CHAPTER 4
BACKUP OPERATION ZOMBIE CODE
"Good news.” Chad was sitting in Leo’s kitchen. He had tipped back his chair and was licking a Popsicle. Blue lines ran down his chin. He scribbled in a sketchbook. “I have a new idea for a merchandise item.” He held up a picture of a baby wearing a bib that said, “Zombie in Training.” “Awesome, huh?”
How did Chad do it? Leo wondered. It was like his best friend lived inside an invisible force field that bounced problems away into outer space.
“That’s great, Chad,” Leo sighed.
“I think it would work on those baby T-shirts that snap under the crotch too.”
“It’s good,” Leo admitted, but he was too worried to talk shop right now. “Chad?”
“Mmmmm-hmmmmm?”
“Backup Operation Zombie Code begins now.”
That night, Leo felt a little better. He and Chad had sneaked into the broken second-story window by Room 203. (Chad got in by climbing the dumpster. Then he opened a door for Leo.) They’d hung 175 copies of the Three-Point Zombie Code everywhere except the girls’ bathrooms. Leo fell asleep knowing he’d done his duty to protect his fellow students—at least until he could start working on a cure.
The next morning, Leo got to school on time. Or he tried to.
“Are you kidding me?!” Shelly screamed in Leo’s face before he’d even made it up the school steps. She was holding a bunch of crumpled fliers in her hand. “Did you even think of me before you pulled this stunt? How am I going to live this down?” Was she actually crying? “You’re coming with me right now to take these down, Leonard Francis!”
Leo cringed. “Shut up!” he hissed. How could she yell his middle name at school like that? “You should be thanking me for protecting you!”
Shelly grabbed Leo by the wrist. “Look at this!” She kicked the school doors open. “Look at what you’ve done!”
Leo searched his brain for the right word. What was it? Oh yeah. Backfired. Most of the kids were laughing. A lot of them were pretending to be zombies. This included loud moaning and falling on top of each other. Others were freaking out. This group was hugging and sharing lots of damp Kleenex.
“LEONARD FRANCIS WILEY!” Again with the middle name? Principal V’s voice boomed over the intercom. “Report to my office RIGHT THIS SECOND!”
Leo swallowed hard. He looked up at Shelly. Even she looked scared. “You’d better go,” she said. Then, maybe to be nice, “I won’t tell Dad.”
Leo knew a lot about dread. It still surprised him though. All the different ways it could take over his body. This dread felt like someone squeezing that dangly piece of skin in the back of his throat.
“Wiley!” Principal V was waiting outside the smoky glass door for him. Chad was next to him, wide-eyed and pale. He was wearing a green T-shirt with “You Say Mommy, I Say Zombie” stretched across the chest. “Walk faster!” Principal V barked. Leo quickened his pace and slid just behind Chad.
Principal V leaned down so the boys’ heads were within inches of his white teeth and flickery tongue. “Because of your incredible disrespect, your reckless behavior, your disastrously bad judgment . . .” With every word, the boys blinked back a spray of spittle. “I sentence you to one hundred hours of hard labor!” The mushroom-headed principal stood up and took in a shuddery breath. “To be performed in my office starting immediately!”
Principal V whipped two hula rags off his belt and presented one to each of the boys. He pushed them into his unicorned office. Then with one raised finger, he shouted, “DUST!”
“Um, excuse me?” Leo said. A fifth grader was standing in front of the 800s shelf. She was staring at a white unicorn in her open hand. “Um, are you dusting in this area?” Leo asked.
“Uuuuuuunnnnnh,” she said, curling up her top lip.
“No problemo. Lots of room for unicorn dusters!” Leo said, making a wide circle around her.
Mrs. Bird, Chad’s science teacher, was standing by the 200s shelf. She stared sadly at a green unicorn with red marble eyeballs.
“Mrs. Bird, are you okay?” Chad asked. “Shouldn’t you be, um, teaching your students or something?”
“P-p-p-p-p-p.” Mrs. Bird came at Chad, bubbles frothing on her lips.
“Ahhhh!” Chad yelled.
“QUIET!” Principal V’s voice boomed from the hallway.
Chad shot Leo a look. There must have been half a dozen zombies “dusting” unicorns in Principal V’s office. What was that about?
But Leo wasn’t looking. He was waving his arms in an attempt to reach something high above the 1200s shelf. Something bright green, and not at all pointy, in a corner behind a silver unicorn with black teeth. What was that? Were those leaves? It looked familiar. Leo checked for Principal V’s shadow outside the door. Nothing. He grabbed a stool from the corner and climbed up for a closer look. All of sudden, a hundred hours of hard labor seemed a lot more interesting.