Mia the Magnificent
Read Mia the Magnificent Online
Authors: Eileen Boggess
The Mia
Fullerton
Series
Copyright 2009 by Eileen Boggess
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote passages in a review.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Published by Bancroft Press (“Books that enlighten”)
P.O. Box 65360, Baltimore, MD 21209
800-637-7377
410-764-1967 (fax)
Cover and interior design: Tracy Copes, Daft Generation
[email protected]
• 813.495.8148
Author photo: Cassie Heaton
ISBN for hardcover: 1890862673
ISBN for paperback: 1890862681
LCCN: Library of Congress Control Number: 2009934868
Printed in the United States of America, Bang Printing (Brainerd MN).
First Edition
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
To Todd, Erin, and Nolan, my magnificent family
Chapter
OneI covered my ears to block out the barbaric wailing. Then, as the mutant zombies began closing in on me, I tried to run, but my feet felt cemented to the ground. As the zombies drew closer and closer, my stomach lurched, the stench of rotting flesh assaulting my senses.
Decaying hands reached for me and I struggled to break free, but I was surrounded. Rolling over, I tried to protect myself from their attack, but my face landed in a soft pile. Certain it must be the black soil of a newly dug grave, I fought to get away, but the zombies lunged for my skull! Thousands of rotting fingers dug into my scalp as they searched for my brain. A shrill shriek of terror ripped from my lungs, and—
“Holy jockstrap!” my brother Chris yelled. “Why are you screaming like that? Did you have another dream where you looked at yourself in the mirror?”
Breathing hard, I reached for my head. It was still intact. Sighing with relief, I crawled under my blankets and gathered Mr. Snuggles, my teddy bear, into my arms. “Get out of my room,” I said from my cocoon of covers. “I’m sleeping.”
Chris ripped the blankets from my bed. “Mom just called from St. Hilary’s and said that if you were late to school one more time, she was going to ground you for a month. And since there’s no way I could stand looking at your face for that long after school and on every weekend, I told her I’d kick your sorry butt out of bed. So get moving.”
“Leave me alone,” I muttered as my body constricted into the fetal position. “I still have time to sleep. My alarm clock hasn’t even gone off yet.”
“Uh, yeah, it has,” Chris said. “Like a million times. You kept hitting the snooze button.”
I cracked open my eyelids. My alarm
did
sound an awful lot like barbaric wailing.
Shielding my eyes from the harsh overhead light, I slipped on my glasses and squinted at my bedside clock.
Seven-forty-five? School started in fifteen minutes!
Catapulting myself out of bed, I shoved Chris out of my room, slammed the door, and raced around, gathering my clothes. With absolutely no time for a shower, I’d just have to swipe on an extra layer of deodorant, throw my hair into a ponytail, and hope all my classmates had gone blind and lost their sense of smell over the weekend.
Yanking on my blue and green plaid uniform skirt, I slipped on some fresh underwear and socks and then buttoned up my white blouse. I dashed down the stairs, grabbed my backpack with one hand, tucked my shirt in with the other, and was out the door with only seconds to spare. Going from mutant brain-eating zombies to mutant brain-eating teachers in only five minutes—that had to be some sort of record.
I rushed down the sidewalk and saw Lisa waving to me from the corner. “Hurry up, Mia! We’re going to be late!” she said.
I smiled at Lisa’s petite form bouncing up and down like an overeager blonde puppy. Lisa had been my best friend since forever.
Over the summer, she’d taken a job as a counselor-in-training at a genius Mensa camp, and as part of her experience, she’d cut all ties with her “domestic environment” so she could adapt to her new habitat—or something like that—and I didn’t communicate with her for two months. So, in order to compensate, we’d done nothing else for the past few weeks but talk to each other.
“Sorry,” I said as I caught up. “I overslept again.”
“Whoa.” She took a step away from me. “What’s wrong with your breath?”
“Uh-oh.” I covered my mouth with both hands. “I forgot to brush my teeth.”
“Well, you don’t have time to run home now.” Lisa reached into her backpack and pulled out a stick of gum. “Just chew this. And you might want to pull your skirt out of your underwear, too.”
I reached for my backside and quickly yanked my skirt from my pink cotton briefs as I jogged after Lisa. No wonder my neighbor, Mr. Slater, smiled so widely at me this morning. That was the last time I’d ever put my underwear on after my skirt—or walk past Mr. Slater’s house.
“What disgustingly healthy food did you bring today?” I asked Lisa as I set my lunch tray onto one of St. Hilary’s dilapidated cafeteria tables. “Wheat grass and acorn stew?”
“Nope,” Lisa replied, opening up a Tupperware container. “Shi-take and couscous.”
When she held the bowl to my face, I nearly gagged. “Is that even food?”
Lisa eyeballed the cheeseburger and French fries on my tray. “Is that?”
“Point taken,” I said, dousing a soggy fry in a pool of ketchup.
“So, guess what happened to me this morning,” Lisa said as she
scooped up a spoonful of brown sludge.
“You won the United Nations’
student
humanitarian award?”
“Don’t be silly. You have to be at least a junior to be eligible,” Lisa replied. “No, Mrs. Ingram asked if I would be the student director of the fall musical,
The Music Man.”
“She did?” I mumbled as I chomped into my meat byproduct burger. “No offense, but what do you know about acting? I mean, I’m the one who spent my summer working on the stage crew for Little Tyke’s Theatre.”
“I actually know quite a bit about the theater,” Lisa replied. “One of my classes this summer discussed the evolution of theater and its impact on modern culture. And when I showed Mrs. Ingram my research paper on the subject this morning, she asked me right then and there to be her student director.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling a bit humbled by the fact that my acting experience was limited to standing in for sick five year olds and pretending to be a blade of grass.
“It’s like all of this was meant to be,” Lisa said, her voice brimming with excitement. “I can direct, and since you know how to build sets, make costumes, and create props, you can be my assistant!”
I picked up my carton of milk. “Well...”
“Come on, Mia,” Lisa coaxed. “I promise I won’t make you go on stage. All you have to do is help me behind the curtain.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to help you.” I paused. “It’s just that I was kind of thinking about trying out for a part in the musical this year.”
Lisa leaned over the table and stared into my eyes. “Are you being serious or did some sort of alien invader take over your body during the summer? Because I was reading in one of my scientific journals about some strange, unexplained magnetic forces—”