Zombie Elementary by Howard Whitehouse Read Free Book Online Page B

everything. But I heard he saved you from that zombie boy at the baseball game, and who else am I gonna ask? So I looked up his number in the phone book and wrote it down. I called him right before I got you.”
    Jermaine was waiting at the corner of Oak and Third. He had his BB gun wrapped up inside a coat, so nobody would give him trouble. You know how adults are.
You could take somebody’s eye out with that thing!
    Francine’s phone rang. “Uh-huh. Right. No, we’re on our way. No, you can kick her in the head as much as you like. It doesn’t matter if she’s head cheerleader. She’s a zombie now. What’s she gonna do, cut you from the squad? Five minutes, okay?”
    She looked up at us. Maybe we had weird expressions on our faces.
    “Cheerleading squad sleepover last night. Everyone’s gone zombie except me and Celeste Laroche. She says she’s up in a tree house fighting off the other cheerleaders. I took off in the other direction and made it home. I didn’t know Celeste was still, uh,
still with us
until she texted me during Sunday School.
    You aren’t supposed to text in Sunday School, but I guessed that wasn’t so important at a time like this.
    “Where are we going?” asked Jermaine, rattling his box of BB ammo.
    “Lisa Phalen’s house,” said Francine. “It was her dad who … you know.”
    Right. Her dad, who drives an ambulance.
    Drove an ambulance.
    “Yeah, he came home last night with that kid who chased you. We were all baking cookies. They had blood all over themselves and were moaning and groaning—well, you know how. Lisa’s not real bright, so she asked if they wanted cookies.”
    “And did they?” asked Jermaine. He’s always interested in what zombies get up to. It’s research for him.
    “Nah, they were already munching on some guy’s leg when they came in.”
    “The other ambulance man,” muttered Jermaine.
    “Yeah, I guess. But then they started munching on cheerleaders, instead,” said Francine.
    “Ew,” I said. I felt sick.
    “Oh, quit whining,” she told me. “In fact, shut up and get your bat ready. It’s over this next fence.”

21
    “What do you see?” demanded Francine.
    I was tallest, but it was a pretty high fence. Jermaine had boosted me up so I could look into the Phalens’ yard. I told them what I could see. “It’s pretty normal. Flower beds and a bench and some of those—what do you call ’em, those little stone people like Christmas elves?”
    “Is that all?” demanded Francine.
    I looked around a bit more. Then I spotted the thing that was unusual.
    “Oh, cheerleaders. Zombie cheerleaders. They have their uniforms on, and pom-poms.”
    The cheerleaders were lurching around under a big tree, looking up with their arms raised. They were making a real low moan, not the full “ BRAAAAAIIIIINNNNNSS! !!!!” but more like
“bwainsss!”
The kind ofnoise you might expect zombie cheerleaders to make if you thought about it.
    Then I heard a voice that sounded in charge. Peppy. Perky. A bit pushy.
    “Two! Four! Six! Eight!
    Come on, girls, it’s time we ate …
    CELESTE !”
    Other voices chimed in, but real slow and draggy.
    “Celeste.”
    “Come on down! We’ll eat your brains!” sang the perky voice.
    “Comeon down we’ll eash your bwains,” the other voices tried to follow, but sorta slurry.
    “Huh,” muttered Francine. “That girl Whitney is peppy even when she’s dead.”
    ZOMBIE TIP
    Zombies talk a lot about eating brains, but mostly they just bite people and turn them into zombies. Getting at someone’s brain is actually pretty hard when you think about it. Zombies have terrible coordination skills. Maybe calling out “BRAIIINNNSSSSS” is like a Christmas wish list.
    I peered across the yard and saw that the girl leading the chant was blond and princessy. She was doing some motions—I don’t know the names for all those routines—and the others were trying to follow. One of them fell over into a rosebush. A tall girl