Fifth-Grade Zombies Read online

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  SLAPPY HERE, EVERYONE

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  SLAPPY HERE, EVERYONE

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  SLAPPY HERE, EVERYONE

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  EPILOGUE FROM SLAPPY

  SNEAK PEEK!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO AVAILABLE

  COPYRIGHT

  Welcome to My World.

  Yes, it’s SlappyWorld—you’re only screaming in it! Hahaha.

  Here’s a question for you: Do you know why people call me Slappy?

  Because that’s my NAME! Haha.

  That’s an easy question that you flunked. It brings me to a second question: Who is smarter—you or a dummy? Ha. I can’t believe I’m smarter than you—and I have a wooden head!

  So, don’t call me Dummy, Dummy. I’m so smart, I can read the words in my alphabet soup! Haha.

  Do me a favor. Turn sideways.

  I knew it. I can look through your ears and see sunlight on the other side!

  Did you ever think of buying a brain? I hear thinking can be a lot of fun.

  But don’t worry. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. It keeps your cap from falling off!

  Haha. Do you know why I like to tease you so much?

  Because you deserve it! Hahaha.

  Now, here’s a story about a boy named Todd Coates.

  Todd is a city kid from New York, and he is on his way to stay with his cousins on a farm in Wisconsin. Todd thinks he may get bored.

  Wow, is he wrong!

  You’ll never guess what he’s going to find when the full moon rises over the cornfield. Here’s a hint: I call this story Fifth-Grade Zombies.

  I’ll let my friend Todd tell you all about it.

  It’s just one more terrifying tale from SlappyWorld.

  Well, do you believe it?

  Here I am, Todd Coates, a city kid my whole life, from Queens, New York. I’m bouncing on a bus through Wisconsin Dells, on a narrow, bumpy country road. Watching the trees blur past. And the fields … the dry brown farm fields stretching toward who-knows-where.

  Todd Coates. From the Greatest City on Earth. The Big Apple. On my way to living on a farm for a year. Is that possible?

  The only farms I’ve ever seen were in the movies. They looked like living on Mars to me. I mean, where do the farm people go for good Thai food? And do they have Wi-Fi?

  I’m not a nature guy. Maybe you’ve guessed that. Sure, I see trees when I’m Rollerblading in the park. But I’m not sure I’ve ever even touched a tree.

  I lie in my bed at night and listen to the garbage trucks out on the street. The whine and growl of garbage trucks are like a lullaby to a city kid like me. But farm life? I couldn’t picture it.

  Guess what? I had nightmares about the farm. I saw myself sleeping on a pile of hay with chickens pecking at my pajamas.

  But don’t get me started about nightmares.

  Anyway, here I was, on this squeaky bus, on this county road, sunlight and shadows rolling across the windows. We passed the town of Baraboo, so I knew we were getting close. My cousins’ farm is about twenty miles west of Baraboo. It’s near a town called Moose Hollow, so small it’s not even on the map. Believe that?

  I don’t mean to make fun. My aunt Clara and uncle Jake are great people. When my parents had to go off on their long business trip, they were the only ones in my family who could take me.

  Aunt Clara said it would be an educational year for me.

  She got that right!

  I didn’t know my cousins Mila and Skipper very well. But I was glad I wouldn’t be the only kid on the farm. Mila is my age, twelve. And Skipper is a few years older.

  I FaceTimed with them a few times. Mila seemed nice. A little quiet and shy. Aunt Clara likes to gush. I mean, she’s always rah-rah like a cheerleader. I think she could get excited over Corn Flakes in the morning.

  Uncle Jake was the opposite. He kept scratching his cheeks and clearing his throat and muttering away from the phone. I guess he doesn’t like FaceTime.

  And Skipper was weird, too. He’s about a foot taller than everyone else in the family. He has a croaky voice, like it’s still changing. And he seemed really tense. He kept blinking a lot and glancing around. I don’t know what his problem was.

  The second time I FaceTimed with Skipper, he slid his face up real close to the screen, and he whispered, “Todd, don’t believe everything you hear.”

  How weird was that?

  I mean, I hadn’t heard anything at all.

  Do you think he was trying to scare me?

  The bus hit a hard bump, and I nearly went flying from my seat. It was late afternoon, and the shadows across the farm fields were stretching longer.

  I pulled my phone from my jeans pocket and tried to call Mom and Dad back in New York. They were still home. They weren’t leaving on their trip till the weekend.

  But all I got was silence. No cell service way out here in the wilderness. I couldn’t even send a text.

  I slid the phone back into my pocket and pulled out my harmonica. My stomach was starting to feel fluttery. I could feel myself growing tense as we came closer to Moose Hollow. And one thing that always helped to calm me down was to blow a little blues on my harp.

  It’s not anything fancy. It’s a Hohner Special 20 in the key of C. Sort of a beginner’s harmonica. My parents bought it for me for my eleventh birthday.

  I’ve spent so many hours practicing on it that I should be a lot better. But I don’t care. Playing the instrument always makes me feel good.

  I brought two special things with me to the farm. One was the harmonica. The other was a red plastic lighter. I never light the thing. I don’t even know if it will flame anymore. My grandpa Dave gave it to me a few days before he died. He carried it with him everywhere. Always in his pocket. Maybe he even slept with it. I don’t know. I do know he thought it was special. So I’ve treasured it as a good-luck charm ever since.

  I gripped my harmonica and squinted out the dusty bus window at the passing fields. What were those animals poking up from the dirt? They weren’t squirrels, and they weren’t rabbits.

  Maybe I really had traveled to another planet!

  I raised the harmonica to my mouth, slid it back and forth a few times—and started to play. I don’t really play songs on it. I sort of free-form it. I like to get a rhythm going and then improvise a melody.

  I was pumping out some pretty good sounds when a shout made me stop. It was the bus driver up at the front. He was a red-faced old guy with a blue-and-white bandanna tied around his bald head.

  “Put that away, kid,” he called. “In your pocket, okay?”

  “I was playing softly,” I said. I sat halfway to the back, so I had to shout.

  “Don’t give me any mouth, okay?” he growled. “You’re annoying the other passengers.”

  I glanced around the bus. “There’s only one other passenger,” I said. “And he’s asleep.”

  “Okay, I heard that,” the driver said. He pulled the bus to the side of the road.
The brakes squeaked to a stop. He climbed up from his seat and stepped into the aisle. He motioned to me. “Out,” he said. “You’re out.”

  He pushed a button and the bus door slid open.

  “Huh?” I said. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re out,” he repeated, pointing to the open door. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  My heart started to pound. I jumped to my feet. I gripped the harmonica tightly in my hand. “Huh? I don’t understand—” I started.

  He climbed down the bus steps. “I’ll get your suitcase.”

  “But—but—” I sputtered.

  “It’s your stop,” he said. “Moose Hollow.” He pointed to a red truck parked by the trees. “I see some people waiting for you.”

  “Oh!” I saw the truck doors open. Uncle Jake and Aunt Clara hurried out, waving to me. Mila and Skipper were in the truck bed. They leaped down to the ground and came running toward the bus.

  Everyone hugged everyone.

  The driver slid open the compartment on the side of the bus and pulled out my suitcase. He shoved it into Uncle Jake’s hands.

  “He isn’t much of a musician,” the driver told my uncle. He adjusted the bandanna around his bald head. “Just sayin’.”

  He climbed back onto the bus and shut the door.

  Uncle Jake ran his fingers through his hair. “What did he mean by that?”

  I shrugged. “Beats me.”

  The bus started with a hard jolt, then rumbled away.

  Aunt Clara brushed back a strand of her coppery hair. “Todd, I can’t believe you’re here,” she said.

  I gazed around at the trees and the flat brown field that stretched across the road. “I can’t, either,” I said. “It’s like a million miles from New York.”

  “Two million,” Skipper said. He kicked a clump of dirt in front of his brown leather boot. “Todd, you ever see that old TV show The Twilight Zone?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Well, you’re in it!”

  My aunt and uncle laughed. But Mila just shook her head. She elbowed her brother in the ribs. “Shut up, Skipper. Give us a break.”

  Skipper giggled. He had a high, scratchy laugh. Like a bird or something. It didn’t sound right coming from such a big, tall guy.

  He kept shifting his weight from one long leg to the other. As if it was hard for him to stand still.

  Aunt Clara shivered. She tightened her red-and-black flannel jacket around her. “Feel the chill in the air? You can tell it isn’t summer anymore.”

  “Farm people like to talk about the weather a lot,” Uncle Jake said.

  “We don’t have weather in New York,” I said. It was a joke. I thought it was pretty funny. But they all just stared at me.

  Skipper turned and started to take long strides to the truck. “We’d better hurry home,” he said. “It’s time to milk the horses.”

  He stared at me, waiting for me to react. I guess he wanted to see if I believed him or not.

  Mila stepped up beside me. “My brother has a twisted sense of humor,” she said in a low voice.

  “At least I have a sense of humor,” Skipper snapped. He wrapped both hands around the side of the truck bed and hoisted himself inside. “Mila is the sensitive type,” he continued. “She thinks it hurts an ear of corn when you boil it!”

  He laughed at his own joke.

  Mila scowled and made a grrrr sound.

  Skipper reached both hands down to help me into the truck. But I grabbed the side and pulled myself up beside him.

  Mila climbed in from the other side. A strong gust of wind caught her light brown hair and sent it flying behind her head like a flag. She pulled a Chicago Cubs cap from her pocket and slid it down over her hair.

  “Hold on to the side, Todd,” Uncle Jake called from behind the wheel. “Have you ever ridden in a truck before?”

  “Not really,” I replied. “When I was little, Mom and Dad took me to the New York auto show, and I would climb into all the trucks.”

  Skipper grinned. “That doesn’t count.”

  “Most people don’t have cars out here,” Mila said. “Just SUVs and trucks. Cars aren’t very good when the snow comes.”

  The truck started up with a roar, and we bounced onto the narrow county road. I gripped the side of the truck and tightened my leg muscles as we picked up speed.

  “Are you okay?” Skipper shouted over the powerful wind. “You’re not frightened, are you?”

  “Hey, I ride the subways back home,” I told him. “This isn’t bad at all!”

  The afternoon sun had fallen below the horizon. The fields stretched gray and purple in the evening light.

  Mila had her phone out and was squinting at it as she typed with both thumbs. She raised her eyes. “It’s my friend Shameka,” she told me. “She just wants to know if you arrived.”

  “Shameka has a crush on you,” Skipper said, grinning again.

  “She hasn’t met me,” I said.

  His grin grew wider. “So?”

  I nearly lost my balance as Uncle Jake brought the truck around a curve. Out in the dark field, I saw those animals again. Their heads poked up between the dirt rows.

  I squinted into the dim light. They weren’t squirrels. And they weren’t chipmunks.

  “What are those?” I asked Skipper. I pointed. “See them? The little heads poking up?”

  He followed my gaze. “They’re field rats,” he answered.

  “Field rats? But—they’re so big!”

  He nodded. “Yeah. You’ve got to watch out for them, Todd. They’re all diseased.”

  I blinked. “Diseased?”

  “Seriously. They’re all rabid,” he said. “They have a kind of venom.”

  His eyes locked on mine. “Let’s say you’re out in a field, and one of them bites you. If that happens, you have less than thirty minutes to get an antidote. Or else your body just freezes up and you die.”

  I gasped. “Well, where do you keep the antidote?” I demanded.

  “We don’t have any,” he said.

  Across the truck bed from me, Mila rolled her eyes. “Skipper—” she started.

  But we bounced hard as Uncle Jake turned the truck off the county road, onto a gravel path. She didn’t finish what she had started to say.

  I held on to the side and studied Skipper. He had to be kidding about the field rats—right?

  I had news for him. We city kids don’t scare easily.

  “We’re home,” Mila said. She pointed to two tall silos. “That one is the grain silo, Todd. The other one is crop storage.”

  I nodded. Crop storage? What was she talking about?

  We passed a dark-shingled barn, standing black against the darkening sky. “The stable is on the other side of the barn,” Mila explained. “Have you ever ridden a horse?”

  I smiled. “I rode a pony at my fifth birthday party,” I said.

  She and Skipper both laughed.

  I eased my grip on the truck as we slowed down. My legs felt rubbery and my muscles ached. I couldn’t wait to stand on solid ground.

  “That’s the chicken coop over there,” Skipper said. “Do you hear them clucking their little heads off? That’s where you’ll be sleeping.”

  “Haha. Funny.” Mila rolled her eyes again. “I know you’re going to lighten up on Todd soon—aren’t you?”

  Skipper reached out a fist and bumped knuckles with me. “We’re going to be best buds,” he said.

  Was he being sarcastic? I couldn’t tell.

  “We only have a few dozen chickens,” Mila said. “Wait till you see Shameka’s chicken coop. It’s totally modern. Like from a sci-fi movie or something.”

  “The chickens are all robots,” Skipper joked.

  The truck bumped to a stop. The three of us jumped out. I bent my legs and stretched my arms above my head.

  Aunt Clara stepped up beside me, fiddling with the sleeves of her flannel jacket. “Long day, Todd?”

  I nodded. “The bus ride seemed endless.”
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br />   Uncle Jake lifted my suitcase from the truck bed. “We’ll get you up to your room to unpack. Then we’ll have some dinner. You must be starving.”

  My shoes slid on the gravel driveway as I followed them to the house. “What do you eat here in Wisconsin? Is it true you eat only cheese and bratwurst?”

  They laughed. “You’ve been doing your research!” my aunt said.

  “Well, you can’t order out like in New York City,” Uncle Jake said. “But we have all kinds of good, fresh food.”

  “The corn was amazing this summer,” Aunt Clara said. She pointed. “The cornfield starts back there. We had fresh sweet corn every night.”

  “There are pretty good restaurants in Baraboo,” Skipper said. “It’s only a half-hour drive.”

  “Wisconsin pizza is the best!” Mila exclaimed.

  “Because the cheese is so good?” I said.

  They laughed again. I was starting to feel a little more comfortable.

  I stopped and gazed at the house. It wasn’t what I had imagined. I guess I pictured a little old farmhouse, like in the movies. With bales of hay piled up in front and a rain barrel to collect water.

  But this house was more like a mansion. Spread out behind neatly trimmed bushes. It was gray-shingled like the barn, wide and tall, with freshly painted shutters on the many windows. I saw a dim, rosy-colored light in a high window cut into the sloping roof. Two chimneys poked up on either end of the house.

  A screened-in porch stood at one side of the front door. I saw a wicker porch swing and several big chairs. The door was painted bright yellow. Lights blazed in the wide front windows, sending an orange glow onto the front lawn.

  Uncle Jake handed my suitcase to Skipper. “Take Todd up to his room,” he said. “Your mom and I will get dinner on the table.”

  “Do I have to go up to the attic?” Skipper said. “It’s creepy up there.”

  Mila gave him a shove toward the stairs. “You think you’re funny, but you’re just a loser.”

  Skipper nodded. “Okay, okay. No more jokes,” he said. He raised his right hand. “I swear.”

  He started up the steep wooden staircase, and I followed him. The house was warm and smelled of freshly baked bread.

  The air grew even warmer as we reached the second-floor landing. I followed him down a long hallway to the attic stairs at the other end.