My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish (10 page)

 

In my head I scrolled through the list of “Frankie Evacuation Plans” that Pradeep and I had worked out on the walk to school.

There was just one that didn't seem to require a jet-pack. The only choice was for me to pretend to throw up and get sent home from school, taking Frankie with me.

The only problem was that the teachers were pretty good at spotting real vs. fake vomit. Kids tried to use applesauce mixed with ketchup, peanut butter and orange juice, or the classic baby-food trick, but teachers knew they were faking and just sent the kids back to class, still covered in applesauce and ketchup. No, I had to
really
get sick. But how?

The answer was staring me in the face. The green slimy breakfast egg was looking up at me from my plate, like a big wobbly Cyclops. All I had to do was eat the egg.

I grabbed Pradeep's Choc Rice Pops spoon from his hand and scooped up the egg. I gave Pradeep a look that said, “I am making the ultimate sacrifice for friend and fish.”

He nodded respectfully, knowing what I was about to do.

I lifted the spoon and closed my eyes.

“Gulp!” Mark slurped down the egg from my spoon.

“Too slow, moron!” he said, then burped a perfect smelly Evil Scientist burp and headed out of the cafeteria doors.

The burp was nearly gross enough to make me sick, but not quite.

Bbbrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnngggggggggggg!
The fire alarm blared.

Everyone ran out into the hallway.

“There's no way Mark could have blown up our science lab already, right?” I said to Pradeep.

The teachers were assembling people in lines at the classroom doors, ready to exit the building. But the alarm stopped. Then the TVs that were in the hallway by the front desk (you know, the ones that usually show pictures of the swimming team coming twenty-seventh in a race, or advertise a sale at the uniform shop) all came on at the same time. The secretary's computer screen switched on too. And the whiteboard screens in the classrooms all showed the same letters scrolling across them: B B E D L A M.

Suddenly a voice boomed out of all the speakers. It had one of those distort-effect things on it, so the person talking sounded kind of like a robot.

“Now we got your atten—” one person started to say, but then there was a shuffling sound and a different, snootier robot voice said, “No, let me … Ahem. Now that we have your attention. We want you to know that this school will soon be run by BBEDLAM. We've taken over.”

“I'm sure bedlam only has one
b
,” Pradeep said.

“And we know that there is usually only one
b
in bedlam. We're not morons, we are being original, OK, so get over it. Where was I?… Oh yes, BBEDLAM has taken over the school. You may now go about your pathetically ordinary lives and await further instruction. There is nothing that can stop us.”

“Except the moron fish,” the other voice butted in. My backpack swung from side to side as Frankie thrashed around.

“Be quiet!” shouted the snooty voice. Then there was what sounded like someone being elbowed in the ribs. “We are live on air, remember!” The snooty robot cleared his throat and continued, “Nothing can stop us now, so don't even try.”

Just before all the TVs, computers, and whiteboards switched off I thought I heard the first voice say, “Aww, you cut it off before my evil laugh.”

Pradeep shot me a look that said, “They said
fish
, right?” but I didn't really understand the look so he said out loud, “They said
fish
, right?”

I nodded and shot him back a look that said, “And they said
moron
. And they talked about an evil laugh.” Pradeep didn't really get that look either so I said it again, out loud. Then I said we had to practice our secret looks because we were both kind of rusty.

We agreed that the first weird robot voice must have been Mark. Frankie reacted to the voice as soon as he heard it. Pradeep was sure the other one was Sanj. But what was Sanj doing here and why was he with Mark? They aren't even friends. The only thing they have in common is being mostly evil to me and Pradeep.

This wasn't good. You know that crawly millipede feeling that I got in my stomach when Frankie was first gunged by Mark? Well, I got it again, only this time the millipedes invited over a couple of cockroaches and a tarantula for good measure.

 

 

We were all sitting in the hall for assembly, listening to Mrs. Prentice, the principal, lecture us about the misuse of school computers and illegal tampering with the fire alarm. Then she said, “I'll find out who did this and it would be easier for the purple-traitors if they just came forward now.”

Mrs. Prentice looked at me and Pradeep a lot while she was talking. For about two seconds I thought about telling her that Pradeep's Evil Computer Genius big brother and my Evil Scientist big brother were somehow behind all this. But then I thought that's probably exactly what a purple-traitor would say. Even though I wasn't really sure what a purple-traitor
1
was, I was definitely sure that I didn't want to be one. I don't even like purple, especially in jelly beans.

Pradeep and I knew we had to find out what was going on, and find out now. We each got bathroom passes from our teachers but left the hall by separate doors, so that Mrs. Prentice couldn't follow both of us. She must have thought I looked more suspicious, because she followed me, which gave Pradeep the opportunity to get away. I managed to lose her in the art room by hiding behind Darren Schultz's easel. Then I doubled back to catch up with Pradeep.

Pradeep snuck up to the computer lab ahead of me and peered around the door. It's where we had our first class anyway, but we needed to get in there before the other kids came out of assembly. I listened carefully for Pradeep's top secret “The coast is clear” call. Which, it turns out, was “Tom, there's no one here!”

Not his best.

I went into the classroom and carefully placed my backpack on the floor.

“OK, we need to find out everything we can about BBEDLAM,” I said, thinking that I sounded like the guy in spy movies who tells the spies what to do at the beginning of the movie but then never actually gets to do any of the cool adventure stuff himself. I decided I didn't want to be that guy so I said, “You know how to do that, right, Pradeep?”

He was way ahead of me. Pradeep was already sitting at one of the computers, typing away.

“I think I've found BBEDLAM's website,” he said. “If Mark and Sanj are working together, then maybe they're out to get us with this BBEDLAM thing? Why else would they want to take over our school?”

“You're paranoid, Pradeep. They probably just want to take over the school to make the cafeteria only serve mega choc chunk ice cream or make all the teachers dress as comic-book characters every day or something.”

“That's just what you would do if you took over the school, right?” Pradeep asked.

“Maybe,” I answered. “But I still don't think Mark and Sanj's evil plans have anything to do with us. Anyway, most evil geniuses just want power for the sake of it, don't they? And they never do anything really cool with it, like cover the earth in a giant bubblegum bubble or make everyone speak backwards or anything, which would be kind of—”

I was cut off by a loud Evil Scientist laugh that sounded from the speaker on the computer. “Mwhaaahaahaahaa!” Then little animated icons popped up on the screen.

“Hey, that little one looks like you, Pradeep,” I said. “It's even got glasses and a Cub Scout kerchief.”

“And there's you,” Pradeep said, pointing to a little icon rolled in a rug and wedged in a tiny dog flap in a tiny door.

The Evil Scientist laugh got louder and then a giant sneaker appeared at the top of the screen and stomped the little Tom and Pradeep flat.

It was like seeing my worst nightmare turned into a video game.

“Or I could be wrong about the whole it's-not-about-us thing,” I said.

The word BBEDLAM splatted across the computer screen and then a word appeared by each letter to spell out: