Memoirs of a Neurotic Zombie (12 page)

It turned out that Officer Bobert Campbell knew a guy in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (they had vacationed together once, though not in ’Nam) and after Corina called him, he called in the Mounties.

I was disappointed that they didn’t ride in mounted on horses, but they did show up pretty sharpish in black sedans with flashing lights. They arrested all of the camp counsellors including that old witch Mrs Lebkuchen, who shouted madly in her defence that she really was a witch and that eating children was part of her religion.

With our captors gone, and Corina’s parents as the camp’s new chaperones, we had a campfire every night. One night, we took turns telling ghost stories. Corina told a story of a sect of vampires planning a
mass sacrifice and I recounted what Amanda called ‘a preposterous tale’ of the camp that was actually a fattening pen for people.

When the news finally broke about what became known as Camp Cannibal, the rest of the parents, including mine, all drove up to collect us kids and take us home.

On the drive back (completely devoid of show tunes), I noticed that all of the Can Nibble doughnut shops had closed. Those Mounties sure had moved quickly – I was impressed. But outside one shuttered doughnut shop, I spotted a sign that read: ‘Coming Soon: Another Mighty Mooseburger Shack.’

Will people never learn
, I wondered.

That night, after a celebratory falafel
*
pizza (thanks Dad!), I met up with Nesto and Corina in the backyard. Adamini buzzed around, apparently happy to have us back.

‘What are we going to do with the rest of the summer?’ I asked.

‘Actually,’ said Corina, ‘Amanda and I are going to hang out tomorrow.’

What?

I’d faced down cannibals and stopped a vampocalypse, but Corina becoming friends with my sister was more horrible than anything I could imagine.

The End

As ever, I need to thank my awesome wife, Sidonie, for her support and encouragement to bring this character to life. Adam Meltzer would’ve remained an idea in my head (or at least a corpse in the ground!) had she not laughed out loud at the first few pages of my very first draft.

It’s been such a great pleasure to get out from behind the writing desk and go into schools and meet the dedicated teachers and librarians who champion reading for our young people. All writers owe a huge debt to these unsung heroes of our society. If I could hug them all, I would.

I also want to thank the team at Faber Children’s for not only introducing Adam Meltzer to the world in the first place but for publishing this sequel which probably breaks all the rules of children’s books. Leah Thaxton
and Rebecca Lewis-Oakes edited Adam’s musings with grace and skill, and Hannah Love has sung his praises so that his tale can be told far and wide. In my mind, Adam’s stories are not so much
for
kids, as they are about being a kid. I can remember being Adam’s age very clearly, and it’s my creative ambition to channel that still-forming point of view in these books. The world is a complex and confusing place, and Adam is trying his best to navigate through it. He and his friends don’t always get it right, but they’re trying their best.

Lastly, this book is dedicated to my parents who, unlike Adam’s mom and dad, never kicked me out, rented out my room, or signed a release form they didn’t fully read …

… not that I know of.

Dear Reader,

There’s a sequence in the book that’s drawn from an image I saw as a boy. I visited the Holocaust Centre in Toronto on a school trip and was shaken and horrified by the pictures I saw and the stories I heard.

It still haunts me. And as the world becomes more complex, all of us need to be on guard against horrors of the past becoming a reality in our present. As Adam’s dad instructs him, ‘ignorance is no excuse’.

Chances are, if you’re reading this, there is a Holocaust museum or education centre near you. I urge you to visit.

Yours truly,

Jeff

London, March 2015

Jeff took a long time to become an author. He grew up in Canada, worked in America, and now lives in London with his wife and two sons.

Before writing stories for a living, Jeff did lots of other jobs, including: delivering newspapers, cleaning toilets, caddying at bridge (the card game) tournaments, umpiring baseball games, ushering at the local cinema, driving executives around, devising business plans, developing new products, marketing washing-up liquid, pushing a mail cart, reading scripts, making movies, running the Enid Blyton literary estate, and developing and producing TV shows.

With perhaps the exception of ushering at the cinema, writing is his favourite job.

When he’s not dreaming up stories and writing them down, Jeff is on the web at
www.jeffnorton.com
and on social media as @thejeffnorton.

Memoirs of a Neurotic Zombie

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FABER & FABER
has published children’s books since 1929. Some of our very first publications included
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats
by T. S. Eliot, starring the now world-famous Macavity, and
The Iron Man
by Ted Hughes. Our catalogue at the time said that ‘it is by reading such books that children learn the difference between the shoddy and the genuine’. We still believe in the power of reading to transform children’s lives.