Zombiekins - Kevin Bolger [2]
“Vait here,” the Widow added, then disappeared in the direction of her house.
“Boy, no wonder people think she’s weird,” Miranda said. “What do you think that was all about?”
“I don’t know,” Stanley said, suddenly having second thoughts about his new toy. “Do you think maybe it’s cursed or something?”
Miranda just rolled her eyes.
“Stanley, for the hundredth time, there’s no such thing as curses and witches and all that silly voodoo stuff,” she said, flinging the pincushion back onto the table.
A minute later, Mrs. Imavitch returned with a bag of leftover Halloween candy—taffy, the kind no one liked, wrapped in waxed paper covered with silhouettes of vampire bats and witches on broomsticks.
Stanley tried to politely turn down the wretched candy, but the Widow kept pressing it on him.
“Take it,” she urged, with more strange looks. “You never know vhen it might come in handy. I never get any trick-or-treaters at my place anyvay,” the Widow added. “I guess kids today just aren’t into Halloween like zey vere in my day.”
Stanley took the taffy and paid for Zombiekins. By now he just wanted to get out of there. But even as he was leaving with Miranda, the Widow called after him one last time, “Don’t forget to read zee instructionz!”
3
BUT OF COURSE STANLEY NEVER DID READ THE instructions. He took Zombiekins out of its box and threw the packaging in a trashcan before he reached the end of the block. But he kept the taffy in his knapsack because he was afraid to offend the Widow by throwing it out. Miranda said he was crazy to think she’d ever know, but there was something mysterious about the Widow, and Stanley was not the kind of boy who liked taking chances.
Stanley walked up the lane to his house wondering, what was so special about his new toy. What had the Widow been trying to tell him?
The sound of the front door opening brought Stanley’s dog Fetch barking from the far end of the house. Fetch came bounding around the corner to meet Stanley with his tail wagging his whole body like a rubber noodle.
But when Fetch saw what Stanley was holding he skidded to a halt, knocking a potted geranium off an end table. His tail drooped between his legs. He started yelping and backpedaling wildly, knocking over the end table, then disappeared back around the corner as quickly as he’d come.
“Some watchdog,” Stanley chuckled.
“Stanley, dear,” his mother called from the kitchen, “can you check on your sister?”
Stanley found his two-year-old sister Rosalie in the TV room. She was dressed in her princess costume and busy building a wobbly castle out of the good china, a pair of crystal vases, her mother’s wedding dress, open paint cans, sharp objects, broken glass, a box marked FIREWORKS, and miscellaneous electrical hazards.
“It’s okay, Mom,” Stanley called back reassuringly. “She’s in here.”
“Hi, Stanley,” Baby Rosalie said. “What you got? I see it?”
She grabbed Zombiekins out of Stanley’s hands before he could answer. There was a low growl from under the couch where Fetch had taken cover.
“Ooo, him scary,” Rosalie said.
“Yeah, well, it’s sort of a ‘zombie’ stuffed animal,” Stanley explained.
“‘Zombie’?” Rosalie said. “Why him ‘zombie’?”
Uh-oh. How was Stanley going to answer that one? He didn’t want to scare her. But, on the other hand, he didn’t believe in sheltering her from the facts of life, either.
“Well, a zombie is a reanimated corpse that’s been revivified by witchcraft or transformed by the bite of another zombie,” Stanley explained.
Rosalie stared back at him blankly.
“But don’t worry,” Stanley added, “this isn’t a real zombie. It’s just a stuffy with a sort of macabre, half-dead appearance.”
“Oh,” she replied.
She gave Zombiekins a long, thoughtful look.
“Him still scary,” she concluded at last.
4
AN HOUR LATER, STANLEY WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF doing his homework when Fetch appeared in his bedroom doorway, barking at him.