“No. Of course not,” I said.
Little did I know that I would be back there before long.
And I wouldn’t like it one bit!
9
The kids at Romero weren’t very friendly. I mean, I found it hard to just start talking to anyone.
I’m a little bit shy. So it isn’t easy for me to step into a group of strangers and start a conversation.
The kids I met in class and in the Dining Hall weren’t unfriendly. They just didn’t try very hard to talk to me. No one ever asked me where I was from or what my old school was like.
I hung out a little with Angelo. I waited for him to say something about Wayne. You know. How sad he felt or how much he missed his twin.
But he never mentioned Wayne. So I didn’t, either.
We talked a lot about the soccer team and how I was going to try out for it in a few days.
And I met up with Franny a few more times. She seemed to have a lot of friends, girls mostly.
When I walked by, they’d all stop talking till I’d passed.
I wondered why they did that. But I didn’t ask her.
I had a funny feeling about Franny. I always had the feeling that she was studying me. Sometimes I’d catch her eyeing me intently.
Did she think there was something strange about me?
One afternoon, I asked her again how long she’d been at Romero.
She tilted her head, thinking about it. “Hard to say,” she replied finally.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Huh? You don’t know how long you’ve gone to this school?”
“Well, time gets messed up in your head,” she said. “You know how it is.”
I didn’t know what she meant. She was always saying these mysterious things. I decided maybe Franny was the strange one.
A few days after I arrived, I was walking to class with Angelo. We stepped into the big round space in the middle of the school. It’s called Center Court. It’s a huge open space with a high dome ceiling. Above my head, a balcony stretched all around.
A large group of kids had gathered in the middle of the court. They were all gazing up at a line of kids along the balcony above.
“What’s going on?” I asked Angelo. “What are they looking at?”
He didn’t answer. He just pointed to the balcony.
I looked up in time to see a short, red-haired boy in dark jeans and a black T-shirt climb onto the balcony railing.
My breath caught in my throat.
What did he plan to do? Why wasn’t anyone screaming or yelling for him to get down?
Behind him on the balcony, kids watched in silence. No one tried to grab him and pull him off the railing.
I froze in horror as the boy raised his hands in front of him, like he was on a diving board at a swimming pool.
He leaped off the railing, leaped high in the air — and crashed to the floor with a sick thud.
10
I opened my mouth to scream. But the air came out in a hoarse whisper.
I felt my knees give way. I grabbed Angelo’s shoulder to keep from dropping to the floor.
The red-haired boy lay flat on his stomach, crushed to the floor, arms and legs spread out wide. He didn’t move.
But no one screamed. No one rushed to help him. No one made a sound or even moved.
And then to my shock, kids started to cheer. I turned to Angelo and saw him clapping his hands and whistling. He pointed to the balcony again.
Another kid hoisted himself onto the narrow balcony railing. He was a big, chubby guy with short brown hair and a round red face.
“N-nooo.” A low moan escaped my throat.
The kid wobbled up there for a moment. His hands flailed above his head. And then he took a flying leap.
He crashed hard to the floor with a sick splissssh. He bounced once. Twice. Then he didn’t move.
And before I could take a breath, a girl jumped off the balcony, landed on her stomach, and collapsed in a heap beside the chubby guy.
Kids went wild, cheering and whistling and stomping their feet.
“Angelo —” I grabbed his arm and shook him. “Tell me. What’s happening? This is horrible! Why are they cheering?”
He turned to me with a smile on his face. “One-Way Bungee Jumping,” he said.
“But — but —” I sputtered.
“Hey,” he said. He started to pull me to the balcony stairs. “Want to try it? Come on, Matt. Try it!”
11
A few minutes later, I called my sister on her cell. I knew she probably wouldn’t believe me. But I had to tell her what happened.
“They jumped off the balcony,” I said. “One by one. It was horrible, Jamie. They crashed to the floor. And everyone cheered. Everyone thought it was great.”
Jamie laughed. I heard her shout to Mom: “It’s Matt. He’s still making up horror stories.”
“No. Listen to me!” I cried. “I’m totally serious, Jamie. I swear. Everyone cheered when they jumped. My friend Angelo called it One-Way Bungee Jumping.”
Jamie laughed even harder. “That’s a riot, Matt.”
“No. It was sickening,” I insisted. “And then Angelo tried to get me to do it. Do you believe it? Luckily, the bell rang. Everyone had to get to class. And here’s the weirdest part …”
“Your brain is the weirdest part,” Jamie said into the phone.
“Just listen,” I said. “Please. I-I’m really upset about this.”
“Okay, Matt, what’s the weirdest part?”
“The three kids … the ones who j-jumped,” I stammered. “When the bell rang, they all climbed to their feet and walked away. They were perfectly okay.”
Silence on the other end.
More silence.
“Jamie? Are you still there?”
“Let me get this straight,” Jamie said finally. “You call me with this crazy story, right? And you expect me to believe it?”
“Yes,” I said. “Because —”
“You really think I have a chimpanzee brain,” Jamie said.
“No. Listen,” I pleaded. “Please —”
“No. You listen,” she said. “I like your stories, Matt. Really. They’re very creative. But why can’t I just listen to them? Why do I have to believe them?”
My heart was pounding hard. I knew what I’d seen was incredible. But I had to share the story. I had to make someone believe me.
“This school is weird,” I said. “I think —”
“Gotta go,” Jamie said. “Andrew is calling. Bye.”
“Andrew? Who is Andrew?”
I heard a click. She was gone.
Should I call Mom or Dad?
No. Why give them a laugh? I knew they’d believe me just as much as Jamie did. And Dad would say I should be studying instead of making up horror stories.
My stomach was rumbling. I realized it was my lunch hour.
I didn’t have much of an appetite. I mean, how do you eat after watching three kids go splat on the floor?
Sure, they got up and walked away. But in a way, that was even more upsetting.
I walked to the Dining Hall. I told myself to try to push the whole thing from my mind.
The big room was noisy and crowded. Chairs scraped the floor. Kids laughed and talked at the long tables. Women in white uniforms served food behind a long, steaming counter.
It seemed like a normal lunchroom — at first. But I was here my first day. I knew it wasn’t like my old school.
For one thing, it was too noisy. I mean, the sounds weren’t normal.
Kids were grunting and slurping and burping and wheezing and making loud animal sounds.
I stopped and stared at a boy at the nearest table. What was he eating? It looked like he had a slab of red, raw meat in both hands. He shoved it hungrily into his mouth. The dark juice ran down his chin.
Across from him, a girl had a huge gray blob of something. She sucked it down noisily. Then she opened her mouth in a ferocious burp.
My eyes swept over the big, crowded room. The tables were almost all filled with kids eating big chunks of red meat and hunks of blobby gray things. Raw chicken?
A boy picked up a large brown egg — shell and all — and shoved it into his mouth. Then another. Then another.
Next to him, a girl pushed a whole tomato into her mouth. Juice spurted every where as she closed her mouth over it. She made a loud GULP sound as she swallowed. I could see the entire tomato slide down her throat!
My stomach churned again.
I dreaded coming to the Dining Hall. But I had to eat.
I stepped up to the food counter. I saw piles of red, raw meat. Raw chicken legs. A pot of lumpy gray soup.
What could I have?
I ended up with a bunch of grapes and a bag of tortilla chips. I couldn’t find anything to drink. The drink machine offered some kind of thick red juice that looked like clotted blood.
I found Angelo at a table near the back and sat down across from him. His tray was empty. He had finished his lunch.
“Can I talk to you?” I asked, scooting my chair in.
A kid at the end of the table let out a burp that shook the table. No one laughed or raised his head or acted as if it was strange.
“What’s up?” Angelo asked. He had red stains on his chin.
“Well …” I didn’t know how to ask about every thing. I didn’t want to sound stupid. But I felt so confused.
“Angelo, why is this place so weird?” I blurted out.
He gazed at me for a long time. Then he said, “You’re new. You’ll get used to it.”
“But —” I started to ask for a better answer.
But before I could speak, a tall, dark-haired boy at the next table jumped to his feet. His eyes bulged. His mouth opened wide. And he squeezed his throat with one hand.
“UNNNNNNNNNHH!”
A horrifying groan burst from his open mouth.
He wheezed. Then he let out another groan.
It took me a while to realize he was choking.
He twisted his body and grabbed at his throat.
“UNNNNNNNH.”
No one moved. The kids at his table sat watching him gag and choke.
And then, the kid heaved his head back. A gigantic hunk of meat flew out of his mouth.
He made a gurgling sound. It seemed to come from deep in his stomach.
And then he began to spew.
Disgusting brown muck splashed from his open mouth onto the table. Gallons of it. Gallons of thick brown vomit spewed up like an erupting volcano.
“Do something!” I cried. “Somebody — do something!”
12
Finally, the kids at the boy’s table jumped up. They stepped away from the table. But they didn’t scream or call for help. Their faces were blank. As if this happened all the time.
“UNNNNNNNNH.”
Another geyser of brown muck spewed over the boy’s table, over everyone’s food. It splashed onto the floor.
I jumped to my feet. I held my stomach. I felt like I was about to spew, too.
Still groaning and choking and vomiting, the boy staggered away from the table. He left a trail of brown muck as he stumbled out of the Dining Hall.
I turned to Angelo. He had a toothpick in his mouth and was bobbing it up and down between his lips.
“Wh-what happened?” I cried. “That boy —”
“No worries,” Angelo said.
“Huh? No worries?” I shouted. “I never saw anything like that. It was horrible! That poor kid —”
“He’ll be okay,” Angelo said calmly. “He’s going to the Reviver Room. You’ll see. He’ll be okay.”
I shook my head. “Angelo, something is very wrong here. That kid definitely didn’t look okay.”
Later, I met Franny in the Study Room on the third floor. The room was set up like a library with bookshelves on three walls. Stretching along the fourth wall were tall windows looking down on the playing fields.
Outside the windows, a red ball of a sun was lowering itself in the evening sky. Soaring crows made a wide circle in front of the sun.
There were couches and comfortable armchairs to relax on and read and study. And low tables to write on or to hold a laptop.
The room was crowded. It was a popular place to go after dinner.
A sign above the door read: QUIET, PLEASE. PEOPLE STUDYING.
But I pulled Franny to a couch at the back of the room so we could talk.
She lowered her backpack to the floor and slid back on the leather couch. I dropped onto the couch beside her, eager to tell her about the kid in the Dining Hall.
“Matt, why are you so wired tonight?” she asked.
“Me? Wired?” I said. “How did you know?”
She rolled her eyes. “You started drumming your fingers on the couch arm as soon as we sat down. Your whole face looks like it’s ready to burst….”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “So I’m a little wired.” I raised my eyes to hers. “It’s a new school, right? And there are some things about it —”
She sighed. “That again?” She slid her backpack closer. “I thought we were going to do the science worksheets together.”
“Yeah. Fine. No problem,” I said. “But first can we —?”
A tall, dark-haired girl from our class stepped up beside Franny. “Hey,” she said. “Are you doing the worksheets?”
Franny nodded. “Yeah. If I can get Matt to get off my case.”
“I’m not on your case,” I said. “I just wanted to ask —”
The girl was staring down at me. She had straight black hair parted in the middle, cold blue eyes, and she wore black lipstick. “Are you the new guy?” she asked. She had a soft, whispery voice.
“That’s me,” I said. “I should have a T-shirt made — NEW GUY.”
I thought it was funny, but she didn’t laugh.
“I’m Alana,” she said. She motioned for me to scoot over. “Can we do the worksheets together?”
I really wanted to talk to Franny. I had about five hundred questions about this school I needed her to answer.
But Alana was already squeezing between us. I had no choice.
We pulled out our worksheets and leaned over the table in front of the couch to fill them out together. They were long and hard. Luckily, Alana knew this chapter in the text really well. She helped Franny and me out with a lot of answers we didn’t know.
I was desperate to talk to Franny alone. But every few minutes, the two of them would stop work to talk about boys in our class or some bit of gossip. Of course I had no clue of who they were talking about.
So, the study session stretched on and on. It was pitch-black outside the row of windows now. The Study Room was nearly empty.
Finally, Alana said, “Catch you guys later.” She packed up her stuff and headed out the door.
I turned to Franny. “Can we talk now?” I asked eagerly. “I have some questions….”
Franny jammed her worksheets into her backpack. “Can it wait till tomorrow, Matt?” she said. “I really have to get upstairs.”
She didn’t give me a chance to answer. She jumped to her feet.
“But, Franny —” I frantically started to gather up my papers. I dropped my textbook onto the floor.
When I looked up, Franny was already at the Study Room door. She turned back suddenly and walked halfway back to me.
“Hey, Matt, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said. “When did you die?”
13
I laughed.
Did I hear right? Is she joking?
I pinched my arm. “I don’t think I died yet,” I told her. “I’m pretty sure I’m alive.”
Her mouth opened in an O of surprise. She dropped her backpack to the floor. Then she rushed over to me.
She grabbed my arm and tugged me off the couch.
“Hey — what’s your problem?” I cried.
She didn’t answer. She dragged me out to the hall. A few kid
s looked up as we passed. I heard a boy laugh.
Franny pulled me to the end of the hall. The lights were dim back there. No one around.
She backed me against the tile wall. “You’re alive?” she asked in a harsh whisper.
I nodded. “Unless you know something I don’t!” I joked.
Franny grabbed me by the shoulders. Her eyes locked on mine. “Matt — don’t you realize what that means?” she cried.
I stared back at her. “No. What?”
“It means you and I are the only living kids in this school!” she whispered.
I blinked. My mind went blank. I couldn’t think of a reply.
“You’re trying to scare me?” I said finally. I grinned. “Oh, I get it. This is something kids here do to all the new students?”
“You idiot,” Franny said, shaking her head. “You really haven’t figured it out?”
I blinked again. I suddenly had a cold feeling at the back of my neck.
“This is a zombie school, Matt,” Franny said. “The kids here at Romero are all undead. They are all zombies except for you and me.”
She was breathing hard. She had her hands drawn into tight fists.
I finally realized she was serious. The cold feeling at the back of my neck sent a chill down my whole body.
She studied me in silence for a long moment, staring hard into my eyes. “You really are alive?”
I nodded. “I — I guess my parents didn’t know what kind of school this is when they enrolled me,” I stammered. “I mean, they found the school on the Internet. We didn’t have time to visit here or anything.”
Franny raised a finger to her lips. “Ssshh. It’s very dangerous, Matt,” she whispered. “We have to keep our secret.”
“Huh? Dangerous?” My voice cracked on the words.
“We have to keep it secret that we’re alive,” Franny whispered. “We can’t let anyone know.”
“But that’s … crazy,” I whispered back. “If they’re dead — or I mean, undead, how can we keep them from seeing that we’re different?”
Franny shoved my shoulders again. “Listen to me,” she said. “Listen carefully. Not too fast.”
I squinted at her. “Huh?”