Authors: Patrick Freivald
Chapter
10
Joe
sat next to Ani and knocked his helmet against hers. “What’s that?”
She showed him the screen. “Epidemiology and the
Collapse of Empires.”
“Sounds exciting. Who’s it by?”
“Me. It’s my term paper for AP.”
Joe cast a glance at Mr. Foster, busy across the
room with Lydia and Mike. “I haven’t started mine. I was thinking of doing a
case study of disparate personalities forced to spend all their time together
under constant, benign, but incompetent supervision.”
Devon and Sam stood at the smart board, dissecting
“The Lady of Shalott” line by line. Kyle made obscene gestures behind their
backs, and Teah moped at the window.
“Familiarity breeds contempt?” Ani asked.
“I was thinking an analytical comparison to
Big
Brother
.”
Ani chuckled. “I don’t think it would be tolerated
if we acted with that little maturity.”
His good eye, bright and green, locked on hers. “I’m
serious, you can look it up. It’s why everyone either hates or becomes BFFs
with their first roommates.” He put his hand on hers and squeezed.
The world stopped. “Joe...I....” She had no idea
what to think or feel but knew a bad idea when it grabbed her hand.
He pulled his hand back but didn’t release her
from his stare. “You’re a painter. Do you know Waterhouse?”
She shook her head, a bare shudder. “No.”
He jerked his head toward the board without
looking away from her. “He did a painting based on that poem. It’s beautiful
and sad, and she looks kind of like you.” He blinked and looked away. “You’d
know it if you saw it.”
“I’m sure I would,” she said. “I—” Her phone
buzzed.
She pulled it out under her desk as Joe turned on
his Kindle. She didn’t recognize the number but opened the text anyway.
“Ths Bill can u tlk?”
She showed the screen to Joe, who shrugged.
She typed a reply. “No. What do you want?”
Joe interjected. “Does he know your mom gets all
of our texts?”
Ani shook her head. “I doubt it. I don’t even know
how he got my number.”
Her phone buzzed. “Want 2 c Teah. Can u get me in?”
It buzzed again. “Just a while. Want 2 hold her hand. Plzzzzz.”
Another buzz, this time it was her mother. “Is
that boy as dumb as he seems?”
She texted Bill, “Can’t happen.” And then to her
mom, “Yes.”
Two minutes later Sarah had pulled Ani out of
class. She had on too much makeup, and her wig looked like a rat’s nest. “How
did Bill Watson get your phone number?”
“I have no idea. Maybe Tiff gave it to him.”
Her mom clucked her tongue. “That girl.”
Ani didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.
“Well, tell him you spoke to me and the answer is
not ‘no’ but ‘hell, no.’ The school is closed to visitors without explicit
business, and any business that boy comes up with will be rejected. The last
thing we need is a hormone slurry causing another Prompocalypse. He can speak
to her at a safe distance through the fence.”
Ani suppressed a groan.
Why am I suddenly in
the middle of this?
“Can’t you tell him?”
Her mom’s flat stare held no compromise. “Tell him
that if I have to speak to him, it will be to remand him into custody for violation
of the terms of his bail. And tell Teah to grow some smarts.”
She stalked off down the hallway, and Mr. Benson
nodded his head toward the door. Ani walked back in and Mr. Foster smiled at
her. “Ani, could you help Mike with his spelling?”
*
* *
That Thursday, the protesters thronged in full
force, screaming and chanting from behind the picket line as the bus drove past.
“Holy crap, there must be a thousand of them,” Joe
said.
“More,” Sam said. “Three thousand, maybe four.”
She looked at Ani as if expecting an explanation.
Ani texted her mom. “What’s with the crowd?”
The reply was immediate. “You’ll see. :)”
Ani frowned at the phone, then at Sam. “It’s not
like her to play coy.” She scanned the crowd. “I don’t recognize half those
people.”
Devon scowled. “I used to like surprises.”
School was half-deserted as usual, the teachers
and students shut away behind closed doors as the Special Dead shambled through
the halls to their room. As they reached the end of the stairwell, Ani noticed
that one door was open. A man’s voice called out from within. “Hey, kids.” A
wet gurgle followed the greeting.
Mr. Benson stopped as Ani’s mom stepped out of the
doorway. “Come in and say hello,” she said. They exchanged glances, then
shuffled to the door.
Ani’s mouth dropped in shock. Mr. Cummings sat behind
his desk, holding a copy of
American Spectator
. His helmet and bite
guard matched theirs, though his leg irons were chained to a steel ring sunk
into the floor in the corner of the room. His missing left cheek exposed grey
gums and white bone beneath, and a puckered bite-mark marred his neck with pink
scar tissue.
Sam was the first to speak. “Good morning, Mr.
Cummings.”
“Good morning, Sammy.” The gurgling wheeze sounded
again; his lungs were obviously damaged under his clothes. “How’s your year
going so far?”
Sam startled everyone by dragging the whole chain
gang forward so she could wrap him in a hug. “It’s hellish. Are you back for
good?”
Mr. Cummings disentangled himself with a smile and
laced his fingers behind his helmet. “I think so. Never had much use for unions
or left-wingers before this, but for now the good guys won.”
“So how is this going to work?” Devon asked, naked
hope in her voice. “Are you teaching government and economics?”
“Well, Mrs. Weller and I are back full time. We
come in early and leave late, have our own guards,” he nodded to the pair of silver-visored
figures in the back of the room, “and not a whole lot of mobility. Pending
approval to bring you out, we’ll go to your room and teach you in there.” He
gave Ani’s mother a sly look, then used a stage whisper. “They won’t let me use
a pen or pencil, not even to grade. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
She returned his gaze with no sign of affront. “Rules
are rules, Mr. Cummings.”
“Indeed they are, Doctor Romero,” he said.
“So are you glad to be back?” Lydia asked.
He looked out the window. “Well, I’m glad to be out
of my cell, but all in all I’d rather be fishing.”
*
* *
Mrs. Weller scowled at them as they walked through
her door, then directed her attention toward Dr. Romero. “What?” Aside from
heavy makeup, the helmet, and shackles, there was no sign that she was a
zombie.
“The children wanted to welcome you back.”
She grunted by way of reply, then turned back to
her computer.
Lydia took a cautious step forward. “How are you
doing, Mrs. Weller?”
She spun in her chair, the chain rattling against
her ankle. Her hand jerked out, finger pointed at Mike. “He mauled me, and now
I’m dead, chained to my damned desk. How do you think I’m doing?”
“Welcome to our world,” Kyle chimed.
She put her head in her hands.
“Just go away.”
They shuffled out the door, and Devon said, “Wow.”
“It’s been a hard transition,” Dr. Romero said. “She
needs time to adjust.”
Lydia looked at the nameplate outside the door. “Is
she still teaching eighth-grade English?”
Ani’s mom nodded. “And eleventh. She has
seniority, so by union rules she gets to choose her schedule. She’ll also be
tutoring you guys every other day.”
Joe knocked on his helmet. “So that’s what the
protests were about...parents don’t want their kids taught by zombies?”
Her mom sighed. “We only lost a couple kids this
time. Most of the crowd outside don’t even have kids in the district.”
“That’s racist,” Kyle said. “Zombie teachers can
teach as good as alive teachers.”
“Gooder!” Joe said with a smirk.
Teah punched him in the arm. “Kyle’s right. They
should totally sue.”
Ani and her mother exchanged looks.
Without a word, they were led down the hall to
their classroom.
*
* *
The next day Ani looked up as the door clanged
open. A guard stood behind Mr. Cummings, holding a long pole clipped to the
ring on the back of his helmet. He steered the teacher with the pole, using the
leverage to force him into the room.
So that’s what the ring is for,
Ani thought
.
A visored twin to Mr. Clark followed the pair into
the room, flamethrower held at ease. The guards unlocked the ring and backed
out of the room without a word, taking the pole with them. The metal door
slammed, and the external bar slammed home.
With no sign of discomfort, Mr. Cummings stuck out
his hand to Mr. Foster. “Rich Cummings, nice to meet you.”
Mr. Foster giggled at the hand, stuck his half
out, pulled it back and wiped it on his pants, then stuck it out again. He
giggled again when they shook, and stumbled back as soon as Mr. Cummings
released his grip.
Mr. Cummings rolled his eyes, then took the
upperclassmen to one side, leaving Kyle, Lydia, and Teah to Mr. Foster and Ms.
Pulver.
“If you put your desks in a circle—” He grunted, a
wheezing flatulence that escaped between the exposed roots of his teeth, then
kicked the cast-iron chair leg bolted to the floor. “Never mind.” He grabbed an
easel-sized pad of paper and a box of crayons, then sat on the floor. They
joined him, Mike clapping his hands at the novelty.
“So who’s heard of the Laffer Curve...?”
A half-hour later Ani’s head hurt, swimming with
tax policies and fragments of Thomas Sowell quotes, but it was a good kind of
hurt. She’d actually had to think, which made a pleasant contrast to the rest of
the day.
Mr. Cummings said his goodbyes, gave Sam a hug,
and was steered out of the room on the end of the pole.
“That’s a little weird,” Devon said.
“What?” Joe asked.
Devon looked at Sam. “A little comfortable, aren’t
you?”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked.
Mike smiled from his seat on the floor. “I’m
comfortable.”
“The hugging, the extra attention. It’s a little
weird.”
Sam cleared her throat. “Mr. C taught my mom. I’ve
known him forever.” She looked at Ani for support. “He’s like an uncle, you know?”
Sarah Romero had always claimed to have been an
only child. Ani had never known her dad, and not long before the Prompocalypse
she’d learned that her mother’s identity was fake, but it never occurred to her
until that moment to ask if her mom had had any siblings in her previous life.
“Sure,” Ani said. “Like an uncle.”
*
* *
As her mom finished dinner, Ani played around on
the piano. She stole the melody from Thelonius Monk’s “Straight, No Chaser”; played
it down an octave and
larghissimo
; and improvised a trilling melody with
her right hand over the top. Her mom’s frequent annoyed glances told her all
she needed to know about the overall effect.
Ani held the final cord and smiled. “Hey, Mom, can
I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” Sarah shut the binder in front of her—a
treatise on epidemiology she’d agreed to critique for a graduate student.
Ani walked her fingers down the keys in Dorian
mode as she summoned the courage to ask. “Did Jenny Picknett have any siblings?”
Without missing a beat, her mom picked up her
dishes and dumped them in the sink. “Who?”
Ani wasn’t expecting a gushing soliloquy, but her
mom knew she knew.
So why the denial?
“You know, Jennifer Picknett. The biologist?”
You know. You.
“What brought this on?”
“Just curious,” Ani said. “I know, curiosity
killed the cat—”
“Curiosity killed lots of things, Ani.”
“I know, but—”
Sarah cut her off with a raised index finger. Ani
stopped, stunned. She hadn’t pulled that since before prom. Ani opened her
mouth, saw the warning in her mom’s eyes, and thought better of it. She turned
to the piano and started back in on her composition.
Her mom clanked around in the kitchenette for a
minute, then Ani felt warm breath on the back of her neck. She almost couldn’t
hear the whisper. “Any link between this lab and Jennifer Picknett would be
devastating. The truth must never, ever go public. She’s dead now, and my name
is Sarah Romero. The less you know about Jennifer Picknett, the better. Period.”