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  "I'm on hold." I rolled my eyes again. "The trips are acting up."

  "So, is she freaking out?" Trish had called her mom a few minutes before and endured a major screamfest, but in the end her mom had said Trish could stay at school. Mostly because she was a single parent and wasn't home until six thirty and worried about Trish being alone at their apartment all day while she was at work.

  "Not at bad as I thought. But yeah," I said, feeling strangely sad again.

  When I was alive, there was no way Mom would have let me stay at a school where some girl had gotten her brain ripped out. I would have been whipped out of PHS and stuck in the private Catholic girls' school in Atlanta before I could formulate a decent whine about scratchy plaid skirts.

  Though, man, what wouldn't I give now to be able to wear a Catholic schoolgirl outfit instead of my wretched robe? I'd stripped the atrocity off as soon as Trish and I got back to my room and was lounging in my brightest pair of Hello Kitty pajamas. Say what you will about my taste being juvenile, but I love the Kitty of the Hello.

  And, as an added bonus, the friendly Kitty faces all over my pink pants seemed to drive Clarice into a near-catatonic state of despair. She'd sat and stared and drooled for a few minutes, then mumbled something about having a migraine and headed down the hall to her friend Darby's room. Now Trish and I could chill without the tragic sighs of psycho girl interrupting.

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  "Karen, you there?" Mom asked, completely out of breath.

  Triplets will do that to you. That's why I never intended to reproduce. My mom got knocked up with triplets without any fertility treatments or anything. That meant having lots of babies at once was a hereditary thing for our family and... so... I...

  "Karen? Hello?"

  "Um, yeah. I'm here," I said, my voice trembling a bit. Death Challenged girls couldn't have kids. Our reproductive organs didn't function after death. I'd learned that today in Health.

  Which was great since I wasn't going to miss having my period one single iota. But kids...

  I mean, I'd just said I didn't want to reproduce. I guess it was knowing the choice wasn't mine to make anymore that made me a little sniffly.

  "Honey, you don't sound good. You must be scared to death. Why don't I send Dad down to get you when he gets home from work? I would come now, but the van's on the fritz and I can't fit all three car seats in the--"

  "No," I said, pulling myself together. Just last night I would have been thrilled to have my dad come pick me up, but that was before Trish. Now that I had a friend, DEAD was looking like a much better place to be.

  My classes today had been pretty cool too. Even math wasn't as bad as it had been at my human school, and Secrets of Successful Morticians and Their Uses for the Undead:

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  Foundation and Beyond, my seventh period class, was positively amazing. "Where else would makeup application be a mandatory class for all freshmen? I was really looking forward to learning how to use pancake foundation and cream rouge to look as human as possible when venturing out in the daylight without an illusion spell.

  In order to learn that, and everything else I needed to know, I had to stay at DEAD.

  "I'm fine, Mom. I promise. I'm not scared. "Well, I am, a little. But I don't want to leave school."

  "I know you don't, but--"

  "I just got here, and I think it's important for me to stay." I was careful to use my big girl voice and not allow the hint of a whine to creep into my tone. "Whining just made for a cranky, uncooperative Mom, and she already sounded pretty cranked out. "Besides, Principal Samedi has called in all kinds of extra security, and we're being careful to stay in pairs. My friend Trish is here in my room with me right now."

  "You already made a friend? That's great, honey, I'm so glad you're--Kimberly Mae Vera! Put that down! Karen, can I call you back? I--"

  "Fine, Mom, but I'm staying at school. It's settled, okay?"

  "I'll have to talk to your father, but as long as there aren't any other-- Kimmy! No!" The line went dead a second later. I snapped my cell closed with a sigh.

  At this point, I was almost glad to be a Death Challenged

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  weirdo who had been sent away to boarding school. I was only an hour away from my parents, so I could still see them on weekends--once I got a pass from Samedi and learned how to keep a basic illusion spell active--but I had the luxury of escaping the trips a large portion of the time. I loved those little monsters, but geez could they make life chaotic.

  Though I supposed I should have preferred living in chaos rather than a place where a girl had lost her brain through foul play.

  "So you're staying?" Trish smiled, her brown eyes lighting up.

  She looked much fresher now, having chowed down on the raw cow-brain snack-pack the cafeteria had delivered to our rooms due to lunch period being interrupted by untimely death. It was almost good enough to make me glad I'd lost the chance to try out the hot line. Slimy and gross or not, raw brains really do things for a girl's complexion.

  An Undead girl's complexion, anyway.

  "Looks like it." I returned her grin and reached for the discarded pink nail polish, determined to add as much pink as possible to my body in order to annoy my sworn enemy, Clarice. "She said she's going to ask my dad, but I know he'll want me to stay. He took us on vacation to New York the summer after the September eleventh attack. He wanted to support the city and show we weren't going to be scared away by terrorists and all that."

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  "That's so cool. I've always wanted to go to New York."

  I shrugged. "I was really little, so I don't remember it that well. And that was before the trips were born. Since then, we haven't gone anywhere. They're way too travel-unfriendly and expensive."

  "Still, it must be nice having brothers and sisters. I always wanted a brother," Trish said, that wistful, only child look in her eye. I totally understood that look. I'd sported it myself until I was twelve.

  "Yeah, it is nice," I admitted. "But it will be even nicer once they're potty trained. Three babies make a crapload of diapers."

  We giggled a bit over that one. Diapers. Crapload.

  Ha!

  But as soon as Trish reached for the white nail polish to start on the polka dots she had planned for her big toes, I knew it was time to get down to more serious matters than the standard new-BFF getting-to-know-you chatter and poop jokes.
/>
  "Okay, don't freak out, but I think I may have some evidence about the attack on Kendra." I dropped my voice to a whisper. More for dramatic effect than for fear anyone might hear--I mean, unless the cranium harvester was hiding out in my closet or something...

  Hmm... just in case, I should probably...

  "Evidence? In your closet?" Trish asked, shooting me a concerned look as I turned away from my totally murderer-free closet. Wow, paranoid much, Karen?

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  I tried to laugh off my weirdness as I climbed back onto the bed. "Nope, just checking to make sure I had a clean uniform for tomorrow." I hurried on before she could realize I'd only been at school one day and had been issued five uniforms and so surely had at least four clean ones left. (We were both bad at math, but not that bad.) "I'm talking blood splatters. When I leaned over in the lunch room, I saw that Gavin's shoes were covered in blood."

  "Gavin? But there's no way he had anything to do with what happened to Kendra."

  "Why? Because he's a hottie? Is there some rule that hot guys can't go psycho?"

  "No, but... he wouldn't do something like that," she said, her forehead bunching between her eyes. "He's a really great guy. He probably got the blood on his shoes while he was working in the cafeteria. They do all the butchering right here on campus. Principal Samedi uses the animal bones in a lot of her spells, so--"

  "But doesn't he just work the entrance?" I asked, not willing to abandon my only clue so easily. "How would he get blood on his shoes if he never went back into the kitchen?"

  "I don't know. Maybe he does do some work back there," Trish said, starting to sound angry. "I don't know how they break down the duties. I applied for a caf job, but they were all filled and freshmen were last on the waiting list. I got toilet duty instead." (Zombie bowels still work mostly the way human ones do. Odd, considering

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  our hearts don't beat, but I guess all those brains have to go somewhere.)

  "Ewww... I'm sorry. That's gross."

  "Tell me about it. But we all have to do some kind of work on campus." Trish sighed, a melancholy sound that made me want to give her a hug. I totally would have, if my fingernails had been dry. "It's how we pay back the school for taking us in."

  "Really?" I asked, wondering if I was going to be assigned some nasty job once I got settled in at DEAD. Not that I minded hard work, but cleaning a public toilet was not my idea of a good time. Heck, I didn't even like cleaning my own private toilet at home, and those were only my germs.

  Ick! I was getting squicked out just thinking about the possibility of facing down a dorm lav with rubber gloves and industrial cleaner.

  "Don't worry, you won't have to pull work detail," Trish said. Apparently my fears had shown on my face. "You're genetically Death Challenged. Only the Deprogrammed have to do work-study."

  "Really?" I asked. Wow, shades of a John Hughes film. Trish was totally the poor girl who had to make her own clothes for the dance and I was the rich jerk who stole her boyfriend... or whatever that movie had been about. I'd only checked it out because it had "pink" in the title, but I'd fallen asleep halfway through. "That doesn't seem very fair."

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  "I don't know. If it hadn't been for Principal Samedi, I wouldn't have had the chance at another life. I would have been dead at fourteen and that's it." Trish smiled, obviously determined to put on her happy face. She would have been an excellent cheerleader. 'Twas a pity such a spirited grin was going to waste. "And it's not like all the DCs are jerks to the DPs or anything. Some of them are actually fairly decent people." She nudged me on the arm, and I grinned.

  "Thanks, but..." My grin faded when I met Trish's eyes. A horrible realization pricked at the edge of my mind. "Is that why people have been looking at us funny? Do the Death Challenged and the Deprogrammed not usually--"

  "No, not usually." Trish glanced down at her perfectly polka-dotted big toes.

  "Wow. I thought it was because I was so short."

  "Nope."

  "And you were so tall," I added, not sure what to say.

  "So, do you wish you'd drawn someone cooler as your first day tour guide? Someone born to be Undead?" Trish's expression was a little sad and a lot angry.

  Which she had a complete right to be, but not at me.

  "No way. I'm so glad I met you, and I was so happy when you asked me to sit with you at lunch," I rushed to assure her. "We have so much in common, I feel like we've been friends way more than a day and--"

  "Even if the other DCs think you're strange?"

  "Who cares what they think? They're strange if they

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  get all weird about how someone became Undead. I mean, we're basically all in the same boat. Right?" And here I'd thought people were so nice at DEAD. Guess they were nice if you were part of the in-crowd. What hoo-ha. I'd never been into that crap when I was alive (there were cheerleaders, drama girls, and band chicks at my old lunch table, and my best friend Piper was a volleyball player with a pathological aversion to skirts), and I certainly wasn't into it now. No one was going to tell me who I could or couldn't be friends with.

  "Totally. And there are some DCs who think just like you," Trish said, though she looked even more depressed than before. "Though that might not be true for long."

  "What do you mean?"

  "There was a rumor going around earlier this year." Trish leaned close, her voice dropping to a whisper. A shiver worked down my spine, and the urge to check the closet for brain predators returned with a vengeance. "People were saying that Deprogrammed kids could become stronger and faster than DCs. That, with the right magic, we could be like superheroes compared to the genetically Undead. But only if we work this super-hard spell within the first two years of our deaths."

  "Really?" I asked, the lame part of my brain glad I was befriending the Deprogrammed, just in case. As any good politician knows, it's never good to alienate a part of your constituency. Not that I really had a constituency...or planned on running for zombie office at any point in the near future, but yeah...

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  "Really. But this spell requires brains."

  "Well, we've got lots of those hanging ar--"

  "Not animal brains." Trish looked squicked, so I knew I wasn't going to like what she had to say next. "The brains of other Undead."

  "Oh." My stomach cramped for the tenth time that day. "So whoever took Kendra's brain..."

  "Might be one of us," Trish said, then flushed red. "I mean, one of me. The Deprogrammed."

  "Superhero powers would be nice to have," I said slowly. "But nice enough to kill for?"

  "I don't know." Trish's misery was as thick as brain jelly; I could practically taste it on my tongue. "But I bet that's what people are going to think. Being Deprogrammed will be even worse by tomorrow."

  "But, wasn't Kendra Deprogrammed? I mean, if she had work-study, she would have to be, right?" I asked. Trish nodded. "So why would a Deprogrammed kid take the brains of another Deprogrammed kid? They could have taken any zombie's brains. It didn't have to be a DP's brains."

  "I don't think so, no." Trish wrinkled her nose, deep in thought. "That doesn't really make sense, does it? I certainly wouldn't kill another Deprogrammed. Not that I would ever kill anyone! I'm just saying."

  I laughed at her horrified expression. "I know. But it makes sense. Why kill another kid who's like you, when you could kill an annoying 'I'm so much better than you'

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  DC? Unless they plan on returning the brains? Does the spell--"

  "No. I'm pretty sure the spell called for eating them. I think it said something about mixing a bunch of different brains in a pot and..." Trish swallowed hard, going as white as the dots upon her pink toes. "But I know it definitely called for a bunch of brains. "Which means--"

  "That while Kendra was the first, she won't be the last," I said, my voice sounding grimmer than I could ever remember.

  But then, realizing there's one murder down and more to
come is pretty grim stuff.

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  CHAPTER FIVE

  The magic of the Death Challenged is, by its very

  nature, of the darkness and more easily lent to evil works than good. Therefore, it is a magic that

  should only be used sparingly, like butter upon a roll, not icing upon a cake.

  --Introduction to Magical Behaviors,

  Year One Syllabus

  You could be my darkness, you could be my soul, you could be my zombie girl

  wrapped in a blanket roll.

  Zombie girl, oh yeah, yeah, zombie girl.

  --"Zombie Girl," by the Resurrectionists, Sounds of the Undead, 1940-1950

  Wednesday morning, the entire mood of the DEAD campus had shifted. Girls looked at each other suspiciously as they slunk into the bathroom for a morning shower and tooth brushing, the conversations at breakfast were hushed and tense, and there was much accusatory staring over scrambled brains toward the side of the room where the Deprogrammed were sitting. (And me, because

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  I was waiting for Trish, who didn't make it to breakfast. Of course! Therefore totally missing my show of solidarity.)

  Now that I knew about the whole DC vs. DP controversy, the animosity between the two groups was abundantly clear. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed something before. But then I am rather self-absorbed and I was getting used to an entirely new school, so I decided to cut myself some slack.

  In the halls before class, things were even worse. Accusations flew from the bolder DCs, and two senior boys even got into a scuffle. Luckily, Gavin was there when the fists started to fly. He and a couple of swim-team pals pulled the two guys apart and convinced them to chill. Gavin was one of the few Deprogrammed on the swim team. Trish had told me that most DPs found they couldn't juggle work-study and sports practice, but he did, and he seemed well-liked by both the DPs and DCs.