EllRay Jakes The Recess King! (5 page)

8

THE CURSE OF THE MUMMY ZOMBIE

“You look weird,” Emma McGraw says as we push our way out the classroom door and into the hall, because—it's finally recess! “Do you have a tummy ache?” she asks.

All the other guys are already out on the playground. I'm losing recess time.

“I'm fine,” I tell her. I am just trying to hide the roll of toilet paper under my jacket. “And P.S., Emma,” I say. “You shouldn't tell people they look weird.”

“But you do look weird,” Annie Pat Masterson says. She is defending Emma, her best friend. “No offense,” she adds.

“I don't think you can say ‘
you look weird
' and ‘
no offense
' at the same time,” Kry Rodriguez says as we make our way down the crowded hall.

Me and
three girls.

Emma, Annie Pat, and Kry are the best girls in our class, though. They don't whisper or giggle behind their hands when a boy messes up, or act like they're so great, the way Cynthia and Fiona sometimes do.

But this was not the way I wanted this special morning recess to start.

“Bye-ya,” I tell Emma, Annie Pat, and Kry, and
zoom
! off I go, heading for the door like a football player racing toward the end zone.

Okay, like a
small
football player—holding a roll of TP instead of a ball.

“No running in the halls,” I hear a grownup yell behind me, but I'm already gone.

Jason Leffer, here I come!

“Look who's finally here,” Stanley calls as I come trotting up, still hiding the TP under my jacket.

“C'mon, EllRay. We're about to play Bubblegum Foursquare,” my sometimes-friend Kevin says. He bounces the dark red ball a couple of times to tempt me.

Bubblegum Foursquare is really fun. In the Oak Glen Primary School version, the fourth person to hit the ball has to stay frozen to that spot for the rest of the game—like they're stuck there with gum.

But I have other plans. “Later, dog,” I say, looking for Jason.

He's over at the boys' picnic table with Corey, Diego, and Major. They're stuffing their faces, of course. “Hey,” I say, walking over to the table. “Have you guys ever played Mummy Zombie?”

“Never heard of it,” Corey says through his turkey-cheese roll-up.

Corey's big into protein. Or his mom is, anyway.

“And I've never
read
of it,” Diego says.

“Then it doesn't exist,” Jason announces, laughing. “EllRay's just making stuff up—probably because he already ate all his food.”

“I'll share,” Corey offers, holding out his drooping snack.

“No, thanks. I'm good,” I say, looking around for the playground monitor. It's Mr. Havens today, but he's way across the playground. He's huge and he teaches second grade. I guess he's subbing for the real monitor.

I take out the roll of TP from under my jacket. “Ta-da!” I say, holding it up.

“Dude,” Jason says, slapping his forehead like he cannot believe his eyes. “You can't use that stuff out here. You gotta go
inside
, to the room that says
Boys
on the door. Right, guys?” he asks, already cracking up at his own joke.

“No. Listen, Jase,” I say, pulling the end of the paper free. “I saw this on the Internet. The ‘mummy' part, anyway. I made up the rest. But see, I'm gonna wrap this TP all around you, and turn you into a mummy
zombie
, okay? And then whoever you tag
also
has to be a zombie. Except only you get to be the
king
mummy zombie,” I add, trying to make it sound extra special.

Jason's eyes light up, and his buzz-cut hair seems to sent out sparks. “Do it,” he says, holding out his arms. “Wrap me up quick, dude. I'm in!”

“I need some help,” I say to the guys sitting at the picnic table. Corey, Diego, and Major have stopped chewing, I see.

This is perfect! I have made Jason Leffer the star of morning recess, which is probably a dream come true for him.

Of course
he will want to be my new spare friend!

“C'mon, you guys,” I say. And in two seconds, Corey, Diego, and Major are helping me wrap the toilet paper all over Jason: around his middle a few times, then up around one arm, then across to the other arm. And then we start in on his fuzzy mummy zombie head.

“Raw-r-r-r-r!”
Jason bellows, getting into it.

By now, of course, we have a pretty big audience.

“The buzzer's gonna sound,” Corey warns, and Jason takes off into the crowd.

“Raw-r-r-r-r!”
he howls again, staggering stiff-legged toward the kids that surround us. He reaches out his arms. Flaps of TP trail behind him like—well, like flaps of TP. A couple of pieces of toilet paper float free.

“It's the curse of the mummy zombie,” Major yells, explaining it to the running kids. “And if he tags you, you have to be a zombie too! Like,
forever
,” he adds, waving his own arms in the air.

Hey. I didn't say
forever.
My own game is getting away from me!

But,
“Eee-e-e-e-e!”
everyone shouts, scattering wide. The girls are laughing and screaming at the same time.

“What's a zombie?” a little boy asks. He's a first-grader, I think. What's he doing over here with us big kids? Is he lost or something?

“Zombie—gonna—get—you,” Jason yells, heading first for the bunch of third grade girls, and then lurching back toward the little boy. “Zombie gonna
eat
you.”

“Wah-h-h-h-h,”
the kid cries. His fists are up against his mouth. He is frozen where he stands.

This kid will be really good at Bubblegum Foursquare some day, I can't help but think. Only that's not what we're playing right now.

This is out of control.

And not in a good way.

“Don't eat me,” the little guy begs, trying to hide his head with the front of his red zippered sweatshirt. He crumples onto the grass, surrendering.

“It's only pretend, kid,” I yell as a couple more toilet paper squares flutter to the ground.

Twe-e-e-e-e-t!

A whistle blows about two inches from my ear.

It's Mr. Havens, the gigantic playground monitor. And boy, does he look mad!

“Exactly
what
is supposed to be happening here?” he shouts, his big hands on his hips.

And nobody moves, not even the little boy on the grass.

It's like Bubblegum
Recess
, we're all holding so still.

9

EPIC FAIL

“This is all your fault, Mr. Mummy,” Cynthia whispers to Jason—the mummy zombie king—as we file back into Ms. Sanchez's classroom. It's like we are cartoon bad guys marching off to jail in black-and-white striped uniforms. Ms. Sanchez is still in the hall talking to Mr. Havens.

I guess this was not his lucky day to substitute.

Join the crowd, Mr. Havens.

Jason shoots me a dirty look, but he doesn't say anything. There are a couple of squares of TP still hanging from the back pocket of his jeans, but I pretend I don't see them.

“Yeah,
Mr. Mummy
,” Fiona echoes, glaring at Jason. “You made that little boy cry.”

“Everyone was having fun until that happened,” loyal Corey points out, giving me a secret nudge of support.

“I didn't see how it started,” Annie Pat complains. “Where did all that toilet paper come from?”

“It was probably Jared's bright idea,” Cynthia announces, scowling.

All the boys in our class, even Jared, make a point of not looking at Cynthia—or at me. But they
know
where that roll of toilet paper came from.

I guess us guys are gonna stick together on this one. We're like the loyal geese in
The Sword in the Stone.
For now, anyway.

In terms of making a new spare friend, though, this has to go down as an epic fail. Jason Leffer looks like he'll never laugh again.

Good one, EllRay. So much for inviting Jason over Friday—to see Alfie's goofy play, and then maybe have pizza or ice cream, and some sleepover fun.

Ms. Sanchez comes gliding back into the classroom like the ice queen in one of Alfie's cartoon movies. “Well,” she begins, sitting down. “Imagine my surprise.” She lays her hands flat on top of the desk, which is kind of scary for some reason.

“Us
girls
didn't do anything,” Cynthia says, talking and raising her hand at the same time.

“Quiet, please, Miss Harbison,” Ms. Sanchez says, not even looking at Cynthia.

Uh-oh. She calls us “Miss” and Mister” when she's really angry.

“We have some things to sort out,” Ms. Sanchez says in a solemn voice. “Now, we
were
going to do some math word problems before lunch,” she continues.

Math word problems are usually pretty fun, unless your name is Corey Robinson. Corey can compete in a swim race in front of one-hundred people, and win, but math makes him panic.

Here is an example of a math word problem, in case you didn't know:

There are twenty-five (25) students in Ms. Sanchez's third grade class. Ten (10) of them are boys. One (1) boy hates math word problems. How many boys in Ms. Sanchez's class don't hate math word problems?

“And then,” Ms. Sanchez continues, “as a reward for working so hard on your math, I was going to read aloud to you. It was a really funny book, too. But I guess we won't have time for that, now,” she says, shaking her head.

Corey's hand inches up. “What do we have to do instead?” he asks in a nervous voice after Ms. Sanchez calls on him.

He's probably worried it'll be something even
worse
than math word problems.

Like taking out our own tonsils, maybe.

“I'm so glad you asked, Mr. Robinson,” Ms. Sanchez says. “First, you will all write notes of apology to Iggy Brown.”

“Who's Iggy Brown?” Emma asks, not even raising her hand first. She sounds one-hundred percent (100%) confused.

“Iggy Brown is the little first-grade boy who got knocked down by a bunch of stampeding third-graders at morning recess,” Ms. Sanchez says, her voice cool.

“Nobody knocked him down,” Jason mumbles. “He
collapsed.
”

“Did you say something, Mr. Leffer?” Ms. Sanchez asks.

“Nuh-uh,” he says, shaking his head.

“Good,” Ms. Sanchez says. “Because poor little Iggy was really scared. His mama is having to leave work to bring him a change of clothes, so he can finish out the day.”

“It wasn't
that
dirty on the grass,” Marco says, his voice low—but not low enough.

“Do you have something to contribute, Mr. Adair?” Ms. Sanchez asks.

“Nope,” Marco says, sounding hopeless.

“Me neither,” Major chimes in.

He's the other M in “M and M,” remember?

“Iggy wet his pants because of the mummy,” Fiona loud-whispers. “I saw. It was sad. Poor little guy.”

“Poor little guy,” the other girls echo.

And I kind of agree with them. Because what if it had been my little sister Alfie, and not Iggy, who wandered over to the wrong area of the playground? She gets lost all the time! And what if
she
had been the one to wet her pants at school?

The world would come to an end. Her world, anyway. For a while.

I feel really terrible now.

I never meant for this to happen. But it happened anyway!

“It's okay,” Marco Adair whispers to me. “You didn't know.”

“Ms. Sanchez, Ms. Sanchez,” Cynthia says, waving her hand in the air as if she has something really urgent to say.

Ms. Sanchez sighs. “Yes, Miss Harbison, Miss Harbison?”

“Iggy probably can't even read,” Cynthia says, like she just won an argument. “Anyway, he's the one who strayed into our herd.”

She said “our herd!” Maybe while I've been reading about Merlyn and the geese, as well as all the other cool animals in
The Sword in the Stone
, Cynthia's been reading some other animal book. Probably about magic ponies or something.

“And
us girls
didn't do anything wrong,” Cynthia finishes, folding her arms across her chest. “So I think the boys should write the I'm-sorry-letters, and us girls can hear the funny story.”

“It's ‘we girls,' not ‘us girls,'” Ms. Sanchez informs her. “You would say, ‘We can hear,' not ‘Us can hear,' wouldn't you? That's the test. But sorry, ladies. It's not going to work that way. This class is a unit—or ‘a herd,' if you prefer. It's not two teams, the boys against the girls. So get out your best pens, if you please, and I'll pass out some nice paper for you to write on. Iggy's parents can read him your notes, if he can't read them himself. I'll write a few vocabulary words on the board to help get you started,” she adds.

My dad would call that “throwing us a bone.”

“And then lunch?” Jared Matthews asks, sounding hopeful.

“Oh. About lunch,” Ms. Sanchez says, as if Jared just reminded her of something important. “You are all marching out onto that playground as soon as the lunch buzzer sounds, and you're picking up
every scrap of toilet paper you can find.
And any other litter, as well. After that, you can wash your hands thoroughly, and
then
eat your lunch.”

“But the best food will be gone in the cafeteria,” Kevin cries.

“That's true,” Ms. Sanchez says in a thoughtful way, as she examines her shiny fingernails. “I'm sure there will be
something
left, though. No one will starve.”

And she's usually so nice.

This is all my fault—no matter
what
Marco says.

And my stomach is already growling!

“
Iggy
,” Ms. Sanchez writes on the white board. “
Apologize.
” “
Sincerely.
”

The entire third grade flock, or herd, sighs as if it were one giant creature.

And we start to write our notes to poor wet Iggy.