The Zero Degree Zombie Zone Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 Bakari Who?

  2 Dialed Down to Zero

  3 Ring-a-Ding-Ding

  4 Pileup for Four … Hold the Soup!

  5 A Little Undead Appetizer

  6 A Winning Team

  7 Enough Attitude to Go Around

  8 Never Trust a Zombie Lord

  9 Truths, Plans, and Consequences

  10 Locking It Down

  11 Doors Work Both Ways

  12 Nothing to It

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Copyright

  I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them again. Shut, then open. Shut, then open. Nope, my name is still there. Finally I turn away. “Wardell, why did you do this to me?”

  Wardell shrugs. He’s my best friend — okay, pretty much my only friend — and half the time I still don’t understand what goes on in that oversized melon he calls a head.

  This is one of those times.

  “I thought it’d be good for you,” he mumbles.

  “Good for me?” I can hear my voice going higher and higher. I sound more like my mom’s ancient cat than a fourth-grade boy. I stab a finger at the piece of paper tacked onto Mrs. Crump’s bulletin board.

  There’s my name under “Candidates for Hall Monitor.”

  And right below the only other name on the list. The only name that’s ever been on this list, or any other list. Ever. In the entire history of Mrs. Crump’s fourth-grade class at Thurgood Cleavon Wilson Elementary.

  Until today.

  “How,” I ask Wardell, trying to get each word out, “is competing with Tariq Thomas good for me?”

  I slowly glance across the room. There he is. Tariq Thomas. Thurgood Cleavon Wilson Elementary’s golden boy. Tall, charming, athletic. Tariq has it all.

  Including his own personal pep squad and enforcer rolled into one. Keisha Owens.

  The very same Keisha who is currently glaring at me from beneath the tower of curls that makes her almost as tall as her cousin.

  “What were you thinking, Bakari Katari Johnson?” Keisha demands. Her voice carries across the room with the might of a lioness. Heads turn to look at me, then back at her, then at me again. It’s like a tennis match — and I’m the ball. “You go up against my cousin,” she continues, “you’re gonna get beat. You’re gonna get beat hard!”

  Tariq smirks. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. Keisha says it all for him.

  “Everybody knows Tariq’s hall monitor,” she warns me. “He’s always been hall monitor, he will always be hall monitor. That’s how it rolls here at Thurgood Cleavon Wilson Elementary. You can’t get in the way of that. You do, you will get squashed.” She slaps both hands together, then dusts them off like she’s done with me. Only I know this is just the beginning.

  “Well,” Mrs. Crump announces with a smile, “I think it’s nice that we have more than one candidate this time around.” She looks at me with pity. “Good for you, Bakari, for giving it a try.” Her eyes flicker to Tariq, and I feel like she just added, “Not that it’ll do you any good.”

  Which is how I feel about it anyway. And why I’d never have signed myself up for hall monitor in the first place.

  Thanks, Wardell.

  “What were you thinking, dude?” I ask him through clenched teeth as I steer us away from the bulletin board and back to our seats. It’s just about time to take roll. I push my glasses up on my nose. Mrs. Crump likes everyone in their seats, neat and prompt. “You know Tariq’s gonna slay me.”

  “Maybe,” Wardell agrees, squeezing his big bulk into his chair. I swear, his head would look enormous on anyone else, but on him it actually looks small, like a cherry on a chocolate ice cream sundae. “But you don’t know until you try.” He shrugs again. “Just might surprise yourself.”

  That’s one of the things I like about Wardell. Usually. He’s always looking for the positives. “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade,” as my wise granddad used to say. And Wardell sure likes his lemonade.

  Times like this, though, I don’t see exactly how lemonade’s gonna help me much. With two candidates for hall monitor, Mrs. Crump’s gonna let the class vote. She likes putting some things in the hands of the fourth-grade people in her class. And the people love Tariq.

  Me?

  Not so much.

  Not that most of my classmates hate me. Least, not so far as I know. They just don’t think much about me at all. Most of them probably don’t even know my name.

  Right now I have two votes: me and Wardell.

  That’s a landslide for Tariq.

  Mrs. Crump starts calling roll, but I barely hear her. I’m too busy worrying about what’s gonna happen come election time.

  I reach into my pocket and find my granddad’s lucky marble. It’s a nice one, big as a quarter and pale gray, made of granite instead of glass. “That marble’s magic,” he’d say every time we played. “Pure magic. All you need in life, Bakari, is three things: light, courage, and power. You bring the courage and the will, this here marble will do the rest.” He always had it in his hand or in his pocket, always. One day a month back, after he’d gotten real sick, he handed it to me. “Hang on to this for me, Bakari,” he said. “And trust in the magic. Remember: light, courage, power.” He died just a couple days later. Rolling that marble back and forth between my fingers makes it feel like he’s still here with me. But I’m not sure even he could help me out of this mess.

  “Johnson, Bakari Katari,” Mrs. Crump calls, and I raise my hand. At the same time, I hear Keisha say, “Who?” to Tariq, loud enough for most of the class to hear. A bunch of kids laugh. My stomach does a flip-flop. Great.

  After attendance — and Tariq’s resounding, “Yes, ma’am!” at his name — we get out our math books. My stomach’s still banging around, and I feel like I might puke. The constant whispers and giggles between Keisha and Tariq — along with weird looks at me — aren’t helping.

  “Mrs. Crump?” I ask, holding up my hand. “Can I go to the bathroom?”

  Mrs. Crump’s okay — a little strict, but not mean — and I guess I look as bad as I feel because she takes one glance and nods. “Here, Bakari.” She hands me the bathroom pass. “Not too long, okay?”

  I nod and light out of there, but not before Keisha whispers, “You can run, but you can’t hide, loser.”

  Her laughter follows me out.

  Out in the hall I feel a little better. Especially once I can’t hear Keisha laughing anymore. I know it’s just nerves messing with me. That doesn’t make them stop, though. I head to the bathroom. Maybe some cold water will do the trick.

  I’m halfway there when a blast of air hits me across the face. It’s a warm early fall morning. Did somebody leave a freezer open somewhere?

  Then a glowing, sharp blue disk appears out of thin air, floating about even with my head.

  Whoosh!

  A pair of arms shoots out of it, pale blue and cold as ice — and grab my shoulders.

  Ouch!

  The arms give me a hard yank, and I’m off my feet — and falling headfirst through that disk.

  This day’s just getting worse and worse!

  You!”

  The voice booming down at me is big and cold and about as friendly as a python. I glance up …

  And up …

  And up some more …

  Until I’m practically falling over backward. And I’m already on my backside from when those hands dropped me. Onto an ice rink, feels like. My backside’s going numb already. But I forget all that as I stare up at this mean stranger towering over me. He’s gotta be seven feet easy. And
his skin’s so pale it’s actually blue. He looks like he’s been carved out of ice. And he’s scowling fit to burst.

  “Who, me?” I manage to squeak out, because his cold blue eyes are fixed on me and me alone.

  “Yes, you,” he bellows. “Bakari Katari Johnson. Return me my ring!” And a hand the size of my head reaches down, palm up, like I’m supposed to slap him a high five or something.

  Only I have no idea what he’s talking about.

  “What ring?” I ask. I manage to get back on my feet, which I guess makes me feel better, ’cause questions start spilling out of my mouth. “And who’re you? And where am I? And how’d you know my name?”

  “I am Zenon,” he answers. “I am the ruler of this place, the Zero Degree Zombie Zone.” I get the “zero degree” part — I’m starting to shiver, and not just out of fright, and I think my nose just froze — but “zombie zone”? Then I actually look around for the first time.

  Crap.

  It’s less like an ice rink than a scary winter wonderland, really. There’s plenty of ups and downs, hills and valleys, and even what look like houses off a ways, but everything’s made of ice, all blue and white. I’m in an ice village. Then there’s the people. I thought this Zenon guy and I were alone because I didn’t hear any loud noises. I guess it’s because the rest of them don’t talk much. Or maybe at all.

  What they do is lumber about, arms out, eyes wide, mouths hanging open.

  You know, like zombies.

  Only made of ice. Or frozen, anyway. Zombie Popsicles. Zomb-sicles. Yuck.

  Of course, even though I’m so scared I’m shaking — and so cold I’m shaking even more — my mind starts going a mile a minute. Like it does. I’m standing here with a zombie lord, NHL all-star interrogating me about some missing ring. All I can think about is: How’d this place get so cold? Where’d all these zombies come from? Were they already zombies, and then it got cold and they became zomb-sicles? Or were they just regular people and then it froze and turned them into zombies? Did this guy Zenon do that, or did he just happen along afterward and decide, “I kind of like it here, think I’ll stay and make myself king of the place”? He’s not clumsy and he can talk, so is he not a zombie? Or does being the zombie lord come with perks like keeping your brain and your tongue? Did he just have a better tolerance for the cold than the rest? Was he the only one smart enough to grab a jacket?

  All these questions tumble through my head, but get interrupted midstream when Zenon stoops down to glare at me eye to eye. Up close his eyes look like little blue gems, all sharp-edged and glittery under big, shaggy, white eyebrows.

  “Are you listening to me, Bakari Katari Johnson?” he growls and his voice is that low quiet rumble you know means you’re in serious trouble. My dad gets like that sometimes, and it’s way worse than when he is mad, so I just gulp and nod.

  “Uh, yes, sir, Mr. Zenon, sir,” I answer after a second.

  “Good.” His lips are even bluer than the rest of his skin, and they curve up just a little, almost like a smile. Almost. “Then where is my ring?”

  Gulp. “I don’t know anything about a ring,” I tell him. “Honest.”

  “No?” Now he’s frowning at me. Great. Like I’m not scared enough as it is. “And yet I heard your name when my ring disappeared. Why is that?”

  “Uh, maybe it just sounded like my name?” Uh-huh, because “Bakari Katari Johnson” is so easily mistaken for “Tariq Thomas” or whatever. Sure.

  He’s not buying it, either. “What have you done with my ring, Bakari Katari Johnson?” Dude, I wish he’d stop reciting my full name every time he asks me a question. I feel like I’m in the principal’s office or something. If the principal shot up two feet and turned into a walking ice sculpture, that is.

  “I don’t have it! Really!” I start turning out my pockets. “Look!” Half a stick of gum pops out — thanks, Wardell. Then there’s a rubber band, a little stub of a pencil, two quarters, a finger puppet, a Kleenex, and Granddad’s marble. “See? No ring!”

  Zenon frowns and pokes at the little pile. My heart almost stops when his finger lands on the marble, rolling it back and forth, but then he moves on and I breathe again. Unfortunately, proving I don’t have his ring doesn’t convince him I’m not to blame. “You hid it” is what he says when he’s done looking.

  “I didn’t hide it,” I insist, stuffing everything back into my pockets. “I never had it! I don’t even know what it looks like!”

  He’s not listening, though. Why are grown-ups always like that? Once they get an idea in their head they just won’t listen to reason, or facts, or anything else. You can tell the truth — and they still won’t hear you.

  Just like now. “You have until the end of the day to return my ring, Bakari Katari Johnson,” Zenon informs me, straightening up again. “If you do not deliver it, I will unleash my zombies upon your world and turn it into a frozen wasteland like my own!”

  Great, no pressure.

  “How am I supposed to give you your ring back when I didn’t take it in the first place?” I ask, but Zenon just waves that off. “And how am I even supposed to get it to you?” I look around at all the zombies and the frozen landscape. “For that matter, how do I get back to Mrs. Crump’s class?”

  He waves again, but this time in a big circle, and where his hand cuts through the icy air a glowing blue line follows, like he’s highlighting something. When his hand has gone full circle there’s a glowing disk in the air, just like the one I got pulled through on my way to the bathroom. Zenon grabs it by one edge like it’s a Hula-Hoop and tosses it toward me. “End of the day,” he warns as it lands over my head and shoulders and glides down to the ground. “That is all the time you have, Bakari Katari Johnson. Do not delay, or your world will suffer the consequences.”

  “That’s so not fair,” I start to say back, but it’s too late. The minute the disk settles around my feet, I feel warm air, and everything blurs. And then I’m standing in the hall of Thurgood Cleavon Wilson Elementary again.

  I’d think I imagined the whole thing except there’s a ring of melting ice at my feet, and my jeans are still frozen in places. Plus, my eyelashes are dripping.

  Okay, so now on top of the whole hall monitor situation, I’ve got a crazy ice zombie lord telling me I need to give him back a ring I don’t have or he’s gonna let his ice zombies loose on the world.

  I turn and slide back toward class. Even studying fractions is better than this!

  Bakari, what happened to you?” Wardell asks me as soon as I take my seat again. “You look like the bathroom sink got up and took a swing at you.” He flicks a drop of water off my sleeve. “You know you’re supposed to wash in it, not swim in it, right?”

  “Ha-ha, you’re hilarious,” I tell him out of the side of my mouth. We’ve got our math books open so we can follow along as Mrs. Crump explains a problem up on the board, and as long as we keep our conversation low and our eyes forward, we can still talk.

  “But really, what happened?” I see him glance over at Keisha and Tariq. “I know it wasn’t them, ’cause they haven’t moved since you left.”

  I can’t help it — I look over there myself. Of course, both of them are staring right at me. Great.

  “No, it wasn’t them,” I admit. “It was even worse, if you can believe it.”

  “Worse? What, did Moses Allen decide to dunk you or something?” Moses is a fifth-grade legend, already as big as a truck. I’ve heard that he got held back a grade, maybe even two, but he’d be big even for a kid in junior high. Heck, he’s big for an NBA player! Fortunately, he’s not that bad — he throws his weight around a little, but he’s not mean, you just have to stay out of his way if he’s in a bad mood. Not like Keisha — I picture if she were Moses’s size, and shudder. Talk about a nightmare!

  “Naw, not him, either.” For a second I think about coming up with some story, but I shake that idea off. This is Wardell we’re talking about. He and I’ve been best friends sinc
e second grade, when we got stuck in a photo booth together on a field trip. This is the guy I tell everything to. The one person besides my parents who knows about my granddad, what he meant to me, how I cried at his funeral. This is the guy who’d share his last cheese stick with me — and Wardell loves his cheese sticks.

  So instead I tell him the truth.

  “You’re not gonna believe this,” I start, but I shouldn’t have worried. In addition to looking on the bright side, Wardell’s really good at believing. Yeah, so he’s a little gullible, and it’s gotten him into trouble before. It’s really easy to play practical jokes on him. But right now I’m really glad that he’s so agreeable about everything. I don’t know what I’d do if I told him and he just laughed it off.

  “Wow,” he says instead when I’m done. “Are you serious? A whole world full of zombies? And they’re all frozen and stuff? That’s wicked!”

  “It was wicked, all right,” I agree. “Wicked cold and wicked scary.”

  “And you really don’t have this ring that Zero guy wanted?”

  “Zenon,” I correct him. “And no, I really don’t. I don’t even know what ring he’s talking about.”

  “But he’s blaming you anyway.” Wardell sighs. “Ain’t that always the way?” He’s got two brothers, an older one and a younger one, and he’s always getting blamed whenever anything breaks or spills or whatever. Sometimes I hate being an only child, but when I look at Wardell and his brothers I think maybe it isn’t so bad.

  “All I know is —” I start, but then something hits me in the back of the head. What the —

  I pick up the ball of paper and uncrumple it, smoothing it out on my math book. It says, “YOU’RE A LITTLE LOSER BOY” in big letters. I don’t even need to glance over to know who wrote and threw this. Keisha.

  “You’re going down, lame brain!” she whispers, pointing one long tiger-striped fingernail at me. “You whisper all the strategies you want, you still ain’t got what it takes to beat Tariq.”

  “Can’t beat Tariq,” Tariq chimes in happily, nodding along like it’s got a beat to it. Sad thing is, it kinda does.