Adventures of a Middle School Zombie by Scott Craven

Author:Scott Craven [Craven, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Middle Grade
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC
Published: 2013-12-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

As excited as I was to go to the dance with Anna, I was giving it much more serious thought as the day approached. I remembered how nervous I was in the few days after I asked her out. I didn’t even want to talk to her, fearing she would use it as an excuse to change her mind. I imagined it would go something like this:

Me: “Hi.”

Her: “I don’t want to go to the dance with you.”

Me: “OK.”

And that would pretty much be it. I thought even making eye contact with her kinda put things at risk. I wanted to let sleeping dates lie. So maybe I was the weird one.

When some people had noticed Anna and me talking a little more at lunch, I started getting funny looks in the hallways. Funnier than usual. I worried about her reputation, what people would think of someone who might have a thing for an undead guy.

Turns out there was more to it than that.

One morning, Ray Knowles came up to me before school. I was sitting on one of the few seventh-grade-friendly benches and going through my backpack, hoping my math homework wasn’t really on my bureau at home, which was the last place I’d seen it.

“Hey, DJ—I mean Jed.”

“Uh, hey, G-Ray—I mean Ray.” Robbie had bestowed that name on Ray many weeks ago when the morning announcements included one about Ray winning the Chess Club’s first tournament, muttering so only about half the class could hear: “That is so gay, Ray. Ah, Gay Ray. The G-Ray.” What Robbie lacked in wit he made up for with a misguided belief in his cleverness.

Ray and I looked at one another, and I was glad to see he at least wasn’t wearing a Disney T-shirt anymore (which, sorry, was somewhat gay). OK, so the replacement was a Tony Hawk shirt about seven years after Tony Hawk was cool, but it was better than a surfing Goofy shouting “Cowabunga dude.”

I looked down and returned to my search, pulling out another sheaf of papers and hoping the worksheet would be among them.

“Is it true?” he said.

“Is what true?”

“That you and that Anna chick are going to the dance?” Hearing chick come out of Ray’s mouth was like hearing Luke say a word like modicum. It was an awkward fit.

“Yeah, I guess. Why?”

“Because, I don’t know, but I’ve heard that Anna is kind of different.”

“How so?”

“Just, I guess, dark. Have you seen her profile on Facebook, and listened to any of those songs she links to?”

“Not really.” What I really wanted to say was, “How the hell are you her Facebook friend?” but then that would bring a question right back to me—“Why aren’t you?” So I let it go.

“OK, I was just curious … Look, not that we’re major friends or anything, but have you thought that maybe she doesn’t like who you are as much as what you are?”

I did not like where this was going. “You mean that I am oxygen-deficient?”

“If you mean that you are dead, then yeah,” Ray said.

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