Zombiekins - Kevin Bolger [7]
Stanley wondered how they figured that out. He imagined a team of space scientists stacking paper cups day after day. They would’ve needed really tall ladders.
Suddenly, though, a shriek from the desk in front of him shattered his concentration.
“Mr. Baldengrumpy!” Felicity wailed. “Stanley’s doll just bit me!”
10
MR. BALDENGRUMPY STOPPED THE MOVIE. SOMEbody flicked on the lights.
Zombiekins was sitting motionless on the edge of the front desk. Just a harmless stuffy, albeit with a somewhat macabre, half-dead appearance. But Felicity shrank from it in terror, holding her math book in front of her like a shield.
“I-it bit me right here,” she claimed, pointing to a spot on the back of her wrist.
There wasn’t a mark, as far as Stanley could see, but naturally Mr. Baldengrumpy believed her anyway.
“I suppose this is your idea of a joke?” Mr. Baldengrumpy sputtered. Sputtered means he said it in an angry voice and emphasized his point by showering Stanley with spit droplets.
“I-I didn’t—” Stanley stammered. “I-I never—”
But Mr. Baldengrumpy wasn’t even listening. He just carried Zombiekins to his desk at the back of the room, muttering something about how he “should’ve gone to law school like Mother wanted.” Then he told the class to take out their math books.
“Aw, what about the rest of the movie?” moaned Fiona.
“Now we’ll never know how it turns out,” groaned Kathleen.
But Mr. Baldengrumpy was always cranky when he didn’t get his nap. He assigned the class three pages of word problems and the children moaned in agony—which seemed to cheer him up a bit.
From across the room, Miranda gave Stanley a questioning look. What was going on?
Stanley shrugged, then pointed at Felicity and made the crazy sign with his finger. Obviously she was making the whole thing up. There was no way Zombiekins could’ve actually bitten her.
Was there?
Stanley remembered the Widow’s mysterious warnings (“Zat is no ordinary toy. . . . ”) and turned to look back at his teacher’s desk . . . .
But Zombiekins had disappeared!
Quickly, Stanley pushed his pencil off the edge of his desk and bent down to pick it up—just in time to see Zombiekins shuffling out of the classroom through the hall door....
11
STANLEY STOOD UP AND SIDLED over to the pencil sharpener by the front door, counting on his fingers in his best impersonation of a boy embroiled in a math problem. He waited until Mr. Baldengrumpy wasn’t looking, then snatched a bathroom pass and slipped out into the hall.
He didn’t see Zombiekins, so he ducked into the nearest cubby and crouched behind some coats.
Once he was sure he wasn’t being watched, he darted from his cover—dove—rolled—scrambled to his feet in another cubby across the hall—and pressed himself against the wall to catch his breath.
Then, from hiding place to hiding place, he zigged, zagged, crept, crawled, slipped, slunk, tumbled, stumbled, hopped (stubbed toe), and vaulted down the hall, moving like a cat. Like an extremely paranoid cat. He swooped, shimmied, slithered on his elbows, pounced, prowled, paused to wipe a mashed-banana stain from his shirtfront, hunched, hurdled, wriggled, wormed, tiptoed, leapfrogged, somersaulted, sprang, and—
BONK!ed his head on a lunch box straightening up.
Why was Stanley being so sneaky?
No reason. This was just how he always went to the bathroom at school. You should’ve seen him fetch the attendance register.
He was crawling on his hands and knees across the floor, concealed under a yellow raincoat to avoid attracting suspicion, when the door to the grade 6 class opened. Thinking quickly, Stanley jumped to his feet and disguised himself as part of a display project on Egypt.
He held his breath as the sixth graders filed past on their way to the library.
Last in line was Knuckles. He slouched by without giving Stanley a second glance. But halfway down the hall he stopped and sniffed the air like a jungle cat scenting its prey.
Stanley thought for sure he’d been discovered. But Knuckles